There are two obvious flaws in the current health-care system in the United States.
First, through no fault of the individual companies, there is NO incentive for preventive care. Especially with ever-fewer 'cradle-to-grave' jobs out there, almost no one stays with the same provider for their whole life. So why would a company go to the expense of helping their customers stay healthy, insuring that the next insurance company collects premiums from healthy, and therefore profitable, customers, without making any preventive care investments of its own?
The second is definitely their fault: less payout means more profit. Not just by canceling policies or refusing coverage, but by making the process of receiving coverage so cumbersome to everyone involved. Imagine being as certain you were covered as you are that the premium will be automatically deducted from your paycheck, and that the paperwork were as easy.
At a minimum, these inherent flaws mean the current system cannot last, and as a functional portion of America's economy, has run its course.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Republicans, Iran, and North Korea
Republicans are whining that Obama, already "with too much on his table", should start interfering with the Iranian elections.
And do what, exactly? "Bomb, bomb, bomb! Bomb, bomb Iran!", to quote John McCain? And that's from the guy they wanted to lead the country and the free world. Schmucks.
Iranians are in a place that North Koreans only dream of, where elections are actually held, and more than one candidate is on the ballot. Of course, Iranians were in a similar position only 30 years ago. And thirty years from now, North Korea may have learned from the ayatollahs' mistakes.
In the meantime, how will America respond if, as FOX News works to gin up the fear, N. Korea actually succeeded in exporting or, worst, detonating a nuclear bomb somewhere in the world? Some few hundred of the millions in North Korea would have been in any way responsible.
But we can be sure that the Republicans, and the 28% of Americans who still take them seriously, will be screaming for us to "Bomb, bomb, bomb! Bomb, bomb North Korea!" And kill thousands that hate their leader as much as those FOX viewers do, or perhaps don't even know anything about anything happening anywhere else in the world, and think their horror-show of day-to-day life is the norm around the world.
Open hand first, iron fist last.
And do what, exactly? "Bomb, bomb, bomb! Bomb, bomb Iran!", to quote John McCain? And that's from the guy they wanted to lead the country and the free world. Schmucks.
Iranians are in a place that North Koreans only dream of, where elections are actually held, and more than one candidate is on the ballot. Of course, Iranians were in a similar position only 30 years ago. And thirty years from now, North Korea may have learned from the ayatollahs' mistakes.
In the meantime, how will America respond if, as FOX News works to gin up the fear, N. Korea actually succeeded in exporting or, worst, detonating a nuclear bomb somewhere in the world? Some few hundred of the millions in North Korea would have been in any way responsible.
But we can be sure that the Republicans, and the 28% of Americans who still take them seriously, will be screaming for us to "Bomb, bomb, bomb! Bomb, bomb North Korea!" And kill thousands that hate their leader as much as those FOX viewers do, or perhaps don't even know anything about anything happening anywhere else in the world, and think their horror-show of day-to-day life is the norm around the world.
Open hand first, iron fist last.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Lesson 1: How NOT To Steal An Election
Amateurs!
If the Supreme Leader had waited two days after the election, and then announced that the returns gave Ahmadinijad 52%, Mousavi 43% and the rest of the contenders 5%, the losers would have grumbled and complained, but that would have been it. A plausible finish after a plausible period for the count.
The Grand Council and the Supreme leader could still have just pulled the results out of their rectitudes, but they'd have been accepted.
Instead, they got over-eager, and announced a ridiculously wide margin of victory before even Allah could have counted all the ballots.
Any good American politician could have warned them off. And there are plenty of unemployed but successful campaign consultants who'd have been happy to help in the theft of a national election, to the detriment of the nation and the world.
Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell come to mind...
If the Supreme Leader had waited two days after the election, and then announced that the returns gave Ahmadinijad 52%, Mousavi 43% and the rest of the contenders 5%, the losers would have grumbled and complained, but that would have been it. A plausible finish after a plausible period for the count.
The Grand Council and the Supreme leader could still have just pulled the results out of their rectitudes, but they'd have been accepted.
Instead, they got over-eager, and announced a ridiculously wide margin of victory before even Allah could have counted all the ballots.
Any good American politician could have warned them off. And there are plenty of unemployed but successful campaign consultants who'd have been happy to help in the theft of a national election, to the detriment of the nation and the world.
Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell come to mind...
The Return of the Peacock Throne
The reign of the CIA-installed Shah Reza Palahvi was one of violence-enforced adherence to the Shah's edicts, enforced by the Savak.
The Shah was overthrown by the youth of Iran rioting in the streets, overwhelming even the Iranian Army. Those students created a new, religious democracy, in their idealistic dream that religion would moderate the tendency towards dictatorship.
The Supreme Leader's actions f the past week have put the lie to those dreams, and while almost all the students in the streets this time are still Muslims, they have been taught, by the example of the dictatorship those earlier students now endorse, that this form of government doesn't work either.
Other than claiming his source of power from Allah instead of the CIA, there's little difference in the actions of the Supreme Leader, in his attempt to hold power.
The Shah's Peacock Throne, upon which the Supreme Leader now sits, may be replaced by the Green Revolt, or the Lipstick Revolution, but it will be replaced. More violence against the students will simply give more fodder to their cause, and less will be acquiescence to the revolution.
Either way, the legitimacy of the 30-year reign of rigid religious conservatism has run its course, and its lie is now seen not just outside the nation but within it as well.
Gosh. Sound like any other nation we know?
The Shah was overthrown by the youth of Iran rioting in the streets, overwhelming even the Iranian Army. Those students created a new, religious democracy, in their idealistic dream that religion would moderate the tendency towards dictatorship.
The Supreme Leader's actions f the past week have put the lie to those dreams, and while almost all the students in the streets this time are still Muslims, they have been taught, by the example of the dictatorship those earlier students now endorse, that this form of government doesn't work either.
Other than claiming his source of power from Allah instead of the CIA, there's little difference in the actions of the Supreme Leader, in his attempt to hold power.
The Shah's Peacock Throne, upon which the Supreme Leader now sits, may be replaced by the Green Revolt, or the Lipstick Revolution, but it will be replaced. More violence against the students will simply give more fodder to their cause, and less will be acquiescence to the revolution.
Either way, the legitimacy of the 30-year reign of rigid religious conservatism has run its course, and its lie is now seen not just outside the nation but within it as well.
Gosh. Sound like any other nation we know?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Health Insurance: The Easy Metric of Success
There's a very simple metric for the success of the Democratic Party's follow-through on the mandate of Health Care Reform from the 2006/20008 landslides.
By the 2010 mid-term elections, is there anyone in America who is uninsured?
Because if there is, America lost, and the ReagaNaziCorporation (RNC) won, and we should vote the Dems out just to remind them of their responsibility to represent us.
By the 2010 mid-term elections, is there anyone in America who is uninsured?
Because if there is, America lost, and the ReagaNaziCorporation (RNC) won, and we should vote the Dems out just to remind them of their responsibility to represent us.
Iran's Supreme Leader: "Suck Eggs!"
No, he didn't say it in those words, but how else should his two hour's of "Nothing to see here. Move along" be taken?
On the one hand, he told all the marchers that marching in the streets is no way to solve anything, hoping the older Iranians won't remind the younger ones that that's how he and his pals overthrew the Shah and came to power.
Instead, his reminder was that the way to change things is by elections. Like the one they just had, where the results were announced before the ballots could be counted. By a margin that no one believes, on either side of the election.
Which leaves exactly what options for the citizens of Iran? Shut up, sit down, take what we dish out. And be glad we don't come in the night and take you away, Allah be praised.
How exactly is this different from the reign of the Shah?
On the one hand, he told all the marchers that marching in the streets is no way to solve anything, hoping the older Iranians won't remind the younger ones that that's how he and his pals overthrew the Shah and came to power.
Instead, his reminder was that the way to change things is by elections. Like the one they just had, where the results were announced before the ballots could be counted. By a margin that no one believes, on either side of the election.
Which leaves exactly what options for the citizens of Iran? Shut up, sit down, take what we dish out. And be glad we don't come in the night and take you away, Allah be praised.
How exactly is this different from the reign of the Shah?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
How George HW Bush Almost Died...
| Not in that silly tandem skydive last Friday to celebrate his umpty-umpth birthday. No, in the one on June 12, 2001. And not by accident. If Jeb hadn't stolen Florida for Dub-ya in 2001, removing Poppy would have become a preferable outcome to many of his associates to his continued breathing. See, '41', or 'HW', or 'Poppy', whatever you want to call him, knows where most of the bodies in DC are buried. From his days as the head of the CIA, to his ambassadorship to China at the beginning of our great sell-out to them, and then of course disappearing in mid-campaign in 1980, to chat it up with Iranians about arms-for-hostages (and for a Reagan Presidency) at the hotel the Ayatollah had stayed at until he and his students took American hostages for 444 days. Then, there's all the fixes he was involved in while he was 'out of the loop' on the culmination of the Iran-Contra deals he'd started back in Paris off the campign trail. No wonder he preemptively pardoned everyone in his Administration on the way out of town in January 1993. At that point, he still had clout in the GOP, and especially in the boardrooms of the companies that'd benefitted from his policies for so long. And with Coors and Bradley and Scaife money keeping Clinton pinned down defending Arkansas from Ted Olsen and the Elves, no one in the White House had a chance to look over the records from the Reagan-Bush years. After all, the real point of the Elves wasn't just to keep Clinton from moving forward, but also from looking back. But Poppy's power and influence began to fade after 8 years. But the toxicity of the secrets he knew couldn't fade. His conspirators were still in office, still in boardrooms, and of course, the chance that the truth about Reagan's election, as well as about Iran-Contra, ever sullying the Great Prevaricator's legend, could not be tolerated. So, in an act not just of holding power, but of self-preservation, Poppy maneuvered to get one of his boys (the two that don't have felony convictions) elected president, from either Texas (Dub-ya) or preferably Jeb in Florida. Think how horribly wrong the seating of Gore would have been for Poppy, with Florida the electoral tie-breaker. Dub-ya becomes a political non-entity for at least eight years, maybe forever after his petulance at his loss makes the national papers. And the fact Jeb couldn't deliver his own state to his brother, his family, his party, would have ended his political future in the GOP right there. The presidentcy of Al Gore, despised by all Republicans, and supported by a majority of the voters, would be laid squarely at the door of the Bush family. Leaving no more favors to hand out, either from a former president or his two governor-sons. And while his sons didn't know anything about Poppy's backroom dealings, Poppy would have needed to be taken out before he let anyone in on those goings-on, as some sort of life insurance. Which is why I would have bought a ticket to that tandem jump in June 2001 if Dub-ya hadn't been coronated. And which is why the Poppy fought so hard from the back room to get his boy coronated when he didn't win. It was a matter of life and death. |
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Well, so much for GalaxyQuest.
Friday was the end of analog video broadcasts in the United States. And while many nay-sayers are now taking great pleasure in pointing out the millions of Americans that no longer have any television service, who will speak for the aliens?
I will.
No, not the ever-present, lurking menace of illegal aliens, always the #1 problem on right-wing radio. No, I speak of the interstellar aliens, off-worlders who will, some day in about 26 years or so, suddenly find that all those re-runs of Lucy and Star Trek and The Simpsons suddenly have stopped.
Those transmissions traveled farther, faster, than any satellite carrying gold disks of sounds or naked pictures of our species. And they are now, or some years in the future, some light-years away, turned off, with less fanfare than any dying star.
Oh, well. At least they can still get broadcast radio: baseball, NPR and Rush Limbaugh.
And we wonder why they never communicate with us...
I will.
No, not the ever-present, lurking menace of illegal aliens, always the #1 problem on right-wing radio. No, I speak of the interstellar aliens, off-worlders who will, some day in about 26 years or so, suddenly find that all those re-runs of Lucy and Star Trek and The Simpsons suddenly have stopped.
Those transmissions traveled farther, faster, than any satellite carrying gold disks of sounds or naked pictures of our species. And they are now, or some years in the future, some light-years away, turned off, with less fanfare than any dying star.
Oh, well. At least they can still get broadcast radio: baseball, NPR and Rush Limbaugh.
And we wonder why they never communicate with us...
"Start Again!"
This blog has been dormant for quite a while, as I was busy >ha!< during the last election.
Since then, I've been trying to decide whether to return here, or just leave it, another of the millions of blogs abandoned every year, for lack of diligence, for lack of something to say, or overtaken by newer technology.
So, as is evident from this post, I'm back. Here's why. The voices in my head won't shut-up.
There's the vociferous hater of Republicans, often the loudest and longest-winded(!). There's the tech geek, agog at what science discovers and engineers invent.
The comedian calls back to the humor of the past to inform the events in the news.
And then there's the analyst, always rolling problems and situations over and over, trying to find a new and better solution, or pry apart a system to find its flaw.
Eugene Volokh wrote once that a successful blog should stay focused on one subject, and that its postings should be relatively short.
I've considered having a blog for each of these voices, to prevent readers from having to wade through them to find the subjects they want.
But for simplicity's sake, I'll simply label the voices, and the reader can fallow the ones of interest to them...
But first, I am called to dinner. And 'cause my wife is a great cook, I'm never late for dinner.
Since then, I've been trying to decide whether to return here, or just leave it, another of the millions of blogs abandoned every year, for lack of diligence, for lack of something to say, or overtaken by newer technology.
So, as is evident from this post, I'm back. Here's why. The voices in my head won't shut-up.
There's the vociferous hater of Republicans, often the loudest and longest-winded(!). There's the tech geek, agog at what science discovers and engineers invent.
The comedian calls back to the humor of the past to inform the events in the news.
And then there's the analyst, always rolling problems and situations over and over, trying to find a new and better solution, or pry apart a system to find its flaw.
Eugene Volokh wrote once that a successful blog should stay focused on one subject, and that its postings should be relatively short.
I've considered having a blog for each of these voices, to prevent readers from having to wade through them to find the subjects they want.
But for simplicity's sake, I'll simply label the voices, and the reader can fallow the ones of interest to them...
But first, I am called to dinner. And 'cause my wife is a great cook, I'm never late for dinner.
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