Folks, I went to a city council meeting tonight and now would happily drive spikes in my eyes rather than stare at my laptop another minute. I’d like to get up early-early and get a bike ride in. So let’s do an all-bloggage Tuesday, eh?
Via 4dbirds, Germans express puzzlement that such a religious country as ours opposes health care for all. They don’t know us very well, do they?
How John just-an-umpire-callin’-them-strikes-and-balls Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United case. Foul!
T-Lo look at Cathy Cambridge. And look and look and look, because she looks fabulous. Off to bed.
Dexter said on May 15, 2012 at 2:09 am
The Tigers found another way to lose but the Reds won, so that’s good, then my eyeballs are assaulted by a huge picture on the Yahoo News lede of Justin Bieber’s ass completely hanging out at a concert performance, the most ridiculous “pants on the ground” example ever…c’mon dude! Yer gon’ do dat, get some colorful boxers or some patterned Jockeys, not whitebread tighty-whities!
It’s picture #1 here
http://music.yahoo.com/photos/wango-tango-2012-slideshow/
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 15, 2012 at 6:54 am
I think the Germans still have a generation or two to go before they get to snark on any other culture’s morality or application of secularism vs. ideology to politics. They’re doing well right now, but they were singing a very different song about how political campaigns worked as recently as 1933 mit der “Kinder, Kirche, Kuche” (ich nicht verstehe das umlaut von dieser keyboard).
We’re not well served by hyper-rhetoric about our “disastrous” health care system with apples to rutabaga comparisons on national outcomes. Until not very long ago, our system worked as well or better than most. The reason I’m in favor of drastic or dramatic changes up to and including forms of federal single payer is that it cannot function justly or effectively into the immediate future. The employment anchor for HCI is a bug, not a feature anymore, and has to be released, but as with any maneuver slipping an anchor & cable in heavy seas, you have to know exactly what you’re doing next or you end up on the rocks. I think the main fear and failure of nerve in DC is that necessarily any major HCI shift means effectively opening up the tax code and starting from virtual scratch (the employer tax credit and the personal income tax provisions around health & medical credits & deductions are a swamp of rent-seeking & good intentions), and that’s the bigger barrier than fears of nascent socialism.
That, plus it would be hard, risky work over months, and there’s few Congresscritters who are willing to abandon almost all fundraising call time slots, sweat details for weeks on end, and possibly end up with unintended consequences that will be used as a stick to beat you at the next election, where you’ll have less money than your opponent (see first clause of this sequence) and lose. So they blame-cast and muddle along, as the general HCI system let alone Medicaid spiral towards some very unjust, let alone inefficient outcomes.
I think I’ve mentioned this here before, but our community health clinic sees almost entirely 50-64 year old working low-wage individuals. It’s heck on their fund-raising, because everyone wants to know about children and the frickin’ (‘scuse me) elderly, and Stacey has to explain, over and over, that we have a robust, easily accessible system for both of those populations, but if you make $15-20,000 a year in four or more hourly wage jobs, you have nothing aimed at you other than emergency room access. They can’t hope to improve skills and get into a job with HCI anymore, and they’re just sweating it out until Medicare (a phrase they say with a smile, like the Big Rock Candy Mountain). The kicker is that we solve our fundraising needs largely through one population: ER docs. They work their butts off for us, and write big checks themselves. Because they know.
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alex said on May 15, 2012 at 7:52 am
I think the Germans still have a generation or two to go before they get to snark on any other culture’s morality or application of secularism vs. ideology to politics.
I think Godwin’s Law is applicable to anyone who asserts that German people lack moral standing because of the acts of their past governments.
Europeans don’t understand American religiosity, much less the invocation of morality in furtherance of policies that are anything but moral. We are at this time more susceptible to the sort of populist outrage that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler than the Germans are. They’re enjoying a much higher standard of living. They have a thriving middle class while ours is dying. They realize what’s at stake because they lost everything and are determined not to let it happen again. Let ’em snark. They know better than anyone the folly of politicians pushing morality and fervid nationalism on an economically crippled and frightened electorate.
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coozledad said on May 15, 2012 at 8:14 am
Alex wins.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 15, 2012 at 8:44 am
Didn’t say they lack moral standing, but that I don’t grant them standing to opine on how this country manages church-state relations. I’m aware that Coozledad thinks we live in a fascist paradise; but the idea of a Godwin’s Law inversion would certainly apply to wholesale condemnation of Germans qua Germans. There is an interesting argument out there I haven’t read up on that says the German support of the Eurozone especially re: Greece is right & just because of a quirk in how post-war reparations were never paid to Greece (and the point, if valid, would seem to fall apart in regards to Spain). I’d say it’s a better case to make along federalist lines, and compare to how some states pay in more to the US coffers, and some draw more, and that’s not injustice so much as how you make a democratic republic operate.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 15, 2012 at 9:45 am
I prefer to judge people by what they say and the quality of their arguments, not by what their grandfathers did.
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brian stouder said on May 15, 2012 at 9:50 am
Folks, I went to a city council meeting tonight and now would happily drive spikes in my eyes rather than stare at my laptop another minute
On the other hand, I went to our school board meeting last night, and it was marvelous stuff, too!
There was a collective sigh of relief that the bond issue succeeded in the late elections (and by a 2:1 margin), and lots of nearly-end-of-the-school-year awards, recognitions, and scholarship announcements.
The boy sitting next to me had a large cast on his leg. Turns out, earlier this year, this young student was attacked by a pair of pit bulls (over near South Side), and a nearby citizen rushed to his assistance, grabbing a bottle that had been laying on the ground as his only weapon, diverting the dogs from the boy to him. At some point the police arrived and dispatched the dogs.
Both the boy – an FWCS student -and the citizen were recognized by the school board, and presented with certificates by the superintendent.
When the (beaming!) boy sat back down, I saw that his certificate had one bold word – beneath the official Fort Wayne Community Schools seals and headers, and above the boy’s name: “Bravery”.
Indeed!
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Jolene said on May 15, 2012 at 10:17 am
Interesting chart on how federal spending has shifted over time.
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coozledad said on May 15, 2012 at 10:18 am
Nah. It’s not quite a Nazi paradise. It’s getting to the point they’ll arrest you (if reluctantly) for gunning down a teenage “coon”, or hobble your electoral prospects in Ohio or Arizona when they catch you in full SS regalia goose-stepping to the Horst-Wessel song.
Shit, they fired the Derb for just a couple of iterations of his “Lothar von Trotha Wuz Right” schtick, when frankly, I thought they’d be forced to let him go for all the pedophilia.
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Jolene said on May 15, 2012 at 10:34 am
Jeff, your reference to older, low-wage workers as primary users of community health services connects w/ a segment on long-term unemployment from last night’s NewsHour. People in that age group are less likely to be laid off than younger workers, but when they are laid off, they remain unemployed longer–for all sorts of obvious reason. The segment is an interview w/ two think tank types who are trying to draw attention to the problem and to argue for an aggressive approach to getting people back into the labor market. Interestingly, they mention Germany as a place that has dealt creatively and effectively w/ reduced demand for labor through work-sharing and other strategies.
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Icarus said on May 15, 2012 at 11:04 am
bloggage? okay, it irks me that this lady and I share a religion
http://www.chicagonow.com/being-catholic-really/#/
at the same time, I think of something Richard Roeper once said, something along the lines of: if you have any faith in your faith, you can stand to be in the same church, same pew, same building with someone who doesn’t share your exact viewpoint.
i’ll have to dig up the exact quote.
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Judybusy said on May 15, 2012 at 11:20 am
I’m just gonna get this blog highjack outta the way early. Amusing video on the life of Marcel, the shell with shoes on.
And I agree that Alex wins. It’s so ridiculous what the poor, working class and even many middle-class people have to go through to get healthcare.
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brian stouder said on May 15, 2012 at 11:20 am
Speaking of nazis and ‘murikins’ and our current political milieu – not to sound all conspiratorial/grassy knoll/North by Northwest, but what the hell is going on in California?
http://www.chem.info/News/2012/05/Plant-Maintenance-West-Coast-Spike-in-Gas-Prices-Tied-to-Refineries/?et_cid=2648965&et_rid=44004269&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chem.info%2fNews%2f2012%2f05%2fPlant-Maintenance-West-Coast-Spike-in-Gas-Prices-Tied-to-Refineries%2f
The lead:
Motorists across most of the country have been getting a break on the price of gas, but not on the West Coast. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in Oregon was $4.17 Monday, up 16 cents from last week. The average was $4.20 in Washington state and $4.35 in California. Both of those states also had double-digit increases. Meanwhile, the national average price dropped 5 cents to $3.73.
And
Gasoline supplies in California are down more than 20 percent from a year ago. West Coast gasoline stocks haven’t been this low in the month of May since May 1992, according to the Department of Energy.
Why would this be happening now? What is special about the summer of 2012? Hmmmmmmmm.
And then there’s this, near the end:
Meanwhile, five of California’s 12 refineries — three in the San Francisco Bay Area and two in Southern California — temporarily reduced production because of planned maintenance.
It looks to me like a “super-pac” of Pacific-coast wolves are perfecting the art of turning a huge profit and doing yeoman campaign work for the the Romney/Fox (desert fox?) axis
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LAMary said on May 15, 2012 at 11:36 am
Gas was 4.65 at the station near my house. Of course, it’s the only station near a freeway exit so they can do that. I have signed up for my company’s ride-share/public transportation bonus and will be exploring what combination of bus and train travel gets me here the most efficiently. It will take three times as long to get here, but I can read on the way and my employer pays for 25% of the cost of a monthly pass.
Oh, and I gasped when I saw that turqoise dress Cathy Cambridge wore. She wore a beautiful white dress a few days ago too. She’s a stunner.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 15, 2012 at 11:37 am
Cooz: I notice the Derb has landed at VDARE, which is where he belongs. Wonder if they pay him?
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Jolene said on May 15, 2012 at 11:45 am
The New Yorker has launched a new blog about books that might be fun to follow. It appears that new blog entries will appear in your FB timeline if you like The New Yorker. Don’t have to be a subscriber.
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Jolene said on May 15, 2012 at 11:58 am
Love Marcel the Shell, Judybusy. Had seen him before. Always amazing to see what people come up with.
Cathy Cambridge’s dress was, indeed, beautiful, but I wasn’t sure it suited her. She is such a long strip of muscle and bone–no softness in her body–and the dress is so soft and flowing. Those lacy cap sleeves seem to sit awkwardly on her square shoulders. I think I like her more in more tailored things.
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coozledad said on May 15, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Bitter Scribe: For a probationary period, they’re probably paying him in porn, until they’re certain he won’t embarrass them.
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Catherine said on May 15, 2012 at 12:30 pm
CA is a solidly blue state, in part because the Rs here are soooo feckless (that’s another set of stories), so the gas prices shouldn’t affect the federal election. It is hard on people in the short term, there’s no denying that. But there are some silver linings, too. High gas prices drive people to public transportation, which is less polluting and more energy-efficient. It also means less investment is necessary in roads and freeways (as we call ’em), ideally freeing up money to improve public transportation (specifically, speeding up Mary’s commute). And, it encourages people to live closer to their work, i.e., more densely, which is also good from a resources-consumption standpoint.
I was recently in the UK and went *everywhere* I wanted to on fast, affordable, clean public transportation. As irritating and time-consuming as our public transportation can be, I saw it work there and I hope to see it work better here. If high gas prices (market forces! take that, Mitt!) poke us in that direction, maybe it’s a long-term good.
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Jeff Borden said on May 15, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I like the take Alex has on things and I honestly believe it sums up not only Germany, but much of Europe. The continent attempted suicide twice in the 20th century and those memories of shattered cities, devastated lands and, obviously, the tens of millions of dead live on. The U.S. hasn’t seen such wanton death and destruction since the Civil War and that was mostly in the South. We have never seen anything like the horrors the Europeans saw, where entire generations of young men were wiped out.
If Mittens wins the election, we’ll be back in the war business big-time. This is a guy who gets his foreign policy advice from notable douchenozzle John Bolton, who believes we should’ve bombed Iran yesterday.In fact, the level of involvement of neoconservative washouts from W.’s administration ought to give us all pause. As bad as Mittens is as a man, those he surrounds himself with will be even worse.
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 1:24 pm
cooze@18: I would say that embarrassing the Fuhrmanists at VDARE was a monumental undertaking, but I think “impossible” is more like it. As for VDARE, I’d like to see some effet, neurasthenic Brits self-deport from USA.
The bungling financial industry superhero Jamie Dimon has admitted that incompetence created a FUBAR situation and the loss of $2billion at JP Morgan. A very rare instance of robber barons taking responsibility for screwing the pooch. Well, except they’ve already identified a female hedge manager as a scapegoat. But wait. What does Fox News say? Government regulations caused the loss. Crap, these fools will say any idiotic thing, no matter how ridiculous and no matter that they are contradicting the guy they are supposedly supporting.
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MichaelG said on May 15, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Gas prices have gone up by a lot at the station I patronize. It was reasonable but now it’s over $4.25. I can see the oil companies engineering the refinery slow downs. They will be in no hurry to fire things back up given the obscene profits they will be taking in.
I don’t like the idea of using gas prices or automobile taxing as social engineering tools. People shouldn’t have to be clubbed into using public transportation. Look at the inconvenience to LAMary as an example.
Yes there is excellent, convenient and comprehensive public transportation in Europe. So what. We simply don’t have it here and it’s unrealistic to act as if we do. The Europeans have also been developing and nurturing their systems for well over a hundred years. Like it or not, the public transportation system in the US is the highway. Money here has been spent on roads and automobiles and not on a European style of mass transportation.
As a result of priorities (it doesn’t matter if they were misaligned or not, the fact is we are here with the auto as our main transportation option) efficient and convenient mass transportation does not exist for most people in this country. Forcing people out of their cars with no good alternative is wrong.
Besides, if everyone suddenly decided to take the bus, the train or the street car, the system would be overwhelmed and the transit authorities don’t have the money or the will to cope. There is also no fed or state money for public trans. Look at the way the Republicans (yes them again) are always trying to kill AMTRAC.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 15, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Germans, Der Spiegel tells us, in general are saying that Americans are extremely religious in general, and that you can’t be religious and be against a national health care program. I disagree, and don’t understand where Germans get off telling us that, and I’m for federal single payer. So I’m still not getting the point here, and not interested in what Deutschland has to tell me about how church and state should relate.
It’s akin to what I heard from our faculty folk at Denison and Ohio State about W.: “the Europeans are laughing at us!” I heard it said, un-ironically, often. On my most displeased day with George 43 I thought that was a silly argument to make. Oh, dear, the Europeans are snickering at us for our callow and jejune ways. Right. Gotta fix that.
By the way, Germans still pay personal taxes each year to support the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche, unless you go through a long, complicated, and not-guaranteed to be approved process to be “un-membered” from the state church. I think that’s dumb, but it’s how they roll.
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Jeff (tmmo): I agree with the American Catholic Bishops that it is contradictory to support social Darwinism like Ryan’s budget while claiming to be a follower of Jesus Christ’s precepts and teachings.
The construction of the Interstate system was a huge gift to the Teamsters and surely not one of Eisenhower’s finer moments as a leader. Characterizing the Interstates as a national security initiative was a ridiculous subterfuge. The program was a massive subsidy to the trucking industry, and basically did in American railroads that were far more effective systems of delivery. It’s embarrasing that countries that could fit inside of medium-sized American states have effective rail systems which common sense insists would be easier to construct and support in a country as gigantic as the USA is physically.
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Jeff Borden said on May 15, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Jeff TMMMO,
I don’t think it’s outside the realm for people of other countries to wonder how a nation that gives such loud, public embrace to Christianity often acts in ways that are decidedly unChristlike.
I don’t much enjoy being lectured by foreingers either. I bit my tongue so hard it almost bled when I was visiting with some Viennese schoolteachers, who peppered me with questions about a story that was getting a lot of play in Austria. A 6-year-old American boy had been suspended from school for “sexual harassment” after he kissed a little girl on the playground. How, the Austrians asked, could a nation where thousands are murdered every year be so upset by the actions of a child? I played the polite guest and did not ask them how they could be so judgmental when their parents’ generation happily participated in the Holocaust.
That said, perhaps those who live outside the U.S. see a hypocrisy at work that we do not?
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Trini Lopez’ birthday. Dedicated to Sherrif Joe Arpaio, the scumsucking civil rights enemy:
http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/05/14/arpaios-popularity-in-question-amid-lawsuit/
Pindejo, maricon, puta. Cabron. As my Puerto Rican college roomie would say.
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mark said on May 15, 2012 at 3:13 pm
How unChristian of the Germans to insist the Greeks cut their social spending. There are plenty of rich people to tax instead. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9265930/Merkel-tells-Greece-to-back-cuts-or-face-euro-exit.html
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Dexter said on May 15, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Last night on NBC Nightly News there was a segment on L.A. gasoline prices…”over five dollars a gallon at many stations.”
It went on , mentioning how people were consolidating errand-trips and all that, but almost every city, town, and hamlet in the U.S.A. was designed to be served by the car.
We’re at $3.68 now , thirty cents less than the March high price was. MichaelG, it looks like you will see five bucks a gallon a little before we do here in Ohio.
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brian stouder said on May 15, 2012 at 4:11 pm
See, I still say – there’s lots of ways to skin a cat.*
Is California blue blue blue?
Yes.
But if those blue voters get so discouraged and blue that they stay home, then what?
By way of saying, California in the Red column is a very long long-shot….
but if they could pull that off, it would almost certainly assure the end of President Obama’s administration, and the rise of Romney’s regime (to paraphrase drug-addled Limbaugh’s line).
And, indeed, there is no down-side for the oil guys, since they can make a fortune in the meanwhile, regardless
*non-sequitur: speaking of cats – the girls are at the animal shelter even as we speak, selecting a kitty (or maybe two), so – life is good.
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Jolene said on May 15, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Was watching Chuck Todd play w/ electoral maps this AM, and it left me feeling somewhat heartened about Obama’s chances. To win, Romney has to carry a lot of states won by Obama in 2008. Obama has more plausible paths to 270 electoral votes.
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LAMary said on May 15, 2012 at 4:28 pm
We’re blue here but we keep electing republican governors. Not the current one, but most of the govs since I’ve lived here ( 1982) have been repubs.
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Mark.
No reputable economist has ever considered Euro-trash-style austerity a reasonable nor an effective, nor an ameliorative, response to a severely depressed economy. It makes no sense on its face (pretty much, insisting down is up), and if any real-life evidence is still required, Europe is providing it in spades.
Funniest thing about the anti-Obama oil speculators like the Koch Kriminal Konspiracy is that they hate Iran in lockstep, and are using the Irani technique of parking oil offshore in tankers. O course, the Kochs have been dealing with Iran illegally for quite some time, like their grandfather dealt with the Nazis.
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coozledad said on May 15, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Oh Noes! Don’t tax them rich!
J.P. Morgan, if you remember, received 94.7 billion dollars in taxpayer funded bailouts.
Romney will privatize profits and socialize losses.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign said on Tuesday JPMorgan Chase & Co’s huge trading losses were an unfortunate part of a free market economy.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told NBC that, while Romney supports some financial regulation, the losses at one of the nation’s largest banks involved investors, not taxpayers, and that rules for Wall Street shouldn’t hamper investments.
EDIT: It’s always puzzled me why a bunch of trashy Republican poors want to give the rich a blowjob, gratis.
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mark said on May 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Prospero-
Yes, all reasonable economists beleieve German taxpayers should continue to subsidize Greek citizens enjoying a social welfare system they can’t afford. That makes Merkel unChristian and puts her at odds with all reasonable economists.
It’s a world turned upside down.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Yes, driving Greek pensioners to suicide certainly is the Christian thing to do.
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Jolene said on May 15, 2012 at 4:59 pm
An analogy that’s been floating around lately treats Greece as the Mississippi of Europe. In the US, our fiscal policy is coterminous w/ our monetary policy. The states vary greatly in economic productivity, but, to their great advantage, the weaker states are part of the same political entity and rely on the same currency as the stronger states. If the citizens of New York and Connecticut could vote on how federal funds were dispersed to Missississiopi and Arkansas, those places would be worse off than they are.
Europe has been trying to do something that’s essentially impossible–run multiple fiscal policies within one monetary framework. It’s hardly surprising that Germany doesn’t want to carry the Mississippi of Europe, but, if it doesn’t, the monetary union will be at an end.
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beb said on May 15, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Jeff, when you write “Until not very long ago, our system worked as well or better than most.” I wonder what you mean. It worked well if you worked for a company that offered health care benefits but millions of people never had employer based health care and buying health insurance on your own was largely unaffordable now or 40 years ago. Emergency Rooms are no place for health care of last resort. National Health systems like the French or the Germans, Canadians, etc provide care for all people in the nation regardless of their employment status. And for half of what we pay per capita over here. We never had a better health care system then elsewhere in the world. We maybe had better hospital for those who could afford them but better health care for all Americans? Never!
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coozledad said on May 15, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Jolene: If we went all Merkel on Mississippi and Lousiana and Alabama’s ass, or any of the money-sucking Southern states, there’d be a shortage of dumbasses to vote Republican.
They’d have to cough up their own money for ten commandments tablets and Jesus-on-a-dinosaur museums.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 15, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Jolene, great point, which makes me fear for the future of the Eurozone. I’m just finishing up Michael Lewis’s “Boomerang,” which is not very reassuring in that regard.
I’m just wondering…if Greece pulls out of the Euro, how bad will the global financial consequences be?
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 5:44 pm
cooze@38, and don’t forget AK and Tejas, that take far more than they contribute.. Why not take a Paul Ryan approach, and apply a philosophy of federal Darwinism. If they ain’t productive, starve they ass.
Weanwhile, Deutschland continues to afford a high standard of living and social justice, and a more substantial, more reliable, and way more efficient social and public health safety net for all Chermans than anything in the USA that costs far more money.
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Sherri said on May 15, 2012 at 5:58 pm
California is a blue state, but Enron’s manipulation of the electricity market was the key factor in the recall of Democratic governor Gray Davis, leading to the election of Schwarzenegger. When I moved to California in 1990, it wasn’t that solidly blue; then Governor Pete Wilson’s embrace of Prop 187 pushed California into the blue column.
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MichaelG said on May 15, 2012 at 6:39 pm
“Reasonable economists.” Speaking of whom, Paul Krugman has been writing a series of columns for the last few weeks about the futility of the German austerity policies. Sarkozy was with Angie on this but the new French president is not. Will be interesting to see what happens. A normal thing for a country in Greece’s shoes would be to devalue their currency. Greece can’t do that since they are part of the Euro.
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Antonin Scalia once said, infamously, that no American citizen had ever been executed for a crime he had not committed. This is doctrinaire ideologue Scalia at his activist, most hubris-imbued worst. This asshole is a fundamentally bad man, a poor jurist that should never have gotten within shouting distance of the US Supreme Court. I’m struck by Scalia’s lack of judicial character and sensibility every time I see RMoney with Robert Bork. That’s who Willard has chosen as an adviser on Constitutional matters and judicial appointments? Thanks, but no thanks Mittens. Bork is a radical pre-enlightenment thinker with whom RMoney probably sees eye to eye on all sorts of things. If there were, in fact, such thing as an effective liberal press, Bork would be answering questions about his outrageous legal pronouncements, like the derision he aimed at the current court, calling it “feminised” for anti-gender-discrimination judgements. I assume he was demonizing Ginsburg and O’Connor. Giving Robert Bork this position in your campaign is as disqualifying a judgement call as choosing to take foreign policy advice from certifiable loons like John Bolton and his BFF Daniel Pipes.
Scalia was a preening buffoon when he made his asinine death penalty claim. And that has been proven. The USA can’t afford any more horrendous SC appointments like those of Raygun and the Bushes, and certainly not the somewhat less than Cro-Mag legal thinkers that Mitt and Bork might come up with. Bork howled like a stuck pig when the SC said that the death penalty was cruel and unusual UnConstitutional punishment for Aamerican juvenile defendants. He’s happy so long as those folks with 70 IQs can still get dates with Ol’ Sparky.
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Prospero said on May 15, 2012 at 7:11 pm
DIY redevolopment in Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee. Somewhat encouraging.
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Deborah said on May 15, 2012 at 9:32 pm
A bit OT but I always end up steaming mad when I do this; I’ve been put on a project for a financial company, to do a branded environment for them (telling their stories in their workplace). I went to their website to do research about them, clicking around here and there. I ended up looking at their Board of Directors and this is what always steams me time after time; they always show photos of mostly middle aged white guys, occaisionally a couple of women in the bunch (usually the director of communications or HR). Maybe once in awhile there will be a person of color in the mix, usually one maybe two, but that’s rare. It never fails. When is this going to change? I certainly see it being set back even more if someone like Rmoney is elected. Really depressing.
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JWfromNJ said on May 15, 2012 at 9:39 pm
I’m not getting the whole gas prices thing – We got close to $4/gal here, topped it at a few places, but now we’re seeing $3.42 on the low end, $3.48 right off I-95, and at the one guy who seems to gouge the most it was $3.52. Doesn’t seem to be any logic to the regional variations. And you can find the nation’s most exensive gas on International Drive in Orlando near the entrance to Disney, usually $7.50 or so.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 15, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Walter Wink passed away this last weekend; he’s who I first learned about Saul Alinsky from. Wow, that’s a bad sentence, but I’m beat. Thought some might find this link of interest, an essay that sums up one of his main areas of teaching. One of his sons was a co-founder of Blue Man Group, for what it’s worth.
http://www.zcommunications.org/christian-nonviolence-by-walter-wink
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MarkH said on May 16, 2012 at 2:22 am
JW, you’re in Florida now, right? Gas taxes have a lot to do with the disparity in prices, here’s a chart:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/26079.html
Obviously that doesn’t tell the whole story when you have $3.52/gal. with 35 cents total taxes, and out here in Wyoming with 14 cents total taxes, it varies between $3.50 in Rock Springs and $3.68 in Jackson. Variations among the refineries, whether reduced number, suspensions due to “maintainence”, or purposeful manipulations in output or capacities are to blame. Instead of cheap shots at the oil companies regarding crude prices, this is where the media should look.
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