August 2009 Archives

Here's a great excerpt from Daniel Gross' column on Slate this morning:

"As we've noted before, if you add the failure of employer-linked health care with Medicare, Medicaid, government employment, and the military, a huge chunk of Americans already have taxpayer-funded health care. It's a diverse lot. Rich old people and poor kids, university professors, congressmen, teachers, DMV clerks and their families. Pretty much everybody you see on CNBC yelling about socialism? Their parents and grandparents (if they're still living) get taxpayer-funded health insurance. Mine do. Charles Grassley, the septuagenarian Iowan who is doing his darnedest to torpedo meaningful health care form, has it. Arthur Laffer, the 69-year-old economist who went on television and suggested that Medicare isn't a government health care program, is eligible for Medicare. Dick Armey, who spent many years teaching at a state university and served several terms in Congress, has had taxpayer-funded health insurance for much of his adult life. Same for Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. Democratic senators like Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, and Ben Nelson? Yes, yes, and yes. Law professors at the University of Tennessee have it. The employees of George Mason University, which houses the free-market Mercatus Center, do, too. Policy analyst Betsy McCaughey, currently reprising her 1990s role of health care bamboozler, will be eligible for it in a few years' time.

"Obvious? Yes. But it's still worth pointing out. All these people rely on--or have relied on--the government to pick up the tab for their health care and for their health insurance. And that hasn't caused euthanasia or the abolition of private property. Funny how you don't hear any complaints from worthies about taxpayer-funded health insurance when it's covering them, their staffs, and their loved ones. For many of these people, especially the older ones, there literally is no affordable alternative. Insurance companies prefer to insure healthy people, not sick people--that's how they make money. And older people are more likely to run into health trouble requiring expensive care. Dick Armey, who is suing to get out from under the tyranny of Medicare, is apparently under the illusion that insurance companies are really eager to cover 69-year-old men at a low cost. House Minority Leader John Boehner is a 59-year-old smoker whose skin has an orange hue. What do you think Aetna would charge him per month for a good policy?"

So many of the people who decry government health case as "socialism," or worse, have government health care.

This is what's called hypocrisy. You can look it up.

Read Gross' column here.

Yesterday, on ESPN's Scott Van Pelt show, the host was interviewing a member of the Chicago White Sox, asking him how he handles being in a pennant race. Van Pelt wanted to know whether they approach each series thinking they have to win the series or whether they take it a game, an inning, an at-bat at a time.

The player said they take it a game at a time. He said he was already being asked about playing the Red Sox next week and he responded, "We have the Orioles this weekend and they're a good team."

Van Pelt interrupted, "No they're not."

When I heard that our former Gov. Tom Ridge had written, in his memoir of working in the Bush administration, that he was pressured to raise the terror threat level immediately before the 2004 election, I though, well, duh.

We knew that.

Still, loads of people are shocked, just shocked by the revelations in Ridge's new book. Are these people idiots? I mean, anyone who was paying attention knew that the administration was playing political games with our safety.

To his credit, Ridge resisted the efforts of others in the administration to do their bidding. He quit not long after that.

Just one thing, though, you know, it would have been helpful to know this stuff five years ago, Tom.

I know, you're sick of hearing about this guy, the Hamlet of professional football.

In case you've been living in a cave, Favre came out of retirement once again, this time to join the Minnesota Vikings, arch-rival of the team he is most identified with, the Green Bay Packers. Of course, you knew that and were sick of hearing about it.

Not me.

They can talk about Favre all day long on ESPN as far as I'm concerned. The radio dingbats on ESPN radio can bloviate long and hard on the meaning of Favre. Sports Center can spend its entire hour dissecting the latest twist in the story.

I say that as an Eagles fan.

I mean, nobody's talking about Michael Vick anymore.

The headline from today's Onion:

Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care

From the story:

"'Both parties understand that the current system is broken,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. 'But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It's a very complicated issue.

"'Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve,' Pelosi added.

"The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

"'We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable,' Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. 'If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population.'

"'That's what America is all about,' he added.

"House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said on Meet The Press that Republicans would never agree to a plan that doesn't allow citizens the choice to be denied medical care in the private sector.

"'Americans don't need some government official telling them they don't have the proper coverage to receive treatment,' Boehner said. 'What they need is massive insurance companies to become even more rich and powerful by withholding from average citizens the care they so desperately require. We're talking about people's health and the obscene profits associated with that, after all.'

Sometimes the best humor is the truth and vice versa.

Read the whole thing here.

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, former Manson family member, has been released from federal prison after serving 34 years for attempting to assassinate Gerald Ford.

The Eagles immediately signed her to play middle linebacker.

That was the front-page headline in today's Philly Daily News.

Of course, the news is the Eagles signed convicted dog killer Michael Vick.

You could say the guy deserves a second chance. After all, the NFL has forgiven worst behavior. Ray Lewis was charged in a murder case -- later cleared of the charges -- and he is one the league's stars. Former Eagle Donte Stallworth killed someone in a drunken driving accident and served less than a month in jail. He has been suspended for the entire season now.

Vick killed dogs, though. We like dogs more than people.

All I know is when my wife heard the news, I was told I can no longer be an Eagles fan.

The point has to be made that the Eagles really don't need Vick. The team was poised to have a great year, perhaps a championship year. And now, it brings this into the mix.

There is such a thing as karma. The Eagles are messing with it, big time.

Today's Paul Krugman column in the Times nails it:

It begins:

"'"I am in this race because I don't want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don't want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.' So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past.

"Some of us were skeptical. A couple of months after Mr. Obama gave that speech, I warned that his vision of a 'different kind of politics' was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face 'an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can't bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.'

"So, how's it going?"

Not so well.

Later, Krugman observes:

"Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing."

Read the whole thing here.

Les Paul has passed away.

The man was a genius. He was a phenomenal musician. An inventor to rival Edison. Just a genius. A true American legend.

One of the most popular electric guitars in the world bears his name, the Les Paul.

My very first good guitar was a Les Paul copy made by a Japanese company. I wish I had been able to afford a real Lester. To this day, I still wish that.

In an interview with the New York Times, taped in 2008, he talked about still playing his weekly gig at the Iridium jazz club in New York at age 93.

"I just love to play," he said.

And all of us who love music loved listening to him.

He was 94. He kept his gig up to the end.

A truly great man.

Here is Les playing "Birth of Blues" with another great guitarist, his friend, Chet Atkins.

The Post's Steven Perlstein, who has written lucidly about the financial crisis, takes on health care today.

He writes:

"The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

"There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation."

Good stuff.

Read the whole thing here.

And, as always, the New York Times' Paul Krugman brings it, this time explaining the mobs that have been showing up at health care town hall meetings.

"For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?

"There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they 'oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.' Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.

"Now, people who don't know that Medicare is a government program probably aren't reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is.

"That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the 'birther' movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don't know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's a substantial fraction.

"And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers."

Nails it. Read the whole thing here.

I found this Kenyan birth certificate generator on the Internets. We can all be from Kenya.

Who knew that Norman, my retired racing greyhound and the smartest dog in the world, was Kenyan?