Oo-ooh That Smell

Paul Krugman directs us to a pdf file of a book called The Great Stink of London by Stephen Halliday, which chronicals the debate over construction of a sewer system in London in the mid 19th century.  The quote he chose was one in which The Economist, a publication that is still being printed, stated that the suffering caused by lack of a sewer system was divinely ordained.  While that quote was interesting enough to repost to my Facebook page, it was a later paragraph that really caught my eye:

"A question to Oxford about its plans for obtaining a clean and economical supply of water drew the answer 'never, and not likely to until compelled by Parliamentary interposition.'  Dr. John Snow, who hypothesised that cholera epidemics were water-borne, drew attention to the problems which arose from such attitudes while addressing the Social Science Congress in Bristol in 1849.  He stated that 'our present machinery must be greatly enlarged, radically altered and endowed with new powers,' above all with the power of 'doing away with that form of liberty to which some communities cling, the sacred power to poison to death not only themselves but their neighbors.'"

The reason I noticed it was because it reminded me of  a few years ago when Governor Rick Perry of Texas was battling with the EPA over pollutants produced by oil refineries.  EPA regulations were expected to "... improve air quality for an estimated 240 million Americans, preventing a projected 30,000 premature deaths and up to 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, as well as hundreds of thousands of cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments."  A hyperbolic comparison of the time said that when Saddam Hussein poisons his people, it's called genocide.  If Rick Perry does it, it's called 'state's rights.'

Elsewhere on my reading list, for the past several days a lot is being written about Paul Ryan's new budget, which thematically isn't that different than his old budgets, though updated for current events, so none of the econobloggers is really saying anything different than what they've been saying since 2010.  Two exceptions:  the Onion made fun of Ryan's youthful appearance, and Dana Milbank compared the budget to a Mad Lib.  It was clever enough that I decided to try it for myself with Gaby giving the answers.
    Gaby is from Mexico.  Apparently they don't have Mad Libs in Mexico.
    After a short explanation, I asked him first for an adjective, and then all the rest.  The result:

The former Republican vice presidential candidate’s budget eliminates skinny loopholes in the tax code, cutting the needle and the fish deductions. It reduces spending on the rose program by 69% and the glass program by 21%. Retirees would see paddling, students would experience pedaling and the poor would be cut.