Short Sunday

Game predictions

Seattle by 14. Jagger throws one wardrobe malfunction for an interception and return. I get plonked.

[update -- Technically, I went 0 for 3 on my predictions: 21-10 Steelers, no Jagger wardrobe malfunction, didn't get drunk. But let's be real about the game: At the end of the first half, the Seahawks were -- on the field -- up by at least 10 points. On the scoreboard, officials had taken away an earned Seattle touchdown and given Pittsburgh an unearned one, putting Seattle down by four. I didn't bother watching the second half after seeing how it was going to go. The Seahawks should be mad as hell. The Steelers should be embarrassed that they couldn't (or at least weren't allowed to) win their fifth Super Bowl on the up-and-up.]


Here's your fiscal restraint

Bush's FY2006 budget proposal came to $2.54 trillion; FY2007's, $2.7 trillion. Of course, 2006's actual ended up closer to 2007's proposal, and the same thing will happen this time around. The "slashing" that Republicans are gloating about and Democrats whining about comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 billion (the $39 "entitlement growth reduction plan" that the Senate just passed, plus $15 billion or so in programs that Bush has marked for reduction or elimination) -- spread out over five years. So, call it $11 billion per year, or somewhere under 1/2 of 1% of the budget and falling. Whoop de doo.