Tuesday, August 18. 2009
Always love your country - but never trust your government.
Robert Novak, 1931-2009
 Bremelanotide. It's a nasal spray, works quickly. Looks like it can be bought online.
Is it a party drug, or a medical drug? I do not know. Haven't tried it yet, personally, but I probably would if only for my educational purposes...
All of the late middle-aged docs I know are "scientifically" curious about it. It is said to be the only true aphrodisiac. If it has no serious side effects, I can see this drug leave Oxycontin in the dust on the black market.
Not everybody, for sure, is fully satisfied with his or her sex life, unless young and in love.
From The Panel, in the WSJ:
In fact, the logic of this moment was inevitable. Once government got its fingers on the health-care system, it was only a matter of time before it took it over completely. Now there's one limited pool of dollars while the costs are endless.
"You have the luxury of thinking only of yourself, but we have to think about everyone," says the professor of ethics. He's a celebrity and waxes eloquent every Tuesday and Thursday on Bill Maher Tonight. "This isn't the free market, after all. We can't just leave fairness to chance. We have to use reason. Is it better for society as a whole that we allocate limited resources for your operation when we might use the same dollars to bring many more high quality years to someone, say, younger?"
"I'm only 62."
He smiles politely.
"Look, it's not just about me," you argue desperately. "My daughter's engaged to get married next year. She'll be heartbroken if I'm not there for it."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you put on so much weight," says the medical officer. "I mean, you people have been told time and again . . ."
But the chairwoman is uncomfortable with his censorious tone and cuts him off, saying more gently, "Perhaps your daughter could move the wedding up a little."
Read the whole thing. I like the way Mark Steyn put it on the radio today: "They want to nationalize your body." Yes, while pretending to do you a favor.
All doctors know this: The "Preventive Care" Myth from Krauthammer.
Preventive care is expensive, and has a very low yield. Things like mammograms do not exist because they are cost-effective: they exist because people want them.
A flower carpet at Biltmore, Asheville, NC
Are we having a "conversation" yet? Althouse
Bikinis, banned in Britain
Health care reform is about control, not health
Some lady figured out how to make money from the housing price crash. Ain't free markets amazing?
In which Mike Lupica reveals himself to be a non-serious person. Related from Riehl: It's all because he's black
Tim Pawlenty steps up to the plate
A doc responds to Obama: Am Thinker
Data about the last election, including this one:
The researchers found that 11 percent saw Obama’s race as a reason to vote against him, but roughly three times as many saw his race as a reason to vote for him.
I knew we were ordinary. Gallup: Conservatives now outnumber Libs in all 50 states. People just need the occasional reminder of what the Left tried to do to them.
Senators want Cap and Tax set aside
Tiger wonders Why, precisely, Ivy League Democrats think that identifying with African kleptocratic dictators will help either the people of Africa or the United States is beyond me.
At Doug Ross:
• jimfromthefoothills firmly states, "Remember, we are going to rebuild every school, bridge and road in the country. We will fix healthcare. We will restore the constitution, end illegal wars [and] reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses." ......... And then luscious chocolate-chip cookies will drop from the sky, multi-colored unicorns will everyone give free rides to work and school, and Karl Rove will get frogmarched out of Fox News in primetime. As an aside, Jim is still living in the foothills and apparently ate some bad possum before posting.
There is only one jurisdiction in which self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives: Washington, D.C. That figures. They feed off of us.
I'd like to see Barbara Boxer defeated. She irritates me.
If congressional Dems stay on this track, they will have problems. As neoneo discusses, it's the shocking radicalization of the center right. A quote:
People tend to be more driven to protest things that affect them personally rather than abstractions or faraway problems in distant lands. And it’s hard to imagine a government program that promises (or threatens) to affect people more personally than the health care reform bill, or one that has been more suspect in its claims and more murky in its lack of transparency. Therefore it should not be the least bit surprising that there’s a lot of energy in the fight against it.
What is surprising—to the Left—is that now they’re the objects rather than the perpetrators of the outrage. Their charge that opponents are astroturfers is partly a cynical ploy. But I suspect it’s also partly sincere, because they are experiencing shock and resultant denial that a populist movement has arisen against the Left itself.
Need a job? Here's one.
My college friends from Sha-Na-Na did OK in life. Glad to hear it. No slouches.
No, you could not keep your medical insurance if you like it. It's a lie.
A reprise of Dr. Zeke Emanuel: Docs take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously. Would you send a friend to him?
Is ObamaCare constitutional? Not at all, but who cares these days? That old Constitution was made for strong men and women. Speaking of pussies, here's one. And here's a brave pol who should also lose his job.
An ex-insurance guy has become an emotional crusader against private insurance companies. Trouble is, if we end up with a government monopoly he will have many more complaints. And there will be no exit. The No Exit and no choice is what folks fear most, I believe.
Real Health Reform: Republicans have a chance to advance some market-oriented reform ideas. Yuval Levin
Viking:
Color me green unsurprised - The Truth About Cars: "The Cash for Clunkers program is a car industry bailout dressed up as a green initiative."
Dick Morris on the seniors:
The legislation still plans to achieve 40% of its savings from cuts in Medicare, slicing reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals encouraging them shortchange their elderly patients as a matter of economic necessity and shrinking further the population of doctors. The standards and protocols of the newly established Federal Health Board are just as likely to direct the denial of care to seniors for such surgeries as hip and knee replacements and even coronary artery bypass as before the Obama retreat.
A prediction of civil war in Germany. Gates. In a way, it looks as if it has already begun.
Coyote:
I am confused as to why a preference for overpriced organic foods and a preference for government monopoly control of health care are necessarily correlated at the 1.0 level. But apparently they are. Maybe its a common desire to overpay for basic necessities?
I hear too much of this sort of ignorant nonsense from Greenies. How is shutting off your tap in England supposed to help people in deserts get water? As the Englishman asks "Where does it go?"
Legal, but unbelievably stupid. The ignorant or excitement-seeking reporter refers to that A-15 as an assault rifle. Maybe it once was one, but that rifle will not do full auto. Here's full auto (via Am Digest):
My hunting pal has bought an old farm in Schoharie County, NY. He invited me to come up on the weekend and help get the old place ready in time for hunting season. House looks fine - except it could use some plastic nailed over the windows and maybe a coat of paint - but the place could use a little landscaping.
Actually, I think it's a job for ACORN (they do housing, don't they?), or maybe Habitat for Humanity:
Monday, August 17. 2009
Among other cool places, I am headed for Carthage in a week or two.
It's called Tunisia now. Phoenician imperialists colonized the place. It was once the bread-basket of the Roman Empire. Wheat.
Today, the people there are mostly Berbers. St. Augustine was a Berber as was, of course, his Mom, Saint Monica.
I am studying up, as I always do before I go somewhere. The way I approach every subject is to begin with the big picture, and then to work my way into the details as time and interest permit. For me, the history Big Picture is my 5000 BC to 1900 AD time line.
Will bring cameras, fully charged. With the strange DC currents and strange plugs over yonder, you cannot expect to recharge the batteries. I guess I do need a third camera or spare batteries for a trip like this, but it seems like a waste of money.
Maybe I can find one of my old ones somewhere but who knows if I can find the chargers for them?
Here's St. Vincent de Paul Cathedral in Tunis. St. Vincent de Paul was sold into slavery, and ministered to other Christian slaves in north Africa. The country is now 98% Moslem, but they have a tradition of tolerance to their Christians and Jews, and their Islam is not of the hateful sort at all.
Plus I just learned we are stopping by Capri too. I haven't been there, but my kids have. What next? She has constructed this trip to be a surprise for me, and gives me one detail at a time so I can learn.
Well, it appears they closed down the manifestly un-American and unconstitutional flag@whitehouse.org. Don't worry, though, you can still get your Stasi jollies telling the executive branch hall monitors at whitehouse.gov/realitycheck that someone you don't like is chewing gum in class and is hiding a pack of smokes in their gym locker.
 My plan, after today, is to stay away from the news until Labor Day. Not other interesting subjects, just news.
I'd never read the news if my American freedoms were not under daily threat by government (of any or either political party).
I need a short sabbatical (sitting by the pool hallucinating by watching the mermaids in my pool and letting my blood pressure return to normal) from my active membership in the highly-organized mob, from our secret cabal of hate-spewing, un-American evil ones who worry about too much Federal government power over our lives and who have the intolerable audacity of hope to say so, and to question our Dear Leaders.
(As I said the other day, in a mixed economy as the US has (if we can keep it), government becomes just one more special interest with their own goals and agendas, their own desires for money and power and chicks, their careerists, their criminals, their corruption, their cupidity, their influence-peddling, and their hordes of dependent bureacratic employees. Their only difference from most other organizations is that they do not have to show a profit and they do not have to be smart.)
However, given the attempted government take-over of medical care in the US (see list of their tactics, and dig this about how much they are spending on ads), this seemed an important cautionary tale:
Canadian Health Care "Imploding"-- Doctors Meet & Discuss Private Options
What a genius idea! A private option! As in freedom to pay for the medical care you want, and to buy whatever insurance you might want? Like in America?
Maybe the government-centric view of life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I am an adult. I am a man, I spell M-A-N. If government is supposed to be my parent, I prefer to be an orphan. Nor do I want a Philosopher-King. I am my own Philosopher-King of my own life, thank you very much. That's the whole point of America.
Our friend Ace has a remarkably serious post on the topic of medical insurance. I wish I had written it, but I was too busy having fun with the horses. He says - and I totally agree -
The reason that employees at companies that pay for insurance get most of this paid for is that their employer is merely paying them wages in a different form; i.e., rather than pay you an extra $10 a week or $500 per year, they'll pay $500 of medical expenses you would otherwise have to pay yourself.
They're not "insuring" you. You cannot be "insured" against a "risk" 100% guaranteed to occur.
They're just delivering wages in a roundabout fashion.
and
Individual mandates, for one.
To be perfectly honest with you, I personally am not completely opposed to this one, in principle, assuming it would take a tolerable form.
But I don't assume that. It will take an intolerable form. I assume it will take the form of the stupidest, vote-buyingest, most socialistic scheme possible, so I oppose it in fact.
So long as it's not greatly socialist -- e.g., young people, with barely any need for insurance at all (which is why they skip it) are overcharged ludicrously so they are forced to subsidize the elderly, who use a lot of insurance dollars. Or rich people are forced to pay money for the poor. In that case, I could kinda get behind it, or at least not bother myself to oppose it strenuously.
Or it covers anything except unpredictable, rare, catastrophic health crises.
This idea that taxpayers ought to pay for someone's eyeglasses or routine visits to the doctor or utterly-predictable need of antibiotics or flu immunizations is, well, two words; In. Sane.
As my final point on the topic for a few weeks, I see the WSJ is repeating what I always say: Who has a better use for their money than to treat their disease or to keep their health? It's what prosperous people do. One quote:
Though it hasn't been widely realized, the desire for shelter was a major driver of the U.S. economy during the second half of the 20th century and the first several years of the 21st. About one-third of the new jobs created during the latter period were directly or indirectly related to housing, as the stupendous ripple effect of the bursting housing bubble should make painfully obvious.
Once these material needs are substantially met, desire for health care—without which there can be no enjoyment of food, clothing or shelter—becomes a significant, perhaps a principal, driver of the economy. A little-noticed feature of the current recession is the role of the health-care industry as a resilient driver of the general economy.
Yes, spending on medical treatment is a wonderful thing and a great privilege. People should want to spend more on it. Just check out my dental implants, or read my (stainless steel) left hip. Good stuff, but not cheap - but worth every penny, and only easily available in the good old USA.
"A girl should look like a piece of candy."
Former Gucci designer Tom Ford. Might be a paraphrase, but that's how I remember it. This Friday post reminded me of the quote.
 Jay Cost at RCP: Obama misread his mandate. This essay is on the money. The Dems are acting as if the whole country were like San Francisco. One quote:
...the Obama administration has acted as if those hagiographical comparisons to FDR were apt. It let its liberal allies from the coasts drive the agenda and write the key bills, and it's played straw man semantic games to marginalize the opposition. For all the President's moaning in The Audacity of Hope about how the Bush administration was railroading the minority into accepting far right proposals - he was prepared to let his Northeastern and Pacific Western liberal allies do exactly the same thing: write bills that excite the left, infuriate the right, and scare the center; insist on speedy passage through the Congress; and use budget reconciliation to ram it through in case the expected super majority did not emerge.
Why you won't see medical tort reform (h/t, reader):
Despite the top sellers, the NYT still refuses to review conservative books. Very foolish of them. Thoughtful reviews and critiques would be a good thing.
The last swine flu vaccine in the 80s killed more people than the flu did. Now Guillain-Barre returns with the new flu vaccine. I think I'll pass.
Are the days of the classic car over? I kinda think so.
"Dutch embrace Islamic names." That's one way to put it, but I can think of other explanations.
Why Martha's Vineyard?
The tactic of manufactured crises. Am Thinker
Cry havoc, and leaf through some books on war with Jules, overlooking scenic Cape Cod Bay.
Putting the heat on ACORN. I don't mind political advocacy groups. I just mind when they are paid with my tax dollars, like ACORN. It's a huge scandal, but the MSM will not touch it.
Via Front Page:
It’s a new age of irony that we live in. The president is a self-described community organizer who used his skills at grassroots activism to launch a populist movement that swept him into office. Now his administration, along with its Congressional allies, is worried about a determined civic movement that is turning against it.
The folks turning up for the town-halls may be maligned by their elected officials. They may be painted as rage-filled lunatics by the media. But unfortunately for the Obama administration and its transformational vision for health care, they aren’t going away.
The O hires campaign ad firms to promote government medicine. That had better not be on my nickel.
Sissy remembers The women now went willingly into the field. Women like to do for their families. So do real men.
What's the deal? Dr. Emanuel isn't my doctor. He has no right to make my medical decisions.
The evil, evil anti-O racism of Tinky Winky. Yes, I think the O is a joke. I think all politicians are jokes.
From The American:
Hollywood seems to think that the government is either screwing up the country because it doesn't know what it is doing or it is destroying the country because it is trampling on the rights of its citizens. However, the people who hold these convictions are the exact same people who want to turn over the operation of all the key components of the country to the government to manage. Health care, energy, education, the economy itself -- these and dozens of other critical features of American society should be directed, according to the Left, from the hallowed halls in which the bumblers and betrayers work.
Who are the uninsured and should we pay to cover them?
Stunning Freudian slip by the MSM
How Canada is saving money on government medical care
Quoted at Carpe Diem:
Comprehensive health insurance is such an ingrained element of our thinking, we forget that its rise to dominance is relatively recent. Modern group health insurance was introduced in 1929, and employer-based insurance began to blossom during World War II, when wage freezes prompted employers to expand other benefits as a way of attracting workers. Still, as late as 1954, only a minority of Americans had health insurance. That’s when Congress passed a law making employer contributions to employee health plans tax-deductible without making the resulting benefits taxable to employees. This seemingly minor tax benefit not only encouraged the spread of catastrophic insurance, but had the accidental effect of making employer-funded health insurance the most affordable option (after taxes) for financing pretty much any type of health care. There was nothing natural or inevitable about the way our system developed: employer-based, comprehensive insurance crowded out alternative methods of paying for health-care expenses only because of a poorly considered tax benefit passed half a century ago.
Emails to House members overwhelm website. Keep 'em coming.
Enjoyed our Barrister identifying government and politicians as a powerful special interest: the most powerful one. Wish I had had that insight.
ACLU: Prior restraint for religious speech. This is insane, sick, evil, despicable. Related: More on Yale's voluntary restraint of speech
Who is really doing the astroturfing? As noted at Insty: "Have you ever seen a clearer case of projection in your life?”
Orthopedists slam the O for "blurring reality". Nice euphemism, docs.
Wizbang:
For the last year and a half, President Obama's arguments in favor of his health care reforms have consisted of little more than recycling every popular myth dreamed up by socialized medicine advocates to illustrate how wretched our private health care system has become/
Sunday, August 16. 2009
Even if you are not a fan of Rush, I think he nails it here. Worth a couple of minutes -
He makes some points which are similar to what Riehl has posted re the O:
What appears to be a lack of attention paid to political reality is actually a single-minded determination to ignore what Americans want and to use the tools of community organizing, intimidation, coercion and, most importantly, deception to achieve his goals.
And
Obama is not a man born to, nor interested in serving. He is someone convinced he exists to lead you to where he believes things, or America should be. Unfortunately, his unusual upbringing, life experience and classroom experience left him thinking unlike the majority of Americans. He is an elitist, through and through, not the man of the people he pretends to be.
Carter had similar traits, though of a different sort. He was self-righteous, while Obama is simply pretentious. In some ways that makes Carter the better man. What a frightening thought. At least Carter's ideas and goals had a noble quality, even if they were naive. That isn't the case with Obama.
Ultimately, his goals are selfish, or self-centered. Other than his own thinking, or the thinking of other liberal elites, he has no truly great tradition of thought to back him up. This is the self-centered and ultimately disastrous mindset of the post-sixties generation, bought into the mindset that went before and turned into an intellectualism it doesn't deserve to be.
“Grunts” are the front-line fighting Marines and soldiers. My friend R.J. DelVecchio is moved by the following article by a leading commentator on, and supporter of, the tasks faced by Grunts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their comments are not intended as, nor should they be read as, despondent about either our mission or prospects. They, however, should be read as a necessary corrective to the thinking of those who feel that wars can be fought in comforts or oblivious to their primary necessities, especially that of crippling and killing the enemy. This is a long post, and for those who care to read it may help clarify our dilemmas in Afghanistan.
Here’s DelVecchio’s email:
Here is the question- if we are going to make our guys always carry 70+ (often up to 100) lbs of stuff all the time (as if there is no chance of chopper resupply of anything), and they have to use a Rule of Engagement sheet that runs over a page single-space last time I heard, and they have to worry about what some lawyer back at battalion will do to them if he even thinks they may have violated the ROE, and best of all, now the bad guys can fire at will from villages or buildings where there just may be civilians and we cannot fire back, and we can't really just use our masters of the night aircraft to kill anyone they see coming across the border into Afghanistan so that the people in the Pakistan bases of the Taliban finally figure out that to even start that journey is to die.... then have we put ourselves again in a situation where as long as the
other guys are determined enough to stretch this out long enough, eventually enough people at home and in Congress will decide they don't want to play this game anymore and we bring our guys home and everything they have fought, suffered, and died for goes to hell anyhow?
I always tell the high school classes I lecture at that the lessons of Viet Nam are three simple rules-
1- do not send Americans to fight somewhere unless you have a clear and
reasonably simple goal of what it is you want to get done
2- do not send Americans to go into that fight unless you have a pretty
good idea of what it will take to win not just the battles, but the whole war
3- do not sent Americans to go and fight and die in that war unless you are fully prepared to do whatever it really takes to win it
If that means using napalm sometimes, laying down minefields sometimes, using herbicides to kill foliage or crops sometimes, (none of which are now allowed to us) and accepting the sad fact that when the enemy deliberately hides among and uses the local population as a major tactic, collateral damage is utterly unavoidable if you are to really fight them, then those are the things you should be doing.
The most moral thing you do in any war is fight hard, as hard as you can, to smash the enemy and get it over with. A short nasty and intense war with mistakes and some tragic collateral damage is infinitely better than the long drawn out "let's be nice and careful and not upset anyone in the international community" attempt at war that ends in failure anyhow. That seems to be a lesson that has been utterly lost in America today.
That is what I think.... what about you?
S/F
Del
Here’s the column by Bing West from Small Wars Journal website (a link to his bio is at the end):
Tactics or Strategy?
I came back from my latest month in the field in Afghanistan disquieted about our basic military mission. Is the military mission to engage, push back and dismantle the Taliban networks, with population protection being a tactic to gain tips and local militia, or is the military mission to build a nation by US soldiers protecting the widespread population, with engagements against the Taliban as a byproduct?
It appears our strategy is nation-building, with fighting and dismantling of the Taliban a secondary consideration. Thus, the number of enemy killed will not be counted, let alone used as a metric. This non-kinetic theory of counterinsurgency has persuaded the liberal community in America to support or at least not to vociferously oppose the war. But we have to maintain a balance between messages that gain domestic support and messages that direct battlefield operations.
We must understand what our riflemen do in Afghanistan every day. The answer is they conduct combat patrols. That underlies all their other activities. They go out with rifles to engage and kill the enemy. That is how they protect the population. For our generals to stress that the war is 80% non-kinetic discounts the basic activity of our soldiers. Although crime isn’t eradicated by locking up criminals, we expect our police to make arrests to keep the streets safe. Similarly, our riflemen are trained to engage the enemy. That’s how they protect the population. If we’re not out in the countryside night and day – and we’re not – then the Taliban can move around as they please and intimidate or persuade the population.
I’m not arguing that we Americans can ever dominate the Taliban gangs. There’s a level of understanding and accommodation among Afghans in the countryside that culturally surpasses our understanding. During the May poppy harvest, the shooting stops on both sides and men from far and wide head to the fields to participate in the harvest. That’s an Afghan thing. Only the Afghans can figure out what sort of society and leaders they want.
That said, we should strive to do a better job of what we are doing for as long as we are there. I condensed several hours of firefights I filmed during various patrols into the 30-second clip I posted here on 10 August (Not a Tactical Hurdle). The purpose is to illustrate a tactical problem that is strategic in its dimensions. Simply put, our ground forces are not inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. However, the annual bill for the US military in Afghanistan exceeds $70 billion, with another four to six billion for development. We’ve already spent $38 billion on Afghan reconstruction. Congress may eventually balk at spending such sums year after year. The problem is we’re liable to be gradually pulled out while the Taliban is intact. Nation-building alone is not sufficient; the Taliban must be disrupted.
Our soldiers only get a small number of chances to engage the enemy. Our battalions average one arrest every two months, and one platoon-sized patrol per day per company that infrequently makes solid contact. On average, a US rifleman will glimpse a Taliban once a month. The Taliban initiate the fights because they know they can escape. Our patrols have firepower but lack mobility. Our soldiers are carrying 70 pounds; a Taliban is carrying ten pounds. The Taliban have the distinct edge in mobility. Because the Taliban are well-concealed and scoot away, our superior firepower does not yield precision aim points to do severe damage.
More senior-level attention must be paid to inflicting severe enemy losses in firefights and to arresting the Taliban, so that their morale and networks are broken. A recent directive forbids applying indirect fires against compounds where civilians might be hiding. That directive upholds human decency and may reduce enemy propaganda. But indirect fires – helicopter gunships and jets – used to be called “precision fires” and gave the US its enormous advantage in combat. Now that such fires are restricted, what provides our advantage when the enemy sensibly fights from compounds? Don’t expect Afghan soldiers to do it for us. We have equipped and trained the Afghans in our image. They are as heavy and slow-moving on the ground as we are, and rely upon our advisors to call in the firepower.
This is my third war. It has the highest level of military scholars. Those scholars who emphasized the concepts of non-kinetic counterinsurgency need also to design concepts that bring more lethality to the ground battlefield. We’re pumping billions into UAVs. Surely we can find technologies and techniques for the grunt.
Bing West’s bio
This may, also, be of interest: Why We Need More Troops in Afghanistan
The question still remains, whether President Obama will pursue half-measures or go full in to accomplish something more possibly lasting.
 I am going for a ride after church on this lovely August day. If I take a bad fall or hit a branch and break my neck, rest assured that I not only have private major medical insurance and thus will be no burden to you, but I also have a living will. If I am permanently wrecked, shoot me. (.45, base of the skull. Closed casket is fine with me anyway, because I hate having people staring at me whether I am living or dead unless they are shapely 20 year-old blonds. Also, undertaker take note: I am allergic to Formaldehyde.) I would do the same favor for a horse or a dog - and I have done so.
This a quote from Acton:
In a fast-paced society, we have a tendency to leap past the basic questions into a morass of detail. Single payer or government as one provider among many? Mandates requiring every citizen to buy health insurance? Control over utilization by some board of experts? These are all important questions, but they should come after a consideration of our core values. The United States prides itself on being a nation with citizens possessed of a freedom given by God and thus not subject to the whims of human government.
The great Wilhelm Roepke, architect of West Germany’s miraculous post-WWII economic recovery, viewed the tendency toward ever larger government with alarm. He correctly ascertained that the more areas of life the government brings under its responsibility, the more it will eventually dictate the basic conditions of those areas of life. Democracy combined with a lack of appreciation for human independence from the government results in a “pre-totalitarian” society.
It is a sober and somber essay.
Related: I think Whole Foods is a joke and a half - and a rip off joint for the Volvo and Chardonnay set - but their CEO gets it about medical insurance. Good on him. As he points out:
 Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
Yes, the Socialist Utopia Awaits. All you have to do is to turn yourself into an ignorant, helpless infant first.
A snap of the Billings Farm in Woodstock. Yes, it's a museum farm, but they do a good job with their Jersey cows. Are mixed farms museums now?
My pal and I stole a couple of apples off their trees from over the fence during a morning hike last weekend: very good Macintosh apples - cold and crisp and spicey at 7 am. (This free ad is our in-kind payment.)
That's their cornfield in the background, and some hayfields behind that.
I thought to myself that no real farmer and orchard-keeper would have such meticulous lawns around their apple trees:
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
2:10 Then David slept
with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David.
2:11 The time
that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in
Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.
2:12 So Solomon sat on the
throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established.
3:3
Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he
sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.
3:4 The king went to
Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the principal high place; Solomon used
to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.
3:5 At Gibeon the LORD
appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask what I should give
you."
3:6 And Solomon said, "You have shown great and steadfast love to
your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in
righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him
this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne
today.
3:7 And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in
place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how
to go out or come in.
3:8 And your servant is in the midst of the people
whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or
counted.
3:9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern
your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your
great people?"
3:10 It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked
this.
3:11 God said to him, "Because you have asked this, and have not
asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but
have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right,
3:12 I
now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no
one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after
you.
3:13 I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor
all your life; no other king shall compare with you.
3:14 If you will
walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David
walked, then I will lengthen your life."
Saturday, August 15. 2009
Now I am talking about Woodstock, NY. I was at that dumb thing. I was young, but I did attend that weekend concert with some friends in their van. We did not have the $18 three-day tickets, like most of the people who showed up. The fences and admission booths were long trampled when we got there.
It sucked. I never understood why such a big deal was made of it. Rain, mud, overflowing porta-potties, stoned teenie-boppers, music you could hardly hear. Some of the stoned teenie-bopper girls took off their shirts and danced in the rain while long-haired sociopathic predators prowled all around for a peek, hoping to get stoned and laid in the mud. "Got any grass, man?" Like, really groovy.
We brought our own cooler of food and beer.
We got out of there after 24 hours or so, as I recall. Maybe 36 hours. It was not easy getting out of there on the muddy, rutted dirt road and, at points, you had to drive off the road onto the soggy pastures, but we finally made our escape. People are impressed that I was there, but they are wrong to be. We were just young and foolish, but we recognized a shit show, as they say on Wall St., when we saw one.
Bob Dylan was wise to stay away. Ritchie Havens, as I recall, was pretty good but I do not know why he did Beatles songs. We did not have any pot, but maybe we did. I don't remember, but I never saw the point of it anyway except once. The guys from Sha-Na-Na were my buds from college, so I did not need to hear them. Jimmy Hendrix? I do not recall whether we heard him in the distance. Probably not, but I also heard him live in Bridgeport, CT one time, on the high school football field right behind the jail.
Yes, he was an exciting performer. No doubt about about it.
I’ve nothing against the Woodstock get-together nor its good music. For those there who enjoyed the rain and mud, and those who addled their brains with drugs – most temporarily and some permanently, you’re welcome to it. What many object to is that Woodstock has been raised to an almost holy event to be honored as symbolic of our generation. Meanwhile, the far many more young people who wouldn’t have thought of attending, and the many more young people who weren’t there because they were serving in the armed forces, the hollow hallowedness attached by the media to Woodstock is seen as, as usual, blatantly one-sided and ignores the real sacrifices faced by others.
The VFW Magazine tells the tale of the 109 Americans killed in Vietnam during those four days in August 1969.
Time gushed with admiration for the tribal gathering, declaring: “It may well rank as one of the significant political and sociological events of the age.” It deplored the three deaths there—“one from an overdose of drugs [heroin], and hundreds of youths freaked out on bad trips caused by low-grade LSD.” Yet attendees exhibited a “mystical feeling for themselves as a special group,” according to the magazine’s glowing essay….
Meanwhile, 8,429 miles around the other side of the world, 514,000 mostly young Americans were authentically serving the country that had raised them to place society over self. The casualties they sustained over those four days were genuine, yet none of the elite media outlets were praising their selflessness….
So when you hear talk of the glories of Woodstock—the so-called “defining event of a generation”—keep in mind those 109 GIs who served nobly yet are never lauded by the illustrious spokesmen for the “Sixties Generation.”
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Rennselaer, NY
A college professor friend who is authoring a book about those from NYC who did serve in Vietnam asked me to send him this, below, which I’ve kept in a scrapbook buried in my garage. The photo is me, in the center, leading a June 1968 Flag Day parade around my college campus, just before graduation. Soon after, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. During Woodstock, I was training to go on to Vietnam. The sentiments in the poem are those of another Marine, in Leatherneck Magazine, which mirrored my own.
Hey, Bird Dog. That was not a tornado you experienced on Monday. That, I believe, was a Microburst. Most people have never experienced them, so you are a lucky one.
Microbursts are violent, brief (10-15 minute), very localized downdraft weather events with the power of tornadoes.
As one guy reported on his experience of one of these,
Microbursts are caused by a collapsing thunderstorm. What happens is, a thunderstorm rides up and over some hot dry air. This causes the rain that the thunderstorm is trying to drop to evaporate, which in turn, causes that hot dry air to suddenly cool off. Cool air falls fast, in fact so fast in this case, that it steals all the energy rising up into the thunderstorm. The sudden downdrafts cause all of the storms energy and moisture to drop in place. It would be kinda like placing a bunch of the little green plastic soldiers on your patio and then standing up on a picnic table, pouring a pitcher of water straight down on them. As the water hits the concrete, there is no where for it to go but out sideways with great force. That is what causes all the wind damage.
It is very hard to predict a Microburst. Later, the ABC station showed their Viper Radar loop. Indeed, there were sheer indicators that popped up right over us right as the Microburst occurred. It only showed on radar for about a minute or two and then was gone, but it sure did a bunch of damage in the short time it was here.
Dylan questioned by cops in NJ. Yes, the Jersey shore. Police said they had a report of "a stranger wandering around and looking into a vacant house in a rainstorm." Yup, that would be Bob. The mystery tramp.
Note that he did not say "Don't you know who I am?"
This is 1966 in England:
Government is the most powerful and dangerous "special interest" that exists. Everybody knows that. George Washington predicted it.
Government power is the flaw of democracy. That's why they wanted a Constitutional Republic, but Lincoln and FDR erased that ideal for most purposes. What "Constitution"?
It's the businesses, poverty pimps, and unions (so they do not have to fuss about it) that support government medical care (but the poor already have Medicaid). It's the people who do not support a government take-over. They are not impressed by how government runs things, for good reason.
I heard on the radio today that the Prez admitted that he has never read the latest medical care bill. Well, a good salesman can sell ice to Eskimos.
It is wonderful to see that Americans still want freedom from government control, aka "government help." Kudlow points out today that, in Georgia, you can get good medical insurance (including Major Dental - wow! My teeth are a mess) for $120/month. Of course, federal law forbids interstate medical insurance.
Why? It's supporting some friends of some politicians. Government is the most insidious and potent "special interest."
Toon via S,C &A;
Friday, August 14. 2009
The New York Times:
"The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks."
Boy, the world sure is a mysterious place to the New York Times.
Powerline and Instapundit vie for favorite beauties.
Guess where Instapundit sends you.
I’d rather be in Iceland. (All puns intended.)
Bitchy Virgin is now closed, and a darn nesting Peregrine Falcon plus rockfalls have closed off some of my weekend climbing warm-ups in the Gunks. I do not do serious technical climbing, but I like to know how to handle gnarly rocks. I am headed for Banff (photo above) this week to catch some mountain air, then down to Maine 'til Labor Day. Will post when and if I have time on a machine, and will pre-post a few time-insensitive items if I have the chance. NYC is wonderful in the summertime - especially during this cool summer - but I need to hit the road and put some adventure under my belt while I have the chance, while I am still single and free. One of these days some adorable sexy little cutie is going to catch me in her web. I know my weaknesses, and I know I will play along with it if she is from a nice family, because having a partner is a good thing. Not having one is pretty good, too.
Here are a few important links:
Some gay guys' ideas of what Harvard students wear. I thought it was satire at first.
The O's obese Surgeon General nominee advises Burger King for $. On nutrition! Haha. The Dems crack me up. Burger King isn't the worst of the burger chains, though.
Goldberg: Healthcare is the key to controlling everything. That why this is war!
Forbes: Public Spending's Day Of Reckoning
GOP thinks Victory in 2010. My only concern is that it will be too late.
Note to Editor: Pls put Fabius Maximus on our Mostly Political blogroll.
Shootout in Harlem. Speedy justice.
Ugly dirt on Rahm Emanuel. Sheesh. The Dems crack me up. Their greed for money and power knows no bounds. Every Lefty I know is either filthy rich, or a born whiner with a serious case of ingratitude and/or entitlement.
Is Hillary back to being First Lady again? Althouse
"Bye bye ACORN. Don't come back. Get a job." Gateway
Sippican went to the doctor's.
Via Lucianne: Obama's Forfeited Credibility Sabotaging Obamacare
Rush: The left's fragile mask of sanity is peeling... Video with good song borrowed from Randy Newman
Did the Prez realise what he was saying when he said “I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It’s the post office that’s always having problems.”
It's a disease. Climate changist:
Schelling was quoted in The Atlantic as wishing for natural disasters: "I sometimes wish we could have over the next five or 10 years a lot of horrid things happening, you know, like tornados in the Mid west and so forth. That would get people concerned about climate change."
Morano called characterized such statement as insane.
Indeed. Freakin' nuts. Keep it up, Mr. Morano.
Wish I had written about the Genie. From Am Thinker, which begins:
He's not happy, this Genie. In normal times, he sits there quietly inside the bottle. Sometimes watching. Mostly not. He finds politics boring, if not disgusting.
He sat and watched in silence as the TARP bill passed. Told the sky was falling, he looked up and saw it wasn't. But he shrugged, trusting the bipartisan nature of the effort. Then, as TARP rolled out, he stood up. The bailouts plowed a furrow across his forehead; his eyebrows lowered; his gaze intensified. But he stayed inside the bottle.
"Obama has lost control of the debate, and when that happens, it's over," said health care consultant Robert Laszewski. "The well's been poisoned."
Let's hope so. There are plenty of good reforms which do not involve government power grabs.
Too many fun posts at Moonbattery for me to link separately.
Pharmaquiddick. Drug deal gone bad. Is secret collusion between government and industry legal?
Jammie on New York pols:
It's not only the fact people are very suspicious of government taking over an entire industry that's dooming this scheme, but it's the smug arrogance, the imperious pomposity of the Weiners of the world that will relegate this to the dustbin. Here you have a man whose entire career is based on focus group talking points and tired liberal cliches whining that someone is using talking points, as if a constituent who's speaking his or her mind is carefully coached on what to say in public like Weiner is.
Very comforting - Obama: We'll Ship Patients Anywhere. How about to a private clinic in Switzerland or Mexico?Quoted by Betsy:
Robert Wright notes that "we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing." This is a true point made by the proponents of health care reform. But I'm not sure why it's supposed to be so interesting. You could make this statement about any good:
"We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing."
"We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing."
"We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing."
And indeed, this was an argument that was made in favor of socialism. (No, okay, I'm not calling you socialists!) And yet, most of us realize that there are huge differences between price rationing and government rationing, and that the latter is usually much worse for everyone. This is one of the things that most puzzles me about the health care debate: statements that would strike almost anyone as stupid in the context of any other good suddenly become dazzling insights when they're applied to hip replacements and otitis media.
Quoted at Rick Moran:
It’s not like there aren’t free market ideas out there to reform health care - despite what our president and the Democrats want you to believe. They are attempting to ram this health care reform package through the Congress while saying that their opponents have no new ideas to solve the same problems.
But covering the uninsured by making insurance affordable for all, covering those with pre-existing conditions, bringing down the cost of health care, and assuring that the patient, in consultation with his doctor, has the most control over his own treatment are goals that can be achieved more cheaply, and by using a mostly free market approach to reform.
Unfortunately, a completely market oriented solution is not politically viable or realistic at this time. More than six dollars in every ten we spend on health care in America is spent by government. Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans benefits, Indian health care, active duty military care, and the children’s insurance program S-CHIP are just a few of the programs that have skewed the market in health insurance and health care so that a purely free market solution is not in the cards. And doing away with these government programs - even if it were possible - would not be the answer.
But believe me, we can do better than what the president and the Democrats are proposing.
Right. Fine with me, as long as politicians do not control my medical choices.
 California’s heavily Democrat legislature has twice in the past few years voted for a single-payer (that’s government-run monopoly) health care system. Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger vetoed. Even though he has advocated major government interventions into the health care market, they went too far.
There is little likelihood of the Democrats losing control of Sacramento's legislature. There is a strong possibility of the next California governor being a liberal Democrat, especially with the disappointments Arnold has visited upon the remaining Republicans who haven’t moved elsewhere.
San Diego Union-Tribune editor Chris Reed fills in the blanks.
Because [US Congress] Rep. Dennis Kucinich's amendment to the main health overhaul bill to give states the option of creating single-payer health-care systems looks like it has a good chance of being adopted. On July 17, the House Committee on Education and Labor voted 25-19 to approve the amendment. Allowing states to try single-payer is an easy way for Obama to mollify liberal Democrats who think his proposal is too modest. They believe that if states got a chance to go to single-payer, the results would be far superior to Obama's much more complicated approach and would show the need for a national single-payer system.
Reed also provides some experience from a leading doctor in our northern neighbor. For example: “… the vast majority of provinces now rely on American health care to provide radiation therapy. Provinces do this because the clinically recommended waiting time for treatment is often badly exceeded.”
Both the Democrat and Republican line-ups for 2010’s governor election are still fluid.
Look for, hopefully, this question to be prominently asked of the potential candidates. Of course, don’t look for it to come from most of our major newspapers or TV “news” stations. It will take a California centered Town Hall movement to demand clear answers, or expose the obfuscations and deceptions of the candidates.
Get ready.
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