Is there a now Great Pumpkin board?
 

I wasn't sure if anyone wanted to hear me rant about the fact that even with 93 bipartisan sponsors, the Campaign Finance Reform Bill in the Texas House will never see the light of day.

Good news, Politics Board! The Texas Legislature only has a month left in the five month, every two year session. So I can go back to ranting about national politics, until the special summer session and the fight over school finance.

Is there a now Great Pumpkin board?
 

And again I offer:

I will help you get rid of the dirtiest Rs in Texas.

Just tell us where to send aid that is likely to be used effectively. Seriously, its payday where I'm at. The mortgage is down to 10 years, I'm 6 months in real payments ahead, I just bought lunch for the entire staff on my floor, there are no other loans outstanding beside the mortgage, and I still have moolah in the wallet.

Just tell me where to send it and why you believe it will used effectively to bring down one of the worst.

All I ask in return is for your help in getting rid of Mayor Daley and Senator Durbin. But I'll consider your word your bond, so just give me your word and the information on where to send the money.

and what would people's nicknames be if their screennames had mob nicknames? What would your's be?

Say Hello For ("the Sweeper") Me

Nahhh, but I'd bet you could come up with a pretty cool tough mob nickname for Replaced Texan!

Your 11th Amendment almost at work
 

I think you may have an excessively short view of history.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Apparently, not even Democrats have the balls to tell people to quit whining about gas prices.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

As a good republican, I don't like the idea of a national health care system. And if there is one, is should be kept in the private sector as much as possible. However, I was wathcing Thomas Friedman on TV tonight and he said that the number one reason for companys in the United States moving their factories off shore is health care costs. Not high taxes or high labor costs. In China, the government takes care of health care so the company's don't have to worry about it. He said that $6,000 spent on every GM car goes to the healt benefits of its workers. I don't know if it is true, but what he is saying is the strongest argument I have heard for a national health care system.

Conservative v. Neo-conservative
 

I was also watching Charles Krauthammer being interviewed on CSPAN, and he was comparing Neo-conservatives to conservatives. He was saying that conservatives just look at foreign policy in terms of US interest. Neo-conservatives look at it in terms of turning other countrys into democracys and free market economies. He compared the two camps to billard balls. Conservatives just care where the balls are bouncing on the table. Neo-conservatives care what is inside the balls and how what is inside the balls determines which way they go. Neo-conservatives are different from liberals in that they believe that US power, and not multilateral institutions, is the best way to spread democracy One interesting point he made, was that he felt that a neo-conservative would have voted for Johnson in 68 and not Goldwater. Didn't quite get the logic behind that. But I have to say that I am definitely a neo-conservative.

Krauthammer's Balls
 

I think the neocons position could be restated as that turning other countries into democracies with FMEs is ultimately in the best interests of the US. Hard to argue with as a general proposition. As usual, however, the devil is in the details. Are there any limits on our decision to implement this goal? In other words, who's next? Also, I'm concerned that US power and multilateral institutions are seen as an either/or proposition. US power is finite and its use without regard to world opinion will steadliy foster increasing resentment. We may soon find ourselves in a position where we are no longer able to project force at the moment we have burned our last multilateral institutional bridge.

Where's Hank?
 

Oh. In Kansas.

Krauthammer's Balls
 

Does the term "neocon" have any widely recognized definition? It seems alternately self-serving (i.e., "we're so cool that we've jettisoned the "old" conservative ways like racism and mere imperialism) and deprecatory ("they're dressing up the same pig in new clothes")

Krauthammer's Balls
 

I thought it had something to do with Keanu Reeves.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

This is something you just heard?

Conservative v. Neo-conservative
 

Yeah, 'cause Johson's efforts to use US power to create democracy in faraway lands worked out so well.

Krauthammer's Balls
 

They all wear a special decoder ring.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

If it is a strong argument for government intervention into the health care system at all, it is a strong argument for an approach such as Oregon's, not a national health care system. I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, but some extraordinarily large portion of our health care expenditures is spent on the last year of people's lives or futile efforts to keep them alive or extend their (often miserable) life my some incremental amount. What Oregon is at least trying to do is insert some cost-benefit analysis into health care decisions, i.e. don't spend $1,000,000 on a liver transplant for a 70-year old.

We are spending something like 20% of our GDP (or GNP, I don't know and it doesn't matter) on health care in some misguided belief that all efforts must be made at all times for all people. And some disproportionate amount of that is not spent on the stuff that most people want from health insurance, whether it is keeping the vegetative alive, using extraordinary attempts to save the old, infirm and feeble, or on all the machines in the ICU that go "beep."

Somehow the doctors, lawyers and religious right have created this systemic belief that no amount of resources should be spared to save one life on the margin. Oregon is at least looking at the marginal benefit for the expeniture of extraordinary costs. A national health care system would not. I don't know what exactly, but I have no doubt that it would instead create some other system with unintentional, yet existent, built-in incentives for inefficiency, graft, and incompetency. (See, e.g. the TSA).

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Agreed, but Less -- you're going to have to accept that "fuckable" will never be included on the benefit side.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

I don't get out much

Where's Hank?
 

This is so ridiculous. What really makes me angry is when the scientists on the evolutionary side say that they won't stoop down to their level and join in the debate. I hate that attitude. We live in the real world, and unless you want future voters who are going to be deciding your political leadership ten years from now to get a decent educated you have to get into the arena and fight. Boycotting the debate, or refusing to enter the discussion, just cedes the game to the opposition. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and these bozos need to get in their an fight.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

And when you do you are in lousy company.

Where's Hank?
 

Sing it, brother.


(sorry -- I'm not usually a typo-timmy, but this was too easy.)

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Now that you and LessinSF seem to be holding hands and singing Kumbaya, and have agreed on a National Health Care system where we knock of the aged and the crippled there are still a few problems. As someone that has lived in a few nations that have a national health care system, it always seems to suck. In Japan, the system was so bad that I paid to use private doctors and it cost me a fortune. After going to the clinics in England I felt like taking a shower. I wouldn't send my cats to the South Surrey medical clinic. I think one of the main problems is the free rider problem. If health care is free people will go to see the doctor every time their nose itches. In addition, there is no incentive to keep up quality. How do you stop the National Health Care system from turning into the DMV?

Where's Hank?
 

Actually, one of the foremost scientists (Eugenie Scott) dedicated to educating the public about the inherent stupidity of creationism aka intelligent design is right up the road from you.

http://www.natcenscied.org/

Where's Hank?
 

These guys are great. But they are not the problem. The way the creationists work is they go to areas that are safe Republican areas. And then they run as traditional Republicans and get on the school board (not letting anyone know what their true agenda is). Once they get on the school board they start working on the other board members giving them all sorts of false information about creationism. Then they hold a hearing and try and pack it with their "experts". Gettting anyone to show up at these hearings on the evolution side is like pulling teath.

the democrats: a party of class and wit (installment #436)
 

Where's Hank?
 

Did you mean "teat" or "teeth"? Take it from a farm boy in the heartland, one is decidely more difficult to pull to achieve quick results.

the democrats: a party of class and wit (installment #436)
 

Gosh, Katie looks great in that pic. Thanks.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

All good questions. But what I thought was strange is that you, as someone who, I would guess, has strongly opposed the idea in the past, you only yesterday became aware of one of the more compelling reasons, at least from a national economic standpoint, for supporting the idea. Certainly some fault in that lies with the proponents of the system for not explaining the reasons for supporting it better, but still.... one wonders.

I don't want National Health Care to be like the DMV -- though I would point out that the DMV is controlled by states and/or localities, suggesting that maybe Rs' knee-jerk response to any program with the word "national" in it may be misguided.

I think one of your concerns, that people will go to the doctor every time their nose itches because it's free, is misguided. People who get free or highly subsidized health care in the US often don't ever go to the doctor, until they have an emergency and then they go to the emergency room. How many people do you know who, despite minimal or zero co-payments, don't go the doctor when they are sick or for regular physicals, let alone when their nose itches? In general we'd probably do better if people did regularly see their doctors -- the woman who sees her doctor regularly throughout a pregnancy is much healthier, and much easier to deal with, than the one who goes in for the first time only when her water breaks.

Personally, I would favor some serious penalties -- restrictions on available care, or requirements to pay a substantial portion of the cost of care -- for people who did not get regular check-ups and did not take care of their health. I doubt that this would ever fly politically, though -- you can see the lobbyists for snack food cos and cigarette cos lining up to prevent it.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Um, well, not for long. Federal requirements for issuing drivers' licenses?

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

The poor and poorly educated also would not go to a greater percentage than the richer and better eduscated. Can you predict what groups would prevent cutting off their benefits? For that matter even cig smokers- Dems wouldn't let us cut benefits to smokers, they'd go after the companies.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Again, I cite the December 2004 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine regarding quality at the VA hospitals.

Signed,

Replaced Cassandra Texan

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

When someone looking like you walks into a Dr's office, of course every doctor lines up to see the patient. You probably get a thorough exam every time. But the program also has to be there for the Tys of the world.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

I'll email the Chicago Manual of Style for an opinion if necessary, but shouldn't that --Cassandra-- go in quotes and/or parantheses?

As in, Replaced ("Cassandra") Texan?

Can I get a ruling here?

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Wait, wait, I know. Trick question right?

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Right. Your grandmother's healthcare is at the DMV level.

Another trick question for everyone: Who the fuck do you think is the single largest payor in the United States?

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Bill gates, in a good year?

Where's Hank?
 

I think the scientists feel the real debate about this took place about 150 years ago. Should they be required to appear at "Earth - Flat or Not?" debates?

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Hmmm.... must have missed that the first time around. Can it be read during a single dump? That's kind of my standard for magazines.

Seriously -- I know a little about how good VA hospitals are. Hell, my father was a doctor at a VA hospital for innumerable years. But he was also a doctor for people who had their care paid for in other ways, many of whom failed to use that benefit intelligently -- instead, they would rush in for 'emergencies' that were really chronic conditions grown much worse for neglect. (As a kid I would take messages like "I'm calling because I've been coughing blood for four days." Um, maybe you should have called three days ago?)

Any large program is subject to abuse, misuse, and sloppy management. That is at least as true of privately funded programs as of publicly funded ones (cue the Rs to start screaming in hysteria about how I'm a commie. After all, Enron was a government company, as was Columbia HCA, and after all it was really Clinton's fault. Or FDR's.) I was pointing out one issue -- more specifically, I was taking what Spanky identified as an issue and suggesting that the real issue was the converse.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Not yet, but it would be if it were nationalized.

Tell me, what does the government do better than the private sector?

Where's Hank?
 

Not required. But if psycho-christians start pushing to teach that the earth is flat in our public schools, then I really hope that they will show.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

I used to think the military stuff, but I hear a lot of that is outsourced now.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

Hoo-boy. Here we go again.

How'd you get to work today? Nice roads the government built, huh?