Thursday - August 20, 2009
It has to be worth a try
Go and read it
Liberal Lies About National Health Care: First In a Series
by Ann Coulter
08/19/2009(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies.
You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete.
a federal law allows states to ban interstate commerce in health insurance
It’s the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it’s screwed up because there’s not enough government oversight (it’s the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of “reform.”
You could fix 90 percent of the problems with health insurance by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines.
Ok, one downside to this idea might be that every insurance company doing business in a state will need to have claims adjusters/inspectors in that state - hey, wait a minute, that’s home and car insurance. Thanks to HIPPA, for health insurance all we have to do is fill out the same forms and submit them. Never mind. But you would have to have a big meeting of all the insurance companies from all the states so that they could all get on the same page and all use the same insurance codes. Ok, that ought to take about a week I’d think. The codes are just numbers, no big deal. So who really cares if “123” or “8611” means “removed paperclip from kid’s ear”? But, as anyone in the health provider industry knows, there are a huge number of insurance codes.
The cost to the government of opening up the market is just about nothing. The cost would be born by the insurance companies. But they could easily eat it, because they would all be able to expand their business areas 50 times over, and that means an opportunity for millions more customers. That kind of gain is worth the investment.
So I agree with her. As long as certain standards are kept, then let the free market solve this “crisis”. And setting basic minimal standards is all the legitimate involvement that any level of government has, MAYBE, in the insurance industry. And it is very easy to argue that no government has any business being involved AT ALL.
But read her essay. She has more solutions, and points out more lies from the left. Which everyone else is doing, along with flaws in the bill. Here is yet another news source/blog that points some of those flaws out:
Note that this list only extends to page 498, and the bill is over 1000 pages.
Pg 22 of the Health Care Bill mandates that the Govt. will audit the books of all employers that self insure
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - Establishes a Govt. committee that decides what treatments/benefits you get
Pg 29 lines 4-16 - Rationing of health care
Pg 42 - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice
PG 50 Section 152 - Health Care will be provided to all non US citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58 - Govt. will have real-time access to individuals’ finances & a National ID Health card will be issued
Pg 59 lines 21-24 - Govt. will have direct access to your bank accounts for elective funds transfer
PG 65 Sec 164 - This is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in community orgs (ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 - Govt. is creating an Health Care Exchange to bring private plans under Govt. control.
PG 84 Sec 203 - Govt. mandates all benefit pkgs. for private plans be in the Govt. health care exchange
...
PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 - Govt. provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in deathPG 427 Lines 15-24 - Govt. mandates program for orders for end of life. The Govt. has a say in how your life ends
...
PG 429 Lines 10-12 “Advance care consultation” may include an order for end of life plans.Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The Govt. will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.
PG 430 Lines 11-15 - The Govt. will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life
[gosh, no Death Panel at all in the last 5 listed items! Stupid Palin!]
These lists go on an on. And they are everywhere. Maybe, just maybe, people are waking up to the awareness that Hillary Care II / ObamaCare is a totalitarian takeover. And it must not pass.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/20/2009 at 10:52 AM
Filed Under: • Health and Safety • Health-Medicine •
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Permalink • Wednesday - August 19, 2009
Still Sounds Fishy To Me
The crew of the Russian ship Arctic Sea are being flown home Wednesday evening after they were questioned in Cape Verde. Russian authorities continue to hold the pirates, who took the ship and are said to have threatened to blow it up unless they were paid a ransom.
Russian defence Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov said the ship was commandeered on 24 July in Swedish territorial waters by two Russians, two Latvians and four Estonians.
“Crew members confirm that the hijackers demanded a ransom and threatened to blow the ship if their orders were not obeyed,” Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed Russian defence ministry spokesperson as saying.
The pirates are reported to have abandoned their claim after they were ordered by a Russian warship to stop the Vessel.
The suspects were taken on Monday aboard a Russian anti-submarine ship Ladny, off the coast of Cape Verde archipelago.
So far, the two Baltic states say they have not received any details from Russia regarding the alleged involvement of their nationals.
Furthermore, in Malta, maritime authorities on Tuesday said the cargo ship had “never disappeared” as the media had claimed but that it was continuously tracked between the moment of the hijack and the moment the Russian army recuperated it.
Oh really? So why was the “we can’t find our ship” story even put out there then? Was it because a Russian ship taken hostage had to be rescued by Russian forces, even if they had to sail across a whole sea to get there?
Or was there something hidden in the ship’s cargo, and the whole “pirates” thing is a ruse to explain a clandestine delivery, or an attempt at one. Nukes to North Africa? A Spetznatz insertion somewhere? Like I said the other day, we’ll probably never get the pravda truth.
But if they are telling the truth, then the EUropeans better get their navies out of mothballs and put to sea. Because they’ve got Swedish Pirates of the Baltic Sea!
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2009 at 09:51 PM
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •
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Permalink • Words of Warning
Herbert Meyer writes about revolution over at American Thinker. It’s a few months old, but it fits in well with what Horowitz is writing this week. Worth reading.
With the election of Barack Obama as president, the liberals have launched a massive, two-front offensive they believe will end in victory. They have judged that our public education system is so degraded that only a few Americans are left who even understand what a democracy is, and how the free market actually works. They are convinced that the majority of Americans are too frightened by the current recession to care about preserving the principles that made us the most powerful, productive and innovative country the world has ever known. In short, the liberals are reaching for victory because they believe that history now is on their side.
The speed of their offensive is breathtaking.
At the core of democracy is the rule of law, and we have already lost it. The liberals lecture us incessantly that everything is “relative,” but that’s not true; some things are absolutes. You cannot claim to be faithful to your spouse because you never cheat on her—except when you’re in London on business. And you cannot claim to have the rule of law if the government can set aside the rule of law when it decides that “special circumstances” have arisen that warrant illegality. When the President and his aides handed ownership of Chrysler Corp. to the United Auto Workers union, they tried to avoid sending that beleaguered company into bankruptcy by muscling its bondholders into accepting less money for their assets than the law entitled them to collect. These contracts, and the law under which they were signed, were mere obstacles to a thuggish President bent on paying off his political supporters.
It’s going to get much worse, fast. President Obama has told us time and again that among his criteria for choosing Federal judges will be “empathy.” Empathy is a wonderful quality in any human being, but a judge’s job is to rule according to the law. Once our courts are presided over by judges who will reach verdicts based on how they feel about an issue—such as abortion or the right of citizens to bear arms—the law will be whatever the judges wish it to be; the rule of law will become an empty phrase rather than the architecture of our civilization.
We have lost our free-market economy as quickly as we have lost the rule of law. Money is to an economy what blood is to a body; life and death resides within the organ that controls its flow. The government already owns our country’s leading banks, which means the government now controls our economy. (And in all fairness to President Obama, it was the Bush administration that started us down this ghastly road.) One indicator of the Obama administration’s real objective: When some banks that had taken federal money attempted to repay their loans, the Treasury Department refused to accept repayment and step aside. This shows the government’s goal isn’t to prop up the banks, but rather to control them.
Here, too, things are going to get much worse, fast. The government now owns General Motors Corp., is reaching for control of insurance companies, and has launched plans to take over our country’s healthcare industry. It even wants authority to set the salaries of executives in industries that, at least for now, aren’t being subsidized or underwritten by the government.
Put all this together, and what we have in our country today isn’t a democracy and it isn’t a free-market economy. Reader, what we have now is a revolution.
We are in a fight for our lives folks. Our way of life, our nation, our fundamental beliefs. And the elected Republicans are NOT going to lead that fight. They are not going to LEAD anything. It’s not going to be Fox News, or Rush Limbaugh, or anyone on talk radio. It’s up to us. We, the people. Soap box. Ballot box. Jury box.
h/t to reader Carol, who sends me great links.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2009 at 08:44 PM
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Permalink • E.D. Hill, found at last
Remember the horrible E.D. Hill “disaster” on Fox News? She used to have her own show on that network. Then one day, early June 2008, she was reading the teleprompter, doing the teaser for an upcoming segment. That segment was for one of their famous “body language” pieces, and the body language to be analyzed was the Obama’s dap. You know, this one:
So she reads the teleprompter, which says “what is that? Is that some kind of terrorist thing?” (or words to that effect). Because, you know, who would ever make that association?
and then the excrement impacted the oscillator at high lateral velocity. The rabid left screamed for her head, even though they wouldn’t be caught dead watching Fox News. Within a couple days E.D. was on TV, apologizing for doing her job, which is to be pretty and read aloud what it says on the teleprompter:
But to no avail. E.D. was thrown under the bus. Her show was canceled instantly, and she was off the air. Never to be seen from again. Such stalwart lions of journalism they have at FoxNews, standing behind their people to the bitter end. NOT.
Well, it turns out that E.D. Hill kept her job at Fox for a few more months, until her contract ran out. And then, when nobody was looking, they gave her the boot.
E.D. Hill, Fox Contract Not Renewed. Fired Over Obama Comment?
November 19, 2008
TVNewser has an exclusive on the final fate of invisible Fox personality E.D. Hill today. Fox has decided not to renew E.D.’s contract, so she will be finally leaving the Fox News Channel after being off the air since June.
Some may remember the left-media storm targeting E. D. Hill that occurred back on June 6 when she off handedly said that Barack and Michelle’s on stage fist bump was a “terrorist fist jab.” The Huffington Post and Media Matters raised a storm of protest and soon after, E.D. Hill lost her Fox show.
Well, it seems to have taken some time, but as TVNewser reports Fox has announced they are not going to renew Hill’s contract when it expires early in 2009.
That was back in November. Her contract was up in January. Where is she now? As of May 1st, she’s doing internet radio. From Sandy Springs Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
E.D. Hill formerly with Fox News and co-host of Fox & Friends for many years will begin hosting live Good Morning with E.D. Hill on http://www.americaswebradio.com and http://www.radiosandysprings.com beginning Tuesday May 5, 2009 from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM Tuesdays and Thursdays initially.
E.D. brings her vast experience, knowledge, humor, views, comments and talent to America’s Web Radio. Topics will range from current events to raising kids with guests and as much fun as is possible in the incredible mix only on America’s Web Radio.
I’m sure it was one hell of a pay cut too.
I miss E.D. She has guts and brains, and never put up with a lot of BS. And I wish her all the best with her new audience. Both listeners. But I’m taking a page from Demure Jen and sending out a Daily Fuck You to Fox News. Bunch of cowards.
E.D’s most recent shows are archived here and can be downloaded.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2009 at 01:39 PM
Filed Under: • Media-Bias • Obama, The One •
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Permalink • EQUAL RIGHTS AND JUSTICE BUT ONLY FOR A SPECIAL GROUP. Govt. to txpayer. Screw you!
All George Frost, the owner of three not very productive fields in Norfolk wanted, was a place where he could shelter from the rain and make a cup of tea.
So he asked his local council for permission to put a caravan on HIS land on the outskirts of the village of Carleton Rode.
Not one of the 727 villagers objected.
Unfortunately for him, however, his fields were in a ‘protected area’ under the local development plan, and his application was rejected.
Last year Mr Frost, now retired, sold the fields to John Leveridge, who applied to put six mobile homes and two tourinf caravans on the site. At last weeks packed planning meeting of South Norfolk Council, 175 local people objected.
But Mr. Leveridge is a Romany gypsy. Even though he has lived for 11 years in a bungalow nearby, he told the meeting that he wanted to return to his traditional traveling ways.
South Norfolk planning officer Chris Trett said that according to govt. targets, there is an “inadequate supply of land for gypsies in the area, and the councillors were warned that discrimination against gypsies and Irish travelers is unlawful.
So although the fields remain protected, Mr. Leverdige’s application was passed by the council.
HOLD THE PHONE THERE BMEWS .... YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET.
Look at this poor guy. Apologies for the photo reproduction. Best I could get from a scan of paper as the pix was not on line with the story.
Tis enuff to make a grown man cry. What the eF was the dumbassed council thinking? Did anyone actually come out and look?
But anyway it’s all his fault because he is a member of the wrong ethnic group.
Home owner ordered to remove hot tub, pergola from garden
A home owner has been ordered to tear up £30,000 worth of renovations to his garden after his local council said the land was a protected meadow.
By Nick Allen
Published: 3:59PM BST 18 Aug 2009Martin Crosswait, 30, bought a five-bedroom, £450,000 house in 2006 which came with an acre of land. He then installed facilities including a hot tub, rockery, decking, pergola and stone walling.
But Bradford Council said that, before the improvements, the land had become overgrown and “returned to seed”. It should therefore be protected as part of the green belt, the council said.
Mr Crosswait, of Keighley, West Yorks, was then served with an enforcement notice requiring him to restore the land to its wild state.
He has since lost two court appeals, including a latest ruling at the High Court, which have left him with an additional legal bill of £20,000.
Mr Crosswait, a professional stunt rider, said: “All I did was landscape my garden. I can’t afford to take all of the stuff out of my garden and pay the legal fees as well. I’m scared that my house is going to be repossessed.”
The one acre field behind the house was first converted into a garden by the previous owner in 1993 and was used as a barbecue area and even a mini golf course.
But when Mr Crosswait moved in he spent eight months renovating the house and allowed the garden area to become overgrown before making the improvements to it.
A Bradford Council spokesman said: “The owner of this large field decided to change its use from grazing land to an extensive private garden without first obtaining planning permission. Part of the council’s role is to protect the environment.”
There is a very large and VERY eco-friendly house being built next door to us. The old house was demolished in April and in April the new build began. It is expected to be finished by Dec. and the new owners (a Winchester dentist) and his family will move in.
Meanwhile, as the construction moves along, nothing in their large back lot has seen any landscaping. The hedges on that side are going to seed and overgrown. But ... there are plans afoot to build a small summer house (not a live in house, sort of a fancy garden shed with electric and I suppose it could be slept in as I understand things), at the far end of his property. I guess my long winded point is that while a house is being constructed, who thinks about the rest of the property. Your concern is seeing the home finished. And since the previous owner used it even for golf, just coz in the interim it went to seed is hardly a reason to screw this guy.
What a contrast tho to the story at the top. Now if this fellow were to suddenly discover that really,really he’s a traveler. Well .....
Posted by peiper
on 08/19/2009 at 11:51 AM
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters • Tyrants and Dictators • UK •
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Permalink • SOME PPL ARE JUST MORE EQUAL THEN OTHERS AND IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU MEAN BY…
So now it can be told. Treating everyone equally is not good. Bad is good and good is bad. Got it.
I was NOT going to do yet another story on Traverlers and Gypsies, but this one begs to be seen by the readers of this site. For the story sure, but also because for perhaps the first time an official has come out and said that “equality” doesn’t exactly mean equality when dealing with a group of ppl who have been deemed to be a ‘race.’
Or in his words exactly:
“Planning laws are deliberately biased in favour of gipsies and travellers, a Government minister has finally admitted.”
So now the truth everyone has known for awhile is out in the open. All those damned awful white English natives who are all Fascists and Racists, have ALL been right all along. Well thanks for that, for all the good it’s gonna do because, since this article appeared yesterday there has not been one peep from anyone in power. Nothing from 10 Downing St. and sure as hell nothing from all the human and civil rights groups. Zero. And so it goes.
Ah ... another reason this article and post should hold some interest.
See my following post.
It gets worse if that’s possible.
Planning laws DO favour gipsies and travellers, says minister
By Dan Newling
THE DAILY MAILPlanning laws are deliberately biased in favour of gipsies and travellers, a Government minister has finally admitted.
After years of official denials on the issue, Communities Secretary Shahid Malik confessed that travelling families are treated differently from ‘the settled community’.
Justifying the policy, the minister said: ‘Fairness does not mean treating people equally; it means addressing the different needs of different people.’
After years of official denials, Communities Secretary Shahid Malik confessed that travelling families are treated differently from ‘the settled community’
Mr Malik’s confession has been hailed by campaigners as a ‘long-awaited admission of the truth’ which they say reveals the way planning laws are weighted in favour of gipsies and travellers.
And it explains why many, if not most, local campaigns against unauthorised or proposed encampments are doomed to failure, no matter how justified the objections may be.
Mr Malik made his comment during a little-noticed parliamentary debate last month.
Liberal Democrat MP Steve Webb told the minister that his Gloucestershire constituents were furious that gipsies had been allowed to camp on protected Green Belt land that had previously been turned down for residential housing.
Mr Webb claimed that ‘planning anarchy’ had set in whereby travelling people deliberately flout planning law in the knowledge that local councils - which are under Government pressure to find more caravan sites - would eventually rule in their favour.
The MP said: ‘There is a feeling among those who have contacted me that people do not have equal rights and responsibilities, but that there are separate rules and outcomes for different groups.’
The system, claimed Mr Webb, is making his constituents resentful.
Mr Malik replied: ‘Fairness is what the Department for Communities and Local Government - my department - and the Government are all about; but fairness does not mean treating people equally; it means addressing the different needs of different people.
‘The need to provide adequate sites for gipsies and travellers is a challenging one for local authorities, but that is just one of the many challenges that authorities regularly deal with.’
The Chambers English Dictionary defines fairness as ‘honesty, impartiality, justice’.
Mr Malik’s apparent redefinition of the word stems from the Government’s decision in 2000 to classify gipsies and Irish travellers as distinct racial groups under the Race Relations Act.
This decision - coupled with changes to planning law and a desire to build many more gipsy and traveller sites - conferred extra rights upon these groups under both race relations and human rights legislation.
In 2005, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister issued council planners with a so-called ‘good practice guide’ telling them how to deal with gipsy and traveller camps.
The guide says: ‘Some planners...think that “treating everyone the same” helps to ensure equality. But this is not the case.
‘Explicit recognition of difference is needed to ensure that the right action can be taken to deliver a planning service responsive to different needs within the communities it serves.’
Critics say this means that in any planning battle, an argument between a ‘settled’ family and their traveller neighbours is a dispute not between equals, but two groups with different legal rights and privileges.
In June, the Daily Mail revealed that the number of legal gipsy and traveller sites has quadrupled to 1,279 over the past ten years.
Over the same period, illegal sites more than doubled to 3,680. Some illegal sites are thrown up over a Bank Holiday weekend, when council planning enforcement officers are away from their desks. By the time they return, it is too late to do anything about the encampments.
Conservative local government spokesman Bob Neill said: ‘It’s not fair that planning applications are treated differently purely because of the type of person who is applying the same, consistent rules should apply whatever your background.
‘Under Labour, law-abiding families who work hard and pay their taxes face reams of red tape to extend their houses, whilst travellers are given special treatment to concrete over the Green Belt and defy planning rules.’
COMING UP NEXT. ONE RULE FOR THE FARMER, ANOTHER FOR THE GYPSY
Posted by peiper
on 08/19/2009 at 11:19 AM
Filed Under: • Government • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters • UK •
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Permalink • Horowitz, Part Three
Make no mistake, this — a totalitarian future — is the real objective of Alinsky and his radical disciples who call themselves liberals and bore from within. Alinsky writes of “the “revolutionary force” of the 1960s, that its activists were “one moment reminiscent of the idealistic early Christians yet they also urge violence and cry ‘Burn the system down.!’ They have no illusions about the system, but plenty of illusions about the way to change our world. It is to this point that I have written this book.” Radicals who call for burning down America’s democracy “have no illusions about the system”! They just don’t know how to go about doing it.
Alinsky’s book could be called Machiavellian Rules for Radicals, because it is all about deception, about keeping others in the dark about your intentions until it is too late. Alinsky even acknowledges Machiavelli as his model: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be.” These are the famous lines that Michelle Obama made in her own Democratic Convention speech.
Alinsky continues: “The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. [I will have more to say about these Haves in the next blog.] Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Alinsky’s agenda is the same agenda as that of the radicals who called for “Revolution Now” in the 1960s. He just has a more clever way of doing it. If you want socialized medicine, don’t say you want socialized medicine. Say you want “Medicare for all,” as though transforming a partial government insurance for the indigent into a total system system required for everyone wouldn’t transform the program into a pillar of the totalitarian future.
Actually there’s nothing new in Alinsky’s strategy of appearing moderate in order to disarm your opposition. That was what Stalin’s popular front was all about — communists pretending to be democrats and forming allinaces with liberals in order to acquire enough power to shut the democracy down. And, in fact, it was Lenin’s idea too, which is where Alinsky got it in the first place.
This is pretty much a must read. I haven’t seen this level of clarity since Ronald Reagan.
“This failure of many of our younger activists to understand the art of communication has been disastrous,” writes Alinsky. What he really means is their failure to understand the art of mis-communication. This is the art that teaches radicals who are trying impose a socialist health care system in a country whose people understand that socialism destroys freedom, not to sell it as socialism, but to sell it as a “public option,” or as “Medicare for all.”
It is first necessary to sell the public on “change,” the “audacity of hope,” and “yes we can.” You do this by proposing moderate changes which open the door to your radical agendas. Says Alinsky:
“Remember: once you organize people around something as commonly agreed upon as pollution, then an organized people is on the move. From there it’s a short and natural step to political pollution, to Pentagon pollution.”Not an accident that the new Green Czar appointed by Obama to jump start the anti-pollution revolution, Van Jones, is a self-described communist.
The enemy is already within the gates, and half the people are blindfolded. And that is the raw unvarnished truth.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2009 at 11:10 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Permalink • Horowitz, Part Two
One kind of hell or another is what radicalism — progressivism — has in fact achieved since the beginning of the modern age when it conducted the first genocide during the French Revolution. In a fever of revolutionary enthusiasm the Jacobins had changed the name of the cathedral of Notre Dame to the “Temple of Reason,” and then in the name of Reason proceeded to slaughter every Catholic in the Vendee region to purge supersitition from the earth. It was the precursor of Lenin’s destruction of 100,000 churches in the Soviet Union and the creation of a People’s Church to usher in the kingdom of socialist heaven, which led to the murder of 100 million people in Russia and China and the bankrupting of a continent before it mercifully collapsed — with progressives cheering it all the way and mourning over its demise. It was also the precursor of Pol Pot’s decree that every Cambodian who wore glasses be killed in order that Cambodia be rid of bad ideas.
Go read the rest here. These people are nuts, in case you hadn’t noticed.
PS - Boy howdy does this essay square with Ann Coulter’s book Treason. And with Tammy Bruce’s book The Death of Right and Wrong. Part and parcel, all of it.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2009 at 10:55 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Permalink • a post while on hold
Gee, aren’t web browsers with tabs awesome? They let me write a post while I am on “hold” in a chat session with the cable company on another tab.
They are changing the cable service, again. Now they’re going to an all digital signal, so I have to get several Digital To Analog converters. What a pain.
What makes it painful is that we have a complex TV setup here, with a home theater rig, a DVR, and an SVHS recorder. I’ve got a cable box, but we don’t use it, since all it does is decode the premium channels that I don’t subscribe to. But it came with the package, so it needs to be there.
My issue is that the new “DTA” converter requires us to use it’s remote control to change channels. No, that’s not going to work. The DVR needs a full bandwidth signal, so that it can a) pickup the useful but annoying TV Guide channel for scheduling, and b) select the channels it needs to record the shows we’ve got programmed. Similar deal for the SVHS.
And the chat room guy can’t tell me if their DTA can do this. Heck, he’s telling me that the new box will convert the analog signal to digital, which is the exact opposite of what the device does. Oy!
Oh, and my cable bill is all screwed up again. My wife writes the checks to them, so we’re a little behind in the payments. But when that happens, a glitch in their software “unpackages” our services, and bills us individually for all of them. Which sucks, and has given great grief over the years. It gets even worse too; the last time it happened, the cable company went back and reran our bills for the better part of a year, calculated that we owed them over $700, then shut off our service because we were so much in arrears. After a really long and angry phone session it turned out they were wrong, and they actually owed us $125. But they still haven’t fixed the software bug. And now she’s a month and a half behind with the check again, and the bill has gone to heck.
Arrggh. Ain’t computers wonderful?
Update: Perseverance pays off! This only took a total of 4 and a half hours, both online and on the phone. But I got what I wanted.
Bill before: $305.16
Bill after: $0.00
Plus I got my services rebundled, and got a one year extension on the package (TV & phone & 16Mbs internet for $99.99/mo), and got a free upgrade to 22Mbs internet in October when they get the new modems in. Plus a $16 credit on my next bill. And they’re going to mail me one of those DTA things, which I can install.
I was in a chat room session with 2 employees. Then I was on the phone with 4 employees, finally winding up with the guy in Customer Retention.
The only bad news is that the DTA is a single channel output device, and may not work with the Infrared channel changer device that came with my DVR. Their technician read to me from a service note that says “nobody knows if this works with TiVo or similar devices”. So I may be stuck on one channel, which is really going to screw up recording my shows. But that’s what they’re offering, so I’m stuck with it.
Someday this TV is going to die. I’ve had it for 10 years, and it works just fine. But it won’t last forever. At that point I’ll have to switch to an HD flatscreen, and I’m hoping that by then a) the prices will have come down a whole lot more, let’s call it $700 for a 42” set, and b) I’ll have that much money to spare. And maybe by then the cable company will have brought their “digital solutions” up to modern specs, so I won’t have to use this 1975-ish solution they’re offering. I mean, come on: the first instruction for installing the DTA is “set your television to channel 3”, like we used to have to do with VCRs. Dinosaur!!
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2009 at 09:44 AM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •
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Permalink • Family told by NHS: Alzheimer’s is not a ‘health condition’ Nah … it’s a stroll in the park
How’s that for bizarre? 
Longer I am here, the scareder I get. I can’t think of anything to say and so I’ll simply share this loony tune while my computer is still running. For now.
Hey, anybody know what a puter is telling us when we get a blue screen with white lettering and a statement saying that if this is the first time you’ve seen this restart or if it’s happened before ,,, and a whole bunch of instructions I can’t follow and am doing nothing about. But I can hear my fan at times. Like now.
Family told by NHS: Alzheimer’s is not a ‘health condition’
A family has won £130,000 from an NHS trust after it refused to pay for their mother’s care fees, claiming her Alzheimer’s was not a health issue.
By Nick Britten
NHS Worcestershire ruled that Judith Roe, 74, did not qualify for NHS funding because her condition was a “social” rather than “health” problem, even though she was so ill she could not make a cup of tea and regularly left the stove on.
She was forced to sell her £200,000 home to pay her £600-a-week nursing home fees, which would have been funded if she had been categorised correctly.
Mrs Roe’s family appealed to the Health Service Ombudsman, which ruled that Mrs Roe’s assessment had been incorrect and her treatment should have been funded by the NHS. NHS Worcestershire has now reimbursed them for six years of care.
Her son, Richard, 40, urged other families in a similar situation to fight for the care they are entitled to.
He said: “The way the health trust behaved was scandalous. It has been very stressful.
“All the time we were told we were wrong while believing we were right.
“They told me I should count myself lucky because there are people that are more ill than my mother, which was an outrageous thing to say.
“I want anyone else going through a similar experience to know they may be entitled to care. Even if they’re being told they’re not entitled, they should fight for it.
“With us, they made a mistake. They did not carry out their duties properly.”
Mrs Roe, a retired church warden and school teacher, was diagnosed in 2002 with severe Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons.
Under English law, elderly people must pay for their own residential care unless their needs are deemed health-related.
She was assessed but her needs were regarded to be social rather than health, meaning she did not qualify for funding.
In August 2003 her family paid for a social worker to visit her twice a day and in 2004 she moved into a nursing home because she was too ill to stay at home.
In 2007 she was moved into another home because her condition had deteriorated.
Despite being bedridden and requiring round-the-clock care, NHS Worcestershire PCT refused to pay a penny towards her fees.
Throughout this time Mr Roe wrote dozens of letters to the PCT asking them to re-assess his mother.
He said: “I wanted to know just how ill my mother had to be before her condition was deemed a health issue.
“The NHS doesn’t want to admit elderly people have health issues because then it falls to them to pay for their care.”
He added: “We made the difficult decision to sell her home because we were under the assumption that older people sell their houses to pay for care.
“It was only when we started to look at funding and ask the PCT what funding was available that we realised that she shouldn’t have had to self-fund.”
Finally, in May 2008, on the recommendation of the Ombudsman, two social workers from the PCT assessed Judith and agreed she qualified for continuing care and paid for her fees at the home until she died in October.
However, the Health Services Ombudsman said she should have had continuing care from 2002 and NHS Worcestershire agreed to pay.
He said: “It should never have got to the point where I had to write to the Ombudsman.
“The PCT did not follow the correct procedures and as a result we had to sell the family home and use her savings for care which should have been funded by the NHS.
“We became very angry because the primary care trust was very arrogant and unhelpful.”
Paul Bates, chief executive of NHS Worcestershire, said: “Decisions around eligibility for continuing NHS care are extremely complex and difficult even though we have national guidance to assist us.
“The line between the need for healthcare and social care is a very thin one indeed, but the impact for the individual is the difference between free care and care which is means tested.
“We would not wish to see Mr Roe’s experience repeated and there are clearly lessons for us to learn.”
Each NHS trust has its own criteria for interpreting the Government’s guidelines on who qualifies for free nursing care.
Andrew Harrop, Head of Policy for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: “The system for deciding where the line is drawn between free NHS Continuing Care, and paid for social care has been a mess for years.“We are still very concerned that older people may wrongly be forced to pay for their care when it should be free.
“We strongly encourage anyone who believes they are unfairly missing out on NHS support to fight for their rights.”
The Health Service Ombudsman concluded 53 cases of continuing care last year having investigated them. 75 per cent of cases were either fully upheld or partly upheld.
A spokesman refused to comment on the case, other than to say its role is to assess whether the strategic health authority’s decision was based on following correct procedure, rather than the need of the patient.
In 2006, a government review revealed that one in five elderly people were being wrongfully denied free care.
UPDATE
Three families looking after relatives with Alzheimer’s have been awarded more than £300,000 after the NHS refused to pay for their care costs.
Posted by peiper
on 08/19/2009 at 09:27 AM
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • UK •
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Permalink • Tuesday - August 18, 2009
Bad Drew
The teaser link at FoxNews.com for this story was “Barney Frank gets an earful”. You know, people yelling at him at a town hall meeting was NOT the first image that title brought to mind. Ewww!!!
It was a tough crowd Tuesday night at the senior center in Dartmouth, Mass. But neither Rep. Barney Frank nor his critics seemed to back down.
The often contentious town hall-style event with the Democratic congressman, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, drew more than 500 people, some shouting and booing as Frank spoke.
The topics ranged from health care reform to financial issues, such as the federal bank bailouts. Big government policies fueled much of the outrage expressed as the forum, as has been the case at other town hall events attended this month by members of Congress.
“The economy is collapsing,” one woman told Frank, suggesting that President Obama has chosen the wrong time to pursue health care reform.
When she compared the administration’s policies to Germany under Hitler, Frank responded by asking her, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”
Frank’s response drew a mix of applause and shouts.
And while some critics went so far as to call Frank a “liar,” the congressman hardly backed down from the confrontations.
“Do you really think that’s thoughtful conversion?” Frank said at one point in response to the verbal attacks. “Do you really think that advances your argument? I mean, I thought you were thoughtful people here to have a conversation.”
I despise Bawney Fwank. I hope his constituents scared the crap outta him. No Bawney, they aren’t thoughtful. And they aren’t there to have a conversation. They’re there to take your scalp you conniving hypocrite. Figuratively, at least. For now.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/18/2009 at 09:52 PM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Permalink • One Whuppin, Delivered
It was the first position round tonight at bowling league. After the last 3 weeks of victories, we were tied for 3rd with that team of ringers, although we were ahead in total pins. So we played them tonight, and gave them 12. And then we preceded to destroy them. We won all 3 games handily, by 46, 85, and 117 pins.
I bowled pretty well, going 185 for the first game and 211 for the second, and was striking really well into the 3rd game. Then I threw the ball wrong and bruised my thumb. Man, that hurts. So I switched to my lighter ball, but the damage was done, and I finished with a 158. But I went one on one with their super bowler, the kid who grew up in the bowling alley. I matched him strike for strike more than halfway through each game, and was actually ahead of him for 8 frames of game 2. But he struck out the last 3 frames, jumping from a 145 in the 7th to finish with a 235, against my 211. He’s that good, and is the anchor and then some for that team. But tonight he just couldn’t put it together. But we could. I could. I did, and I could see it driving him crazy. And that makes it all worth it.
So, does this 4 week run of victories, 26-2, lock us into 2nd for the finals next week? I’m not really sure. I think we may have to play these guys again next week, battling it out for 3rd place. But we’re up 7 points and lots of pins, so if we do have to do that, and we win even one game, then it’s a lock. And maybe, if we stomp them again, we can sneak into 2nd. That would be nice, not that there is a trophy or any real difference in prize money. It’s all rinky-dink, cuz it’s summer league. Still, it’s nice to come out ahead in the end.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/18/2009 at 09:38 PM
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •
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Permalink • Another Million Guns, Nearly
Americans continue to purchase guns and ammo at record breaking rates and all-time highs, though the demand has slowed down a little. But that’s still 8.4% more than this month last year. The government reports that just under a million NICS checks were performed last month, bringing the 11 year total number to about 104 million. That’s background checks performed by gun dealers since the NICS system was put in place. One check can be used for all the guns purchased at that one time, so these numbers represent at least that many gun sales. So the next time you hear that old saw “Americans own 90 million guns”, know that that is bunk. Try a quarter to half a billion, plus or minus. At least one per citizen, on average. Like I’ve said before, with just a little care a firearm will last nearly forever, and they don’t really wear out. So Great Grandad’s shotgun works just as good today as it did back in 1915.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/18/2009 at 01:57 PM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • A Different Bill W To Be Friends With
New from pistol maker Wilson Combat, the Bill Wilson Carry is a small 1911 built to the highest quality with every last possible custom upgrade included. No aluminum or plastic parts, nifty gray and black two tone finish, de-horned, rounded but not “melted”, hand fit, etc. It’s a little wondergun.
Take a Wilson Combat CQB Compact, add the new “Round Butt” treatment, shorten the slide stop pin and counter sink the frame (giving you the option to use the Crimson Trace laser grips), slide top serrations, our new “Carry Cuts”, and finally this wonderful pistol is fitted with Bill’s favorite thumb-safety. This “Carry pistol” is outfitted exactly as Bill would want it, wearing a set of Wilson Combat Starburst G10 grips with a black slide over a grey frame custom built to exacting standard by some of the best pistolsmiths in the world today.
Weight? 35 ounces, a full 10 ounces heavier than the Kimber Ultra Carry II. Unless this is a misprint, because a full size 1911 only weighs 35 ounces. So who knows?
Price? [ please sit down ... ] This handmade full custom pistol has an MSRP of $2850, which is actually inexpensive compared to the rest of their product line. But it is more than 3 times the cost of the Kimber, which is itself an expensive 1911 pistol. Yikes.
It sure is nice looking though. And all those extra little custom bits are said to ensure ultimate reliability and proper fit and easy holstering. Still, though, it makes me wonder ... for I have read the Gospel According to John, and I believe ...
1 In the beginning was the 1911, and the 1911 was THE pistol, and it was good. And behold the Lord said, “Thou shalt not muck with my disciple John’s design for it is good and it workith. For John made the 1911, and lo all of his weapons, from the designs which I, the Lord, gave him upon the mountain.”
2 “And shouldst thou muck with it, and hang all manner of foul implements upon it, and profane its internal parts, thou shalt surely have malfunctions, and in the midst of battle thou shalt surely come to harm.”
3 And as the ages passed men in their ignorance and arrogance didst forget the word of the Lord and began to profane the 1911. The tribe of the gamesman did place recoil spring guides and extended slide releases upon the 1911 and their metal smiths didst tighten the tolerances and alter parts to their liking, their clearness of mind being clouded by lust.
4 Their artisans did hang all manner of foul implements upon the 1911 and did so alter it that it became impractical to purchase. For lo, the artisans didst charge a great tax upon the purchasers of the 1911 so that the lowly field worker could not afford one. And the profaning of the internal parts didst render it unworkable when the dust of the land fell upon it.
5 And lo, they didst install adjustable sights, which are an abomination unto the Lord. For they doth break and lose their zero when thou dost need true aim. And those who have done so will be slain in great numbers by their enemies in the great battle.
6 And it came to pass that the Lord didst see the abomination wrought by man and didst cause, as he had warned, fearful malfunctions to come upon the abominations and upon the artisans who thought they could do no wrong.
So yeah, you can build a 1911 accurate enough to shoot the eyebrows off of flies at 100 paces. ( I own one, the original version, and it’s mighty pretty too. But it is not a field piece. ) Or you can build a 1911 that will work in combat, no matter what. But if you try to do both at the same time, you might be making a deal with the devil.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/18/2009 at 01:20 PM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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