If this is a 5-year old boy, then God bless ‘im. But I’m not convinced. Nonetheless, he/she rocks…
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Music
…and I laughed and laughed…and I imagine Dave and Krist will,too.
uhh…Politics
I try to keep gossipy trash-posts to a minimum, but I can never resist an opportunity to make fun of the state of Florida.
“The mayor of a small southwest Florida town on Thursday defended the town council’s decision to fire its city manager after officials learned his wife is an adult film actress.
“We didn’t fire him because his wife was a porn star,” (Ft. Myers Mayor Larry) Kiker griped, adding that the decision wasn’t a “knee-jerk reaction.”
“However, the mayor also noted: “It was not his job performance. We all liked Scott … He’s a good guy.”
“George Noakes, manager of the Sunflower Cafe in town, called it “prejudice.”
“I thought the guy was doing a good job. I don’t understand why his wife is even an issue,” Noakes said. “Whatever she does, that’s none of our concern. We shouldn’t even be bothered with it.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_re_us/us_town_manager_fired
Socioeconomics / Politics
I’m going on and on about health care, but it’s worth it. People are finally figuring out that since the advent of the HMO system, the American health care system has been a gigantic, short-sighted, mean-spirited swindle. Even Michael Moore had it right:
“…a new Harvard study reports that the majority of people going bankrupt from medical costs are, in fact, insured.”
“The medical establishment does not like Medicare because it pays 20 per cent less than private insurance. Pure and simple. Medicare is actually the best thing going and were the White House to spearhead a plan to expand Medicare coverage much could be accomplished.
It doesn’t help Medicare when Congress passes a law forbidding it to negotiate for lower prices from the pharmaceutical industry.
In principle, Medicare makes the most sense of anything going in the US health system. And if it were to be run more efficiently, and the prices charged by the health industry strictly controlled, progress would be made. But to simplistically suggest that the country is going broke because of Medicare (and its sister legislation, Medicaid) without identifying the culprits, without looking over the payable invoices, does us all a disservice.
“With his fanatic commitment to free markets President Obama’s stated commitment to working families unravels with every passing day.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/ginsburg07242009.html
Expanding Medicare is a great idea; making the existing program available to younger recipients would, on average, reduce overall coverage risk, and help level out cost.
But, ultimately, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – every other major industrialized country on this planet has universal, single payer health coverage. People who argue against this for the United States are saying we’re too stupid and greedy to figure out how to do this for ourselves. And they’re OK with that.
And here’s another sweeping generalization –
I’ve been arguing for months for the expansion of the F.D.I.C., in lieu of creating new regulatory financial bureaucracies, to oversee banks that are in trouble but not necessarily outrightly failing. They’ve already done it once:
“After two decades at the same coverage limit, the U.S. government has finally stopped dragging its knuckles and raised the FDIC insured limit for bank deposits from the previous FDIC limit of $100,000 – up to the new limit of $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank.
The new FDIC limits are effective starting October 3, 2008 and tentatively scheduled to expire on December 31, 2009.
I predict that Congress will more likely than not make the new coverage limits permanent after that time. Frankly, in light of the current financial crisis and deteriorating consumer confidence sentiment regarding the safety and security of our nation’s banks and credit unions, there is no reason the U.S. government should not allow the new FDIC limits to stay permanent.”
http://www.moneybluebook.com/new-fdic-insured-limit-covers-bank-deposits-up-to-250000/
They’re already really good at what they do – it’s stupid that we’re not rewarding them for that by expanding their role even further.
Movies
Anthony Lane in the New Yorker on “Brüno”:
“I’m afraid that “Brüno” feels hopelessly complicit in the prejudices that it presumes to deride. You can’t honestly defend your principled lampooning of homophobia when nine out of every ten images that you project onscreen comply with the most threadbare cartoons of gay behavior. A schoolboy who watches a pirated DVD of this film will look at the prancing Austrian and find more, not fewer, reasons to beat up the kid on the playground who doesn’t like girls. There is, on the evidence of this movie, no such thing as gay love; there is only gay sex, a superheated substitute for love, with its own code of vulcanized calisthenics whose aim is not so much to sate the participants as to embarrass onlookers from the straight—and therefore straitlaced—society beyond.
“…I realized, watching “Borat” again, that what it exposed was not a vacuity in American manners but, more often than not, a tolerance unimaginable elsewhere. Borat’s Southern hostess didn’t shriek when he appeared with a bag of feces; she sympathized, and gently showed him what to do, and the same thing happens in “Brüno,” when a martial-arts instructor, confronted by a foreigner with two dildos, doesn’t flinch. He teaches Brüno some defensive moves, then adds, “This is totally different from anything I’ve ever done.” Ditto the Hollywood psychic—another risky target, eh?—who watches Brüno mime an act of air-fellatio and says, after completion, “Well, good luck with your life.” In both cases, I feel that the patsy, though gulled, comes off better than the gag man; the joke is on Baron Cohen, for foisting indecency on the decent.”
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/07/20/090720crci_cinema_lane
Politics
Y’know, Republicans used to have a fair amount of patience with government stimulus plans:
“We have a lot of stimulus in the pipeline from past [Fed rate] decisions, and it takes a year for policy to work through the economy.” – Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers(2002)
http://money.cnn.com/2002/08/07/news/economy/bush_cheney/index.htm
Politics
How negative, how scorched-earth, have the Republicans become on health care?
“If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” – Sen Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
Let’s salute Sen. DeMint as he completes his final term. There isn’t a reason on God’s green earth that this half-ass should be re-elected.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_Obamas_Waterloo.html?showall
Thanks, Dave.
At least Michael Steele has managed to hire better speechwriters – never mind that most of their criticism is already covered in democratic legislation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072001004.html
As a primer for gutless conservatives to get re-elected by maintaining the status quo, it’s brilliant. As a cautionary tale of never ever making investments now for a better long-term future, it’s nice work.
Politics
I couldn’t let slip the fact that I just heard Sen. Orrin Hatch, on Face The Nation, say that “The United States has the best health care system in the world.”
Let’s salute Sen. Hatch as he completes his final term. There isn’t a reason on God’s green earth that this half-ass should be re-elected.
“Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to two earlier editions—includes data from surveys of patients, as well as information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries’ health systems. Compared with five other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. The U.S. is the only country in the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly accounting for its poor performance on access, equity, and health outcomes.”
Socioeconomics
Jamie Dimon is a lot like the New York Yankees – you hate them for doing what they do to win consistently, but you begrudgingly admire them because…they win consistently. Jamie Dimon may be the devil, but he’s a great banker, whatever that means.
NYT article on Dimon (parenthetical snarky comments are mine):
“JPMorgan and the industry lost when a pro-consumer credit card bill became law.
(…as if those 22% rates are crucial to JPM/Chase’s continued health as a going financial concern!).
“But it beat back a proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to lower the amount homeowners owe on mortgages.
(The banking industry won’t stand for these shameless bailouts!)
“That victory came with a cost: JPMorgan angered Republicans by negotiating with Democrats and then enraged some Democrats when those talks collapsed.
(If everyone hates them, are they doing something right…?)“But Mr. Dimon and JPMorgan are willing to bear such defeats if it translates into victory on the broader financial regulation fight that is just beginning.
“A centerpiece of that effort involves regulating the market for derivatives, which Mr. Dimon’s firm dominates. While JPMorgan favors new reporting requirements for the complex financial instruments,it opposes the administration proposal to force trades onto public exchanges; doing so would likely cut into the firm’s lucrative business of selling clients custom-made instruments. Like other banks, it also opposes a new consumer agency for financial products.”
(They’re all for transparency, as long as no one else gets anything to say about the nature, function and execution of any of their consumer transactions, ever.)
These guys are good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/business/19dimon.html?hp
Politics
Frank Rich’s column, this morning, links to an enlightening critique of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) written 8-1/2 years ago. Plus ça change…
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8dd230f6-355f-4362-89cc-2c756b9d8102
…and, as a bonus, this jawdropping article on Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK):
“In 2003, President Bush appointed Coburn chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS…At a Republican meeting this spring (2004), Coburn warned: “The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power … That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That’s a gay agenda.”
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/13/coburn/index.html
Periscope In The Bathtub 