I'm a devoted Monty Python fan, and of course one of my favorite bits is the Spam skit. It goes like this: a husband and wife go to a cafe, where Vikings incongruously sit at a nearby table. The waitress is reluctant to give them a dish that does not contain Spam:

Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;

Vikings (chant): Spam spam spam spam...

Waitress: ...spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam...

Vikings (sing): Spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!

Waitress: ...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

Wife: Have you got anything without spam?

Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.

Wife: I don't want ANY spam!

Man: Why can't she have egg bacon spam and sausage?

Wife: THAT'S got spam in it!

Man: Hasn't got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?

Vikings (sing): Spam spam spam spam... (Crescendo through next few lines...)

Because the words "spam" eventually drown out all meaning in the skit, we've named unwanted email after the skit: spam mail. Today, there's a new construct equally deserving of the name "Spam": the megalithic document labeled HB3300, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid health care overhaul bill.

Ever try to read this monster? Here's an excerpt, borrowed from a most enlightening review:

HB 3200, pages 26-30, SEC. 122, ESSENTIAL BENEFITS PACKAGE DEFINED:

(a) IN GENERAL.—In this division, the term ‘‘essential benefits package’’ means health benefits coverage, consistent with standards adopted under section 124 to ensure the provision of quality health care and financial security . . .

(b) MINIMUM SERVICES TO BE COVERED.—The items and services described in this subsection are the following:

(1) Hospitalization.

(2) Outpatient hospital and outpatient clinic services . . .

(3) Professional services of physicians and other health professionals.

(4) Such services, equipment, and supplies incident to the services of a physician’s or a health professional’s delivery of care . . .

(5) Prescription drugs.

(6) Rehabilitative and habilitative services.

(7) Mental health and substance use disorder services.

(8) Preventive services . . .

(9) Maternity care.

(10) Well baby and well child care . . .

(c) REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO COST-SHARING AND MINIMUM ACTUARIAL VALUE . .

(3) MINIMUM ACTUARIAL VALUE.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The cost-sharing under the essential benefits package shall be designed to provide a level of coverage that is designed to provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to approximately 70 percent of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the reference benefits package described in subparagraph (B).

Now, can you tell that this section of the bill actually makes health-care savings accounts combined with catastrophic health insurance (the sort of health coverage beloved by the employees of Whole Foods) illegal? I'm pretty smart and have a good education, and my job is focused around using words, and I had no clue that was the effect of this section until I stopped and re-read it -- and picked up on the meaning of that "70 percent of the full actuarial value" part. The ramifications of this bill are purposely unclear. The writers of the bill do not want you to know that this section eliminates an entire class of health coverage that Obama promised "you can keep."

In short, much of this bill is spam-language -- wording deliberately introduced to obfuscate the true intentions and results of this entirely new health care structure. Also, like the spam skit, you have to take what they're dishing out -- no a la carte choices for you, sir! You'll have spam and LIKE it.

Well, no matter how you dress Spam up, it's still -- SPAM. (Apparently the Obama administration likes spam a lot.)

I propose that at least some of the town hall goers organize and insist that their representatives make appointments with them to go over the bill, ten pages at a time -- and demand that you be allowed to record the session. This will do two things: it will ensure that at least your representative has read and has some understanding of the bill -- giving him or her no wiggle room to insist that they didn't realize what they were voting on; and it will enable you to enlighten everyone else, ten pages at a time, about what our representatives actually intend with this bill.

I'm sure that podcasts of these sessions would be most enlightening, in more ways than one.

** If you want to read more on Whole Foods' CEO's take on how health care SHOULD work, look at this speech he gave in 2004, when his plan was still experimental. The good results he had by that point, and the way he carefully managed the introduction of it, really exemplify the way our government should be approaching health care reform. How tragic that they have blinders on in this area.

For those who need catching up -- our beloved David Axelrod sent out a lengthy, image-burdened email to probably millions of people -- many of whom never asked to be sent email by the White House and were utterly mystified as to how their names wound up on the list. Major Garrett last week called Robert Gibbs (my pet name for him: the Gibber; lately "Gibbering Idiot") to the mat -- and was ridiculed publicly by said Gibber. Well, that did not stop Mr. Garrett, who has been doing investigative journalism since long before Gibber was in training pants (that would be last year, I think). Fox now has this news update, with this utterly astounding claim from the White House:

"The White House e-mail list is made up of e-mail addresses obtained solely through the White House Web site. The White House doesn't purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all e-mails come from the White House Web site as we have no interest in e-mailing anyone who does not want to receive an e-mail," the statement said. "If an individual received the e-mail because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the e-mail, we hope they were not too inconvenienced."

Ah, in other words - Not Our Fault - Someone Else Did It. Not even an apology. WTH is wrong with these people, that the magic silken words "I'm sorry" cannot pass their pristine lips?

Anyway, there's more, and it gets better:

Shapiro said Sunday that those recipients can unsubscribe if they want, "by clicking the link at the bottom of the e-mail or (telling) whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore." He said the White House is trying to correct the problem.

Ha. Y'all see that monster email (scroll down to the Spam image for the email text)? It was Axelrod's letter, attached to three lists of eight items each attempting to outline and debunk "rumors" and "misinformation", while also giving advice on what to do to educate others. Classic Saul Alinsky tactics. I bow to anyone who had the patience to sit and scroll through this thing to the bottom, find the dang link, and click it to unsubscribe.

Then again, according to some, even unsubscribing does not get you off the Omnipresent Presidential Email List. Wasting time to find the damn link might not even do you any good. But I digress.

"We are implementing measures to make subscribing to e-mails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individuals' behalf," he said.

So now they are saying it wasn't even the White House who compiled those emails. It was mysterious "advocacy organizations" who signed people up "without permission." Hm. Seems like that would take them an awful lot of time and trouble, plus they'd have to get the emails in question as well. Still, that would be plausible, if it weren't for one thing:

It - is - a - load - of - crap.

Hot Air blog has some excellent commenters with some 'net skills who dissected the email in question, and came up with some very interesting links between Axelrod's email and people who had been reported to the flag@whitehouse.org list, and other people who had contacted representatives.

In a nutshell, several commenters noted that those who had their email addresses included in a flag@whitehouse.org email (the text body, the CC, or the BCC fields) also received an email from Axelrod - but those who had actually forwarded the flag message to the White House invariably did NOT receive the infamous email. A couple had created dummy email accounts, reported the dummy accounts to flag@, and found the dummy account was spammed, but their originating account was not. This was a very clear pattern.

The other large group of people who received the Axelrod email had gone to their congressional representatives' websites and either emailed the representative or had requested information there -- had done something that required they provide an email address in return. Although these people had NOT signed up or even visited whitehouse.gov, they received the Axelrod email.

Now why would this be? All these representatives have separate web pages, right?

Not exactly. If you look at the deep header to the Axelrod email, you find the actual originating address is Govdelivery.com, a government-contracted vendor whose sole purpose is apparently providing Web 2.0 and email services to government agencies. If you look at this brochure, you'll note that "The unique Web 2.0 Collaboration Network allows agencies to crosspromote related website content and subscription items with any of the more than 250 government agencies." In human language, that means that they have the background infrastructure to allow different agencies to pluck email addresses from any other agency on the Govdelivery-provided software.

Now, according to the brochure, it's supposed to be an opt-in checkbox -- you go to the list of government agencies, click the ones you want to get information from, and your email goes to all of them. But in this robust system, is it really a stretch to opine that some overzealous government employee said, 'Hey, why not go harvest all the emails from all the congressmen? We know most of their email comes from people concerned about the healthcare thing.'

Anyway, that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. The White House owes every person whose email was burdened with this spammy propaganda an apology -- and not a sorry-about-your-luck piece of crapology.

Just please, get a clue, and don't send those apologies out in unsolicited email. A nice handwritten note would be acceptable, and -- a clue for the White House etiquette officers -- much more polite.

(PS -- lots of people have been calling for the White House to be slammed with the Can Spam laws. Guess what? Can Spam does NOT cover nonprofit solicitations or political speech. Not a darn thing we can do, even if Axelrod decides that spam should be a permanent part of how he does things.)

I'm trying to keep an open mind, really, I am, but it's nearly impossible. Michelle Obama has been many things: a lawyer, a political wife, and now the First Lady. But nothing in her life has ever given her even the slightest taste of what it is to be a military wife, and I have trouble respecting her stated desire to help the military family while she is jetting off to Chicago for her special Valentines dinner. (I've spent two Valentines days with my husband since we married five and a half years ago.)

Imagine this, if you can: you have four children. Daddy (or Mommy, often, in these days) is out on a harrowing mission of some sort – boots on ground in Afghanistan, like my brother was, or inside a stifling tin can of a submarine, like my husband often is. They will be gone for a period of anything from a month to a year plus, leaving you to hold down the fort.

For the duration of your husband's tour, you are effectively a single parent. There is a small bonus attached to your husband's dangerous duties, and an even smaller $100/month hardship allowance for the family; this is usually offset in its entirety by the loss of other pay allowances like meal BAH. You get to do the work of both parents: financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically, you are both parents for now.

Every appointment, every school problem, every practice session or special event, is yours to own. All the financial work is yours. Car repairs? Yours. Mowing the grass? Yours. Have a job outside the home? Welcome to the world of getting chewed out by the boss when you have to stay home with your sick kids, or leave work early to take care of critical business. Pregnant? Better find someone to watch the kids for the three days you will be hospitalized, because they likely won't bring the husband back for the birth.

Military spouses don't have the same social network as single moms. Typically, we live hundreds or even thousands of miles from our families and friends. The military works to keep spouse groups together, but for the most part they are cobbled together from people who have disparate interests and concerns, people who ship out after a year or so to who-knows-where. After going-on-six years as a military wife, I have yet to make a real friend in the military system. I live five thousand miles from my family, and my safety net is effectively me.

Military spouses can't easily find jobs. In Connecticut, it took me an unprecedented (for me) six months to find a job – and that one temporary with no benefits at all, not even sick days. Why? My (excellent) references were all way out of town, I have a distinct Southern accent, and worst of all, I'm a military wife. We are seen as less reliable. Employers don't want employees who can be shipped off at any point, who have no roots in the community, and who may be left alone with the personal responsibilities of their entire family at any moment. Well, who can blame them? (Though I do resent the barrier my accent posed – that was completely unfair.)

When I married, I had been told that it wouldn't be hard to get into the government employment system. Wrong!! Spouses have precedence over applicants who walk in off the streets – but everyone, from vets to ex-government employees, has precedence over us. The only job I could ever find to get me into the government system was as a lowly G-2 grocery clerk. That's fine for a young spouse with little education or work experience, but I came into the system aged 35, with a degree and some serious computer skills. And by the time that position came open, I'd already lined up another in the private sector that paid me 50% more.

So yeah, Michelle, military families have some real problems. So what has your husband done about it?

For starters, he's mandated that the Pentagon cut 10% of its budget. Now, the military is in the business of waging war, not raising kids. This means that when they're looking at the 10% to cut, they aren't looking at missiles or armored vehicles (and we spouses wouldn't want them to – those things keep our beloved husbands and wives alive.) Instead, they are eyeing soft expenditures: daycares, spouse employment programs, benefits. The one major change I've seen so far is a moratorium on sign-on bonuses, an incredibly negative move that can only lead to a brain drain for the military as men leave the service for much more lucrative positions in the private sector.

The point is, the issues involved in being a military family are not solvable with a hug, or a photo op, or a five-minute meeting to hear complaints about toilet training and missing your husband. In a way, you can only seriously address them if you've lived them, or if you have a close friend who has lived them.

Mrs. Obama, I know why you are doing this. Your husband needs props with the military. If you run around with high visibility among military families, you can get him some good press without doing much that will be scrutinized by the public. It's an easy PR job.

But let me tell you this, Mrs. Obama. I am not interested in your PR. This is my real life. I have to deal with it every day, and you could not understand me and my problems if you spent weeks with me. I don't have time for your photo ops, and I don't have any interest in your bare-arm hugs and fakey gooshiness.

I know the truth, and it's demonstrated every day as your husband implements new policies. You don't give a damn about me. Fine. I don't much give a damn about you. Stay out of my way and don't use me, and we'll get along just fine. Like every military spouse who has stuck it out this long, I'll find a way to do what needs doing. I don't need your make-believe empathy.

But if you really want to help me,, to help us, then you need to clear a path for the military spouse to help herself. Encourage spouses to go to college, and give them the informational resources to do it. Make it easier for them to get government jobs on bases where their husbands work already. Find ways to incentivize private industry to hire military spouses, despite their inherent problems (employer education and good data gathering is a good start – most military spouses are more reliable, not less reliable, than the average employee.) Set up workforce training on bases for the very young spouses, women who have never been in the workforce. Don't cut services, but rather improve the ones that are there. And advertise the availability of all this. Mandate orientation for every spouse moving in so that she is familiarized with the services available, and provide daycare while they're learning about the base. Find ways to motivate women to improve their lives as spouses, strengthen their families, and support their husbands throughout critical military missions.

The end result will be a stronger military family, a more motivated military, and young women who become empowered, not weakened, by their military experience. Achieving this sort of success would be a real accomplishment, and a real public service, worthy of real respect. You would have earned even mine.

I was a mythology and fairy tale nut when I was a kid, and this love for primal story has stuck with me for my whole life, partly because of the richness of the stories and partly because of the immense wisdom contained in many of them. One old Kentucky legend – and I wish to goodness I could remember where I read it – was about a boy whose blanket was too short.

It wasn't his fault, nor the blanket's. He was a growing boy, and the blanket was designed for a child. But throughout one very cold winter, he noticed that while he could pull the blanket up around his shoulders to keep them warm, his feet stuck out from the other end – then his ankles – then his calves. At last, he decided to take action.

He cut off the top of the blanket, where there was ample coverage, and sewed it onto the bottom of the blanket. This, he thought, should make the blanket plenty long.

To his surprise, the blanket seemed even shorter! So he cut off another strip and stitched it to the bottom, and then another, and then another. Eventually, his blanket was nothing but strips of cloth sewn together, and he had to spend the rest of that cold winter shivering, blaming his growing body for that ever-shrinking blanket.

In just the same way, our government is snipping off the top of our economic blanket to stitch to the bottom, and when our feet are still exposed, it snips off the next – and the next – and the next.

When, I wonder, will they figure out that their brilliant idea is never going to work? And how long will we all be shivering in the cold?

I grew up poor, and I still remember the day my mother took me for the exotic treat of dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We had chicken almond ding, fried dumplings, sweet and sour chicken, and won ton soup. This, to me, was some amazing food.

Then I went home and back to my usual Southern diet of fried taters, pork chops, grits, and eggs – good stick-to-your-ribs Southern food. Now, a couple of decades later, I have Chinese food too often, and fried taters not enough. I'm jaded. I don't care so much for the sweet and sour chicken, the moo goo gai pan, the hot and sour soup. But I don't have time to make those crispy perfect fried taters.

This brings me to my point. For the last two decades, Americans have been treated to unprecedented wealth. Who among us does not own a decent flat-screen television, a good computer, a car that gets you from point A to point B with reasonable reliability? Our closets are full, our homes are full, and we have as much Guitar Hero as we want. Even the poorest working-class family has a television, a VCR or DVD player, a game system, a good stereo, cable or satellite television, a refrigerator, clean running water, a closet filled with clean clothes, central air conditioning.

That's just us ordinary people. For the so-called elite, those whose incomes are in the top five percent or who aspire to their pretentions, there have been private planes, art, wonderful vacations to edgy destinations, designer purses, and huge homes.

Let's contrast that with our grandparents, only sixty years ago or so. A typical home, built for the veterans returning from World War II, was tiny compared to today's McMansions – around 1200 square feet compared to 3000 or more, only one bath and kids sharing rooms instead of each kid having his own room and bathroom. Moms worked at home mostly, doing the hundreds of small and medium things that keep a family running. Kids did not have video games; instead, they biked around with their friends, mostly staying out of trouble. You cleaned your plate, and you ate lettuce-not arugula-on your salads.

There's a word for what we are, since we've been so spoiled: jaded. But that's not all bad. America's enormous appetite for consumption (is that redundant?) has driven global wealth and expansion. Fewer farmers grow more food; machines and increasingly-harnessable energy enable the construction of mass homes, factories, shoes, cars, Playstations. With increased production of the basics, more people are freed to do all the creative and innovative work that makes it fun to be human – things like game design and toymaking.

Except in places where the political atmosphere makes it impossible to effectively use farm machinery, or where destruction is more common than creation, none of us stand in danger of starving. Sure, we may be eating beans instead of steak, but look at us -- we are well-nourished. We stand no real chance of running out of clothes. We may run low on energy, but since most of our electricity comes from coal even now, only the worst energy crisis will put us in real danger.

So here's the question: what is the worst that can happen to us as our economy crashes and burns? We could damage our economy all the way back to Leave It To Beaver, I guess, when the mothers encouraged everyone to clean their plates, yes even the peas. Some people will suffer more than others – but gosh darn it, our church food pantries are full, a good food drive will fill them even more, food stamps fill gaps in, and even if we had the horror of 15% or 20% unemployment – a whole lot of that will be second-income spouses. And single parents? I hate to say this, but – get married. I can tell you from experience, it's a bazillion times easier that way for both of you. Half the stress of this financial crisis would be solved if people would just marry their baby-mamas.

There will always be people who are outliers, who lose all six family jobs on the same day and, because they were living day-to-day, lose their apartment the next month. But guess what? Those people were always there. Bad luck is bad luck, and that's why you save some of your income, even if you can't afford to. Put back the $50 game, and put the money in the bank. It's insured, and it will be there for you later.

The point is, some belt tightening won't hurt America. In fact, there's a pretty good chance it will be good for us, as it will force us to be grateful for what we have and may make us smarter in the future about saving and planning.

So is anyone actually important saying that? According to the Dems, the sky will fall, ducks and turkeys will rain from helicopters, and the earth will swallow up all the environmental sinners if we don't Do Something. And they have Done Something. According to the Republicans, the moon will blot out the sun and Wall Street will be consumed by one of the Elder Gods if we don't pass tax relief.

Now, I'm all for tax relief. But isn't all this hysteria kind of stupid? I mean, we can live well on (cheap) meat and potatoes instead of she-crab soup and baby lettuce salad. Aren't there an awful lot of us who could stand to lose a pound or two anyway? Do we really need six televisions in the house? And if we just do what Americans have always done, work hard and move forward, won't we come through this just fine if people just quit futzing around with stuff?

Please, guys, take the last chance you have – and waste this crisis.

My aunt asked a great question today that no one seems to be addressing: how can we stop it? How can we stop the turducken spending bill, creeping socialism, government-managed healthcare, backing down on terrorism, the opening of our borders, the destruction of our country as we know it? We are Americans: citizens of the greatest country on earth, the home of freedom, exponentially the most powerful military ever, a land that embraces the innovative and the new, that welcomes the downtrodden and oppressed. How is it that we can't stop the insanity, the greed, and the corruption that is starting to destroy us?

The first thing to do – something the liberals seem unable and/or unwilling to do – is to recognize that Change Happens.

• You can't stop climate change. Tornadoes, ice storms, and hurricanes are going to happen.
• We will always have babies being born, generations turning over, and fundamental changes in our society.
• We will never be able to stamp out evil, and it will impact us every time it touches us.
• We have an election every two, four, or six years to elect new senators, congressmen, and others.
• We all grow old, get sick, and eventually die.

We cannot control the weather, the behavior of other people, or the revolution of the Earth. We need to embrace that fact, follow the serenity prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

The second thing to do is to start making a difference at the level of one person and one family. You can't control Obama or Pelosi or the government. You can, however, control yourself, and probably your family, maybe even your friends. Start there.

1. Vote. Vote every time. Vote in every election, no matter how minor. Vote, vote, vote.

2. Know who you are voting for, personally if possible.

3. Research every candidate online. Look for people who say nice things and people who say nasty things about them, and then make a decision based on what seems to be the truth.

4. Find out who in your circle of friends does not vote, and then find out why. Don't be afraid of proselytizing, especially when they complain about their 401K going down, how hard it is to find a good man, or how expensive things are getting. Politics influences everything in our lives, through regulation of the stock market (the 401K), forcing people to take responsibility for their own lives and sex drives (finding a good man), and government-caused inflation. Educate your friends gently on how their vote or nonvote impacts their lives.

5. When you vote, try to drive someone to the polling booth with you who would otherwise not go. Take the day off if you must. Can't find someone to take? Call local churches and see if there are shut-ins who would appreciate a ride and a little company. It's just one day, but it will determine government for the next two, four, or six years.

6. Give money to your candidate, even if you can only afford $10. If you can't give money, call their campaign office and ask if there's anything you can do to help. Even yard signs are something.

7. Refuse to feel guilty. Guilt – for slavery, for pollution, for making too much money, for imprisoning people that blow us up – is the driving force behind modern liberalism. Slavery reparations, carbon offsets, welfare, and closing Gitmo are all ways that liberals try to make themselves feel better about the "evils" America has been involved in. Screw that. Let's just start right here, where the ball is, and work forward instead of backward, doing good when we can and waging war where we must. Guilt is an emotion that works okay in religion and therapy, but not so well when you're trying to run a country. Let's stop with the apologies, the taxing of Evil Rich Guys, the rush to cool down the supposedly feverish planet. Every conservative should, right now, swear to not feel guilty, to be guilted into anything, or to even react (beyond an eye-roll) when they are called racist, Nazis, or most laughably, antisemitic. Or mean. Or selfish. Or insensitive. These are the hobgoblins of small liberal minds, not conservatives.

8. Be patient. A tidal wave far out to sea looks like any other ocean swell, but as it gets closer to shore, it begins to change, the deep power beneath rising to rush over the land. In just the same way, your small contributions, and those of everyone else, can create a tidal wave and change America from the bottom up.

9. Talk to your children. You may not know it, but they are being indoctrinated at school, even if their teachers don't mean to. Talk politics around the dinner table -- and make sure there IS an "around the dinner table." Go to patriotic and historic sites and events: the Alamo, 4th of July celebrations, history and military museums. Make sure your children's ethics and beliefs are being shaped by you, not by the educational system, and start as soon as they can talk.

10. Steal liberal tricks shamelessly. Liberals have learned how to use "community organizing" to advance their causes, how to turn small donations into large campaign funds, how to leverage the internet and new technology to advance their cause. Republicans need to do the same thing, and better.

11. Identify our best thinkers and read them, every single week. Thomas Sowell, Charles Krauthammer, and Michael Steele; Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin; Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs) and Newt Gingrich. Read Townhall.com and Pajamas Media. Listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, and Glen Beck. (And if you see the Fairness Doctrine starting to rear its head, be aware that it will affect you, and fight it like an Iwo Jima Marine!)

12. Know what liberals are saying, too. They can be cesspools, but reading DailyKos and the Democratic Underground will show you just how nutty the other side really is -- and the lies they are telling about you. (Many of them actually believe -- BELIEVE -- Bush blew up the World Trade Center, and Sarah Palin's daughter, not Sarah, gave birth to little Trig!)

13. The next time you see him or her – thank a soldier, a Marine, a police officer. Especially our police officers; they don't hear thanks often enough.

14. Call your senators and representatives to thank them for voting right. They don't hear gratitude enough, either – and one word of gratitude can offset ten complaints. A letter of thanks with a check enclosed is even better. Be specific.

Plenty more can be added to this list, but it's a place to start, something each one of us can do to work toward that tidal wave we need in two, then four years, sweeping away the debris and destruction of the Obama regency to create a fresh new foundation for fundamental truth, decency, and freedom. Let's take back the word "change," and show them what it really means!