Monday, July 20. 2009
She read the draft bill so you won't have to. Medical policy wonk Betsy McCaughey weighs in on ObamaCare.
John at Powerline speculates that journalists are dumber than the average bear. I think John overestimates the brains, curiosity, and skepticism of the average bear (tho maybe not of the average Powerline reader), but I do get the point: professional journalists are supposed to convey useful and accurate info for the rest of us, with enough of the inside baseball to help us understand the game that is being played.
Statistics, math and science tend to be among their weak points. It is easy to be a half-competent writer without understanding in depth what you are writing about. We prove that here, daily. However, we do try to link to those who might have a clue.
What worries me more is the power, ignorance, perfidy, and manipulativeness of politicians.
Via Drudge:
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $2,531,600 FOR 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,191,200 FOR '2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $351,807 FOR 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,562,568 FOR 'MOZZARELLA CHEESE'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $5,708,260 FOR 'PROCESS CHEESE'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $16,784,272 FOR 'CANNED PORK'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,444,100 FOR 'REPAIR DOOR BLDG 5112'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $541,119 FOR 'INSTALL TRAFFIC SIGNAL'...
I would happily repair that door for half the price.
Dr. Bob has penned a definitive essay on the topic of preventive medicine. It's all true, and all docs know it. One quote:
One big-picture aspect of this huge transformation in American health care which seems to be receiving little or no attention is its heavy emphasis on preventive medicine. We have been hearing for some time about how preventive medicine will save substantial sums of money and thereby make the overall health care system far less costly. Of course, such rhetoric has an enormous appeal at a surface level — after all, if you can prevent diseases, you certainly don’t need to spend money to cure them.
Who could argue with this?
But this innocent-sounding, simplistic Trojan horse will prove deadly for American health care, and end up empowering the bureaucrats and politicians who will, in fact, gain the most from this change in direction.
Read the whole thing.
 A study indicates that the primate brain's reward system for acquiring information seems to follow the same pathways as the reward systems for food and sex.
That is surely why readers read Maggie's Farm: we are stimulating!
Story at Frontal Cortex.
Neal Cavuto on Imus right now discusses the car salesman trick of "rushing a deal." "Don't let them leave the salesroom without signing." "Now or never," "A one-day-only deal" - all the tricks.
He discusses car sales tricks, and says that is what the O administration does with legislation. I tend to agree.
Carlos Santana turns a young 62 today. I was fortunate to hear him play in recent years. Here's a delicious Samba Pa Ti:
 When pols run car companies. Betsy Related: Will small be beautiful for GM? WSJ
Sacha Baron Cohen will kill Bruno
NYT considers foundation support for news. Buzz Machine wonders whether there is a new model for news collaboration.
Russia's Got Talent
Who says there's no competition in medical insurance?
Vote us the medical plan Congress has. Details at Surber
ACORN take note: Zelaya had vote figured in advance
ObamaCare would cover 12 million illegals
Ex-cons counsel cons-to-be
Rush on Sarah:
Name for me any Republican or conservative who has had a 72% approval rating in the party after a year of trashing by the State-Run Media and the Democrat Party. Name for me one Republican candidate who has maintained a 72% approval rating while their life and their career has been under assault for the purpose of destruction, which is the case with Sarah Palin.
Do I understand cardinal vs. ordinal understandings of well-being?
And that's the way it wasn't. Driscoll with a good history of "the news". Related, Wizbang is not praising Cronkite
Inside the monstrous ObamaCare bureaucracy. Michelle
"We gotta do it now" doesn't always work the second time around.
Add it to the list: global warming causes squid. Me likes to eat squid, lightly sauteed with white wine, butter, olive oil, parsley and garlic.
"By then it's too late." Insty:
HEALTHCARE UPDATE, from the Los Angeles Times: “The president knows his keystone program is in deep trouble and losing momentum. That’s why his organization is sending out all those e-mails and organizing local discussion groups to mobilize grassroots support and why he drags the subject into everything he talks about. . . . Obama’s current problem is actually crumbling support among Democrats, dozens of whom are beginning to waver over the scale of such spending, whether some of it eventually gets covered by savings or not. They know that conveniently-predicted future government savings have a way in Washington of not actually ever materializing. But by then it’s too late.”
Sunday, July 19. 2009
A bit cornball, but true - and good for kids: The American Trinity, from Prager (h/t Moonbattery):
The rarest thing on the Internet is an author thinking deeply and then writing simply and elegantly. So rare as to be practically non-existent. Practically, but not completely. Gerard at American Digest is such a person:
The History of your browser tells me where you have been and what you have seen, but your Bookmarks tell me who you are and what you believe.
Mark Twain remarked, "You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is." Bookmarks are the corn pone from which your 'pinions are baked, but if you have the kind of soul that has run "Clear History" on your life your 'pinions are not likely to have any foundation in the long history of Freedom, but only yearn towards a Utopian tomorrow that never knows.
Much of the current disunity seen in our politics arises between those who ran "Clear History" in November of 2000 and those who saw History return with a vengeance in September of 2001.
One group is determined to deny History expunge the Declaration and shred the Constitution in pursuit of a utopia that's buried in a global network of mass graves. Another group are those who believe in the American idea and are determined let this new birth of freedom work its way across the world. Absent a defining historical event of global significance, this twain shall not meet. There is, of course, a third group of people who want to merely get on with their happy world untroubled by History, either cleared or present as a clear and present danger.
It's three years old and rerun, so you know it's not 20/20 hindsight talking.
Clear History at American Digest.
From a harshly critical op-ed by Matt Welch in the WaPo:
What the new president has not quite grasped is that the American people understand both irony and cognitive dissonance. Instead, Obama has mistaken his personal popularity for a national predilection toward emergency-driven central planning. He doesn't get that Americans prefer the slower process of building political consensus based on reality, and at least a semblance of rational deliberation rather than one sky-is-falling legislative session after another.
2 Corinthians 4:4-18
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 6For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken."With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. 15All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Saturday, July 18. 2009
Bar exam. Oh boy. For Rules of Evidence, it's 70% exceptions to The Rules, after you learn The Rules. We did Wills and Estates yesterday. It caused us to rethink our wills.
We parents of the graduate Law Student are having fun learning this stuff. It's sort-of crazy, and sort-of not. Good rule of thumb: stay clear of The Law if possible. It seems to be its own wacko universe, and not for amateurs.
 It looks like we are on the subject of health freedom today. What I have observed over the past ten years is that people increasingly equate insurance coverage with medical care. That's sad.
In my view, it's a pathologically infantile sense of entitlement when people expect others to take care of them. Sad, indeed when Americans can afford their cars and car insurance and computers and iPods and cell phones etc. but expect somebody else to pay their bills if they get sick.
My view is that every responsible adult needs cheap catastrophic medical coverage - what used to be called Major Medical, with the deductible of your choice. Budget into your life the costs of your kid's broken arm and annual $120 camp physical - or don't have kids. If there's a big problem, the Major Medical will cover you. Like if you have a heart attack, break your back falling off a ladder, or if your kid gets shot in the eye with a BB gun.
I want to know what the Dems want to cover with their grand plan to "reduce" medical costs:
Will they cover Reike, massage therapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, crystal therapy, therapeutic touch, late-term abortion, breast enhancement, plastic and cosmetic surgery, hopeless chemotherapy and radiation therapy, eye movement therapy, light therapy, Chinese herbal medicine, hypnosis, social workers, bunion removal, in vitro fertilization, elective Psychoanalysis, alcohol rehab, penile implants, heart transplants, high colonic cleansings, liposuction, ingrown toenails and toenail fungus, Native Indian Soul Renewal, and liver transplants?
And do you want politicians making these decisions for you?
Me? I want the government 100% out of medical care and medical choices, because they have no idea what they are doing. No more of a clue than they know how to run GM - or the corner candy shop. I know what my private family policy covers. I chose it, I pay for it, and it's cheaper than the family's car insurance.
What the heck does the government have to do with these decisions, anyway?
 Cheetos-flavored lip balm
1925 Bugatti from Lago Maggiore
Ten weird ways we deal with the dead
Iran: still in turmoil
The CIT story: It's a big deal for many businesses
Is it Pelosi Payback?
The Sun of Songun Shedding Its Rays All over the World
How the trillion-dollar Federal takeover works. Pajamas. It is a stealth bill designed to eliminate private choice in medical insurance, and thus to eliminate choice in insurance plans.
A Lib says pass health care now: do the rationing later:
Do remember that even if reform ends up without game-changing cost control, it may create political conditions that make future cost control more likely. That seems to be happening in Massachusetts, which enacted sweeping coverage expansions a few years ago.
Via Viking:
Nowhere in the Democrats’ plan do they explain why 2.1 million Americans should have to pay to reform the health-care system for 300 million Americans, nor does the Post explain why 2.1 million Americans should have to pay for the massive deficits created by Democrats in Congress and Barack Obama. Both accept the notion that government exists to transfer wealth without explaining at all the basis for a free government to do so. If we need massive health-care reform, then the costs should be borne by everyone - and when that happens, you will find massive health-care reform to be a lot less popular than when Obama, Rangel, & Co try to pass it off as something for nothing.
The abortion mandate in the health care plan. What does abortion have to do with health? LaShawn also wonders about that. I thought having babies was healthy.
Hands off my Healthcare protests across the country
The Massachusetts "health" plan. Watch Docs run away
As goes California...
Paul Rahe: The Road to Soft Despotism, Part 2
Totten: Uncertainty in Iraq
This series of photos came in over the transom, but I see that it was adapted from a NYT story:
"Clingstone, an unusual 103-year-old mansion in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, survives through the love and hard work of family and friends."
The whole story with slide show in the NYT
Friday, July 17. 2009
Insty:
MICKEY KAUS: Smug self-styled wonks will kill health care yet. “WaPo’s Ezra Klein decrees ‘rules’ for those who would use the CBO’s damning analysis ‘against the existing health-care reform proposals’–they ‘must,’ he says, endorse some combination of cost-cutting proposals from a list he provides. Huh? Even as mock hubris (and it’s hard to tell) this makes no sense. Who said opponents have to be for more cost-cutting? Why can’t Republicans say to Dems a) You said your plans would bend the cost curve down. Instead they increase costs. The status quo would be better than your plans. Vote no. b) You said your plans would bend the cost curve down. Instead they increase costs. Why should we believe anything else you say? … That isn’t what I would say, but it’s not an illogical or inappropriate response.” Plus, “Klein goes on, of course, to re-endorse the very treatment-restricting form of cost-cutting that is scaring people away from the Dem plans.”
Woops. I thought this was about my Vet bills, which far exceed my medical bills with the dogs, the wife's horses, etc. When will the government care about the health of my animals? I cannot get insurance for any of them.
We will tolerate no rationing of medical care for our beloved animals.
Amazingly, I hear Bob Beckel on Sean saying that nobody can afford their kids' regular medical check ups. WTH?Why should I take care of Bob Beckel's kids?
I will take care of his kids when he takes care of my cars.
Sunshine doesn't cause the dangerous skin cancers (h/t, Englishman). People need that sunshine; what we used to term "bennies" - Beneficial Sun Rays. "Going out to catch some bennies and study chem."
Hold the sunblock, and go to the beach (h/t, Tangled):
Or to this one, in China:
 The Smith & Wesson Shooting Sports Center in Springfield. Seems like a fun place, and cheap too.
This is too important an issue to leave with bureaucrats.
Samizdata, discussing space flight but applicable to most things
 Head of CBO rips Dem medical care plan. They overreached.
At Althouse, a commenter re the rushing of the Dem plan:
This is arguably the fourth time that Obama and the Democrats have pulled this off, if they indeed do succeed this time. The previous examples were: the "stimulus" bill; the budget; and cap and trade. The "stimulus" bill was rammed through the House less than 24 hours after being disclosed - and then Cap and Trade was rammed through based on amendments to the bill that had not be consolidated, so no one, even those running the House, actually knew what was in it.
It was one thing to do this when the "stimulus" was urgent. Of course, we find that most of the "stimulus" won't be spent for years to come, but... Again, Cap and Trade was absolutely urgent, since if Congress didn't act immediately, parts of New York City might (if you believed Al Gore) be under water by the end of the century. But health care reform? Someone might die if it isn't enacted immediately, a victim of some evil insurance company denying a worthy claim. (Of course, Obama doesn't mention that the difference is that under a government payer system, those denied treatments have no recourse).
Related: Make Congress sign up for the government plan. Related: A pdf of the House Bill, with other info, at Classical
Biden: We need to spend more money so we don't go bankrupt. Ummm, will that work for me too?
A reckless Congress will take US taxes higher than France's
In the USA, this case would be a $50 million malpractice suit but it seems normal in the UK
Not satire: Britain building ecotowns in the countryside. Destroying beautiful countryside in the process.
Not satire: Britain has "I am not a pedophile" cards
Not satire: The O's Science Czar used to be a global cooling fearmonger. Just a typical nutty crank.
Not satire: Minneapolis has a Department of Walking. Where would we be without government's wisdom?
A confession from a climate-changer in a book review at Am Thinker:
"We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us." According to Hulme, climate change can do a lot: "Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs."
Speak for yourself, shmuck.
Meanwhile, global cooling attacks the Northeast
Re Black Studies:
"If I couldn't study something that's about myself then I wouldn't want to be here," the black sophomore once told me, explaining how crucial to him it was to be able to major in African-American Studies.
I'd recommend math or physics. It's not about you, Mr. Young Student.
Photo from theo
Thursday, July 16. 2009
From Jammie's piece on taxes, the view from NYC:
Myron Magnet on The Obsolete New York Model at City Journal. One quote:
Struggling under the accumulated burden of eight decades of “progressive” government, we New Yorkers can serve as a warning to our fellow Americans as President Obama, following the New Deal playbook, seeks to use the current financial crisis to provide a new rationale and legitimacy for the gargantuan machinery of the federal government. Our economic ills, the president contends, require expanding the welfare state to include the majority of Americans not just in Medicare and Social Security but also in government-subsidized and -controlled health care and higher education—all paid for by an ever smaller percentage of the citizens, in the name of European-style redistributionist “fairness.” Logically, this plan is a non sequitur (in the process of turning, by constant repetition, into a Big Lie), since health care and education have nothing to do with the causes or cure of our present economic woes. But logic aside, consider New York’s government-controlled services and ask if they are worth taking to nationwide scale. Take a good look at the president’s tax plans, too, which will end up with many more Americans paying nothing and many fewer paying most of the bills. Once the tax eaters outnumber the taxpayers and can vote themselves an income, you have arrived at elective despotism.
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