It's amazing, how it's always these little weedy types who always manage to do things like down 12 tubs of popcorn or 40 hotdogs or whatever... and I don't think it's an accident that she's Korean. As I mentioned before, those Koreans are nuts.
-- Badtux the Amazed Penguin
instead, it's coming out of yours and mine. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has agreed to pay Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield $2 million as part of a settlement for wrongfully arresting him in connection with the 2004 Madrid terror attacks. The FBI even apologized, which I thought was against the law for any government official or agency to do ("we're the government, we don't NEED to apologize!").
Under Bush's "omnipotent unitary executive" theory of power, he has the power to arrest anybody anywhere for any reason as a 'terrorist', and the FBI arrested Mayfield under that principle. Maybe if the Chimperor got whinged in his pocket... awe no, he'd just expect Poppy to bail him out of that one too, just like with the Iraq Study Group. Well, given that the Chimperor has said he's going to ignore the ISG's "cut and shuffle off" strategy (as vs. "cut and run"), maybe that's a bad comparison...
-- Badtux the "Hit'em where it hurts" Penguin
So Jim was tempted to slug the liar-in-chief when the Liar-in-Chief tried to make political hay out of Jim's son, and refused to do a photo-op with the President or go through a reception line to shake the President's hand. Jim, apparently, doesn't suffer fools gladly, and doesn't pretend to. He treats fools the same way he treated the Viet Cong.
This is why I predict Jim will be a one-term Senator. Our electorate has little patience for straight talkers and straight shooters. They want lies, soothing lies, lies that they are a good people, God's chosen people, Americans, and thus they need not care, need not strive for anything beyond their pathetic little useless lives of fornicating and defecating and masticating and accumulating shiny baubles of no import...
In a kingdom of liars, an honest man may be elected, but he will then either become as corrupt as those who preceded him, or be forced out of office, for honesty is the *LAST* thing the American electorate wants. Because honestly, we as a people are selfish, self-interested, ignorant, and possessed of an unwarranted sense of entitlement that would be laughable if it did not lead to such deadly results for the rest of the world. And a little bit stupid, too. Thus why we as a people elect fellow stupid people like George W. Bush to office, or people like John McCain who pretend to be "straight shooters" but in reality are as corrupt as any, and decry "dome-heads" like Al Gore and John Kerry as "boring" because they use these big multi-syllable words 'n stuff, y'know...
The recent election doesn't change that reality. People weren't mad at the Republicans because of the Iraq invasion, corruption, or spending like drunken sailors on liberty while borrowing money from our nation's enemies to pay the bills. They were mad at the Republicans because we're *losing* in Iraq, and that is incompatible with that unwarranted sense of entitlement that says that we're *entitled* to win wars. It's, like, *un-American* to lose a war.
Yessirree, proud to be an American...
- Badtux the Cynical Penguin
is only for good God-fearin' Christians, not for evil heathen darkies.
Welcome to the United States of AmeriKKKa, where we might as well all go around wearing this attire nowdays:
Remember, if you're brown, or non-Christian, or simply have views to the left of Ghenghis Khan, you're just a nigger in today's America, and it's only right that you have fewer civil rights than good white God-fearin' Christians. Why, you ought to be just glad that good God-fearin' Americans don't lynch ya, yessiree!
I am soooo proud to be an American....
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Did you know that the majority of engineers graduating from college here in the United States never manage to find an engineering job?
The big companies are only hiring Indians and Chinese on H1B's, and ya gotta know the right person at a small company to get a job there 'cause else it goes to the second cousin of the wife of the Vice President of marketing. While overall unemployment is low for college-educated people, there's a helluva lot of kids with college degrees delivering pizzas and driving taxis or saying "do you want fries with that order, sir?".
Meanwhile, a good fixer is never out of work, whether he fixes cars, motorcycles, plumbing, or electrical wiring. Frankly, it makes me wish I'd stuck with that whole electrician thing, a good electrician is never out of work...
No, I'm not unemployed right now. Was just reading an article about an "engineering shortage" and how there wasn't enough engineers graduating to fill all the available jobs, and snorting "Bullshit!". If there wasn't enough engineers graduating, companies would be swarming even the smallest engineering schools looking for engineers. They're not. The big companies only look at the "top twenty" engineering schools, and otherwise hire from Tata and its ilk. The small companies don't look, period.
- Badtux the Bushit-smellin' Penguin
Hmm...
New York city cops blow away unarmed dude by putting a couple dozen bullets into him.
Iraq is a mess.
Penguin movie is a big hit.
Dear Leader sez that, despite all evidence to contrary, Iraq is just peachy keen and is not, not I say, in the midst of a bloody civil war.
Hmm, I go on vacation and the same old same old happens. I should have just queued up a half dozen "news" articles and posted them while I was gone, nobody would have ever noticed I was gone. I could have reused some of my headlines from anytime in the past two years... doesn't anybody learn? Anybody? Hello? Hellooooo?!
-- Badtux the Dejavu Penguin
So I stagger back onto my iceberg after riding for six hours in the rain at 15mph (yes that's right it took me SIX HOURS to cover NINETY MILES because #$%@! Californicators don't know how to drive in the rain (they're almost as bad as the Zonies when it comes to rainy weather, they screech all over and drive 5mph and smash into each other left and right)), err, I'm getting Lispy on you guys here sorry, but I'm tired. But the cats have other ideas. I walk through the door they both start talking to me and rubbing up against me. A short trip into the kitchen showed why -- they'd managed to eat five pounds of food in seven days. EEEP!
Anyhow, I'm tired, so I'm going to bed, if the cats will let me...
-- Badtux the Tired Penguin
- Badtux the Bemused Penguin
Yes, boys and girls, still recycling old photos. This is a Northern California salamander. Temporarily un-flattened, but many of his brethren on that particular road were not so lucky.
-- Badtux the not-flat Penguin
Got a couple of comment spams, so now only registered Blogger users can post comments. Hopefully the comment spammers will go away in a bit and I can open comments back up, but it's too hard to clean up while I don't have good access to the Internets...
Badtux the "Are you SURE it's illegal to kill spammers?" Penguin
-- Badtux the "Okay, so Blogger photo uploads ain't workin'" Penguin
As I try to get everything packed for my annual migration, the Mighty Fang, unhappy at his sofa being used for something besides sleeping, settles down amidst the chaos and takes a nap.
From left to right: Large waterproof duffel bag. Fanny pack (straps to number plate on the front of the bike). Large cat. Fender tool pouch (straps to front fender). Large top box (mounts on luggage rack on back of bike). Needless to say, the cats are not happy with having their sofa preempted for motorcycle luggage packing purposes...
I will be posting sporadically or not at all over the next couple of weeks. You might check from time to time anyhow just to see if I've managed to upload some photos...
- Badtux the Migratory Penguin
At least, that's what World Nut Daily tells me. They solemnly inform me that: Google hates America's veterans but loves Canada's, Britain's, and Australia's veterans. Google employees donate money to evil terrorists like Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and Hilary Clinton who want to KILL US ALL! Google accepts ads pointing out that Tom Delay accepted bribes, but won't accept World Nut Daily's ads pointing out that Nancy Pelosi eats raw babies when she isn't defecating upon flags!
It's clear, we must all quit using Google RIGHT THIS MOMENT or... or... THE TERRORISTS WIN!
Hold on, Blogger is owned by Google? Err, never mind...
-- Badtux the almost-as-dignified Penguin
I got comment spam! A comment spammer left this in my comments:
Speaking of impeachment, our new majority should actually USE its subpeona power to launch a REAL independent investigation into 9/11. One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases.
He then proceeded to post about 500 lines of stuff without any line breaks or paragraph breaks. I deleted it, of course, because 500 lines of stuff that has no relation to the posting is just plain spam.
Anyhow, here's my opinion on that: There have been too many whistleblowers come forward and say that the Bush Administration dropped the ball on the 9/11 terrorists for me to believe that there was anything other than willful blindness (at most) involved. Richard Clarke, for example, says that the FBI already knew that several of the hijackers were al Qaeda. And there's the famous Phoenix memo where a frustrated FBI agent tries to get permission to tap the phones of hijackers doing flight training there. In other words, there's just too much paper trail here from people who do NOT like the Bush Administration. It may be that the Bushies deliberately turned their head at the preparations for the attack, and deliberately let the hijackers get on the planes. But the notion that the hijackings were an "inside job", so to speak, just don't fly.
As for the "controlled demolition" of the WTC towers, I talked to a very anti-government architect, and he says that "pancaking" as was seen here is exactly what he would expect in the situation, where the fireproofing was displaced by the impact and the building's core served as a stack to turn the vaporized fuel into a blast furnace capable of melting steel. Remember, steel is melted at the foundary that creates it using nothing other than natural gas and air. And jet fuel has even more energy than natural gas.
As for the notion that devout Muslims surely would not engage in behavior that contradicts their religion: Ted Haggard. Ted apparently devoutly believes all that crap he spews about how homos are evil and stuff. Yet he did the dirty with another dude anyhow. Human nature isn't changed by the fact that one has adopted a religion, and seemingly "moral" Muslims go off the tracks just as often as seemingly "moral" Christians.
In short: Two jet airliners piloted by hijackers ran into the WTC towers and brought'em down. That's the facts, jack. A jet airliner piloted by hijackers ran into the Pentagon. That's the facts, jack. We might quibble whether the Bushies knew and turned their heads to make sure that they got their "Pearl Harbor" event that they wanted, but the fact that there were hijackers and jets and that this is what caused everything to happen... well, that's off the table.
-- Badtux the Conspiracy Penguin
Err, maybe not.
Now that the Democrats have taken both houses of Congress, what does it mean? President Bush is going to continue doing exactly whatever he wants to do, regardless of what Congress says. Bush holds to President Andrew Jackson's view of the powers of the Presidency. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Jackson had no authority to remove the Cherokee to Oklahoma, Jackson said "Mr. Marshall has made his ruling, now let him enforce it" and removed them anyhow. If Congress passes a law that says that Bush can't do this, that, or the other, Bush will shrug and say "Congress has made their law, now let them enforce it." After all, he is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military, which, as ole Governor Earl K. Long of Louisiana pointed out when telling the Louisiana legislature why he wasn't going to defy a desegregation ruling, "they got the goddamned atomic bomb!"
Thus why I haven't exactly been jumping up and down for joy, because the only resort that Congress has, in that case, is to impeach Bush. And as Nancy Pelosi noted, that ain't happening. Impeachment is off the table for the simple reason that the Democrats don't have the 60 votes in the Senate. They could create a circus, but that's about it.
So what about Nixon, you ask? But that was a different Republican Party. That was the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater -- dignified men of principle in pinstriped suits. Nixon resigned because his own Republican Party bolted from lock-step support of Nixon and Barry Goldwater went to Nixon, with several members of the congressional Republican leadership behind him, and told Nixon rather bluntly to either resign or we're going to vote with the Democrats to impeach you. I don't see any leader in the modern-day Republican party with that sort of integrity or that willingness to pitch Bush II over the rails of the sinking ship of state.
Pelosi can change this by investigating, investigating, investigating, pounding at the corruption in the Bush administration (and lord knows there's plenty of corruption to pound at). But short of Bush doing something stupid like hiring thugs to break into Pelosi's psychiatrist's office to dig up dirt on her and said thugs getting caught by the cops, I don't know if even that is enough to break the Republicans away from Bush enough that they'd vote to impeach him.
Not to mention that impeaching Bush means... President Dick Cheney. Somehow I doubt that Darth Cheney would be an improvement!!
-- Badtux the Skeptical Penguin
Expanded from a comment I made at Spontaneous Arising, crossposted in slightly revised form over at the Mockingbird's Place.
  |
| President Darth Cheney prepares to bite the head off of a cute kitten for his mid-day meal, shortly after taking his daily restorative bath in the blood of nubile young virgin girls. |
Sierra Trading Post has darn good prices on closeouts for hiking/backpacking/traveling clothing. Like, $20 for nylon zip-off pants that would normally cost you $60 if bought at REI or etc...
Mountain Sports has great prices and free shipping on most stuff for orders over $50.
Campmor has even better prices, but not quite as big a selection of things like drybags and map pouches and such.
I'm about to start packing the bike for my annual migration... I'll try to post a picture of it when it's all packed, just your basic two-wheeled pack mule :-).
- Badtux the Campin' Penguin
I understand we had an election yester... oh look! Over there! It's a Britney Spears white trash divorce!
Hey, a penguin has to keep his priorities straight, right? I mean, c'mon. What's an election, when there's white trash to make fun of?!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
One experiment I want to try: Hot sauce as salad dressing. Hmm...
-- Badtux the Hot Penguin
I managed to get it working by switching the Treo 700P to Bluetooth syncing, which actually works with the Palm (it doesn't work with the HTC Wizard, because Microsoft Activesync can't seem to keep track of where the Windows XP Bluetooth stack is plopping the pseudo-serial-port... pitiful, just pitiful). So I sync the HTC with the USB tether, and the Palm with Bluetooth. But boy, it sure would be nice to be able to sync the Palm using the USB tether again... anybody got both to sync while tethered? Curious penguins want to know!
- Badtux the Technogeek Penguin
Bleh. Penguins were not designed to eat lettuce. Penguins were designed to eat pizzas. With anchovies.
Alas, health says no :-(. Weight bumped up a bit above what's healthy for me, so it's back to low-cal chow for a couple of weeks... bleh. Just bleh.
-- Badtux the Calorie-restricted Penguin
40% of Californians voted via absentee ballot this year. I'm one of them. Breaking away from work to find my polling place, stand in line, yada yada yada... who needs that hassle?
Democrats want people to vote and pass laws making it easy to vote. Republicans pass laws discouraging people from voting and indeed the most widely syndicated Republican comic strip author (Bruce Tinsley) has spent the last week encouraging people NOT to vote. So who really believes in democracy? (Hint: It ain't Republicans!).
Personally, I think we ought to just do the whole purple finger thing and just let anybody vote who shows up at the polling place. Fuck all this voter registration shit. If you're in America, you get to vote, because that's what democracy is all about. But what's good enough for Afghanistan and Iraq is, apparently, not good enough for the good ole U.S. of A... we gotta make sure all our voters are numbered and classified and that only "our" kind of people vote (not "those" kind of people... you know, THOSE people wink wink?) and so forth...
Democracy in America. It'd be a good idea.
-- Badtux the Votin' Penguin
Yes, it's election day, though I voted two weeks ago (via paper absentee ballot) so I get to stay at work. Just curious: how big do you think the Diebold Bounce will be today? Will the Republicans gain 3%, 5%, 7% from the Diebold Bounce?
Meanwhile, I'm going to be boning up on my Spanish... como se dice, "expatriate" en espanol?
-- Badtux the Bouncy Penguin
Now that I have ActiveSync going for my Windows Mobile PDA, Palm Desktop suddenly refuses to sync my Treo 700p. GAH! The Evil Microsoft strikes again! (Unfortunately the Treo 700p doesn't do WIFI, so I need the PDA too if I wish to guarantee connectivity on the road...).
So now Saddam Hussein has been condemned to die. No tears for Saddam here. But it does raise the question: What's the point?
It's not as if killing Saddam is going to bring back any of his victims, after all. It's not going to protect any future victims from Saddam either. That would be quite well taken care of by simply putting him into a new version of the Spandau Prison somewhere outside of Iraq for the remainder of his natural life (which is not likely to be long anyhow). So what's the point?
Well, that's clear. The point of the death penalty is vengeance. Period. Otherwise Death Row prisoners would not be on automatic suicide watch (can't have the prisoners off themselves and deny us our petty vengeance, after all!). And the Bible is pretty clear on vengeance -- it be agin' it. "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord" and all that jazz, y'know.
And death by hanging is especially vengeful, its whole point being cruelty and vengeance. Yet the right-wing psychos insist it's a great thing for someone like Saddam, despite the fact that it's vengeance, not necessity. I suspect these psychos claim to be Christian. Pathetic. Simply pathetic. Anybody who claims to follow a certain philosophy, yet so obviously has never read the holy book of said philosophy, is... hmm... how shall I put it? Deluded? Demented? Word just ain't comin' to me...
Now, there's one more argument used in support of the death penalty: That it would have some sort of "deterrent effect", i.e., prevent other people from committing crimes. Let's put an end to that one altogether. Texas, Florida, and Louisiana are among the leaders nationwide in executions -- and lead the nation in murders per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, that "sinful" state of Massachusetts, with no death penalty, has close to the lowest murder rate in the nation. If you look through the list in the Uniform Crime Report of cities with populations over 10 thousand, you rarely see a city in Mississippi or Texas without at least one murder. The large majority of cities in Massachusetts have no murders. Anybody who thinks the death penalty deters murder is either an ignorant fool too stupid to look up the actual numbers, or a liar. Or willfully ignorant, just pulling bullshit out of his ass in order to justify vengeance.
And the notion that hanging someone like Saddam is going to ddeter some other evil dictator from offing his own people... well, that one doesn't even pass the laugh test. I mean, c'mon. That whole "Evil Dictator" thing just sorta requires offing bunches of your own people... somehow I doubt that any evil dictators elsewhere are going to lose sleep because Saddam is hanging from a tree in the middle of Baghdad! I mean, c'mon. can you see Kim Jong-Il losing any sleep because Saddam is getting hung? No? Didn't think so...
So it's clear. Hanging Saddam isn't Christian, and all those people gloating over how Saddam is going to be hung aren't Christians. If they claim to be Christians, they're lying. Perhaps, most importantly, to themselves. Somehow I suspect they'll get a real awakening when they close their eyes the last time and get a whiff of the brimstone awaiting them...
-Badtux the non-vengeful Penguin
Cross-posted over at the Mockingbird's place
Preparing for my annual migration. Got a Panasonic ES4815 Travel Shaver yesterday, tried a couple of stores, finally found it at The Sharper Image in the mall. Thing runs on two AA batteries (runs fine on the rechargables), and is more compact than a regular razor and a small can of shaving soap, while not requiring water (important, since my annual migration ends up in the middle of a desert). It doesn't shave as well as a blade, but shaves fine for when I'm migrating. I also got a new baklava, one designed with a helmet liner built in and a nice fleece neck muff. This will feel nice on my head when the weather is cold! Also got a Fog City shield for my helmet to keep it from fogging up, and some velcro and double-sided tape for making a neck gaiter out of the heavy-duty vinyl-coated fabric from a cut-up cheap Sierra Trading Post dry bag (that costed me a whole $10 on clearance).
For some reason, motorcycle rain gear doesn't seem to include protection for the neck area, and on multi-hour trips in the rain water ends up running down one's neck and back. Ick. In the past I've made ad-hoc neck gaiters out of plastic garbage bags as required to stay dry in the rain, but they are noisy and difficult to deal with (not to mention that the duct tape is messy!). The vinyl-coated fabric is too heavy to flap, and the velcro closure will make it much easier to put on and take off. (The double-sided tape is for making the "U" bend at the top to a) keep water from being pushed over the top by the wind, and b) keep the top from cutting into the skin).
I'm still deciding what to do about the blog while I'm off on my migration. While I'll be hauling along my WIFI Win-CE PDA which is capable of using the Blogger API to blog, there really isn't going to be much to blog about during the trip, since I have no way of getting photos from my camera to the PDA (my travel camera doesn't do Bluetooth). Carrying a laptop while migrating via motorcycle doesn't work too well, unfortunately, because of limited space and too much vibration.... sigh.
Anyhow, I should be back on a regular posting schedule tomorrow. Which has been way TOO regular lately, but...
-- Badtux the Verbose Penguin
I have a rule: I don't watch movies in theatres. Sorry, sticky floors, screaming children, cell-phone-yakkin' morons, and the woman with the beehive hairdo who seems to always find the seat right in front of me just don't do it for me.
Last time I broke this rule was for Fahrenheit 9/11. That was an interesting experience. But I'm getting the urge to break this rule again for the Borat movie. Pretty much all the reviewers agree that it's the funniest thing they've seen in a long time -- and wickedly snarky about the state of American culture.
Question: Should I?
-- Badtux the Inquisitive Penguin
Bumped to keep it on top.
-- Badtux the "I don't like cats THAT much!" Penguin
Is there anybody in the Republican Party who isn't gay, a pervert, or both? Now we find out that Pastor Ted likes gay sex and meth. Uhm, who is Pastor Ted? Well, he's like the big cheese of the evangelical movement nowdays, and Preznit Dimwit's conduit into the nutcase evangelical community. As in, talks to Dear Leader or Dear Leader's Puppetmaster Karl Rove every Monday.
Hmm, kinda makes a penguin wonder what exactly Pastor Ted and Karl Rove were talking about...
"Anti-gay" Republicans. Closets the size of friggin' football stadiums. Feh.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Police twice stunned with a Taser a 120 pound kid armed with a Bible who was shouting "I want Jesus!". His crime: he refused to acknowledge them which of course is a crime in Amerika V. 6.0 -- when a police officer approaches you while you're doing nothing wrong and asks "your papers please", you're required (according to the last dance of the Supremes) to show him your papers. Just like in the good ole' U.S.S.R., yessiree!
Now, you might think being Tasered twice might have something to do with the fact that the kid had to be hospitalized, and died the next day. But nooooo! The county coroner sez he just died of being over-excited. Nosiree, being electrocuted (twice) by the cops had nothing to do with it!
Hmm, I guess that folks who die after being electrocuted by this thingy just died of gettin' over-excited too:
Alrighty, then!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
-- Badtux the Pounced-upon Penguin
The American health care system has two problems that virtually guarantee that there will be an epidemic within the next twenty years, a pandemic that will kill several million Americans, make 1/4th of the remainder seriously ill for weeks, and cross all socioeconomic lines to infect insured middle class Americans and the wealthy as well as the lower-class uninsured. These two problems are:
But such a notion is naive. The goal of pretty much all health insurance companies in the US today is what you’d expect: To pay out as little as possible while taking in as much money in premiums as possible. It’s called “capitalism”. Duh. Now, you’re saying to me “if the insurer doesn’t pay out money, people will get sicker!” But health insurance in the US is tied to the employer rather than to the individual. The health insurance company is betting that, by the time you get sicker, you’ll be with a different employer and thus a different health insurance company. In short, they’re gambling that you’ll be with another insurer by the time their penny pinching catches up with you.
The result is that there is little funding for preventive care. You have lots of smokers where insurance companies won't pay for stop-smoking programs. You have lots of fat people where insurance companies won't pay for weight-loss programs. You have lots of people who don't see the doctor regularly enough to catch diseases such as hypertension which are harmless if caught and treated early, but cause serious illness if allowed to linger. You have lots of people who aren't immunized. You have, in short, a reservoir of unhealthy people who are perfect as the early disease vector for the coming epidemic, since they will catch the bug more easily and there's enough of them to spread it all around. And the insurance companies don't care, because, thanks to the fact that insurance is tied to employers rather than individuals, they're gambling that these people will be with another insurance company by that time. In the meantime, they have their profit. That's all that counts, right?
Now, let's focus on the other factor that makes the coming epidemic inevitable: Lack of universal health care.
Now, you'll say that this is "socialism", perhaps. But this is important. Universal coverage is the only way to prevent reservoirs of disease from lingering in the population, reservoirs which can mutate and explode into epidemics that kill insured as well as uninsured. The 1918 flu epidemic is a classic example, which killed 20 to 40 million people and depressed the average lifespan of Americans by 10 years as well as killing tens of thousands of healthy young American soldiers in Europe (more died of the Spanish Influenza than died of German bullets!), but any serious disease which is allowed to linger in the population due to lack of universal health care can mutate that way.
For example, there is a new strain of TB slowly spreading that is resistant to any known antibiotic. TB is normally easy to treat, but by failing to have universal coverage, a reservoir of TB infection has been allowed to linger in the population, and it is slowly mutating. It will take just one more mutation to make it as virulent as it is antibiotic-resistant and we’ll have a TB epidemic to match any in history—a TB epidemic that will affect rich as well as poor, insured as well as uninsured. That is the cost of lack of universal health care —- epidemics that kill millions of, including those who do have access to health care. Universal health care doesn't just benefit Jose' and Latrice. It benefits me too, because I'm just as likely to get sick and die as Jose' and Latrice if lack of universal health care brings on the coming epidemic.
It’s time to admit that the American experiment in employer-provided health insurance is an utter failure. If we don't fix things, we will have the super-pandemic that I describe above. Even today, my mother (with 40 years of experience as a health care provider) reports that doctors are seeing more and more disease that just doesn't respond to any known treatment. All that needs to happen is one mutation for virulence, and the pandemic is here. I don’t know what needs to replace the current system, but there’s plenty of good systems out there. For example, the #1 and #2 health care systems in the world are the French and Swiss health care systems. They have completely opposite ways of handling things which I won’t go into here, but the important part is that the Swiss system, which is probably the closest to the American system, has insurance purchased by individuals, not by employers, meaning that insurers actually have an incentive to keep their customers healthy. And both systems provide universal coverage, either via a government insurance company similar to Medicare funded by payroll taxes, or via subsidies for those not able to afford full cost of insurance.
Whatever we do, it needs to be done ASAP. Because by having 45.8 million uninsured Americans and skimping on preventive medicine, we insure that there's plenty of unhealthy people to serve as the vector for the coming epidemic... and once it's out there in large numbers, no amount of employer-provided health insurance is going to protect you.
-- Badtux the Healthcare Penguin
Cross-posted to the Mockingbird's place.
-- Badtux the Tasteful Penguin
My newspaper tells me that I'm supposed to care about what some dude named "John Kerry" says. Why? Why is anybody paying any attention to this LOSER anyhow??? He promised to fight for the Presidency, then broke his promise. Frankly, I don't have the time of day for chickenshits like that.
- Badtux the "I'd rather pay attention to winners" Penguin
