Tom Faranda's Folly

The healthcare "holocaust"?

Yeah, he's over the top ... If the video doesn't open, go here - Grayson calls health care crisis 'holocaust' - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com

Developments in Brigid's Notre Dame trespassing charge

As you know, Brigid covered herself in glory last May by travelling out to Notre Dame to protest the President giving the commencement speech and his receiving an honorary law degree. She was arrested on national TV for trespassing. One of 88 arrestees that weekend.

I have about eight past postings up about her adventure - here are two of them Tom Faranda's Folly: Brigid makes the news at Notre Dame today and  Tom Faranda's Folly: Brigid's home, safe and sound .

Anyway, the legal stuff continues to drag on. One issue is, why even bother to go back for the hearings? It's not like Indiana is going to extradite her for no-showing arraignments and an ultimate trial for simple trespass.

It's a sacrifice to travel back - Brigid and the NY area "South Bend Five" have already gone out once for pre-trial stuff. Their rationale is to publicize the absurdity of Notre Dame's arresting them for walking on campus. AND - who knows - there could be a lawsuit regarding the violation of their civil rights, in the future ...

The attorney just filed another motion for the current judge to recuse herself on account of her husband's well-known pro-abortion position. Brigid thinks the attorney, a local fellow by the name of Tom Dixon, is wonderful, and I've spoken to him a couple of times on the phone. A first rate guy.

Judge in Case of Arrested Notre Dame Pro-Lifers is Married to Pro-Abortion ND Professor

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, September 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The attorney representing the pro-lifers arrested while protesting Obama at Notre Dame today repeated his request that the judge in the case, who is married to a pro-abortion Notre Dame professor, be removed from the case.

Attorney Tom Dixon's motion provides detailed support for his assertion in a previous recusal motion that there exists sufficient actual and perceived bias that Judge Jenny Pitts Manier, the judge assigned to the "ND 88" case, is required by Indiana state law to recuse herself in the matter.  Dixon states that ever since Judge Manier has known her husband, Professor Edward Manier, he has been a well-known and outspoken advocate of the pro-abortion position.

As his views were well-known and have largely defined his identity at Notre Dame, Dixon argues, it seems implausible that Judge Manier could claim to be unaware of his views on the "ND 88" case, which stem from "the single biggest controversy in the history of the University of Notre Dame."

The case surrounds the arrest of 88 pro-lifers from across America who were charged with trespassing after peacefully witnessing against the presence of President Obama at Notre Dame ... 

It's interesting that the President of Notre Dame, Fr. Jenkins, refuses to have the charges dismissed. It's most common in civil disobedience cases to drop the charges after the event. And it's amusing that in 2008 Notre Dame gave its Laetare Award to actor Martin Sheen who has been an active participant in many civil disobedience situations, with multi-arrests (I was arrested with him once years ago in Manhattan, and wrote about it here Tom Faranda's Folly: Martin Sheen... ).

I guess Notre Dame and Fr. Jenkins have a high regard for people who engage in conscientious civil disobedience - except when it's aimed at them.

A new study of dementia among former NFL football players indicates much higher rates

As the article states, more studies are needed (how accurate is a telephone survey?) but it is troubling. I wonder how it relates to former rugby players? I had three concussions (or was it two? I still remember waking up on the sideline in New Orleans ...) in my thirties while playing.

And - how it relates to younger, college and high school players who never become professionals?

Study Indicates Higher Rate of Dementia in Former N.F.L. Players - NYTimes.com

The Michigan researchers found that 6.1 percent of players age 50 and above reported that they had received a dementia-related diagnosis, five times higher than the cited national average, 1.2 percent. Players ages 30 through 49 showed a rate of 1.9 percent, or 19 times that of the national average, 0.1 percent.

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Dr. Daniel P. Perl, the director of neuropathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, agreed with Dr. Borenstein but described the Michigan work as significant. “I think this complements what others have found — there appears to be a problem with cognition in a group of N.F.L. football players at a relatively young age,” he said.

Senate Finance Committee votes down government healthcare option

UPDATE: Here's the Washington Post coverage - they have the vote as 15-8.  Senate Finance Committee Rejects Public Option Amendment - washingtonpost.com

Good. 16-8.

UPDATE 1-US Senate panel rejects public healthcare option | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

Five Democrats joined all the panel Republicans in opposing inclusion of the government-run option in the bill. The issue is expected to be raised again in the full Senate and the House of Representatives.

Weather forecast: the coldest winter in a decade

Yeah. Climate change.

U.S. Northeast May Have Coldest Winter in a Decade (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Northeast may have the coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers, a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group.

“Weak El Ninos are notorious for cold and snowy weather on the Eastern seaboard,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington. “About 70 percent to 75 percent of the time a weak El Nino will deliver the goods in terms of above-normal heating demand and cold weather. It’s pretty good odds.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Boxer, Kerry Set to Introduce Climate Bill in Senate - NYTimes.com

Kerry last week sought to change the vernacular surrounding the climate bill and sell its concepts more broadly, insisting it is not a "cap and trade" proposal but a "pollution reduction" bill. "I don't know what 'cap and trade' means. I don't think the average American does," Kerry said.

Healthcare reform or personal ego trip?

the Washington Post editorial and op ed pages have been (rightly) skeptical of the claims for the necessity of radical, and dramatic healthcare changes.

Here's a good column - only 11 paragraphs long, looking at some of the unproable claims about reform.

The Health-Care Ego Trip - washingtonpost.com

What's driving the great health debate of 2009 is not a popular clamor for universal insurance. "Many Americans are balking again at the prospect of health care reform," writes pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. A new Wall Street Journal poll found 41 percent of respondents opposed to President Obama's proposals and 39 percent in favor (the rest were undecided). The underlying driver is politicians' psychological quest for glory.

"My colleagues, this is our opportunity to make history," Chairman Max Baucus implored last week as the Senate Finance Committee opened consideration of his bill. Politicians, in their most self-important moments, see themselves as instruments of national destiny. They yearn to be remembered as the architects and agents of great social and economic transformations. They want to be at the signing ceremony; they want a pen.

Ordinary Americans are rightly suspicious of this exercise in collective ego gratification, which has gripped Obama and many of his congressional allies. Even when the goals are worthy -- as they are here -- the temptation to exaggerate, simplify and sugarcoat often proves irresistible. ...

Bill Clinton on the "Vast right-wing conspiracy"

It's back ...

Bill Clinton Says Right Is Also Targeting Obama - washingtonpost.com

Bill Clinton says a vast right-wing conspiracy that once targeted him is now focusing on President Obama.

Germany's Angela Merkel re-elected as Chancellor

A solid win for lower taxes and market-oriented solutions in Germany

Merkel Wins Majority for Tax-Cut Coalition in German Election - Bloomberg.com

With Germany struggling to recover from the deepest economic slump since World War II, voters spurned plans by Merkel’s Social Democratic challenger to raise taxes on top earners. Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s SPD had its worst postwar result in what he called a “bitter day” after sharing power with Merkel for four years and governing for the previous seven.

“There’s a clear sentiment in favor of economic changes, especially on income taxes,” Tilman Mayer, head of the Bonn- based Institute for Political Science, said in an interview. “Voters have turned their back on grand coalition-style compromise politics.”

Merkel, 55, said on ARD television that talks on forming a coalition with the Free Democrats will proceed quickly, and her focus will be on creating jobs in Europe’s biggest economy. She dismissed the FDP’s call for a complete overhaul of the tax system, saying she wanted to be seen as the “chancellor of all Germans” and won’t let her new junior partner dictate policy.

During the campaign, she pledged to pursue deregulation, extend the life of nuclear-power plants and introduce across- the-board tax cuts of 15 billion euros ($22 billion).

Angela merkel is an interesting politician. She has a doctorate in quantum chemistry - rather unusual for someone who ended up in politics.   Angela Merkel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds is 52.2% - excluding students

Stunning.

The dead end kids

During previous recessions, in the early '80s, early '90s and after Sept. 11, 2001, unemployment among 16-to-24 year olds never went above 50 percent. Except after 9/11, jobs growth followed within two years.

A much slower recovery is forecast today. Shierholz believes it could take four or five years to ramp up jobs again.

A study from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government database, said the damage to a new career by a recession can last 15 years. And if young Americans are not working and becoming productive members of society, they are less likely to make major purchases -- from cars to homes -- thus putting the US economy further behind the eight ball.

William Safire

NY Times columnist, wordsmith, Nixon speechwriter ("Nattering Nabobs of negativism" was his line).

William Safire, Nixon Speechwriter and Times Columnist, Is Dead at 79 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

And from 1979 until earlier this month, he wrote “On Language,” a New York Times Magazine column that explored written and oral trends, plumbed the origins and meanings of words and phrases, and drew a devoted following, including a stable of correspondents he called his Lexicographic Irregulars.

The columns, many collected in books, made him an unofficial arbiter of usage and one of the most widely read writers on language. It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like “the president’s populism” and “the first lady’s momulism.”

There were columns on blogosphere blargon, tarnation-heck euphemisms, dastardly subjunctives and even Barack and Michelle Obama’s fist bumps. And there were Safire “rules for writers”: Remember to never split an infinitive. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. Avoid clichés like the plague. And don’t overuse exclamation marks!!

Mountain climbing is dangerous

New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's Husband Died on Mountain Climbing Expedition

Clifton Maloney, a millionaire investment banker and avid climber, was resting in a high-altitude camp after a successful ascent to the summit of the world's sixth-highest mountain when he died.

 

He was 71, a late age for such a grueling endeavor, but had been in excellent health, aides said.

Big discovery of buried treasure in England (really!)

A fellow with a metal detector. It was found north of Birmingham, which is about midway between London and Manchester.

Dates from the seventh century Anglo-Saxon wars. Brigid and I found this very fascinating, including the story of the man who made the find.

Experts Awed by Anglo-Saxon Treasure - NYTimes.com

LONDON — For the jobless man living on welfare who made the find in an English farmer’s field two months ago, it was the stuff of dreams: a hoard of early Anglo-Saxon treasure, probably dating from the seventh century and including more than 1,500 pieces of intricately worked gold and silver whose craftsmanship and historical significance left archaeologists awestruck.

When the discovery in Staffordshire was announced Thursday, experts described it as one of the most important in British archaeological history. They said it surpassed the greatest previous discovery of its kind, a royal burial chamber unearthed in 1939 at Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk. That find shaped scholars’ understanding of the warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of 1,300 years ago that ended up as the unified kingdom of England.

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The experts said that a painstaking search of the area had turned up no trace of a grave, a building or anything else that suggested a careful plan to bury the objects for later recovery. They said that information, and the fact that none of the discoveries appeared to be jewelry or other feminine items, added to the likelihood that the treasure was war bounty. It may have been seized by one of the seventh-century Mercian kings — men like Penda, Wulfhere and Aethelred — who pursued an aggressive, plundering policy toward neighboring kingdoms.

A nice Catskill hike, suggested to me

My friend Damian, whose wife Jeanne Marie sometimes joins Brigid and I and a few others for day hikes, sent me this, with the suggestion we do it.

There's a nice 11 picture slide show with the article, if you hit the link.

2 Days, 3 Nights, on a Path Named for a Devil - NYTimes.com

“From end to end the Devil’s Path is one of the more challenging trails around,” said Josh Howard, a director at the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, which publishes detailed maps of area trails, including the Devil’s Path.

Backpackers hoping to complete the route face a total climb and descent of more than 14,000 feet. Steep ascents include cliff bands and traverse terrain that is vertical enough at times to be confused with a mountain climb.

“It’s straight up and straight down, and then you do it over again,” said Mr. Howard, 33, who once hiked the entire trail in a one-day feat of endurance.

Most backpacking groups commit three days of hiking to complete the route, according to the trail conference. Backpackers can camp in lean-tos along the way and purify water from streams.

Here's The Devil's Path, seen from the south.

Devil's Path (Catskills) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yankees magic number is 1

One Yankee win or one Boston loss and the Yankees win the division AND will have the bast record in the American League, which means home field advantage through the playoffs.

Yankees go for the sweep of their three game series with the Red Sox today at the Stadium, at one o'clock. If the Yanks win, that will be the clincher, as well as their 100th win of the season (with six more games to go in the regular season).

CC just getting warmed up for playoffs | yankees.com: News

Here's Rush Limbaugh on the Jay Leno Show

Good stuff - entertaining. Nine minute video and a transcript.

Rush on The Jay Leno Show

LENO:  How much weight have you lost?

RUSH:  Eighty-two pounds, Jay.

LENO:  Eighty-two pounds.  (cheers and applause)  Let me ask you something.  Would you attribute your weight gain to liberal portions?  (laughter)

RUSH: (laughing) No.  I would attribute my weight gain to no discipline and loving every minute of it.

Entertaining and enlightening.

Democratic Party having a drop in fund-raising

Mostly their big donors -

Democrats Are Jarred by Drop In Fundraising - washingtonpost.com

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was considered the party's best-run organization as it oversaw pickups of 14 Republican seats in 2006 and 2008. But through August, the DSCC had raised just $27.5 million, a drop of more than 25 percent, or $9.2 million, from the same point two years ago. While donations from special interest political action committees have increased, individual donors are disappearing at a rate that has alarmed party leaders: The DSCC's contributions from individuals was $18.5 million through August, a drop of $12.6 million, or nearly 40 percent, from two years earlier, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

A midyear analysis by the FEC showed that the DSCC declines at that stage had come entirely from individuals who gave $10,000 or more, a small slice of overall contributors but a group that traditionally provides about half the committee's fundraising total. Through June, those individual donors' contributions had declined by more than 50 percent from 2007. The committee is running 12 percent behind its 2005 pace among large donors.

Nice feature on Yankee manager Joe Girardi

From the NY Times this morning. You realize that Girardi knows how to manage people, as well as having a well-earned reputation as a baseball tactician.

After a Disappointing First Season, Girardi Adjusts - NYTimes.com

The regimented lifestyle has worked for Girardi, who has guided the Yankees to a playoff berth in his second season as their manager. But he has not been so strict as to ignore professional failings. He looked within himself last winter after a disappointing debut.

“You have this plan that it’s going to go this way and this way, and it always veers off,” Girardi said last week, before a game in Seattle. “You’ve got to be willing to adjust.”

It would be wrong to say Girardi has changed his personality. Far from his stereotype as a drill sergeant, he is actually relentlessly upbeat, bounding from task to task, radiating energy. He was the same way last year.

This season, though, the optimism seems more grounded in reality. A better team has accounted for much of the difference.

“I think he’s backed off, maybe let his coaches do a little more, but I’m searching,” starter Andy Pettitte said. “He definitely seems a little bit more relaxed, but a lot of that has to do with us winning 97 games. We’ve played so well in the second half, it’s just been a great atmosphere.”

Hand-washing and the flu

UPDATE: While at open School Night at Fordham prep yesterday, I noticed that all the rooms have Purell dispensers.

Everyone knows washing your hands is important. So why read this NY Times article?

Well, there's quite a few scientific studies of hand-washing.

18 short paragraphs.

Well - Hand-Washing Helps Fight Flu - NYTimes.com

A host of recent studies have highlighted the importance and the scientific underpinning of this most basic hygiene measure. One of the most graphic was done at the University of California, Berkeley, where researchers focused video cameras on 10 college students as they read and typed on their laptops.

The scientists counted the times the students touched their faces, documenting every lip scratch, eye rub and nose pick. On average, the students touched their eyes, noses and lips 47 times during a three-hour period, once every four minutes.

Hand-to-face contact has a surprising impact on health. Germs can enter the body through breaks in the skin or through the membranes of the eyes, mouth and nose.

The eyes appear to be a particularly vulnerable port of entry for viral infections, said Mark Nicas, a professor of environmental health sciences at Berkeley. Using mathematical models, Dr. Nicas and colleagues estimated that in homes, schools and dorms, hand-to-face contact appears to account for about one-third of the risk of flu infection, according to a report this month in the journal Risk Analysis.

In one study of four residence halls at the University of Colorado, two of the dorms had hand sanitizer dispensers installed in every dorm room, bathroom and dining area, and students were given educational materials about the importance of hand hygiene. The remaining two dorms were used as controls, and researchers simply monitored illness rates.

During the eight-week study period, students in the dorms with ready access to hand sanitizers had a third fewer complaints of coughs, chest congestion and fever. Over all, the risk of getting sick was 20 percent lower in the dorms where hand hygiene was emphasized, and those students missed 43 percent fewer days of school.

The press still loves to write about Sarah Palin

Palin gives a speech a couple of days ago to a private group in Hong Kong (with the press barred) and it's big news.

Here's an interesting commentary on the coverage, by another conservative.

Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Palin’s Hong Kong Speech: I Can See Insanity From My Newsroom

But a closer look at the coverage reveals that Palin Derangement Syndrome is still a robust strain within the news media and that the rules for reporting on her are completely different than anyone else in public life. 

The most egregious example of this probably came from Time magazine whose account claimed she ducked questions (when she did indeed take them), was laced with only disparaging comments form those in attendance, and which had a top ten list of Palin “spoofs” embedded right in the middle of the web version. But an item in both the New York Times and Associated Press accounts of the address deserves an extra special critique. 

In a classic example of the grossly distorted prism through which the Times sees all events (especially those involving Palin), their writer arbitrarily decided, with zero evidence, that the purpose of the speech was to “broaden her foreign policy credentials” for a 2012 presidential run. This then opened the door for the “reporter” to make a pronouncement that should set a new definition for the word gratuitous and a fresh standard for shoddy journalism.

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Regardless of your view of her, our side just doesn’t have nearly enough talent to allow anyone like her to be needlessly taken out. On the bright side, the outrageous coverage of Palin’s first major post resignation speech proves that the news media is convinced that they haven’t yet finished the job.

 

Everyone says Gadhafi's UN speech was, long, rambling, and boring.

Well, not quite everyone. See the A.P.

Gadhafi Draws Mixed Reviews

• "Gadhafi Delivers Rambling U.N. Tirade"--headline, CNN.com, Sept. 23
 
• "Gadhafi in Grand UN Performance"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 23

6 year old little girl "saved by guardian angel"?

This is amazing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

If you go here  Althouse: Do we want a wall of separation between religion and news? you'll learn that the news commentators were criticized for using the term "guardian angel."

good commentary on ACORN's decision to sue the people who pulled off the Sting operation - and cost them their Federal funding.

Go here for Constitutional Law Professor Ann Althouse's posting -

Althouse: "ACORN Sues Hidden-Camera Filmmakers, Breitbart.com. It should be fun to do discovery on this one."

What can you do when the teachers change the answers on student standardized tests, to improve their results?

It seems to me that this is a big potential problem, if teachers are going to be given results-oriented pay bonuses, as some suggest.

Erasures on D.C. Tests Apparently Concentrated in Six Schools - washingtonpost.com

Bowen Elementary was part of what District officials hailed as the success story of their 2008 standardized test results.

The reading proficiency rate at the small school near the District's Southwest waterfront jumped 27 points, to 63 percent of the student population. The math score surged 17 points, to 41 percent. Public elementary school scores citywide rose an average of 11 points in math and eight points in reading, a hopeful sign of improvement in Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's first year on the job.

But Bowen also had four classrooms where children erased wrong answers and replaced them with correct ones at abnormally high rates. Although fifth-graders across the District averaged slightly fewer than two wrong-to-right erasures on the math exam, one class at Bowen averaged just over 11, according to an analysis by CTB McGraw-Hill, publisher of the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS).

Forty-five of Washington's 150 public schools had at least one classroom with an elevated erasure level in 2008, according to the analysis, disclosed by District officials this month. A closer examination of the data shows that suspicious erasures were most heavily concentrated in third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms at a half-dozen schools: Aiton Elementary (seven classrooms); Marie Reed Elementary (six); Takoma Education Campus (five); Langdon Education Campus (four); J.O. Wilson Elementary (four); and Bowen. Five of the schools made gains that exceeded citywide averages. Langdon's scores held relatively steady.

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Blackwood said that while there were high expectations surrounding Bowen's test scores, there was never the kind of environment that would have compelled teachers to cut corners. "Nobody at the school was pressured," she said.

Although new to the District, erasure studies have been used by numerous school systems to investigate security breaches on standardized tests. In July, the Georgia State Board of Education threw out the results of a fifth-grade math exam at four schools after an audit found evidence of abnormally numerous erasures.

Some District officials said they are disappointed that Rhee did not pursue the evidence uncovered by the erasure study. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said he would probably hold a hearing on test security issues.

"I think they are a shadow on the results," said D.C. State Board of Education member Mary Lord. " 'Inconclusive' doesn't mean 'cleared' to me."

Joe's iPod

Has 3,400 (that's three thousand, four hundred) songs on it.

They take up 20 gigabytes of space.

I remember vinyl.

Yankees back in the Playoffs

After missing out last year, for the first time in 14 years. And with the best record in baseball, they are likely to have home field advantage through the playoffs.

Yankees Clinch Playoff Berth, Beat Angels 6-5 - washingtonpost.com

Arthur Laffer - not optimistic about the economy

Laffer - the originator of the "Laffer curve" in economics.Laffer curve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur B. Laffer: Taxes, Depression, and Our Current Troubles - WSJ.com

The damage caused by high taxation during the Great Depression is the real lesson we should learn. A government simply cannot tax a country into prosperity. If there were one warning I'd give to all who will listen, it is that U.S. federal and state tax policies are on an economic crash trajectory today just as they were in the 1930s. Net legislated state-tax increases as a percentage of previous year tax receipts are at 3.1%, their highest level since 1991; the Bush tax cuts are set to expire in 2011; and additional taxes to pay for health-care and the proposed cap-and-trade scheme are on the horizon.

Real men -- carry a pocket knife!?

Here's an amusing article. As a few people know, I've become something of a collector of knives in the past few years (not sure why, but I have) and have taken to giving pocket knives as gifts.

Ahhh, manliness!!

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/04/01/every-man-should-carry-a-pocket-knife/comment-page-3/#comments

1^st Century Romans created the first folding pocket knife. They made for easy carrying for soldiers and other explorers on their journeys and conquests. However, as the use of sheathed knives became more popular, the use of pocket knives fell somewhat into disfavor.

By the late 16th Century, pocket knives began to regain popularity. They were especially popular in the American colonies. From farmers to lawyers, men from all walks of life started to carry them. The ultimate portable tool, the pocket knife was a useful aid in various tasks, including eating on the go.

Pocket knives have been an essential tool for soldiers throughout American history. New York and New Hampshire required their militias to carry pocket knives during the American Revolution. Even George Washington toted one around as he led his troops. The U.S. Navy began issuing pocket knives to sailors during the Civil War. During WWII, the pocket knife was standard issue for American GIs.

Hit the link above to read the whole thing, and see some neat pictures.

 

Update on the five year old rescued from the burning car

Back on July 21st, I posted about a five year old saved from a burning SUV that hit a tree, fell over, and caught fire. It was an amazing rescue. Tom Faranda's Folly: Dramatic rescue - incredible video

Here's how the boy is doing now, having just been released from the hospital.

Community Helps 5-Year-Old After Dramatic Rescue - ABC News

D.J. suffered burns across his body and, although he can still hear, he lost his ears because of the burns.

"He knows that he was in a car accident and that the fire burnt him and that he no longer has ears," D.J.'s mother, Angela Harper, said. "That's one of the things he's looking forward to, is getting new ears."

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The Harpers now consider the Rechlitz brothers part of the family and D.J. refers to his rescuers as "Uncle John" and "Uncle Joel," and says he wants to ride in a fire truck as soon as he is better.

It could take years for D.J. to recover from his burns and get the necessary skin grafts. The family decided they want to spend that time living in the same city in which he was rescued.

Ninth Tri-Nations match: New Zealand vs. Australia

Three good tries; but South Africa had already won the turnament with their defeat last week of New Zealand.

Healthcare reform should not limit medical innovation and improvements, or place a limit on society's healthcare spending

The Administration's position is that spending 17% of our gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare is too much.

I disagree. Of course I am biased. When I was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, the online data (which was outdated!) said the average life expectancy for someone with mantle cell was three years.

Well, I'm still here, in remission and no sign of cancer, six years later. And that's due to advances in diagnosing types of lymphoma, and better treatments, in the last 15 years.

And this is the experience of any number of people who I know. Recent medical innovation and advances have extended lives and increased quality of life.

Of course, as a society we have skewed priorities. Last night I watched a bit of the Giants vs. Cowboys football game, as Dallas unveiled their new 100,000 seat stadium, with the world's largest high definition TV screen hanging over the field (The Giants won! Yah!!). The Stadium cost almost $1.2 billion. And I'll bet the Cowboys got big State tax breaks to make their "investment". Oh, in the state with the highest percentage of uninsured citizens. 

Here's an excellent op ed in the Wall Street Journal - excerpts below, but hit the link for all 12 paragraphs.

Newt Gingrich: A Growth Vision for Health Reform - WSJ.com

A 3-year-old boy was recently diagnosed with a rare, aggressive, soft-tissue cancer in his bladder. Radiation treatment would have stunted the growth of his pelvic bones, hips and bladder and left him disabled. Radical surgery could remove his bladder, prostate and portions of his rectum. That would have left him impotent, using a colostomy bag, and urinating through another bag in his abdomen.

His parents chose a third option—a new "unproven" therapy where a proton beam precisely targeted the radiation dose so that it didn't cripple their son for life. The boy is now cancer-free and his body functions normally.

This story would seem to be an example of our health-care system at its best. But it is incompatible with the left's vision for overhauling the health-care industry.

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Standing in opposition to this world of hope is the vision of reform advanced by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. That vision would destroy the economic incentives that drive health-care innovation because it starts with a fundamental conceit: that government planners can spend health-care dollars better than patients and doctors in the marketplace. This planning is the foundation for the arbitrary insistence that spending 17% of our GDP on health care is "too much."

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No American should suffer pain, disease or worse because of a lack of health care. We already spend huge sums to help those of modest means through Medicaid and other programs. Reform those programs to create a true health-care safety net. Back it up with state high-risk pools to ensure health coverage for everyone.

Excellent. The answer is not a government takeover. I really don't care if as a society we spend 20 or 22% of our GDP on healthcare. Where is money better spent? And here's another quote from the above article -

...the plan released by Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) last week would impose new taxes on medical device manufacturers of $40 billion over 10 years. That's more than industry venture capital investment.

An absurdity. All in the name of expanding the power of the federal government.

Tech support to and fro

From my humor consultant Antoinette -

Dear Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing 7.5, and Racing 3.6. I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall doesn't work on Wife 1.0. Please help!

Thanks,
A Troubled User

REPLY: Dear Troubled User:
This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING. It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony-Child Support. I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook It 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2.

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0.

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support

Senator Kennedy, his version of Catholicism, and his funeral

Go here for an excellent set of columns by the editor of the Boston Diocesan newspaper, The Advocate.

LifeNet: Three excellent commentaries from the Boston Diocesan newspaper on Senator Kennedy, and his funeral

 

The President calls on NY Gov. Patersen to not stand for re-election!?

I guess it's his lousy poll ratings.

But Patersen is an African-American! Does this make Obama a racist? Of course not, UNLESS you are judging by the standards of ex-President Carter and the NY Times op ed page!!

Obama Asks Paterson to Quit New York Governor’s Race - NYTimes.com

Irving Kristol

I never read much by Kristol, who died Friday at the age of 89. He was a liberal-turned-conservative, who coined the phrase "neoconservative."

But the fact that I never read anything by him, doesn't mean he wasn't an extremely influential person! Yesterday's Journal had a couple of posts on the editorial and op ed pages, that I found extremely interesting.

Irving Kristol - WSJ.com (11 paragraphs)

Perhaps the greatest gift of the gifted Irving Kristol, who died yesterday at 89, was prescience. This does not mean predicting the future. Prescience, a more useful gift, is seeing the direction in which the future is headed.

In his early years, Kristol saw that the Marxism which fascinated him and many others at mid-century had no future, and he embraced the ideals of the West, holding them tight for a lifetime. Later as a Democrat, he saw that many of the social welfare policies of the 1960s would fail, and so he undertook a long, unsparing critique of his own party's most cherished ideas. Later still, as a Republican, Kristol realized that his party's economic ideas were moribund, and he turned his energies to leading the pro-growth, "supply-side" revolution that culminated in the historic Reagan Presidency.

Irving Kristol is most often credited with leading the movement in American politics that came to be called neoconservatism. Begun in the 1970s, it may be counted as a testament to its enduring strength that as recently as the administration of George W. Bush, critics were bursting blood vessels screaming, again, that the government had fallen into the hands of "the neocons."

And here's some quotes from various columns that were published in the Journal over the past decades. I've excerpted the first and last of the 13 quotes. 

Irving Kristol’s Reality Principles - WSJ.com

Symbolic Politics and Liberal Reform, Dec. 15, 1972

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics. . . .

It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call "the New Politics" is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one's intense feelings—we must "care," we must "be concerned," we must be "committed." Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.

And this one -

Income Inequality Without Class Conflict, Dec. 18, 1997

It is often said that capitalism—that is, a market economy—is morally obnoxious because its "trickle-down economics" inevitably creates inequality of income and wealth. Now it is certainly true that "trickle-down economics" has that effect. It is also true, however, that if you want economic growth and greater affluence for all, there is simply no alternative to "trickle-down economics," which is just another name for growth economics.

The world has yet to see a successful version of "trickle-up economics," an egalitarian society in which the state ensures that the fruits of economic growth are universally and equally shared. The trouble with this idea—it is, of course, the socialist ideal—is that it does not produce those fruits in the first place. Economic growth is promoted by entrepreneurs and innovators, whose ambitions, when realized, create inequality. No one with any knowledge of human nature can expect such people not to want to be relatively rich, and if they are too long frustrated they will cease to be productive. Nor can the state substitute for them, because the state simply cannot engage in the "creative destruction" that is an essential aspect of innovation. The state cannot and should not be a risk-taking institution, since it is politically impossible for any state to cope with the inevitable bankruptcies associated with economic risk taking.

In the spirit of Richard Nixon, a new "enemies list"

Put together by allies of the White House health reform campaign.

Health reformers targeting 'enemies' - Washington Times

The field plan says the protests should attract media coverage that "creates villains or enemies that serve as a contrast with our side; validates the need for affordability and the public health insurance option; [and] forces the other side to respond."

Good commentary on Speaker Pelosi

From blogging law professor Ann Althouse. She voted for Obama but seems pretty fed up.

Althouse: Nancy chokes up.

I guess you've seen this ridiculous mash of political will and phony emotion.

"But, again, our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe, but I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause."

Okay, then, I think that you are desperate and depleted of arguments on the merits of the atrocious, amorphous health care reform you thought the American people would swallow whole ...

Who's in Your Wallet

From my humor consultant Karen.

I know, it's so unfair to make jokes about the Messiah...

My friend Jeanne Marie has a birthday

This was actually almost three weeks ago, and I started the post but haven't had time to upload the pictures.

Jeanne Marie Gagnon had a little (actually not so little - sorry to those whose picture I didn't include) birthday gathering - organized by husband Damian. This was not a landmark birthday, just one of the in-betweener's.

Claire Dinger in foreground; Jeanne Marie in the middle

  

The two wild-eyed ones in the middle are two Gagnon kids - Monica and Nate

Who needs a real estate agent when you've got St. Joseph?

Pointed out to me by my friend Dennis.

I suppose this can be looked upon as a quaint custom, little dose of spirituality, or a superstition.

14 paragraphs long.

Our Towns - St. Joseph, Superagent in Real Estate - NYTimes.com

And online, St. Joseph is everywhere. The Underground Real Estate Agent Kit offers four-inch and eight-inch statues; a book, “St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent”; and a free online home listing. On sites like Amazon.com, the reviews of the statues tend to be pretty straightforward. It either worked (“House had been on the market for 7 months and got an offer within 1 week of this statue’s arrival”) or it didn’t (“I fell for it! I bought the St. Joseph. I followed his instructions to the T and got no buyers for my house still after 2 months.”)

SOME find the notion of magic house sales distasteful. “If you just bury the statue in the ground, you’re not going to sell your home,” said Gerard Siccardi, whose family runs a religious-goods business in White Plains. “You’re supposed to pray. You’re supposed to have some reverence about this. It’s a faith-based item.”

But Stephen J. Binz, the author of 25 books on religion, including “St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent” (“It’s the lightest of them,” he said), said that even on a casual level, there’s a kind of grass-roots spirituality involved. “I believe God can work in people’s lives in all sorts of ways without our really understanding them,” he said.

The last line of this article was a quote from a Jewish real estate agent - she says "You want to believe in something."

Here's a complete kit - Buy St Joseph Statue - Home Sale Kits

Mary, of Peter, Paul, and Mary

At age 72, Complications of  chemotherapy ... 

Mary Travers, Singer of Protest Anthems, Dies at 72 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Senator Wyden (D) of Oregon op ed in the NY Times today on healthcare reform makes more sense then the current Senate Bill

The very "progressive" Senator offers a good starting point for reform. It empowers individuals, and not the government, unlike the Senate Finance Committee plan WSJ not impressed with Senate committee version of healthcare reform

The whole op ed is only 12 paragraphs long.

 Op-Ed Contributor - Health Reform’s Missing Ingredient - NYTimes.com

My amendment, called Free Choice, would let everyone choose his health insurance plan.

It would impose only one requirement on employers — that they offer their employees a choice of at least two insurance plans, one of them a low-cost, high-value plan. Employers could meet this requirement by offering their own choices. Or they could let their employees choose either the company plan or a voucher that could be used to buy a plan on the exchange. They could also simply insure all of their employees though the exchange, at a discounted rate.

Very sensible. But being realistic (or a cynic), I think it has very little chance of becoming law, since it does very lttle to increase the federal government's power.

WSJ not impressed with Senate committee version of healthcare reform

UPDATE: This makes sense - Senator Wyden (D) of Oregon op ed in the NY Times today on healthcare reform makes more sense then the c...

Here's this morning's editorial, which bears reading in it's entirety. I've excerpted the first two, and last paragraph of this 13 paragraph editorial 

Baucus Health-Care Plan Is Still Government Run - WSJ.com

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus finally unveiled his health-care plan yesterday to a chorus of bipartisan jeers. The reaction is surprising given that President Obama all but endorsed the outlines of the Baucus plan last week. But the hoots are only going to grow louder as more people read what he's actually proposing.

The headline is that Mr. Baucus has dropped the unpopular "public option," but this is a political offering without much policy difference. His plan remains a public option by other means, imposing vast new national insurance regulation, huge new subsidies to pay for the higher insurance costs this regulation will require and all financed by new taxes and penalties on businesses, individuals and health-care providers. Other than that, Hippocrates, the plan does no harm.

>>>>>>

To sum up, the Baucus-Obama plan would increase the cost of insurance and then force people to buy it, requiring subsidies. Those subsidies would be paid for by taxes that make health care and thus insurance even more expensive, requiring even more subsidies and still higher taxes. It's a recipe to ruin health care and bankrupt the country, and that's even before liberal Democrats see Mr. Baucus and raise him, and then attempt to ram it all through the Senate.

If environmentalists wrote "Star Wars"

This just out!

Lectio Divina

Here's a fine explanation of how to profit from the Bible. From the Zenit email newletter.

"Lectio Divina" as Simple as 1, 2, 3, 4

Brazilian Cardinal Explains Prayerful Reading of Scripture

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, SEPT. 15, 2009 (Zenit.org).- As Brazil celebrates the month of the Bible, Cardinal Odilo Scherer recommended to his archdiocese the exercise of prayerful reading of the Word of God, and explained how to do it.

In the archdiocesan weekly "O São Paulo," the archbishop of São Paulo recalled how the synod of bishops on the Word of God, held last October, "noted with joy that in the whole world the prayerful reading of the Bible -- lectio divina -- is being adopted and is spreading."
 
"It is a simple method accessible to everyone, including the most simple," the cardinal said, explaining that the method "proposes the reading and acceptance of the Word of God in a context of prayer, as the Church recommends."

Through lectio divina, Cardinal Scherer continued, a "dialogue of faith" is established, "in which we listen to God who speaks, we respond with prayer and try to be attuned to him in our lives."

Step by step

The cardinal went on to offer the faithful four easy steps for lectio divina.

First, one reads the passage. "In this first instance, one attempts to understand the text exactly as it appears, without pretending to extract from it immediately messages and conclusions," he said.

Meditation on the text comes next, in response to the question "What is God saying to me, or to us, through this text? Now we really do try to listen to God who is speaking to us and we receive his voice."
 
Then comes "prayer. In this third step, we respond to the question: What does this text bring me to say to God?"
 
"Let us always remember that a good biblical reading is always done only in the dialogue of faith: God speaks, we listen and accept, and respond to God and speak to him," the cardinal explained. The text "might inspire several types of prayer: praise, profession of faith, thanksgiving, adoration, petition for forgiveness and help."
 
The fourth and final step of lectio divina is contemplation. In this step "we dwell on the Word and further our understanding of the mystery of God and his plan of love and salvation; at the same time, we dispose ourselves to accept in our concrete lives what the Word teaches us, renewing our good intentions and obedience of the faith."

With these four steps, Cardinal Scherer said experience teaches that it is not difficult to practice lectio divina.

"It's enough to start; it is learned by being practiced," he said. "The preciousness of the Word of God and its importance for Christian life, moreover, well merits an effort on our part."

And here's the Pope from a day or two ago, on a similar topic

Senate Finance Committee unveils it's Health Reform package

This just in. I have friends who will support this, no matter what it says, and others who will oppose it, no matter what it says.  

Baucus Introduces $856 Billion Health-Care Bill - washingtonpost.com

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus unveiled an $856 billion health-care reform plan Wednesday that would require nearly all Americans to carry health insurance while barring insurance companies from discriminating against people based on their health status or denying coverage because of preexisting conditions.

The plan does not call for a government-run insurance option, as advocated by President Obama and most Democrats, but would set up a system of nonprofit consumer-owned cooperatives to compete with private insurers -- a provision intended to appeal to Republicans who have railed against the "public option" in recent weeks.

>>>>>>

Under the Baucus plan, new Web-based insurance exchanges would be established to allow consumers to shop for and compare insurance plans. The package would also expand Medicaid and place caps on patients' annual health-care costs. It would be paid for with $349 billion in new taxes and fees and $507 billion in cuts to government health programs.

Obviously, thre's got to be some caveats to barring insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions. Otherwise everyone would wait until they were sick before buying insurance. Although - somewhere in the package I think there's a requirement that everyone buy insurance, or face penalties administered through the tax code.

Want to read the whole Bill? Here it is - all 233 pages. How many of the Senators will read it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/americas_healthy_future_act_of_2009_091609.pdf?sid=ST2009091601167

Alan King: "Survived by his Wife"

From my humor consultant Ellen.

A classic from 22 years ago. Listen for his one liner "Those roots are not dead, you know."

Alan King died in 2004. Was he "survived by his wife"? Yes, but his wife Jeanette only survived him by a few months, also dying in 2004.

King was heavily involved in charity work throughout his life. Alan King (comedian) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joe Wilson's wife does a political ad

Joe Wilson, the congressman who said "You lie." This might be effective ... or maybe not ...

Investors Business Daily poll of MD's: 45% would consider quitting or early retirement under Obamacare

It will be interesting to see if other polls pick up on this. IBD is doing a series, based on their polling data and interviews with physicians.

Investors.com - 45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul

Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found

South Africa vs. New Zealand; 8th Tri-Nations match

Played in Waikato, New Zealand

U.S. vs U.K. health systems, and "terminal sedation"

"Terminal sedation"? Hmmm, that doesn't sound too attractive.

Here's a very good, short (11 paragraphs) essay - the auther lives in London.

Rupert Darwall: Government Medicine vs. the Elderly - WSJ.com

Rarely has the Atlantic seemed as wide as when America's health-care debate provoked a near unanimous response from British politicians boasting of the superiority of their country's National Health Service. ...

This outbreak of NHS jingoism was brought to an abrupt halt by the Patients Association, an independent charity. In a report, the association presented a catalogue of end-of-life cases that demonstrated, in its words, "a consistent pattern of shocking standards of care." It provided details of what it described as "appalling treatment," which could be found across the NHS.

A few days later, a group of senior doctors and health-care experts wrote to a national newspaper expressing their concern about the Liverpool Care Pathway, a palliative program being rolled out across the NHS involving the withdrawal of fluids and nourishment for patients thought to be dying. Noting that in 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in the U.K. came after "terminal sedation," ...

The real justification for socialized medicine is left unstated: Because health-care resources are assumed to be fixed, those resources should be prioritized for those who can benefit most from medical treatment. Thus the NHS acts as Britain's national triage service ...

... An analysis by a senior U.K.-based health-care expert earlier this decade found that in the U.S. health-care spending per capita goes up steeply for the elderly, while the U.K. didn't show the same pattern. The U.K.'s pattern of health-care spending by age had more in common with the former Soviet bloc.

>>>>>>

In 1965, economist (and future Nobel laureate) James Buchanan observed of the 17-year old NHS that "hospital facilities are overcrowded, and long delays in securing treatment, save for strictly emergency cases, are universally noted." Forty-four years later, matters are little improved. The Wanless report found that of the five countries it looked at, the U.S. was the only one to be both an early adopter and rapid diffuser of new medical techniques. It is the world's principal engine driving medical advance. If the U.S. gets health-care reform wrong, the rest of the world will suffer too.