Shutdown, through MSNBC's eyes

I get about 5 minutes per week of MSNBC told through Tony Kornheiser's radio show, where Tony spouts off something he heard on Morning Joe that fits in his worldview, and David Aldridge and Jeanne McManus parrot what they heard Rachel Maddow say or they read in the Post, the New York Times, or The New Yorker.

Anyway, according to them, the open air memorials and parks around Washington (and the rest of the country) were barricaded because of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin.  Yes, that's right, in the MSNBC world, these two (one not even an elected representative) have somehow gotten the National Park Service to erect barricades and put up orange cones to keep these places closed.  Because the optics of Republicans shutting down memorials and keeping WW2 vets out is so good for the party.

At the same time, they call us stupid.

You can not make this crap up.

Bring out your dead...

CBS is trolling for your "Shutdown Stories" on twitter (see https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/389362517031792642).

Today's is a group who wanted to raft the Colorado, but can't because it's shut down.  The park entrance, not the actual river, which at last report was still flowing despite Barack Obama's promise to roll back the tides and lower the ocean levels.  You recall, he didn't actually promise to stop rivers from flowing, so, that's one campaign promise kept (are you scoring, fact checkers everywhere?).

If anything, these stories should tell us the depth and breadth of the government has become so vast that we can't seem to do anything in our life, especially if it's risky, without the government there to guide us.

Yesterday, Alyssa Milano tweeted the always scary link to a story about food inspections being shut down due to the FDA not having funding,

To the Liberal mind, it makes perfect sense that these two events are a tragedy.  By God, do we all want to die, either in a horrible rafting accident, sans the briefings given by the Park Service, or via poisoned food? Surely only the Feds can save us from these horrible events?

Apparently, all they really need the NPS to do is open the gates to the park, so this group seems to have considered the safety issues and taken them on themselves.  I wonder, can they put in at another spot, and when they cross Federal park land, will the NPS try to stop them?

Anyway, on the FDA front, I know you're all thinking about the horrible things that happen to our food supply and that the only thing between us and a violent botchelism death is a bureaucrat inspecting a chicken plant in Alabama. 

I would suggest that it is in food producers best interest to avoid making their customers sick or dead, and that the safety of our food supply could be reliably assured without an army of 2000 food inspectors.  After all, we did that for about 150 of the country's first years in existence, and, despite what you were taught in middle school, most of our ancestors survived long, fruitful lives without the scourge of bad food over their head.  Not to mention that food would be easier to produce, more plentiful, and, I am sure tastier.