Metaphor Alert- The state budget

Metaphor Alert- The state budget passed the Legislature today. It basically deferred a lot of spending against the hope that tax collections (and thus the economy) will pick up in the next year. Way up. It also pilfs from the Tobacco Endowment, which is very good news.

Quote of the day, from Governor Meathead:

``If you're just shifting and doing money shifts, that isn't solving the problem,''

Would-be Scandal Alert - Apparently, the federal government (including the White House) was warned about a potential hijacking plot in the weeks before September 11.

Although the alert mentioned nothing about using airliners as missiles, and White House advised concerned agencies about the threat, here's my prediction; someone is going to claim it's a White House conspiracy. Michael Moore? Tom Tomorrow? Molly "the Idiot" Ivins? I don't know, but watch for it.

Schwing Naar Recht - OK, it's probably not really Dutch, but the Netherlands, long the continent's poster child for socialist utopianism, is edging to the right.

In the wake of the murder of prime minister candidate Pim Fortuyn last week, the slain libertarian/anti-immigrant/anti-EU leaders' "LPF" party came in second to the Christian Democrats (the name for many European center-right parties - think Jim Ramstad in wooden clogs), sweeping Prime Minister Wim Kok's Labor/Social Democrat coalition from parliamentary leadership in voting today.

The left's going to be so angry. Watch for more backlash against unassimilated immigrants, the EU and the stultifying buro-socialism and enviro-terrorism - and more media hatchet work against anyone to the right of Tony Blair.