Shortwoman.com

Thoughts for the First Day of School

No, this isn’t a post about zero tolerance policies or reform or even the fact that walking to school is safer than the alternatives.

This post is for everyone who thinks public schools are somebody else’s problem.

Every now and then I run into people who don’t bother to vote on the school board election or don’t really care about whatever reform or local issue is under debate. They argue that they don’t have kids (or their kids are grown), and cede the entire issue to those who do have school-aged children. This line of reasoning is short-sighted.

Nor am I strictly speaking of the impact that school quality can have on property values (and rents, to those who do not own property).

Do you watch the evening news? Chances are that not only the “talking heads” but all the staffers and behind the scenes people were educated in public schools.

Do you buy groceries? The nice clerks and baggers are most likely public school educated — some of them still attending. The stockers and butchers, the people at the deli counter, the managers, all most likely learned to read, write, and do math in a public school. The people at the factories where they make processed foods and where they prep goods like cheese and canned veggies? Probably public school graduates.

Have you ever been to see a doctor, lawyer, or accountant? Many of these people went to public school too. The paralegals, nurses, assistants, file clerks, cleaning staff, and other support staff members in that professional’s office are even more likely to have attended public school.

Ever paid for a haircut? Hired a contractor to do work around your home? Bought a cup of coffee? Your barber, contractor, or barrista learned to read important directions and do enough math to make sure you paid the right amount in public schools.

Do you drive? Every time you get on the road, your safety depends on the fact that every other driver understands the meaning of written signage like “Left Turn on Arrow Only” and “Do Not Enter” and “Main Street Next Exit, 1 Mile” and even “Warning: Roads Slippery When Wet”.

Each and every one of us interacts with people who attended public schools and learned basic skills there. Our continued well being — personally and as a whole — depends on a certain base level of knowledge among our citizens.

In closing: pot forests of America; should we give health insurance reform a rest? particularly since it appears to be a “bonanza” for the insurance companies that are gouging us in the first place? when the only way to make it happen might be to take out (or cripple) the one decent thing?; shockingly enough people without jobs don’t spend a lot of money; target on Harry’s back; architectural fail!; on the intersection of the 1st and 2nd Amendments; it’s a coin toss; and remember to watch for kids today! It’s the first day of school.

Bloody Socialists

Susie Amdrak has been so kind as to give us this list of things the bloody socialists the Federal Government has given us. It includes such things as the 40 hour work week, Interstate highways (I wonder what percentage of deathers had to use the interstate to get to the townhalls they are crashing), public sewers (trust me you don’t want to do without those), and public schools (they aren’t perfect, but if you like the fact that most people can read signs thank a school).

So why is it again that Medicare For All would be such a bad thing? The 66% of us — the real “center” that they call “left of the left” — wants at the very minimum the option to buy into such a program. In an environment where insurance companies are doubling their profits while covering fewer people, We The People need to be able to choose to do business with somebody else! At least if these companies were forced to be mutuals, the excess premiums (e.g., profits) would be returned to the consumer.

Need more convincing? Here’s 4 great links from MahaBarbara.

In closing: no you can’t sell all the personal data you collected; courtesy of Make, a handtool museum; if we make sure soldiers are mentally stable enough for more tours of duty, will we have no choice but to get out of Iraq for lack of soldiers?(just a reminder, over 4000 dead American service men and women); high price of cheap food; yes, apologize to Dr. Dean!; thanks to Dr. Dinosaur, free medical info wallet card; things won’t be back to “normal” in this country until the stock market returns to “normal” levels — far below where they are today; and a little late with this idea, cash for fridges. Many local electric and water companies have had programs like this for years. It’s nice to get a little money back on something that’s going to save you money in the long run. And at the time, we needed the appliances in question. Oh, and 5 stupidest terrorism tricks. I still can’t imagine how 6 guys thought they were going to take on a whole base.

The Needs of the Many

A new report suggests that while many women are getting the HPV vaccine, the ones who need it most are not:

The new HPV vaccine, which protects against viruses that cause most cervical cancers, has been a commercial success for manufacturer Merck, with worldwide sales last year of $1.4 billion. But some doctors now question whether the vaccine has been overpromoted to affluent women who need it least instead of patients most at risk of dying from the disease.

[snip!]

Women who die from the cancer tend to be poor women without access to routine medical care that allows doctors to find and remove growths before they turn malignant….

So the women who are at greatest risk of dying are the women least likely to be vaccinated. The root cause of both “greatest risk” and “least likely to be vaccinated” is that these women don’t have access to routine medical care. And no news reporting, no PR blitz, no advertising is going to change the fact that if someone has a hard time getting together the money for a doctor’s visit and a pap smear, they are going to have a hard time getting together the money for a doctor’s visit and a set of vaccinations that is sometimes not covered by insurance.

Oh, and one more thing. Those of us who can afford a pap smear may find that the lab went ahead and did an HPV test too. That’s a nice little extra fee for the lab that you’ll be paying (at the very least you’ll cough up a co-pay) on a test you didn’t even ask to have done.

In Closing: not sure what to make of 90 salads in 90 days; how did the nurse coming to your home to see how you and the baby were doing turn into government agents invading your home?; for those still unclear on the subject, why the public option is important; [gulp] structural unemployment to be high for the next decade; clothing so complicated you need a class or an expert to help you out; man’s life ruined over breath mints; too big to fail must die; famous last words, why oil won’t go back to $100/barrel; old fashioned judge insists on stuff like due process, cause, and warrants, why not powdered wigs too?; and Forbes gets it wrong again, getting a cooking style mixed up with an illegal drug.

Moment of Clarity

Several news sources are reporting that the White House may be ready to give up the idea of a “public option” for health insurance.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: mandatory insurance without a public option is far worse than what we have today. It would reduce “reform” to “you must pay the profitable companies that got us into this mess whatever they want.” It would be preferable to do nothing and allow the system to collapse on its own.

It is now clear to me why Howard Dean left the leadership of the Democratic* party and did not take any position within the Obama Administration, despite his long list of qualifications when it comes to health insurance and health care. He is wisely distancing himself from this coming shit-storm.

Go make sure your elected officials know how you feel at WhiteHouse.gov, Senate.gov, and House.gov.

* Oops, at first I wrote “Democraptic”. My Freudian slip is showing!

Survival of the Shorties

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Adopting a pet is a good thing. Moving on now….

A few words about food: Alli may not be your ally; why it’s so hard to resist food that isn’t very good for us; one of the men who made it that way; why Time’s peice on exercise and weight loss is misleading; and is soy “real” food? As for myself, moderation in all things. I don’t think a little soy sauce and the occasional edamame is going to hurt anybody. I realize that this is anecdotal but it seems like most of the people I have ever heard of having problems with soy consumed lots and lots of it day in and day out.

Mainstream Stupidity: our media is making us stupid by legitimizing the dumbest theories with no corroborating evidence. See also: birthers, death panels, most conspiracy theorists, Glenn Beck.

More on World War II: Last year I played Call of Duty: World At War. It allowed me to see, briefly, the Soviet side of the war. In short, they had it a lot worse than America did. Perhaps their losses colored the entire cold war.

To the Conservatives: because government can’t do anything right? (Except for roads, education, sanitation, the aqueducts….) Thom Hartmann riffs on the same theme. Is this really what they want?

On Health Insurance Reform: The “death panels” already exist, but they are run by insurance company bureaucrats. If our current system is so great, how come thousands showed up for a free clinic? Oh, and an item on why abortion needs to be covered by insurance regardless of whether your Aunt Frannie and Uncle Dobson approve. You don’t suppose our current LOW levels of people being employed by small businesses has something to do with our current health insurance situation, do you?

Speaking of Health: British researchers are in a tizzy over the fact that not every woman has switched to birth control pills with the lowest risk of a particular bad side effect. It is worth noting that this side effect is potentially fatal, but still incredibly rare. I guess it never occurred to researchers that women might be more concerned about the side effects they are more likely to experience when switching pills.

Bank Failure Update: Read it and weep. My bank was taken over yesterday. Supposed to be business as usual with a new owner Monday. No wonder investors are no longer content with “not as bad as expected” news.

Dilemma: how do you find a real nutcase before he does something dangerous to others, without locking up people that are maybe a little off but no real threat to anybody?

You will need to know this at some point in your life: how to choose sheets.

And last: impact craters.

Have a safe weekend, folks!

The Day War Changed Forever

It was 64 years ago today. There had been all out war for 4 years, and more war elsewhere for years before that.

In addition to the war of bullets and bombs, planes and boats, there was a war of cultures. One side was totally unfathomable to the other, for they had different ideas about battle, about valor, about death. It was as if they had nothing to lose. And they kept coming. There always seemed to be more of them, no matter how many were killed. And it was this way mile after mile, island after island.

As for them, they were defending lands they considered theirs by divine right in the name of their divine ruler, descended from the gods themselves. Why would they do anything less than fight to an honorable death in His service?

There had to be a better way to defeat this nation than to kill everyone.

Instead, they choose to drop a new kind of bomb. A bomb so destructive that the mere threat of using another one would surely cause a quick surrender to ensue. This is what happened. This is more of what happened. And this is what it looked like. In the end, a second bomb was still necessary — why would anybody have two doomsday weapons? But if two, why not a thousand?

We have many times over broken the promise of “Never Again” when it comes to genocide. Let’s mean “Never Again” when it comes to this destruction.

In closing: a few facts and one concern on “Cash for Clunkers“, a government success story which will save citizens money and help the environment; speaking of the environment, things are worse than scientists thought, and Americans are uniquely oblivious; contraception is more popular than puppies; guess what medical procedure is more common than open heart surgery and hip replacement combined (hint, it can happen after contraceptives fail); size acceptance my ass, obese people spend $1500 more per year on medical expenses; why can’t the tea-party crowd fill Washington with a million supporters? Farrakhan managed it; let me get this straight, I’m supposed to live in fear because some anti-social psychopath can’t figure out how to masturbate?; on graduate placement offices; on unpopular laws; Medicare is a government run health plan, and a lot of people think it works pretty well; bipartisan health care reform is neither bipartisan, nor health care, and it certainly isn’t reform; gee, maybe research on what works best is a good thing; the real math on rescission; and only in Vegas does this sort of thing happen. A man is walking a tiger (yes, a tiger) on a leash when it breaks free to chase a rabbit. No troubles, the man coaxes the tiger (yes, still a tiger) home before the police arrive. I will always be extra careful in that neighborhood from now on. After all, I would hate to accidentally hit a tiger!

What Color is Myrna’s Sky?

Myrna Ulfik’s item in the Wall Street Journal says:

I didn’t run to Canada for [cancer] treatment. Medicare took care of my needs right here in New York City. To endure, I just need the freedom to choose my insurance, my doctors, and get the diagnostic scans and care I need. And one more thing: I need hope that a treatment will be developed that can control my diseases the way insulin controls diabetes.

Every cancer patient needs these things, especially hope. But the government’s plan to reform the health-care system in this country threatens all of this—particularly the development of new treatments.

Most people do not have the freedom to choose their insurance. Most people have insurance that is chosen for them by their employer. Lucky people may have the choice of several plans of varying costs through their employer. Unlucky people have their choice of overpriced and under-providing private policies. Myrna admits that she has Medicare, so she in fact has no control over her primary insurance, only her supplemental insurance. That’s strike one.

Most people do not have freedom, but rather they have limited choices for their doctor and hospital. They can either choose from a list of “preferred providers” published by their insurance company — many of which are closed to new patients and are only listed because they have existing patients covered by that insurer. Or, they can go “out of system” and commit to paying twice as much. This is not an option for most people. Myrna doesn’t address hospital care, but most people have even more limited options there. Why do hospitals advertise at all? The choice is almost always “the one the insurance company picks” or “the one closest to the accident.” So strike 2 for Myrna.

As for diagnostic tests, scans, images, and care, all these things are regulated now not by government bureaucrats, but by insurance company bureaucrats. It is routine for insurance companies to require inexpensive tests before authorizing more appropriate but more expensive ones. This requirement wastes time and money in many cases — time and money that could be helping a patient who is in pain. It is routine for insurance companies to require authorization for many treatments, and this authorization may require your doctor to submit piles of paperwork and sit on the phone for an hour. He could have seen other patients that needed help in that hour. Strike 3 to Myrna.

And as for the development of new treatments, I would like to point out that not a single new drug, not a single new treatment, not a single scientific breakthrough has ever been made by an insurance company. Pharmaceutical companies, research universities, and innovative physicians/scientists will continue to do these things, and their discoveries will continue to be tested scientifically before being administered to the general population.

Myrna goes on to talk about a cancer vaccine that has been held up by the FDA for over 20 years. She points out that if this treatment works, it could already have saved tens of thousands of lives. She has apparently forgotten that sometimes what appears to work in small research patient populations doesn’t work the same way for everybody. She has forgotten the many drugs the FDA has approved which have turned out to be harmful. This list includes but is not limited to Palladone, Baycol, Zelnorm, Rezulin, Trasylol, fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine, and Vioxx. These drugs were all FDA approved, and all happily reimbursed — with an appropriate co-pay — by insurance companies.

People of privilege are trying to scare us by talking about how we could lose things we don’t even have, things most of us have not had for decades. Sadly, most of them are so out of touch that they honestly think everyone has the same privileges in the health care system that they do.

Cross-posted at The Moderate Voice.

In closing: thankfully even the Obama Administration has started calling it insurance reform; don’t let reform get derailed over abortion, a controversial but sometimes life-saving operation; I love Howard Dean; it took economists to tell us that unemployed people can’t afford COBRA?; the political football called the public option; who would Jesus deny health care?; on the role of special interests (hint, it involves lubricant); glad I’m not in Detroit; “Cash for Clunkers” already out of money!; ok, this guy is even more angry at our Congressmice than I am; arcane rules of Congress being debated; GOP misogyny; 2 years into the financial crisis; and can you spare a few bucks for JurassicPork?

“Bipartisan Compromise” = “Everyone’s Screwed”

Here’s the latest news out of our elected whores Senators. Some sell-out DINOs have come to an agreement with some Repugs. The short version:

Employers don’t have to buy coverage
You still have to get coverage somewhere, but where is not their problem
No public option
No such thing as a pre-existing condition

Seriously, the only good point is the last one, and they could have handled that in a 2 page item tacked on the end of any random bit of legislation. It’s not a “reform”, its just how things need to be.

Get real, DINOs, the Republicans want to kill reform, and they will do whatever it takes to do so. They have said this in public! Are you not listening? Do I have to tear up my membership card in the Democratic Party and start sending all my donations to Democracy for America? So help me I will do just that if this Congress with its elected filibuster-proof majority of Democrats screws We The People.

Insurance companies are doing everything they can to keep from having a real reform go through. They are providing distortions of data to Congressmice, they are running a huge PR campaign, and there will be no sleep for lobbyists on any side of the issue before Christmas. Gee, Big Tobacco and Big Insurance have lobbyists, and feminists want to focus on how porn and prostitution exploit people.

The fact of the matter is that normal people can’t afford coverage — the cost of which sometimes exceeds their paycheck. When they do have coverage, their out of pocket health care costs still often exceed 10% of their annual income. Low wage individuals are unlikely to have access to employer provided coverage, and unlikely to be able to afford individual coverage. The result is kids without coverage ending up with chronic problems, people dying because they can’t afford coverage, people going bankrupt over medical bills, people being sued over the medical bills of relatives in other states.

Businesses can’t afford coverage, and this is making American products and services uncompetitive on a price basis. Because of a combination of health insurance issues and financing issues, it is almost impossible to start a new business right now. And that means no new jobs out of small business, of the kind we saw in decades past. It used to be that unemployment could be an opportunity to take a flier on the next big thing, but who can afford to do that now?

Doctors can’t afford to do business with insurance companies, who often arbitrarily determine what they will pay and what they will cover. A new study says that medical facilities spend “at least $23 billion to $31 billioneach year” just in the amount of salary they pay while employees deal with the insurance people. That’s $23-31 thousand million that doesn’t provide any care whatsoever. And it doesn’t even count what it costs the insurance company on the other end to process the claim.

Meanwhile, insurance companies are making obscene profits — which again provides no care whatsoever — doing morally reprehensible things, and Congress fiddles while our system drowns. We keep talking and talking, and those in power keep trying to move the discussion on out to Right Field, which is the only place it makes sense that the for-profit model of health insurance that got us here can somehow get us out. Health care is really too important to be profitable.

The center — the real center, not the made up one they seem to worship in Washington — wants real reform. They want it now. Our Senators need to get up off their worthless rumps and do what the people sent them to do instead of what a few wildly profitable businesses want.

Remember this when the primaries come around.

In closing: externalities; Anti-Abortion Terrorist links himself with Operation Rescue and can’t honestly imagine why they would distance themselves from a bona-fide “hero” like himself; let your fingers do the walking through the state of the economy (what the yellow pages can tell you); I wonder what the Dalai Lama was trying to show President Bush; CSI meets reality; and using unpaid interns to do the work of people who were laid off.

Doubleyou Tee Eff

The world is one seriously messed up place right now.

Cities in the desert are buying hovercrafts.

Cops are assaulting children, arresting Harvard professors for daring to be at home, and tasing people up the @$$ for trying to breathe while multiple officers sit on his back.

The news media is reporting on how many Republican votes Ms. Sotomayor is likely to receive for confirmation, when all she has to do is carry the Democratic votes. That’s the point of being the majority.

Mayors, legislators, and — get this — Rabbis are caught up in a money laundering and organ-legging scheme! It sounds more like the beginning of a joke than an actual FBI sting. You couldn’t run that as an episode of Law’n Order because it is too incredible.

Seven more banks failed this weekend, and nobody is asking how it is that the biggest banks can possibly be doing so well. Could it be that some of those big banks are skimming money off everyone else’s transactions? And of course, screwing all of us little people in the process.

It turns out that Former Vice President Cheney was all for sending troops into American homes and streets to root out terrorists, and he was very upset with President Bush for refusing to pardon Scooter Libby (by golly, Mr. Bush did two things right!). What I hope this is a beginning for is building a mountain of evidence against Mr. Cheney so there are limited political overtones to prosecuting his misconduct.

Jimmy Carter, who I thought was an idiot when I was 11, is now a wise man thirty years later. And he has gotten tired of religion being used as a club with which to beat women down.

Which brings me oddly enough to 4 boys luring an 8 year old girl to a storage shed with a promise of chewing gum and then raping her until her screams attracted attention. When the cops told her parents what had happened, they told the cops to keep her! She — by being a helpless victim who couldn’t possibly have known better — had brought them shame! Even the leader of the country they came from said that was just plain wrong.

That last one is just wrong on so many levels I have no idea where to start. It’s just picking at the yarns until the whole sweater unravels. The nicest thing I can say is that at least it happened in this nation, where we have services in place to help victimized children. In her homeland she would have become homeless, and very likely victimized over and over.

Every time I look at the news, there is something else. I should seriously step away from the computer if things are going to be this way very long.

Next time, stitching together employment, wages, health insurance, and the impending screw-job that politicians are calling health care reform.

In Closing: Pass ID is really no better than the Real ID it may replace; some people will only believe false things more if you try to reason with them; global warming is really real; and this guy claims to be allergic to WiFi. Um, sure.

Shorties Fever

We will all miss Walter Cronkite: A lot of smart people have written a lot of eloquent words on the occasion of Mr. Cronkite’s death — and the subsequent death of TV journalism as we knew it. But only Joe Gandelman has the guts to figure out why TV journalism will never be the same.

Bank Failure Friday: Add 4 to the running tally to get 57 bank failures this year. Notice that no matter how bad things get, the really big banks that helped cause this mess will never have FDIC crews sweep in on a Friday.

America’s Best Schools: They have high minority populations, a lot of kids who need free school lunches, and the kids do a whole lot of moving around. Yet they outperform most American schools! What are our military base schools doing right, and how much of it can we do in civilian schools?

Obligatory Health Insurance Reform Items: Pete Abel on balancing urgency and patience; Open Left (oh how I hate quoting Ian Welsh) on what happened to Canada’s costs when they went to single payor, and what it should mean to us; Ed Stein puts it all in cartoon form; What doctors make, versus what they ought to make (hint, family practice docs haven’t gotten a real raise in over 1o years); Mr. Obama tells Congress to get moving; at least the AMA likes this House proposal; Maha Barbara explains a Cato Institute idea; John Aravosis on health insurance realities you may not have encountered yet; how can I have a batch of health insurance reform links without including Ezra Klein; Dave J on making subsidies mean something.

Citizen Carrie, WHERE ARE YOU?: Carrie was one of the most knowledgable lay people I knew when it came to H1-B visas. Please, settle for Charles II at Mercury Rising.

Sanity and Taxes: I know taxes as they stand today are complicated, but still people tend to go nutty overboard when discussing tax hikes for the wealthy. This even applies when people aren’t going to be effected at all. So here’s reality on the latest surtax proposal. Moreover, here is how tax brackets work. Galt was an idiot.

Newtonian Economy: an interesting way of looking at the last decade from Distributorcap.

From Newton to Darwin: somebody caught birds evolving. Stuff that in your intelligent design and smoke it.

Game Over, Man!: Will Wright of all people says we need to stop assuming all gamers are 12 year old boys.

Politician kicked out of anti-abortion group for having common sense: his quote, “I can’t figure out for the life of me how to stop pregnancies without contraception. Don’t be mad at me for wanting to solve the problem.”

DHS also trying to exhibit common sense: The Secretary would like to seriously scale back Real ID requirements.

Compute me to the moon: the computers used to get man to the moon were less powerful than a modern pocket calculator. As the song goes, it’s in the way that you use it.

And Last: Hip Hop Home Remodeling.