For those who don't already know, we were part of the over a million people who lost power during last weekend's snowstorm. We were down until Wednesday, so of course my reading (and writing) were severely curtailed. We were comparatively lucky; our new generator at least allowed us to have heat, to let the water in the water heater get warm enough for showers, to run the furnace and fridge much of the time, to make coffee (with the fridge circuit turned off) have a light on in the living room, and charge up the cell phones. Now at the time we had this setup installed, I didn't even think about putting FiOS on the circuits, because I keep forgetting that FiOS phone lasts only eight hours on battery power, so our land line was down and we had no internet, which as you know, makes Jill something something.
So I've been remiss in reading the work of the good people who populate our blogroll, but we can remedy that quickly by posting some links to make it easy for you to read them too.
Ramona's Friday Follies starts with musings on the Fall of the House of Schuller, and runs from there.
There is ongoing fission at the Fukushima nuclear site. Did you hear about it? I didn't.
Karen Garcia on New York's Shrillionaire Mayor. (Editorial Note: Bloomberg's third term is showing that maybe he should have quit while he was ahead.)
I know, he's an easy target, but Susan of Texas takes on Ross Douthat. (Does it make me a bad person that I really, really wanted to refer to him as "Rose Douchebag"?)
If you've suffered serious financial problems (credit card issues, mortgage problems, etc.) and you live in central and northern New Jersey, Matt Taibbi wants to hear from you. Bonus Taibbi: Winning and cheating are not the same thing.
The New York Crank muses on who ratted out Herman Cain.
Tom Degan walks up to the 2012 electoral counter and orders the shit sandwich.
Some laughable Republican Stoopid from Thump and Whip.
And finally, using the LinkedIn network model, we link to This Week in the Slacktiverse over at Slacktivist.
dimanche 6 novembre 2011
samedi 5 novembre 2011
Regarder film Nichan Ousmmaoud Volum 1
Regarder film Afaska Ouran Gik Tghama Volum 1
film imtawne ntslite ,film imtawn n tslit
regarder et voir prochainement film imtawn n tslit ,emtaoune n taslyte, imtawne ntslite volum 1le film et un film amazighe tachlhit de souss gratuit live en direct sur votre pc sans telechargementfilm imtawne ntslite free en video hd prochainement
I'm starting to think we may have to eat the shit sandwich again after all
In case you thought that we might be able to survive four years of Mitt Romney:
Yes, because health insurance companies are stumbling all over themselves to get your business, each one offering a better plan than the one before. And they're so innovative -- like the way they fight every claim just to see how long it'll take to wear you down before you stop fighting.
I've had a pretty decent health plan for Mr. Brilliant and I the last few years. We get it through my employer, so we're "only" paying about $3600 of the annual premium. It's got a $20 co-pay for preventive care, a $250 per person deductible, and covers 90% of "usual and customary" after that. Now "usual and customary" seems to be based on medical fees back in the days when Don Draper was taking little Sally to the pediatrician, but this plan has worked out OK for us.
So of course 2012 is the last year we'll have it.
After 2012, we'll be offered two plans -- an 80% plan with a low deductible, 80% coverage in-network and only 60% outside; or an high-deductible plan with an HSA. The difference in employee premiums is about $2000, so perhaps if I put that $2000 into the HSA along with the $500 the company will kick in, it'll offset most of the $2700 deductible for two people...assuming of course that we could pay for all $225 of your standard office visit out of the HSA, rather than the sixty bucks that in Insurance Delusionland is "usual and customary."
This is the world into which Mitt Romney wants to spill all the elderly. Oh he's making noise now about how there'll be a choice, but what senior citizen in his right mind would choose to try to buy an individual insurance policy instead of Medicare?
Keep in mind that Mitt Romney is worth a quarter of a BILLION dollars, and a health insurance premium is like lunch money to him.
And yet he and his buddies just can't kick even one more nickel apiece. Good heavens, no. After all, Mitt Romney worked so hard to get his money -- working hard to buy up companies, dismantle them, and throw their employees in the trash can. And the Koch brothers certainly shouldn't be asked to kick in anything else. After all, they're billionaires, which means they worked harder than we do, right? And the fact that they inherited their business from their father means nothing, right? How about the Walton children? They have $87 billion. And they made it by starting out as greeters, right? Hardly -- they inherited it from old Sam Walton. But they can't kick any more, can they? Not without extreme hardship.
After all, America has to be kept safe for the Walton children, and Prescott Bush's children, and George Romney's son, and Fred Trump's son, and so on.
And if that means that the poor and the sick and the elderly have to lay down and die, so be it.
So where does that leave us? Do we hold our noses and vote again for a President who's already shown that his futile, quixotic quest to be liked by a bunch of greedy, racist bigots is more important than anything to him? Do we stick with a bunch of corporatist Democrats who give lip service to the middle and working class but behind the scenes know full well that it's all over, and they're going to get their piece of the pie before it all goes to shit and the rest of us start killing each other for cans of baked beans?
In the past we could rely on Democrats to at least be the guardians of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, even if they sold us out on everything else. But thanks to the so-called "supercommittee", and Obama's willingness to let mandatory cuts kick in if this small group of intransigent Republians and sellout Democrats can't come up with a compromise (as if that were even possible), and this tendency they have to learn all the wrong lessons when they get clobbered and move even further to the right, it's hard to have any faith in them either.
So we're left with a choice -- we either let it all go to shit now, or have a few more tolerable years before it's all Mad Max.
Hardly what we had in mind in 2008, is it?
Speaking at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s annual meeting, Mr. Romney said his plan would cap spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product by 2016, and would require $500 billion a year in spending cuts. To accomplish this, Mr. Romney explained, he would eliminate all nonessential government programs, including Amtrak, return federal programs like Medicaid entirely to the states and improve the productivity and efficiency of the federal government. He would also immediately cut all nonsecurity discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board.
Mr. Romney’s proposal for Medicare is similar to the hotly debated plan that Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, introduced in April. Mr. Ryan’s plan would replace Medicare and offer payments to older Americans to buy coverage from the private market.
Mr. Romney’s proposal would give beneficiaries the option of enrolling in private health care plans, using what he, like Mr. Ryan, called a “premium support system.” But unlike the Ryan plan, Mr. Romney’s would allow older people to keep traditional Medicare as an option. However, if the existing government program proved more expensive and charged higher premiums, the participants would be responsible for paying the difference.
He presented his plan as offering more choice — though younger Americans would need to be prepared to possibly pay more, for instance, depending on which plan they selected.
“Younger Americans today, when they turn 65, should have a choice between traditional Medicare and other private health care plans that provide at least the same level of benefits,” he said. “Competition will lower costs and increase the quality of health care.”
He concluded, “The future of Medicare should be marked by competition, by choice, and by innovation, rather than by bureaucracy, stagnation and bankruptcy.”
Yes, because health insurance companies are stumbling all over themselves to get your business, each one offering a better plan than the one before. And they're so innovative -- like the way they fight every claim just to see how long it'll take to wear you down before you stop fighting.
I've had a pretty decent health plan for Mr. Brilliant and I the last few years. We get it through my employer, so we're "only" paying about $3600 of the annual premium. It's got a $20 co-pay for preventive care, a $250 per person deductible, and covers 90% of "usual and customary" after that. Now "usual and customary" seems to be based on medical fees back in the days when Don Draper was taking little Sally to the pediatrician, but this plan has worked out OK for us.
So of course 2012 is the last year we'll have it.
After 2012, we'll be offered two plans -- an 80% plan with a low deductible, 80% coverage in-network and only 60% outside; or an high-deductible plan with an HSA. The difference in employee premiums is about $2000, so perhaps if I put that $2000 into the HSA along with the $500 the company will kick in, it'll offset most of the $2700 deductible for two people...assuming of course that we could pay for all $225 of your standard office visit out of the HSA, rather than the sixty bucks that in Insurance Delusionland is "usual and customary."
This is the world into which Mitt Romney wants to spill all the elderly. Oh he's making noise now about how there'll be a choice, but what senior citizen in his right mind would choose to try to buy an individual insurance policy instead of Medicare?
Keep in mind that Mitt Romney is worth a quarter of a BILLION dollars, and a health insurance premium is like lunch money to him.
And yet he and his buddies just can't kick even one more nickel apiece. Good heavens, no. After all, Mitt Romney worked so hard to get his money -- working hard to buy up companies, dismantle them, and throw their employees in the trash can. And the Koch brothers certainly shouldn't be asked to kick in anything else. After all, they're billionaires, which means they worked harder than we do, right? And the fact that they inherited their business from their father means nothing, right? How about the Walton children? They have $87 billion. And they made it by starting out as greeters, right? Hardly -- they inherited it from old Sam Walton. But they can't kick any more, can they? Not without extreme hardship.
After all, America has to be kept safe for the Walton children, and Prescott Bush's children, and George Romney's son, and Fred Trump's son, and so on.
And if that means that the poor and the sick and the elderly have to lay down and die, so be it.
So where does that leave us? Do we hold our noses and vote again for a President who's already shown that his futile, quixotic quest to be liked by a bunch of greedy, racist bigots is more important than anything to him? Do we stick with a bunch of corporatist Democrats who give lip service to the middle and working class but behind the scenes know full well that it's all over, and they're going to get their piece of the pie before it all goes to shit and the rest of us start killing each other for cans of baked beans?
In the past we could rely on Democrats to at least be the guardians of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, even if they sold us out on everything else. But thanks to the so-called "supercommittee", and Obama's willingness to let mandatory cuts kick in if this small group of intransigent Republians and sellout Democrats can't come up with a compromise (as if that were even possible), and this tendency they have to learn all the wrong lessons when they get clobbered and move even further to the right, it's hard to have any faith in them either.
So we're left with a choice -- we either let it all go to shit now, or have a few more tolerable years before it's all Mad Max.
Hardly what we had in mind in 2008, is it?
Remember, Remember, the 5th of November...
...teargas and reason and plot.
I see no reason why teargas, reason
Should ever be forgot...
There's something ironic about a faction, 99% or no, that, while espousing nonviolent resistance at all costs, chooses to impersonate and make relevant again a man who'd plotted to blow up the House of Lords with kegs of gunpowder. But I'll let that percolate in your addled craniums for now.
For now, let's recap the Occupy Wall Street movement and its various and sundry analogs all over the country and at the conclusion I'll let you judge for yourself if this movement is actually going anywhere.
The day before yesterday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got mic-checked while he was trying to give a speech in Chicago. The bloated Republican scumbags in attendance, unlike the Elizabeth Warren heckling last week, tried to drown out the Occupy Chicago protesters until even they ran out of hot air and support for Walker.
At Occupy Oakland, Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was shot in the face with a tear gas canister, suffering possibly permanent brain damage. Just yesterday in the same city, another Iraq War hero was beaten and injured by Oakland police then denied medical attention for hours while suffering agony for a ruptured spleen.
Also at Occupy Oakland, a driver rammed through a crowd of Occupy Oakland protesters, sending two to the emergency room. He was later released by Oakland police without so much as a slap on the wrist as a pat on the head.
Last Saturday, another motorist ran over three people at Occupy DC. The historically worthless and corrupt Washington DC police department didn't cite the driver because he had the green light. Audaciously, one of the injured pedestrians was cited for "blocking a roadway."
Right wingers, some of whom having long since (always unsuccessfully) infiltrated Occupy Wall Street (including Breitbart butt boy Jimmy O'Keefe), will play havoc and seek to discredit the Movement.
Elsewhere, Occupy Philadelphia is showing that Occupy Wall Street could easily metastasize into various Campaign Occupations such as the march on a Romney fundraiser at a ritzy hotel that helps to underscore where the true priorities of politicians lie.
And banks. They want your money and your assets, not you.
Today is merely a focal point, a means, not an end. Today is Guy Fawkes Day in Great Britain and it's also Transfer Day (here's some handy information if you live in any of these states that may facilitate the transfer of your funds out of a Wall Street Bank and into a local community bank or credit union).
This is not a mere fad, if you're paying attention, Wall Street. The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that last month alone 650,000 people joined non-profit credit unions, a greater number than all of 2010. This is an estimate based on 5000 account holders they'd polled but extrapolated or no, the message is alarming if you're a Wall Street bank and the message is one that's obviously been lost on Wall Street: Enough is enough.
And the problem is that Wall Street never has enough. At a time of constant near double digit unemployment, a years-long recession if not outright depression and rampant inflation, Bank of America and others tried to extract a $3-5 monthly fee on debit card usage, a neolithically stupid, self-destructive, Kill-the-Goose-That-Laid-the-Golden-Egg tactic that blew up in their fat, jiggling faces like a giant prank cigar.
And the people are speaking. There is a run on major banks going on even as I write these words. It won't be anything like 1929 but it'll be enough to send a clear message to the banks: You are not too big to fail and we the people have options and they are community-owned banks and credit unions.
But we have to remain vigilant. Starting Monday in bank boardrooms all over Wall Street, executives will be commiserating on what tepid rewards to give whatever account holders they have left. Some will say rescinding minor fees, others might suggest an extra 1% on interest-bearing accounts, the less imaginative will suggest toasters and blenders. But whatever income they'll lose by rescinding debit card fees they still think of as theirs, as lost income, as stolen income, they'll seek to make up in other ways.
And they will think of slimier, less overt ways to get that money back whether it means upping overdraft fees or creating new ones for whatever very few services that are still free. And the worst betrayal we can commit is by getting complacent and sliding back to where are now.
vendredi 4 novembre 2011
There's Only You And Me And We
This letter was written by a relative of mine who is a biologist and a Christian.
If you agree, please feel free to republish this letter unedited.
Mississippi Proposition 26 – Think before you vote.
Proposals to provide single cells with the rights of citizens is dangerous on several levels. The ongoing desire of passionate groups to eliminate the reproductive rights of women is based upon the religious belief that a fertilized egg houses a human soul. That religious belief is based upon no evidence and a great deal of misguided faith. People who believe the special nature of humans is that we have a soul entering the body at some point in development and leaving the body at death also believe that causing that spirit to leave the body is considered manslaughter, if not murder. We have accepted the idea that once the brain becomes inactive (flat-lined) and the cells of the body continue to live, that the soul has left the body and that allowing the remaining cells to die is not considered manslaughter or murder. Those of us who have been to many funerals have heard clergy of all types describe death as the soul leaving the body behind and moving on to another journey.
The question that still creates much controversy is which event allows the soul to enter the body. Keep in mind that almost everyone understands that the brain is the part of the human body that houses the soul. Co-joined twins that have two heads have two distinct personalities and are treated as two people, regardless of how many body parts they share. A baby that is born with several duplicated body parts, but one head, is considered to be one person, not several. It’s all about the brain. If you are religious, you might accept the idea that God created a human brain to be able to house a soul. Identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg which is then separated after fertilization and those two cells then develop separately into two separate bodies. Does each twin have half a soul?
Trying to determine the beginning of a human life or any other life is nonsense. Life does not begin at fertilization or at birth, it began a long time ago and continues through a series of important events. One of the things we have in common with everyone on this planet is that all of our ancestors lived long enough to reproduce and pass those living human cells on to future generations. That long line of life involves a sequence of living human cells going through a series of beginnings and endings of significant events, not the beginning or end of life. The question of manslaughter or homicide is determined by whether or not the human cells or cluster of cells houses a human soul, and if one has caused that soul to leave the body. An atheist or agnostic might use the word independent intellect instead of soul, but the same points apply. If your religious belief is that a fertilized egg or a fetus in early stages of development houses an independent soul, that belief is protected in this country and our government cannot punish you for having that belief. The same should be true of my belief that the soul enters the body at birth, the first breath of the baby. Both events are important in the continuity of human life, fertilization to create a cell with the full genetic complement to develop a human body, and birth to bring the body and spirit together and a new, independent individual into the world. If a fertilized egg houses a soul, what happens to it as that first cell divides into a ball of cells and later into layers of types of cells and finally into specific body parts? Do all the cells house the soul, or does it move into the brain later? I contend that most of society will accept the idea that a baby taking its first breath is an independent individual with a soul (or underdeveloped but independent intellect). If your religious belief is that an independent soul is present in a fertilized egg, you have the right to that belief, but you do not have the right to impose that religious belief onto the rest of society. I believe that a pregnant woman is developing a human house, but that there is nobody home until birth, when that house becomes occupied by a soul.
Imposing religious beliefs of one group on all of society is something this country has fought since before its beginning as a nation. Shall we develop laws that prohibit driving or other activities on Saturday or Sunday because some people have religious beliefs that require them to refrain from those activities? Shall we force women to cover their heads and faces because some religious beliefs require that behavior? We respect the rights of individuals to worship as they please. We do not allow the beliefs of those individuals to undermine the rights of the rest of us. The greatest danger is to promote the idea that our country needs to allow religious fringe groups to control the rest of the country. Be very careful of how much control you want the government to have over your independent decisions and individual rights, even if in this particular case the proposition under consideration is consistent with your individual religious beliefs.
If you agree, please feel free to republish this letter unedited.
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)