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.