Health Care Part II

We are being warned that if we get universal healthcare our own care will begin to suck like Mark Foley at a Fire Island hot tub party.

Say what?

My daughter needs a physical for summer camp a month from now. I can't get her in to see her doctor until sometime in September, several weeks after camp is over. (I admit that I should have scheduled this sooner, but who knew?)

A few years ago I was having some problems my general practitioner couldn't diagnose. I had to schedule an appointment with a neurologist. That wait was 3 months.

I never see an OB-GYN; to get to see one of those at my clinic would mean making an appointment ONE YEAR in advance. I'm supposed to see a physician's assistant for my annual exam, so in truth it's not even possible for me to go to a doctor.

The nurse at the pediatrician's office just called me and suggested one of those quick clinics at Walgreens or Wal Mart. Earlier, I called a free clinic and offered to trade time or a nice donation for my daughter to get a physical. The clinic said they weren't able to do that kind of exam.

A few years ago when I had very comprehensive and expensive health insurance I used to go to Planned Parenthood for my exams. I shudder when the conservatives fight to close those clinics just because they believe that crazy notion that parenthood should be planned. Crazy kooks.

Sorry folks. This is what we've gotten for the most dollars ever thrown at healthcare in all the world. I simply do not believe it will get worse.

Now I've got to find a Costa Rican directory so that I can schedule some dental work.....

The Palin Wardrobe

Okay, it's been discussed to death. But have you considered that $150,000 worth of clothes is $2000 every day for the two months that Governor Palin will have been on the campaign trail?

And they are going to solve our fiscal problems? Lady, here's a suggestion: Wear something twice.

Dear Lord, Thank You for Placing In My Inbox Shit That Writes Itself. Amen.

click to embiggen

Because the Lord God sayeth that you can't pray for China unless you are wearing a cheap plastic bracelet produced by slave labor in China. Buy more-they'll be forced to work harder!!!!

And You May Tell Yourself This Is Not My Beautiful House

The credit crisis, which is sapping America's economic strength, was the result of an almost religious belief in deregulation whose excesses are now coming home to roost.

It is instructive to compare the American financial mess with the economic situation in nations that resisted deregulation. Old Europe tends to get a scornful press in the U.S. But Europe is not suffering a financial meltdown today -- mainly because Europeans (with the exception of Britain and Switzerland) took only a few sips of the financial Kool-Aid so heavily promoted by U.S. banks.

read more at the American Prospect.

The President Speaks

I watched the president's press conference yesterday. I must say the whole of it made me about as angry as I would have expected it to. His main thrust was that everything that's wrong today is the fault of Congress. He asserted in various ways that he's been unable to get several handy dandy bills through for about the last eighteen months or so. Now, by my math that means that he couldn't even get his own republican congress to help him out from November of 2006 to January of 2007, but I don't think he and I do math the same way.

Watching him, I was struck by how small his thinking is. Alternative energy is only nu-cu-lar and ethanol. Drilling in ANWR will solve our dependency on foreign oil and so on. Had John Kerry been elected we'd be nearly three and a half years into our "Apollo Program" for alternative fuel sources. One would hope these would be more than just those choices that benefit Monsanto, ADM and Cargill as well as GE and ConEd.

So in the midst of all his blather, I didn't pay much attention to the one sentence that became the news shows' soundbite. The President of the United States of America said to us "I firmly believe that, you know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it, of course.I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems, yet time after time Congress chose to block them."

Here's the funny thing. He has been president for over seven years. He could have done something. But let's recall that what was done in 2005 was to give massive tax breaks to the oil companies and other energy firms. We stopped charging royalties to oil companies who take crude from public land. Essentially, we are allowing oil companies to take from the commons for free. And each quarter these companies are setting record profits.

And, what did George W. Bush say in 2005 when he wanted to pass that wonderful energy bill that would bring down the price of gas, which then had soared to a shocking $2.28 a gallon? He said:

"I wish I could simply wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow," Bush told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "But we must act now to address the fundamental problem. Our supply of energy is not growing fast enough to meet the demands of our growing economy."

Three years ago he could have waved that magic wand to improve our mass transit infrastructure (my city is trying to add light rail-a forward looking idea that cons hate), could have extended tax credits to buyers of hybrids rather than Hummers, could have encouraged our auto companies to improve fleet efficiency. Rather, the news this morning in Wisconsin is that GM is laying off 750 people at the Janesville SUV plant. Yeah, who could have seen that coming?

And now, McCain and Clinton and others say that we should have a tax holiday for the summer to reduce the price of our gas by eighteen cents a gallon. Think about that: we give the raw product away, we've given billions in tax incentives to the oil companies and now as an answer, some would like us to forgo our own revenue - money that goes to US citizens for roads and infrastructure improvements, because oil companies are overcharging us? Insane.

Is now a good time to remind everyone that had we kept Jimmy Carter's CAFE standards in place we wouldn't need foreign oil?

It's a Sad Day for Wisconsin Politics, (and for your state, too)

Yesterday was election day here in Wisconsin.

The biggest contest of the day was for our state Supreme Court. In theory, supreme court justices are supposed to be non-partisan and they do not run as democrat or republican. However, in Wisconsin as is happening in other states with electable SC justices, big business is buying the court. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Club for Growth along with the NRA and others threw several million dollars behind a candidate who can best be described as a guy who makes Clarence Thomas seem like a beacon of legal scholarship. In other words, the guy is dumb.

Last week Michael Gableman (conservative) and Louis Butler (moderate incumbent) had a debate. Gableman's every utterance sounded like it was scripted by Rush Limbaugh. He continued to characterize Butler as a 'judicial activist' and a 'liberal ideologue with a political agenda' though Butler made it clear that it was his job to apply the law regardless of his own personal opinion, while at the same time Gableman kept saying that his conservative worldview definately helps him to decide cases.

Wha?

Further, Gableman ran a 'Willie Horton' style campaign and blatantly distorted facts in cases decided by Butler. One would believe, from Gableman's campaign, that our state Supreme Court presides over nothing but criminal cases. The truth is far distant.

What the Wisonsin Manufacturers and Commerce and all other right wing support for Gableman knew is that they need their guy in there to shield big business from tort cases. In other words, suck it little guy.

While it is sad for us, I understand that this is another front in the republican war on America. Big business is dismantling consumer rights throughout the country by buying seats on state supreme courts. And because we all see only what is in front of us, we don't really notice what's going on elsewhere.

John Grisham has a new novel out called The Appeal. I read in Monday's paper that it eerily parallels our own state race. And as it turns out, in Grisham's novel the good guy loses too. From a customer review at Amazon:

It is obvious that John Grisham is up to more than spinning a fine yarn in this, his most recent legal novel. A former practicing trial lawyer in Mississippi, the setting for most of the story, as well as a member of the state legislature, Grisham is apparently, and quite rightly, concerned about a recent phenomenon relative to state supreme courts. As the novel illustrates, this is the increasing tactic of large business and ideological groups sweeping into various states and unloading large resources in elections for state supreme court justices--still not an uncommon way in which they are selected. Some states have adopted the so-called "Missouri system" where an expert panel recommends a slate of names to the governor, who must nominate one of the names, the individual serves a short term, and then stands for retention on a non-partisan basis. A simple majority of yes votes suffices to keep the judge in office for a full term.

But in Mississippi, and a number of other states, anyone can run in a competitive election for a seat on the state court. I expect this is particularly a hot issue in Mississippi, since it is the headquarters for gigantic tort recoveries in individual and class action suits returned by sympathetic juries. Grisham's previous novel, "King of Torts," was full of insights on this phenomenon. In the novel, business and ideological groups dissatisfied with the state court's decisions combine to run a candidate they pick and believe will be sympathetic to their viewpoints in rendering decisions. The target is a female Justice, by no means super liberal or extreme by any measure--but that is before the millions of dollars invested in campaign propaganda distort her record. The novel is designed to exhibit several of the major problems with this system: the potential for extraneous "hot button" issues to be injected into the campaign; the disparity in funds between judges and interest/business groups seeking to dislodge them; will judges render decisions based upon what they feel voters will like?; could judges who receive financial support from groups ignore that fact when rendering decisions that impact upon them?; will this tactic emasculate the tort law system that has "cleaned up a lot of bad products and protected a lot of people"?

It sounds like a good book. I just don't think I have the stomach for it right now.

A Torch Song for Valentine's Day

Maybe you remember that I posted a love song for 9/11 on September 11th. That is the day that I very first kissed my husband in the coatroom at my sister's wedding. (I met him the day before). Well, now that it is the international day of luuuuuv and romance, I thought I'd let you know that for me, it harbors really bad memories.

Dork that I am, I got married on Valentine's Day once. Not in hindsight but in actual fact on that day, it was one of the worst days of my life. Lots of people say they knew they were making a mistake on th day of their wedding. Count me among them.

We had a big Friday evening wedding. To me, it was a pain in the ass. There were 200 or so guests. It was lent, so half the catholics had ordered fish and somewhere along the line the most devout of the catholics were served steak. The band we hired -- I refused to have a dj -- changed their lead singer from the time we hired them to when they played. He both sucked and looked like a freak. My mother's friend decided to freestyle the decorations without me knowing about it and plastered brass cupids throughout the room. The hotel was hosting a children's group. Kids rode up and down in the glass elevator right next to the cocktail reception, pushing the buttons for each floor. My suitcases were left in my car and the best man who was supposed to bring them up to the room earlier in the day was too busy drinking at the open bar and smoking cigars to get them for me. I did it myself. Have you ever seen a bride schlepping her own luggage through her own reception? My dad bugged, ran after me and yanked the bags out of my hands taking care of the errand for me.

I remember having about thirty drinks in my hand and taking a sip out of each one, setting it down and losing it. No, I did not get drunk because there wasn't the opportunity. I think I had to dance to the electric slide, macarena and the chicken dance though the band was specifically instructed against those songs. I couldn't find my new husband when the time had come to dance with him. My friend started a fight with his sister because she thought his sister had taken his bouquet.

The two families didn't like each other, though we've known each other since I was in kindergarten. My ex-father-in-law thought giving me the finger at the altar during the rehearsal was high humor.

It was on my wedding night and during our honeymoon that I discovered my new husband had a phobia against having sex in hotel rooms. (He thinks they spy on you). In fact, the other guests at the small tropical resort where we stayed were always amused that the husband of the newlywed pair was always up late in the bar and the bride was always up early reading books on her patio.

We lasted eighteen months. I'm cool with that now. It turns out that "starter marriages" are hip. Wow, me, hip! Whodathunk?

A Must Read by Dr. Zaius

I have wanted to sit down and pound my keyboard over the outrage of Bush knowing that Iran halted its nuclear program four years ago, while still beating the drums of war with the oogey boogey mushroom cloud, but I haven't had the time.

Dr. Zaius raises an excellent point about the whole sad sorry sordid deal. Please go read.

Update: Speaking in Omaha earlier today, Bush called on Iran to better explain its nuclear intentions or face further sanctions. How bizarre can you get? Iran claims to not pursue nukes, turns out that's the truth, Bush is caught lying about it so the only obvious resolution is to continue the call for sanctions? On them?

Bullshit. This is about oil, pure and simple. Iran can easily form a strategic alliance with Russia and then China for the 200 billion barrels of oil in the Caspian region.

Come Dancing

When I was 18 the State of Wisconsin allowed me to drink in bars and restaurants. (We also drank in cars and in farm fields.) In practice this meant my friends and I would go to Rusty's on Thursday nights and drink 25 cent taps of beer. Half of the senior class of MHS had hangovers on Friday morning. They had a dance floor upstairs and pool tables in the basement. We probably danced to the Kinks, but I don't remember that for sure.

Well, they're tearing down the Palais. The owner of an Illinois-based chain of Mobil gas stations and convenience stores made an offer the owners of the bar could not refuse.

If Rusty's has to go, I just wish it was to something besides a fucking Mobil station.

Enjoy the Kinks. Not their best work, but boy did I love that song back in the day.

A Platform for Protest

Then:


Now:

It seems that bridge players everywhere are clutching their pearls over this outrageous act of defiance by the US team as it accepted the Venice Cup Women's championship award in Shanghai last month.

These women may receive sanctions that will keep them from playing bridge professionally for a year.

According to the NY Times: '

The proposed sanctions would hurt the team’s playing members financially. “I earn my living from bridge, and a substantial part of that from being hired to compete in high-level competitions,” Debbie Rosenberg, a team member, said. “So being barred would directly affect much of my ability to earn a living.”'

Qwinky Dink, Dr. Dictionary?

Do you think there is anything behind the selection of today's Word of the Day?

Just wondering.

This is too funny not to share.

If you've ever wanted to post at Townhall (why would you I don't know) you'll find that you need to register. And then you get lots and lots of paranoid schizophrenic e-mail messages and daily updates. The daily updates are like Huffpo but with lots and lots of misogyny, bigotry and good old-fashioned hate. They also send their loyal readers hokey get rich scams. So much for sharing the love. We know frightwingers would eat their own pondering only the choice of bar-b-Q sauce.

So today I got this e-mailed to me:






So I voted in the poll. I voted to support illegal alien amnesty. The results from the big group of mouth breathing next door neighbor neocons and hate mongerers?

Tada!:

Nice of them to provide links to such great organizations, too! Maybe I'll stop by and chuck some money the ACLU's way. (I am a card carrying member, but you guessed that!)

How stupid do they think we are?

Don't answer that question.

Caught the news story on Michael Vick this morning. He has pleaded guilty in his dog abuse case. There is a possibility of sentencing. And though he skipped a trial through his guilty plea and though sentencing has not yet been imposed, this morning on the teevee we heard the inevitable:

Mr. Vick is being treated unfairly due to his celebrity.

I wish I could tell you who said it. I don't think it was any of his counsel. Still, Virginia, the state where the crimes took place, has some of the most draconian of the nation's capital punishment laws. Sister Helen Prejean (the nun in Dead Man Walking) has outlined cases where demonstrably innocent people in Virginia have been executed because the ability to appeal a death sentence there is severely restricted. I'm trying to think of ways in which our system of justice treats people more unfairly than executing the innocent. Ummm, I got nothing.

I'm not making the comparison because I think the degree of the crimes are comparable. Rather, my point is one regarding the nature of regular people who cannot afford to hire an entire law firm v. celebrities who cry when their abundant supply of privilege dries up leaving them to face the consequences. It is expected that Michael Vick will receive a 10 to 18 month sentence. It is longer than his co-defendents because they squealed on him. It is not longer than it would have been were he Buford T. Scratchizass.

Question: How Many Dead Americans is Saddam Worth?

Answer: Not Many.

According to Dick Cheney in 1994. Watch this video. You may not recognize the man being interviewed. He discusses Iraq with clarity and shows an understanding of the factional tensions that would make undertaking regime change there a folly.




What changed between 1994 and 2003 for Mr. Cheney?

In 1995 he became CEO of Halliburton.

In 1997 he helped to found the Project for a New American Century.

In 2001 he became vice president of the United States.

Which led to this:

Who was in charge at State?

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has just released a matrix on foreign contributions that were accepted or denied in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Using FOIA requests, they were able to put together thousands of documents to create a unified look at the world's response to the disaster. They also collected e-mails from officials around the globe.

According to CREW

The matrix includes all international offers, whether they were rejected or accepted and the reasons why, if available. The documents reveal a number of disturbing responses to offers from 145 countries and 12 international organizations from around the world.

For example, an email from Jeffrey Goldstein, a U.S. Embassy official in Estonia, to several DOS officials, states:

It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on flood relief. And now I see from the staff meeting notes that the task force may disband soon. We know that what the Estonians can offer is small potatoes and everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even “thanks but no thanks” is better than deafening silence.

Another email responding to an offer from Argentina to DOS officials reads “All, The (sic) word here is that doctors of any kind are in the 'forget about it' category. Human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list....It’s all about goods, not people, at this point.”

Another email describes how the transport of Israeli relief supplies loaded on a C-130 aircraft was delayed for over 48 hours on the tarmac while Israeli officials waited for clearance from the U.S. government. The unidentified author states: “I’ve been on the phone with the [Israeli] attache every couple of hours since noon . . . they’re patient, but not amused by our delay, obviously.” The documents do not reveal if or how the issue was resolved.

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director said today, “A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude. Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers of aid never received it.”

The State Department as you may recall, has been headed by Condoleeza Rice since the beginning of Bush's second term. Condoleeza Rice left for vacation on Wednesday, August 31, 2005. Get that? On the first two days of the hurricane crisis, Condi was on the job. But on Wednesday morning she woke up, said to herself 'all's well at the office' and flew to New York to buy some shoes and take in a Broadway show.

NOLA to Minneapolis: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

George Bush just addressed the press in the Rose Garden. He spent approximately one minute expressing concern for the residents of Minneapolis. In what can only be described as a very frightening, very chilling moment for Minnesotans, Bush told reporters that the important thing is "to rebuild very quickly".

New Orleans residents send their sympathy.

Outrage.

From Wikipedia:

"In addition to being designed to support automobile and heavy truck traffic, interstate highways are also designed for use in military and civil defense operations within the United States, particularly troop movements."

From the Christian Science Monitor:

A new study by Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes concludes that the total costs of the Iraq war could top the $2 trillion mark. Reuters reports this total, which is far above the US administration's prewar projections, takes into account the long term healthcare costs for the 16,000 US soldiers injured in Iraq so far.

Why doesn't this look good?

The website "News Sophisticate" is reporting that Blackwater USA is interested in growing its business in Sudan.

Blackwater has long eyed doing business with the UN in the Sudan. They see the Iraq war winding down and are looking for more opportunities for expansion and the continuation of their 'soldier of fortune' corporate business plan. Chris Taylor, head of strategy for Blackwater, stated in 2006 that

"(his company) has a database of thousands of former police and military officers for security assignments...Blackwater personnel could set up perimeters and guard Darfurian villages and refugee camp in support of the U.N."

Apparently the United Nations has authorized a UN troop force of 20,000 soldiers and 6,000 police. News Sophisticate is guessing these 6,000 police are hired mercenaries from Blackwater.

Death and destruction as growth industries. I cannot fathom how these executives live with themselves. Some things are simply beyond me.

What would have happened if he was brown?

From the Chicago Tribune:

Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a chainsaw stained with what appeared to be blood, a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, and brass knuckles. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and then let him into the United States.

Why doesn't this surprise me?

From USA Today:

Government auditors discovered something odd last year when they reviewed KBR Inc.'s annual cost estimate to provide support services for U.S. troops in Iraq. The contractor proposed charging $110 million for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases that had been shut down.

KBR got a contract extension for $3.7 billion, but it agreed to drop the proposed $110 million spending on closed bases and an additional $50 million of duplicate charges and math errors, according to Defense Department records obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Linda Theis of the Army Sustainment Command, the agency that oversees KBR's troop-support contract, downplayed the errors. They amount to just 4.3% of the contract amount, she said. "This percentage does not indicate a systemic weakness in business systems."

Nice of them to agree to drop the fraudulent charges after they were caught charging them. Gee thanks, guys!

Now can you imagine how the administration would come down on a cheating welfare mother if she got caught with an extra cupla hunnerd bucks?