Blogger has been down all day, but seems to have been restored. Posting will resume shortly!
I went to the studio and made pots. Good trade.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Our Healthcare System is Broken
When health care is ruled by insurance companies whose first goal is profit, patients suffer. We need a national single-payer health care system now.
Op-ed in yesterday's LA Times by writer and blogger Cathy Seipp:
Battling cancer -- and Blue Cross
By Catherine Seipp, CATHERINE SEIPP writes a weekly column for National Review Online and blogs at www.cathyseipp.net.
[]I'm a Blue Cross problem member — the kind who actually uses the valued benefits. So I don't really care about premiums; I was just relieved that my yearly out-of-pocket cap, which jumped from $5,000 to $7,500 in 2004, didn't go up yet another 50%.
Without me, Blue Cross' parent company, WellPoint, which reported a $2.5-billion profit last year, could have seen a profit of $2.5 billion plus about $50,000. I was diagnosed with advanced, inoperable lung cancer in 2002 and so now typically reach my $2,500 individual deductible by January and my out-of-pocket cap by February.
By law, insurance companies aren't allowed to adjust your monthly premiums just because you get sick. But they can raise the out-of-pocket cap for all of their members anytime they like, which amounts to the same thing because it affects only the unvalued sick members. (And, of course, getting sick means that even while one's medical costs go up, the ability to pay goes down — earnings potential is curbed when life becomes a series of treatment appointments.)
Lucky you, if you don't know what your out-of-pocket cap is. And if you're like every single healthy person I've queried, you probably don't. But you should know, because the out-of-pocket cap is the most important part of your policy, meant to stave off financial disaster in case of catastrophic medical expenses.
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What I didn't realize at the time was that I'd turn out to be my insurance company's worst nightmare — the cancer patient who keeps responding to extremely expensive treatments. I only hope that Blue Cross doesn't turn out to be mine.
This is how Cathy Seipp titled her story on her blog -- more direct, more dire:
Blue Cross to me: drop dead
BusinessWeekOnline: UnitedHealth panel may face scrutiny
The CEO of United Health Group has been granted $1.6 billion dollars of options as part of his pay package.
I saw Cathy Seipp's story on dailykos:
dailykos: Extremist NRO columnist battling cancer & Blue Cross
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A Little Humor With Your Morning Coffee
The Sunday Times, UK: Dump Cheney for Condi, Bush urged
Like President Darth Cheney is going to allow himself to be unceremoniously dumped. He may look like he's asleep, but dark thoughts are percolating.
Now, this is even funnier, from The Poor Man Institute:
The Adventures of Battle-Action Bush and the Keyboard Kommandos
Episode 13 ... Soldiers of Misfortune
hat tip to BlogsNow, which is thankfully back on line.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Politics of Gas
HuffPo: The Only Campaign Ad the Democrats Should Need
Gas prices:
Oil Company Stock Prices:
Their Campaign Contributions:
Gas prices:
Oil Company Stock Prices:
Their Campaign Contributions:
Friday, April 21, 2006
Secretary of Leak
The Leaker-in-Chief's Secretary of State is a Secretary of Leak. Is anyone remotely surprised by this?
AP (via WaPo) Lawyer: Rice Allegedly Leaked Defense Info
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday.
The Former Archbishop of Milan, Going Straight to...?
I say heaven. The Catholic Church will probably tell him he's going straight to hell.
BBC: Cardinal backs limited condom use
One of the Roman Catholic Church's most distinguished cardinals has publicly backed the use of condoms among married couples to prevent AIDS transmission.
BBC: Cardinal backs limited condom use
One of the Roman Catholic Church's most distinguished cardinals has publicly backed the use of condoms among married couples to prevent AIDS transmission.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said that in couples where one had HIV/AIDS, which could pass to the partner, the use of condoms was "a lesser evil".
The Vatican says condoms should never be used, even to stop AIDS spreading from one married partner to another.
The Church teaches that abstinence is the best way to tackle disease.
More on Bush's War on Science
An good article from my former Congressman, Ed Markey, in today's Baltimore Sun (via the Smirking Chimp):
Edward J. Markey: 'Bush's pollution of science threatens our future'
[] President Bush seems to oppose any measure that will meaningfully reduce the pollution that contributes to global warming, as do most of his supporters from the fossil fuel industry. They don't want scientific truth because it may inspire policies to transition us to cleaner energy technologies and upset what is for them a very profitable status quo. Politics is driving science.
To understand why it matters, we can look to some unpolluted science to see how it can help us. Take the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, initiated by the United Nations and published this year. It's an unprecedented international environmental study that runs to more than 2,500 pages and took five years to complete. It draws on the work of thousands of scientists and has been thoroughly peer-reviewed.
The assessment offers a stark warning about the state of the environment and asks us to do a far better job understanding, measuring and protecting nature's gifts, not for nature's sake but for our own. Scientists call nature's gifts "ecosystem services." We call them clean air, clean water, food and shelter - and we depend on them for the quality of our lives and our very survival.
According to the assessment, nearly two-thirds of nature's gifts, such as fresh water, a stable climate and fisheries, and the ecosystems that support them are being degraded beyond what they can possibly bear. When those gifts become scarce or disappear, we may well find them very costly or even impossible to replace, and that would land many people around the world, rich and poor, in crisis.
Based on the assessment's unvarnished information, we could make decisions today that will help us tomorrow. We could cut our global warming pollution through technological innovation to avert dangerous climatic swings. We could do more to preserve the forests and wetlands that give us clean water for agriculture and our everyday use. We could end the overfishing that is depleting a critical source of food for millions around the world. Preserving these essential natural services would improve our quality of life, reduce conflict and help safeguard our well-being.
What we shouldn't do is ignore the assessment or try to change scientific findings if they threaten the status quo. We sell nature and ourselves short when we distort science because we've asked a question but don't like the answer. We need unpolluted science to inform and shape the best policies for the environment.
We Love Lists
American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches of the 20th century (many with audio) Funny thing, the only Bush speech listed is Bar's 1990 Wellesley College commencement speech. Two speeches on the list by Carrie Chapman Catt, suffragist and foremother. The top ten:
1. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have A Dream"
2. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Inaugural Address
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address
4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation
5. Barbara Charline Jordan, 1976 DNC Keynote Address
6. Richard Milhous Nixon, "Checkers"
7. Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet"
8. Ronald Wilson Reagan, Shuttle ''Challenger'' Disaster Address
9. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Houston Ministerial Association Speech
10. Lyndon Baines Johnson, "We Shall Overcome"
Harper's Index, February 2006
BTW, Harper's now has a blog.
Guardian (uk) Film of the book: top 50 adaptations revealed
Technorati's Top 100 Blogs (no, we're not on the list -- yet)
Falun Gong Protestor: A Federal Offense?
Fuck the feds. This is not a federal offense. Speaking truth to power is protected by the United States Constitution, no matter how inconvenient the Bush Administration finds free speech. Speaking of offenses, I'm offended that we would be repressing speech. I'm offended by free speech zones surrounded by barbed wire and armed police officers; by not being allowed in to Presidential speeches unless I'm a Republican; and by stupid things like this potential prosecution. I can just hear the Bushco minions -- next they'll be arguing that the First Amendment was implicitly repealed by President's inherent war powers. Impeach now.
Attytood: Free-speech outrage: Wenyi Wang may be charged with federal crime for daring to criticize the president...of China
Earlier today, we made the point that if you consider 1989's so-called "Tank Man" of Tiananmen Square to be a hero for standing up to China's totalitarian regime -- and most Americans, regardless of political persuasion, do -- then surely you would think the same thing about 47-year-old Wenyi Wang.
Wang is the courageous woman who rose up on the South Lawn of the White House this morning to confront the leader of that brutally repressive regime, President Hu Jintao, as well as America's President George W, Bush, who was busy playing footsie with Hu. "Stop the killing and the torture!," shouted Wang, a Manhattan physician who writes for a newspaper supporting the spiritual group Falun Gong, banned in China.
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Last night, officials with the Secret Service, which eventually dragged Wang away and arrested her -- literally seconds after Bush called on China to permit more free speech -- said they are seriously considering charging Wang with an obscure federal offense, intimidating a foreign official.
[]
But do you honestly think Wenyi Wang violated the law -- "intimidating" the leaders of the world's two superpowers...by yelling really, really loud?
The irony here makes us sick. Hu, after all, is the leader of a regime which, according to Human Rights Watch, carries out:
restrictions on free expression; a deficient justice system that encourages the use of torture; restrictions on the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and the right to act on those beliefs; harassment and arrest of HIV/AIDS activists; abuse of petitioners seeking remedies for official misconduct; and absence of progress in holding national elections.
What's more, it is Chinese oil money that supports Sudan's murderous militias committing genocide in Darfur. Those who protested in Tiananmin Square or who practice Falun Gong have been imprisioned, tortured, and killed.
So what kind of treatment does China's leader get? A 21-gun salute, music from a bluegrass band, and a fancy lunch in the White House.
And Wenyi Wang, who is not afraid to speak out against such a man, is dragged away by officers of our own government, one of whom put his hand over her mouth in a futile attempt to silence her. The picture of Wang being gagged by U.S. agents, shown at the top of this post, is something that America should be deeply ashamed of.
If the Secret Service ever takes the time to read all of Title 18, Section 112(b), they might notice this passage, too:
(d) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed or applied so as to abridge the exercise of rights guaranteed under the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Yeah, right.
What a freaking joke.
Krugman: We Never Really Liked Him
Krugman's column in today's Times, 'The Great Revulsion' (behind the damnable TimesSelect wall) argues that Americans never really liked Bush's policies, and that given his incompetence, corruption and cronyism, the conservative revolution is ebbing. Sooner rather than later, we hope.
Here's a link to the full article:
Middle Earth Journal: The high-water mark?
While Cheney Slept and Bush Yanked
Karma's a bitch. Our visit from serial human rights violator China yesterday didn't go so well. The protestor was hustled off, but it was all downhill from there.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Dreaming of Frogmarching
Billmon: Hip Hop
Oh when the frogs
Go marching out
Oh when the frogs go marching out
How I hope he'll be in that number
When the frogs go marching out.
Quick Hits
I filled up my tank on Monday afternoon for $2.69 a gallon. Yesterday (Wednesday) gas was $2.83 at the same station. $3.00 by the weekend at this rate. I've ordered my Prius, should have it in a few weeks. 60 MPG, here I come! Boy, that war in Iraq is paying for itself, and lowering gas prices to boot. Thanks, Decider-in-Chimp.
Yesterday morning I turned on the TV to hear Diane Sawyer say to another talking head, "Did she have an epidural?" I finally figured out they were talking about poor Katie Holmes of TomKat, and turned off the TV. Diane Sawyer once wrote speeches for President Richard Nixon, and now she is talking about epidurals on TV. Like Pink says, where did all the smart girls go?
This morning I had CNN on in the background. They were covering the visit of the Chinese leader Hu to the White House. A lone voice began shouting. I immediately thought of that guy who halted the tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But CNN showed the cops hustling this woman away, and all the anchors and talking heads were unanimous that this small problem had been dealt with, it was unusual, but now the event would proceed as planned. The protestor was saying something about the suppression of the Falun Gong movement. The talking heads weren't very interested in that. They were interested in the disruption of the state event. I thought of Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936. How would German CNN have covered that? As dissent to be quickly squelched.
Attytood noticed, too.
World Cup Update, April 20, 2006
Group of Death News:
US: We're No. 4, a ridiculous ranking:
U.S. Moves Up to Fourth in FIFA Rankings
US midfielder Damarcus Beasley arrested for DUI in Holland (hat tip Du Nord). ESPN story. Is it the chicken or the egg? Beasley hasn't been playing well for PSV this year, presumably because of injuries. He also hasn't been starting regularly. Is he drinking because he's not playing, or not playing well, or is he not playing well, or not playing, because of drinking? His older brother Jamar has already washed out of MLS because of his addictions. Let's hope it was just one bad decision. Trouble is, surrounded by alcoholics as I am, I know there's a slim chance that it was a one-time or a first-time thing.
Jonathan Spector of Charlton has a shoulder separation, which will hurt his chances of being Man #23 on our squad.
The John O'Brien Health Watch continues.
Speaking of bubble players, I wish defender Jimmy Conrad would make the US squad, because his posts on ESPN are great.
SportsFan Magazine's USA World Cup preview.
Italy:
Totti is training again. Drat.
No word on Christian Vieri's recovery from the injury he suffered at the end of last month, other than that he will be out at least a month.
Italy has scheduled a tune-up game v. Switzerland next month.
Italy has already determined who is to blame if they fail to emerge from the Group of Death: Italian team all set for war with the press
SportsFan Magazine's Italy World Cup preview.
Czech Republic:
Injured Czech Republic striker Jan Koller is back in training.
SportsFan Magazine's Czech Republic World Cup preview.
Ghana:
Lots of scheduling news, little player news. Are the Black Stars Flying under the radar?
Ghana striker Ibrahim Salou has broken his jaw playing for his club team, KSV Waregem, but hopes to return for the Belgian Cup final on May 13th.
Ghana has scheduled a friendly match with Bundesliga club VFB Stuttgart in Wurzburg on April 26th.
Friendlies against Russian teams in Russia on May 8th and May 11th.
Has scheduled a friendly v. Jamaica in England for May 29th, although the site is not yet set.
A letter writer laments, what could have been? All these players were eligible to play for Ghana, but play for other countries: Gerald Asamoah, Germany; George Boateng, Holland; Marcel Desailly, France; and Freddy Adu, USA.
How To Be Sleazy While Donating to Charity: Dick Cheney Edition
Cheney's giant charitable deduction was taken because of special laws passed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to help out the residents of the stricken Gulf. Cheney took full advantage, but didn't donate one red cent to Katrina relief. Bastard.
dailykos: Cheney's shady charitable contributions net $2 million refund
While this is not illegal, by exploiting a loophole in the Katrina tax relief laws passed regarding charitable donations, Dead Eye Dick was able to obtain a refund of at least $1,000,000 MORE than he would be able to get in any other year.
The best part? None of the charities were Katrina related at all.
Cheney's largest charitable contribution is to a non-profit with a bunch of Iraq War pimp board members. A buy-in to the big game, which has nothing to do with the non-profit?
The charitable Dick Cheney - what does his dollar buy?
Spurred on by clammyc's diary about Cheney's charitable contributions. I started wondering why Cheney would give so much money ($1.3 million) to Capital Partners for Education, a Georgetown-based scholarship fund that helps finance education at private and parochial schools for area teenagers. (http://www.cpfe.org/) It was not only the largest single contribution in the charity's history, but also represents twice their annual budget revenue for this fiscal year.
[]
So, I poke my nose around a little further and the mystery gets even deeper. A solid majority of these companies represented by the Board of Directors have connections to Iraqi and/or rebuilding and reconstruction. It spreads out like a web and touches everything from Halliburton to President Hamid Karzai's security. And why? This is a group that seems to be benevolent in its support of inner city youth.
[]
{Why does Capital Partners for Education have on its board two members of The Carlyle Group, one each from the Hudson Institute, Computer Sciences Corporation, Hogan and Hartson, LLP, Arlington Capital Partners (1/3 owned by The Carlyle Group), Technoserve, SAFRAN USA, INC., Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, and Venable LLP, all tied in with the Iraq War?]
[]
Again, Capital Partners for Education seems like a worthwhile cause to help inner city youth in DC.
But, the troubling question remains.
Why do the majority of companies represented by its Board have some stake in the future of the Middle East.
And why did Dick Cheney just donate a windfall to them?
And what exactly is his dollar buying?
Previous post: War Pimp Cheney Earned $8,819,006 Last Year (April 15, 2006)
Why Rearrange the Deck Chairs? Is It Frogmarching Time?
Speculation is rampant. Obviously McLellan leaving and Rove switching jobs doesn't really change anything. So why the moves?
Bob Fertik summarizes the theories:
Rove Indictment is Imminent
Karl Rove gave up the policy part of his job for a simple reason: he's about to be indicted and frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs, thus making Joe Wilson's dream come true. Sidney Blumenthal is right:For months, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has assured the press that his client, who was believed to be vulnerable to indictment for perjury, is in the clear. But Libby insisted that he was entitled to "disclosure of such documents" in Rove's files "even if Mr. Rove remains a subject of a continuing grand jury investigation".
Karl Rove is a subject of Fitzgerald's investigation - this is the headline buried in Libby's filing.
[]
Update 1: Taylor Marsh thinks Rove is taking over the K Street Project since DeLay is history. I don't think so - being a bagman is a job anyone can do. But only Rove can steal the Senate and House at a time when Bush's polls are in the mid-30's - and falling.
Update 2: emptywheel thinks Rove is effectively taking over the Republican National Committee because Ken Mehlman is going to be indicted in the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal (a.k.a. Watergate 2), and is likely to bring the whole Republican Party down with him. I think that theory has a lot going for it.
Update 3: ThinkProgress says Rove will keep his security clearance, despite his role in the outing of Valerie Plame. Will Joe Lieberman and Henry Waxman demand its revocation?
Worst. President. Ever
So sayeth Princeton historian Sean Wilentz in this week's Rolling Stone magazine:
The Worst President in History?
One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush
George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.
Multimillionaire Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Denounces 3% Pay Raises for Judges
Boston Globe, April 19, 2006: Healey raps pay raises for judges
House and Senate leaders reached a tentative agreement last fall to raise trial judges' salaries to about $130,000 a year, up from the current $112,777, but the two chambers have yet to reach a final agreement on the spending bill that includes the money. Together with an already negotiated salary boost for other court employees, the raises for judges and clerks would cost $42 million a year.
Healey said the spending bill represented ''the kind of reckless behavior with the taxpayers' money that we cannot afford."
The judges lobbied legislators successfully last year for the pay raise, arguing that they haven't received one since 2000 and that Massachusetts lags behind almost every other state in judicial salaries.
Let's see, first pay raise in six years, total $17,233, comes out to less than $3,000 per year, or about 3% per year.
And our lieutenant governor, who's running to replace the Mittwit? Here's her pitiful financial situation:
Boston Globe, April 13, 2006: Millionaire gubernatorial candidates withhold tax returns
This year, [Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry] Healey is again refusing to release her returns, as she did in 2002. She is a multimillionaire who spent nearly $2 million on her own campaign four years ago. Her husband, Sean Healey, president of Affiliated Managers Group, an asset management company, recently sold $13 million in corporate stock, giving the couple ready access to more than twice what Romney spent in 2002.
Most candidates for governor live in the lap of luxury
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, her husband and two children live in a waterfront mansion in Beverly assessed by the city at $2.5 million. The Healeys also own a house next door, as well as a vacation condo in Florida and land in Vermont on which they plan to build a $2 million vacation home.
Please god, will a competent Democrat beat this empty designer dress?
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