I think this is his second one, and I find them to be very good, if only because he echoes things I've been saying lately. I hope he does more. Some excerpts: Columbia, SC: In honor of Twitter's down period, I think all responses should be made in 140 characters or less. Ezra Klein: I am very tempted to do … Read More
My Idea: Give Them What They Want
It really seems that a lot of these people protesting Obama's call for health care reform are opposed to government-run health care without realizing that they themselves are on government-run health care which they don't want tampered with. It's not surprising. For near 30 years, the right wing has bombarded the citizenry with a simple-to-understand, but not-necessarily-true slogan — i.e., government … Read More
More About The GOP Mobs
From today's WaPo chat (with WaPo columnist Ben Pershing): Oklahoma City, OK: In yesterday's politics chat one of the posters wondered why it was "legal" for vocal critics of the administration to show up at congressional town halls and sometimes shout and yell. Does no one on the left recall eight years under George W. Bush when everywhere he went … Read More
What’s Wrong With The U.S. Postal Service?
Arthur Laffer on CNN: If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government. Someone needs to point out to Mr. Supply Side that Medicare and Medicaid are done by the government…. now. They are government programs, and … Read More
Obama Be Killing Us All, Like The Nazis
One of my favorite Renew America columnists, Marie Jon, has taken on Obamacare. You know it's going to be fun just from the title: Obama's Advance Care Planning: code words for 'euthanasia' Get it? "Code words". He doesn't come right out and say "euthanasia", because that would be too obvious. Marie explains: President Barack Obama has proposed that every American's medical … Read More
Health Care Rationing
Yeah, yeah. We don't want to support Obama's health care plan because we don't want to ration out health care. We don't want some faceless bureaucrat making medical life-or-death decisions for us. We don't…. wait, what's that? An insurance company that initially refused to pay for a liver transplant for a 17-year-old Northridge girl who died in a hospital should … Read More
The Hysteria Continues
When George Bush was "elected" president in 2000, I thought it was bad for the country. I didn't agree with his policies, and I thought he was a weak leader. And I said so. But what I didn't do was FREAK OUT. I didn't go around saying, "OMG! He's going to force us all to wear uniforms, and he's going … Read More
Facepalm Punditry Of The Day
Why is life expectancy higher in Canada than it is in the United States? Bill O'Reilly knows: That is to be expected…. we have ten times more people here [than in Canada]… … and therefore we have ten times more crimes and accidents, which is why we have a lower life expectancy than Canada. Video here. For what it's worth … Read More
But The Red Ones Give You Cancer, So It’s A Wash, Right?
From CNN: Blue M&Ms linked to reducing spine injury The same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery, according to new research. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that when they injected the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG) into rats … Read More
Local Hunger
Not for nothing, but North Carolina has the nation's second-highest hunger rate for children under 5 years old, second only to Louisiana (which is still suffering the after-effects of Katrina). More than 422,000 children in North Carolina are "food insecure" – , i.e., unable to consistently access adequate amounts of nutritious food that is necessary for a healthy life. That amounts one-in-four … Read More
Socialized Math
Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) on socialized medicine: Well, if you go to the socialized medicine countries, you find about 20 percent worse results. You get it? One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine! Now, I’ve got three daughters and a wife. I would hate to think that, among five women, one of them is … Read More
What Digby Said: GOP Health Care Talking Points
Digby takes on the Republican talking points on health care and nails it: Just in case you are like me and would like to be able to hit the mute button whenever a Republican is on TV talking about health care, the Huffington Post has conveniently provided the official Republican talking points: In regard to specific talking points, the RNC … Read More
Getting My Arms Around Health Care Reform
I don't blog about this very much, because I don't understand it very well. I know there are several bills and versions out there; I just don't know what they do or how they differ. I know there's such a thing as a "single payer system" which is essentially "socialized health care". In essence, it's a single universal health care … Read More
Graphing Youth Sex Habits
I pulled some interesting charts from the today-released CDC report on STDs among youth. Apparently, there was an increase in teen pregnancies and youth STDs during the Bush years. Here are the charts: TABLE 22. (Continued) Estimated number of cases and cumulative rates* of persons aged 10–24 years living with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, by age group and area of … Read More
I Prefer Maple Syrup, Thank You
From Thisiswhyyourefat.com, a pancake fiasco: Layers from bottom to top: pancake; cookie dough; pancake; peanut butter and jelly; pancake; chocolate and bananas; pancake; caramel, oreo, marshmallow, sprinkles, M&M’s; pancake; caramel buttercream frosting granished with Trix cereal. Sacrilege.