In preparation for a fun and patriotic 4^th of July, I’ll share with you two of my secrets to a BBQ that is a real pleaser.

First, let your properly unattired significant other, friendly neighbor, or other local hottie do the BBQing. Then, everyone will have patience waiting for what comes off the grill. That, also, leaves time for more beer.

Second, not that you'll care what she serves you, use this Jackie's Oklahoma Style Barbecue Sauce.

It’s the real thing, Oklahoma-style, not adulterated nor wimpified nor commercialized, so authentic you’ll wonder why anyone left the dustbowl in the ‘30s.

A friend and co-worker’s wife made this at home from her family recipe. Everyone who tasted it drooled in delight. (No, that’s not her photo above; we couldn’t persuade her to reveal her secrets.)  In the early ‘80s, they figured out how to bottle it for others. (That took about a year of trials and errors, ‘til getting it just right.) Whenever I’d be in the San Francisco Bay Area, I carried back a case or two. Now, it’s in my local San Diego area Stater Brothers supermarket, and I tout it to anyone walking near the BBQ sauce aisle.

That makes for interesting conversations. One, it beats a chick-magnet puppie. Most women look for ways to please, and/or love to cook. Two, most fans of the yellowish, sweeter Southern-style BBQ sauce are quickly converted to becoming Okies, like myself (an Oy Vey Okie). That makes for swinging soirees in the aisle, or later.

For those of you who want to yelp with slobbering joy, here’s a few testimonials.

For those of you who want to try the real deal, here’s a place where you can order a jar of the taste of hog (or whatever your meat) heaven.

For those of you who just like to drool, our BBQ mistress above welcomes you to her hot sauciness.

For those of you who just want to argue their personal favorite BBQ sauce or recipe, the Comments await your personal slobbering.

For over twenty years, I’ve been a scrupulous, multi-credentialed independent health care consultant and broker. I and others who actually know anything from the experienced, practical and studied perspective have warned that the medical loss ratios built into ObamaCare are dangerous to the quality and costs of medical insurance.

Medical loss ratio measures the percentage of premiums paid out in claims and for quality improvement. Just paying out more on claims does not reduce costs nor improve quality. Duh!

I wrote about this last April, that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) said that ObamaCare’s medical loss ratios were within 5% of nationalizing the health insurance industry, so the Congressional Democrats who rammed ObamaCare through kept the medical loss ratios just below the 90% at which the multi-trillion dollar costs of outright nationalization would have to be counted by the CBO. What we got is a sham, nationalization masquerading – bad enough – as a highly regulated utility.

The CBO and the American Academy of Actuaries both pointed out that medical loss ratios are both misleading and can easily be contradictory to restraining costs or improving quality. This is particularly so when the formula is drawn too narrowly or ignorantly. Politicians' soundbites and regulator rampagers fit those categories of malpractice.

The largest insurance companies were at least half-way in bed with ObamaCare, looking to their own preservation, but now both they and brokers and the public are impregnated with a problem baby.

As during the HillaryCare debates, health care consultants and brokers are in the lead in trying to get sense into the examining room. We are virtually the only organized groups really fighting to keep government quackery away from your health. Sure, our already low commissions are in play, but so is your ability to have knowledgeable, independent guidance through the thickets of medical insurance and coverage.

The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, the National Association of Health Underwriters, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors  have joined to plead to state insurance commissioners and medical insurance companies:

But “we fear the adoption of a narrow and static definition will adversely impact spending on certain important health plan activities,” the groups say.

In many cases, moves to reduce costs improve quality, and moves to improve quality reduce costs, the groups say.

“The definition of ‘activities that improve health care quality’ should be crafted in a way that recognizes this,” the groups say.

Activities now shut out of the definition include utilization review, fraud prevention activities, and network management, and those activities “are essential to maintaining and improving the quality of health care that clients of our members receive on a daily basis,” the producer groups say.

“Our members know firsthand that less utilization review, fraud prevention, and network development means lower quality health care for their clients – in addition to higher costs,” the groups say.

But, hey, ObamaCare is not really about reducing costs or improving quality; it’s primarily about grossly enlarging government and its control of the economy and our lives.

If you care to weigh in on drawing the formula for medical loss ratios in ObamaCare to be more reasonable, you can write to Ethan Sonnichsen, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (the umbrella for the states' insurance commissioners) Director of Government Relations at his email  esonnich@naic.org .

Oh Yeah: This Mass. pre-experience of ObamaCare should help increase the medical loss ratio, pay large claims for those who dip in to coverage then stop paying premiums.

The number of people who appear to be gaming the state’s health insurance system by purchasing coverage only when they are sick quadrupled from 2006 to 2008, according to a long-awaited report released yesterday from the Massachusetts Division of Insurance.

The result is that insured residents of Massachusetts wind up paying more for health care, according to the report. …

New York State is typical of spendthrift states teetering on the hole they've dug of big deficits, looking for more taxes to fill the hole into which tax dollars are thrown.

The latest:

Many nonprofit organizations in New York are deeply concerned they will lose significant contributions from wealthy donors if a pending state budget proposal becomes law. The proposal would reduce the charitable-contribution deductions allowed for individual donors who are “high earners.”

Gov. David Paterson and the state legislature are in a bitter battle as they try to finalize a budget during the bad economic times, but they apparently have agreed on a proposal that would allow the approximately 3,500 New York taxpayers who earn more than $10-million annually to deduct on their state tax returns only 25 percent of their charitable contributions rather than the current 50 percent.

Yes, there’s this, for many donors, self-promotion ranks above helping the needy:

In New York, Arts Trump Social Causes for Philanthropic Recognition: Large donations to institutions such as the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York City Ballet are well covered in the press, and serving on major arts boards can raise members’ social standing and improve business ties, Crain’s writes. By contrast, when the New York investment managers Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller, who focus on medical and economic charities, ranked No. 1 on the latest Chronicle of Philanthropy list of top givers, “many in the city's nonprofit world wondered, 'Who?’”

Experts say the city's elite put great value on major arts institutions, and gifts to such organizations garner public attention because they are often landmarks frequented by residents and tourists, unlike new hospital wings or university buildings.

Yet, as the official tabulation of income taxes paid in New York shows, (page 5) of $29.6 billion in personal income taxes collected in 2007, 49% came from those with income above $500,000, about 1% of taxpayers, and their deductions were 8% of the tax deductions claimed by all taxpayers.

The well-to-do are more than contributing their part to the NYS government largesse with taxpayer funds.

But, according to the tabulation of the top US contributors to charities for 2008,due to the economic downturn their charitable contributions have fallen:

[T]he number of wealthy people making big gifts has shrunk. A donor needed to part with just $16.2-million in 2009 to qualify for The Chronicle’s list. In 2008 that number was $30.5-million; and in 2007 it was $39-million.

So, tell me why and how New York State driving its golden geese out of state will benefit the needy or the art-starved in New York State.

So, tell me how higher taxes will incent the most productive to invest more or earn more just in order to have more taken away.

So, tell me why higher taxes will not lead to lowered prosperity and thus to lower tax collections and charitable contributions, most of which goes to help the real and supposedly needy.

So, tell me whether adding more government-sector workers, at higher pay and benefits than among private-sector workers, the private-sector workforce shrinking, is really the priority of liberal nest-feathering politicians.

Ron Radosh, as well as other knowledgeable or honest critics, recognize the “travesty” of “Oliver Stone’s new documentary,  South of the Border, his ode to Hugo Chavez and South and Latin America’s new quasi-Marxist and not so quasi dictators.”

For some background into useful idiot Oliver Stone’s “standard far-left narrative that is part of a long line of propaganda films, a modern American version of the old agitprop”:

From the BBC report and from Robert Service’s bio of Trotsky, will the real Chavez and Trotsky please stand up or be excused by ignorant fantasist rationalizers of tyranny?

This morning I saw my son off to sleepaway camp. The mother of my son’s seatmate on the bus and I met and spoke briefly. It turned out we have family (all Jewish) and other friends in common back East.

She was in law school with Obama at Harvard.

She says that Obama was not particularly “political” at that time. [My thought: probably unnecessary as most there likely agreed on most things.]

She says that Obama is not an anti-Semite. [My thought: So what if he hires “court Jews”, hangs out with real anti-Semites, and even for – in his opinion – the best of reasons weakens Israel.]

She says that Obama is a good listener. [My thought: So what, if he only listens to those who agree with him.]

She is an Obama-loyalist, only offering the criticism that he is “indecisive.” [My thought: Only indecisive while trying to figure out how to get away with weakening allies or national security, or propel the US into further debts, enlarge government intrusion into and control over our lives, and undermine free enterprise.]

The Left, of course, and the usual fickle conservatives with more ink to expend than practical experience or judgment, have taken the McChrystal affaire and the difficult Afghanistan situation as a new opportunity to exhibit their emphasis on bloviation and lack of spine under difficult challenges regardless of impact on real persons’ lives.

What is notable, however, is that during the discussions of the relief from command of General Stanley McChrystal, most conservatives and professional military leaders came down – even with much misgivings – in favor. Military decorum and civilian control are primary, they affirmed.

Still, while not challenging civilian control of the military, what is missed is that our military’s current rulers have a long record of disrespect for the military and open antagonism to the missions to which we have sent them to struggle, all paying extraordinary sacrifices while politicians and most of the homefront focus on feathering nests.

Such as Andrew Bacevich, not missing yet another opportunity for another way to express his repeated defeatism and antagonism to firm foreign policy, laments instead:

Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government. Not least among those values is a code of military conduct that honors the principle of civilian control while keeping the officer corps free from the taint of politics….But indications that the military's professional ethic is eroding, evident in the disrespect for senior civilians expressed by McChrystal and his inner circle, should set off alarms.

Usually sensible Eliot Cohen puts the issue in a broader light:

Today, in the midst of the conflict, we cannot achieve the detachment that military historians writing 50 years from now will have. But we can at least cling to some basic principles in explaining our wars to ourselves.

The first of these is that the civilian leadership is always -- always -- the responsible party. It is responsible for choosing the war, responsible for the strategy, responsible for the military leaders it hires or fires, responsible for ultimate success or failure. It should never be off the hook. The second is the recognition that military institutions and their leaders are radically imperfect. The leaders vary in quality; few have all the attributes required to win, particularly in an era made more complicated by continuous news cycles.

Jules Crittenden, who has actually been to combat and deeply studied war, gets to the point, reminding generalizers of nonsense:

Given the governing party’s preference for strategizing by poll, and the president’s own ambivalence toward winning, there is little reason to be encouraged that he will hang tough in Afghanistan, see to U.S. national security interests there, and give democracy, women’s rights, civilization, that kind of thing a chance, plus render American sacrifices meaningful. Except for one key factor, vanity, which may be a reason for hope in this situation, the one thing that might compel the president to persevere on a foreign field of battle, especially now that the unassailable Gen. David Petraeus has his back.

President Obama, his civilian yes-men from the Left, and politically-chosen military advisors may have triumphed  - even rightfully - over the disrespect, deserved, openly expressed by General McChrystal and his staff. But, their record of disrespect for the military, its professionalism, and its life-and-death existence does not earn them any pass on their continued muddled confusion or purposefully dangerous weakness.

In WWII the US fielded a mostly draft military. In Korea and Vietnam, draftees filled the ranks. Today, we field a superbly professional voluntary military. The Obamaites, and the fickle conservative pundits, should feel lucky they have a professional military that restrains itself. Draftees and their families would never tolerate their heartless, gutless toying with their lives. That would be a real popular and military uprising.

Ezra Klein’s juicebox-level of Leftist propaganda-feed group-think journalism and the defenders of General McChrystal’s crew of wisecrackers as being abused by the Rolling Stone’s reporter have something in common: Neither are willing to stand in public behind the truth that anything that passes from one’s lips is public property.

Yes, if one explicitly says to another “Private” or “Secret” or “Do not quote”, that might be respected. And, it might not. If you don't have discretion or maturity, why expect that of others who also may not or have interests other than covering up for your lackings?

And, if one says to oneself that anything I say should be properly stated and reflect my views, and I will either stand behind it or explain why and how I was wrong or off-mark, then one is acting with integrity to oneself and others.

To feel otherwise is immature and irresponsible. It is an abuse of one's public position to not be forthcoming and transparent.

This is particularly so when entrusted with the ears of millions of Americans on important public issues, or the fate of millions of Americans and allies’ lives.

In my garage, I have boxes full of literally thousands of published pieces I’ve written during and since college. That’s 46-years of comment and analyses. Many, most?, are easily available on the web. I'm also surprised at how many correspondents have archived my emails, when I haven't. If any want to publish them, have at it.

I said it. I stand behind it, or will answer for it.

But, I will not hide behind some notion that I can be allowed to deceive or excuse or cry when someone quotes me.

But, then, I am not a careerist feathering my nest by expecting tolerance for having a lack of respect for myself, for others or for my responsibilities and ethics, and thinking I have some sort of right to be deceptive or a manipulator.

Be an adult, be a professional, or get the hell off the stage, or be exposed for a child playing with other people’s lives and too self-concerned to admit it.

We need more public and private integrity, straight-talk and standing behind it, openly, not less or any more excuses for being immature kindergartners playing with other people's trust or lives.

P.S.: An earlier version had "kindergarden" and "kindergardners." Now corrected for proper, Germanic-root spelling. - Thanks Glenn.

At the doctor’s office this morning I picked up a magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review, of course dated November/December 2009.

An article caught my eye, How Did Israel Become A People?, by Abraham Faust, based on his book (hold on for a doozy of a title) Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (2007) which won the Biblical Archaeology Society Award for Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology.

Briefly:

The “Israel” that is mentioned in the Merneptah Stele [13^th Century B.C.E.] is indeed the “Israel” of the Iron Age. And it can be identified archaeologically. The rich archaeological database, and its analysis with appropriate tools, allows us to trace the Israelites and to decipher many of the internal and external processes that characterized the group from the beginning of the Iron Age onward.

So much for arguments about Jews being a recently externally imposed colony on historically Arab land. The peoples in Israel at the time of the 13^th Century B.C.E. were Israelites, Canaanites, long gone, and then Philistines, from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, with some Egyptian invaders for a time in between.

Faust promises another article about the development of Israel’s Jewish religion.

I’m going to be returning to the website of Biblical Archaeology Review,  as there appear to be many interesting, scholarly articles and book reviews from various religious and academic viewpoints.

COIN, the abbreviation for counterinsurgency operations, is hotly debated as applied in Afghanistan.

Those most blindly in favor on the Left think it a way to be nice and avoid many of the harshnesses of war. Others think it’s a way to make foes like us and avoid creating more foes.

Those most angrily critical are either conservatives, experienced in war, or those whose lives are actually at risk on the front lines.

They are all partly correct, that far. Where many go off the rails is in not understanding what COIN actually is, or in taking it to absurd or counter-productive excess, and in not confronting the quagmire of Obama and his chosen meddlers.

Let’s re-visit the US entry in large numbers into Vietnam.

The Insurance Research Council (IRC), of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, analyzed in Hospital Cost Shifting and Auto Injury Insurance Claims hospitals’ cost shifting from government medical programs onto auto insurance companies.

Based on over 42,000 closed claims from 22 insurers representing 58% of the private passenger auto insurance market in the US, in the 38 states analyzed over $1.2 billion of costs were shifted in 2007 due to low reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.

That only covers part of the shifting in other states and from other medical coverages.

Add on top of that the severe restrictions on medical care provider charges that are to be imposed by ObamaCare. "It will take months, if not years, to understand the full impact of the reforms on hospital cost shifting and the auto insurance system," said Elizabeth Sprinkel of the IRC.

Pretty soon you’ll see the results in your auto insurance premiums, as ObamaCare drives us off the cliff.

Last April I wrote about the coming explosion of Qui Tam lawsuits against medical providers, due to relaxed standards for bringing such suits making it a happy hunting ground for litigators fishing for financial payoffs.

As if the US didn’t already have enough lawsuits, and as if excess litigation isn’t one of the prime drivers of medical costs, and as if the Democrats didn’t garner 90% of tort lawyers’ contributions, ObamaCare will create a new boom in lawsuits.

At this week’s Healthcare Financial Management Association the healthcare law expert warned of a coming “storm” of lawsuits and quipped, “You'll need to look around your organization and see who looks best in orange [prison clothing color] and pick that person.”

Judge predicted an explosion of new whistle-blower lawsuits because the new law relaxes the requirements for filing such lawsuits under the federal False Claims Act. For example, the new law effectively eliminates the requirement that a plaintiff have direct knowledge of the alleged fraud in order to file suit.
The new law also converts accidental Medicare overpayments to providers into potential false claims, Judge said. She said the law considers an overpayment as fraud if the overpayment isn't identified by the provider and returned to the government within 60 days. Judge said that will require providers to beef up their internal billing systems to detect an overpayment as soon as possible and then send Medicare back its money.

Wonder why litigation reform was excluded from ObamaCare and why tort attorneys eager to make money regardless of increased medical inflation and excess CYA tests are one of Democrats’ largest donor groups?

President Obama chose General Stanley McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan. There can be little doubt that Obama knew that McChrystal voted for him.

Now, McChrystal and staff let the cat out of the bag, that everyone watching knew already: President Obama, VP Joe Biden, National Security Council head Jim Jones, Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan  Richard Holbrooke, have been actively undermining the war effort through timidity, illusions and interfering with McChrystal, the only proven warrior and COIN expert in the bunch and the only one respected by the Afghanis.

General David Petraeus will now fill in, downgrading Petraeus from chief at CENTCOM with wider responsibilities for the tinderboxes in the Middle East and South Asia. That is a big hole to fill in dangerous times.  Petraeus is not holding it against Obama that Obama joined in the liberal Democrats’ defeatism in Iraq when Petraeus then proceeded with President Bush’s firm and brave support to save the bacon. Petraeus is, after all, a bigger and real man.

And, once again Obama has chosen his personal agenda and ego above military effectiveness. Obama just appointed a new Commandant for the Marine Corps, seemingly largely based on the appointee’s agreement with gays openly serving, over the true proven warrior in the missions faced, General James Mattis, who with Petraeus co-authored military COIN doctrine.

General Mattis could have been chosen to replace McChrystal.  But, he wasn’t. There’s no doubt that Petraeus will do an excellent job, but Mattis would also, and wouldn't have left a gaping hole at CENTCOM. However, Mattis is also known as a no nonsense commander, who is famous for saying in Iraq that Marines will kill if attacked (though the Left ignores that Mattis is also an advocate of “soft-power” COIN so that is less necessary).

Straight talk is not to be had when Obama’s ignorant ideology and thin ego are exposed to challenge by straight talk. Petraeus is less likely to be as blunt to Obama and the US public, whose sons and daughters’ lives are at stake on the front lines.

At least three senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have it straight:

The resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal should lead the Obama administration to re-evaluate their civilian Afghanistan team as well, three members of the Armed Services Committee said Wednesday.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said the controversy surrounding the Rolling Stone profile of McChrystal revealed problems beyond the comments of McChrystal and his team.

"The civilian side, in my view, is completely dysfunctional," said Graham.

Indeed.

One can hope against experience with Obama that this fracas will lead him to get more firmly behind the – at his insistence undermanned vs the military’s recommendation – troops, and make clear that there is no deadline on our commitment. The New York Times' headline, however, reports "Obama Says Afghan Policy Won't Change."

Or, one can hope against experience that Obama will feel so boxed in and revealed by his own fecklessness, especially in expectation of the drubbing coming in November, that he will straighten up, himself and his ideological coterie who are undermining the Afghanis and Americans. I have a bridge to sell you if you believe that.

Or, one can hope that even without a worthwhile Commander in Chief that General Petraeus can perform miracles.

The lives of our troops, and of civilians here in the US, depends upon one man, and that man is not President Obama.

P.S.: Henry Kissinger says of Obama's course, "Neither the premise nor the deadline is realistic," in saying "America needs an Afghan strategy, not an alibi." Read it all.

P.P.S.: As usual with Bing West, BINGO!