Things I'd blog about if I had more time

I've been a bit busy the last couple of days, so here are some bullet points about things I'd blog about if I had more time:

* CNSNews is reporting that the global warming bill passed by the House could lead to increased regulations on fireworks.

"Americans use more than 200 million pounds of fireworks each year, the majority on July Fourth. Because fireworks emit carbon dioxide (CO2) as they burn, however, the fireworks industry may come under tighter regulation if cap-and-trade legislation passes in the Senate in coming months."

We have plenty of regulations on fireworks already - and local noise ordinances to boot. But none of that seems to matter when it comes to the Fourth of July celebrations. What makes anyone think that new regulations on fireworks because of the global-warming charade will have any impact whatsoever? And what could be more unpatriotic than to disallow the celebration of our liberties by infringing upon them in the name of some cooked-up crisis?

* "Democratic Leader Laughs at Idea That House Members Would Actually Read Health-Care Bill Before Voting On It" That's the headline in a story yesterday about when House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) was asked "whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote."

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

“Members clearly--and staff and review boards, they read them in their entirety. They go over it with members, and members read substantial portions of the bill themselves, but the issue is--I don’t know who signed this (pledge), but frankly the opposition has been very vociferous, not of the verbiage and bill, but on the concept that it incorporates,” Hoyer said.

So the concept that our representatives should read what they vote on prior to voting is what he opposes? Amazing - just simply amazing!

* I might have missed it over the past couple of days, but I didn't see this story featured prominently in any of the news:

"Washington (CNSNews.com) – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the chief culprits in the housing crisis because they encouraged people who could not afford payments to borrow money, according to a congressional report released Tuesday.

The claims in the report have long been advanced by conservatives, who argue that the Community Reinvestment Act and other federal programs fed the housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to the economic downfall in 2008.

But the report explains in detail how Fannie and Freddie -- government sponsored enterprises (GSE) that were not subject to the same oversight as other publicly traded firms -- “privatized their profits but socialized their risks.”

“In the short run, this government intervention was successful in its stated goal – raising the national homeownership rate,” says the report, the result of an investigation launched last fall by Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“However, the ultimate effect was to create a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and economy,” says the report. “While government intervention was not the sole cause of the financial crisis, its role was significant and has received too little attention.”"

Told you so!