We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
For years we’ve been told that Democrats were more “reality-based,” that “facts have a liberal bias,” in the words of Paul Krugman, and that if they could just have their way, they could fix all of our problems. No one represented this arrogant promise more than Barack Obama himself. But, with an irony so rich it would be made of Corinthian leather if it was a car seat, the only way he could get his signature legislation passed was to baldly and brazenly lie about it, over and over and over again. He created a rhetorical cloud castle where no one would lose his insurance, every family would save thousands of dollars, and millions of the uninsured would suddenly get coverage. Anyone who doubted this was called a fool or a liar, or even a racist. It was, in the parlance of liberalism, a “false choice” to assert that Obamacare couldn’t be a floor wax and a dessert topping.
And all of this — every bit of it — is their own fault.
Just as the media and the White House knew and covered up the fact that ObamaCare would devastate the individual market, they know and are now covering up the fact that the Obama administration itself has predicted that once ObamaCare's employer mandate hits in about 14 months, tens of millions could lose the insurance President Obama relentlessly reassured them they could keep...
The "problems" with Obamacare - not including the tech failures - are not bugs, they are features. The strategic brilliance of it all is unfolding. 85% were satisfied with their medical care before, but watch that number drop fast with outcries for a government fix of the supposed government fix.
Athletes, especially football, basketball, boxers, wrestlers, etc. beat the heck out of eachother every day for fun and/or profit, so why are people upset about words?
If they didn't bully eachother, I'd wonder what was wrong with them. They are gladiators, not hypersensitive metrosexuals. We must all learn to be tolerant of differences, and that includes differences we might not like. Tolerance, not necessarily approval although I am all in favor of locker-room-style insults and degradation. It's normal and fun verbal sparring and generally a form of male bonding. "Your mother wears Army boots."
If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
What war on teachers? If a war is needed, it's a war on a sick culture, because a few more large-screen TVs won't do much for kids' education. There is nothing about relative poverty that interferes with self-improvement. In fact, it encourages and motivates it.
Remember the Democrat Convention last year, when we were assured that government is the only thing to which we all belong? This shows that liberals haven't made a dent in the most destructive kinds of poverty, i.e., mental and spiritual. Indeed, for the liberal, these impoverished states are mandatory -- sort of an inverted interpretation of Jesus's praise of the poor in spirit. "Blessed are the weakminded, for they shall inherit the state."
I have no doubt that Obama wishes Obamacare to do good. But that is no excuse! Indeed, we could call it culpable goodness, because there is probably nothing in the world that has caused as much death and destruction as misguided good.
If you missed this, it's an enjoyable interview: In Conversation: Antonin Scalia - On the eve of a new Supreme Court session, the firebrand justice discusses gay rights and media echo chambers, Seinfeld and the Devil, and how much he cares about his intellectual legacy (“I don’t”).
I cannot confirm whether this is accurate, but a commenter at Ann Althouse noted this:
..."the "health care provider" (must) interrogate the "patient" at each appointment and record the results in the government database. (And the provider who doesn't get the data gets financially punished.) The mandated interrogation is about smoking, whether or not the patient is being beaten at home, with whom and how often the patient is having sex, and how many guns are in the patient's home "
That's a quote from Obamacare describing your "annual health exam."
Lying doesn't cover half of it.
My doctor is now a spy for the State? Give me a break. No patient go along with that, nor will any good doctor. Do we have to get paranoid about our doctors now?
We're #120 on the list this time, even though I will insist that we are a Centrist/Libertarian, traditionalist, common-sensical, average-IQ/middlebrow and New England-flavored website, and not a politically Conservative website.
Quibbles aside, we'd like to rise above #120. Our readers can do that for us, by letting their friends, neighbors, relatives, enemies, colleagues, and websites know that we exist. I think we're an interesting and sometimes provocative site that almost anybody can enjoy and, sometimes, learn from. We do enjoy producing it for our readers, and for our own fun as a hobby.
With that said, onward to this morning's diverting link dump:
A thank-you to all American vets, living and dead, from the potato-peelers to the Generals, for their service.
Photo of one vet (discovered while cleaning out my parents' house this fall) is my recently-deceased Dad (died in July), with me as a young lad. 2nd Lieut. He was a US Army Vet of WW2 and of Korea, drafted out of Harvard College after 1 1/2 years and never went back but, after the wars, had a distinguished career as a Prof at Yale. Dad learned to hate war and military aggression with a passion after seeing so many fine youth ripped apart for no good reason (in his view). As far as I could tell, he built exactly the life he wanted.
Yes, you are right! Let's elect Hillary, because it's time! Time we elected someone who has -- a vagina! Can you think of a better reason to elect someone? Other than skin pigment, I mean.
Australia
snubs global climate talks, as Greg Hunt stays home to repeal carbon
tax
- See more at:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/australia-snubs-global-climate-talks-as-greg-hunt-stays-home-to-repeal-carbon-tax/story-e6frg6xf-1226754823154#sthash.sPLMCFKF.dpuf
Australia
snubs global climate talks, as Greg Hunt stays home to repeal carbon
tax
- See more at:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/australia-snubs-global-climate-talks-as-greg-hunt-stays-home-to-repeal-carbon-tax/story-e6frg6xf-1226754823154#sthash.sPLMCFKF.dpuf
She has some paranoid ideas but I'm sure her memories are accurate. I suspect that Barry's being gay and doing drugs only adds to his David Bowie-style rock star image. Who cares? It's just interesting that there is nothing real there, on the surface, but, again, who cares? People did not elect a friend.
People ask me, as a Physician, whether or how I would reform healthcare. (What they mean, it turns out, is not to reform medical care but to change how medical insurance works. Nobody really wants medical care in the US to change because it is the best and most caring in the world, by far, thanks to our free choices, national prosperity, brains, and freedom in general.)
It's become clear to me that people are divided into two basic camps on medical insurance: those who want to insure cheaply against major expense and those who want what amounts to pre-paid medical care. In any event, it is stunning to me that 85% of Americans were content with their medical care situation pre-Obamacare so I'm not sure that represented any crisis requiring massive Federal intervention and control.
As someone whose bias is against government getting involved further in our lives, if I were King here's what I would do about medical insurance - free it up:
1. I'd permit medical insurors to create national markets for insurance, like MLS does with real estate. They would be happy to do so were they free to do that.
2. I'd make medical insurance portable across state lines, and detach it from employment. If any employer wants to chip in, or if a union contract requires a business to chip in, fine. They could offer vouchers as a benefit, if they want to.
3. I'd demand that insurors insure everybody who wants to buy some, creating high-risk pools just as they do for auto insurance if needed.
4. I would permit the freedom to sell any kind or style of medical insurance people might want with whatever sort of coverage they want to buy. Or not to buy, if they want. It's a free country, and people are free to be foolish or to trust in the benevolence of others.
5. Regarding Medicare and Medicaid, I would fold them together somehow as means-tested charities for the poor, run by states or municipalities.
(As an off-topic aside, let me tell you the problems with many government-paid Medicaid patients and charity patients: they miss appointments, they are not appreciative and treat you like a servant, they will not make morning appointments, they resist advice, their fees do not pay the rent so docs have to limit their numbers - and they are prone to lawsuits against you. I know about this, because I do around 10-15% charity work in my office as my form of tithing, volunteer one day/week in a charity clinic, and teach for free 1/2 day/week. Just another greedy doc. )
Addendum: A reader asks about tort reform. Good question. God knows how much of medical expenses are CYA by docs and hospitals. The reality is that medical care is an art, and that any medical decision can be challenged or questioned if somebody wants to sue their doc.
" If you want to provide public services to a lot of poor people, you need a lot of rich people to pay taxes. And if you provide such services, immigrants will pour in, and the most diligent and cleverest of them will fight for the available spots in the best schools. We’re seeing the fruits of New York’s success every day. There’s nothing wrong with New York that a million Asian immigrants wouldn’t fix really fast."
And for what? Eighty-five percent of Americans were happy with their health care before Obamacare, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index — higher than almost any other product or service polled, with even Amazon coming in at 88 percent satisfaction. Even uninsured Americans were as satisfied with their health care as Canadians were with their national health care.
If Obamacare is fully implemented, at least 129 million (68%) will not be able to keep their previous health care plan either because they already have or will lose that coverage by the end of 2014.
One comment: It's not "health care," it's "medical care," and it's not even "medical care" - it's medical insurance. People want valuable stuff for free. That will never happen. I am still waiting for my free legal care.
One more link. Somebody put this together for laughs: My Cancellation
Kennedy’s murder was a national tragedy, to be sure, but an
honest assessment of his record shows that our lawless and reckless
35th president was anything but a national treasure.
I have missed meaningful paper gains in the past year by being out of equities. I must be a lousy gambler. I steer clear of casinos. Zero Hedge explains what I have been seeing this year: The worse the economic numbers are, the higher the markets go. That's because lousy real numbers make the Fed afraid of quitting QE (which they should have done more than a year ago) and want to print money like crazy.
The American Psychiatric Association is confused about the PC answer to that question. It must be difficult to be both multiculturally-sensitive and yet PC in the American way, given that pedophilia seems quite accepted in Muslim areas along with recreational homosexuality, rape, etc.
Trading is not investing, but people make money doing it. This is a fascinating view of a growing part of Wall St. and world markets, and interesting people too. (H/T Exposing Wall Street's Hidden "Code")
The problem now is not the delivery system of the program, it’s the program itself. Not the computer screen but what’s inside the program. This is something you can’t get the IT guy in to fix.
They said if you liked your insurance you could keep your insurance—but that’s not true. It was never true! They said if you liked your doctor you could keep your doctor—but that’s not true. It was never true! They said they would cover everyone who needed it, and instead people who had coverage are losing it—millions of them! They said they would make insurance less expensive—but it’s more expensive! Premium shock, deductible shock. They said don’t worry, your health information will be secure, but instead the whole setup looks like a hacker’s holiday. Bad guys are apparently already going for your private information.
80+% of Americans were comfortable with what they had, before all of this. That's a high % for anything.
On paper, the $4,955 family is poor. But so were the Polynesian beach combers. Poverty is relative. From the perspective of a white male capitalist, the $4,955 family is ridiculously poor, but its life is actually comfortable and worry-free compared to the $110,729 family.
Just imagine federally-managed and controlled legal insurance. After all, legal access and justice is a real right. At Jacobson:
The great Obamacare reform is turning into the great thrust of tens of millions of people onto Medicaid.
The problem is, fewer and fewer doctors are willing to take Medicaid patients because the reimbursements are so low.
I have met numerous doctors who tell me they either refuse Medicaid patients or restrict them because the reimbursements do not cover their costs. They also double and triple book, because so many Medicaid patients who make appointments don’t show up. As to Medicare the payments currently are bearable, but only because private insurance payments for other patients make up the shortfall.
Increasingly, doctors are abandoning the government payment train wreck, and going all cash or some hybrid. This all was foreseeable and was foreseen.
The millions of new Medicaid patients will have insurance, just no doctors to see them. That is a feature, not a glitch, to those who want single payer. Obamacare is proceeding accordingly to plan.
Socialism requires government force.A key tactic is to break and disrupt things,and then to jump in with a forced plan to fix it.
It's interesting that, in most of the discussion of medical care, the source of the heavy costs are neglected: expensive procedures and hospital care at the end of life. An office visit to an internist or family practitioner is still inexpensive.
4 World Trade Center opens 
Via 
Michael Duffy
Image of Obamacare ad via
We're 
A thank-you to all American vets, living and dead, from the potato-peelers to the Generals, for their service.
A reader sent that pic of his pup Dexter retrieving a Woodcock. Many dogs will not pick up a Woodcock - something about their odor.
Friction Physics Reveals Details Of How People