2008 archive
iProd 1
Oh, my.
And now, along with phones that make movies and Blackberries that navigate better than Columbus, come weapons that sing.
More specifically, Tasers are being paired with MP3 players – and marketed to women as fashionable safety devices.
Scheduled to hit the market in early March, the Taser MPH is the bizarre coupling of a gunlike device capable of delivering a 50,000-volt jolt, and its holster, which contains a 1-gigabyte-capacity handheld music player.
Bushonomics 2
Mushrooming problems:
The cost of compost, heating oil and other essentials needed to grow mushrooms has risen so quickly since Hurricane Katrina caused a spike in crude-oil prices two years ago that some growers in the area – where more than half the nation’s mushrooms are produced – say they are operating in the red.
So, many Chester County mushroom growers this winter have begun to impose steep price increases, a move they say is essential but makes them more vulnerable to competition that now includes cheap mushrooms grown in China.
If You’re Sick, You Ain’t Profitable 3
Providing health care and the profit motive, incompatible. We need to move to a system with a goal of providing health care, not a goal of enriching CEO’s and salespersons (emphasis added):
(snip)
State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner applauded the judge, saying “health insurers simply cannot hold out the promise of insurance for their consumers and then snatch it away just when people need it most. That is illegal, immoral and will not be tolerated.”
Earlier, Health Net had defended its actions, saying it never would have issued Bates a policy in the first place if she had disclosed her true weight and a preexisting heart condition on her application.
Bates said a broker filled out the application while she was styling a client’s hair on a busy day in her shop. She said she answered his questions as best she could.
Bates said she already had insurance and wasn’t in the market until the broker came by and told her that he thought he could get her a lower monthly premium if she switched to Health Net.
At the arbitration hearing, internal company documents were disclosed showing that Health Net had paid employee bonuses for meeting a cancellation quota and for the amount of money saved.
“It’s difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive,” the judge wrote.
Via Atrios.
Protect Telecoms Act 0
It is indeed totally strange that, somehow, the security of the United States of America depends on protecting corporations who broke the law from liability for their acts.
Corporations that obeyed the existing FISA law in implementing wiretapping and eavesdropping were already protected from liability, because, holy moly, they were obeying a law.
The issue here is protecting those who broke the law.
But, given that the Current Federal Administrator contemns the rule of law, we should not be surprised that he chooses to protect the lawless.
Hello, World 2
It’s been a long week of racking up billable hours and trying to be a webmaster. As you can see, we are mostly back.
I’ll be working on the sidebar throughout the day. For the geeky among us, the blogroll is organized by categories. In updating the database from WordPress 1.5.x format to WordPress 2.3 format, the categories disappeared.
All comments are being held for moderation until until I get a WordPress 2.3 compatible anti-comment-spam plugin working. (Honestly, I got this thing back on line yesterday about 4:00 p. m.; within 15 minutes, I had seven spam comments.)
The Wheels Are Coming Off 0
One of the most telltale signs of what is happening to our economy is the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey.
It has been trending down for the past two years and has already dropped to levels that were last reached during the 90-91 recession, when unemployment was at 7%. This shows me that increases in health care, energy and food costs are taking there toll.
It is not the fact that people are unemployed that’s the problem; it’s that they have less discretionary income to spend. Less spending will result in higher unemployment in the future, making the situation worse. Where are government’s focus should be is ending runaway inflation in health care energy and food. Addressing the fact that ethanol is causing food prices to soar, health care causes us to totally lose a consumer’s whole family to even a minor illness.
A one time tax rebate is to simplistic a cure to what are fundamental problems that will last for years.
Fear Mongering (Updated) 0
Today, the House of Representatives finally mustered up the guts to stand up to the Current Federal Administrator.
And, in true George W. Bush form, the Current Federal Administrator threw a hissy fit because he didn’t get his way.
And what happens to national security if the Protect America (Yeah. Right.) Act does not get extended?
Absolutely nothing. Follow the link to hear the full analysis:
President Bush says to delay is dangerous, but many intelligence experts, including Suzanne Spaulding, say very little will actually change Saturday, even if the bill is allowed to expire.
Spaulding, who spent 20 years working on national security issues for the government and is now a private attorney in Washington, D.C., talks with Michelle Norris.
Of course, some of the telecommunications companies might have to pay for violating the trust of their customers.
Gasp!
We can’t have that.
Violating trust is the Bushie way.
Addendum, 2/15/2008:
Dan Froomkin documents the hypocrisy.
John Cole asks, “Why are they lying?“
Obama Blows It 1
Apparently, he’s taking lessons from the Clinton campaign. From Fact Check dot org.
- Obama is being misleading when he says his proposal would “cover everyone.” It would make coverage available to all, but experts we consulted estimate that 15 million to 26 million wouldn’t take it up unless required to do so.
- Clinton stretches things a bit, too. Even her plan – which, unlike Obama’s, includes a mandate for individuals to get insurance – would leave out a million people or perhaps more, depending on how severe the penalties would be for those who don’t comply. She won’t say how her mandate would be enforced, but has said that she was open to the possibility of garnishing wages.
- Update, Feb. 15: A new Obama ad in Wisconsin misrepresents the words of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, falsely claiming he said the Obama plan produced greater savings than the Clinton plan.
- Experts also are skeptical of both candidates’ claims that their plans will reduce the cost of insurance for the typical family by $2,000 or more. ” I know zero credible evidence to support that conclusion,” says M.I.T’s Jonathan Gruber.
Behind the dueling ads there is a legitimate disagreement. Obama is reluctant to force people to buy health insurance they don’t want even if the government makes it available at a subsidized price. And Clinton says that any proposal that doesn’t aim to cover 100 percent of the uninsured would be “nibbled to death” by opponents.
No, I’m not changing my sidebar.
Bushonomics 0
It’s dangerous work.
As cash-strapped Americans fight to keep their homes, an increasing number are losing their cars.
The nation’s busting economy has been a boom for the repo man.
Nationwide, auto repossessions are at a 10-year high, according to an economist at one of the nation’s biggest wholesale auto auction houses.
Contempt for the Contemptible 1
I can’t vote for this guy. I don’t live in Florida.
I’ve spent lots of time in Florida. Frankly, I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t frankly. Also, I wouldn’t live in Florida on a bet.
But, if I could vote for this guy, I would.
Bags of Air (Updated) 0
I mentioned them the other day.
Eliot Spitzer:
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.
The Republican Party. Making the rich richer and the poor poorer for 150 years.
Addendum, Not So Soon After:
Perfidy 0
I could not have asked the questions better myself. Dan Froomkin (emphasis added):
Those, at heart, are the questions raised by the Senate’s passage yesterday of a bill that would ban harsh interrogation tactics used by the CIA — a bill already passed by the House, and a bill President Bush has vowed to veto.
The debate is not just about waterboarding. It’s about whether other tactics — such as prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, mock executions, the use of attack dogs, the withholding of food, water and medical care and the application of electric shocks — should be part of our official interrogation toolkit.
Whether you call them torture or not, they are undeniably cruel. They are undeniable assaults on human dignity.
They are all prohibited by the Army Field Manual, which covers all military interrogations. They are all off limits to the FBI. Now Congress wants the CIA to adhere to the same restrictions.
But Bush says no.
The propagation of our values has long been a hallmark of American foreign policy. Chief among those values has been respect for human dignity. But the message we’ve been sending lately is altogether different. How can we tell other countries to respect human dignity when we have made it optional for our own government? When our official policy is that the ends justify the means?
Violating American values is not a defense of America. It is a rape of America.
Demographics 0
Dentistry 3
Diva Dog had dental work today.
(We call her Diva Dog because she never asks for anything. She knows someone will come to do her bidding. For example, she will not bark to go outside. She will lay down in front of the door and wait. She knows someone will come to accede to her wishes without her having to ask.)
The vet says she has a bad case of cocker mouth (and she’s part Cocker). That means that it’s easy for her to develop dental problems. Unlike most dogs–and people–in Cockers, the gums do not recede from infection; they grow to cover it and hold the bacteria more tightly to the teeth.
She lost seven teeth today. And her annual physical last year was just fine.
I came home with a fist full of doggie dental products.
Ever since she came home from the vet, the World’s Largest Yorkie ™ has refused to leave her side.
The vet promises that she’ll be pretty much back to normal tomorrow.
So far, she’s only had to take one doggie Rushie.
She’s a good dog. I’m sorry she had to go through this.
Ration Coupons 0
I have mentioned before how one of the most bogus arguments against national health care is that it will lead to “rationing benefits.”
My friends, it’s already rationed, not by guvmint bureaucrats, but by faceless clerks in insurance company office buildings.
She’s “exhausted her lifetime benefits.” She’s 18.
Via Susie.
Why you do not know what you do not know 5
I have often wondered why there is not more public outrage about are high cost of health care, and why people are not demanding change.
If prices were skyrocketing like this any where else you would be hearing about on the evening news every night.
Then it hit me, the largest sponsor of these shows are health care and drug companies. They are not there to sell product as much as to exert editorial control over the news.
Everyone knows it is not wise to bite the hand that feeds you, so it stands to reason stories that you should be seeing, like 150% longer ER waits for heart attacks and 300% ER longer waits for everything else go unreported.
You call it financial censorship or lies by omission, but it is causing a lot of pain and suffering.
Cherry Pickin’ 3
An interesting exchange between Congressman Wexler (D-Fl) and Condoleeza Rice.
I certainly give Ms. Rice points for coolness under pressure.
Looking at her story, though, I find some interesting twists:
She says that “Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. We went to war with him in 1991. . . .”
The United States did not go to war against Iraq in 1990 and 1991 because Iraq was a threat to the United States. It went to war against Iraq, under the sanction of the United Nations, because Iraq had invaded Kuwait.
She sort of leaves that out, giving the impression that Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to the United States a decade and a half ago.
He wasn’t. Indeed, Iraq was for a long time supported by the U. S. as a counterweight to Iran. Indeed, it was St. Ronald Reagan who took Iraq off the list of terrorist states.
In talking about the Iraqis shooting at U. S. planes, she also leaves out that the U. S. planes were flying over Iraq is to enforce sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
Now, I’m certainly not arguing that the planes deserved to be shot at; they were on a lawful mission under international law at the time. Once again, though, in her telling of the story, Ms. Rice implies that the Iraqis just got up one morning and said, “Oh, gee, let’s go shoot at some planes,” implying that it was pure aggression, rather than what might better be characterized as stubborn (and lunatic) resistance.
Furthermore, as we look back to the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq, recall that, the closer that arms inspectors came to proving that there were no weapons of mass destruction and no capability of creating them in Iraq, the more the Current Federal Administrator moved the deadline. Moved it up, that is, not back.
It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to wonder whether the wonderful advancing deadlines had something to do with the weakness of the Bushies’ cherry-picked “evidence” against Saddam Hussein.
It is entirely fitting that cherry-picked “intelligence” be followed by cherry-picked testimony.
Drinking Liberally 0
Fell victim to the layer of ice on I-95. Personally, I think this weather should have stayed in Illinois, where it could feel at home.
But there’s good news tonight.