A lone protester picketed Alice Cooper's Thursday show at the York Fair, holding a sign that said Cooper is a satanist.
Seriously?
Please, the guy plays golf.
OK, maybe there is something to it.
September 2009 Archives
Then read this.
It begins:
"The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company "reprehensible."
"That appears to be the most an insurance company has ever been ordered to pay in a case involving the practice known as rescission, in which insurance companies retroactively cancel coverage for policyholders based on alleged misstatements - sometimes right after diagnoses of life-threatening diseases."
This kind of thing happens all the time.
And yes, it is reprehensible.
A true American hero was honored yesterday when President Obama awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Army Sgt. 1st Class Jared C. Monti.
Monti was killed in action in Afghanistan, saving the lives of other members of his unit when it was ambushed. His actions, racing into the face of heavy enemy fire to save the life of a fellow soldier, are awe inspiring.
Read about them here.
An excerpt:
"With the enemy so close that the 16 soldiers could hear their voices, Monti grabbed a gun and drove the insurgents back once, then threw a grenade when they moved in a second time. An American was down, wounded and in the open. Monti said he would go and get him.
"'Jared Monti saw the danger before him. And he went out to meet it,' Obama said. 'He handed off his radio. He tightened his chin strap. And with his men providing cover, Jared rose and started to run. Into all those incoming bullets. Into all those rockets.'
"Monti's final words were clear and purposeful: 'I've made peace with God. Tell my family that I love them.'"
Monit's parents accepted the award.
Monti was was from Rayham, Mass. He would have turned 34 this week.
Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, unveiled his health care reform legislation yesterday.
Apparently it was written by insurance company lobbyists. It contains loads of gifts for the insurance lobby and pretty much guarantees that health care will be more expensive for the middle class.
So far, Republicans hate the bill. Democrats hate it.
So who likes it?
Let's see.
The New York Times reported: "Shares of U.S. health insurers rose broadly on Tuesday on hopes a health reform bill would not include a government-run option, which has drawn strong opposition from insurers who fear it would destroy the private marketplace.
"The S&P Managed Health Care index of large U.S. health insurers closed 6.5 percent higher.
"Aetna rose 12.6 percent, Coventry was up 12.7 percent and Cigna was 7.7 percent higher, all on the New York Stock Exchange. Centene rose 7.9 percent."
That should tell you all you need to know about Baucus' bill.
An activist judge is, by definition, one whose opinions you disagree with.
That said, federal Judge Clay Land of the Middle District of Georgia is about to be tarred as an activist judge by the wingnuts who are known as "birthers," people who believe that President Obama was born in Kenya, or on Saturn, or whatever.
The case, filed by Orly Taitz, who, when she's not being a narcisistic psychotic on TV, is actually a lawyer, was about an Army doctor who was refusing to be deployed to Iraq because she claims Obama is not the president.
The lawsuit defied any logic. The doctor had no problem serving her commander-in-chief while stationed stateside. It was only when she was going to be sent to Iraq that she objected.
Besides, the lawsuit made tons of allegations that had no basis in any known reality.
The judge tossed it.
He wrote, "Plaintiff's complaint is not plausible on its face. To the extent that it alleges any 'facts,' the Complaint does not connect those facts to any actual violation of the Plaintiff's individual constitutional rights. Unlike in 'Alice in Wonderland,' simply saying something is so does not make it so."
Wow.
This judge must be some kind of liberal activist.
He was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush.
From the Washington Post's review of Moore's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story":
"In building his indictment against the ill-fated marriage of Wall Street and Washington, Moore zeroes in less on GOP string-pullers than he does on White House economic adviser Larry Summers, Clinton-era Treasury secretary Robert Rubin and Sen. Chris Dodd. Especially Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Moore gets an on-camera interview with the mortgage officer who handled the special VIP loans provided to Dodd and other big names, an issue that has dogged Dodd's reelection bid.
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"The film also maintains a delicate ambivalence about President Obama, casting him as a change agent and depicting joyous images of his victory last November, but also implying that Wall Street had showered money on Obama's campaign in an effort to buy him. The question of whether Wall Street succeeded in doing so is left more or less unanswered."
Moore said, "One of the important things to recognize in my films is that I always went after whoever needed to be gone after."
Good for him. There are lots of people who need to be gone after.
Here is the president of the United States calling Kanye West "a jackass."
OK, so what's the problem?
We're paying more for less, when it comes to health insurance.
That's the conclusion of three studies cited in a report on the Wall Street Journal's Web site.
An excerpt:
"Americans with job-based insurance can expect to pay more for less next year. Hit by the recession and rising health-care costs, employers are cutting a larger chunk than usual out of their health-care budgets, new national surveys show.
"In 2010, nearly two-thirds of employers plan to shift more of the cost of care to workers and their families through higher premiums contributions, deductibles and copayments. One out of five companies plans to cut out higher-cost health plan options in favor of less generous coverage, according to the preliminary findings from a survey by the consulting firm Mercer LLC."
Read the whole thing here.
Slate.com has more analysis here.
A passage from the story:
"But because of the peculiar way the health industry has evolved in the United States, it's nearly impossible for most people to know how much they're paying even for something as simple as a health insurance premium."
What's that argument against health care reform again?
Patrick Swayze was a star. He was great in some things -- the cult hit "Donnie Darko," for instance. You could almost see him in that movie, playing against his stereotype. His performance stands out. "The Outsiders," made by Francis Ford Coppola, was also a piece of art.
And he seemed like a nice enough guy.
Yet, some of his movies are classics, while remaining among the dumbest movies ever made.
"Roadhouse," "Red Dawn" and "Point Break" stand out. The notion that there are Ive League educated bar bouncers, high school kids who are able to defeat the Soviet Army and Zen surfer/bank robbers. You have to say, though, he made the characters come alive and those movie remain modern classics, still in the rotation on cable.
And in "Point Break," the contrast between him and Keanu Reeves, well, I'll just say that Reeves made Swayze look like Laurence Olivier.
So, rest well, Patrick. You will be remembered.
Today, a new Dan Brown novel is being unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.
It's called something. It's more than 500 pages long. And if past history is any indication, it's horribly written. Stilted dialogue. Predictable plot twists. Severe foreshadowing abuse.
This one has something to do with the Masons. Yes, those guys in the funny hats who have pancake breakfasts apparently run the world and have guided history since mankind climbed from the primordial ooze.
I don't get it. I read "The Da Vinci Code" and hated it. Hated it with a passion seldom reserved for books of this ilk. It just irritated me. Theology aside, I thought it was just horribly written.
And sold something like a gazillion copies.
So what do I know?
Anyway, Slate magazine has posted a Dan Brown plot generator. Enter a city and an organization and the computer does the rest. Check it out here.
I was able to come up with "The Sacred Enigma," summarized thusly:
"A long-forgotten labyrinth deep beneath the streets of Philadelphia.
"A nefarious cult determined to protect it.
"A white-knuckled race to uncover the United States Postal Service's darkest secret."
While Penn State was sleep-walking through a victory over Syracuse, the Nittany Lions' Big Ten rival Ohio State played USC.
The OSU-USC game was a great. As a Penn State fan, I was kind of pulling for Ohio State so they would retain a high ranking and make it more meaningful when Penn State plays the Buckeyes later this season.
Still, the game had good news for Penn State fans.
Had USC's freshman quarterback Matt Barkley been able to throw the ball with any accuracy and had his receivers been able to catch the ball, USC would have crushed Ohio State, instead of squeaking out an 18-15 victory.
Watching Ohio State's pass defense, you can imagine Penn State quarterback Daryll Clark tearing them apart.
This bodes well for the Lions.
Gregg Easterbrook, a Brookings Institute scholar who moonlights at ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback, often cites the maxim that the football gods smile upon the bold.
Go for the win and the football gods will reward you.
Easterbrook's focus is pro football, but on Saturday, we saw the football gods at work.
It was a little hyped game -- Central Michigan vs. Michigan State. CMU was supposed to serve as an appetizer for the more powerful Spartans. CMU, a two touchdown underdog, had other plans.
The Chippewas were down 27-20 with 32 seconds to go when CMU quarterback Dan LeFevour threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Paris Cotton to cut the Spartans lead to 27-26.
CMU coach Butch Jones could have opted to kick the extra point and send the game to overtime. Instead, he went for two and and the win. The effort failed.
It was a bold move. Going for the win. The football gods smiled upon him and CMU.
CMU recovered an on-sides kick and moved the ball to field goal range. CMU kciker Andrew Aguila set up for 47-yard kick. He missed.
But Michigan State was called for being off-sides and after the five-yard penalty, Aguila got a second chance, from 42 yards.
He nailed it, the ball sailing through the uprights as the clock showed 3 seconds left.
CMU won 29-27.
The football gods smiled.
I saw this story on WGAL last night and was wondering, So what?
It was about a general store in Lancaster County, Good's Store, that was catching heat because it did not sell American flags. The store is owned by members of the Anabaptist faith, which preaches non-violence and loving your enemies.
So, as part of that belief, the faith doesn't believe in nationalism. That's their right.
But some people were upset that the store doesn't sell flags.
WGAL reported that "a number of viewers have contacted News 8" about it. The story quoted one woman, Mary Elen Rice of Holtwood, saying the store's owners should sell flags no matter what they believe.
That's ridiculous.
And this is a ridiculous story.
Lots of stores do not sell American flags. So what?
Todd Platts does it again, getting his photo taken with the president before a big event. That's an Associated Press photo. Todd also appeared in the photo on the front page of Thursday's New York Times.
In a body where the competition for being the dumbest and craziest elected official in America, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson stands out.
The South Carolina Republican yelled out, "You lie!" during President Obama's speech to Congress Wednesday night. He was responding to Obama's statement that health care reform would not result in coverage being extended to illegal immigrants, a favorite lie being told by right-wingers to try to derail health care reform.
The truth of the matter is that no where in any of the proposals being floated on health care are illegal immigrants granted health care coverage. So the liar here is Wilson.
Had Goober taken the time to read the House bill that's floating around, he would have found, on page 143, this:
"Sec 246 -- NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS
"Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
He's a fool. And a liar. And probably nuts.
Sadly, though, he's not close to being the most idiotic member of Congress. He's got a lot of competition. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., for instance, is 10 pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag.
And it makes you wonder what's wrong with South Carolina. The state has a governor who disappears, says he's "hiking the Appalachian Trail," when he's really sneaking off to South America to cheat on his wife. The head of its public education commitee, a woman who home schools her kids and is identified as a family values Christian, was outed for writing hard-core porn on the Internet.
Must be all that humidity. Makes people stupid.
South Carolina has a lengthy tradition of this kind of craziness.
Consider Rep. Preston Brooks, a Democrat who served in the 1850s. On May 22, 1856, Brooks attacked and beat Sen. Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber with his cane. Sumner's apparent offense? Giving a speech critical of President Franklin Pierce and Southerners who supported violence as a means to engaging anti-slavery activists.
Brooks later apologized, kind of. He said he didn't intend to kill Sumner. Had he intended that, he said he would have used a different weapon.
UPDATE: I just watched Goober Wilson being interviewed on MSNBC and he's still saying the bill would extend health care benefits to illegal immigrants -- a lie. He lies. Or course, he could have an excuse. He could just be a moron.
This arrived via e-mail:
"The same day a message to students from the President of the United States was kept out of school Michael Vick was allowed in school to talk to students. Hmmmmmmmmm."
It's true Michael Vick, convicted dog killer, spoke to students in Philadelphia earlier this week. Talk about sending a weird message to kids.
Carl Hiaasen is a great columnist, and novelist. Here, he tackles heath care.
He writes:
" Anyone who's been in a hospital knows the cost of care is so insanely high that, without some form of coverage, many people would find themselves pauperized by a health crisis.
"A close member of my family recently had an accident in which she suffered multiple bone fractures and a partially collapsed lung -- painful, but not life-threatening.
"She was taken to the nearest hospital, where she was monitored for a few hours in the intensive-care unit before being sent to a private room. The next day, she was transferred to a hospital closer to home.
"In all, she spent barely 24 hours as a patient in the first hospital. Yet the cost for that overnight stay -- not including doctor fees -- was $11,392.56."
Read the rest of it here.
If you haven't see this yet, it is amazing.
U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., draws, free-hand, a map of the United States.
In three minutes.
Here is an excerpt from President Obama's back-to-school speech to kids.
"But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world - and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
"And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself."
And then, there's this:
"And no matter what you want to do with your life - I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it."
I can't wait for the Republican rebuttal. Maybe they can a certain former president to tell kids that you can coast through life, be a mediocre, at best, student, ride on you parents' coattails and still be president.
Read the entire speech here.
This is a shot taken at the Wal Mart in Shelbyville, Ky., courtesy of the Web site People of Wal Mart. The site is just photos of people at Wal Mart.
Check the place out here
It's not for the squeamish.
And remember, Please don't touch the baby!
Tom's on vacation this week -- a bookcation, where he reads books, what a loser -- so Jeff and i had to muddle through.
This week, we discuss the city giving itself parking tickets, a gas leak at a school with a particularly sophomoric punchline (we like sophomoric) and a guy who robbed a bank to get away from his wife.
Some guys...
The federal government has enlisted a powerful ally in battling the swine flu.
Yes, Elmo.
What? Was Big Bird asking for too much money? Was Miss Piggy unavailable? Does Kermit not care whether we're all going to get the flu?
You'd be surprised who they are.
According to Newsweek's excellent business columnist Dan Gross, it's the Republicans.
He writes:
"The conventional wisdom on the right holds that President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are setting themselves up for a big fall through their overreaching. But I'd argue that it's the Republican Party, which was always on the side of greater growth, higher stock prices, and more wealth, that has painted itself into a corner. Many Republicans opposed the initial bailouts because they were conducted by an unpopular Republican president in conjunction with a Democratic Congress. (In Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conspicuously praises congressional Democrats and conspicuously says little about congressional Republicans.) Then they doubled down with virtually uniform opposition to the Obama stimulus bill, which had been watered down to attract Republican votes. In order for Republicans to be vindicated politically, the bailouts and the stimulus--and the economy at large--must fail. Thus considered, every positive data point, every sign of stabilization in the housing market, every rise in the S&P 500, every TARP repayment, is something of a rebuke. As the clouds part, the historic party of economic sunshine is in the strange position of praying for rain."
Those who put political expedience and their political fortunes before the good of the country are among the lowest forms of life. And they are what's wrong with our political culture. Instead of trying to seek solutions, they merely hope the other sides fails so they can grasp power.
I hope they fail.
Read Gross' column here.
Fun with photo editing software!
Go here and you can insert the squirrel into any of your own photos.
Here's the squirrel on the moon. It's a giant moon squirrel.
And rightly so.
Gregg Easterbrook, the Brookings Institute Scholar who doubles as the Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com, awards Penn State his Gimmick Schedule of the Year.
Here is what he wrote:
"It's tempting to confer the 2009 Gimmick Sked of the Year distinction on Oklahoma State. The Cowboys not only play eight games at home and four away -- they open with five of six at home! But the 2009 Tuesday Morning Quarterback Gimmick Sked of the Year winner is Penn State. Not only do the Nittany Lions play twice as many games at home as away; not only do they fearlessly face, at home, Akron, Syracuse (which enters this season on a 7-29 streak), Temple (which enters this season on a 10-25 streak) and Eastern Illinois; Penn State starts the season with four consecutive home games, the first three against Akron, Syracuse and Temple. Penn State may have the single phoniest schedule any football power has ever cooked up. This causes TMQ no small amount of consternation, as I have long rooted for Joe Paterno to best Bobby Bowden for most career coaching wins, and admired that Penn State football consistently posts better graduation rates than most big-time football schools, including Florida State. When the Seminoles became embroiled this spring in yet another cheating scandal, this seemed to cement TMQ's preference for Paterno over Bowden. But now I check the card and see the Nittany Lions playing a gimmicked cupcake sked, while Florida State has six games at home, six away, and only one dubious opponent: Jacksonville State. On the field this year, Florida State is for real while Penn State is pulling a cheap stunt. Penn State athletic department, how did you think your rigged sked -- perhaps planned to put Paterno over the top in his final campaign -- would go unnoticed?"
Hard to argue with that.
Of course, Penn State would argue that it needs a scheduled larded with home games to pay for its sports programs and that you can only attract lousy teams to your stadium without promising a reciprocal date.
But still, Eastern Illinois? That's embarrassing,
Some great reporting by former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid about the five myths about health care around the world.
He writes about "the most persistent myth of all: that America has 'the finest health care' in the world.
"We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero."
Read it here.
A story in the Washington Post begins:
"For one answer to the nation's most pressing economic question -- when will the recession end? -- just take a peek inside the American man's underwear drawer."
Uh.
No thanks.
