Friday, July 31. 2009
 Alcohol is good, unless you are alcoholic. Guns are good, unless you are a murderer. Medicine is good, unless you OD on it. Vehicles are great, if you pay attention. Big Macs are good, unless you eat so many that it makes you tired, slow, and repulsive-looking.
Everything is like that.
From Samizdata on alcoholphobia:
There is only one kind of professional 'alcohol educator' worth listening to, and they are called sommeliers.
From Insty, Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95%. The problem there is that there are too many people with no skin in the game, and it turns most of the population into members of a cargo cult, awaiting the arrival of their magic goodies.
I am a flat-taxer: 13% on all income, for all. No deductions, no tax forms, no increases except temporarily in wartime.
Re Sen. Corker:
Corker says President Obama recently met with him, something he appreciates. But Corker doesn't think Obama "has his feet on the ground with regard to what appropriate health reform is." He adds, "And he personalizes everything, it's all, 'I, I, I.'" Corker suspects that for Obama "doing this with some massive bill is about politics...To him, it's about a political victory, not about doing what's in the long-term interest of citizens."
Photo is a Smart Car
Betsy McCaughey's website, Defend Your Healthcare. She has read all of the bills.
Related, Krauthammer says it's a tactical retreat, not a defeat
How computer high-frequency trading makes it all more fair for all of us. Back in my youth, I remember how Wall Street worried that the introduction of the telephone would ruin trading - meaning the profits of traders.
It costs a lot to survive your heart attack. Do we care?
Henry Allingham died.
Waxman and Pelosi: Imperfect Together. WSJ
How the elderly are leading the fight against Obamacare
Golf tournament fails to cure Crohn's Disease, once again. It begins:
Area man Josh Mulders reports that the four-man charity scramble he attended on Thursday of this week at The StoneLedge Links of the Pine Point Country Club at Tall Oaks Gated Preserve Community failed to eradicate Crohn's Disease for the second straight year. Mr. Mulders reports that in addition to failing to find a cure for "some sort of disease or something," the tournament failed to meet many other expectations of the participants. "This place sucks, and the open bar only has well drinks," he said.
A federal subsidy for "community organizers." Good grief. How about subsidizing some young producers instead of the professional parasites?
Town Hall meetings are the new venue to emote
Newspeak in Venezuela. Speech is dangerous for dictators. Related: Laws against blasphemy return to Ireland
More on the Repub insurance reform plan. For one thing, it doesn't damage medicare.
Thanks to Vanderleun.
Here's one of them:
Barney Frank says: "I think if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer, and that's the best way to reach single payer."
Via Wizbang:
Obama isn't telling the truth when he is trying to sell this thing.
Thursday, July 30. 2009
 I am headed for the beach and the healthy icy-cold salt water for the weekend. Beach scenery by Theo, who has tons of good stuff posted.
A. Elmer Crowell's Cape Cod decoys
Dalrymple: There is no right to health care.
Population of illegals is dropping
Why you ought to be able to buy a kidney. h/t, Cafe Hayek
Do as the Green Gods say, not as they do
Organic food isn't "healthy." h/t, Dr. Helen. We've been saying that for years. It's magical thinking, and a goofy fad.
The O's Science Czar wants to give trees legal standing. The guy needs to get back on his meds.
Our friend Sipp is featured in Cottages and Bungalows magazine - a magazine without which our truant Dylanologist cannot do.
Repubs unveil their own medical insurance plan
Peggy Noonan: Americans say slow down the hopey-changey
Drudge notes that this is the 12th Obama Time Magazine cover photo in 12 months. Maybe they are reading the polls.
Another prominent limo Lib has second thoughts. h/t, Riehl
Reason TV: The case against college as an entitlement
No, every other developed nation does not have government medical care
Related, from Neo-neo:
America is not in favor of the solution they want, or the one Obama is offering. That may not matter to them—after all, they know better than stupid Americans, and we should be wanting what our intellectual and moral superiors on the Left think we should want. But it is certainly a fact that, despite the 2008 election results, America has still not turned sufficiently to the Left for most of these people.
And Obama has been foundering of late as a leader. This should be completely unsurprising—after all, if you look at his history, why would he be a leader?
Related: Paul Krugman blows it (video). h/t, Insty. No, Canadians do not like their medical system. Nor do the people of Massachusetts: they have a mess up there.
From Marginal Rev:
If insurance companies do avoid covering people who are "likely to need care," this suggests that the uninsured are unhealthy. But 60% of the uninsured are in excellent health (Table 10) (In fact, overall the uninsured are only slightly less healthy than the insured).
To be sure, this doesn't mean that being uninsured is not a problem but, contra Paul, it does mean that insurance companies would be willing to cover most of the uninsured at the same rates as the insured if the uninsured could or would pay those rates. In Paul's story there is a market failure, in the latter story health insurance is expensive and some people don't buy it. The difference matters because the wrong diagnosis will almost surely lead to the wrong treatment.
People like Paul see market failure everywhere.
Related: Pelosi says insurance companies are "the villains." Language like that is born of desperation.
Related, from Luskin:
WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD WE EVER DO THIS? I don't think a majority should be able to vote to disposess a minority in any circumstance -- including to force that minority to pay other people's health care insurance costs against their will. But according to the latest polls, doing so isn't even what the majority wants. So why are we even considering doing this?
You know why, Dan. Power and control.
Krauthammer:
Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law. Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers.
In neither the House draft nor the various Senate drafts of health care legislation can one find any tort reform. According to reliable sources, the excess costs of “defensive medicine” due to providers’ fear of law suits is 9-10% of our total national health care spending. Just capping punitive damages has led to a 3.4% reduction in per capita health care spending in those states with caps. In California, with a cap, malpractice premium increases have been 75% lower than nationally, and claimants collect in 1/3rd the time as elsewhere.
President Obama promised the AMA convention that he would support reasonable tort reform. So far, he like Waldo cannot be found on this issue. Patients do have a right to justice when due. Tort attorneys do not have a right to a cornucopia of claims.
News reports have followed the health industry players involvement in the legislative drafting, but nothing has been reported about tort lawyer lobbying. Perhaps they don’t have to lobby, as about half of Congressmen and Senators are lawyers, and only a very few are doctors.
On the other hand, if government runs all health care, try suing it. Ha!
Oh! Did I forget to mention that in the 2008 elections 76% of lawyers contributions went to Democrats, and 84% so far in the run-up to the 2010 elections?
And, Oh My! Then there's this move in Congress of a $1.6-billion tax break for lawyers. Just what we need, having the government make it easier for lawyers to launch more frivolous or speculative cases.
 Like Massachusetts, Maine decided to try its own government medical insurance plan. Betsy recounts the grim outcome of that effort.
It's not your grandfather's Maine anymore. 23% of the state is on Medicaid - which is welfare. Whatever happened to the gritty, independent New Englanders? And why don't they pack up the U-Haul and move to Texas, where there are jobs, low taxes, and opportunities?
Nobody imagines that a good job market will ever return to Maine with their current politics, taxation, and increasingly decadent culture. What are the people waiting for?
Some new disturbing info about ACORN (which recently has been the recipient of how many billions of "stimulus" money, and which is supposed to be part of taking the next census).
This needs to be stopped. This is creepy.
I am referring to CT's Sen. Chris Dodd.
Here's Dylan with the relevant (wonderful) song, Duncan and Brady. Too bad he messes up the verses, but who can keep 1000 lyrics in his head?
 First they came for the hamburgers
Canada no longer has free speech
At Volokh:
Judge Richard Posner thinks the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 goes overboard in trying to protect consumers from themselves. Better to treat them — us — as "consenting adults."
Why do people in government think we citizens are idiots? ...but maybe we are, if we voted for these jokers.
From Dr. Bob:
What is it with these so-called policy gurus? Knowing little or nothing about how health care really works, they haul out the bromides and throw around statistics based on taking small numbers and projecting them across large populations, to come up with scary percentages which then echo around the web and inside the hollow heads of the parrots in media newsrooms. Oh, and our politicians then use this crapola to formulate policies, which always end up having massive unintended consequences and which never achieve the results promised. Newt’s a pretty bright guy — generally a far better idea man than a politician — but he’s whiffing at softballs thrown slowly, by and large, with this one.
So what’s my gripe? Where do I begin? How about at the beginning?
Kaus:
Here's a safe political prediction: Despite all the innovative e-mobilization and ad campaigns and town halls and community organizing, the August recess will not produce any effective groundswell of popular support for Obama's health care reform.
Joe Biden has me scratching my head. Powerline
Are the Dems in trouble in 2010?
Prof Gates happy for a chance to play the Race Card. John Stewart. Related: MSM covers for Gates
Related: Prof Gates has a summer home in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, which is the village the O wanted to vacation in too. Many do not know that Oak Bluffs has been a favored summer spot for affluent black Americans for a century. Martha's Vineyard also still has a good population of Wampanoag indians, mostly in the Gay Head area.
More on the obesity ridiculousness. Q&O
In which Dan Rather beclowns himself
“Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer?" Driscoll
One of Tigerhawk's young Bald Eagles at his place in the Adirondacks. Is he echoing the silhouette of the pump on purpose?
Wednesday, July 29. 2009
"I got the pork chops, she got the pie,
She ain't no angel and neither am I."
Some bonus Bob for thunderstorm season. Sorry, but it's not embeddable: Thunder on the Mountain.
 Teddy Roosevelt rightly fascinates biographers.
I am not ready for a new one after having read Edmund Morris' multi-volume bio, but Douglas Brinkley's new one looks to be a big seller: The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.
Our pet theory is that Americans snap up history books because they get no serious history in school.
How many people really imagine that Presidents and Washington have power over the economy?
Governments, of course, only really have power to damage economies. Economies have lives of their own, following their own natural laws like weather. Even the Almighty Fed is very limited in what it can do.
Still, people seem to think that Presidents are somehow responsible, and I suppose that is because politicians seek any advantage, no matter how insincere.
Neither Bush nor Obama are responsible for the recession. It's called a "business cycle." People are blaming Obama now, and the O is trying to blame Bush. It's all stupid boob bait.
Besides cycles, what has the power to damage economies is government intervention like taxation, deficits, subsidizing of failing businesses, and regulation. Those things hobble economies, holding them back from what they naturally want to do (which is to produce things, including labor, and to price them), and I have no doubt that businesses have been worrying about what the Dems might do to hobble them.
Lefties always seem to love wealth and money, but to have contempt for those who create those things. Most of the very wealthy people I know are Dems or "Independents."
I posed this question to a very nice, well-intentioned but scientifically-illiterate Greenie lady I sat next to at dinner on Saturday night:
"What if there really is scary global warming, but it turns out it isn't caused by man, but instead by natural variation from other factors that are too complex to be understood? Then what?"
There was no reply. Her brain appeared to short-circuit.
I am a fun dinner companion.
Our Constitution begins:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
From the earliest days of our Republic, we’ve considered and argued ways to improve its representation of citizens. We are a Republic, of elected representatives, not a direct Democracy (except in some states with direct initiatives to be voted upon).
In either case, legislation voted upon by legislators or directly by voters, the complexity of the issues at hand and of the language to express it, compounded by the number of pages of fine print, the confounding interactions, and the many unknowns, makes the task of understanding and judging often Herculean, Solomonic and Einsteinian all at once.
The strength, wisdom and knowledge of Hercules, Solomon and Einstein are simultaneously required when considering thousands of pages of tiny-type recasting 1/6th of the US economy and 100% of the health care received by 100% of our citizens. Put health care legislation together with the rushed economic legislation of the past 6-months, and we’re talking about 1/4th of the US economy recast. Add in the changes in tax code to come to pay for it all and you’re well past ½ the US economy remodeled. Literally everyone in the US, and indirectly most of the world, will be directly and seriously affected.
We’ve toyed with various adjustments, some legislated and some voluntary (usually obeyed only at the convenient whim and self-interest of elected representatives) to increase the deliberation and independence of legislators, and allow the public time and information to weigh in. For the most part, they’ve failed or been inadequate.
Not that they will be the ending solution, I’ll propose some more to bolster our and our legislators’ ability to make sounder decisions:
1. All members of legislative committees, entrusted by other legislative members with the detail evaluation of legislation, must attend all open and closed door meetings. That leads to wider and more careful deliberation. This duty is paramount over prestigious memberships in too many committees to be able to perform adequately in each.
2. All legislation must be publicly published on the Internet in full at least several weeks before detail hearings, to allow even minimal familiarity by those affected, the more knowledgeable, and by the public who has the right to transparency in order to know.
3. All legislative committee hearings must hear from an equal number of experts chosen by each political party, regardless of the weighting of party membership on the committee, to increase the likelihood of more information and views being heard.
4. All the members of each legislative committee must vote and publicly explain their vote.
5. All legislation funding or affecting more than one agency of government must either be broken down into its components for separate votes or be held for vote in the next biannual Congress once the public vote weighs in indirectly on the information received from hearings and legislators’ positions.
Yes, these reforms may slow some legislation, but experience with untoward consequences of haste and shadows makes that a positive result. Yes, these reforms will shift the workload of legislators toward deeper involvement with the details of legislation, the benefits of that being evident. Yes, true crises may require quick action at times, and if so there’s nothing to stop wise legislators from breaking such legislation into more carefully constructed and deliberated parts.
Yes, we can have a more perfect Union, more perfect Republic, closer to Democracy and to the capabilities of Hercules, Solomon and Einstein.
 Steyn wonders Isn't it Islamophobic to characterize Palestinians as homophobic?
Insane: A European Working Time Directive. How do people put up with this BS? Doctors work when they have to. That's what doctors do. That's what all vigorous people do, except for Euro-weenies. I sure hope their rules do not apply to farmers, shop-keepers, or entrepreneurs.
Now I understand: they permit morons to vote in California. Video. h/t, Neptunus
How can you have a medical insurance poll when only 6 people in the US know what's in the bill? Are people taking it on faith? Gotta love this line:
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!
No laughing out loud at Dr. Obama. It's a cartoon, for heaven's sake. Woops, I forgot. The Moslems made cartoons dangerous. I feel sorry for that neurosurgeon, who was just having a little fun.
Bruce Walker at Am Thinker asks Is the O's Presidency unraveling?
A 38' 1928 Matthews Cabin Cruiser, for sale here. Not a lovely boat, in my opinion, but a good-looking hull.
Tuesday, July 28. 2009
 One year ago, I parked my car (legally - no No Parking signs) on the side of the road to eat my take-out Thai lunch as a break from the office, while admiring a lot full of fancy used cars.
Cop pulls up behind, turns on flasher. "What are you doing here?"
"Eating my lunch and looking at the pretty cars, officer."
"License and registration, please."
"OK. Here they are." (Goes back to his car to check it all, then returns)
"You need to move along."
"WTF? F-you. I'm an attorney, and I am doing nothing wrong. What's the matter? Didn't get any last night, ahole?" "All right, Officer."
I happen to be white. Policing happens to everybody, and sometimes it is a damn annoyance and ridiculous. I decided not to send a letter of complaint, because they might be on the lookout for my gold-plated Rolls 5 year-old Lexus sedan after that. You have to use your brains: cops are your employees, and they are pros, but also pricks sometimes.
As an attorney, when a police officer stops you and says "I smell alcohol on your breath. Have you been drinking?" the correct response is never "Officer, I see powdered sugar on your chin. Have you been eating jelly donuts?"
A guy named Fleckman is going through the Dem insurance proposal page by page. A few samples:
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments and benefits you get
Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!
Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC benefits for you. You have no choice!
Pg 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access to individuals' finances and a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your banks' accounts for election funds transfer
Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions & community orgs (ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating a HC Exchange to bring private HC plans under Govt control.
Pg 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit pkgs for private HC plans in the Exchange
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!
Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic-appropriate services. Example: Translation for illegal aliens
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups (i.e., ACORN & Americorps) to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Ben Levels for Plans. #AARP members - your health care will be rationed.
Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid-eligible individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No “judicial review” against Govt Monopoly.
pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST automatically enroll employees into pub opt plan. NO CHOICE
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part-time employees AND their families.
More of the details here. I hope Mr. Fleckman keeps the details coming, because the MSM is not - and neither are our Congressmen.
|
