Reuters reported today that July was deadliest month yet for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but you wouldn't know that trolling CNN or watching the network news.
And yet it's hard to forget the daily lead plastered on the front page of all the major sites decrying the number of needless deaths as a result of Bush's awful wars. So why is it so much less important today than it was a year ago? And for that matter, can you think of the last time there was a major news story criticizing U.S. military efforts in either Iraq or Afghanistan? There have certainly been opportunities - the botched missile attack earlier this month is just the latest example of a story that was buried by the press. The major news outlets seem to have absolutely no interest in our military efforts abroad, instead focusing its attention on yesterday's world-changing event in the back yard of the white house where 4 men grudgingly drank a beer together. CNN is putting it's best face on the disaster that is Bama's economic policy, cheerfully trumpeting the gains in the Dow while just about every other serious economic indicator remains fixed at the bottom of the tank.
The double standard is obvious. The media does not want to say anything about anything that may further erode American's dwindling confidence in Bama. While the media was engaged in a war of its own against the Bush Administration and Republicans in general, trotting out every shock tactic in the book, including showing the returning caskets of slain servicemen on Nightline and providing daily reminders of how bad it was and how many soldiers were dying and had no armor and isn't that ultimately George Bush's fault, they have no such agenda with Bama, so even though he increased the number of servicemen in Afghanistan by 40%, there's no coverage when something doesn't work out in the administrations best interests.
This is actually how a war should be covered by the press, as opposed to the scathing op-eds on a daily basis and overused scare tactics to make Americans think their military is either not competent, mismanaged, or over matched, none of which are true.
A friend of mine suggested Bama was elected primarily for his foreign policy promises, specifically related to Iraq. Well, 6 months in Bama is content to follow the time lines negotiated by Condi Rice and the Bush team. Hmmm, could that mean those decisions were actually well-thought out and based on facts, instead of just hollow promises based on, oh, I dunno, hope?
One might expect the liberals who voted for Bama, and the moderates who succumbed to the anti-war media blitz and elected the schmuck would be disappointed or even outraged that Bama's foreign policy with regard to Iraq is nothing more than an extension of Bush's, and some are, but most are content with the way things are going, because they aren't being told that things are really the same, and the conditions that prompted their vote are unchanged since their leader assumed the role of Commander in Chief. I wonder how long the media can keep spinning this rosy picture of Bama's presidency. If poll numbers are any judge, they can't keep it going much longer. People are catching on, finally.
I hope I live to see the day when the Internet drives the last nail in the coffin of elite liberal media dominance. Three more years of Bama just might do it.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
"The Needs of the Many..."
"...Outweigh the needs of the few."- Spock
"Or the one."- James Kirk
This is inherently logical and inarguably true.
Unfortunately, Bara Bama 's health care debacle will inevitably do harm to the majority for the sake of the minority.
Contrary to popular belief, health care is not a right (not yet, anyway), and is not a service provided to the public free of charge. Someone has to pay the bill. Today, about 85% percent of Americans have health insurance,and almost every one of them has a plan that is partially subsidized by their employer. To what extent varies from plan to plan and employer to employer, with larger corporations generally leveraging their employee base for volume discounts. This is considered a benefit of employment, and is unlikely to be interchangeable with higher pay. Private companies in America invest hundreds of billions of dollars every year in insurance premium subsidies for their employees, cost that will be absorbed by American taxpayers when Bama's plan is made law.
Because the president's plan forces those who currently have insurance to sign on to the government option in the event of a change to their existing plan, individuals will lose their subsidized health insurance in favor of the new national health care coverage. A new Health Care Tax WILL happen - there is no other way to pay for it. The president wants to tax families making more than $350,000 a year for starters, but remember that only covers 16 million Americans, not the 100 million or more that will be forced into the public option in the next 5 years. This is Socialism by any definition, but in order to cover the new cost that will no longer be subsidized by private companies, Bama will tax every working American. And again, because the cost is unsubsidized, all of us will pay more on average than we pay today.
Democrats will try to sell us on the idea that a health care tax is the same as a health insurance premium, but it isn't, because we will have no choice in plans to choose a plan that makes sense for each family or individual. You'll get to pay your tax and you will like what you get for it. You will like it, citizen!
Bama has some insane agenda to get this done immediately, with as little oversight and review as possible, for reasons unknown except that he "gets letters everyday."
There is no doubt that, as a liberal par excellence, Bama is an emotional thinker - all liberals are. His emotional reaction to this issue drives his decision-making, so that he is blind to logic or even rational thought.
Clearly, emotion dictates that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, and many will suffer for the choice of the one.
"Or the one."- James Kirk
This is inherently logical and inarguably true.
Unfortunately, Bara Bama 's health care debacle will inevitably do harm to the majority for the sake of the minority.
Contrary to popular belief, health care is not a right (not yet, anyway), and is not a service provided to the public free of charge. Someone has to pay the bill. Today, about 85% percent of Americans have health insurance,and almost every one of them has a plan that is partially subsidized by their employer. To what extent varies from plan to plan and employer to employer, with larger corporations generally leveraging their employee base for volume discounts. This is considered a benefit of employment, and is unlikely to be interchangeable with higher pay. Private companies in America invest hundreds of billions of dollars every year in insurance premium subsidies for their employees, cost that will be absorbed by American taxpayers when Bama's plan is made law.
Because the president's plan forces those who currently have insurance to sign on to the government option in the event of a change to their existing plan, individuals will lose their subsidized health insurance in favor of the new national health care coverage. A new Health Care Tax WILL happen - there is no other way to pay for it. The president wants to tax families making more than $350,000 a year for starters, but remember that only covers 16 million Americans, not the 100 million or more that will be forced into the public option in the next 5 years. This is Socialism by any definition, but in order to cover the new cost that will no longer be subsidized by private companies, Bama will tax every working American. And again, because the cost is unsubsidized, all of us will pay more on average than we pay today.
Democrats will try to sell us on the idea that a health care tax is the same as a health insurance premium, but it isn't, because we will have no choice in plans to choose a plan that makes sense for each family or individual. You'll get to pay your tax and you will like what you get for it. You will like it, citizen!
Bama has some insane agenda to get this done immediately, with as little oversight and review as possible, for reasons unknown except that he "gets letters everyday."
There is no doubt that, as a liberal par excellence, Bama is an emotional thinker - all liberals are. His emotional reaction to this issue drives his decision-making, so that he is blind to logic or even rational thought.
Clearly, emotion dictates that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, and many will suffer for the choice of the one.
Friday, July 24, 2009
"I don't have all the facts," claims Bama.
Yet he's all too willing to pass judgment on the police who arrested his buddy. I think what really got busted in this incident was Harvard elitism, and thank God for that. Now, If I had to break into my own home and my neighbor called the cops and they came and started asking me a bunch of questions, I'd get pissed, too. But I'd find my license or my passport or my old college ID card or even a picture of me off the mantle to show them I was who I claimed to be. This guy apparently wasn't willing to do that, instead going for the old "This is what happens to a black man in America" line. Dude, just show them the picture of you shaking hands with President Bama. Oh wait, that might actually be evidence that you are a criminal.
Bama doesn't have most of the facts, but that matters little. He'll stuff all this nonsense out there without knowing even what's in these bills he intends to sign, and only when the few conservatives or honest libs in the media actually start to read one of them do the had questions get asked. "I'm not familiar with that," says Bama. Too bad for all of us.
Bama doesn't have most of the facts, but that matters little. He'll stuff all this nonsense out there without knowing even what's in these bills he intends to sign, and only when the few conservatives or honest libs in the media actually start to read one of them do the had questions get asked. "I'm not familiar with that," says Bama. Too bad for all of us.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
"Health Care Inflation" - oBama's Press Conference Play by Play
What the hell does that mean? Bama's press conference is the stuff of pure idiocy. Nobody knows what he means by that because he doesn't know. He could have said, "Health care cost inflation," but he didn't, and given this guy's black belt in linguistic martial arts, you absolutely cannot think 'cost' is implied in that statement. We simply don't know. It might sound good, but it's just as likely to refer to people's use or overuse of health care, which speaks to the issue of care by approval.
He came up with this gem: "You take a test and then you take another test and its the same test but the people who took the first test forgot to send it..." Just nonsense. He's making this up as he goes.
As to why the rush: He gets letters everyday... Like the middle-aged couple whose daughter has leukemia and they need Bama's help because they don't know what to do. First off, maybe he got this letter, maybe not. Presidents need to make tough choices everyday that affect every American, not just react to the handful of letters that make him cry. If there is such a couple, I'm sorry your daughter has leukemia, but the President of the United States cannot just write a check we can't cash and hope you get the help you need. Oh, and if Bama really wanted to help that girl he'd write the check himself, because he knows even if he signs the health care bill tomorrow the system won't be fully operational for months or even years.
And then there was this: "The stars are aligned and we need to take advantage of that." Well, that's as good a reason as any! Where do I sign?!
"The average family pays thousands of dollars in hidden costs..." I would have died if he had said "Taxes" but of course he couldn't. It was about uninsured who get hit by buses and then everyone else pays. Wait a minute, under his plan won't we be essentially paying for 16-50 Million uninsured bus victims? How are we not still paying for that?
He just lied! "When I came in we had a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit every year that we had inherited." The deficit reached the trillion dollar mark for the first time ever a month ago. Bama's half way to 2 Trillion in debt for this year alone, and the budget hasn't even been signed yet.
He's worried about spending, and somehow he's calculated the deficit would have been $9 trillion, but thanks to him it will only be $7 trillion. Well thank God for that.
There he goes again, reminding us how he inherited this problem of the deficit. Is this a cartoon? "We were on the verge of a complete meltdown..." (Blames Wall Street) And who saved us? If anyone it was George W Bush. It's a fact that lending stabilized by the end of December 2008, and Bama had nothing to do with that. He continued to push the myth that they hadn't until he could try to spin it like his spending bill, er, I mean stimulus bill got the job done.
He just got asked if he and the Congress will have the same plan as the American people. Um, ok, Congress gets to shop plans just like we do... If you can reduce administrative costs you can incentive, er, the private sector to do even better. Insurance companies are making record profits, blah, blah, blah. Nope, didn't answer it.
Can he guarantee patients and doctors will get to make the decision about care or will it be the government? No, he will instead be enforcing morality, because a doctor will always take the most expensive option. Yeeeah, riiiight.
Oh, and Doctors do what's best for the patient at Mayo. I know first hand this is Not true. Mayo treats people like lab mice, and you are just about guaranteed to get the most expensive possible option at Mayo unless you get real serious about your own care. Oh, and Mayo doesn't want oBamacare. I don't know what this all means, but it's f--ked up.
The press actually asked a couple tough questions. Too bad Bama either didn't answer or gave answers he knew to be misleading or outright lies.
Answering the softball question to end the thing about race relations and racial profiling by police:
"There is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped disproportionately." I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that they commit disproportionately more crimes... Oh, wait, they just get caught committing more crimes. White people get away with everything.
Bottom line, he uses bad reasons to justify this whole thing. He's clearly not interested in what's best for the country as a whole. Perhaps just the opposite.
He came up with this gem: "You take a test and then you take another test and its the same test but the people who took the first test forgot to send it..." Just nonsense. He's making this up as he goes.
As to why the rush: He gets letters everyday... Like the middle-aged couple whose daughter has leukemia and they need Bama's help because they don't know what to do. First off, maybe he got this letter, maybe not. Presidents need to make tough choices everyday that affect every American, not just react to the handful of letters that make him cry. If there is such a couple, I'm sorry your daughter has leukemia, but the President of the United States cannot just write a check we can't cash and hope you get the help you need. Oh, and if Bama really wanted to help that girl he'd write the check himself, because he knows even if he signs the health care bill tomorrow the system won't be fully operational for months or even years.
And then there was this: "The stars are aligned and we need to take advantage of that." Well, that's as good a reason as any! Where do I sign?!
"The average family pays thousands of dollars in hidden costs..." I would have died if he had said "Taxes" but of course he couldn't. It was about uninsured who get hit by buses and then everyone else pays. Wait a minute, under his plan won't we be essentially paying for 16-50 Million uninsured bus victims? How are we not still paying for that?
He just lied! "When I came in we had a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit every year that we had inherited." The deficit reached the trillion dollar mark for the first time ever a month ago. Bama's half way to 2 Trillion in debt for this year alone, and the budget hasn't even been signed yet.
He's worried about spending, and somehow he's calculated the deficit would have been $9 trillion, but thanks to him it will only be $7 trillion. Well thank God for that.
There he goes again, reminding us how he inherited this problem of the deficit. Is this a cartoon? "We were on the verge of a complete meltdown..." (Blames Wall Street) And who saved us? If anyone it was George W Bush. It's a fact that lending stabilized by the end of December 2008, and Bama had nothing to do with that. He continued to push the myth that they hadn't until he could try to spin it like his spending bill, er, I mean stimulus bill got the job done.
He just got asked if he and the Congress will have the same plan as the American people. Um, ok, Congress gets to shop plans just like we do... If you can reduce administrative costs you can incentive, er, the private sector to do even better. Insurance companies are making record profits, blah, blah, blah. Nope, didn't answer it.
Can he guarantee patients and doctors will get to make the decision about care or will it be the government? No, he will instead be enforcing morality, because a doctor will always take the most expensive option. Yeeeah, riiiight.
Oh, and Doctors do what's best for the patient at Mayo. I know first hand this is Not true. Mayo treats people like lab mice, and you are just about guaranteed to get the most expensive possible option at Mayo unless you get real serious about your own care. Oh, and Mayo doesn't want oBamacare. I don't know what this all means, but it's f--ked up.
The press actually asked a couple tough questions. Too bad Bama either didn't answer or gave answers he knew to be misleading or outright lies.
Answering the softball question to end the thing about race relations and racial profiling by police:
"There is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped disproportionately." I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that they commit disproportionately more crimes... Oh, wait, they just get caught committing more crimes. White people get away with everything.
Bottom line, he uses bad reasons to justify this whole thing. He's clearly not interested in what's best for the country as a whole. Perhaps just the opposite.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Most Expensive Thing Ever!
This keeps getting better. First, the CBO "discovered" today that the current version of the health care bill does not account for increased fees for doctors, an oversight to the tune of $245 Billion. So the price tag, currently estimated at about $1.6 Trillion, just spiked to $1.85 Trillion over 10 years. And remember, that figure covers just 16 million people, a far cry from the Democrat's new estimate of 50 million uninsured Americans.
The next question should be, does that amount necessarily scale? You bet it does, since almost all of the estimated cost relates directly to cost of care, and when you break it down, it amounts to an average of $10,000 per person covered, per year. That's really not a lot when it comes to health care. Again, most people don't reach that number, but enough others are accruing ten times that level or more every year that it balances out. That's how the insurance industry works - the numbers are all there.
So if we extrapolate to just cover those 50 million Americans, the cost of the plan, including the new addition for doctor's fees, skyrockets to $5.8 Trillion!
But wait, there's more!
The bill has a provision that forces people to take the public "option" when signing on for a new health plan or if any changes occur in their existing plan. I don't know about you, but my plan changes annually. The changes are typically minor, but sufficient to meet the criteria to force me into the public "option." You may have also heard Democrats let slip that they expect 97% of Americans to have health care coverage provided by the government at the end of 10 years. If that's true, and costs scale evenly, Obamacare will cost US Taxpayers at least $3.36 Trillion dollars every year! That's more than the entire 2008 budget for the United States, including discretional spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over the next 10 years we can expect the true cost of Obama care, as it exists in the bill he intends to sign but hasn't even read, something closer to $20 Trillion, more than 10 times Democrat estimates. Can anyone say Hyper-Inflation?
This is the kind of economic terrorism that has to make you wonder about Obama again.
The next question should be, does that amount necessarily scale? You bet it does, since almost all of the estimated cost relates directly to cost of care, and when you break it down, it amounts to an average of $10,000 per person covered, per year. That's really not a lot when it comes to health care. Again, most people don't reach that number, but enough others are accruing ten times that level or more every year that it balances out. That's how the insurance industry works - the numbers are all there.
So if we extrapolate to just cover those 50 million Americans, the cost of the plan, including the new addition for doctor's fees, skyrockets to $5.8 Trillion!
But wait, there's more!
The bill has a provision that forces people to take the public "option" when signing on for a new health plan or if any changes occur in their existing plan. I don't know about you, but my plan changes annually. The changes are typically minor, but sufficient to meet the criteria to force me into the public "option." You may have also heard Democrats let slip that they expect 97% of Americans to have health care coverage provided by the government at the end of 10 years. If that's true, and costs scale evenly, Obamacare will cost US Taxpayers at least $3.36 Trillion dollars every year! That's more than the entire 2008 budget for the United States, including discretional spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over the next 10 years we can expect the true cost of Obama care, as it exists in the bill he intends to sign but hasn't even read, something closer to $20 Trillion, more than 10 times Democrat estimates. Can anyone say Hyper-Inflation?
This is the kind of economic terrorism that has to make you wonder about Obama again.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Mining for Votes: A Bold Faced Scheme
On NPR this morning the topic was voting rights for felons. The guest was a member of the Wisconsin Assembly who sponsored a bill to restore voting rights to convicted felons who are on parole. His rationale was that the removal of the right to vote is a deterrent to committing the crime, not a consequence that was intended to limit the rehabilitated felon’s ability to participate in society.
Current law requires felons to complete parole and then file some paperwork with the state, after which their right to vote is restored. The co-sponsor on the bill is a assembly woman from Milwaukee who is deeply concerned about the disenfranchisement of blacks, specifically those who fail to complete parole and as a result continue to lack the right to vote. The guest pointed out that Wisconsin has the highest percentage in the nation of blacks who had lost the right to vote, per capita, at 1 in 9, compared to whites at 1 in 50.
During the time I was listening the show took 2 callers. The first was the husband of a felon who had completed parole and had her rights reinstated. He was on the side of the guest, saying the state had every reasonable expectation his wife would complete the parole and paperwork requirements, but it was a hassle and very stressful, and she felt it was unfair that given her effort she could not be included in our government process which affected her the same as everyone else.
The second caller pointed out that the law was written for a reason and the loss of voting rights is absolutely an intended consequence. Those who don’t follow society’s rules should not have the same opportunities as those that do, and how is it unreasonable to require someone to complete parole before being able to fully participate in society again? Is it really such a stretch to expect that someone actually obey the law once they get out of prison? All this bill does is accommodate people who either have no intention of following the law or are just too troubled to stay on the straight and narrow. Do we really want either of these types of people influencing elections?
Not surprisingly, the sponsors of this bill are Democrats. This is all about vote mining, and has nothing to do with citizen’s rights. If felons were predominantly Republican, there would be no such bill in the works, but the opposite is true. Felons vote Democrat by a large margin, and in elections where a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can swing the result, this is huge.
Claims that the current law is racist are disingenuous, as it affects all felons, not just non-whites, and the fact that blacks commit more felonies than whites, or at least get caught doing it more than whites, is not a result of the law, either directly or indirectly, but of the choices each person makes. Any statement to the contrary is pure race politics and is the lowest and most blatant form of political coercion.
The guest claimed to have data clearly indicating felons who voted while on parole integrated into society at a higher rate than those that didn’t. He’s either lying or claiming to have documented illegal voting, since the law clearly prohibits this. If I was a career Republican I’d be demanding his data lists as evidence that ineligible felons are indeed voting in Wisconsin. We all know this is happening; now one of the dems has just validated it!
Finally, this is a gateway bill. The ultimate goal of the Dems is to get all convicted criminals the right to vote, even those still incarcerated, regardless of the crime. They are after all, victims of the system. Who are we, the people, to hold anyone accountable for his or her actions! Shame.
Current law requires felons to complete parole and then file some paperwork with the state, after which their right to vote is restored. The co-sponsor on the bill is a assembly woman from Milwaukee who is deeply concerned about the disenfranchisement of blacks, specifically those who fail to complete parole and as a result continue to lack the right to vote. The guest pointed out that Wisconsin has the highest percentage in the nation of blacks who had lost the right to vote, per capita, at 1 in 9, compared to whites at 1 in 50.
During the time I was listening the show took 2 callers. The first was the husband of a felon who had completed parole and had her rights reinstated. He was on the side of the guest, saying the state had every reasonable expectation his wife would complete the parole and paperwork requirements, but it was a hassle and very stressful, and she felt it was unfair that given her effort she could not be included in our government process which affected her the same as everyone else.
The second caller pointed out that the law was written for a reason and the loss of voting rights is absolutely an intended consequence. Those who don’t follow society’s rules should not have the same opportunities as those that do, and how is it unreasonable to require someone to complete parole before being able to fully participate in society again? Is it really such a stretch to expect that someone actually obey the law once they get out of prison? All this bill does is accommodate people who either have no intention of following the law or are just too troubled to stay on the straight and narrow. Do we really want either of these types of people influencing elections?
Not surprisingly, the sponsors of this bill are Democrats. This is all about vote mining, and has nothing to do with citizen’s rights. If felons were predominantly Republican, there would be no such bill in the works, but the opposite is true. Felons vote Democrat by a large margin, and in elections where a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can swing the result, this is huge.
Claims that the current law is racist are disingenuous, as it affects all felons, not just non-whites, and the fact that blacks commit more felonies than whites, or at least get caught doing it more than whites, is not a result of the law, either directly or indirectly, but of the choices each person makes. Any statement to the contrary is pure race politics and is the lowest and most blatant form of political coercion.
The guest claimed to have data clearly indicating felons who voted while on parole integrated into society at a higher rate than those that didn’t. He’s either lying or claiming to have documented illegal voting, since the law clearly prohibits this. If I was a career Republican I’d be demanding his data lists as evidence that ineligible felons are indeed voting in Wisconsin. We all know this is happening; now one of the dems has just validated it!
Finally, this is a gateway bill. The ultimate goal of the Dems is to get all convicted criminals the right to vote, even those still incarcerated, regardless of the crime. They are after all, victims of the system. Who are we, the people, to hold anyone accountable for his or her actions! Shame.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Upcoming Posts
Progressivism or Entropy?
The Liberal Master Plan (Really!)
Defending Palin: Governors who Quit
or Anyone Ever Heard of Jim Doyle?
Flogging English 1: Business Catch Phrases
and on the lighter side:
Summer Blockbuster Movie Reviews
The Liberal Master Plan (Really!)
Defending Palin: Governors who Quit
or Anyone Ever Heard of Jim Doyle?
Flogging English 1: Business Catch Phrases
and on the lighter side:
Summer Blockbuster Movie Reviews
Supreme Court Confirmations: What's the Point?
Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearing could not be more useless. She gets to dodge questions while condescending to Senators on both sides (which I applaud), and they can't do anything but try to rephrase their stupid questions, and she just jukes like a prize fighter. Seriously, how many different ways can you ask if she is for or against upholding Roe v. Wade? Of course she's not going to answer that. I don't blame her. I wouldn't answer anything those blowhard idiots asked me. Potential justices cannot actually answer these questions about how they intend to vote on something or they must recuse themselves when the actually get the opportunity to do so.
Who can sit and listen to senators pontificate for 10 minutes before finally getting around to some tired old shoe of an ideological hot potato? It was actually funny to listen to her talk down to that ol' turncoat Arlen Spectre (sp). :D
And consider the last 2 justices, Roberts and Alito. They got away with the same nonsense, and these votes always end up along party lines, so really, what's the point. Oh yeah, I know, it's all about the senators. They just love themselves too much to be denied a chance in the lights. And you know who the worst all time was? Joe Biden. That guy was a legend at talking highly about himself and never getting around to any useful action in any official capacity, and look where it's got him? Let that be a lesson to you junior members who still want to work hard and get things done, which apparently means spending trillions of dollars in an obvious, if totally unreported effort to federalize the economy and thereby control every one of us. More on that later.
When do we get to say enough is enough? I'm tired of the dog and pony show that is the federal government.
Who can sit and listen to senators pontificate for 10 minutes before finally getting around to some tired old shoe of an ideological hot potato? It was actually funny to listen to her talk down to that ol' turncoat Arlen Spectre (sp). :D
And consider the last 2 justices, Roberts and Alito. They got away with the same nonsense, and these votes always end up along party lines, so really, what's the point. Oh yeah, I know, it's all about the senators. They just love themselves too much to be denied a chance in the lights. And you know who the worst all time was? Joe Biden. That guy was a legend at talking highly about himself and never getting around to any useful action in any official capacity, and look where it's got him? Let that be a lesson to you junior members who still want to work hard and get things done, which apparently means spending trillions of dollars in an obvious, if totally unreported effort to federalize the economy and thereby control every one of us. More on that later.
When do we get to say enough is enough? I'm tired of the dog and pony show that is the federal government.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Gibson and Bama Suck Face over Health Care
ABC followed up their Bama-Care promotion show a couple weeks ago with an article called Fact Check: The Truth Behind Obama's Health Care Plan.
Here is ABCs list of “Facts”:
1. Costs versus Wages – Bama has said health care costs are rising 3x faster than wages. ABC does him 2 better, claiming it’s actually 5x faster than wages. If they were talking about the costs to the industry they would have something, but they aren’t. ABC is relating the cost to the consumer to the consumer’s ability to pay. The obvious problem with this is that almost no individual pays the full price for a health care related service or procedure. So the real concern should be, why are the costs to the industry so high, and how can those costs be reduced and the savings passed on to the consumer. ABC was not even close on this.
2. Can you keep your current plan – Sure, says Bama, “If you are happy with your current plan, you can keep it.” Thanks, I think. It’s good to know you’ll allow me to keep something I pay for. But what does he mean “If you are happy…”? He repeats it a couple times, always using this same cryptic phrase. Whenever a politician uses some totally abstract measure like “happiness”, they are obviously digging loopholes. Anyway, ABC apparently accepts this statement as a fact, because they do not point out any other facts, content to just repeat Bama’s vague and ambiguous nonsense.
3. Comparative effectiveness – ABC reports this quote from Bama: "If we've got experts who are looking at this and they are advising doctors across the board that the pacemakers are saving money." Kinda leaves you waiting for the second half of a sentence that never comes, huh? Notice how the Linguist-in-Chief starts this statement like’s it’s going to be a conditional statement, with an “If”, and then ends it without a condition. This is a deliberate misuse of language to confuse people. The effect is, if you like Bama and voted for him, you’re satisfied that he understands the complexity of the issue even though you don’t. Furthermore, the issue is too complicated for him to try to explain it to you, but again, you’re satisfied that he gets it and you trust that he will do what is right by you. What is actually revealed in this statement is that Bama either does not have a clue how to tackle this very serious issue. ;)
4. The level playing field – Here’s a gem from our most-articulate leader: "We're not talking about an unlevel playing field; we're talking about a level playing field." If Bush had said that it would be written in a book somewhere with a cartoon cover. It’s just the sort of absolute nonsense this guy spews when the teleprompter is too far away. Then there’s this comment, paraphrased by ABC for your pleasure: Private insurers, he said, should be able to compete with "just one other option." Well wait a minute, isn’t the nature of private insurance that they already compete with each other? I have no idea what this means, other than it is crystal clear Bama does not understand capitalism and free markets.
5. Paying for it without adding to the deficit – There is so much wrong with everything about this heading. Without reading another line, the implication is that taxes will go up, because we know Bama is incapable of reducing spending – just the opposite. So reading on, ABC leads with this “fact” – Americans support health care reform. Many do, but we’re not all automatons! They mention the price tag is $1.6 trillion, but what they don’t say is that covers just 16 million people, and does anyone believe this will be limited to 16 million people? In the next paragraphs ABC admits taxes will be raised, but only “on the rich.” Those rich bastards – stick it to them! That will certainly have to happen, but it won’t cover the bill, so the other part of the plan, which Bama knows but never says is part of his plan, is that everyone else’s healthcare will be taxed. So if you’re on an existing private insurance plan, you will pay for someone who does not pay for anything but gets all the same benefits. This plan is sure to drive up costs for companies and individuals, who will then say, “Hey, why on earth should we pay for this if the government will just do it?” Overnight there will be no private health plans, and enrollment in the government plan will go from 16 million to 300 million in the blink of an eye. Bama has no plan for that, but trust me, it is part of his master plan.
6. Taxing benefits – Charlie Gibson “challenged Bama” on his apparent hypocrisy where he said no way to taxing benefits last year to his reluctant (yeah, right) acceptance of the premise today. Bama said he didn’t like the idea but can’t rule it out. Wow Charlie, you sure gave him the Palin treatment!
So the takeaways are that almost no actual facts were discussed. The skewering on Drudge over this propaganda event was justified. God help us if this thing becomes reality, but with the way Bama dominates his Democrat underlings, something will be passed, sooner than later.
Here is ABCs list of “Facts”:
1. Costs versus Wages – Bama has said health care costs are rising 3x faster than wages. ABC does him 2 better, claiming it’s actually 5x faster than wages. If they were talking about the costs to the industry they would have something, but they aren’t. ABC is relating the cost to the consumer to the consumer’s ability to pay. The obvious problem with this is that almost no individual pays the full price for a health care related service or procedure. So the real concern should be, why are the costs to the industry so high, and how can those costs be reduced and the savings passed on to the consumer. ABC was not even close on this.
2. Can you keep your current plan – Sure, says Bama, “If you are happy with your current plan, you can keep it.” Thanks, I think. It’s good to know you’ll allow me to keep something I pay for. But what does he mean “If you are happy…”? He repeats it a couple times, always using this same cryptic phrase. Whenever a politician uses some totally abstract measure like “happiness”, they are obviously digging loopholes. Anyway, ABC apparently accepts this statement as a fact, because they do not point out any other facts, content to just repeat Bama’s vague and ambiguous nonsense.
3. Comparative effectiveness – ABC reports this quote from Bama: "If we've got experts who are looking at this and they are advising doctors across the board that the pacemakers are saving money." Kinda leaves you waiting for the second half of a sentence that never comes, huh? Notice how the Linguist-in-Chief starts this statement like’s it’s going to be a conditional statement, with an “If”, and then ends it without a condition. This is a deliberate misuse of language to confuse people. The effect is, if you like Bama and voted for him, you’re satisfied that he understands the complexity of the issue even though you don’t. Furthermore, the issue is too complicated for him to try to explain it to you, but again, you’re satisfied that he gets it and you trust that he will do what is right by you. What is actually revealed in this statement is that Bama either does not have a clue how to tackle this very serious issue. ;)
4. The level playing field – Here’s a gem from our most-articulate leader: "We're not talking about an unlevel playing field; we're talking about a level playing field." If Bush had said that it would be written in a book somewhere with a cartoon cover. It’s just the sort of absolute nonsense this guy spews when the teleprompter is too far away. Then there’s this comment, paraphrased by ABC for your pleasure: Private insurers, he said, should be able to compete with "just one other option." Well wait a minute, isn’t the nature of private insurance that they already compete with each other? I have no idea what this means, other than it is crystal clear Bama does not understand capitalism and free markets.
5. Paying for it without adding to the deficit – There is so much wrong with everything about this heading. Without reading another line, the implication is that taxes will go up, because we know Bama is incapable of reducing spending – just the opposite. So reading on, ABC leads with this “fact” – Americans support health care reform. Many do, but we’re not all automatons! They mention the price tag is $1.6 trillion, but what they don’t say is that covers just 16 million people, and does anyone believe this will be limited to 16 million people? In the next paragraphs ABC admits taxes will be raised, but only “on the rich.” Those rich bastards – stick it to them! That will certainly have to happen, but it won’t cover the bill, so the other part of the plan, which Bama knows but never says is part of his plan, is that everyone else’s healthcare will be taxed. So if you’re on an existing private insurance plan, you will pay for someone who does not pay for anything but gets all the same benefits. This plan is sure to drive up costs for companies and individuals, who will then say, “Hey, why on earth should we pay for this if the government will just do it?” Overnight there will be no private health plans, and enrollment in the government plan will go from 16 million to 300 million in the blink of an eye. Bama has no plan for that, but trust me, it is part of his master plan.
6. Taxing benefits – Charlie Gibson “challenged Bama” on his apparent hypocrisy where he said no way to taxing benefits last year to his reluctant (yeah, right) acceptance of the premise today. Bama said he didn’t like the idea but can’t rule it out. Wow Charlie, you sure gave him the Palin treatment!
So the takeaways are that almost no actual facts were discussed. The skewering on Drudge over this propaganda event was justified. God help us if this thing becomes reality, but with the way Bama dominates his Democrat underlings, something will be passed, sooner than later.
Health Care Essay no.1
I must preface the following by saying health care is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. It is mandated in subsequent law that no one can be denied emergency health care service based on inability to pay. The problem, as described below, is not that health care providers and insurance companies are collectively trying to gouge customers. Rather, they have a colossal cost burden that has very little to do with providing that service.
Almost everyone accepts as fact that, “Health care is very expensive.” The Bama administration is trying to confuse Americans by not differentiating “health care costs” from “insurance costs” or "cost of doing business", and is saying things like, “Everyone has a right to health care,” which is different from the real argument, “Not all Americans have health insurance,” or, “The industry’s cost of providing quality health care is too high.” Obviously Bama is a source of the political problem, and the source cannot also be the solution.
But it’s true that, insurance aside, health care can be relatively expensive. For example, a hospital will charge a customer (patient) between $2500 and $5000 for an MRI. The average person might think, “Why does that cost so much? They already have the machine, and the doctor was going to be there anyway. I’m just filling a time slot that would otherwise be empty on a machine that would otherwise go unused. They shouldn’t charge me nothin’!”
That person is probably someone who voted for Bama and clearly has no understanding about how the world works.
The real problem is government. Specifically, the progressive taxation of every single input that leads to the customer being able to receive health care service.
Hospitals are private businesses, competing with one another for customers. They are in business to make money, period. If a hospital is not making money it can fail like any other business. Profit is the prime motivator, helping people is the vehicle to profit, and it is not the people’s right to be helped at the hospital’s expense without the hospital expecting a reasonable rate of return on services rendered. Hence, a hospital, like any other business, will charge what the market will bare or at a minimum attempt to realize total revenues greater than total costs.
A hospital cannot sustain operations by taking less money in than the sum of its costs. There are many costs, but I’ll focus primarily on those which are necessary or beyond the hospital’s control and are compounded by government taxation.
At the most basic level you have a set of finite resources in raw natural materials and people. You must have a building, and there is a tax on the purchase of construction services. The contractors who build the buildings are taxed on their profits. The contractors must hire workers, and they are taxed on those wages, forcing the contractors to increase pay to provide a competitive wage and keep skilled workers. Contractors must buy machinery to build the building, and they are taxed on the purchase and operation – through consumption of fuel and maintenance – of those vehicles, as well as incur environmental fees and other licenses to perform work, essentially another tax. The building materials must all be purchased, and are taxed. The refinery that created those building materials is taxed on the profits of the sale, and also incurs environmental and handling fees. Those same refineries must also purchase equipment and be taxed on those purchases. The refineries must purchase the raw materials, and are taxed on the purchase, and the mining/foresting/etc. companies which harvest the raw materials are taxed on the profits from that sale, and they must also buy machinery and pay workers – more taxes. It doesn’t end there, because a different set of companies builds all the machinery used throughout the process, which also requires raw materials and manpower to mine/harvest and build – even more taxes. And all along the way there are shipping companies with several more layers of taxes and fees.
So now that all this stuff is lined up to build the hospital the land must be purchased, another taxed transaction, and all of this purchasing requires investment. The bank and/or private investors expect a reasonable return on investment (ROI), which is of course taxed at a very high level since we’re generally talking tens of thousands or even millions of dollars. So the business plan has to account for that when appealing to potential investors. The banks gauge the risk and offer an interest rate, which has as its base the interest rate banks – and the Fed – charge each other when lending money. Because only the principle of the loan is backed by existing dollars, the interest has to be created and as a result the value of every dollar is diminished slightly – inflation. So in the long term true cost always increases even when all inputs are stable.
At this point, the hospital has been built, and we’ll assume it has been painted, equipped with working elevators and HVAC and parking and electrical and plumbing and polished floors and nice counter space and toilets and well-thought out signage - all inputs which are taxed to the same extent as described above. Then the hospital must buy curtains and tables and chairs and computers and MRI machines and sonic lasers and stethoscopes and centrifuges and everything else that goes inside a hospital, much of which is specialized equipment that only hospitals use, which causes the cost of those items to go up, because suppliers have a finite market for something like a hospital bed, and all the costs incurred by the supplier are passed on to the customer (hospital). Don’t forget that hospitals are also held to the highest standards for waste disposal and storage of bio hazards and then there’s the potential for outbreak of disease, and they must be audited and must pay regulatory fees (taxes) on a hundred different things.
We finally arrive to the most important thing in a hospital – people! Almost everyone at a hospital works for a wage, which is taxed, so again the hospital needs to account for this when offering a salary to be competitive when trying to attract talent in a highly specialized industry. For doctors and top-level administrators, the level of taxation is very high, and the cost of competitive salaries increases accordingly. All of these people have advanced degrees, which cost a lot of money, and most had to take out loans to finance their education, which goes back to the cost of interest and its inflationary effect. Most of the staff either have college degrees, technical degrees, or are working toward one or the other, so the same situation applies for them. Doctors have the added cost of malpractice insurance, because the courts in this country will award millions of dollars to anyone with a sad story. The hospitals also must carry an inordinate amount of insurance for a number of potential disasters of scale.
Lastly, the day-to-day inputs, such as new syringes, laundry service, food service, snow removal, electricity and water, etc. must all be paid for and are all taxed from the ultimate point of service all the way back to their base component inputs. And don’t forget that hospitals are in competition with one another, and must continuously upgrade technology and build new buildings and hire more doctors and staff, so the process is perpetual!
It’s obvious that in addition to the base cost of everything that goes into building and operating a hospital, there is a heavy burden of taxes, or costs inflicted by the government that are beyond the control of the hospital. There are literally hundreds of points along the way where tax is accrued, cascading and accumulating along the entire process like an avalanche of taxation, all of which is cost that is passed on and on until it ultimately reaches the consumer – you and me!
Every single penny of cost is passed on to the hospital’s customers (patients)! Government tax on every input in the process is ultimately paid by us!! This is why raising taxes on anything always negatively impacts everyone! Again, the source of the problem cannot also be the solution!
Now it’s also true that a hospital will charge someone who does not have insurance less than another person who does for the same procedure. That does not mean the actual cost for that procedure is less than the lesser amount billed to the patient without insurance. What it does mean is that the costs for the uninsured patient who cannot afford to pay are being spread out among the insured patients who can.
Part of the basis for Bara Bama’s cost savings is that once hospitals store records electronically administrative costs will drop substantially. This is a big lie! Administrative costs represent just one almost insignificant cost when we consider all the costs hospitals accrue. Bama is clearly being disingenuous when he claims to be able to lower costs by introducing electronic filing. And I’ve got news for him – most big hospitals already file documents electronically and can access on demand via an Intranet, so there is little to no administrative cost to reduce so long as each hospital can manage data separately.
Furthermore, anyone who has ever been part of a team to implement a new data management system knows what a nightmare it is. There are always cost overruns due to bugs and revisions and unforeseen network or server requirements, etc. Now consider organizing the health records of 300 million Americans into a single national health care database. That’s just about as close to an unworkable solution as can be. You’ll end up with a permanent administrative entity with the sole responsibility of managing all that data. What in our nation’s history gives us any faith that such an endeavor would possibly succeed? All it takes is one intern to hit ‘delete’ instead of ‘copy’ and you’ve got a serious mess. I’d call that a recipe for disaster and a black hole of wasteful spending. Administrative costs using a national system will skyrocket, because in addition to the new national database, individual hospitals will still keep records as backup to protect themselves and their patients from errant government action.
The bottom line:
Federalized health care can only add administrative and bureaucratic layers to the existing structure. Costs can only go up as a result, and the quality of care can only go down!
So here’s a solution:
Reduce the tax burden on industry. All industries. Allow the private sector to remain private and return freedom to free markets. Specialization allows for reduced costs of inputs, but is currently penalized by greater transactional taxation. Remove those barriers and the result will be health care and insurance that it is affordable for everyone. Adding a new federal bureaucracy will only increase the cost of doing everything. The U.S. is in real danger of spiraling into a situation where the weight of government spending will collapse the entire economy. I know the solution is not easy, but it is the only practical solution that can work. Unfortunately, all the wrong people are running the show right now. I’ll be shocked if as a country we are financially solvent in 50 years – we’ve got virtually no chance for an economic turnaround under the current prevailing mindset and our capital will run out, and sooner than anyone realizes.
Almost everyone accepts as fact that, “Health care is very expensive.” The Bama administration is trying to confuse Americans by not differentiating “health care costs” from “insurance costs” or "cost of doing business", and is saying things like, “Everyone has a right to health care,” which is different from the real argument, “Not all Americans have health insurance,” or, “The industry’s cost of providing quality health care is too high.” Obviously Bama is a source of the political problem, and the source cannot also be the solution.
But it’s true that, insurance aside, health care can be relatively expensive. For example, a hospital will charge a customer (patient) between $2500 and $5000 for an MRI. The average person might think, “Why does that cost so much? They already have the machine, and the doctor was going to be there anyway. I’m just filling a time slot that would otherwise be empty on a machine that would otherwise go unused. They shouldn’t charge me nothin’!”
That person is probably someone who voted for Bama and clearly has no understanding about how the world works.
The real problem is government. Specifically, the progressive taxation of every single input that leads to the customer being able to receive health care service.
Hospitals are private businesses, competing with one another for customers. They are in business to make money, period. If a hospital is not making money it can fail like any other business. Profit is the prime motivator, helping people is the vehicle to profit, and it is not the people’s right to be helped at the hospital’s expense without the hospital expecting a reasonable rate of return on services rendered. Hence, a hospital, like any other business, will charge what the market will bare or at a minimum attempt to realize total revenues greater than total costs.
A hospital cannot sustain operations by taking less money in than the sum of its costs. There are many costs, but I’ll focus primarily on those which are necessary or beyond the hospital’s control and are compounded by government taxation.
At the most basic level you have a set of finite resources in raw natural materials and people. You must have a building, and there is a tax on the purchase of construction services. The contractors who build the buildings are taxed on their profits. The contractors must hire workers, and they are taxed on those wages, forcing the contractors to increase pay to provide a competitive wage and keep skilled workers. Contractors must buy machinery to build the building, and they are taxed on the purchase and operation – through consumption of fuel and maintenance – of those vehicles, as well as incur environmental fees and other licenses to perform work, essentially another tax. The building materials must all be purchased, and are taxed. The refinery that created those building materials is taxed on the profits of the sale, and also incurs environmental and handling fees. Those same refineries must also purchase equipment and be taxed on those purchases. The refineries must purchase the raw materials, and are taxed on the purchase, and the mining/foresting/etc. companies which harvest the raw materials are taxed on the profits from that sale, and they must also buy machinery and pay workers – more taxes. It doesn’t end there, because a different set of companies builds all the machinery used throughout the process, which also requires raw materials and manpower to mine/harvest and build – even more taxes. And all along the way there are shipping companies with several more layers of taxes and fees.
So now that all this stuff is lined up to build the hospital the land must be purchased, another taxed transaction, and all of this purchasing requires investment. The bank and/or private investors expect a reasonable return on investment (ROI), which is of course taxed at a very high level since we’re generally talking tens of thousands or even millions of dollars. So the business plan has to account for that when appealing to potential investors. The banks gauge the risk and offer an interest rate, which has as its base the interest rate banks – and the Fed – charge each other when lending money. Because only the principle of the loan is backed by existing dollars, the interest has to be created and as a result the value of every dollar is diminished slightly – inflation. So in the long term true cost always increases even when all inputs are stable.
At this point, the hospital has been built, and we’ll assume it has been painted, equipped with working elevators and HVAC and parking and electrical and plumbing and polished floors and nice counter space and toilets and well-thought out signage - all inputs which are taxed to the same extent as described above. Then the hospital must buy curtains and tables and chairs and computers and MRI machines and sonic lasers and stethoscopes and centrifuges and everything else that goes inside a hospital, much of which is specialized equipment that only hospitals use, which causes the cost of those items to go up, because suppliers have a finite market for something like a hospital bed, and all the costs incurred by the supplier are passed on to the customer (hospital). Don’t forget that hospitals are also held to the highest standards for waste disposal and storage of bio hazards and then there’s the potential for outbreak of disease, and they must be audited and must pay regulatory fees (taxes) on a hundred different things.
We finally arrive to the most important thing in a hospital – people! Almost everyone at a hospital works for a wage, which is taxed, so again the hospital needs to account for this when offering a salary to be competitive when trying to attract talent in a highly specialized industry. For doctors and top-level administrators, the level of taxation is very high, and the cost of competitive salaries increases accordingly. All of these people have advanced degrees, which cost a lot of money, and most had to take out loans to finance their education, which goes back to the cost of interest and its inflationary effect. Most of the staff either have college degrees, technical degrees, or are working toward one or the other, so the same situation applies for them. Doctors have the added cost of malpractice insurance, because the courts in this country will award millions of dollars to anyone with a sad story. The hospitals also must carry an inordinate amount of insurance for a number of potential disasters of scale.
Lastly, the day-to-day inputs, such as new syringes, laundry service, food service, snow removal, electricity and water, etc. must all be paid for and are all taxed from the ultimate point of service all the way back to their base component inputs. And don’t forget that hospitals are in competition with one another, and must continuously upgrade technology and build new buildings and hire more doctors and staff, so the process is perpetual!
It’s obvious that in addition to the base cost of everything that goes into building and operating a hospital, there is a heavy burden of taxes, or costs inflicted by the government that are beyond the control of the hospital. There are literally hundreds of points along the way where tax is accrued, cascading and accumulating along the entire process like an avalanche of taxation, all of which is cost that is passed on and on until it ultimately reaches the consumer – you and me!
Every single penny of cost is passed on to the hospital’s customers (patients)! Government tax on every input in the process is ultimately paid by us!! This is why raising taxes on anything always negatively impacts everyone! Again, the source of the problem cannot also be the solution!
Now it’s also true that a hospital will charge someone who does not have insurance less than another person who does for the same procedure. That does not mean the actual cost for that procedure is less than the lesser amount billed to the patient without insurance. What it does mean is that the costs for the uninsured patient who cannot afford to pay are being spread out among the insured patients who can.
Part of the basis for Bara Bama’s cost savings is that once hospitals store records electronically administrative costs will drop substantially. This is a big lie! Administrative costs represent just one almost insignificant cost when we consider all the costs hospitals accrue. Bama is clearly being disingenuous when he claims to be able to lower costs by introducing electronic filing. And I’ve got news for him – most big hospitals already file documents electronically and can access on demand via an Intranet, so there is little to no administrative cost to reduce so long as each hospital can manage data separately.
Furthermore, anyone who has ever been part of a team to implement a new data management system knows what a nightmare it is. There are always cost overruns due to bugs and revisions and unforeseen network or server requirements, etc. Now consider organizing the health records of 300 million Americans into a single national health care database. That’s just about as close to an unworkable solution as can be. You’ll end up with a permanent administrative entity with the sole responsibility of managing all that data. What in our nation’s history gives us any faith that such an endeavor would possibly succeed? All it takes is one intern to hit ‘delete’ instead of ‘copy’ and you’ve got a serious mess. I’d call that a recipe for disaster and a black hole of wasteful spending. Administrative costs using a national system will skyrocket, because in addition to the new national database, individual hospitals will still keep records as backup to protect themselves and their patients from errant government action.
The bottom line:
Federalized health care can only add administrative and bureaucratic layers to the existing structure. Costs can only go up as a result, and the quality of care can only go down!
So here’s a solution:
Reduce the tax burden on industry. All industries. Allow the private sector to remain private and return freedom to free markets. Specialization allows for reduced costs of inputs, but is currently penalized by greater transactional taxation. Remove those barriers and the result will be health care and insurance that it is affordable for everyone. Adding a new federal bureaucracy will only increase the cost of doing everything. The U.S. is in real danger of spiraling into a situation where the weight of government spending will collapse the entire economy. I know the solution is not easy, but it is the only practical solution that can work. Unfortunately, all the wrong people are running the show right now. I’ll be shocked if as a country we are financially solvent in 50 years – we’ve got virtually no chance for an economic turnaround under the current prevailing mindset and our capital will run out, and sooner than anyone realizes.
About me
I was one of those people who did not want to do the blogging thing because everyone was doing it. It was a watered-down medium from the start, and my perception was that most bloggers were young narcissists with very little to contribute to the printed word beside their teen angst or college philosophizing on grandiose themes like what is the reason for the universe and hey did you know that if you start Dark Side of the Moon during the second lion roar before The Wizard of Oz...
I did enough of that in my head; I certainly did not want to read anyone else's thoughts on such subjects.
It turns out there's no substitute for the filter that is life experience, and I now have a little. Still, readership is unlikely in the ultra-competitive blogosphere, especially among the political know-it-alls, so this will probably not be much different than when I was in high school or college thinking frivolous thoughts in the privacy of my own mind.
One more quick thing: I am not detail oriented. As much as I try to review what I write I still make silly errors like missed words (had one already in the first post) and typos. There might be a spellcheck on this thing but I doubt I'll use it.
Now on to the meat!
I did enough of that in my head; I certainly did not want to read anyone else's thoughts on such subjects.
It turns out there's no substitute for the filter that is life experience, and I now have a little. Still, readership is unlikely in the ultra-competitive blogosphere, especially among the political know-it-alls, so this will probably not be much different than when I was in high school or college thinking frivolous thoughts in the privacy of my own mind.
One more quick thing: I am not detail oriented. As much as I try to review what I write I still make silly errors like missed words (had one already in the first post) and typos. There might be a spellcheck on this thing but I doubt I'll use it.
Now on to the meat!
Monday, July 13, 2009
On Pretentious First Posts
Some people get all self-important when it comes to first posts. I feel that's the sort of thing either Andy Rooney would do or Andy Rooney would point out about someone else, and I don't want to be affiliated in any way with random meanderings of Andy Rooney. Just forget about Andy Rooney altogether - I suspect most people already have.
I expect maybe 4 people to be reading this, for starters - and you know who you are and we all need codenames. I'm doing this primarily to archive some of the longer thoughts in our email exchanges, starting with the healthcare comments from a couple weeks ago. So this will be a political blog, one of millions, but most of those are probably dumb. I'll do my best to not just repeat what others who share my point of view are already saying. Maybe I'll get lucky. Also, writing regularly is good practice, especially when things with the book are moving too slowly.
Also, what's with the other 2 bloggers who already claimed "lotetree" as their sub-domain? One of them has never posted and the other is selling candles. The hyphen may limit traction, but maybe I can get that first one dissolved and then take it. Afterall, the Lote Tree is about having a message - the truth, specifically. I intend to call it like I see it and back it up with facts.
I expect maybe 4 people to be reading this, for starters - and you know who you are and we all need codenames. I'm doing this primarily to archive some of the longer thoughts in our email exchanges, starting with the healthcare comments from a couple weeks ago. So this will be a political blog, one of millions, but most of those are probably dumb. I'll do my best to not just repeat what others who share my point of view are already saying. Maybe I'll get lucky. Also, writing regularly is good practice, especially when things with the book are moving too slowly.
Also, what's with the other 2 bloggers who already claimed "lotetree" as their sub-domain? One of them has never posted and the other is selling candles. The hyphen may limit traction, but maybe I can get that first one dissolved and then take it. Afterall, the Lote Tree is about having a message - the truth, specifically. I intend to call it like I see it and back it up with facts.
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