The GOP campaign of violence, and why it won't work

Violence breaks out at Tampa forum. Outside agitators bused in by Republican operatives and operating according to a plan created by top GOP leaders stormed a building today where a healthcare forum was scheduled to happen and attacked organizers and people who wanted to hear the Congressmen speak. They succeeded in winning the battle -- they managed to disrupt the forum to the point it had to be cancelled. But in the process they lost the war.

Violence is all the right wing has today. Their ideology has been discredited by the 8 years of Republican failure that preceded the election of President Obama, where family income declined for the first time since WWII. A sizable majority of Americans have repudiated the Republican ideology and the ignorance and hate that it embodies. The overwhelming majority of Americans want universal healthcare for all Americans -- 65% to 80% of Americans in every poll taken on the subject. Like with desegregation in 1965 where America decided that it was time for all African-Americans to have equal rights, America has decided that now is the time to defend the most fundamental right of all: the right to life. Now we shall make sure that not a single American dies for lack of health insurance -- unlike, alas, the 22,000 or more who die from lack of healthcare per year today. This is what America wants. The right wing has lost, been repudiated, failed, and has nothing to counter this -- nothing except their fear of a black President, their hatred of all those who don't look like them, and their willingness to commit violence.

But it did not work last time, and it will not work this time either. Angry mobs organized by this same segment of the population, angry mobs intent upon overthrowing rule of law and the democratic process, have been the norm with these people since the 1950's and 1960's, when they used violence against those who worked to end segregation in the South. The only reason we didn't see these mobs from the Reagan election until the Obama election was because the Republicans won -- they dominated politics from 1980 to 2008, a period of 28 years. But now they've lost, and it is getting ugly again. Well, I have this news for them: Organized violence against those standing up for the rights of African-Americans only discredited the cause of segregationists during the 1950's and 1960's, and organized violence against those standing up for a right to life for all Americans will only serve to further discredit the cause of you "deathers" who battle against hope and progress today. You "deathers" are on the losing side of history today as you were in the 1950's. The moment you resorted to violence you admitted that you were on the losing side of history. And as in the 1950's, we will overcome, we will prevail, and in forty years you, too, shall be grainy photographs in the back pages of history books, as relevant to everyday life as buggy whips and horse-drawn carriages.

- Badtux the Righteous Penguin

My *real* birth certificate

And yeah, Orly Taitz is still a shrieking nutcase who fled to Israel after submitting a forged document to a U.S. court...

-- Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin

Yay, the kitteh's fountain is on the way!

Yes indeedy, Amazon just emailed me that their new Drinkwell Platinum water fountain is on the way. My babies are just SOOOoooo spoiled... and maybe now The Mighty Fang will quit mugging me every time I go into the bathroom, grabbing my hand with his claws and pulling it towards the lavatory faucet to turn it on for him to drink out of.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Wolverines!

This just in: That right-wing spooge-fest "Red Dawn" is shooting a sequel. Since the bad guys of the original story, the Soviet Union, are now, err, sorta defunct, a new villain had to be found for the sequel. After much searching, a title has been decided upon:

Red and White Dawn.

The villains? Canadians. Yes, CANADIANS! We already know that Canada is a fascist nation, but soon they will emerge from their frozen hellhole in the Great White North and... and... conquer us all with their eeeeeevil fascist UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE! The horror, oh the horror!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Added: If the Canada angle doesn't work out, they could shoot a movie entitled "Green-White-Red Dawn" where millions of Mexicans invade, trampling our border guards under their sandaled feet while mariachi music blares and tipping their sombreros at the terrified white citizens of the USA. Oh wait, that's Lou Dobbs' show on CNN, already done, my bad!

Why universal healthcare is important to me

I've spent a lot of bytes on healthcare over these past four years (as the four years worth of "The Coming Epidemic" make clear). Why is that important to me, you ask?

Well, simple: It's personal.

Look. I'm closer to 50 than to anything below, and basically I'm a pumpkin if I get laid off from my current job. Almost nobody in the technology industry wants to hire folks with grey hairs, and that leaves independent consulting as my way to make a living. And the problem with independent consulting is, well... you have to buy your own individual health insurance. Which is not available to someone with my pre-existing conditions. Meaning I would be yet another one of the uninsured, giving me a 50% greater chance of dying if I got a serious illness such as cancer, which, given my personal history of exposure to many toxic chemicals (hey, there's a *reason* the Louisiana swamp penguin is so rare, Louisiana is a chemical stew!), is far more likely than I like to think about.

I have no problem paying for healthcare, mind you. Even as an independent consultant I'd make a fair chunk of change. I know where all the skeletons are buried in the technology industry, especially when it comes to Linux (I was one of the original Linux geeks back in the day and have been working with Linux for almost fifteen years now -- thus the whole penguin bit), and when the kids run into trouble and can't figure out how to make sh*t happen, I'm the go-to guy who comes in and straightens everything out and gets a project going on the right track again. But I simply can't buy it on the open market because insurers only want people who are completely healthy with no pre-existing conditions. They simply refuse to sell me insurance.

The reason why the group market works is that the Federal Government makes the group market accept everybody, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Well, that and the tax write-off, but that's a different issue. The current health insurance reform bill in the House of Representatives, HR3200, is not a be-all and end-all of health care reform. But at least it would allow me to buy individual "group" insurance that covers pre-existing conditions via the Health Insurance Exchange without me being an employee of some other company, and if I did become sick and unemployable while sick at least it qualifies me for Medicaid (right now single males without children are disqualified from Medicaid). While I believe the real solution to our nation's health care crisis is Medicare For All, I don't think we're going to be able to go there directly without going through this must-issue/must-have scenario set up by HR3200. Our political system simply is too dysfunctional to make that big of a change in things, even HR3200 is probably stretching what our dysfunctional political system is capable of doing. But at the very least HR3200 solves my immediate issue -- the fact that I'm turning into a pumpkin as we speak -- and if it passes, means I won't have to go to Canada to make my later years acceptably healthy.

-- Badtux the Healthcare Penguin

Spring cleaning panic

Spring cleaning continues. Hey, it is spring in the southern hemisphere, okay?! I finished up my computer desk (scary!), and tackled the electronics cabinet, managing to fill up a large bag with e-waste to haul to the recycling company today. While cleaning up my desk, I found an unopened utility bill and promptly panicked -- "OMG, they're going to turn my lights off!" I opened it up and sure enough, it was due on July 27. So I grumpily pulled up my online banking to pay them (and hoping my cash got there before my lights got turned off) and... hold it. I already paid them on July 23? Then what's this bill?! I looked more closely and it said... erm... July 2008.

Sigh. Tells you how long it's been since I cleaned off my computer desk.

While starting on the electronics cabinet I pulled down the shoeboxes full of old bills from 2003-2004 (which got re-filed into a file storage box to go to storage -- WTF do I need with 5 year old bills anyhow?!) and relocated tins full of USB and Firewire cables to that location. Before the tins got there, however, The Mighty Fang did. And that ridiculous cat found himself a mighty catch indeed... you may not be able to see it clearly here, but he's munching on a rubber band.

Yes, a rubber band. That stupid cat loves to chew on rubber bands. And the results at the other end are hilarious when he does, so I snatched the rubber band away as soon as I realized what he was doing and tossed it into a secure trash bin. So here is the Investigator of Open Cabinets in his full rubber band chewing glory...

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Lickity lick

The Mighty Fang spent about 5 minutes licking this trash bag. Unfortunately I could not get a picture of his little pink tongue in action despite dozens of photos. Oh well. Doesn't my carpet look nice now that it doesn't have encrusted cat puke all over it?

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Proof that Obama's Hawaii birth certificate is fake

Forget about that fake photoshopped Kenyan birth certificate that World Nut Daily and their nutcase "attorney" Orly Taitz are flogging, or that bogus Hawaiian one. I have come across President Barack Obama's *REAL* birth certificate. It proves that Obama was born in a foreign country called "Louisiana" and should immediately be deported as an illegal alien! (Click on picture to make it bigger):

Yes, President Obama was born in *LOUISIANA*! And his Mom was actually born in Shreveport, Louisiana rather than in Kansas, and his dad... his dad was born in Evangeline, Louisiana! So Obama is a COONASS, not an American!

Yes, this is a genuine Louisiana birth certificate, that I requested from the State of Louisiana in September 2002. It has the raised seal and everything. Note that it says "Certificate of Live Birth" at the top and, since I requested it after Sept 11 2001 when the records got computerized, it's on computer printout paper.

I also have a copy of this birth certificate from 1992, before the records were computerized. It is a photocopy of the actual birth record that was on file with Vital Records in New Orleans circa 196x (where x <5). The original long-form birth certificate from 196x says "Certificate of Live Birth" at the top also, but does have some information not on the computerized birth certificate, such as the race of the parents.

So anyhow, now you know the TRUE story about where Barack Obama was born. Forget that Kenya stuff, it's Louisiana! He just *says* he was born in Hawaii, because everybody knows that a coonass ain't qualified to be President of the United States :-).

-- Badtux the Louisiana Swamp Penguin

1992 copy of birth certificate, slightly smudged, the semi-mythical "long form" no longer available from State of Louisiana due to being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina:

Breaking News! Little Green Footballs (!!!) uncovers Obama's *REAL* birth certificate!

I can see my carpet again!

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting fresh cat photos recently. The reason is that my carpet was starting to look disgusting with all the cat puke stains all over it, and I was embarrassed to take photos of cats lounging on that. So today I vacuumed and shampooed. Wow, I didn't know my carpet was tan instead of being various colors of orange and black and grey!

I've also been cleaning out my storage room. I think I've filled a dumpster so far with crap that I don't need, never will need, and never would use. And I just started. Also found some crap to sell, like an 18 foot ladder, and motorcycle ramps -- WTF do I need with motorcycle ramps, I own neither a motorcycle nor a pickup truck! A little extra dough in these economic times never hurts. So I exchanged them for some foldin' money.

Hopefully by the end of next week I'll actually be able to fit my hard top into the storage room and put the convertible soft top on my Jeep. Just in time for autumn, LOL!

Oh yeah, to deal with the cat puke, I just pulled the trigger on a new Furminator and a Drinkwell Platinum cat water fountain. Never let it be said that I skimp where the kittehs are concerned :).

-- Badtux the Housecleaning Penguin

The Coming Epidemic, Part IV

In Part I in 2006, I explained how lack of funding for preventative care, and a pool of uninsured that got just enough care to keep them from dying but not enough care to cure them, virtually guarantees the mutation of a virulent and deadly disease that will go pandemic and kill millions of Americans at some point in the next 20 years.

In Part II in 2007, I talked about why various incarnations of RomneyHillaryMassCare would not stop the race towards more virulent and deadly superbugs with no effective treatment.

In Part III in 2008, I talked about antibiotic-resistant TB, and how lack of universal healthcare was breeding more and more deadly versions of TB. Antibiotic-resistant TB is now an epidemic in this nation's ghettos and prisons, and all it needs is one mutation for virulence before it starts affecting all of us, insured and uninsured alike. I speculated that this was but one of the many bugs that our lack of universal healthcare was allowing to percolate under the scenes to mutate into superbugs that would strike down millions of Americans at some point in the next 20 years.

So now it is 2009, and time for our next update to The Coming Epidemic. Where are we today?

Well, on the healthcare front HR3200 sets up a variant of RomneyHillaryMassCare. It will be better than the current system, because it will reduce the size of that pool of unhealthy people significantly (if Massachusetts is the correct model, only 3% of the population will be locked out of the healthcare system at that point, most of them being folks here illegally). But 3% of the U.S. population is still 9 million people -- a significant pool of unhealthy people for disease organisms to burble around and mutate in. And the problem is that we do not entirely deprive them of healthcare -- we will give them just enough treatment to keep them alive (and allow the disease organisms to mutate in response to our treatments), but not enough follow-on treatments to actually kill the organisms and prevent the mutated organisms from spreading. And another 15% of the U.S. population is reliant upon Medicaid. Medicaid disbursements have been reduced so much in so many states in response to the current economic depression that in many states, what Medicaid recipients get is "ghetto care", little better than what the totally uninsured get. Once again, it keeps them alive long enough for the disease organisms to mutate, but doesn't give them sufficient care to kill all the mutated disease organisms and keep them from spreading.

As I've repeatedly pointed out, lack of medical care is not a pandemic generator in 3rd world countries because any organism which mutates for deadliness dies out before it can spread to the rest of the population, or can be easily treated with existing treatments because without any healthcare at all, organisms don't mutate for resistance to antibiotic and anti-viral drugs. But we're "civilized" -- we give our poor just enough health care to survive, but not enough to cure them. So now we hear that H1N1 is going to affect 2 BILLION of the world's population over the next couple of years. And right now, there is neither an effective vaccine nor a really effective treatment, indeed, even at the current level of infection countries' health systems are being strained diagnosing and treating H1N1.

I'm not saying that H1N1 is "it", any more than antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis is "it". I'm saying that the trend line towards my prediction of three years ago -- that within twenty years we would have a world-wide epidemic that would kill a significant percentage of the world's population, including millions of Americans -- is looking far more prescient than I could have imagined three years ago, when I thought I was just slinging a random prediction out onto a blog. And pandemics don't care how much money is in your wallet or how much health insurance you have. They're equal opportunity killers. So the anti-universal-healthcare nimnuts are putting their own lives at risk. But they care more about their precious ideological purity than about reality.

-- Badtux the Healthcare Penguin

Caturday cat blogging

Well, no cat in this vid, but it's about cats anyhow:

-- Badtux the Amused Cat-owned Penguin

The Mighty Fang's massage

The Mighty Fang gets a cat massage. He is purring big-time during this whole process. He's just a big floppy shiny liquid-eyed doofus.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

And the birthers flock like hooded doves...

KKK hoods, that is.

It's all about one thing, and one thing only: Obama's race. "Everybody" knows that those Negros are lazy shiftless liars. So even though Obama says he was born in Hawaii, "everybody" knows he must be lying.

There is not a lick of evidence that Obama was born anywhere except where he says he was born. You've seen the birth certificate, as have I, and you've seen the statement by Hawaii's births registrar, as have I, and neither of us have seen anything that contradicts their statements -- and neither have the birthers. But they automatically assume Obama is lying because, well, he's BLACK. And everybody knows those Negros are all shiftless liars.

-- Badtux the Racism-smellin' Penguin

Universal health care is... terrorism?!

Left: Is Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri really Batman's adversary, The Joker, in disguise?

Universal healthcare is terrorism? That's the latest Fox News talking point.

I just have one question to ask Fox News at this point. As you probably know, Israel hates terrorism. Hates it with a passion. They do everything they can to stamp out terrorism with every asset and resource that they have.

And Israel has universal healthcare.

So, Fox News: Are you saying that Israel's government is committing terrorism against the Israeli people?

Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) say that Medicare is evil and should be eliminated. I heartilly recommend that the GOP run on this platform in the 2010 elections. Running on a platform to eliminate LBJ's socialized government healthcare will be, like, just SO much a win for the Goopers. Medicare is the second-most-popular government program *ever* (behind only Social Security), and nothing will elect Democrats better than the Goopers running against Medicare. Permanent Democratic majority, woot!

-- Badtux the "Gah! The Stupid! It burns!" Penguin

Jefferson Davis: the Donald Rumsfeld of the Confederacy

My take, from reading on the American Civil War, is that Jefferson Davis was the Donald Rumsfeld of the Confederacy. He made bizarre personnel decisions based upon personality rather than upon whether people were doing the right thing. He utterly ignored significant logistical problems such as the state of the Confederate railroads, diverting all resources needed to keep the Confederate logistical and communications infrastructure going into building ironclads that made no (zero) difference in the outcome of the war. He relieved generals who were doing a good job with limited resources, such as Joe Johnson who was trying to keep Sherman from marching anywhere Sherman wanted, and micromanaged things that did not need micromanaging such as the operations of the Army of Virginia. He appointed people because they were yes-men rather than because they were the best man for the job, he was arrogant, he was a tyrant towards his subordinates, in short, it is unclear how this man could have ever been considered qualified to be President of the Confederate States of America. Except, well, he had been Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce so everybody apparently assumed he would know how to run a war better than some random joe off the street. But he didn't.

My take: Jefferson Davis shows that a military background is no guarantee that a man can lead. The Confederacy's logistical problems were enormous. At the beginning of the war, for example, the Confederacy had only one ironworks capable of building locomotives (in Richmand VA). Yet Davis pursued a quick and glorious victory while ignoring the logistical problems entirely, diverting that ironworks to building ironclads rather than maintaining the Confederate railroads, eventually leading to the collapse of the Confederate rail network, and, therefore, the collapse of the Confederate armies as they literally starved while thousands of tons of food rotted at railheads for lack of trains to move them to where the armies needed them. Tactics win battles. Logistics win wars. By ignoring logistics, by putting the railroads way down on the priority list to where he didn't even give his "railroad czar" a staff or any power to nationalize recalcitrant railroads the way Lincoln did, President Davis insured the collapse of the Confederacy as its armies literally starved to death.

What is bizarre is the cult that Southerners built around Jefferson Davis after the war. He had clearly been incompetent and inept as President of the Confederacy. Yet every single Southern state has counties named after him, monuments all over the place to him, and so forth. It is to laugh, how the losers build a cult around the person who led them to disaster.

-- Badtux the Puzzling Penguin

I am becoming ordinary

I sold my V-Strom 650 today, my last motorcycle. I am now that much more boring. I am sad :-(.

-- Badtux the Boring Penguin

So what's the deal on healthcare R&D?

So will increasing the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system cause healthcare R&D to decline? Let's take a look, first of all, at pharmaceuticals R&D, which accounts for roughly half of all healthcare R&D (sorry for the blurry screenshot of an OECD data set, unfortunately it was impossible to save the graph directly, click on it to make it bigger): As you can see, the U.S. may be a huge player because of the sheer size of its economy -- roughly the same size as the entire European Union combined -- but as a percentage of national income (GDP), the United States is an also-ran in pharmaceuticals research.

So now what happens when we add non-pharma healthcare R&D into the picture? The U.S. comes out looking a bit better then:

The blue is government health R&D spending, the white is private R&D spending. Still, even with the better US showing in non-pharma R&D, the picture is clear. The United States does not spend a large percentage of its gross national income on health R&D compared to other OECD nations -- only 0.45%, as vs. 0.68% for Sweden, for example.

So, now let's consider the notion that reducing health care expenditures via increased efficiencies (as vs. rationing) will somehow reduce these R&D expenditures. First, note that over half of these R&D expenditures are government expenditures. The notion that governments will reduce their R&D spending because of removal of waste from the health care system is ludicrous. Secondly, the U.S. currently spends 17% of national income on health care. The notion that the 0.25% of GDP necessary for private R&D to continue cannot be funded at that spending level is ludicrous.

In short: If you look at the sheer scale of health care spending, compared to the much smaller scale of R&D spending, you'll note that private R&D accounts for less than 1.5% of current healthcare spending. The notion that capping expenditures at the current rate and forcing increased efficiencies upon the system will somehow drive private healthcare R&D out of the market is less than compelling given just how small the percentage of healthcare spending devoted to R&D really is.

-- Badtux the Healthcare Economics Penguin

Suspended animation

Over on MotoTux, I talk about Death Wobble and steering engineering as I fix a mysterious shimmy.

-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

Should Bernanke be reappointed?

That is the question that President Obama has to answer, since the end of Ben Bernanke's first term of office is coming up at the end of this year. And on this question I firmly stand with one of the economists that I respect more than anybody else in the economics world, Nouriel Roubini, whose claim that Ben Bernanke prevented the current recession from becoming the Great Depression 2.0 is likely true.

Look: Bernanke did *everything* that a central banker is supposed to do in a crisis of this sort. He slashed interest rates, he injected massive amounts of liquidity into the financial markets via every means at his disposal, he pushed trillions of dollars of money into the economy by cranking the Fed's presses into overdrive, there isn't a central banker anywhere on this *planet* who has ever done better than Bernanke when faced with $4.5 *TRILLION* in asset value disappearing out of the economy in the aftermath of a bubble collapse. The fact that none of this was a magic bullet that magically solved the problem is irrelevant. There *isn't* a magic bullet available to a central banker when so much wealth vaporizes out of your economy. Bernanke did everything that Fed control of monetary policy allows. Beyond that point he was reliant upon the politicians to do the right thing -- and, alas, the record of the politicians in response to this crisis is mixed. But that's not Bernanke's fault. Bernanke did his job. It's the politicians who didn't do theirs.

In short: Bernanke should be reappointed. He has done his job and done it well, and his speeches make it clear that he knows what his next job is going to be once the economy starts chugging along again (i.e., start pulling back to prevent hyperinflation). There is no (zero) reason to not re-appoint him, other than partisan politics, which is a darn foolish thing to indulge in when talking about something as important as the value of the dollar.

-- Badtux the Economics Penguin

Another 12 mile hike

Just got in about 45 minutes ago and ate some supper. Now I'm heading to bed. I'll leave you guys with a cat to keep you company:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

-- Badtux the Tired Penguin