January, 2010 archive
Stray Thought 0
There’s almost nothing worth watching on television anyway. Why watch it in 3-D?
We Need Single Payer 1
As long as health care is a profit center, as long as care for the sick is considered “losses,” executives’ country club memberships will be more important than patients’ well-being:
Despite angry complaints from policyholders, Blue Cross says the changes are necessary because of continuing losses in the Personal Choice plans. And the state Insurance Department says there is little it can do, even after it resisted a proposal last spring to raise rates for the plans by amounts ranging from 10 percent to 58 percent.
One reason: Blue Cross sidestepped the issue by withdrawing its proposed increases. Instead, it told state officials it planned to discontinue the trio of Personal Choice plans in question, which it has offered for the last two decades, and give current policyholders two new choices instead – choices many find unattractive.
Nice end run by BCBS. They took their football, went home, and came back with two new, pricier footballs.
“Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” 2
More agony from the New York Times:
A new dating order has emerged in the era of social media. Couples who used to see each other’s friends only at parties now enjoy 24-hour access to their beloved’s confidants thanks to Facebook. Sharing passwords to e-mail accounts, bank accounts and photo-sharing sites is the new currency of intimacy. And courtship — however brief or intense — is wantonly scrutinized by the whole world on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.
Words fail me.
If You Don’t Like the Smell of Pigs, Don’t Move Next to a Pig Farm 2
This does not involve a big commercial airport like JFK or PHL. It’s a little general aviation field. Heck, according to the website, the refueling gas pumps are self-service.
I have been unable to find a link telling me when the airport was founded, though it seems to have been there more than five years.
It is difficult to sympathize with the home owners.
Chesapeake hired a platoon of private lawyers to convince a judge that there had been no legal damage. The city lost, appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court, and lost again.
“The Party that Freed the Slaves” 0
In the Depression, there was a wisecrack (which I have mentioned before) that the Party that freed the slaves had become the party that frayed the sleeves.
In its most recent incarnation, the Republican Party has become not only the party that frays the sleeves, but also the party that flays the (alleged–proof is not required in their world) knaves.
Torture is a war crime because civilized persons decided that some things are just wrong. Period. Civilized persons don’t do them. And torture is one of them.
It is distressing that, 60 years after the Nuremberg trials and three centuries after the Inquisition and the witch trials, an American political party has demarcated espousing uncivilized behavior as a test of party loyalty.
For at least some Republicans, ethics are apparently no more.
Andrew Sullivan has several long posts cataloging how supporting war crimes has become Republican orthodoxy. Here is the first one, which is probably also the best.
He missed one reason.
Bubblelicious, Phase II 0
No commerce, no need for commercial real estate:
“There is a bubble bursting in much the same way as the residential market burst,” said Jon Haveman, principal at Beacon Economics, a consulting firm in San Rafael, California. “None of those towers will fill up anytime soon.”
Not to mention all the vacant store fronts in your area and mine where little businesses have lost out in Wall Street’s three-card monte.
Afterthought:
The difference between the banksters and Billy Mays was that Billy Mays was honest about being a pitchman; he didn’t call his pitches “financial innovation.”
And, ya know, if you bought something from Billy Mays, it might not have lived up to the hype, but it sure as heck didn’t just disappear–you at least had something left over for the yard sale.
R. I. P. Joe Breslin 1
One of the finest persons I have been privileged to know and to work with.
It’s Not a Car 1
It’s a motorcycle with a roof and rollover capability. My old neighbor had a Harley that was more luxurious, except for the rollover thing.
All seriousness aside, this will have little utility except for those who must have a commuting vehicle and who do not have access to reasonable public transportation.
In the United States (where it is not yet slated to be sold), that’s actually a heck of a lot of persons. After having lived in the Greater Philadelphia Co-Prosperity Sphere (where people love to bitch about SEPTA and couldn’t survive without it), I can say that public transportation in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area, is, by comparison, a rare and mystical thing.
Even so, I would hesitate to take this thing on a road filled with drivers of Ford Fortresses, Chevrolet Crushers, Dodge Destroyers, and Toyota Titanics, who have chips on their shoulders from checking their gas bills.
H/T Susan for the link.
Shorter Brit Hume 0
Become like Senator John Ensign.
Or Senator Larry Craig.
Or Governor Mark Sanford.
Or–oh, never mind.
Parallels 0
It always seems to surprise the wingnut brigade to discover that hate-full words have consequences.
Congratulations, Booman 0
More here.
Light Bloggery (Updated) 0
My weekend has fluwn away.
Addendum:
72 hours of feeling like a truck ran over me.
String ’em Up, Boys 0
Take that, homeowners associations.
A Maryland state delegate says going green includes letting your clothes fly in the breeze.
Frederick County Democrat Galen Clagett says he will reintroduce a bill in the 2010 General Assembly to prohibit homeowners associations from banning the use of clotheslines.
Or not. The bill died in committee last year.
All joking aside, not allowing persons to hang out laundry in their backyards is a profoundly stupid thing.
How To Improve Sports Commentators 0
Turn on the dishwasher and drown them out.