I have three unrelated thoughts for you all.

1. Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released cost estimates for defense spending in the upcoming decade. The numbers are staggering. If the Department of Defense’s (DoD) 2009 budget for 2010 moves forward, and it will, the cost will be $573 billion annually. That doesn’t even include our continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. The CBO also notes that these numbers don’t factor in weapons systems that may end up costing more than they are supposed to. Now, let’s compare that to the Senate health care bill (the only one we can conceivably get right now), which will cost a grand total of $850 billion in its first ten years, meaning about $85 billion a year. Yet politicians in D.C. cower in fear at the mention of health-care reform, which would cover tens of millions of America’s uninsured, and save tens of thousands of lives. Too expensive. More than six times that price for fancy new bombs to use in unpopular wars that serve no practical purpose? No problem. I’ll lay odds that no one who counts will make a peep about the cost of the DoD’s grandiose plans, in either the mainstream media or Congress. Unbelievable.

2. Via Kevin Drum at Mother Jones: Now is the time to call your Congresspeople and tell them to pass the damn health-care bill already. Washington's Congressional reform are solidly behind reform, but many of them including but many of them, including Jim McDermott, have indicated that they would not vote for a bill without the public option. Given the fact that we have to go for the Senate bill or nothing right now, they may need some convincing. I’ve already called, and if you are polite and to the point, the receptionists are quite, well, receptive. Read Drum’s post for more.

3. This music has been making the rounds throughout the blogosphere, and I think you’ll enjoy it no matter where your sympathies lie, macro-economically speaking. Some super cool, super-dorks at George Mason University put this video together, pitting F.A. Hayek and John Maynard Keynes against each other in a hip-hop contest. Who says economics is the dismal science? That's good stuff. If you'd like a brief intellectual dissection of the piece, Matt Yglesias is your man.