Oppose anything the Democrats Attempt

This is a letter I intend to send to the four people who allegedly represent me in Washington, D. C.:
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator John Cornyn, Representative Michael Burgess, and President Barack Obama.
I will blog this and any response (if there is any) at oakminde.blogspot.com
　
I use the word "you" to refer to the Republican Party because three of the four people are members of that institution.
　
　
I have noticed that most, if not all, of the Republican Party seems to be opposed to any kind of national health care system. You call it a government takeover, compare it to socialism, and in Washington, you simply refuse to participate in the proceedings or just block the proceedings. Since you are opposed so vehemently to any of the suggestions the Democrats have put forth, I would be extremely interested in being educated as to what your alternative ideas are. I feel certain that the status quo, allowing insurance company executives rake in multimillion-dollar salaries while denying care to their customers, is not your plan. Or is it? I have not yet heard a single intelligent proposal out of the Republican wing of government. All I hear, day in and day out, are complaints that the plan(s) the Democrats have put forth will not work.
Now let me give you an idea. I pay $6,000 a year in premiums to my insurance company, to cover myself, my wife, and my daughter. They pay their CEO 18 million dollars a year. They pay several highly placed executives close to that, I assume. They also pay enough in dividends to entice investors to park money in their stock. All the while denying care to customers. Since the highest paid government employee makes $450,000 a year, I have to assume that the head of Medicare makes considerably less than that. I think you will have a difficult time finding anyone that is currently covered by Medicare who would be willing to give it up, so I have to think that that system works.
I would never be described as the "brightest bulb in the pack" but it seems to me that if I give that $6,000 a year to Medicare instead of a for-profit insurance company, and everyone around does the same thing, we might just be able to make it work. I would even bet that it wouldn’t have to be all of the $6,000, so there might even be some savings on my end. Even if it is all of the $6,000, as long as there is not some insurance company flunky declining to cover the colonoscopy that my doctor thinks I need (as my insurance company did earlier this year), I will be happy. You can call it a tax increase if you feel like you have to, but in my book, I am already paying that tax to a private company.
Certainly there are things that need to be done to cut out waste and fraud in the system, but I think that can easily be taken care of once we have everyone adequately covered.
For sure, this idea will put a lot of insurance folks in need of a new career. I, for one, do not care if the multi-millionaire CEO of my insurance company suddenly has to go out and find a legitimate job.
I think that if we adopt this plan, and demand that Congress uses it for themselves as well, we can adequately cover every citizen of the United States and ensure that the coverage is fair and comprehensive.


As an afterthought, I also included Senator Bernie Sanders in the recipients. I hear him on the (liberal) Thom Hartmann show every Friday morning, and he seems to actually care about the American people. He supposedly does not accept campaign contributions from corporations, only from regular folks like you and me. I don't know if this is true or not, but I do know that he sounds intelligent and informed.

Republican Purity Test

Do people truly not remember anything?

Are we going to collectively go to the polls in 2010 and vote based on what the Democrats have not been able to do? Or are we going to vote based on what the Republicans have stood in the way of? Will we remember the 1994 "Contract for America" (also known as the "Contract on America").

Will we, as a people, remember that from 1994 to 2006 the Republicans had control of the legislative and judicial branches of the government? And that from 2000 to 2006 they had control of the entire government? Will we remember what they did and did not do while they had control?

We got a couple of wars we had no business being in, we got decreasing regulation on the financial sector; we got really good legislation for the credit card industry; and a whole lot more that was good if you were a corporation or wealthy American, bad if you were a tax paying middle class citizen.
　
Oh good Lord, I certainly hope this happens.
　
Apparently the GOP has come up with a set of guidelines they are thinking of requiring any candidate to swear to uphold before they will allow him/her to call him/herself a Republican.
Red text is the "test", black text is my comments. There is a link to the news story at the end.


REPUBLICAN PURITY TEST

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill.

Because anything from Obama is bad? So far the Republicans have been pretty consistent about opposing anything put forth by the current administration or the Democratic Party. Smaller government like President Bush 43 made? Smaller national debt like the same guy gave us? Lower deficits? Let me get this straight. Lower deficits like Clinton gave us? Or "lower" deficits like the totally Republican run government gave us from 2000 to 2006, largely accomplished by hiding war costs? Lower taxes for the rich and higher taxes for the middle class like Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 gave us?

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare.

Because market-based worked so well for the banksters. Just kinda sucked for the rest of us. And again with the anti-Obama thing.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation.

See my comments on #2. At least they left our President out of this one.

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check.

I am not real sure what is up with this one, but anytime I see Republican response to anything union, I have to assume that it is going to be horrible for unions and non-union workers alike.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

I got nothing for this one. One of those things that I happen to be in almost total agreement with the GOP.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.

What? Victory? Someone please define what that means. All terrorists dead? How do you quantify that?

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.

Because we have not yet managed to start World War III, and sticking our noses there might just do it.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Keep the government out of our business, but it’s OK for them to be in our personal lives? If you truly want to maintain the "sanctity of marriage", make it harder to get a divorce. Otherwise, just admit that you hate gays and move on.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion.

What? I thought the Republicans were FOR private, for-profit insurance companies? Aside from the government funding of abortion, these are all things that private insurance companies do now.

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

Because anyone, no matter how psycho he/she may be, should be allowed to own a Howitzer or an M1 Abrams.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl996

Health Care: Fixed!

How many people who have Medicare are willing to give it up? I don’t know the answer for sure, but my bet is not many, if any.

People on the "Right" like to argue that Medicare is going broke. It will be defunct in just a few years.

So here is my health care plan.

Reduce the age of eligibility for Medicare to 0. Or minus 9 months, if we are too stupid to figure that one out without it being in writing. The only requirement would now be that you are an American citizen.

Instead of paying thousands of dollars a year to private, for-profit insurance companies, everyone will now pay 1500 dollars a year into Medicare. This works out to about 35 dollars a week, less than half what I pay to my insurance company.

Sadly, insurance company executives will no longer be able to rake in multimillion-dollar salaries. Life sucks, find another way to make money. If the business I work for all of a sudden becomes unnecessary to society, no one is going to cry for me, I don't see any reason to cry for them.

My insurance company can cover me, pay their CEO 18 million dollars a year, pay several lower level executives multimillion-dollar salaries, and pay enough dividends to keep shareholders interested, based on the premiums of the people they "cover".

I have to assume that Medicare should be able to cover me on $1.5k a year, without having to pay out all those wasteful salaries and dividends. Once this is done, we can concentrate on weeding out the waste and fraud in the Medicare system.

My $1500 dollar per person price tag is just off the top of my head, and probably way high. I am sure there are folks that can figure out what the exact number needs to be. I would be happy with the 1.5k.

Bam, health care fixed and paid for.

Ticket for not speaking English?

The Dallas Police Department seems to be in a heap of trouble. Not for Tazing someone unnecessarily, nor even for beating someone. No, the men in blue find themselves under fire for a ticket one of their rookies wrote to a woman for not being able to speak English. Keep in mind that the City of Dallas has an ordinance that requires taxi drivers to speak passable English. Note also that Federal law requires commercial truck drivers to do so as well. The onboard computer on his cruiser provided that this was a legitimate offense.

Apparently this woman made an illegal u-turn in front of the officer. When he pulled her over, she not only was unable to communicate with him; she also was unable to provide a drivers license. Apparently she didn’t feel compelled to keep it with her.

The city and the police chief have apologized, but that doesn’t seem to be sufficient. You see, it seems that she was so distressed over getting a ticket that she had to spend several days in the hospital, and now she wants Dallas to pay for her stay.

That stay originally was reported to be "nearly $5,000" but has since been inflated to "over $8,000". You decide why that may have changed. My guess is that high-powered lawyers aren't cheap. But that is seriously just a guess.

I have a message for that woman. Be glad, be VERY glad that I am not a cop, and was not the one that pulled you over. Once it became apparent to me that you couldn’t converse in English, and that you also did not have a license to operate a motor vehicle, I would have washed my hands of you. I would have called I.C.E. and let "la migra" take care of you. With any luck, they would have noticed that you supposedly are legal to be here before they dropped you off south of the border.

Distressed by a ticket? Seriously, anyone who has ever got a ticket they didn’t feel they deserved has been distressed. How many of us took ourselves to the hospital?

I very rarely get pulled over, but I got pulled over not long ago. I got a ticket, in essence, for buying a car on a Saturday. Yes, I said I got a ticket for buying a car on Saturday.

Back in September, my doctor told me that, due to some unfortunate problems in my groin area, I would be unable to ride my motorcycle until late December at the earliest. Well, at that time, my bike and my wife’s car were my family’s only transportation. Since our work schedules are so different, it is not possible for us to carpool. So, I had to go out and buy a car. That has got to be the most expensive doctor visit I have ever suffered that didn’t involve surgery.

Did I mention that I bought the car on a Saturday? August 29th, to be precise. Around 2 p.m. we concluded the beating, I mean negotiations, with the dealer. I didn’t buy a new car, but it is new to me and it came from a new car dealer, so there was no front plate and no registration sticker. Actually, there was no rear plate either, unless you count the paper one they issue you at the car lot.

Anyway, at 2 on a Saturday afternoon, my insurance company is inaccessible except for emergencies. No biggie, I thought, I have the insurance card from my wife’s car to cover me, and I can call Monday and have them send a card for the new one.

Monday, August 31, I woke up went out to run some errands. One of my chores took me to Arlington, and when I was headed back into Fort Worth I got pulled over. The road I was on (Pioneer for those from the area) has a 55mph speed limit. As it enters Fort Worth it changes name to Rosedale, and drops speed limit to 40mph. Now, for those who have never driven it (or those who have and haven’t noticed) the city limits sign is just over the top of a hill, and the new, lower speed limit sign is so close behind it as to be obscured until you are right on top of it.

As soon as I saw the sign, I braked to slow down. Apparently not quickly enough, because the motorcycle cop at the bottom of the hill stepped out into the road and waved me to the side. I rolled the window down as he came up, and the first thing he said to me was "where is your front plate".

We have front and back license plates in Texas.

Those who know me will be unsurprised by my answer of "probably the same place as my rear plate and registration sticker. In the mail. I just bought this car Saturday".

He told me that the reason he pulled me over was my speed, and when I pointed out to him that the other side of the hill is 55 and I was braking when he clocked me at 48, he decided to drop the idea of a speeding ticket in favor of a no insurance ticket.

Never mind the fact that you can’t get insurance (from a reputable agency, anyway) on a Saturday. Never mind that you have several days grace to add a new car onto your policy. Apparently, it being the last day of the month, he hadn’t made that quota they don’t have.

So, eleven days later, I had to take off work early, go downtown and waste a couple of hours of my time to get the ticket dismissed.

Do I want compensation? Heck yeah. Do I think I deserve it? Well, yeah. I doubt that I really do deserve it, but I at least think I do. Maybe I should call that Mexican lady’s lawyer.

Health care, some more.

There seems to be a lot of talk about insurance coverage portability. This talk comes from the same folks who are adamantly against any kind of single-payer coverage, let alone the so-called public option. I have to say, the idea of portability WITHOUT a single-payer plan is just smoke. If you work for a company that provides you with coverage from Humana, and you leave that job to work for a company that uses Humana, then should be able to reasonably expect to get some kind of portability. You don’t have it now. If the company you work for has 2000 employees and the company you move to only has 50, you will pay more for the same coverage, even though it is from the same company. They have some kind of convoluted explanation for why this is, but you have to live in a fantasy world to begin to believe it. If you, however, move to a company that uses Aetna for coverage, you cannot expect to be able to carry your same coverage with you. The two different insurance providers are not going to offer the same plans or the same prices. The only possible way we can remove the ties between our insurance coverage and our jobs is to go with a single-payer plan, like most of the rest of the industrialized world has.
Consider, also, that the only real way to provide health care fairly, as a right, is to do away with the for-profit health insurance companies. I know, that would put a lot of people out of business. But, I don't remember anyone crying when Texas Instruments invented the calculator and put numerous abacus companies out of business. How do we pay for it? I'm glad you asked. My family pays just over 5 thousand dollars a year to my health insurance provider. It then pays out dividends to its shareholders, 18 million dollars a year to its CEO, and who knows how much more to the rest of its executives. Far far more than any government worker makes, you can be sure. Then, to ensure that their bottom line is nice and healthy, they deny me services like the (apparently) recreational colonoscopy my doctor wanted me to have.
If we take that 5 grand a year and instead pay it to the federal health care plan, we can probably push a lot of that 5k back into my bank account. There are no government employees pulling down an 18 mil a year salary. Nor are there any making anywhere near what probably the top 20 execs at just my insurance company make.
If my insurance provider can make the kind of profit required to justify the salary of its top executives by charging me 5000 a year, then I have to assume that the government can provide me with coverage for far less. Of course, it would also require that they hire honest people to administer. Maybe I am living a fantasy, too.
Some will say that this reeks of socialism. Yes, it does. So do public schools and hospitals, police forces, fire departments, military, and any number of other benefits we have that most of us pay for and all of us use.

Presidential Intelligence

So I just had a chat argument with a guy over him calling President Obama "retarted". His spelling, not mine. So we started off on a good foot, because those who know me know that I didn’t let that one pass. I also pointed out to him that calling arguably our most intelligent president in years retarded, especially in light of the mental acuity of our previous president, was moronic. He argued that Bush got blamed for a lot that wasn’t really his fault. Of course he did, that’s what happens to presidents. Like Barack Obama being blamed for the record debt America holds right now. Never mind that George W. came into office with cash surpluses that Clinton left him and quickly turned them into record deficits that made even Reagan’s look mild. Never mind that G.W. got us embroiled in a war we never should have even considered.
He argued that we HAD to attack Iraq, due to 9-11. Again with the "retarted". Apparently he forgot that even Bush eventually admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. He was also unaware, until I pointed it out to him, that no one from Iraq was involved in the attacks. A whole bunch of Saudis were, but hey, they are our buddies, our pals, our friends.
But wait, he argued. Iraq had nukes; we had to stop them. What? By this time my head is spinning like I just finished drinking a case of beer alone. Nukes? Iraq didn’t even have the wmd’s we accused them of having at the time, let alone nukes.
I once saw a quote, I can’t remember who it was credited to. "While it would not be true to say that all conservatives are stupid, it would be true to say that most stupid people are conservative."
What kind of uneducated, uninformed people do we really have in this country? And these folks vote. Usually straight Republican ticket.

Get your own Health Insurance

It seems awful strange to me that the same people in the media who are gung-ho about spending billions of US tax dollars to obtain the freedom of the Iraqi people (people, by the way, who have never paid a dime in US tax) are the same people who are viciously against spending our tax dollars to ensure the health of every American. These same people are the ones who told all of us, back in 2002, that if we were not on board with the invasion of Iraq that we were un-American. That if we disagreed with President Dick Cheney’s plan to depose Saddam Hussein we were terrorist sympathizers, and possibly terrorists and traitors ourselves. I would like to remind everyone that on 9-11-2001, Iraq did not attack us.

I would also like to remind everyone that there are a lot of Americans with inadequate or zero health coverage. Either due to the fact that their employer does not offer it, or because they cannot afford what their employer offers. On top of that, there are uncounted people slogging through every day in a job they hate just so they can have health insurance. THAT’s gotta be good for your health.

Of course, one can go out on an individual basis and get insurance, but it is pricey. What I found was $644.00 a month for a family of three. The deductible is $2500.00 per person. That is the middle of the road one. You can get it for about fifty bucks a month cheaper if you want to jump that deductible up past ten grand. You can drop the deductible too, but the monthly payment begins to rival Bernard Madoff’s monthly rent.

I have also heard people say that you can go to the emergency room if you don’t have insurance. You certainly can. Let us look at my case. I had epididymitis. Don’t ask me what it is, I haven’t really a clue. It is definitely painful, in an area you do NOT want painful. At least if you are a guy. Which I am.

What it is not is life threatening. Or so they said, anyway. Seemed pretty threatening to me, considering where it was painful. Since that is the case, I could have gone to an ER and sat for three days while they got around to looking at me. Once they discovered that I had no insurance and was unable to pay, they would have sent me on my way. The only way an ER is bound to treat an uninsured person is if that person’s life is in imminent danger. And even at that, all they really HAVE to do is stabilize.

Funnier (strange, not ha-ha), I work with a guy who, in the last year, had a pacemaker installed, paid for by Medicare. He is staunchly against the government being involved in health care. It seems that there is not a lot of thinking going on there.

I have noticed that a lot of the folks against any kind of reform have what they believe to be good insurance. I say they believe to be because that may just be the case. A lot of people believe they have good coverage right up until the point they have to use it. Then that coverage becomes either stunted or nonexistent, depending on the provider’s policy of dumping undesirable patients.

By the way, I do have insurance, the previous example was just for example purposes. My doctor wanted me to have a couple of tests run to be certain of what was wrong with me. My insurance company refused, so my doctor went to plan b: throw various pharmaceuticals at it and hope one takes. Nice.

This for six thousand bucks a year.

At least it wasn't some government flunkie telling me no.

Tell Your Kids To Drop Out, part 2

Too too funny. the Arlington, Texas school district refused to allow the children in that district to watch the Obama "stay in school" speech. The district has since had to call off a school paid trip to the new Cowboys stadium to listen to George W. Bush (Bush 43) speak. I am certain they would have preferred that this speech had stayed as under-the-radar as the Bush 41 speech did, at least until it was a fait accompli. Ah well...

Tell your kids to drop out

In 1988, Ronald Reagan, a white Republican president, addressed the students of America in a televised speech. He spoke about how tax cuts increase revenue, gun control, and a few other partisan subjects. I, for one, do not remember anyone having an aneurysm over that speech. Now, 21 years later, Barack Obama, a black Democrat president, wants to give a speech on the importance of staying in school, getting good grades, and taking responsibility for one’s own education. People are apoplectic, claiming a fear that he will deliver a speech laden with partisan politics. Folks are promising to keep their kids out of school that day. Excuse me? Are these people stupid? The White House and the US Department of Education have both averred that this speech will be over nothing but the importance of getting a good education. There will be no political agenda attached, unless you can consider keeping kids in school an agenda. The president of the United States of America wants to tell your child how important it is for him or her to be a good student and you don’t want your child to participate? There is no way anyone is going to convince me that this isn’t, at best, partisan in the extreme, or, at worst, racist. I do not claim to know the motives of parents on this issue, but I do claim to know that they are idiots. Keeping your child out of school for this occasion not only sends them a message that it is perfectly all right to disrespect the office of the President, but also that it is all right to skip school because you do not agree with the content of the day’s activities. I wish this had been an option when I was in school; I can’t think of many days I would have attended. Reagan preached the necessity of cutting taxes for the richest amongst us, apparently believing that rich folks will voluntarily pass on those riches that we, the peons, pay extra for them to keep. This didn’t raise an eyebrow. Apparently the right has no problem with a president delivering a speech, even if it is partisan, to schoolchildren, as long as he is a Republican.

Don't believe anything you read, and only half of what you see

It never ceases to amaze how otherwise intelligent people will simply believe what someone else tells them. They don’t seem to bother to actually look into claims they hear on the radio or TV; they just take them at face value. Let’s look, for example, at the recent health care debates. And I use debates loosely, there seems to be a lot of angry rhetoric from both sides, not even actually resembling a debate.

Sarah Palin made the ludicrous claim that President Obama would set up a "death panel", a panel of government employees, that would take a look at how productive a person is and make a determination of whether to pay for health care based on that productivity. Conservative media figures picked that up and ran with it like a fumble. They have repeated it incessantly, apparently believing the old mantra "make the lie big, repeat it often, people will believe the lie to be truth". In fact, the only thing that could lead anyone to even consider such a remark is shear stupidity or shear malice. You pick which it is.

The section of the bill being considered that this comes from provides for Medicare to pay, once every five years, for VOLUNTARY end of life counseling. With your doctor, not a panel of government bureaucrats. Something that Medicare does not cover now. This would cover discussions about living wills, how long you want to be kept on life support (if at all), when hospice would be appropriate, etc. It would NOT cover discussion of suicide or euthanasia.

I have not been able to confirm this, but I heard (from one of the conservative talk shows, so probably false) that Ms. Palin said something to the effect of "if Americans actually read this bill, they would be appalled". I must submit, Ms. Palin, that if you actually made it a point to know what you are talking about before you open your pretty mouth, you might actually be vice-president now.

I have also heard the idiotic claim that bills in discussion would spend our tax dollars funding abortions. It is illegal, right now, and will remain so, to use Federal moneys to fund abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life is in danger. Now I know that there are folks who don’t believe a woman should be able to have an abortion in even these circumstances, but those folks likely need to be beaten anyway.

And while I am on this subject, why do I keep hearing people talk about abortion as birth control? Last I checked, a condom was about a buck. I haven’t actually looked into it, but something tells me that abortions cost a heckuva lot more than a buck. Who can afford that kind of birth control? Frankly, if a woman has that kind of cash and wants to ruin her future reproductive abilities, I say let her. Maybe that branch of the stupid gene will end with her.

I drive around most of the day, so I listen to a lot of talk radio. I mix it up, I listen to one of the eight conservative stations, then to the one liberal station, then another of the eight, then back to the one, and so on.

I keep hearing, from the conservatives, how concerned they are about our taxes going up. I have to remind you folks that those guys you hear from that box in your dash or see on that box in your living room make TONS of cash. When they talk about taxes going up, they are talking about THEIR taxes going up. They are not concerned with yours. It is difficult for me to take seriously a guy who makes 40 million dollars a year just from his radio show, when he tries to make out like he has the same financial concerns that I do.

Apparently, there is a lot of flap over advertisers removing their ads from certain talk show hosts shows. People talk about boycotting stores that do not want to advertise on shows that foment hate and anger, and repeat malicious lies to further an agenda. Boycott, folks. Stand up for the rights of rich celebrities to act like they are actual newspersons. Let corporate America know, by your unwillingness to spend money on their products, that you think folks should be able to use the public airwaves to advocate hate and racism.

It amazes me that, if Pepsi ran an add claiming that Coke caused cancer, Pepsi would be fined hugely. Yet any idiot can go on an "entertainment" show and make false claims about someone or some policy he doesn’t like and that is fine.

I think my bottom line here is, do NOT just believe something because you heard it on the radio or saw it on TV. Actually do some research. Find out that people with agendas will lie to further that agenda. Even me.

Electrical Irony

The doorbell rang, accompanied by (not followed, accompanied) knocking on the door. So I got up, shuffled my injured way downstairs. Of course, it was a sales guy. He was wearing a TXU (the electric company) cap and shirt. He had the clipboard and the hungry look. He seemed surprised that I did not immediately open the storm door as well, resigned himself to talking to me through it. He asked me if I am me (last I checked), then told me that "our records indicate that you used to be a TXU customer, but no longer are. We want you back. I can save you a bundle. What are you paying for a Kwh now?"
"I’m not really sure, I think something like $$$."
He looked at me like I just said I can run around the planet in 8 seconds. "Are you SURE? Can you get a recent bill?" Like I need to prove it, for some reason.
"No, I am not entirely sure, my wife handles that."
"Well, is she home? Can I talk to her?"
"No. She won’t be home for an hour or so."
"OK, then can I come back then?"
"Sure."
A little over a half-hour later, my wife arrived home from work, and I asked her how much we are paying for electricity. She said she wasn’t entirely positive, but off the top of her head, she thought like $$$.
"Oh," I said. "Then the TXU guy isn’t gonna be real happy."
I told her about the sales guy coming by, and she shrugged it off. Unlike me, she does not have an insane need to jack with sales people.
The hour came and went with no returning TXU guy, so I figured he either got busy and forgot or never intended to come back anyway. After about 2 hours, there came, again, that annoying double announcement that someone was at the door. Sure enough, it was him.
"Sorry, guy," I said, opening the door. "You can’t help me."
He gave me a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"
"Look, one of the reasons we switched is that, when we got married, I had TXU, my wife had "a competitor". When we moved into this house, TXU wanted to charge like 75 bucks to transfer service, "a competitor" did it for free." Once again, he looks at me as if I just claimed to be able to hurdle Jupiter.
"TXU does not charge to transfer service." I suppose, at this point, he was calling me a liar, but I let it slide.
"Well," I tell him, "earlier, when I told you that I thought I was paying $$$ cents, you looked at me like you thought I was crazy…" He cut into my spiel here, I assume thinking that him having looked at me like I was crazy was why I wasn’t going to allow him to "save me a bundle".
"It’s just that, companies don’t go that low. No one does."
I knew he wasn’t going to be able to save me anything.
"I don’t know why you say that. I am paying $$$ with "a competitor"." Now his eyes boggle.
"How is that possible? I have "a competitor", and I am paying…" I cut him off mid claim.
"Wait. You are wearing a TXU uniform, trying to get me to come back to TXU, and then you tell me you use "a competitor" yourself? How am I going to let a guy who doesn’t even use his own company sell me on it?"
You couldn’t write a commercial that good. I think I will stick with "a competitor".

Drill Here Drill Now... Why?

I truly begin to wonder about people. I heard, the other day, a guy on the radio STILL concerned about the "drill here drill now" thing. Apparently he is under the impression that, if another spike in oil prices happens, we won’t pay as much at the pump if we are drilling every place in the USA that we can.

Seriously folks, think about it. Back last year, when a barrel of Saudi oil was going for $147.00, how much do you suppose a barrel of USA oil was going for? I’m thinking $147.00. What is it that makes people think that Exxon will, out of the goodness of it’s collective heart, sell us oil at $40.00 a barrel when the market has driven it up to over $100.00? If they were going to do something like that, they would have done it last year. They could have, it doesn’t COST $147.00 to produce a barrel. If it did, NO ONE would sell a barrel for $40.00. Which they were doing around election time.

We all need to quit smoking whatever it is we are smoking, stop shilling for the big oil companies who just want to destroy what nature we have left, and get with reality.

As long as we are dependent on oil, it will not matter how many wells we have in Yellowstone, off the coast of Georgia and California, or in Alaska. The price we pay for a gallon of gas at the pump will still be dictated by the Saudis and Wall Street.

We need to demand that our car companies begin to seriously produce oil-independent automobiles. Not the one or two models that SOME produce (most make zero), but ALL of the models need to use as little oil or petroleum products as possible.

I keep hearing folks say that GM got in trouble because of the gas spike and the popularity of the monstrously huge SUV. "We were just building the cars that people want," they said.

Bull. If that is the case, where is my flying car?

Representative Michael Burgess' Town Hall slip-up

On Saturday, August 15, 2009, Representative Michael Burgess, Republican from Texas, held a town hall meeting in Denton, Texas. It seems that it was mostly civil, with the usual shouting matches. What I saw, mostly, were a bunch of senior citizens (on Medicare, I would wager) protesting the idea of the rest of us getting any such kind of health coverage. What I also saw was a woman ask Mr. Burgess why the Republicans, when they were in charge, didn’t pass some kind of health care reform. His reply was long and sidestepping, as politician answers tend to be. But what stood out to me was one statement in particular.
Rep. Michael Burgess-"...The Republicans have, and I’m not supposed to talk about this, the leadership, my leadership doesn’t like it, But it’s easier to poke holes in someone else than it is to defend your own product. We actually have a bill, which I participated in writing and we worked late into the night and many nights late in the spring to find something that would be, uh, you can’t fight something with nothing, and we needed a bill..." Excuse me? I mean, we all know this, but to have someone in the party actually admit at a town hall meeting that the agenda is not to make a better bill, but simply to defeat one… well, that is just un-American. Or not, I don’t know.
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said some weeks ago, about the President’s proposal for health care reform.
It seems to me that these guys are banking on their respective constituencies being too stupid to realize that they are not working for the people, but for their own, and corporate, gain.
So, given that maybe none of the bills being considered are the fix, maybe the Republicans should actually come up with something that will work. Or, would that be too much harder than simply poking holes in anyone else’s plan?
What is also interesting to me is that the "liberal" media has not covered this at all. I had to find this on Jon Stewart’s website. Local stations showed the question being asked, but cut away from the answer. CNN, who Rush Limbaugh often cites as the most liberal of the liberal, treated the exchange in the same manner. Apparently the media, who seem to have no problems covering (nonexistent) "death panels" or questions over our President’s citizenry, are afraid to show us exactly how the Republicans who supposedly represent us really think.

You can find the Michael Burgess exchange at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ue5S9ZFqv0

Foreign Aid... Local Aid

With all the debates over the economy, everyone seems to forget the human element in all this. A person who loses their income source is not far away from losing their place to live. Take, for instance, a woman in Fort Worth who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. She cannot obtain a release to return to work, so she has zero income. All of the churches and charitable organizations have run out of money due to the abject financial situation our nation is in. She faces eminent eviction, with no prospects of a place to stay. Many other people faced with job loss face the same outcome. The major problem here is that an eviction goes on one’s credit reports, making it nearly impossible to obtain any kind of living quarters. Are we, as a nation, comfortable with expanding the homeless population? In light of the fact that we spend over 100 billion dollars a year on FOREIGN aid, it is unconscionable that we allow so many of our own citizens to fall through the cracks. It is not the responsibility of my tax dollars to house and feed someone in Africa when so many of my fellow Americans so greatly need help. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with helping folks around the planet, but I do NOT think we should be doing it when we have needs here at home. As long as there are ANY homeless Americans, or in any other kind of need, any money that we, as a nation, send to foreign lands should dry up. Once we have our own people taken care of, then, and only then, do we need to worry about the rest of the planet’s population.

How to pay for health care

The more I hear people lament that any kind of health care reform is tantamount to socialism, the more it irks me to know that these same people will vehemently defend a corporation’s right to deduct expenses from their taxes. If Scroodapeep, Inc. decides that it needs 12 forklifts to operate its warehouse in New York, they get to write off half that cost as a business expense. That means that half that money, they do not pay taxes on. All because they have to have those forklifts in order to make their business run. Well, folks, I have to have a clothes to wear so that I may work. I also have to have a car in order to get to work. I have to have a license to drive that car. I also have to have gas, maintenance, safety and emissions inspections, registration and insurance in order to drive that car, to get me to work, so that I may earn a living. I cannot write off any of these expenses. That same corporation, if it chooses to supply health insurance to its employees, can write off that expense as well. If I, as a private citizen, have to provide my own health care, I cannot write off any of it. Why are we, the people, subsidizing large corporations in this way? I say, if your company needs a forklift (or 20) to operate, then maybe you should pay for them in full. If this means that you cannot make a profit, perhaps you do NOT actually need that forklift. Or any other piece of equipment, for that matter. It is seriously far less my job to buy your forklift than it is yours to help make sure I don’t have some communicable disease.
It is also funny to me that some of the same folks who will argue against a national health care plan on the basis that it will ration care, or that you will wait months for needed procedures, will also argue that ANYONE can go to an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay, and wait months for needed procedures. Apparently this is a far more palatable solution.
A lot of these same folks will also argue that government run insurance will ration care. Apparently none of these guys has been sick lately. Sure, if you have insurance now, you can choose any doctor you want to. As long as he/she is on the approved list. You can have any procedure you need done. As long as you have met your exorbitant deductible and that procedure is on the approved list.
I seriously don’t have argument against those who believe that people who can afford health care deserve to be healthy while those who can’t don’t. I think that has something to do with being a sociopath. Fascist? Same thing?

Health care fiasco

Thank you for your comments. I am heartened to see that at least some folks who do not think that government health care is the answer actually have at least a go at a solution. I think that, for the most part, you are right. Co ops, however, are not the answer. How about this then?
If you work for a company with thousands of employees and your company contracts with, say, Aetna for coverage, they pay a certain rate. If a company with 10 employees wants coverage with Aetna, they have to pay a much steeper rate, because they have so few employees. What if we were to say that Aetna (and all other insurance companies) have to pool ALL of their clients together and charge everyone that same low rate? After all, if they can justify a lower cost for a company with thousands of employees, wouldn't it follow that they should be able to insure EVERYONE for that much less?
The U.S. government has not shown any ability to run anything well, and pretty much all of us know that. This country is pretty famous for innovation. I cannot see why the folks trying to hash out some kind of health plan can't look at all of the different national plans on the planet, pick out what works, toss out what doesn't, and mangle it all together to come up with the best system on the planet. Just my take.
Read the comments, folks. And please, if you desire to add your own, be as thoughtful.

SAVE THE C.E.O.'s

If you are the CEO of an insurance company and you make 20 to 30 million a year, do you really want to see the government step in and knock your salary down to a million?

Who can live on that?

And imagine if they also tell you that you have to insure actual sick people? Good gumdrops, how are you going to pay for that extra villa in Milan?

How about this absurd proposal that you would be unable to cancel someone’s coverage because they committed the unpardonable sin of actually using their policy? How are you supposed to make a profit for your shareholders, pay exorbitant bonuses to your agents, AND keep your salary at a living wage if the government sticks their paws in your business?

The best thing you can do is to spread millions of bucks around to crank out propaganda against any of these kinds of shenanigans. First, you make sure that the policy-makers that you have been supporting for lo these many years actually REMEMBER who pays their bills.

Then you make sure that the folks in the media know that THEIR bread has been buttered by you as well. If you can get these guys to bend facts a bit, even maybe tell a few outright lies, maybe, just maybe, folks will believe that it is in their own best interests to keep you insanely rich.

If you think about it, what is going to happen to the bottom line of the insurance companies if anything resembling a government run, or even strongly regulated, health care system comes about?

So then why would anyone assume that the folks whose own best interests would be served by killing any such measure are going to tell us the truth about said measures?

My mother-in-law, God love her, was convinced (because of a right-wing radio propaganda show run by a former Republican senator) that, as a Medicare recipient, she would be required to get counseling every 5 years that would, in essence, encourage her to "do right by society and end your life". Something like 10 seconds of extensive and painstaking research on my part came up with plenty of refutations of this absurd notion. Unfortunately, most people won’t do that kind of in-depth, labor-intensive brainwork.

This kind of fear-mongering is why we have never been able to get any kind of medical reform.

Basically, folks, you can either sit back and let other people do your thinking for you, or you can actually use your computer to search. The solitaire game will still be there in 20 seconds.

Ladies, please!

I have worked for fast food joints. Which means I have cleaned my share (and likely yours) of bathrooms, both men’s and women’s. Ladies, seriously. What is the deal? It is evident to me, from my work as a late night restroom cleaner, that women, once they leave their homes, undergo some kind of fundamental change. They forget that they would rip their husband’s face off if he were to casually drop used toilet paper on the bathroom floor. If I were to forget to dry out the sink after washing my hands, people would ask (some weeks later) "hey, what ever happened to Mike? I haven’t seen him in ages." God forbid I leave soap residue on the countertop. And don’t get me started on towel etiquette, shower curtain care, or razor droppings.
I would totally expect a men’s room to be just nasty. Guys are, by nature, slobs. That’s why we keep you females around. Well, part of the reason. You tend to be soft and smell good too. And you can cook without (normally) having to use charcoal and enough lighter fluid to fuel a small aircraft carrier. And did I mention that you smell good? It wouldn’t surprise me to find that someone had urinated all over the mirrors in a men’s room. Or that somehow all of the toilet paper got "accidentally" flushed down the john. All at once. Or that some unfortunate brainiac somehow managed to get himself wedged into one of the stalls. Upside down.
But ladies, seriously. What is the deal? There are apparently things going on in the women’s facilities that I just do not want to be privy to (no pun intended). There are perfectly serviceable garbage receptacles in there, at least the ones I was responsible for. Yet, women in the wild seem not to understand their use. Let a man miss with so much as a toothpick at home and fur will fly and sofas will become beds. But in a public restroom, apparently all bets are off. There are things left on ladies’ room floors that I know what are used for, and have no desire to touch. There are things that I do not want to know the purpose of. All of the evidence gets left for the unfortunate (minimum wage, no tip) bathroom cleaner to deal with.
To clean a men’s room, all you need is a good pair of elbow length latex gloves, a sponge, and some soap. To clean a women’s room, you have to have a HAZMAT suit (OSHA approved) complete with breathing apparatus (suitable for use in a nuclear facility), a power washer (preferably loaded up with some kind of industrial solvent) several types of shovels, and hazardous waste disposal devices. Preferably nuclear powered.

The horrible accident (that wasn't)

So, my job. I clock in at our Fort Worth location, load my truck up with transfers for our Dallas location, and take it there. Usually, it is right around 8 am when I get to the Dallas store. I unload and leave there usually around 9. Felicia, my beautiful wife, normally calls me when she gets to work, so that I, the consummate worrywart, know that she made it OK. On this morning, there was no missed call, no message on my cell phone, so I called her and got her voice mail. I left her a message, something to the effect of "Hi honey, you forgot to call me when you got to work, call me when you get a chance."
Thinking nothing more, I started on my pickup route in Dallas and turned on the radio. To hear a traffic report about a horrible accident that shut down all but one lane of a 4-lane highway. The highway she drives to work on. And I haven’t heard from her. So, I call again. And get her voice mail. I now leave a message something to the effect of "Hey honey, call me and let me know that you weren’t involved in that accident on 35."
Twenty minutes later, I still haven’t heard from her. So… over the next 2 hours I call 22 times, leave something like 12 messages, each one progressively more frantic. Picturing her mangled and trapped in her car, unable to answer the phone. At one point I was actually in tears. If you don’t know me, take my word, I am a big manly type man. I don’t cry. I was SCARED. I mean, it wasn’t like her phone went straight to voice mail like it was turned off because she was in a meeting or something. It rang and rang, 4 or 5 times each call, before it went to message.
By the time she DID finally answer, I was a wreck. I was so relieved to hear her voice that my first reaction was "I am going to kill you". Loving husband that I am. She told me, over the hubbub of voices from the meeting she had attended, that this was not the time, we would discuss this later. She hadn’t noticed the 22 missed calls, or listened to the 12 frantic messages yet.
Okay, at least I knew she was alive, not trapped in a mangled car, bleeding to death.
About 20 minutes later, she calls me. By this time she has noticed the bazillion missed calls. And the 12 messages, each one more frantic than the last. One crying. So, she calls me and we begin to straighten out why I was so upset, when she says "hold on a sec" and apparently puts the phone in her lap. Then I hear the "ding ding ding" of the door chime as she opens the car door. Then I hear a man’s voice. "Lady, I will make this short… I am stuck here, and I need to be… blah blah blah," you know the drill. So all this time, I am saying into the phone "honey… honey… HONEY" when I finally hear her break into the guy’s spiel with "I will save you some time here, if you are asking me for money, I don’t carry cash, I can’t help you".
At which point she closes the door and picks up the phone. "Sorry about that" she say.
"Did you just open your car door for some guy you don’t know?" I ask.
"Well, I had to, to talk to him"
"Why didn’t you just roll down the window?"
"I couldn’t"
"You couldn’t. Why couldn’t you?"
"Well, because I am in your mother’s car, the windows are electric"
"So, why didn’t you stick the key in the ignition? What if he had been a psycho?"
"Well, I didn’t hang up the phone, you would have heard me screaming"
"Yes. And I would have done WHAT exactly? Hang up and call a cop and tell him that you are SOMEWHERE in Fort Worth being attacked? I don’t even know where you are."
"Oh," she says. "I’m at La Gran Plaza." Which makes me feel way better. La Gran Plaza is in the middle of gang territory. JUST where I want my wife opening her car door for some guy she doesn’t know from Adam.
This was the point where I told her that we were going to find out if the 85 bucks a month we are spending on her Jiu Jitsu class were worth it, because I was going to mangle her when she got home.
Sometimes I think that woman is purposely trying to give me either a stroke or an aneurysm. Anyone know if she has taken out a large insurance policy on me?
Oh. Speaking of insurance policy. So it iced here in Fort Worth a couple weeks ago. Since I normally ride a motorcycle, I thought it might be prudent to use Felicia’s car instead. Since we get off work at vastly different times, I had her ask a coworker for a ride home. Her coworker (a cop) told her to just get a large insurance policy on me and make me ride. The compassion is overwhelming.

addiction

I have recently been informed, by my wife, that I am a junkie.
My habit is apparently so heinous that it must be kept from my daughter at all costs. When my beloved caught me in the act of slaking this horrible thirst, she reacted as if I was lighting up a crack pipe.

It all started out innocently enough: we were at Wally-World and caved to our daughter’s incessant demands that we buy a watermelon. She had been riding my case for the better part of a week; wheedling, begging, and flashing that smile that girls are apparently born knowing works on guys.

The choice was to buy an approximately grapefruit-sized watermelon, seedless, organic for 4 bucks. Or to buy one that was about the size of a 1972 Lincoln, also seedless, but apparently grown using some kind of alien DNA structure that rendered it not-organic, for the same price. Being a cheapskate, I opted for the larger, alien-influenced one. We took it home and emptied out the refrigerator to make room for the melon.

After three days, I decided (with the help of a whining three-year-old: "daaaaaddy, when are we gonna eat the watermelon?" over and over and over, like a screwdriver repeatedly piercing my skull) that the melon was likely cold enough and I should go ahead and cut the thing.

So I went out to the garage and gathered up my two-wheel dolly and a chainsaw (the only implement I own large enough to attempt the procedure) and set to.

After changing clothes and cleaning watermelon guts off the ceiling, I gave some to my daughter, admonishing her not to drip on the recently flooded floor, and took a piece for myself.

I went to the sink, so as not to spill salt on the floor. Yes, I said salt. I don’t know where I got the habit, but I put salt on my watermelon. Makes it scrumptious.

My wife, who was washing up a few dishes, gasped at the brazen way that I, right out in the open, salted my fruit. Aghast that I hadn't even attempted to hide in shame, she dashed into the living room, scattering dishes on the way, (we needed new china anyway) to make sure our daughter wasn’t in danger of being corrupted by my horrible habit. Fortunately, the youngun wasn’t paying any attention to anything but Blue’s Clues on the TV and the watermelon she was busily keeping (mostly) from dripping all over MY seat on the sofa.

My wife stayed in the living room, making sure that my daughter didn’t get exposed to the nasty habit her father was exhibiting, until I was done eating.

God help me if my wife finds my M&M stash.

Who am I, anyway?

It seems to me that the GOP has no reason to see the economy recover. If everything stays bad, then come the 2010 mid-term elections, they can say "see? Should have voted for us". If the economy does better, they have nothing.

So, individual Republicans might do what they can to try to make the global economy recover, but as a party, they have zero incentive to try. Just thought I would point out to folks that you might want to keep an eye on your elected officials, especially if they have an (R) attached to their names.

I recently had an exchange with a friend that I thought I would pass along.

I had made some statement that made my friend question me, saying that he thought I was a Democrat.
Well, I do lean to the left some. I am not a Democrat, though.

I believe that if a woman who is not my wife wants an abortion, it’s none of my business. I believe she should make this decision very soon after she discovers that she is pregnant. I do not believe that insurance should pay for it unless the mother's life is in danger.

Same if two guys want to get married. Neither affects me at all.

I think if we were drilling and pumping all the oil under OUR soil, we wouldn’t have to drill in the ocean for years to come. Neither would we have to buy from the Saudis, whom I believe were truly behind 911.

I believe that if you want to take my guns away from me you better bring 19 people, because I have 18 shots and I don’t miss.

I believe that people not having health insurance costs us as a nation far more than giving them insurance would. One out of 38 people who are sick goes to the doctor, because the other 37 cannot afford it unless they are seriously ill. So disease spreads.

I believe that if you give more money (tax cuts) to the rich, they pass it around to other rich people or stash it away in some offshore account. If you give money (tax cuts) to the not-rich, they pass it to the rich people too, but at least the poorer people get to play with it too.

This argument that the rich create jobs with those tax cuts has been proven a lie by 8 straight months of job losses. The argument that they will trickle that wealth down is proven a lie by the fact that most folks who DO still have jobs haven’t seen a pay raise in years.

I believe that kids should be allowed to pray quietly in school if they want, and they should be allowed to have voluntary after school bible classes as well. As long as they are willing to extend that privilege to other religions. I do NOT believe that anyone should be forced to pray in a publicly funded institution, nor do I believe that any religious classes should be funded by taxes. Truly, teaching religion is the church's responsibility, not the public school systems'.

I believe that if the most expensive car in a church parking lot belongs to the preacher, that isn’t a church, it’s a cult. Jesus had to borrow a donkey to ride to his death.

I don’t believe that we should stop progress because it is going to adversely affect the psychedelic spotted 3-horned slug. Species have been going extinct for billions of years. If one can’t survive change, oh well.

I believe if someone murders someone else, they need to be put to death. Lethal injection is NOT cruel. As a matter of fact, it is a little too nice for my tastes. I think murderers should be put to death in the same fashion and time frame as their victim. With, if possible, just as much terror.

I think illegal still means criminal. The argument that we allowed illegal immigrants in here for so long we now have to accommodate them is rubbish. If I forget to leave my door locked when I leave for work, and I come home to find someone on my couch, watching my TV, drinking my beer, cleaning out my medicine cabinet and eating my food, I am not going to ask him politely to leave. Neither am I going to figure that, since he managed to get in and was there all day, now I have to support him and his family. I will shoot him. Done deal.

I generally vote for the candidate who is NOT holding the office already.

So you tell me. Am I a Democrat? Am I a Republican?

I will tell you this; in 94 I voted straight republican ticket on the congressional elections, largely because of their promises made in the contract with America. Which they failed to implement.
I voted for bill Clinton twice, because I knew he was lying when he said he didn’t inhale. And because I understood why he lied when asked if he had relations with Monica. Come on, if you are sleeping around on your wife, and someone asks you in front of her, they are almost 100 percent guaranteed to get a lie. I would have lied, you would have lied, and Newt Gingrich would have lied.
Also, that seemed kind of like a setup. I mean, why would she have failed to wash that dress?

We all pay, in some way.

So, my wife sprained her ankle. Not badly, she can still walk, but badly enough that it hurts to do so. She went to a doctor, who confirmed that she probably did, indeed, sprain her ankle. But he wanted her to go have some x-rays just to make sure. The diagnostic clinic he wanted her to go to was closed, and she didn’t want to wait until Monday and have to take yet more time off work. So the doctor told her she could go to an emergency room to have the x-rays taken. Just to be sure, she called her insurance company (named after a volcano in Sicily). She was informed that if she went to a free-standing diagnostic clinic, they would cover 100% of the cost of the pictures. If she, however, went to a hospital emergency room, they would only cover 80% of the $940.00 charge. Nine hundred and forty dollars? For pictures? Admittedly, they are fancy, see-through-your-flesh pictures, but they are, nonetheless, pictures. It seems to me that perhaps the insurance company is not the problem in this particular instance. If it truly costs that much to take a few pictures of an ankle, how can anyone say that we don’t have a health care problem in this country?Nine hundred and forty dollars. And that is with insurance. It is my understanding that insurance companies negotiate prices so that they get a good deal. Uninsured persons get charged even more. So if I, without insurance, were to need x-rays, I wonder how much it would cost. Far more than I will pay, I can assure you.So here is a good one to consider, especially if you think that there is no health care problem. I have no insurance. So if I get sick, I will not seek medical help unless and until I become incapacitated or close to it. Which means that if I get something communicable, I will pass it around before I am forced to see a doctor. I really feel sorry for folks if I get something not only communicable, but deadly. And I can assure you that I am not the only person in such circumstances. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with a desire to cause harm to others. This is simply out of a desire not to spend a lot of money to find out that I have a cold. It seems to me, however, that health care coverage reform is not all of what is needed. Perhaps putting the brakes on what gets charged might also be in order.
Interestingly enough, I heard some woman call into a radio program to say that she didn’t want some government bureaucrat deciding what doctor she could see or what procedures she could have done. I have to assume that she is OK with some insurance company flunky deciding these things. Which is what she has, if she is even lucky enough to have insurance at all.