2009 archive
Dialysis Dialectic 0
A caller to the Diane Rehm show looks at the arguments against health care reform and nails their internal contradiction:
- Argument One: No government program can be good.
Argument Two: Private insurers can’t compete against the government.
And follows it to the logical conclusion:
- If no government program is good and
if the private insurers can’t compete against a government program,
then the private insurance system must therefore be really, really bad.
Why Do Viewers Watch This Stuff, Anyhoo? 2
I have enough reality of my own. I’m not interested in anyone else’s, especially when it’s unreal.
Rock Stare 1
I’m not the only one who thinks the new K-Mart “Rock Stare” commercial plumbs new depths of bad taste.
I felt icky watching it. And I have a very high ick threshold.
I can’t say it will keep me away from Kmart. Kmart has kept me away from Kmart for a long time already.
Video below the fold. I didn’t feel comfortable having it on the front page
Gun Nuttery 0
Brendan said it so I don’t have to. Follow the link:
They’ve already flipped. We’re just waiting for the out.
Connect the Dots 0
Senator Franken can draw a reasonable accurate map of the United States freehand, from memory.
Mudflats on the Frankenmap:
Aside: I had one of those map puzzles. Unlike the one I got for my kids, it was a straight jigsaw. It didn’t have any kind of frame.
Twits on Twitter 2
On the other side of the Big Pond:
Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, has been made the party’s new media campaigns spokeswoman ahead of an election next year that she says will be the first “new media election”. A recent study for a newspaper voted McCarthy the most “influential MP” on Twitter – with more than 1,600 followers.
.
Brendan Goes to a Town Hall 0
A nugget:
It is difficult to have a reasoned debate with someone who lacks the pre-requisite.
Seen on the Street 0
More oddities from the highways. Or, in this first case, the lowways; the highway is under the ship:
No There, There 0
Maybe I’ve been wrong in characterizing the Republican Party and its fellow travelers as hypocrites.
If one has no principles, one cannot be charged with betraying them, now, can one?
The Anonymous Liberal speaks (emphasis added):
Down by the Coffee Mill Stream 3
I left my coffee grinder at a friend’s house (long story).
Fortunately, I have this, which I picked up at a resale shop for a couple of bucks several years ago; it filled a hole on my knickknack shelf.
It’s not as fast as electric, but I can use any exercise I can get.
(The pliers are for the adjustment ring under the wingnut. At last, a wingnut that works with the people, not against them.)
She Moved to England for Her Health 0
Bee Lavender writes at the Guardian:
In the US I devoted a huge amount of time to chasing appointments, finding specialists, fighting with insurance companies. With the National Health Service I have never had any trouble getting referrals, nor have I ever had criticism of the services rendered. If anything, I have felt spoiled – especially at the start of the recent flu crisis, when men in hazmat suits showed up in the middle of the night to take my temperature. In fact, though I have private top-up insurance here in the UK, I’ve never had cause to invoke it.
Best healthcare in the world.
Except for almost everywhere else west of the Urals.
But easily the richest health insurance CEOs in the world. And they aim to keep it that way.
Now This Is How “Pay for Performance” Should Work 0
’nuff said:
(No, I’m not advocating instituting the Nigerian form of government in the United States, but a little accountability for incompetence would be nice.)
Lies and Lying Liars 1
They can’t tell the truth because they are not on the side of truth.
In their world, money trumps truth.
Paul Krugman:
Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.
In Which I Am Victimized by My Own Ritual 0
When I go to Virginia, I take U. S. 13 all the way down.
When I come back, I take U. S. 13 to U. S. 113 to U. S. 13.
Not a good idea today.
Take beach traffic heading north from the Delaware beaches.
Add an collision at the most inappropriately named town in Delaware.
Result: 45 minutes to go five miles.
I’m done in for the day.
Inside the Box 0
A. C. Graying at the Guardian. Read it. A nugget:
On the other side are those who espouse a belief system or ideology which pre-packages all the answers, who have faith in it, who trust the authorities, priests and prophets, and who either think that the hows and whys of the universe are explained to satisfaction by their faith, or smugly embrace ignorance. Note that although the historical majority of these latter are the epigones of one or another religion, they also include the followers of such ideologies as Marxism and Stalinism – which are also all-embracing monolithic ownerships of the Great Truth to which everyone must sign up on pain of punishment, and on whose behalf their zealots are prepared to kill and die.