Hodgepodge #10

Healthcare reform: Will not be "reformed" until politicians and the public admit the problem is the fraud and waste perpetrated by patients and physicians simply because they can, especially on a public tab. Healthcare became all about big business in the 1980s, just ask Wall Street. Government intervention in healthcare has not helped the sick and needy; it has created them.

Palin criticized the "Family Guy" for mocking her son Trig's Down syndrome and called for the firing of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel over Emanuel's use of the phrase "fu----- retards": This is Palin expressing shallow-mindedness by demanding political correctness from a TV cartoon and foul-mouthed folk. Although if you believe Levi Johnston, the trailer park daddy of Palin's grandson, Palin herself has referred to her child as retarded. Affectionately I'm sure. In Sarah's next speech she will condemn liberals/democrats for demanding political correctness.

Tiger Woods apologizes to his family, his wife, his children, his friends, his fans, and his charitable foundation: He seemed sincere - until he emphasized that there was no domestic violence in his home, to put to rest the rumors that Elin chased him from the house with a golf club. I suppose she could have just had that golf club in her hand at 3 a.m. ... while I agree with Tiger that Elin has shown enormous grace in her handling of this situation, such grace does not always stop a woman from picking up the nearest cudgel to knock a man's brains out. Hell hath no fury ...

Left/liberal/democrats are linking Joe Stack, the Austin kamikaze pilot, to Tea Partyers and rightwingers, while the rightwingers want to connect Stack to the "left": But his manifesto, if it is his, reads more left than right. "The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed." --- As a small business person, I can identify with much of Joe's rant. Regardless of what the government is doing or not doing, the majority of Stack's problems were his to own - in the end he chose to blame everyone else, which is what sociopaths and democrats typically do. It has always been survival of the fittest, and if you cannot outsmart and out think a parasitic government and its incompetent bureaucrats and employees ...

The DOJ decided "... lawyers showed "poor judgment" but did not commit professional misconduct when they authorized CIA interrogators to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics at the height of the U.S. war on terrorism, an internal review released Friday found." --- Did you expect a different conclusion?

Buenos Aires, Feb 18 (Prensa Latina). "Argentinean association Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo demanded the Nobel Committee to take away the Prize granted in 2009 to North American President Barack Obama, who keeps sending troops to fight other countries." ---This complaint coming from a country where the politicians and police are some of the most corrupt in the world, laundering drug money in plain sight, illegal arms sales to their neighbors, using death squads to fight crime, where abandoned children roam the streets sniffing glue and prostituting. Pot/kettle, glass/house. But yes, Nobel can take back Obama's prize, and we can give Mark Sanford to Argentina.

New York, Feb 19 (Reuters) - "U.S. front-month crude oil futures shot up to more than $80 a barrel in post-settlement trading on Friday, a five-week high, as geopolitical worries about Iran's nuclear program and strikes at French refineries." --- Hugo smiles, anything less is an oligarchical plot by his capitalist opponents.

Huntsville: The Alabama university professor charged with fatally shooting three colleagues is remorseful but does not recall the shooting, her defense attorney said yesterday. Roy W. Miller said Amy Bishop, 44, is likely insane and does not remember pulling out a handgun and shooting six colleagues, three fatally, at a biology department faculty meeting a week ago at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. "She just doesn’t remember shooting these folks," he said. --- The beginning of more antisocial female mass murderers. Amy Bishop, self-proclaimed intellectual, had her insanity defense planned before she locked and loaded. You've come a long way baby. Not only has the women's movement achieved its goal of teaching men to be more in touch with their emotions (effete), women have become stronger (mannish), able to wield swords and pump a shotgun with one hand. No Bette Davis or Kate Hepburns. No sirree, you got Sara Conners, Lara Croft, Kill Bill, an endless supply of leathered-up weapon toting babes.

A new study shows those who are bullied more are likely to have problems in other parts of their lives, lacking nonverbal communication skills: Inability to read nonverbal cues, understanding their social meaning, and coming up with options to resolve social conflict. In other words, both bully and bullied are social retards.

'Miss me yet?' asks billboard, George W. Bush. Not really Dubya since Barry O is more or less continuing your reign.

Last but not least, the Misery Index for January 2010 is at 12.33. The index was in double digits (10, 11, 12) during much of the 1980s and '90s. The all time high in my lifetime was 21.98 in June of 1980, so our misery still has a way to go. Even during the 1930s Great Depression the index can be calculated at 21-23. So when yapping heads say today is as bad or nearly as bad as the depression, that everything is spinning out of control, or worse that the guvmint has rescued the economy - just remember it is not even as bad as 1980. Yet.