Recently there has been quite a lot written about how expensive health care is. Which isn't surprising, because health care is expensive, especially if you want access to all the latest technology, which most people do when their lives are at stake.
But the truth is that health care is just like TV. If you're satisfied to watch a ten year old technology TV you can get one at Walmart for a hundred bucks. If you want the latest huge screen plasma model it's going to cost you ten or twenty times as much.
The next time you hear someone whining about the cost of a new wonder drug remind him that he can save a lot of money by using an old generic drug that's probably almost as good. If there is no old generic drug that treats his condition you can remind him that the new drug is very logically worth quite a lot if he would have died before it was invented.
The government charges a young person something like 14% of his income for Social Security, which is insurance that he will get a fairly minimal pension in his old age. By that standard the value of medical treatments which will let him live to old age is quite high.
But just how expensive is health care? It turns out that it's not very expensive at all considering the alternative. There is a website called ehealthinsurance.com that will quickly give you quotes on health insurance if you put in your age.
It turns out that a 25 year old can get catastrophic coverage with a high deductible for $40 a month, or he can get a gold plated policy for about $175 a month. Figure one day a month working at the local McDonalds for basic catastrophic coverage and a few days a month of minimum wage work for gold plated coverage.
The rates for a 61 year old are, not surprisingly, quite a bit steeper since he's quite a bit closer to his sell by date and is probably already a medical mess. But even so, a 61 year old can buy catastrophic coverage for about $200 a month, which he can net with about a week's work at the local Wawa even after the government grabs its taxes. It's true that gold plated coverage at about $1,000 per month is pretty much out of the ballpark for the 61 year old unless he's saved up and/or built up the skills to make significant income; but if he's 61 he should already know that anybody who ever promised him a rose garden was bullshitting. A 61 year old is too dumb to be worth saving if he doesn't already know that life ain't fair, and then you die.
Another thing that gets to me is the constant whining about how the cost of extraordinary health care is driving some people to bankruptcy. Even as I feel sorry for those people, it's very hard for me to avoid thinking that bankruptcy is a whole lot better than dead, which is what they would be without the extraordinary health care.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The great circle of life
It's the season of the fawns. Three of the cute little tykes have been gambolling oer the lawn, stretching their little legs, testing the strength of their little haunches. Their mothers move in somewhat more stately fashion.
All very picturesque and life affirming, until one of the mothers ceases to move in stately fashion and comes to just lie there with one unseeing eye staring up at the sky, proclaiming a very inconvenient truth, dead in the middle of the path behind the pond, flies gambolling around that one accusatory eye.
She was still alive the other day, that visible eye occasionally blinking, her breath shallow. She didn't seem to be suffering, unlike that other one with the hurt hoof a few years ago that somehow got himself all tangled up in the wild rose bush where he struggled and struggled. Thankfully this one died on her own, so I was spared the very unpleasant necessity of putting her out of her misery.
But she couldn't stay where she was. So I went out this morning with the tractor and dragged her to a less conspicuous spot. She's pretty well off the path through the old horse pasture, down near where the local kids dragged those rectangular clay drainage pipes and set them up as supports for benches around a firepit a few years ago. Nobody used that firepit this spring; and they certainly won't be using it this fall.
Early on, way back in 1979 or so, Mom got an introduction to the whims of the country just after she and Pop moved into Colwell's old house. Colwell's dog found a deer carcass in the woods and had a grand old time dragging ribs and long bones and big pieces of hide around the lawns. Unlike Pop, Mom was not amused. She wanted me to go down in the marsh and bury the carcass; but by the time the dog got to dragging pieces around there really wasn't much of a carcass to bury.
The good news is that there aren't any big dogs around to tear this new carcass apart and drag pieces of it all over the place; the bad news is that if something doesn't tear it apart it's going to raise quite a stink. I won't be walking the lower loop of the path through the old horse pasture until the cold of winter sets in. Other walkers will just have to take their chances.
All very picturesque and life affirming, until one of the mothers ceases to move in stately fashion and comes to just lie there with one unseeing eye staring up at the sky, proclaiming a very inconvenient truth, dead in the middle of the path behind the pond, flies gambolling around that one accusatory eye.
She was still alive the other day, that visible eye occasionally blinking, her breath shallow. She didn't seem to be suffering, unlike that other one with the hurt hoof a few years ago that somehow got himself all tangled up in the wild rose bush where he struggled and struggled. Thankfully this one died on her own, so I was spared the very unpleasant necessity of putting her out of her misery.
But she couldn't stay where she was. So I went out this morning with the tractor and dragged her to a less conspicuous spot. She's pretty well off the path through the old horse pasture, down near where the local kids dragged those rectangular clay drainage pipes and set them up as supports for benches around a firepit a few years ago. Nobody used that firepit this spring; and they certainly won't be using it this fall.
Early on, way back in 1979 or so, Mom got an introduction to the whims of the country just after she and Pop moved into Colwell's old house. Colwell's dog found a deer carcass in the woods and had a grand old time dragging ribs and long bones and big pieces of hide around the lawns. Unlike Pop, Mom was not amused. She wanted me to go down in the marsh and bury the carcass; but by the time the dog got to dragging pieces around there really wasn't much of a carcass to bury.
The good news is that there aren't any big dogs around to tear this new carcass apart and drag pieces of it all over the place; the bad news is that if something doesn't tear it apart it's going to raise quite a stink. I won't be walking the lower loop of the path through the old horse pasture until the cold of winter sets in. Other walkers will just have to take their chances.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Not quite the same as knowing about every feather that falls from a sparrows tail, but. . .
These researchers set up a couple of cameras to watch the sky over part of the desert in Australia. Then they calculated where a meteor fell based on the track it made on the videos. They found the tennis ball sized meteorite within 100 yards of the place their system predicted that it had landed.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090917144123.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090917144123.htm
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Springtime for Putin and Medvedev
President Obama has done some very dumb political things since taking office. He's appointed people who have had obvious scandal problems and he's later had to withdraw their appointments. He badly underestimated the resistance there would be to the Cap and Trade energy tax that the Green wing of his party wants badly. And he was clumsy in the way he tried to sell his health care plan with the result that his Democratic Party allies have been put into bad political positions this summer.
But none of those mistakes were very surprising in light of the fact that he has not had much experience on the national scene. And none of those mistakes will necessarily doom Obama to being written down as one of the truly bad presidents, like Jimmy Carter. People forget that Bill Clinton, who is now considered a political genius, also made clumsy mistakes during his first few months in office. Lots of new presidents have made dumb mistakes early in their terms and then gone on to improve the quality of the advisors around them, reassess their plans and goals, and manage to do pretty well on the whole.
But today President Obama cancelled the missile defense system that's been negotiated for and planned for Western Europe since the Clinton Administration. As a result he betrayed the governments of Poland and The Czech Republic, which had each agreed to have one of the missile defense bases in their country despite knowing that it would cause them to get a lot of heat from the Russians. He made the Poles and the Czechs look profoundly stupid for trusting the U.S. and taking that heat over the past few years. And he gave a major psychological and political boost to Russia's thuggish leader Vladimir Putin, who had opposed the missile defense system even though it was not designed or planned to defend against Russian missiles but rather against potential Iranian or Pakistani missiles in the future.
This could have been put down to mere foolishness or inexperience on Obama's part if he had announced it last week, or next week, or even yesterday, or tomorrow. But he didn't do that. He announced it today, September 17th, of all days.
For those of you who didn't study any history in high school, today is the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland in 1939. The Russians under Joseph Stalin invaded Poland on September 17th, 1939 as part of a cynical deal they had made with Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Germany to divide Poland up between them.
And on this day, of all days in the year, President Obama has betrayed the Poles and given a major concession to the Russians.
Anyone who thinks this is a mere coincidence, or the result of mere stupidity on the part of President Obama and his advisors must also believe in the tooth fairy. Certainly no one who has read anything about European history will believe it was a mere coincidence or the result of mere stupidity.
Vladimir Putin and Dymitry Medvedev certainly won't take it as a coincidence or mere stupidity. They will take it as a clear signal that the U.S. is no longer interested in central Europe and that the Poles and Ukrainians and Lithuanians and Latvians and Estonians are on their own. Those peoples, in turn will decide either to make accommodation with Russia or they will decide to prepare to resist, either of which will almost surely start again the whole insane central European power politics game that resulted in about a hundred million dead soldiers and civilians in the last century.
The lights will be on late tonight in every military headquarters and foreign office in Europe as prectical military men and diplomats start the process of revising all their plans and reassessing all of their assumptions about the future of peace in Europe.
But none of those mistakes were very surprising in light of the fact that he has not had much experience on the national scene. And none of those mistakes will necessarily doom Obama to being written down as one of the truly bad presidents, like Jimmy Carter. People forget that Bill Clinton, who is now considered a political genius, also made clumsy mistakes during his first few months in office. Lots of new presidents have made dumb mistakes early in their terms and then gone on to improve the quality of the advisors around them, reassess their plans and goals, and manage to do pretty well on the whole.
But today President Obama cancelled the missile defense system that's been negotiated for and planned for Western Europe since the Clinton Administration. As a result he betrayed the governments of Poland and The Czech Republic, which had each agreed to have one of the missile defense bases in their country despite knowing that it would cause them to get a lot of heat from the Russians. He made the Poles and the Czechs look profoundly stupid for trusting the U.S. and taking that heat over the past few years. And he gave a major psychological and political boost to Russia's thuggish leader Vladimir Putin, who had opposed the missile defense system even though it was not designed or planned to defend against Russian missiles but rather against potential Iranian or Pakistani missiles in the future.
This could have been put down to mere foolishness or inexperience on Obama's part if he had announced it last week, or next week, or even yesterday, or tomorrow. But he didn't do that. He announced it today, September 17th, of all days.
For those of you who didn't study any history in high school, today is the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland in 1939. The Russians under Joseph Stalin invaded Poland on September 17th, 1939 as part of a cynical deal they had made with Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Germany to divide Poland up between them.
And on this day, of all days in the year, President Obama has betrayed the Poles and given a major concession to the Russians.
Anyone who thinks this is a mere coincidence, or the result of mere stupidity on the part of President Obama and his advisors must also believe in the tooth fairy. Certainly no one who has read anything about European history will believe it was a mere coincidence or the result of mere stupidity.
Vladimir Putin and Dymitry Medvedev certainly won't take it as a coincidence or mere stupidity. They will take it as a clear signal that the U.S. is no longer interested in central Europe and that the Poles and Ukrainians and Lithuanians and Latvians and Estonians are on their own. Those peoples, in turn will decide either to make accommodation with Russia or they will decide to prepare to resist, either of which will almost surely start again the whole insane central European power politics game that resulted in about a hundred million dead soldiers and civilians in the last century.
The lights will be on late tonight in every military headquarters and foreign office in Europe as prectical military men and diplomats start the process of revising all their plans and reassessing all of their assumptions about the future of peace in Europe.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Great news, if true
"The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," says Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University.
I'm skeptical of Professor Post's belief that the weather in the Arctic will be toasty anytime "soon;" but I certainly hope that he's right. Just imagining all that land up in the north of Canada that will "soon" be toasty enough to produce amber waves of grain has me tempted to reach for a box of cereal.
But I was a bit surprised by another assertion included in the article about the discoveries of Post's team.
According to Science Daily: "The scientists found that the increase in mean annual surface temperature in the Arctic over the last 150 years has had dramatic effects."
I'm hard pressed to understand how the actions of man could be, like, totally, responsible for starting the Arctic to warming 150 years ago in light of the fact that man didn't really start producing significant CO2 until, like, many years after that. Could it be that Professor Post is one of those global warming deniers who admit that other factors might have something to do with the climate?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910142348.htm
I'm skeptical of Professor Post's belief that the weather in the Arctic will be toasty anytime "soon;" but I certainly hope that he's right. Just imagining all that land up in the north of Canada that will "soon" be toasty enough to produce amber waves of grain has me tempted to reach for a box of cereal.
But I was a bit surprised by another assertion included in the article about the discoveries of Post's team.
According to Science Daily: "The scientists found that the increase in mean annual surface temperature in the Arctic over the last 150 years has had dramatic effects."
I'm hard pressed to understand how the actions of man could be, like, totally, responsible for starting the Arctic to warming 150 years ago in light of the fact that man didn't really start producing significant CO2 until, like, many years after that. Could it be that Professor Post is one of those global warming deniers who admit that other factors might have something to do with the climate?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910142348.htm
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Caught in a blatant lie within 24 hours
While watching the president's speech last night I was suspicious about the story he told of the fellow who lost his health care insurance. Here's a fellow at sweetness-light.com who probably works in pajamas at his computer doing the job that the mainstream media would be doing if they weren't so deeply in the president's pocket that they're covered with lint and smell like Chinese Chestnut flowers in the spring.
Obama Misrepresents Insurance Case
From Mr. Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress last night:
“One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.”
This is the sad story of Mr. Otto Raddatz, a case that Mr. Obama has cited several times before, including in his August 16th editorial in the New York Times.
For the record, however, the case is not exactly the way Mr. Obama has characterized it, at least according to the sworn testimony of Mr. Raddatz’s sister.
From Ms. Raddatz’s opening statement, from pages 58-59 of the transcript (a pdf file) of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation Committee hearings on ‘The Termination Of Individual Health Policies By Insurance Companies,’ Tuesday, June 16, 2009:
Otto began more chemotherapy for purposes of preparing him for a stem cell transplant. In the midst of his chemo treatments, Otto received a phone call and letter from Fortis Insurance Company stating his insurance was canceled. It was rescinded all the way back to the effective date of August 7, 2004.
This meant none of his cancer treatments would be covered. Most importantly, he would not be able to receive the stem cell transplant need [sic] to save his life. My brother only had a very small window of time in which to have the stem cell transplant. He needed to be scheduled within the next 3 to 4 weeks.
My brother was told he was canceled during what they called a "routine review" during which they claimed to discover a "material failure to disclose". Apparently in 2000 his doctor had done a CT scan which showed an aneurysm and gall stones. My brother was never told of either one of these conditions nor was he ever treated for them and he never reported any symptoms for them either.
After months of preparation, the stem cell transplant could not be scheduled. My brother’s hope for being a cancer survivor were dashed. His prognosis was only a matter of months without the procedure.
Mr. Radditz was faced with having to pay for the stem cell transplant himself in order to save his life.
However, Mr. Raddatz’s lawyer sister contacted the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. They investigated and found that the doctor who did the CT scans could not remember whether he had ever told Mr. Raddatz about his findings.
Consequently, the insurance company overturned their original decision to rescind her brother’s coverage, and he was reinstated in the words of his sister, "without [any] lapse."
Again, from Ms. Raddatz’s sworn testimony:
After two appeals by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Fortis Insurance Company finally overturned their original decision to rescind my brother’s coverage and he was reinstated without lapse. This is after weeks of constant phone calls between myself and the Attorney General’s Office and we were literally scrambling hour by hour to get this accomplished so that my brother wouldn’t lose his 3- to 4-week window of opportunity that he had prepared for and lose his opportunity to have the procedure.
In other words, Mr. Raddatz’s did receive the stem cell transplant without delay.
Indeed, Ms. Raddatz does not seem to claim anywhere in her testimony that the insurance company’s actions shortened her brother’s life. (Though she does accuse them of having been cruel and unethical.)
From page 75 of the hearings transcript:
Mr. Barton. My next question is to the gentle lady there in the middle. Your brother, has he had his stem cell transplant? Ms. Raddatz. He did indeed receive the stem cell transplant. It was extremely successful. It extended his life approximately 3-1/2 years. He did pass away January 6, 2009, and he was about to have a second stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, due to certain situations, his donor became ill at the last minute and so he did pass away on January 6. But again, it extended his life nearly 3-1/2 years and at his age, each day meant everything to him…
This is not quite the impression Mr. Obama gives with his rendition of Mr. Raddatz’s story.
Despite Mr. Obama’s claims, Mr. Raddatz’s treatment was never delayed. And he did not die because of it.
Meanwhile, in this very same speech Mr. Obama accused others of misrepresenting the facts.
Hat tip to Kathry Jean Lopez of National Review who pointed to this post at sweetness-light.com.
Obama Misrepresents Insurance Case
From Mr. Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress last night:
“One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.”
This is the sad story of Mr. Otto Raddatz, a case that Mr. Obama has cited several times before, including in his August 16th editorial in the New York Times.
For the record, however, the case is not exactly the way Mr. Obama has characterized it, at least according to the sworn testimony of Mr. Raddatz’s sister.
From Ms. Raddatz’s opening statement, from pages 58-59 of the transcript (a pdf file) of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation Committee hearings on ‘The Termination Of Individual Health Policies By Insurance Companies,’ Tuesday, June 16, 2009:
Otto began more chemotherapy for purposes of preparing him for a stem cell transplant. In the midst of his chemo treatments, Otto received a phone call and letter from Fortis Insurance Company stating his insurance was canceled. It was rescinded all the way back to the effective date of August 7, 2004.
This meant none of his cancer treatments would be covered. Most importantly, he would not be able to receive the stem cell transplant need [sic] to save his life. My brother only had a very small window of time in which to have the stem cell transplant. He needed to be scheduled within the next 3 to 4 weeks.
My brother was told he was canceled during what they called a "routine review" during which they claimed to discover a "material failure to disclose". Apparently in 2000 his doctor had done a CT scan which showed an aneurysm and gall stones. My brother was never told of either one of these conditions nor was he ever treated for them and he never reported any symptoms for them either.
After months of preparation, the stem cell transplant could not be scheduled. My brother’s hope for being a cancer survivor were dashed. His prognosis was only a matter of months without the procedure.
Mr. Radditz was faced with having to pay for the stem cell transplant himself in order to save his life.
However, Mr. Raddatz’s lawyer sister contacted the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. They investigated and found that the doctor who did the CT scans could not remember whether he had ever told Mr. Raddatz about his findings.
Consequently, the insurance company overturned their original decision to rescind her brother’s coverage, and he was reinstated in the words of his sister, "without [any] lapse."
Again, from Ms. Raddatz’s sworn testimony:
After two appeals by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Fortis Insurance Company finally overturned their original decision to rescind my brother’s coverage and he was reinstated without lapse. This is after weeks of constant phone calls between myself and the Attorney General’s Office and we were literally scrambling hour by hour to get this accomplished so that my brother wouldn’t lose his 3- to 4-week window of opportunity that he had prepared for and lose his opportunity to have the procedure.
In other words, Mr. Raddatz’s did receive the stem cell transplant without delay.
Indeed, Ms. Raddatz does not seem to claim anywhere in her testimony that the insurance company’s actions shortened her brother’s life. (Though she does accuse them of having been cruel and unethical.)
From page 75 of the hearings transcript:
Mr. Barton. My next question is to the gentle lady there in the middle. Your brother, has he had his stem cell transplant? Ms. Raddatz. He did indeed receive the stem cell transplant. It was extremely successful. It extended his life approximately 3-1/2 years. He did pass away January 6, 2009, and he was about to have a second stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, due to certain situations, his donor became ill at the last minute and so he did pass away on January 6. But again, it extended his life nearly 3-1/2 years and at his age, each day meant everything to him…
This is not quite the impression Mr. Obama gives with his rendition of Mr. Raddatz’s story.
Despite Mr. Obama’s claims, Mr. Raddatz’s treatment was never delayed. And he did not die because of it.
Meanwhile, in this very same speech Mr. Obama accused others of misrepresenting the facts.
Hat tip to Kathry Jean Lopez of National Review who pointed to this post at sweetness-light.com.
A great pick me up for when you're feeling dumb
Whenever you get to thinking that you've said or done something really stupid or inappropriate here's a column written by the Sports Columnist for the Orange County Register that will quickly convince you that you're not so stupid after all.
This is what he wrote about that young woman who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a shack as a sex slave for 18 years.
"It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page. Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year. She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn't high-fived in a while. She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey. Now, that's deprivation."
Some jocks are dumb and some jocks are smart; but Mark Whicker, who writes about them, is dumb as a post, dense as lead and clueless as a conga drum.
If you want to read the whole column you can read it here: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/world-won-most-2555260-never-one
This is what he wrote about that young woman who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a shack as a sex slave for 18 years.
"It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page. Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year. She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn't high-fived in a while. She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey. Now, that's deprivation."
Some jocks are dumb and some jocks are smart; but Mark Whicker, who writes about them, is dumb as a post, dense as lead and clueless as a conga drum.
If you want to read the whole column you can read it here: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/world-won-most-2555260-never-one
Too perfect to require comment - but I will anyway
Three quotations to think about:
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
- George Orwell
Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.
- John Derbyshire
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.
- Thomas Friedman
Back in the 1920's liberals made excuses for "the excesses" of Benito Mussolini because he "made the trains run on time." In the 1930's liberals made excuses for "the excesses" of Adolph Hitler because he built superhighways and claimed he was building Volkswagens for the masses. In the 1940's liberals made excuses for "the excesses" of Joseph Stalin because he industrialized Russia. In the 1960's and to this very day, liberals make excuses for "the excesses" of Fidel Castro because he supposedly increased literacy in Cuba.
Here we are in 2009 and a liberal idiot is making excuses for "the excesses" of the jackbooted thugs who run China because those thugs are supposedly doing good things for the environment, which is untrue in any case. China's rulers are making polite noises to lefty environmentalist idiots like Thomas Friedman about developing alternative energy sources while they're building coal powered electricity generating plants and spewing out increasing amounts of pollution at a far greater rate than any other country in the world.
Does Thomas Freidman know this? Of course he knows it, every bit as much as his predecessor lefties knew that Uncle Joe Stalin was purposely starving millions of people in the Ukraine while the New York Times was writing about the Soviet economic miracle. For God's sake, the Chinese Communist government had to shut down the industries near Beijing in order to make the air quality decent enough to hold the Olympics. Does that sound like a country doing good things for the environment?
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Hat tip to http://lyflines.blogspot.com/2009/09/quote-chain.html and to Jonah Goldberg of National Review who steered me to this.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
- George Orwell
Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.
- John Derbyshire
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.
- Thomas Friedman
Back in the 1920's liberals made excuses for "the excesses" of Benito Mussolini because he "made the trains run on time." In the 1930's liberals made excuses for "the excesses" of Adolph Hitler because he built superhighways and claimed he was building Volkswagens for the masses. In the 1940's liberals made excuses for "the excesses" of Joseph Stalin because he industrialized Russia. In the 1960's and to this very day, liberals make excuses for "the excesses" of Fidel Castro because he supposedly increased literacy in Cuba.
Here we are in 2009 and a liberal idiot is making excuses for "the excesses" of the jackbooted thugs who run China because those thugs are supposedly doing good things for the environment, which is untrue in any case. China's rulers are making polite noises to lefty environmentalist idiots like Thomas Friedman about developing alternative energy sources while they're building coal powered electricity generating plants and spewing out increasing amounts of pollution at a far greater rate than any other country in the world.
Does Thomas Freidman know this? Of course he knows it, every bit as much as his predecessor lefties knew that Uncle Joe Stalin was purposely starving millions of people in the Ukraine while the New York Times was writing about the Soviet economic miracle. For God's sake, the Chinese Communist government had to shut down the industries near Beijing in order to make the air quality decent enough to hold the Olympics. Does that sound like a country doing good things for the environment?
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Hat tip to http://lyflines.blogspot.com/2009/09/quote-chain.html and to Jonah Goldberg of National Review who steered me to this.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
A couple of questions for the president
I've been trying like hell, fairly successfully, to avoid listening to political ranting on the TV shows for the past couple of weeks. But, as a patriotic American, I was compelled to watch the president spout amazing nonsense for much of the 48 minutes that he addressed the joint session of congress earlier this evening.
So here I am, wondering if President Obama is the smoothest liar I've ever seen or heard of, or whether he managed to get through Harvard and several highly profitable years in Chicago and Illinois politics without learning anything about how government bureaucracies work.
For instance, he very forcefully said, several times, that he can pay for his entire massive health care program by saving more than a hundred billion dollars each year that's currently consumed by waste and fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Now, as it happens, I'm very cynical about the competence of government bureaucracies, so I believe Medicare and Medicare are paying for quite a bit of fraudulent care; but even I don't believe they're being defrauded for over a hundred billion dollars a year. And if they are being defrauded for that much money, I fail to see why President Obama hasn't already done a wholesale shakeup of the management of those bureaucracies. If they're really wasting more than $12 Billion per month there should be bureaucratic heads rolling all over Washington, DC.
So I have a couple of questions that I hope some reporter will ask the president.
"Mr. President, you've said you can pay for your health care program by saving over a hundred billion dollars a year in fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid payments. And you have been in office for almost nine months. Why haven't you already done something to to stop such an outrageous amount of fraud?"
And here's a follow-up question:
"Mr. President, who is the great manager that you plan to put in charge of Medicare and Medicaid to stop all that fraud? Will it be the same sort of genius you put in charge of the cash for clunkers program that can't seem to pay it's claims within the two weeks that the law explicitly promised? Or will it be the kind of genius you put in charge of the stimulus program that has given hundreds and hundreds of billions of tax dollars into the care of the same executives who ran the huge banks that made a mess of the mortgage market with their bad decisions.
So here I am, wondering if President Obama is the smoothest liar I've ever seen or heard of, or whether he managed to get through Harvard and several highly profitable years in Chicago and Illinois politics without learning anything about how government bureaucracies work.
For instance, he very forcefully said, several times, that he can pay for his entire massive health care program by saving more than a hundred billion dollars each year that's currently consumed by waste and fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Now, as it happens, I'm very cynical about the competence of government bureaucracies, so I believe Medicare and Medicare are paying for quite a bit of fraudulent care; but even I don't believe they're being defrauded for over a hundred billion dollars a year. And if they are being defrauded for that much money, I fail to see why President Obama hasn't already done a wholesale shakeup of the management of those bureaucracies. If they're really wasting more than $12 Billion per month there should be bureaucratic heads rolling all over Washington, DC.
So I have a couple of questions that I hope some reporter will ask the president.
"Mr. President, you've said you can pay for your health care program by saving over a hundred billion dollars a year in fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid payments. And you have been in office for almost nine months. Why haven't you already done something to to stop such an outrageous amount of fraud?"
And here's a follow-up question:
"Mr. President, who is the great manager that you plan to put in charge of Medicare and Medicaid to stop all that fraud? Will it be the same sort of genius you put in charge of the cash for clunkers program that can't seem to pay it's claims within the two weeks that the law explicitly promised? Or will it be the kind of genius you put in charge of the stimulus program that has given hundreds and hundreds of billions of tax dollars into the care of the same executives who ran the huge banks that made a mess of the mortgage market with their bad decisions.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Can't run Cash for Clunkers? Here, take health care.
Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak is upset because the government's much talked about Cash for Clunkers program has failed the pay the auto dealers the cash it promised for the clunkers. It seems that the geniuses down in Washington (Sestak included) passed the Cash for Clunkers scheme without having the slightest idea of how to run it efficiently.
Among other things they grossly underestimated the speed with which people and auto dealers would grab onto the cash; and they failed to think through the effect on auto dealer finances; and they set up a bureaucracy that has proven to be a total clunker at administering the program.
You can find Congressman Sestak's letter complaining to President Obama about the program here:
http://blogs.mcall.com/penn_ave/2009/08/sestak-to-feds-fix-clunkers-program-red-tape.html
It's kind of rich that Congressman Sestak is complaining about the inefficiency of a program that he himself voted for. But I guess that's the kind of things you do when you're a congressman; you vote for unworkable and inefficient programs and then you blame someone else for then.
I have a question for Congressman Sestak. If this president and this congress and the rest of the federal government can't efficiently set up and manage a very simple little $3 Billion program like Cash for Clunkers, what possible logic can there be in thinking that they can run a very, very complex $2.5 Trillion industry like health care?
Among other things they grossly underestimated the speed with which people and auto dealers would grab onto the cash; and they failed to think through the effect on auto dealer finances; and they set up a bureaucracy that has proven to be a total clunker at administering the program.
You can find Congressman Sestak's letter complaining to President Obama about the program here:
http://blogs.mcall.com/penn_ave/2009/08/sestak-to-feds-fix-clunkers-program-red-tape.html
It's kind of rich that Congressman Sestak is complaining about the inefficiency of a program that he himself voted for. But I guess that's the kind of things you do when you're a congressman; you vote for unworkable and inefficient programs and then you blame someone else for then.
I have a question for Congressman Sestak. If this president and this congress and the rest of the federal government can't efficiently set up and manage a very simple little $3 Billion program like Cash for Clunkers, what possible logic can there be in thinking that they can run a very, very complex $2.5 Trillion industry like health care?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
President Obama supports offshore drilling!
President Obama supports offshore drilling; but not in the U.S. of course. Instead he's loaning a couple of billion dollars of your tax money to Petrobras to drill off the coast of Brazil. At the same time he supports so called environmentalists who use all manner of legal maneuvering to make it impossible for oil and gas companies to drill off the coast of this country.
This makes not one lick of sense in any dimension.
Since our government is running a deficit it must borrow money by selling bonds in order to loan this money out. So our government is borrowing money from China and others in order to lend the money to an oil company owned and run by the Brazilian government.
And, on another level, Petrobras must be the only oil company in the world that can't make enough money to do its own drilling. Which says something about just how inefficient government run businesses can be.
The Wall Street Journal has the whole story at the link below. I've quoted some of it below.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html
Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling
The Wall Street Journal - 8/18/09
You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.
The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
But look on the bright side. If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire.
The Bush Administration's five-year plan (2007-2012) to open the outer continental shelf to oil exploration included new lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2007 environmentalists went to court to block drilling in Alaska and in April a federal court ruled in their favor. In May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was unsure whether that ruling applied only to Alaska or all offshore drilling. So it asked an appeals court for clarification. Late last month the court said the earlier decision applied only to Alaska, opening the way for the sale of leases in the Gulf. Mr. Salazar now says the sales will go forward on August 19.
This is progress, however slow. But it still doesn't allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won't allow at home.
This makes not one lick of sense in any dimension.
Since our government is running a deficit it must borrow money by selling bonds in order to loan this money out. So our government is borrowing money from China and others in order to lend the money to an oil company owned and run by the Brazilian government.
And, on another level, Petrobras must be the only oil company in the world that can't make enough money to do its own drilling. Which says something about just how inefficient government run businesses can be.
The Wall Street Journal has the whole story at the link below. I've quoted some of it below.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html
Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling
The Wall Street Journal - 8/18/09
You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.
The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
But look on the bright side. If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire.
The Bush Administration's five-year plan (2007-2012) to open the outer continental shelf to oil exploration included new lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2007 environmentalists went to court to block drilling in Alaska and in April a federal court ruled in their favor. In May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was unsure whether that ruling applied only to Alaska or all offshore drilling. So it asked an appeals court for clarification. Late last month the court said the earlier decision applied only to Alaska, opening the way for the sale of leases in the Gulf. Mr. Salazar now says the sales will go forward on August 19.
This is progress, however slow. But it still doesn't allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won't allow at home.
National Public Radio's lying host
Yesterday afternoon at about 1:30 or so I happened to catch a brief part of a talk show on National Public Radio. During the segment I heard the host, a woman, make a clearly false statement about health care.
She said words to the effect that health care reform is needed because insurance companies cancel the policies of people with pre-existing conditions, and her guest made no effort to correct her lie.
The true state of affairs is that insurance companies must continue to cover the medical expenses of people who develop new medical problems. There is no way they can cancel someone's insurance once they have agreed to provide it.
The NPR commentator was trying to blur the fact that the current health care reform legislation requires insurance companies to write new policies for people with pre-existing conditions at the same price as for people without pre-existing conditions. This is complete madness. Writing a new health care insurance policy for someone who needs an operation tomorrow, or who is already known to have an expensive to treat condition, is welfare, not insurance, and it would quickly result in driving all of the insurance companies out of the health care market.
It's exactly the same thing as requiring a fire insurance company to write a new policy on a house that's already on fire, or requiring a flood insurance company to write new policies on houses downstream of a dam that just broke.
The day after the government passes a requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions the smart people in the country will cut back their health insurance to the bare minimum. While they stay healthy they will save money. When they get sick or need an operation they will apply for a full coverage policy as soon as they learn that health care is going to cost them a lot of money. Insurance companies, if they want to stay in business, will have to hugely raise their rates to cover the new consumer behavior, and that will make even more healthy people cancel their policies. It will result in a spiral that will quickly kill off private health care insurance.
This sounds like a complex matter; but it's actually very simple. Would you pay for flood insurance on a beach house every year if you knew that you could always call and get a new flood insurance policy whenever a hurricane is forecast? Would you pay for auto insurance every year if you knew you could call from the scene of an accident and get a new insurance policy to cover the damage you've already done to your car? Would you pay for life insurance all your life if you knew that you could call from your deathbed in a hospital and apply for a new life insurance policy? Would you pay all your life for health insurance coverage if you knew that you could wait and apply for a new insurance policy after your doctor tells you some bad news?
Medicaid, which is a welfare program, already exists to provide health care for people who can't afford to pay for it. The attempt by President Obama and the democrats in congress to ban pre-existing condition clauses in new insurance policies is nothing but a naked play to destroy the health care insurance industry and thus force the country to a single payer government system.
And. . . a single payer health care system will put your health care in the hands of people who are not ashamed to baldly lie to get what they want, like the National Public Radio host I heard yesterday.
She said words to the effect that health care reform is needed because insurance companies cancel the policies of people with pre-existing conditions, and her guest made no effort to correct her lie.
The true state of affairs is that insurance companies must continue to cover the medical expenses of people who develop new medical problems. There is no way they can cancel someone's insurance once they have agreed to provide it.
The NPR commentator was trying to blur the fact that the current health care reform legislation requires insurance companies to write new policies for people with pre-existing conditions at the same price as for people without pre-existing conditions. This is complete madness. Writing a new health care insurance policy for someone who needs an operation tomorrow, or who is already known to have an expensive to treat condition, is welfare, not insurance, and it would quickly result in driving all of the insurance companies out of the health care market.
It's exactly the same thing as requiring a fire insurance company to write a new policy on a house that's already on fire, or requiring a flood insurance company to write new policies on houses downstream of a dam that just broke.
The day after the government passes a requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions the smart people in the country will cut back their health insurance to the bare minimum. While they stay healthy they will save money. When they get sick or need an operation they will apply for a full coverage policy as soon as they learn that health care is going to cost them a lot of money. Insurance companies, if they want to stay in business, will have to hugely raise their rates to cover the new consumer behavior, and that will make even more healthy people cancel their policies. It will result in a spiral that will quickly kill off private health care insurance.
This sounds like a complex matter; but it's actually very simple. Would you pay for flood insurance on a beach house every year if you knew that you could always call and get a new flood insurance policy whenever a hurricane is forecast? Would you pay for auto insurance every year if you knew you could call from the scene of an accident and get a new insurance policy to cover the damage you've already done to your car? Would you pay for life insurance all your life if you knew that you could call from your deathbed in a hospital and apply for a new life insurance policy? Would you pay all your life for health insurance coverage if you knew that you could wait and apply for a new insurance policy after your doctor tells you some bad news?
Medicaid, which is a welfare program, already exists to provide health care for people who can't afford to pay for it. The attempt by President Obama and the democrats in congress to ban pre-existing condition clauses in new insurance policies is nothing but a naked play to destroy the health care insurance industry and thus force the country to a single payer government system.
And. . . a single payer health care system will put your health care in the hands of people who are not ashamed to baldly lie to get what they want, like the National Public Radio host I heard yesterday.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Don't like the cost of new drugs? Use generics!
Many years ago Aunt Mary A angrily told me that her eye operation had cost $3,000 and only took a couple of hours. I shocked her a bit, and made her laugh, by telling her that the next time she needed a similar operation I would read up on it and then do the operation for her for a lot less money.
Another time I was talking with Frank A at a reunion and he mentioned indignantly that a friend's mother was taking a heart medicine that cost (I think) $300 a month. What really burned him, he said, was that the same company sells the same medicine for dogs for only a few dollars a month.
Always willing to fuel a good argument, I pointed out to Frank that his friend had an easy solution. If the dog medicine was truly the exact same thing as the human medicine he could save a lot of money by buying the dog medicine and giving that to his mother instead of the human medicine.
In both cases I was being facetious; but there is a great truth in these incidents that relates to the current debate about health care. One of the things the health care "reform" boosters are arguing, and have argued for a long time, is that pharmaceutical companies often make minor changes to existing drugs and then charge a lot more for the new formulations, which are often only slightly better than the old drugs. This is viewed as somehow exploitative, even though everyone agrees that pharmaceutical companies spend huge amounts of money on research and development precisely in order to refine old drugs and develop new ones.
If it's true that a new drug is only a little bit better than an older drug that is now a generic and available for much less cost, why shouldn't people who can't afford to or don't want to pay the price asked for the new drug simply be satisfied with the older drug?
In every other area of life that's the way things are. I would very much like to drive a nice new Cadillac or Lexus every year; but I drive a Ford until it pretty much craps out because I don't want to pay for a Cadillac or a Lexus, and it would certainly cramp my budget to buy a new car every year. I would like to eat nothing but tenderloin and lobster prepared by great chefs in fine restaurants; but I eat chicken and tilapia prepared at home because I don't want to pay restaurant prices for tenderloin and lobster.
Someone who relies soley on much cheaper generic drugs is, at worst, trusting his life to the very best drugs that existed in the world as of about seven or eight years ago. It's true that doing that means taking a slight but significant risk with your life; but then most people take much more substantial risks with their lives by driving cheaper cars that don't have the super sophisticated safety systems that are installed in the most expensive cars.
Why is health care viewed so much differently than the other necessities of life? Why do people beat up on pharmaceutical companies when it's the pharmaceutical companies that have provided both the generic drugs and the slightly better newer drugs?
Here's an article by Tevi Troy that appeared in the June issue of Commentary Magazine that goes into other aspects of the health care, and specifically the pharmaceutical cost, debate:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-end-of-medical-miracles--15162?search=1
Here are some quotes from it for those too lazy to click the link:
"Americans have, at best, a love-hate relationship with the life-sciences industry—the term for the sector of the economy that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics (like vaccines), and medical devices. These days, the mere mention of a pharmaceutical manufacturer seems to elicit gut-level hostility. Journalists, operating from a bias against industry that goes as far back as the work of Upton Sinclair in the early years of the 20th century, treat companies from AstraZeneca to Wyeth as rapacious factories billowing forth nothing but profit. At the same time, Americans are adamant about the need for access to the newest cures and therapies and expect new cures and therapies to emerge for their every ailment—all of which result from work done primarily by these very same companies whose profits make possible the research that allows for such breakthroughs."
"Liberals and conservatives appear to agree on the need to unleash the possibilities in medical discovery for the benefit of all. But it cannot be ordered up at will. It takes approximately ten years and $1 billion to get a new product approved for use in the United States. Furthermore, only one in every 10,000 newly discovered molecules will lead to a medication that will be viewed favorably by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Only three out of every ten new medications earn back their research-and-development costs. The approval success rates are low, and may even be getting lower—30.2 percent for biotech drugs and 21.5 percent for small-molecule pharmaceuticals."
"It is the very nature of scientific discovery that makes this process so cumbersome. New developments do not appear as straight-line extrapolations. A dollar in research does not lead inexorably to a return of $1.50. Researchers will spend years in a specific area to no avail, while other areas will benefit from a happy concatenation of discoveries in a short period. It is impossible to tell which area will be fruitless; so many factors figure into the equation, including dumb luck. Alexander Fleming did not mean to leave his lab in such disarray that he would discover that an extract from moldy bread killed bacteria, yet that is how it happened. Conversely, if effort and resources were all it took, then we would have an HIV/AIDS vaccine by now; as it stands, the solution to that problem continues to elude the grasp of some of the most talented and heavily funded researchers."
"Scientific discoveries are neither inevitable nor predictable. What is more, they are affected, especially in our time, by forces outside the laboratory—in particular, the actions of politicians and government bureaucracies. The past quarter-century has offered several meaningful object lessons in this regard. For example, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration undertook a number of actions, both general and specific, that had a positive effect on the pace of discovery. On the general front, low taxes and a preference for free trade helped generate a positive economic climate for private investment, including in the rapidly growing health-care sector. More specifically, the Reagan administration engaged in new technology transfer policies to promote joint ventures, encouraged and passed the Orphan Drug Act to encourage work on products with relatively small markets, and accelerated approval and use of certain data from clinical trials in order to hasten the approval of new products. All of these initiatives helped foster discovery."
"That which the government gives, it can also take away. As the 1990s began, a set of ideas began to gain traction about health care and its affordability (it seems hard to believe, but the first election in which health care was a major issue was a Pennsylvania Senate race only eighteen years ago, in 1991). Americans began to fear that their health-care benefits were at risk; policymakers and intellectuals on both sides of the ideological divide began to fear that the health-care system was either too expensive or not comprehensive enough; and the conduct of private businesses in a field that now ate up nearly 14 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product came under intense public scrutiny."
"A leading critic of Big Pharma, Greg Critser, wrote in his 2007 Generation Rx that President Clinton picked up on a public discomfort with drug prices and “began hinting at price controls” during his first term in office. These hints had a real impact. As former FDA official Scott Gottlieb has written, “Shortly after President Bill Clinton unveiled his proposal for nationalizing the health-insurance market in the 1990s (with similar limits on access to medical care as in the [current] Obama plan), biotech venture capital fell by more than a third in a single year, and the value of biotech stocks fell 40 percent. It took three years for the ‘Biocentury’ stock index to recover. Not surprisingly, many companies went out of business.”"
"The conduct of the businesses that had been responsible for almost every medical innovation from which Americans and the world had benefited for decades became intensely controversial in the 1990s. An odd inversion came into play. Since the work they did was life-saving or life-enhancing, it was not deemed by a certain liberal mindset to be of special value, worth the expense. Rather, medical treatment came to be considered a human right to which universal access was required without regard to cost. Because people needed these goods so much, it was unscrupulous or greedy to involve the profit principle in them. What mattered most was equity. Consumers of health care should not have to be subject to market forces."
"And not only that. Since pharmaceuticals and biologics are powerful things that can do great harm if they are misused or misapplied, the companies that made them found themselves under assault for injuries they might have caused. It was little considered that the drugs had been approved for use by a federal agency that imposed the world’s most rigorous standards, and was often criticized for holding up promising treatments (especially for AIDS). Juries were convinced that companies had behaved with reckless disregard for the health of consumers, and hit them with enormous punitive damages claims."
"The late 1990s also coincided with an unpredictable slowdown in the pace of medical discovery, following a fertile period in which new antihistamines, antidepressants, and gastric-acid reducers all came to market and improved the quality of life of millions in inestimable ways. A lull in innovation then set in, and that in turn gave opponents of the pharmaceutical industry a new target of opportunity. An oft-cited 1999 study by the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) claimed that the newest and costliest products were only offering “modest improvements on earlier therapies at considerably greater expense.”"
"The NIHCM study opened fresh lines of attack. The first came from the managed-care industry, which used it as a means of arguing that drugs had simply grown too expensive. Managed care is extremely price-sensitive, and its business model is built on cutting costs; executives of the industry were well represented on the board of the institute that put out the report. They were, in effect, fighting with the pharmaceutical companies over who should get more of the consumer’s health-care dollars."
"The second came in response to the approval by the FDA in 1997 of direct consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. The marketing explosion that followed it gave people the sense that these companies were not doing life-saving work but were rather engaged in the sale of relative trivialities, like Viagra and Rogaine, on which they had advertising dollars to burn that would be better spent on lowering the cost of drugs. And the third element of this mix was the rise of the Internet, which gave Americans a level of price transparency that they had not had before regarding cost differentials between drugs sold in the U.S. versus Canada and other Western countries."
"These three factors precipitated a full-bore campaign by public interest groups that bore remarkable fruit over the next several years. By February 2004, Time magazine was publishing a cover story on pharmaceutical pricing, noting that “the clamor for cheap Canadian imports is becoming a big issue.” Marcia Angell, a fierce critic of the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, wrote in the New York Review of Books in 2004 that, “In the past two years, we have started to see, for the first time, the beginnings of public resistance to rapacious pricing and other dubious practices of the pharmaceutical industry.”"
"Harvard’s Robert Blendon released a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in 2005 in which 70 percent of Americans reported feeling that “drug companies put profits ahead of people” and 59 percent saying that “prescription drugs increase overall medical costs because they are so expensive.” Overall, noted the foundation’s president, Drew Altman, “Rightly or wrongly, drug companies are now the number one villain in the public’s eye when it comes to rising health-care costs.” "
Another time I was talking with Frank A at a reunion and he mentioned indignantly that a friend's mother was taking a heart medicine that cost (I think) $300 a month. What really burned him, he said, was that the same company sells the same medicine for dogs for only a few dollars a month.
Always willing to fuel a good argument, I pointed out to Frank that his friend had an easy solution. If the dog medicine was truly the exact same thing as the human medicine he could save a lot of money by buying the dog medicine and giving that to his mother instead of the human medicine.
In both cases I was being facetious; but there is a great truth in these incidents that relates to the current debate about health care. One of the things the health care "reform" boosters are arguing, and have argued for a long time, is that pharmaceutical companies often make minor changes to existing drugs and then charge a lot more for the new formulations, which are often only slightly better than the old drugs. This is viewed as somehow exploitative, even though everyone agrees that pharmaceutical companies spend huge amounts of money on research and development precisely in order to refine old drugs and develop new ones.
If it's true that a new drug is only a little bit better than an older drug that is now a generic and available for much less cost, why shouldn't people who can't afford to or don't want to pay the price asked for the new drug simply be satisfied with the older drug?
In every other area of life that's the way things are. I would very much like to drive a nice new Cadillac or Lexus every year; but I drive a Ford until it pretty much craps out because I don't want to pay for a Cadillac or a Lexus, and it would certainly cramp my budget to buy a new car every year. I would like to eat nothing but tenderloin and lobster prepared by great chefs in fine restaurants; but I eat chicken and tilapia prepared at home because I don't want to pay restaurant prices for tenderloin and lobster.
Someone who relies soley on much cheaper generic drugs is, at worst, trusting his life to the very best drugs that existed in the world as of about seven or eight years ago. It's true that doing that means taking a slight but significant risk with your life; but then most people take much more substantial risks with their lives by driving cheaper cars that don't have the super sophisticated safety systems that are installed in the most expensive cars.
Why is health care viewed so much differently than the other necessities of life? Why do people beat up on pharmaceutical companies when it's the pharmaceutical companies that have provided both the generic drugs and the slightly better newer drugs?
Here's an article by Tevi Troy that appeared in the June issue of Commentary Magazine that goes into other aspects of the health care, and specifically the pharmaceutical cost, debate:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-end-of-medical-miracles--15162?search=1
Here are some quotes from it for those too lazy to click the link:
"Americans have, at best, a love-hate relationship with the life-sciences industry—the term for the sector of the economy that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics (like vaccines), and medical devices. These days, the mere mention of a pharmaceutical manufacturer seems to elicit gut-level hostility. Journalists, operating from a bias against industry that goes as far back as the work of Upton Sinclair in the early years of the 20th century, treat companies from AstraZeneca to Wyeth as rapacious factories billowing forth nothing but profit. At the same time, Americans are adamant about the need for access to the newest cures and therapies and expect new cures and therapies to emerge for their every ailment—all of which result from work done primarily by these very same companies whose profits make possible the research that allows for such breakthroughs."
"Liberals and conservatives appear to agree on the need to unleash the possibilities in medical discovery for the benefit of all. But it cannot be ordered up at will. It takes approximately ten years and $1 billion to get a new product approved for use in the United States. Furthermore, only one in every 10,000 newly discovered molecules will lead to a medication that will be viewed favorably by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Only three out of every ten new medications earn back their research-and-development costs. The approval success rates are low, and may even be getting lower—30.2 percent for biotech drugs and 21.5 percent for small-molecule pharmaceuticals."
"It is the very nature of scientific discovery that makes this process so cumbersome. New developments do not appear as straight-line extrapolations. A dollar in research does not lead inexorably to a return of $1.50. Researchers will spend years in a specific area to no avail, while other areas will benefit from a happy concatenation of discoveries in a short period. It is impossible to tell which area will be fruitless; so many factors figure into the equation, including dumb luck. Alexander Fleming did not mean to leave his lab in such disarray that he would discover that an extract from moldy bread killed bacteria, yet that is how it happened. Conversely, if effort and resources were all it took, then we would have an HIV/AIDS vaccine by now; as it stands, the solution to that problem continues to elude the grasp of some of the most talented and heavily funded researchers."
"Scientific discoveries are neither inevitable nor predictable. What is more, they are affected, especially in our time, by forces outside the laboratory—in particular, the actions of politicians and government bureaucracies. The past quarter-century has offered several meaningful object lessons in this regard. For example, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration undertook a number of actions, both general and specific, that had a positive effect on the pace of discovery. On the general front, low taxes and a preference for free trade helped generate a positive economic climate for private investment, including in the rapidly growing health-care sector. More specifically, the Reagan administration engaged in new technology transfer policies to promote joint ventures, encouraged and passed the Orphan Drug Act to encourage work on products with relatively small markets, and accelerated approval and use of certain data from clinical trials in order to hasten the approval of new products. All of these initiatives helped foster discovery."
"That which the government gives, it can also take away. As the 1990s began, a set of ideas began to gain traction about health care and its affordability (it seems hard to believe, but the first election in which health care was a major issue was a Pennsylvania Senate race only eighteen years ago, in 1991). Americans began to fear that their health-care benefits were at risk; policymakers and intellectuals on both sides of the ideological divide began to fear that the health-care system was either too expensive or not comprehensive enough; and the conduct of private businesses in a field that now ate up nearly 14 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product came under intense public scrutiny."
"A leading critic of Big Pharma, Greg Critser, wrote in his 2007 Generation Rx that President Clinton picked up on a public discomfort with drug prices and “began hinting at price controls” during his first term in office. These hints had a real impact. As former FDA official Scott Gottlieb has written, “Shortly after President Bill Clinton unveiled his proposal for nationalizing the health-insurance market in the 1990s (with similar limits on access to medical care as in the [current] Obama plan), biotech venture capital fell by more than a third in a single year, and the value of biotech stocks fell 40 percent. It took three years for the ‘Biocentury’ stock index to recover. Not surprisingly, many companies went out of business.”"
"The conduct of the businesses that had been responsible for almost every medical innovation from which Americans and the world had benefited for decades became intensely controversial in the 1990s. An odd inversion came into play. Since the work they did was life-saving or life-enhancing, it was not deemed by a certain liberal mindset to be of special value, worth the expense. Rather, medical treatment came to be considered a human right to which universal access was required without regard to cost. Because people needed these goods so much, it was unscrupulous or greedy to involve the profit principle in them. What mattered most was equity. Consumers of health care should not have to be subject to market forces."
"And not only that. Since pharmaceuticals and biologics are powerful things that can do great harm if they are misused or misapplied, the companies that made them found themselves under assault for injuries they might have caused. It was little considered that the drugs had been approved for use by a federal agency that imposed the world’s most rigorous standards, and was often criticized for holding up promising treatments (especially for AIDS). Juries were convinced that companies had behaved with reckless disregard for the health of consumers, and hit them with enormous punitive damages claims."
"The late 1990s also coincided with an unpredictable slowdown in the pace of medical discovery, following a fertile period in which new antihistamines, antidepressants, and gastric-acid reducers all came to market and improved the quality of life of millions in inestimable ways. A lull in innovation then set in, and that in turn gave opponents of the pharmaceutical industry a new target of opportunity. An oft-cited 1999 study by the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) claimed that the newest and costliest products were only offering “modest improvements on earlier therapies at considerably greater expense.”"
"The NIHCM study opened fresh lines of attack. The first came from the managed-care industry, which used it as a means of arguing that drugs had simply grown too expensive. Managed care is extremely price-sensitive, and its business model is built on cutting costs; executives of the industry were well represented on the board of the institute that put out the report. They were, in effect, fighting with the pharmaceutical companies over who should get more of the consumer’s health-care dollars."
"The second came in response to the approval by the FDA in 1997 of direct consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. The marketing explosion that followed it gave people the sense that these companies were not doing life-saving work but were rather engaged in the sale of relative trivialities, like Viagra and Rogaine, on which they had advertising dollars to burn that would be better spent on lowering the cost of drugs. And the third element of this mix was the rise of the Internet, which gave Americans a level of price transparency that they had not had before regarding cost differentials between drugs sold in the U.S. versus Canada and other Western countries."
"These three factors precipitated a full-bore campaign by public interest groups that bore remarkable fruit over the next several years. By February 2004, Time magazine was publishing a cover story on pharmaceutical pricing, noting that “the clamor for cheap Canadian imports is becoming a big issue.” Marcia Angell, a fierce critic of the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, wrote in the New York Review of Books in 2004 that, “In the past two years, we have started to see, for the first time, the beginnings of public resistance to rapacious pricing and other dubious practices of the pharmaceutical industry.”"
"Harvard’s Robert Blendon released a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in 2005 in which 70 percent of Americans reported feeling that “drug companies put profits ahead of people” and 59 percent saying that “prescription drugs increase overall medical costs because they are so expensive.” Overall, noted the foundation’s president, Drew Altman, “Rightly or wrongly, drug companies are now the number one villain in the public’s eye when it comes to rising health-care costs.” "
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Fortunately he was polite and they were slow to go to the nightsticks
This story, if true, proves just how old you are if you're over 50.
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
You're Bob Dylan? NJ police want to see some ID
Aug 14, 11:57 PM (ET)By WAYNE PARRY
Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.
Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.
A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.
"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.
The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.
The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name.
According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.
The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.
The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.
The officers thanked him for his cooperation.
"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.
How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday. "
The story is from My Way News - http://apnews.myway.com//article/20090815/D9A334601.html
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
You're Bob Dylan? NJ police want to see some ID
Aug 14, 11:57 PM (ET)By WAYNE PARRY
Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.
Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.
A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.
"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.
The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.
The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name.
According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.
The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.
The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.
The officers thanked him for his cooperation.
"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.
How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday. "
The story is from My Way News - http://apnews.myway.com//article/20090815/D9A334601.html
Friday, August 14, 2009
Dentist's face ruin due to Obama policies
The Wall Street Journal reported alarming news today:
"Some of America's biggest food companies say the U.S. could "virtually run out of sugar" if the Obama administration doesn't ease import restrictions amid soaring prices for the key commodity.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, the big brands -- including Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Hershey Co. and Mars Inc. -- bluntly raised the prospect of a severe shortage of sugar used in chocolate bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, chewing gum and thousands of other products.
The companies threatened to jack up consumer prices and lay off workers if the Agriculture Department doesn't allow them to import ..."
Oh, the humanity!!! Crazed chocoholics running wild in the streets because they can't get their fix. Dentists selling apples on the streets because of lack of teeth to drill and fill.
Actually I have to apologize here. The sugar import quotas are not just President Obama's fault. They're the fault of every president and every congress since the 1930's. Sugar farmers here in the U.S. have effectively been on welfare since then. Sugar import quotas are a nifty little hidden tax on everybody who eats or drinks junk food and beverages. The rich sugar growers live high on the hog as a result of that hidden tax, and they naturally share some of their wealth with the politicians who make sure the trough stays full. In this case Uncle Sam really is Uncle Sugar.
"Some of America's biggest food companies say the U.S. could "virtually run out of sugar" if the Obama administration doesn't ease import restrictions amid soaring prices for the key commodity.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, the big brands -- including Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Hershey Co. and Mars Inc. -- bluntly raised the prospect of a severe shortage of sugar used in chocolate bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, chewing gum and thousands of other products.
The companies threatened to jack up consumer prices and lay off workers if the Agriculture Department doesn't allow them to import ..."
Oh, the humanity!!! Crazed chocoholics running wild in the streets because they can't get their fix. Dentists selling apples on the streets because of lack of teeth to drill and fill.
Actually I have to apologize here. The sugar import quotas are not just President Obama's fault. They're the fault of every president and every congress since the 1930's. Sugar farmers here in the U.S. have effectively been on welfare since then. Sugar import quotas are a nifty little hidden tax on everybody who eats or drinks junk food and beverages. The rich sugar growers live high on the hog as a result of that hidden tax, and they naturally share some of their wealth with the politicians who make sure the trough stays full. In this case Uncle Sam really is Uncle Sugar.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
A neat new technology, especially for Star Trek fans
This two and half minute video illustrates how a Japanese researcher has made it possible to "touch" and "feel" and otherwise interact with a hologram. He's still a bit of a ways from building the equivalent of a Star Trek holodeck; but he's demonstrated one way in which doing such a thing is theoretically possible. Very neat! The video doesn't seem to have sound, so it is safe to open at work.
Scroll down once after going to the link below to find the video:
http://www.physorg.com/news168797748.html
Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg of National Review, who posted this on The Corner where he periodically presents a list of weird and interesting links.
Scroll down once after going to the link below to find the video:
http://www.physorg.com/news168797748.html
Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg of National Review, who posted this on The Corner where he periodically presents a list of weird and interesting links.
Priceless
Democratic Congressman Eugene Green wants to be very sure that only residents of his congressional district attend his town hall meetings. So he has decided to require attendees to present photo ID in order to get in.
That's kind of funny, although not in a ha ha way, because Congressman Green has been a staunch opponent of requiring people to show ID when they go to their polling place to vote.
Apparently Congressman Green is perfectly okay with election fraud; but he's absolutely terrified that someone from outside his district may ask him a question at a town hall meeting.
Somebody ought to whack Congressman Green upside the head with a not too fresh mackerel.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/08/11/cant-make-it-dem-rep-who-opposes-photo-id-vote-requiring-photo-id-town-h
"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer." Will Rogers
That's kind of funny, although not in a ha ha way, because Congressman Green has been a staunch opponent of requiring people to show ID when they go to their polling place to vote.
Apparently Congressman Green is perfectly okay with election fraud; but he's absolutely terrified that someone from outside his district may ask him a question at a town hall meeting.
Somebody ought to whack Congressman Green upside the head with a not too fresh mackerel.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/08/11/cant-make-it-dem-rep-who-opposes-photo-id-vote-requiring-photo-id-town-h
"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer." Will Rogers
Monday, August 10, 2009
When she's right, she's right
Here's a fifteen second long video of a proud American forcefully asserting her right to free speech. This woman refuses to be silenced despite Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama saying that it's unamerican to question the decisions of our rulers down in Washington.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxmpTMGhU0
And here's a one minute long video of a very well spoken fellow who says that President Obama's Cap and Trade plan for energy will cause your electricity rates to skyrocket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4&feature=related
Here's a 29 second video of another guy, an old guy whose mother should have taught him not to slouch so much, who says that Cap and Trade is a tax.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgUHol_WkDk&feature=channel
I've reported all of these radicals to the special snitch line at the White House. If you want to report something fishy or unamerican to President Obama you should email your suspicions to flag@whitehouse.gov
Nothing is too small to report. If you kids out there hear your parents or anybody saying things that are fishy or disrespectful about President Obama, or about any of his plans to make the seas recede and the world become like totally perfect for you, he wants to know so he can send some people to straighten out their thinking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxmpTMGhU0
And here's a one minute long video of a very well spoken fellow who says that President Obama's Cap and Trade plan for energy will cause your electricity rates to skyrocket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4&feature=related
Here's a 29 second video of another guy, an old guy whose mother should have taught him not to slouch so much, who says that Cap and Trade is a tax.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgUHol_WkDk&feature=channel
I've reported all of these radicals to the special snitch line at the White House. If you want to report something fishy or unamerican to President Obama you should email your suspicions to flag@whitehouse.gov
Nothing is too small to report. If you kids out there hear your parents or anybody saying things that are fishy or disrespectful about President Obama, or about any of his plans to make the seas recede and the world become like totally perfect for you, he wants to know so he can send some people to straighten out their thinking.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Meet the Mob
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are very concerned about the far right wing loons who have been intimidating innocent Democratic Party congresscritters by going to the town hall meetings and complaining. Some of these evil protesters are even carrying signs protesting the government takeover of healthcare that the Democrats are trying to do.
This blogger has done a patriotic job of labelling the sorts of wicked right wingers who have been protesting:
http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/meet-the-mob/
I know it's very annoying when the filthy peasants appear outside the door of the manor house whining about things; but as a helpful reminder to Speaker Pelosi I've quoted the First Amendment to the Constitution below:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This blogger has done a patriotic job of labelling the sorts of wicked right wingers who have been protesting:
http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/meet-the-mob/
I know it's very annoying when the filthy peasants appear outside the door of the manor house whining about things; but as a helpful reminder to Speaker Pelosi I've quoted the First Amendment to the Constitution below:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Now the nanny state is getting personal
A Tulare, CA policeman shut down this little girl's lemonade stand because she didn't have a business license.
I'm remembering that I sold lemonade to the golfers at Eagleville Country club one summer before I was old enough to go to work at Harry's Potato Market. I forget the number of the hole I set up on, but there was a bench convenient to Trooper Road that was next to a hill on the course. Pop would drop me off on his way to Norristown in mid morning and then pick me up on his way home in mid afternoon.
The golfers were good customers; but if I had tried to charge them $2 a cup for lemonade they would have laughed me off the course. The dollar isn't what it used to be. The next year I started work at Harry's for less than a dollar an hour. For the first couple of summers Harry paid me one dollar less than the number of hours I worked in a day - for instance $9 for a 10 hour day. Of course I also got all the fruit I could eat, and occasionally a basket of spotted peaches or apples to take home to Mom. That was a pretty good deal for Harry because the next day Mom would send me back with a pie or a cobbler for him.
I could write a thousand words and not do justice to Mom's peach and apple pies. . . Suffice it to say that a scoop of ice cream would have defiled those pies.
Because I had better get back to the golfers. Besides lemonade I also sold them golf balls that I retrieved from the rough and the water hazards on the course. I think I charged ten cents apiece for the balls. Occasionally one of them would give me a quarter for an especially good ball and if one of Pop's buddies showed up I might get a half a dollar or even a dollar tip.
And, occasionally one of them who had lost a ball he had just hit up over the hill would inspect my collection of balls pretty carefully; but it wasn't me who had a habit of running across that hill stealing golf balls. It was (redacted) who did that. I didn't rat on (redacted) to the golf course manager back then when he questioned me about the tendency of balls to go missing on that hole, so I'm not going to do so now.
(Redacted) used to try to sell me the balls; but I never bought them. because that would have been foolish. First off, I knew for a fact that Pop knew the golf club manager, just as he seemingly knew everybody else within twenty miles who ever saw me do something of note then and later. Secondly, even then I knew that golfers keep track of what make and number of ball they're playing.
Good times. Lazy summer days, sitting in the shade on my bench with my cooler of lemonade that mom made and which thus cost me nothing, reading science fiction, and raking in a few bucks - with occasionally the excitement of wondering if (redacted) would get caught when he appeared to chat for a while, have a cup of lemonade, and then suddenly light off across the top of the hill to collect the balls the golfers had just hit. Some people are just not suited for honest labor, at least when they're young.
I don't know what became of (redacted); but I'm pretty sure he didn't become a priest even though he later dropped to his knees as though poleaxed when a disrespectful and inquisitive altar boy opened the gold plated door of the sanctuary in the altar on the stage at the Visitation gym on a dare to see what was in there and the door surprised us all by clanking open forcefully after the key was turned.
I pointed out to (redacted) that the sanctuary lamp was not lit and hence the altar was not live, so to speak; but even after that he stayed agitated and on his knees until I got the sanctuary door closed again. The spring on that door was pretty strong. I can still remember how it sprang open as though alive, probably because it took a little while for my heartbeat to settle down.
Fortunately no one was out in the gym beyond the closed drapes of the stage because they would surely have heard that clank and (redacted)'s alarmed and quite loud start of the act of contrition. (Redacted)'s surprisingly intense piety did not prevent him from trying a sip of the altar wine we liberated another time from the cabinet that Father L had surprisingly left unlocked. Father left the key in the lock of the sanctuary door as a matter of course; but he never left the key in the lock of the cabinet that held the vestments, wine, incense and self starting charcoal briquets for the censor.
Terrible stuff that altar wine. Even boosted and savored with friends it didn't taste good. All in all we drank very little, and we carefully refilled the bottle with water before putting it back, so no harm was done. It was probably just as well that Father L took very little water with his wine when he said mass.
The story about the little girl who got stopped by the Tulare police from selling lemonade is here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/73160.html
Hopefully the cop who shut her down will not be smart enough to avoid buying lemonade from her when she gets set up again. Such a cop deserves a bit of extra flavoring in his lemonade.
I'm remembering that I sold lemonade to the golfers at Eagleville Country club one summer before I was old enough to go to work at Harry's Potato Market. I forget the number of the hole I set up on, but there was a bench convenient to Trooper Road that was next to a hill on the course. Pop would drop me off on his way to Norristown in mid morning and then pick me up on his way home in mid afternoon.
The golfers were good customers; but if I had tried to charge them $2 a cup for lemonade they would have laughed me off the course. The dollar isn't what it used to be. The next year I started work at Harry's for less than a dollar an hour. For the first couple of summers Harry paid me one dollar less than the number of hours I worked in a day - for instance $9 for a 10 hour day. Of course I also got all the fruit I could eat, and occasionally a basket of spotted peaches or apples to take home to Mom. That was a pretty good deal for Harry because the next day Mom would send me back with a pie or a cobbler for him.
I could write a thousand words and not do justice to Mom's peach and apple pies. . . Suffice it to say that a scoop of ice cream would have defiled those pies.
Because I had better get back to the golfers. Besides lemonade I also sold them golf balls that I retrieved from the rough and the water hazards on the course. I think I charged ten cents apiece for the balls. Occasionally one of them would give me a quarter for an especially good ball and if one of Pop's buddies showed up I might get a half a dollar or even a dollar tip.
And, occasionally one of them who had lost a ball he had just hit up over the hill would inspect my collection of balls pretty carefully; but it wasn't me who had a habit of running across that hill stealing golf balls. It was (redacted) who did that. I didn't rat on (redacted) to the golf course manager back then when he questioned me about the tendency of balls to go missing on that hole, so I'm not going to do so now.
(Redacted) used to try to sell me the balls; but I never bought them. because that would have been foolish. First off, I knew for a fact that Pop knew the golf club manager, just as he seemingly knew everybody else within twenty miles who ever saw me do something of note then and later. Secondly, even then I knew that golfers keep track of what make and number of ball they're playing.
Good times. Lazy summer days, sitting in the shade on my bench with my cooler of lemonade that mom made and which thus cost me nothing, reading science fiction, and raking in a few bucks - with occasionally the excitement of wondering if (redacted) would get caught when he appeared to chat for a while, have a cup of lemonade, and then suddenly light off across the top of the hill to collect the balls the golfers had just hit. Some people are just not suited for honest labor, at least when they're young.
I don't know what became of (redacted); but I'm pretty sure he didn't become a priest even though he later dropped to his knees as though poleaxed when a disrespectful and inquisitive altar boy opened the gold plated door of the sanctuary in the altar on the stage at the Visitation gym on a dare to see what was in there and the door surprised us all by clanking open forcefully after the key was turned.
I pointed out to (redacted) that the sanctuary lamp was not lit and hence the altar was not live, so to speak; but even after that he stayed agitated and on his knees until I got the sanctuary door closed again. The spring on that door was pretty strong. I can still remember how it sprang open as though alive, probably because it took a little while for my heartbeat to settle down.
Fortunately no one was out in the gym beyond the closed drapes of the stage because they would surely have heard that clank and (redacted)'s alarmed and quite loud start of the act of contrition. (Redacted)'s surprisingly intense piety did not prevent him from trying a sip of the altar wine we liberated another time from the cabinet that Father L had surprisingly left unlocked. Father left the key in the lock of the sanctuary door as a matter of course; but he never left the key in the lock of the cabinet that held the vestments, wine, incense and self starting charcoal briquets for the censor.
Terrible stuff that altar wine. Even boosted and savored with friends it didn't taste good. All in all we drank very little, and we carefully refilled the bottle with water before putting it back, so no harm was done. It was probably just as well that Father L took very little water with his wine when he said mass.
The story about the little girl who got stopped by the Tulare police from selling lemonade is here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/73160.html
Hopefully the cop who shut her down will not be smart enough to avoid buying lemonade from her when she gets set up again. Such a cop deserves a bit of extra flavoring in his lemonade.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Making a desert and calling it a stimulus
Congress and President Obama are all excited about putting a couple of billion more dollars into their "Cash for Clunkers" program because the auto industry is all excited about it. And, truth to tell, the "Cash for Clunkers" program is probably less destructive and wasteful than most of the stuff congress and the president have done for us this year, which is really saying something.
"Cash for Clunkers" gives people $4,500 of your tax dollars if they trade in an old American made car that gets poor gas mileage and buy a new (usually) Japanese or Korean made car that gets better mileage. It's a requirement of the program that the dealer where they trade in the old American car has to destroy that car. He can't re-sell the car, and he can't even break it up for parts. He has to destroy it so thoroughly that the only thing that can be done with it is to melt it down for scrap.
So what the government is really doing is paying people to destroy cars that still run and could still be useful to someone who doesn't have a lot of money to pay for a car but still wants to be able to get around.
Which is a pretty profoundly stupid thing to do when you think about it.
But it's not as though President Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Arlen Specter are the first imbeciles to think that destroying useful assets is a good idea. It's absolutely certain that back before a fellow named Frederic Bastiat wrote about "broken windows" in 1850 a lot of stupid people were thinking in the same obtuse way President Obama and his ilk think.
Stupid people have probably always thought the same way. For instance, a whole lot of people, all through history, have thought that war stimulates economies because governments spend their time destroying things, and spend a lot of money having people build things that are only useful for destroying other things. The twisted logic behind thinking that war is a good way to "stimulate" the economy is exactly the same twisted logic that lays behind the "Cash for Clunkers" program.
By that logic the Mohammedan fanatics did us a big favor when they crashed planes into the World Trade Center. And the Japanese did us a favor when they attacked Pearl Harbor and destroyed the U.S. Pacific Fleet. And the Germans did us a favor by using submarines to sink thousands of our merchant ships in the Atlantic. And, in our turn, we did the Japanese people a couple of spectacular favors when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as we did the German people a favor when we fire bombed Dresden.
And, so it goes. By the logic of "cash for clunkers" Napoleon did the Russian people a favor when he ravaged half their country and burned Moscow in 1812. Similarly, those old timey Romans were actually doing a favor for the Gauls and the Germans when the "made a desert and called it peace" as Tacitus wrote way back in 90 or so A.D.
Heck, by the logic of destroying assets to stimulate the economy President Obama doesn't even need congress to stimulate the hell out of the world economy. He could do that all by himself just by calling in the guy with the briefcase and ordering the launch of a few dozen or a few hundred nuclear missiles. The Chinese and the Russians and the others won't mind if he just calls them first to explain that he's doing it to stimulate their economies. And during the call he could ask them to please launch some nuclear missiles at our cities to stimulate our economy.
You're thinking, of course that doing that would be very dumb; but it would be no dumber than paying people to destroy cars. Destroying drivable cars to stimulate the economy is just plain dumb, so dumb that only a college professor with his head way up his backside or a politician with his backside way up in the air and his feet practically levitating off the ground could possibly think it's smart.
You can read about Bastiat and his answer to the broken windows idea of economic stimulation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
As for me, I'm going out now to break some windows to stimulate the economy.
Update: It just struck me that the "Cash for Clunkers" program has a major flaw which President Obama and congress should fix. The dealers are being allowed to sell those wrecked cars for scrap. That is causing the economy to fail to get the full benefit of destroying the cars in the first place. Those cars should be thrown into the ocean so that the steel and aluminum and copper in them can never be used again. That way the primary metal producers and the miners would also get a big stimulus since new steel, aluminum and copper would have to be made from scratch.
I have to remember to get rid of my recycling bin. From now on I put the bottles and cans in the regular trash so they can never be used again. Everyone has to do their bit to stimulate the economy.
"Cash for Clunkers" gives people $4,500 of your tax dollars if they trade in an old American made car that gets poor gas mileage and buy a new (usually) Japanese or Korean made car that gets better mileage. It's a requirement of the program that the dealer where they trade in the old American car has to destroy that car. He can't re-sell the car, and he can't even break it up for parts. He has to destroy it so thoroughly that the only thing that can be done with it is to melt it down for scrap.
So what the government is really doing is paying people to destroy cars that still run and could still be useful to someone who doesn't have a lot of money to pay for a car but still wants to be able to get around.
Which is a pretty profoundly stupid thing to do when you think about it.
But it's not as though President Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Arlen Specter are the first imbeciles to think that destroying useful assets is a good idea. It's absolutely certain that back before a fellow named Frederic Bastiat wrote about "broken windows" in 1850 a lot of stupid people were thinking in the same obtuse way President Obama and his ilk think.
Stupid people have probably always thought the same way. For instance, a whole lot of people, all through history, have thought that war stimulates economies because governments spend their time destroying things, and spend a lot of money having people build things that are only useful for destroying other things. The twisted logic behind thinking that war is a good way to "stimulate" the economy is exactly the same twisted logic that lays behind the "Cash for Clunkers" program.
By that logic the Mohammedan fanatics did us a big favor when they crashed planes into the World Trade Center. And the Japanese did us a favor when they attacked Pearl Harbor and destroyed the U.S. Pacific Fleet. And the Germans did us a favor by using submarines to sink thousands of our merchant ships in the Atlantic. And, in our turn, we did the Japanese people a couple of spectacular favors when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as we did the German people a favor when we fire bombed Dresden.
And, so it goes. By the logic of "cash for clunkers" Napoleon did the Russian people a favor when he ravaged half their country and burned Moscow in 1812. Similarly, those old timey Romans were actually doing a favor for the Gauls and the Germans when the "made a desert and called it peace" as Tacitus wrote way back in 90 or so A.D.
Heck, by the logic of destroying assets to stimulate the economy President Obama doesn't even need congress to stimulate the hell out of the world economy. He could do that all by himself just by calling in the guy with the briefcase and ordering the launch of a few dozen or a few hundred nuclear missiles. The Chinese and the Russians and the others won't mind if he just calls them first to explain that he's doing it to stimulate their economies. And during the call he could ask them to please launch some nuclear missiles at our cities to stimulate our economy.
You're thinking, of course that doing that would be very dumb; but it would be no dumber than paying people to destroy cars. Destroying drivable cars to stimulate the economy is just plain dumb, so dumb that only a college professor with his head way up his backside or a politician with his backside way up in the air and his feet practically levitating off the ground could possibly think it's smart.
You can read about Bastiat and his answer to the broken windows idea of economic stimulation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
As for me, I'm going out now to break some windows to stimulate the economy.
Update: It just struck me that the "Cash for Clunkers" program has a major flaw which President Obama and congress should fix. The dealers are being allowed to sell those wrecked cars for scrap. That is causing the economy to fail to get the full benefit of destroying the cars in the first place. Those cars should be thrown into the ocean so that the steel and aluminum and copper in them can never be used again. That way the primary metal producers and the miners would also get a big stimulus since new steel, aluminum and copper would have to be made from scratch.
I have to remember to get rid of my recycling bin. From now on I put the bottles and cans in the regular trash so they can never be used again. Everyone has to do their bit to stimulate the economy.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
He's 25 years late; but here comes big brother
Orwell titled his novel 1984; so we were relieved to live through that year without Big Brother watching us and talking to us through the TV in our home.
But it turns out that Orwell only missed on the year. Here it is 25 years after 1984 and Great Britain is installing closed circuit cameras to monitor 20,000 families in their homes around the clock. The British government says it's doing this "for the children."
Besides learning that the government of a supposedly free country has taken upon itself the right to conduct 24 hour surveillance in the homes of people who haven't been convicted of a crime, I also learned that the British government has a "Children's Secretary."
Presumably they needed a Childrens Secretary because none of the fully adult secretaries could figure out how to handle complex childhood matters like enforcing truancy laws without spying on people 24 hours a day in their homes.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/115736/Sin-bins-for-worst-families
Hat tip to Mark Steyn, who pointed at this in a post on National Review's blog The Corner.
But it turns out that Orwell only missed on the year. Here it is 25 years after 1984 and Great Britain is installing closed circuit cameras to monitor 20,000 families in their homes around the clock. The British government says it's doing this "for the children."
Besides learning that the government of a supposedly free country has taken upon itself the right to conduct 24 hour surveillance in the homes of people who haven't been convicted of a crime, I also learned that the British government has a "Children's Secretary."
Presumably they needed a Childrens Secretary because none of the fully adult secretaries could figure out how to handle complex childhood matters like enforcing truancy laws without spying on people 24 hours a day in their homes.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/115736/Sin-bins-for-worst-families
Hat tip to Mark Steyn, who pointed at this in a post on National Review's blog The Corner.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Health care and government health care
The democrats in congress are falling all over themselves to change our health care system so it will be more like the systems of Canada and Great Britain. They say that doing that would make our health care system "better."
Well. . . there's something funny about that. Every so often you read about Canadians and Europeans coming over here to the U.S. to pay with their own money for health care treatments. Canadians and Europeans do that even though health care in Canada and Europe is supposedly provided "free" by the governments there.
Why would Canadians and Europeans come to the U.S. for health care when they can get it "free" in their own countries under systems set up by government bureaucrats just like President Obama and the Democrats in congress want to set up here?
It turns out The Hoover Institution has been doing some looking into health care "outcomes" in Canada and Europe. And it has found that Canadians and Europeans get a whole lot less of a whole lot of treatments and procedures that have been proven to save and extend lives here in the U.S. And it's not just rich people who get the short end of the stick in Canada and Europe. Middle class and poor people in Canada and Europe don't get health care that matches up to the health care that middle class and poor people get here in the U.S.
For instance, "Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher."
So why do President Obama and the Democratic congress want to destroy our current health care system and replace it with a "single payer" system like they have in Canada and Europe? They're certainly not going to improve anyone's health care by doing that.
You can read the whole list of things at which the U.S. health care system does better than that in Canada and Europe by going to this link. It's a one page article and it's very straightforward.
I think it's worth your time, unless you don't care whether some government bureaucrat "improves" your health care and makes you twice as likely to die of breast cancer, or six times as likely to die of prostate cancer, or more than four times as likely to die of colorectal cancer.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html
Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg of National Review whose post on The Corner led me to this Hoover Institution article.
Well. . . there's something funny about that. Every so often you read about Canadians and Europeans coming over here to the U.S. to pay with their own money for health care treatments. Canadians and Europeans do that even though health care in Canada and Europe is supposedly provided "free" by the governments there.
Why would Canadians and Europeans come to the U.S. for health care when they can get it "free" in their own countries under systems set up by government bureaucrats just like President Obama and the Democrats in congress want to set up here?
It turns out The Hoover Institution has been doing some looking into health care "outcomes" in Canada and Europe. And it has found that Canadians and Europeans get a whole lot less of a whole lot of treatments and procedures that have been proven to save and extend lives here in the U.S. And it's not just rich people who get the short end of the stick in Canada and Europe. Middle class and poor people in Canada and Europe don't get health care that matches up to the health care that middle class and poor people get here in the U.S.
For instance, "Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher."
So why do President Obama and the Democratic congress want to destroy our current health care system and replace it with a "single payer" system like they have in Canada and Europe? They're certainly not going to improve anyone's health care by doing that.
You can read the whole list of things at which the U.S. health care system does better than that in Canada and Europe by going to this link. It's a one page article and it's very straightforward.
I think it's worth your time, unless you don't care whether some government bureaucrat "improves" your health care and makes you twice as likely to die of breast cancer, or six times as likely to die of prostate cancer, or more than four times as likely to die of colorectal cancer.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html
Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg of National Review whose post on The Corner led me to this Hoover Institution article.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Pie in the sky
Wishful thinking is not confined to those who think they can change human nature and make a perfect world. Wishful thinking is also engaged in by those who think that getting to the moon will be easy anytime soon.
The other week I was blindsided by Sam (I think it was Sam) mentioning that a new form of rocket had been invented which would make getting to the moon faster and easier. I didn't have my ducks in a row for a ready reply beyond expressing skepticism, since I hadn't read anything along those lines and something that would make getting to the moon much faster would be big news.
Anyway, today I came across this article in NewScientist about a new kind of ion engine that's being researched. I suspect it was an article about this engine research that started the meme that Sam saw about getting to the moon faster than the Apollo astronauts did.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17476-ion-engine-could-one-day-power-39day-trips-to-mars.html
It's an interesting article; and it actually is about a pretty large potential improvement in a type of space mission engine that is actually being used today for a scientific probe that's going to the asteroids. But, but, but. . . the ion engine being used today generates a tiny amount of thrust that is accelerating a very small space probe to a very fast velocity by pushing it for a very long time using solar power.
If you skim through the comments to the article you will find much trash but also some very well reasoned responses that point up the considerable problems associated with using this sort of engine for a Mars mission. And the article is talking about a Mars mission, which needs an engine that provides relatively low thrust for a relatively long time - an engine much like the ion engine described. A mission to the moon needs a very different kind of engine, one that provides a lot of thrust for a relatively short time.
Trying to use an ion engine needed to push a manned space mission to the moon faster than the Apollo mission would require a very large inon engine indeed, or a very large assembly of small engines. And it would not be possible to power those engines with solar power. Such a mission would need a heavy nuclear reactor for power, plus a lot of heavy shielding to protect the astronauts from the reactor's radiation.
It's child's play to shield nuclear reactors here on earth because it's no big deal to surround them with thick shields of cheap concrete or plain dirt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Power_Generation).
The problem with putting a heavy nuclear reactor (even the little 25 megawatt Hyperion reactor weighs 20 tons) plus a long of heavy radiation shielding into a spacecraft is that it costs a lot (a very lot) to put payload into space in the first place. The space shuttle takes about 25 tons to low earth orbit at a cost of about $1.5 Billion per launch, so putting each ton of payload into orbit costs about $60 Million.
Sending men to the moon was an exciting stunt in the 1960's. And sending men to the moon, or to Mars, would still be a mere exciting stunt today. We can do the stunt at very great expense if we want to; but it's a lot more cost effective to send relatively lightweight expendable automated space probes to learn about the moon and the planets until our children or our grandchildren develop technology a lot more powerful than we have today.
As a start we need a truly cheap way to get lots of mass into orbit. Since it's very likely there will some environmental concerns expressed (hah, probably a revolution!) if anyone tries to build Ted Taylor's very potentially workable but very certainly insane Project Orion type booster, that probably means we need Arthur C. Clarke's space elevator.
Orion booster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
Space elevator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
Manned space flight beyond low Earth orbit will be nothing but a clever stunt until there is a space elevator or some other practical way of getting lots of mass into low Earth orbit. I suspect that if a space elevator is impossible that mass will be brought to Earth orbit from an asteroid by relatively cheap robots. Or else the robots will move a small asteroid to Earth orbit.
The other week I was blindsided by Sam (I think it was Sam) mentioning that a new form of rocket had been invented which would make getting to the moon faster and easier. I didn't have my ducks in a row for a ready reply beyond expressing skepticism, since I hadn't read anything along those lines and something that would make getting to the moon much faster would be big news.
Anyway, today I came across this article in NewScientist about a new kind of ion engine that's being researched. I suspect it was an article about this engine research that started the meme that Sam saw about getting to the moon faster than the Apollo astronauts did.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17476-ion-engine-could-one-day-power-39day-trips-to-mars.html
It's an interesting article; and it actually is about a pretty large potential improvement in a type of space mission engine that is actually being used today for a scientific probe that's going to the asteroids. But, but, but. . . the ion engine being used today generates a tiny amount of thrust that is accelerating a very small space probe to a very fast velocity by pushing it for a very long time using solar power.
If you skim through the comments to the article you will find much trash but also some very well reasoned responses that point up the considerable problems associated with using this sort of engine for a Mars mission. And the article is talking about a Mars mission, which needs an engine that provides relatively low thrust for a relatively long time - an engine much like the ion engine described. A mission to the moon needs a very different kind of engine, one that provides a lot of thrust for a relatively short time.
Trying to use an ion engine needed to push a manned space mission to the moon faster than the Apollo mission would require a very large inon engine indeed, or a very large assembly of small engines. And it would not be possible to power those engines with solar power. Such a mission would need a heavy nuclear reactor for power, plus a lot of heavy shielding to protect the astronauts from the reactor's radiation.
It's child's play to shield nuclear reactors here on earth because it's no big deal to surround them with thick shields of cheap concrete or plain dirt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Power_Generation).
The problem with putting a heavy nuclear reactor (even the little 25 megawatt Hyperion reactor weighs 20 tons) plus a long of heavy radiation shielding into a spacecraft is that it costs a lot (a very lot) to put payload into space in the first place. The space shuttle takes about 25 tons to low earth orbit at a cost of about $1.5 Billion per launch, so putting each ton of payload into orbit costs about $60 Million.
Sending men to the moon was an exciting stunt in the 1960's. And sending men to the moon, or to Mars, would still be a mere exciting stunt today. We can do the stunt at very great expense if we want to; but it's a lot more cost effective to send relatively lightweight expendable automated space probes to learn about the moon and the planets until our children or our grandchildren develop technology a lot more powerful than we have today.
As a start we need a truly cheap way to get lots of mass into orbit. Since it's very likely there will some environmental concerns expressed (hah, probably a revolution!) if anyone tries to build Ted Taylor's very potentially workable but very certainly insane Project Orion type booster, that probably means we need Arthur C. Clarke's space elevator.
Orion booster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
Space elevator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
Manned space flight beyond low Earth orbit will be nothing but a clever stunt until there is a space elevator or some other practical way of getting lots of mass into low Earth orbit. I suspect that if a space elevator is impossible that mass will be brought to Earth orbit from an asteroid by relatively cheap robots. Or else the robots will move a small asteroid to Earth orbit.
Friday, July 24, 2009
When she's right, she's right
I can well understand why many people dismiss Ann Coulter a cojone busting harpy. Even I sometimes wince at her shrillness when she gets going on TV, even as I mentally replace her outfit with a fetchingly studded leather one and imagine her with a little whip in her hand; despite the fact that I almost always agree with her main points.
But when she's right, she's very right; as she was yesterday in her column about health care.
http://www.anncoulter.com/
As always she gets off some perfect gems of logic. Such as:
"All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink."
"The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs."
"As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!"
We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations."
"So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor."
"The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against."
"This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy."
"But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists."
"As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance."
"The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas."
"Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure."
"Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore.
On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan."
"Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck."
"Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism."
"You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise."
"Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price!
If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card."
"Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan."
"Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market."
That was Ann. This is me again. And I find that I've quoted all of her paragraphs. Every one of them is a gem.
The woman is a national treasure, even without the fetchingly studded leather outfit I can so easily imagine on her lanky frame. . . hmmm. . . perhaps she would be even more of a national treasure without the fetchingly studded leather outfit. I'll have to ponder on that question. . .
Meanwhile, may she bust liberal cojones for a very long time.
But when she's right, she's very right; as she was yesterday in her column about health care.
http://www.anncoulter.com/
As always she gets off some perfect gems of logic. Such as:
"All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink."
"The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs."
"As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!"
We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations."
"So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor."
"The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against."
"This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy."
"But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists."
"As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance."
"The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas."
"Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure."
"Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore.
On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan."
"Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck."
"Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism."
"You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise."
"Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price!
If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card."
"Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan."
"Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market."
That was Ann. This is me again. And I find that I've quoted all of her paragraphs. Every one of them is a gem.
The woman is a national treasure, even without the fetchingly studded leather outfit I can so easily imagine on her lanky frame. . . hmmm. . . perhaps she would be even more of a national treasure without the fetchingly studded leather outfit. I'll have to ponder on that question. . .
Meanwhile, may she bust liberal cojones for a very long time.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
When IPods attack
It was bad enough when vultures were swooping down on walkers in England, and rabid foxes were attacking old ladies in Massachusetts, and mountain lions were dragging down bikers in California; but now even cute little IPods can't be trusted. This one tried to immolate its soccer mom mistress in Washington State.
http://www.kirotv.com/money/20089894/detail.html
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I especially liked the part where she said that all her kids have IPods, some of them multiple Ipods, and that they listen to them in bed. Turns out her kids might have been safer if she had been letting them take Michael Jackson to bed with them.
In related news: The government just released the results of the latest visa lottery. The visa lottery is a special federal government homeland security program that randomly admits 50,000 potential terrorists into the country each year because its a well known fact that we don't have enough potential killers already living here. Your federal government at work, building a better, safer, more prosperous, America.
http://cis.org/Vaughan/VisaLottery2010
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain, a Biography
http://www.kirotv.com/money/20089894/detail.html
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I especially liked the part where she said that all her kids have IPods, some of them multiple Ipods, and that they listen to them in bed. Turns out her kids might have been safer if she had been letting them take Michael Jackson to bed with them.
In related news: The government just released the results of the latest visa lottery. The visa lottery is a special federal government homeland security program that randomly admits 50,000 potential terrorists into the country each year because its a well known fact that we don't have enough potential killers already living here. Your federal government at work, building a better, safer, more prosperous, America.
http://cis.org/Vaughan/VisaLottery2010
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain, a Biography
Monday, July 20, 2009
I visited Dolores M in the hospital on Sunday
Linda and I went to Matt K's graduation party on Saturday and met up with Anna M, Jackie J, Bobbie M and other. Matt K is Candy (Jacqueline) K's son. Candy is Jackie J's daughter. I wrote a bit about this a few weeks ago because the invitation to the graduation had me stumped for w while since I had never known Candy as Jacqueline and I never knew her married name.
Anyway, at the party we learned that Dolores M went into Lansdale Hospital on Tuesday or so with shortness of breath. So I visited her on Sunday morning. By now she should have been transferred to Doylestown Hospital for some tests on her heart, since her lungs don't seem to be the problem. We went to Dolores' 70th birthday party a month or so ago, so she's a bit young for that sort of problem; but then she has had a pretty hard life. Her brother Jackie J is also in not such good shape due to neuropathy in his feet. Grandmom L was quite right when she told us, "Don't get old."
At the party Jackie reminded me that Louie Hop, the loan shark who lived two doors down from us on Penn Street, and about whom I've written before, was "differently abled," He was called Louie Hop because he had a club foot. Louie was Medio M's father, and he had three other older sons, Jackie said, which answered a question Don A (usually down in Florida) asked me about in an email a couple of weeks ago.
I liked Louie Hop because he used to walk me down to Babe's for ice cream and lemonade; but what I remember most about him is the image of his wife Florence chasing him around their car trying to shoot him until Pop got her to calm down and give him the pistol. I guess Louie could hop pretty fast with his big built up shoe, because Florence missed with all her shots from the little silver pistol. Pop used to say she wasn't really trying to hit him, just trying to give him a message. It was apparently a pretty effective message since Mom always said that Florence never "sang" anymore after the shooting incident. I imagine Louie slept with one eye open after that.
Meanwhile, I've recently been re-reading the middle volume of William Manchester's The Last Lion, his biography of Winston Churchhill. The book, a medium detailed history Churchill's years as a back bencher in Parliament during the 1930's, is oddly soothing because it reminds one of the fact that the British government in that period was even more obtuse than our current softheaded administration is. Of course, the book is also soothing because I know how the story turns out. I know that the utter disaster Baldwin and Chamberlain and their associated cabinet members did their incompetent best to make possible did not befall. World War II ended up short of utter disaster even if it did result in something like 40 or 60 million deaths. It could have ended lots worse.
Before The Last Lion I read Jack London's Martin Eden, a surprising novel. I'm too lazy to do the research; but I suspect Ayn Rand read Martin Eden pretty closely. Her plot for The Fountainhead is a near ripoff of it, although Fountainhead doesn't end quite so tragically. I'm guessing Jack London was not quite an objectivist, but he was pretty darn close, which didn't stop the lefty writer who did the introduction to the paperback edition I have from trying to present him as a socialist, of all things.
What bosch. Martin Eden flirts with socialism; but he rejects it quite forcefully; and, in fact, some of his internal philosophizing could have come right out of Ayn Rand. I suspect the book influenced Rand and may even have given her the idea for Atlas Shrugged although in the end Martin Eden shrugs with somewhat more finality than John Galt.
Oh, I forgot, in between Martin Eden and The Last Lion I took a little break and re-read John Grisham's Playing for Pizza. What a pleasant little novel. Grisham is such a natural writer. Nowhere near as good or deep a writer as Jack London, but so natural and easy on the eyes.
It's been a while since I wrote about books. Come to think of it I've re-read a half dozen Faye Kellerman novels since I last wrote about books. Faye is a lot better writer, qua writer, than her husband.
Anyway, at the party we learned that Dolores M went into Lansdale Hospital on Tuesday or so with shortness of breath. So I visited her on Sunday morning. By now she should have been transferred to Doylestown Hospital for some tests on her heart, since her lungs don't seem to be the problem. We went to Dolores' 70th birthday party a month or so ago, so she's a bit young for that sort of problem; but then she has had a pretty hard life. Her brother Jackie J is also in not such good shape due to neuropathy in his feet. Grandmom L was quite right when she told us, "Don't get old."
At the party Jackie reminded me that Louie Hop, the loan shark who lived two doors down from us on Penn Street, and about whom I've written before, was "differently abled," He was called Louie Hop because he had a club foot. Louie was Medio M's father, and he had three other older sons, Jackie said, which answered a question Don A (usually down in Florida) asked me about in an email a couple of weeks ago.
I liked Louie Hop because he used to walk me down to Babe's for ice cream and lemonade; but what I remember most about him is the image of his wife Florence chasing him around their car trying to shoot him until Pop got her to calm down and give him the pistol. I guess Louie could hop pretty fast with his big built up shoe, because Florence missed with all her shots from the little silver pistol. Pop used to say she wasn't really trying to hit him, just trying to give him a message. It was apparently a pretty effective message since Mom always said that Florence never "sang" anymore after the shooting incident. I imagine Louie slept with one eye open after that.
Meanwhile, I've recently been re-reading the middle volume of William Manchester's The Last Lion, his biography of Winston Churchhill. The book, a medium detailed history Churchill's years as a back bencher in Parliament during the 1930's, is oddly soothing because it reminds one of the fact that the British government in that period was even more obtuse than our current softheaded administration is. Of course, the book is also soothing because I know how the story turns out. I know that the utter disaster Baldwin and Chamberlain and their associated cabinet members did their incompetent best to make possible did not befall. World War II ended up short of utter disaster even if it did result in something like 40 or 60 million deaths. It could have ended lots worse.
Before The Last Lion I read Jack London's Martin Eden, a surprising novel. I'm too lazy to do the research; but I suspect Ayn Rand read Martin Eden pretty closely. Her plot for The Fountainhead is a near ripoff of it, although Fountainhead doesn't end quite so tragically. I'm guessing Jack London was not quite an objectivist, but he was pretty darn close, which didn't stop the lefty writer who did the introduction to the paperback edition I have from trying to present him as a socialist, of all things.
What bosch. Martin Eden flirts with socialism; but he rejects it quite forcefully; and, in fact, some of his internal philosophizing could have come right out of Ayn Rand. I suspect the book influenced Rand and may even have given her the idea for Atlas Shrugged although in the end Martin Eden shrugs with somewhat more finality than John Galt.
Oh, I forgot, in between Martin Eden and The Last Lion I took a little break and re-read John Grisham's Playing for Pizza. What a pleasant little novel. Grisham is such a natural writer. Nowhere near as good or deep a writer as Jack London, but so natural and easy on the eyes.
It's been a while since I wrote about books. Come to think of it I've re-read a half dozen Faye Kellerman novels since I last wrote about books. Faye is a lot better writer, qua writer, than her husband.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Do Marianne, Dave and the girls know what. . .
Do Marianne, Dave and the girls know what their kittens are doing when they're alone?
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2003/12/about_our_masco.html#more
Update 7/18 - Perhaps it's good that the kittens are armed. Buzzards are attacking joggers in England.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5858407/Joggers-hurt-in-buzzard-attacks.html
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2003/12/about_our_masco.html#more
Update 7/18 - Perhaps it's good that the kittens are armed. Buzzards are attacking joggers in England.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5858407/Joggers-hurt-in-buzzard-attacks.html
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sam may be in a position to be THE guru on the economy
Sam may be in a better position to know the real state of the economy than the government's economists. This article in the Wall Street Journal says that waste disposal volume is a better measure of consumption, and therefore economic activity, than the government's statistics.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/17/using-garbage-to-measure-consumption/
And, in other news, congress and President Obama want to have the government take over the whole health care system. They're going to recruit really competent career bureaucrats to decide what doctor you go to, and what drugs he's allowed to prescribe for you, and whether you are worthy of getting a new hip, and what drugs the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to produce and what research into drugs is permitted and how many nurses to hire for each ward of each hospitals all over the country, and how many minutes of break time those nurses get. . . and, and, and. . . everything to do with health care, including who lives and who is unworthy to live.
Perhaps President Obama and his pals will be able to find bureaucrats as smart as the government rocket scientists who taped over the original pictures of the first landing on the moon.
http://webmail.aol.com/43792/aol/en-us/Suite.aspx
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/17/using-garbage-to-measure-consumption/
And, in other news, congress and President Obama want to have the government take over the whole health care system. They're going to recruit really competent career bureaucrats to decide what doctor you go to, and what drugs he's allowed to prescribe for you, and whether you are worthy of getting a new hip, and what drugs the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to produce and what research into drugs is permitted and how many nurses to hire for each ward of each hospitals all over the country, and how many minutes of break time those nurses get. . . and, and, and. . . everything to do with health care, including who lives and who is unworthy to live.
Perhaps President Obama and his pals will be able to find bureaucrats as smart as the government rocket scientists who taped over the original pictures of the first landing on the moon.
http://webmail.aol.com/43792/aol/en-us/Suite.aspx
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Windmills as far as the eye can see. . . and then much farther
What with congress and President Obama trying to pass the cap and trade legislation that will add over $1,000 per year in energy cost to your household budget there is again a lot of hot air being generated about wind power.
So I got to thinking about what our everyday world would look like if powered by the wind. It would take about 1,500 big windmills to replace the power generated by the Limerick nuclear plant. When I say big windmills I mean that each of them would be about 600 feet tall, about as tall as the 60 story buildings down in Philadelphia. Those windmills would have droning rotors 400 feet in diameter; and to be efficient they would need to be spaced about a half mile apart (6 times the diameter of the rotors).
So, just to replace one large power plant, we're talking about a line of windmills 750 miles long, or else a square grid of colossal windmills almost 28 miles on a side - 750 square miles of windmills.
If the windmills were built in a single line heading south down the median strip of I-95 you could drive all the way to Florida without being more than 1,200 feet from one of them.
If the windmills were built in a grid pattern they would cover all of Montgomery County, and there would still be about 300 square miles of windmills slopping over the edges into Chester, Berks, Delaware, Bucks, Lancaster and Philadelphia counties. The luckiest people in this area would live in the middle of a grid square, 1,700 feet in each direction from four constantly whooshing windmills, each one mounted on a tower twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty's torch. Most people would get to live much closer to a windmill. Some would get to live right under the whirling blades; but not to worry, even a major league pitcher probably wouldn't be able to throw a baseball high enough to hit the tip of a blade as it whizzed through the air overhead at 200 miles per hour.
On the plus side, I imagine there would be some really neat graffiti on the towers after a while.
whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh
So I got to thinking about what our everyday world would look like if powered by the wind. It would take about 1,500 big windmills to replace the power generated by the Limerick nuclear plant. When I say big windmills I mean that each of them would be about 600 feet tall, about as tall as the 60 story buildings down in Philadelphia. Those windmills would have droning rotors 400 feet in diameter; and to be efficient they would need to be spaced about a half mile apart (6 times the diameter of the rotors).
So, just to replace one large power plant, we're talking about a line of windmills 750 miles long, or else a square grid of colossal windmills almost 28 miles on a side - 750 square miles of windmills.
If the windmills were built in a single line heading south down the median strip of I-95 you could drive all the way to Florida without being more than 1,200 feet from one of them.
If the windmills were built in a grid pattern they would cover all of Montgomery County, and there would still be about 300 square miles of windmills slopping over the edges into Chester, Berks, Delaware, Bucks, Lancaster and Philadelphia counties. The luckiest people in this area would live in the middle of a grid square, 1,700 feet in each direction from four constantly whooshing windmills, each one mounted on a tower twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty's torch. Most people would get to live much closer to a windmill. Some would get to live right under the whirling blades; but not to worry, even a major league pitcher probably wouldn't be able to throw a baseball high enough to hit the tip of a blade as it whizzed through the air overhead at 200 miles per hour.
On the plus side, I imagine there would be some really neat graffiti on the towers after a while.
whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh
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