Monthly Archives: July 2009

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History Passing Us By

Harry Patch, last British survivor of First World War trenches, dies

Harry Patch, the last British soldier to have served in the First World War trenches, has died at the age of 111.

Mr Patch, who was known as the Last Fighting Tommy, was the last living soldier to have fought in bloody battle of Passchendaele, at Ypres, in 1917 in which more than 70,000 troops died.

It’s worth noting this…and worth taking the time to talk to those around us whose service allows us to enjoy what we now have. We’re not down to end of the WW-II guys yet, but they are going fast…dang…I even know a bunch of Viet-nam/Cold-war types (I resemble that remark!) who have made their final muster.

Godspeed, Harry Patch.

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“Does anybody really know what time it is?

This just naturally suggested the old tune from the group Chicago:

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, yeah
And I said

Does anybody really know what time it is
Does anybody really care
If so I cant imagine why
We’ve all got time enough to cry

Are we missing a dimension of time?

A scientist has put forward the bizarre suggestion that there are two dimensions of time, not the one that we are all familiar with, and even proposed a way to test his heretical idea next year.

Time is no longer a simple line from the past to the future, in a four dimensional world consisting of three dimensions of space and one of time. Instead, the physicist envisages the passage of history as curves embedded in a six dimensions, with four of space and two of time.

“There isn’t just one dimension of time,” Itzhak Bars of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles tells New Scientist. “There are two. One whole dimension of time and another of space have until now gone entirely unnoticed by us.”

DOH! How could we have missed this?

Until now, they have been reluctant to meddle with time because it can lead to unexpected consequences, such as time travel.

That’s why!  Avoiding that pesky ole’ time travel paradox:

Changing our picture of time from a line to a plane (one to two dimensions) means that the path between the past and future could loop back on itself, allowing you to travel back and forwards in time and allowing the famous grandfather paradox, where you could go back and kill your grandfather before your mother was born, thereby preventing your own birth.

Bars first found hints of an extra time dimension in M-theory in 1995 and, when he looked into it, discovered the grandfather paradox and other fears could be overcome by using a new kind of symmetry – a mathematical property to work out the relationship between the quantities of position and momentum. It is this symmetry that might help reconcile the two mighty pillars of 20th-century physics, quantum mechanics and relativity.

And then there’s this aspect of it…anyone else remember your Platonic “ideals” (reality) and their shadows (what we experience)?

According to Bars, the familiar four dimensional world we see around us is merely a “shadow” of the six-dimensional reality, just as a hand makes many different shadows on a wall when lit from different angles.

Although we cannot experience the extra time dimension directly, we can effectively notice it through the different perspectives of the different “shadows”.

Actually – this is really cool stuff…it would be really neat to figure all this stuff out.

My background from teaching years of H.S. physics isn’t up to all the math details of this, but conceptually I really get into this sort of stuff…I guess it appeals to my SciFi instincts.

If you REALLY want to see what Bars says about this himself, go here, but be warned…this is real physics stuff, even though he’s discussing it conceptually, more or less.

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Demo Congs move to Censor GOP Mailing

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If you’ve looked at this posting by the Chief, you can see the chart noted below that the Donk party doesn’t want you to see.

Congressional Democrats Block GOP Health Care Mailing

Democrats are preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority’s health care reform plan, blocking the mailing by alleging that it is inaccurate.

House Republicans are crying foul and claiming that the Democrats are using their majority to prevent GOP Members from communicating with their constituents.

The dispute centers on a chart (view PDF) created by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee to illustrate the organization of the Democratic health care plan.

At first glance, Brady’s chart resembles a board game: a colorful collection of shapes and images with a web of lines connecting them, but a closer look at the image reveals a complicated menagerie of government offices and programs that Republicans say will be created if the leading Democratic health care plan becomes law.

What’s the issue?

In a memo sent Monday to Republicans on the House franking commission, Democrats argue that sending the chart to constituents as official mail would violate House rules because the information is misleading.

In other words, it illustrates the Byzantine complexity of the House plan…whatever the details are.

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Patriot Act Running Amok

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Somehow the Chief doesn;t quite think that this (from St. Louis) is REALLY what most people worry about as terrorism:

Phone rage leads to arrest here for Ohio man

An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat.

According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families. He was indicted for making a terrorist threat, a Class D felony; and he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison if convicted.

Papenfus’ wife, Tracie, said she hasn’t seen her husband since his arrest on June 27, when he was lured to a Fostoria, Ohio, police station with a false story about being suspected in a tavern fight there. Charles Papenfus, a self-employed mechanic who sometimes works on the department’s police cruisers, dropped by the station to clear his name, she said.

This is a bit much…at least…especially when the complainant firm has it’s own record of illegal and/or fraudulent sales techniques.

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“End of Life Counseling” in Obamacare – Yech!

Sounds like something from the classic dystopian movie Soylent Green, or motion in the direction of a quasi-Nazi elimination of financially inconvenient seniors (“useless eaters”) who would only continue to consume valuable resources to live IF given necessary treatment.

Unfortunately this really IS in the bill (page numbers cited below).

Government ‘counselors’ on end of life treatment

The House version of the Health Care Bill is going to require (p 425-430) mandatory counseling for all seniors at a minimum of every five years, more often if the senior is sick or in a nursing home.

Just how many government trained counselors will that put into the work force? With an over 65 population of 38,000,000 US (Census, 2007), 4 counseling sessions daily, over 37,000, at a minimum, that’s how many. Plus their supervisors, plus the report readers, plus the oversight agency.

This is bad enough on its own (de)merits, without considering the following contrast, which makes things even worse:

Don’t even think that anyone should receive mandatory counseling regarding the end of life issues surrounding abortion; that’s a invasion of the right of privacy! “Counsel” a senior about their end of life “choices” under Obama Care? Somehow that’s not the same, so just keep your mouth shut.

This REALLY creeps me out! Who could trust the GOVERNMENT for something like this?  Would you trust YOUR loved ones life and death decisions to a government bureaucracy?   If you would, I truly hope you get the government you want…just leave ME out of your National Socialistic nightmare!

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Obamacare Transparency Lacking

PROMISES, PROMISES: Do Obama deals break pledge?

In cutting deals with hospitals and drug makers, President Barack Obama is giving a private inside track to special interests that’s at odds with his promise to make policy in the open.

Obama promised Americans he would hold special interests at arm’s length—that it would no longer be business as usual in Washington. He pledged to open government and let the public and news media hold his administration accountable.

And just over two months before the 2008 election, Obama promised before an audience in Chester, Va., to hash out a health care overhaul in public. “We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,” he said then.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, the administration’s multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies have been made in private, and the results were announced after the fact. Both industries promised Obama cost savings in return for an expanded base of insured patients; beyond that, the public is in the dark about details.

In some ways, it resembles what his party criticized President George W. Bush for doing with oil and gas companies as Vice President Dick Cheney wrote a national energy plan in the early days of the Bush administration.

As the Bush White House did, the Obama White House is refusing to release visitor logs that would let people see everyone going in and out during the thick of discussions over major national policies.

I know, I know. There was little transparency and accountability in handling TARP, the “Porkulus” bill, etc., so why be surprised at the latest example of more of the same from B.O.

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Obamacare Note

A funny thing happened to Obamacare as it winds its way through the belly of the legislative beast….

Mayo Clinic calls House plan bad medicine

A world-renowned clinic that President Obama held up as an example of good medicine said Monday that the American people would be “losers” under the House’s health care proposal, joining the growing chorus of critics the Obama administration is trying to fend off as the debate intensifies from Capitol Hill to Main Street.

Minnesota’s not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats’ version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall “the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients.”

“In fact, it will do the opposite,” clinic officials said, because the proposals aren’t patient-focused or results-oriented. “The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.” [emphasis added]

Ooops.

Hopefully another nail in the coffin of “Obamacare.”

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Obamacare Update & Non-apology

First something new! This will help you to understand how Obamacare has great potential to simplify, improve the system, and reduce costs. Right?

healthcarechart.jpg
(Click here for larger view)

It didn’t help? Oh, darn!

To a different aspect of this topic: The Chief received flaming replies and was the subject of  heartfelt  postings (comparing him to Rush Limbaugh!) to his previous posting concerning Obamacare, DEMANDING abject apology on the part of yours truly for having the nerve to question the plans of The One and His Disciples in the Halls of Congress.

Apparently the posting has tripped the trigger over in Madison and has the Madville Times living up to it’s name on this one. Sorry about that Mr. Heidelberger, but can’t we just disagree? No? Oh well…I’m grief stricken.   If you don’t agree with my conclusions, that’s YOUR business: time will ultimately tell who’s really right on hese, and other issues.

I WILL concede that the below cited provision is not an outright ban on private insurance, but…the devil’s in the details, as is usually the case when dealing with Byzantine proposals for massive new tax-and-entitlement centralized programs, and further apology will be eschewed based on the EFFECT of said program which IMHO results in the eventual end of private insurance. To go back to the piece that originally caught my attention…at risk of possible repetition:

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee. It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states: “Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

Based on my understanding of English language, tat seems to be fairly clear.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

If the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington’s coverage.

Tell me this WON’t happen…if you REALLY believe it won’t, please contact me for some tropical beachfront in NW Moody County, SD – do I have a DEAL for you! So, where does the end of private health programs come in? Attrition, for sure, and small (and large) businesses bailing out of private coverage like mad…let Uncle Sam do it, and figure out the financing too…result, IMHO the attritional death of private coverage. (By the way, this already happened in the UK contributing to the rationing and maltreatment that is far too common over there.)

The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, “fizzle out altogether.”What wasn’t known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.

The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.

The final result will ultimately be the end of private health care and insurance as we know it, not by direct execution, but by an inevitable exercise of a sort of Gresham’s Law applied to health care…bad care drives out good care (unless you are REALLY rich in a way I can’t even begin to imagine, as a semi-retired teacher).

If you, as Mr. Heidelberger is, (and to some extent I also am) are disturbed by the like of the Stanford-MeritCare merger, this too is an inevitable result of the movement towards Obamacare…as these organizations attempt to render themselves “too big to fail” by the standards of even bigger government. (They just want their place at the health care table…no big deal, right, and if Goldman-Sach’s money talks in the halls of Washington, then why not Sanford’s?)

Now, one can decide that this is a positive change in things or not. No problemo, but I continue to call the shots as I see them, whether or not Mr. Heidelberger likes what I say, or agrees with it or whatever…that’s HIS call.

My choice is to reply to specific issues…NOT to get into the gratuitous exchange of invective and personalities in keeping with the counsel of a man much wiser than me: “Never mud-wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.”

By the way C.H. – I am honored to be attacked in the same sentence as Rush Limbaugh! It makes me thing I must be doing something RIGHT!

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SD Bank Busted

The bum economy is evidently making an appearance in South Dakota.

BankFirst of Sioux Falls, South Dakota closes

U.S. bank regulators closed BankFirst of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Friday, the 55th U.S. bank to fail this year as the struggling economy and falling home prices take their toll on financial institutions.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said BankFirst had $275 million in assets and $254 million in deposits. The failure is expected to cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund an estimated $91 million.

Alerus Financial, National Association of Grand Forks, North Dakota, agreed to assume all of the deposits of BankFirst, whose two branches will reopen on Monday, the regulator said.

The FDIC said BankFirst’s Sioux Falls location will operate as a branch of First Dakota National Bank of Yankton, South Dakota.

Sign of the times – it ain’t that pretty at all.

Culture Wars

B.O. “Czar” Anti-family Dogma

Obama’s Science Czar: Traditional family is obsolete, punish large families

President Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, took a controversial and amoral approach to the science of population by recommending mass compulsory sterilization and even forced abortion (and/or forced marriages) under certain circumstances.[emphasis added] His 1977 tome, Ecoscience, which he co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich, also displays a revealing disregard for the institution of the traditional human family….

Holdren, with a blithe “of course,” encourages government to wage an effective war on the family in America. It begins with the abolition of “pronatalist” policies and continues with their complete reversal:

As United States taxpayers know, income tax laws have long implicitly encouraged marriage and childbearing…Such a pronatalist bias of course is no longer appropriate. In countries that are affluent enough for the majority of citizens to pay taxes, tax laws could be adjusted to favor (instead of penalize) single people, working wives, and small families. Other tax measures might also include high marriage fees, taxes on luxury baby goods and toys, and removal of family allowances where they exist. Other possibilities include the limitation of maternal or educational benefits to two children per family.

Intrusive enough?

Some Americans might cite the Founding Fathers and argue that a government whose policy is to make war on the family in the name of science has clearly overstepped its mandate. That was not the opinion expressed by John Holdren, the man President Obama has put in charge in the nation’s science policy.

Can you read T-O-T-A-L-I-T-A-R-I-A-N? Any other questions?

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Still talking…unfortunately.

Hillary Clinton rejects notion of diminished role

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday rejected suggestions she had been sidelined by President Barack Obama her rival for last year’s Democratic presidential nomination.

With media reports swirling that Clinton’s influence has been usurped by the National Security Council, the top U.S. diplomat insisted she played an important role in crafting the foreign policy agenda.

“I really stay focused on the work that I do. I broke my elbow, not my larynx.

Oh well. Maybe next time!

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A breath of political fresh air!

FINALLY! A politician/government wonk who admitted what was clearly evident to rational observers of public affairs!

Jacqui Smith: I wasn’t up to being Home Secretary

Jacqui Smith has admitted she was not up to being Home Secretary – and should have been given some proper training before she was handed the job.

Somehow the Chief thought the idea was to appoint people who already were qualified for the job.
(Silly me, to have such obviously unrealistic expectations)

Ms Smith, who is likely to be remembered for claiming expenses for a porn film watched by her husband, said any success she had was down to luck rather than skill.

She added: “When I became Home Secretary I’d never run a major organisation. I hope I did a good job but if I did it was more by luck than by any kind of development of skills.

Now, to get this “truth or consequences” virus across the big pond from Britain to Washington!!!

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Obamacare Choice? NO WAY BABY!

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It’s Not An Option

What was that bit that B.O. was saying about choice still being a part of healthcare reform?

It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

Will we the sheeple swallow this poison pill?

The public option won’t be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny. Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn’t be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans’ lives.

Oh, joy. What ELSE is buried in this 1000+ page monstrosity? The Chief shudders to imagine the possibilites…

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Huh?

Joe Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money….

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

The VEEP’s mind is certainly not troubled by the presence of logic and reason.

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This somehow seems to fit…

This is just TOO perfect a target to ignore…like a slow hanging pitch in front of Albert Pujols…

Michael Jackson to be buried without his brain

Michael Jackson will be buried this week– without his brain. As his family tries to finalise details for the King of Pop’s funeral on Tuesday they have been told it will be held back for tests.

They faced the grim choice of waiting up to three weeks for Jackson’s brain to be returned to them or go ahead and bury him without it – which they have decided to do.

Since he lived without its presence being detectable much of the time, it’s only appropriate that he is buried without it.