When I heard what Nancy Pelosi said about the health care bill the other day, I did a double-take. And had to double-check the press release issued by Pelosi’s own office.

Yikes! She really said it! Then published it on her website to the accompaniment of bugles and trumpets!

Okay, maybe I invented the bugles and trumpets. But not the words:

“Prevention, prevention, prevention — it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Ah yes, the “fog of the controversy”! The way critics of this 2000-page legislation have exposed the regimentation, price controls, new taxes, and choked-off choices we’ll all suffer if the bill passes. How dare we!

Terrible that there’s actually debate about whether we should permanently lose more of our freedoms. Can’t we all agree to be trampled and then find out what it all means? After it’s too late to stop it?

No. Let’s dispel the fog right now. Let the government mail a copy of the bill to every voter.

And let Congress agree that every voter must pass a 500-question multiple choice quiz on its contents before Congress moves forward.

Let’s dispel the fog before we’re saddled with this thing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

You’ve heard of “green collar jobs.” But what about “glass collar jobs”?

The Heartland Institute just put out a handy little pamphlet called The Cap and Trade Handbook, by James M. Taylor. It debunks various aspects of today’s obsession with fixing the global climate by laying on new restrictions, regulations and taxes. On page 5, Taylor addresses, colorfully, the “green jobs” issue.

Would cap-and-trade create new jobs? The handbook says, “sure, forcing people to buy expensive alternative energy means some new jobs would be created in the wind and solar industry. But even more jobs would be destroyed in the more efficient conventional energy sectors. . . .”

True — new jobs would come at a cost. The pamphlet then considers what would happen if the government hired thugs to break our windows. Sure, “such a program would create a lot of new ‘glass collar’ jobs in the window repair industry.” But employment would not increase on net, and we’d obviously be worse off, not better.

Unfortunately, the big headline on the page insists that “There will be no employment boom in the ‘green collar’ jobs sector.” Not true, as explained.

Just as subsidizing mortgages led to a housing boom this past decade, cap-and-trade policy would likely create a new boom industry that also would not sustain itself. And then explode. Spectacularly. Disastrously.

Financial bubbles break. That’s bad, no matter what color.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

When running for governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell said, “The worst thing you can do during a recession is try to tax yourself to prosperity,” and that Virginia has “a spending problem more than we have a taxation problem.” To this I would add only that it would be best if government were fiscally disciplined in both good times and bad.

Virginia’s state government is facing a shortfall of $4 billion over the next two years. A few weeks after reaching the governor’s mansion, McDonnell submitted a list of budget proposals to the legislature. These include mandatory furloughs, staff reductions, financial aid cuts, park closings, and hundreds of millions in cuts to spending on health and human services and K-12 education.

Like Chris Christie in New Jersey, Virginia’s new governor is facing fervent opposition to any spending cuts. Unlike Christie, Governor McDonnell is less able or perhaps just less willing to act on his own to make any spending cuts, saying he is eager to collaborate with lawmakers.

Virginians must express their support for fiscal common sense and hope for the best. They could do a lot more if the state had a statewide initiative and referendum process; then they themselves could pass restraints on taxes and spending, at the ballot box. Unfortunately, when it comes to citizen initiative rights, Virginia gets an F.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Google took flak a few years ago when it announced that it would cooperate with Chinese censorship to operate a Chinese version of the Google search engine. The company’s top brass wrung their hands about the decision, since it seemed to clash with Google’s official “do no evil” policy.

In January, Google and other large companies suffered a major cyber attack apparently originating in China. In Google’s case, the target of the assault was the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Further investigation in the weeks since then has tended to confirm that the Chinese government sponsored the attack.

In response to the attack and further assaults on freedom of Internet speech in China, Google said that it was “no longer willing to continue censoring” its search results. It said that it would shut down Google.cn if the government would not let it provide unfiltered results.

Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb reports that Google.cn is still censoring its search results. The Chinese government isn’t about to cave.

So why hasn’t Google left China?

Sure, it would be disruptive. People would lose their jobs. But in January’s   statement, Google seemed to be taking a belated but praiseworthy stand on principle. They should follow through. If there’s anything worse than doing evil, it’s publicly repenting it and then continuing to do evil as if nothing had happened.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Picnicking on railroad tracks? Not dangerous. Most of the time the tracks are free. Take out the picnic basket and pass the chips. Glug down a few drinks.

The tracks are safe when there’s no train.

After the train? Well, you’re dead. Not dangerous then, either.

Only in the moments while the train blares down on you is it actually dangerous.

This is modern politics. Our politicians have set us to party on the tracks, heedless of dangers. Increasing deficits? Mounting debt? Those are future problems!

That’s what politicians have been saying, in effect, for decades.

Irresponsible? Yes. So what else is new?

Republicans are lambasting Democrats for not taking deficits and debt seriously. But how serious are Republicans, really? Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has put forward what he calls a “road map” to solvency. He’s taking into consideration “entitlement” as well as “discretionary” spending; he’s elaborated a set of spending cuts, program cuts, as well as a tax abolition and a new business consumption tax that all together zero out the deficit and balance the budget . . . by 2063.

So, have Republicans jumped onto his cause? No. They are, with the exception of nine co-sponsors, avoiding him as if he were the onrushing train.

Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute calls Ryan’s Roadmap “a test” and says, “right now the Republican Party is failing it.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.