The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Roger That

2.18.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 5)

Of course, the use of enhancements in baseball is but the tip of the iceberg. Baseball is a sport watched by millions of Americans, but Hollywood movies and television shows are watched by billions of people, and it is a rare starlet who has not had some form of medical intervention in order to enhance her performance, be it cosmetic surgery, pharmaceutical diet aids, aroma therapy or exotic colonics. Clearly, a Congress that has a mandate to investigate whether Roger Clemens was able to unnaturally extend his career with steroids has the same obligation to determine just how many times Cher has been injected with Botox, and for the same reason. I have no doubt that a serious, in-depth examination of the day-to-day changes in breast size among starlets would be the most compelling testimony since the scandals of the Clinton years, and would attract the same audience, not to mention the enthusiastic participation of many members of the Congress (Teddy Kennedy may have to be restrained). Tabloid speculation on the cosmetic surgery to the stars could be laid to rest with a few months of hearings, and the ratings bonanza could put C-SPAN into the black for decades.

Of course, while this is going on, serious issues facing the nation would remain unaddressed, but a bit of creative gameplay, a sort of policy version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, could be used to focus attention where it is needed. For example, FISA deals exclusively with foreign intelligence gathering. Most illegal steroids are produced by overseas labs, and the trafficking in steroids requires coordination between foreign and domestic smuggling networks, and terrorists are often involved in smuggling as a means to enhance their revenues as well as moving their equipment. Therefore, it is imperative that FISA be reenacted in order to track the flow of steroids from terrorists to our elite athletes. Once the case has been made that Al Qaeda was involved in steroid abuse, it's a simple matter to get congress to turn their
attention to national security instead of national pastimes.
-- Mike Harris
MAJ, U.S. Army

Am I the only person on the planet who believes Roger Clemens? I am sure he knew this was a perjury trap by a bunch of gasbags, and I applaud Dan Burton for his strong defense.
-- Tommy G. Bailey

REAL MONEY
Re: W. James Antle III's A Trillion Here, a Trillion There:

I would like to thank W. James Antle III for the Revenue charts that he linked to, because they remind things are somewhat better now than in the 1980s and moving in the right direction toward a balanced budget despite the seemingly outrageous size President Bush's proposal. He does overlook a major problem with the new budget -- many conservatives by choosing to focus their ire only on Republicans handed Congress and control of the Federal purse to the Democrats in 2006. All President Bush or Republicans in Congress can now do is fight Democrat efforts to increase the size of the budget. Hopefully, in the not too distant future a Republican President and filibuster proof majority Republican Congress can whittle away at budget outlays by doing away with waste such as PBS, Legal Aid and a host of Democrat and independent sacred cows and reforming entitlements as President Bush attempted to do with Social Security. Unfortunately, that day may be longer in coming than I hope since it is apparent many fiscal conservatives are happier attacking Republicans and insuring Democrats retain control of Congress than actually getting rid of tax and spend Democrats who are the worst threat to our pocketbooks.
-- Michael Tomlinson

I shuddered when I read Mr. Antle's "A Trillion Here..." essay. This budget will of course increase the national debt, which is now over nine trillion dollars. I am the grandfather of four, and I fear that their generation will pay for our profligacy.

Most people have no conception of how much one trillion anything is. For example, one trillion seconds is well over thirty-one thousand YEARS. Think about that. If you could count one number each second, it would take thirty-one thousand seven hundred years to reach the number one trillion. Don't believe me? Do the math.

There are 3,600 seconds in an hour. One million seconds is (I round up slightly) 278 hours, or 11.58 days. A billion is one thousand million, so one billion seconds is 11,580 days, or 31.7 years. A trillion is a thousand billion, so one trillion seconds is 31,700 years.

The bad news is that, if the government were to pay off the national debt at One Dollar per second, it would take 290, 200 years to do it. The good news is, that if the government were to pay off the national debt at One Thousand Dollars per second, it would take only 290.2 years.
-- James F. Csank

GET WELL SOONEST
Re: Lawrence Henry's Waiting:

This probably doesn't mean much coming from a stranger, but I hope you get your wish -- and soon.
-- Andrew J. Macfadyen, M.D.
Omaha, Nebraska

I hear you. I worked in a dialysis clinic for about three years over 20 years ago.

I watched patients hang in there, get transplants and be transformed. They had energy, they had life, they could get up and GO! Their time and schedules were their own, not the machine's.

And I watched patients who were not good candidates for transplants for one reason or another, ride the dialysis merry-go-round and eventually deteriorate. Traditional dialysis literally takes it out of you.

I'm glad to hear of procedures that make life maybe a little easier on you than traditional dialysis.

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