The Other 98 provides this handy comparison chart.

Remember, readers: big government is evil. What we need are fewer regulations and no more “nanny state”. The Invisible Hand of the marketplace will guide businesses into making choices that are smart for consumers!

Faced with a crisis more than a decade ago in which thousands of people were sickened from salmonella in infected eggs, farmers in Britain began vaccinating their hens against the bacteria. That simple but decisive step virtually wiped out the health threat.

But when American regulators created new egg safety rules that went into effect last month, they declared that there was not enough evidence to conclude that vaccinating hens against salmonella would prevent people from getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration decided not to mandate vaccination of hens — a precaution that would cost less than a penny per a dozen eggs…

The drop in salmonella infections in Britain was stunning.

In 1997, there were 14,771 reported cases in England and Wales of the most common type of the bacteria, a strain known as Salmonella Enteritidis PT4. Vaccine trials began that year, and the next year, egg producers began vaccinating in large numbers.

The number of human illnesses has dropped almost every year since then. Last year, according to data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, there were just 581 cases, a drop of 96 percent from 1997.

“We have pretty much eliminated salmonella as a human problem in the U.K.,” said Amanda Cryer, director of the British Egg Information Service, an industry group.

Read on at the NY Times.

I’m not even kidding. By their own logic, when you watch Fox and Friends or Glenn Beck, you are funding terror. I am completely serious.

The Daily Show analyzes the Fox “News” coverage of the Islamic cultural center and how it’s funded by the Kingdom Foundation, a Saudi group run by a Wahhabist prince who funds radical madrasahs. What Fox fails to mention: said prince is the largest shareholder of Fox News outside of the Murdoch family.

When you watch Fox, they earn advertiser revenue. When they earn revenue, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal earns money. When he earns money, he funds madrasahs that Fox says are part of a terror network. Follow the money trail. Fox wants you to.

Rachel Maddow explains just how bad the pro-Prop 8 lawyers did in presenting their case:

For nine years, we have rightfully extolled the virtues of the responders to the 9/11 tragedy. These men and women selflessly rescued others, which is why there was a bill to provide them with health care to treat the illnesses they received as a result of the rescue. There was even a clause to pay for the health care, by closing a loophole on multinationals who used offshore tax havens.

And the bill failed.

I could explain why, but as always, Jon Stewart does so better than I could.

“So now that my heterosexual marriage is worthless, I have my eye on a cute donkey, a Real Doll, a cupcake, and a Roomba to add to our life-covenant.”
-Eric Meyerson

Fareed Zakaria, that noted radical extremist, argues in this editorial that the Bush tax cuts have been destructive to the economy and should not be renewed:

The “Bush tax cuts,” passed in 2001 and 2003, remain the single largest cause of America’s structural deficit — that is, the deficit not caused by the collapse in tax revenue when the economy goes into recession. The Bush administration inherited budget surpluses from the Clinton administration. What turned these into deficits, even before the recession? There were three fundamental new costs: the tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug bill and post-9/11 security spending (including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Of these the tax cuts were by far the largest, adding up to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts…

The idea that the average American is overtaxed is a nice piece of populist pandering. In fact, federal taxes as a percentage of the economy are at their lowest level since the Truman administration. Chuck Marr and Gillian Brunet of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have calculated that a family of four at the exact middle of the income spectrum will pay only 4.6 percent of its income in taxes. Remember, almost half of the country pays no income taxes at all. The top 2 percent of Americans contribute almost 50 percent of federal income taxes.

The simple facts are these: All of the Bush tax cuts were unaffordable. They were an irresponsible act of hubris enacted during an economic boom. Conservatives thought they would force us to shrink the government. But with Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, did reduced taxes cause reduced spending? No. They led to ever-increasing borrowing and a ballooning deficit.