Spurgeon's Cigar

If you're like me, you grew up hearing about five names significant to WWII: Hitler, Mussolini, FDR, Stalin, and a little Dutch Jewish girl named Anne Frank. While nobody reads Mein Kampf anymore (it's virtually unreadable, anyway), and FDR's fireside chats aren't widely, or even narrowly, read, Anne Frank's diary is required reading for school children all over the country, perhaps the world. Before young Anne was taken off to one of the many prisons within that wicked archipelago of concentration camps and gulags that dotted Europe in the 30's and 40's, she was secreted away by a few brave souls, one of whom was Miep Gies (pronounced "Meep Khees"). (Hiding people in WWII always reminds me of a joke about a diminutive Eastern European, the punchline of which is "can you cache a small Czech.") Miep died on Monday of this week, at the ripe old age of 100. The obituary is here . Some tidbits about Ms. Gies: She never read the diary prior t...

I’ve been absent from this space for sometime, and hope you’ll extend forgiveness on the off chance that you log on daily looking for my witty pixels to appear on screen. I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the current healthcare debate, and the bills current matriculating through Congress, possibly toward becoming law. The Senate Bill, as most of you know, is the one that is most likely to become law, and is considered the more “moderate.” I’m not exactly sure what a moderate healthcare bill is; it sounds like it would only provide a moderate amount healthcare, which doesn’t sound like a good selling point. Under that bill you and I will be required by law to purchase health insurance. There are a few exceptions. For instance, if a person is indigent you and I will be required to purchase his health insurance as well. If one is an illegal alien (that is, an undocumented member of a Democratic constituency) you and I will still be required to subsidize emergency room care for him as we...