About a week ago Bill Murray told his CNBC hosts that personal responsibility is lacking in this country, and that those who can’t man up and cut the mustard are going to stay in place or become “compost” — essentially a conservative sentiment. And on the other hand he says that super-partisans in Congress who are only trying to take the other guy down and make him look bad (obviously a reference to Boehner, Cantor & the wacko right) are destructive forces who are destroying hope.

This is a very inhumane, non-lefty, Big Hollywood thing to say, but Murray’s compost remark led me to imagine the following: if the government was to announce that in 30 days all homeless people will be rounded up in order to be used as meat filler for dog food, a healthy percentage of homeless people would suddenly be looking for a job or would at least be volunteering their energies for some socially helpful cause. Their ranks would be thinned significantly.