My reaction was “because they own it… because they fucking OWN IT.”
Duh. End of discussion. “Stakeholders”? That’s always been utter bull.
Category: Politics
Grabbing this from Daily Pundit, because I’m way too fucking lazy to bother with a local news source. Also, I like his take on it. I thought we’d outgrown these stupid wanna-be moral crusades (excuse me, stupid fucking wanna-be moral crusades), but I guess I was wrong: Swearing in public now punishable by $20 fine in Middleborough, Massachusetts – NY Daily News.
We live in Middleborough, and let me tell you that the first person who suggests that I should have been at the meeting if I disapprove so much is going to hear some very loud and public profanity, because you know what? I was at work, supporting my fucking family. I could always quit and go on the dole instead so I’d have time for this petty bullshit, but I’ve got more pride than that.
Too bad the town doesn’t. I like living here, apart from the sanctimonious idiots.
Comments are closed, because this shit is not up for debate.
Had a rare interlude of TV available without kids and not needing/wanting to do laundry, dishes, etc., which led me to discover Atlas Shrugged Part 1 was on Netflix. So I watched it again. Went to great lengths to see it when it was in theaters originally. I was surprised at how well it held up for me. The most jarring part remains Hugh Akston , and I found that even more so this time. The current times and economy conspire to make it all the more fascinating to watch.
Except it still seems a little weird having Atlas Shrugged updated to be set in modern times, and the characters don’t look much like my mental images. Reardon, to whom I most relate, comes closest.
I’m overdue for a reread, but with the film pending, I considered it recently and decided to put it off.
Categories
I am TJIC
Continued from and explained in Link Dump 1.
Eggless batter for deep fried shrimp (works nicely for chicken, came out just like Chinese chicken fingers but that Henry can eat, moved from this to lighter tempura style)
Efficient markets after the financial crisis
Controversial propositions (some good ones! including Bobby Orr)
The shocking ages of rock stars
Ethiopian Injera recipe and another and another and a detailed post about making it
Nerd, Dork and Geek explained in Venn Diagram
The parable of the satellite dish
What if the jobs are never coming back?
Shy and introverted process the world differently
Quasars don’t show time dilation – what’s up with that?
Fighting allergies by mimicking parasitic worms
Truth in accounting (Madoff vs Social Security)
Massive tax change hidden in healthcare law
11 Music superstars who are technically one hit wonders
Most people carry neanderthal genes (big surprise!)
Creating a more private Facebook alternative
Categories
Happy Birthday
To Deb’s father!
And a buncha other people, like my friends and former colleagues Rich and Steve, former President George W. “LBJ” Bush and thanks for making Barack Wilson Nixon-Carter possible, etc. But for our purposes here, David is the one who matters most.
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Poll Results
No not like this poll or that poll, but one of those periodic Right Wing News polls of bloggers I sometimes participate in, as I did this one.
Speaking of those polls, McCain was all over the map in the limited response I got, with one vote each for Ike, Tippecanoe, Duke, Dubya and Teddy. Obama’s was more concentrated, with 9 of the 18 votes for Carter, 3 for JFK, 2 each for Wilson and FDR, and 1 each for Scudder and Other (Fidel Castro).
Anyway, the RWN election poll has not unexpected results, though I didn’t expect Palin’s popularity to be quite so high.
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Smart Enough to Vote?
Ah, but are any of them smart enough to be President?
Easy questions in this quiz, IMHO, and not necessarily all relevant…
|
You Should Be Allowed to Vote |
 You got 15/15 questions correct. Generally speaking, you’re very well informed. If you vote this election, you’ll know exactly who (and what) you’ll be voting for. |
Via Jen
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Equal Opportunity Polling
I did a poll of who Barack Obama would be like in practice as President, which was fun and snarky and all, but why leave McCain out of it? Looks like on the other one I neglected to point out that I was including alt history/fictional options for entertainment value. Otherwise, I was trying to stick to Presidents/dictators of the US, though I see in the prior post I phrased it as “remind you of” who, rather generic sounding. Anyway, here you are…
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Presidential Poll
No, not who will be elected, but who you might expect Barack Obama to remind you of should he be elected. Annointed? Sprung forth like a mighty oak from a mere ACORN? Anyway, for your amusement…
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Election Dementia
There seems to have been a real ramping-up lately of the stupid in these parts. I notice it most in how aggressively people are driving…it’s been bad, even for around here. I see it in the customers at work, too. Tempting to blame it on the economy (or the perception of the economy, anyway), but it feels angrier and more all-encompassing than that. It’s not the kind of angry that makes you stomp out of a room; it’s the kind of angry that makes you stomp out of a room without noticing that the door’s closed until you stomp into it.
I think it’s the election.
And I don’t think it’s *this* election. I think people were even crankier last time, in a we-really-loathe-the-other-guy sort of way. I think it’s elections in general.
I think it’s the reminder that to a degree that grows greater all the time, we allow other people to determine the course of our lives for us. We live in fear of what idiot thing the 51% will do to us next, and it gets under our skin. There is something in the human spirit that recoils from such a conditional brand of freedom, and we hate our fellow men for it, knowing that they can vote away the things we hold dear.
Why the hell this inspires people to ever more fervent campaigning and an ever-increasing idealization of voting, I don’t know. A call to anarchy would be more logical.
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Bailout Poll
John Hawkins did a flash poll, in which I participated, on the bailout. Interesting results, more skewed than I had expected. The last question, though, looks like people answered based not on where they stood, but what they thought public perception must be.
Related to that, it is heartening to see that Barney Frank’s role in the crisis, and its roots in the Carter administration, ballooning from tinkering in the Clinton administration, close ties to Frank, Kerry, Obama and others, and connection to the likes of 9/11 scoundrel Jamie Gorelick are becoming widely known.
Your Issue Profile: 24% Obama, 76% McCain |
 When it gets down to it, you tend to best match John McCain. But he’s not the perfect candidate for you, and you may not be sold on him yet. Obama shares a good number of your views too, so you might want to give him a second look. |
| You are a Social Liberal (86% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (83% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid |
Via Leslie
One of our favorite villains, Elliot Spitzer, may have helped create the AIG situation. Go Spitzer!
Mitt Romney
MassHealth
Healthcare Financial, Inc.
Thomas G. Gennis
The voice “talent” of Signature Healthcare’s phone system
The designer of Signature Healthcare’s phone system
Heck, the designer of MassHealth’s phone system
Downstairs neighbor
Upstairs neighbor
Anyone who calls us after 10 PM tops when there’s no deaths in the family or such
Probably a bunch of others not as close to the top of my mind.
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ComneyCare
I have decided to call the communist state health plan by the evil Mitt Romney and gleeful Democratic legislature, commonly known as RomneyCare, ComneyCare for short, so I don’t have to write out the communist description. But I pregress…
A while back, we were arm-twisted into applying for MassHealth (the official name for ComneyCare) by HFI, Healthcare Financial, at the behest of Morton Hospital, apparently because we could be covered retroactively and they would then collect for the emergency visit with allergy boy early this year. HFI is, as far as I can tell, little more than a law firm/collection agency that specializes in just this kind of thing.
We thought it would be nice to be able to get him medical attention if needed, at least take him for a one year checkup and shots. That appointment is set for Thursday, a month late because of doctor vacation pushing things back.
Anyway, I did the applying through the agent, including affidavits and limited power of attorney and so forth, and sent them a pile of birth certificate copies and such. I thought that included the relevant pay stubs as evidence of income, which I did scan at that time and presumably printed and sent.
I’ve never heard from HFI again.
We received notice of provisional coverage of the kids pretty promptly. Apparently they do this because it take forever to process the applications.
That was the last thing we heard.
On the 12th we received notice from a Taunton office, first we’d ever had anything come from there, indicating we were rejected due to lack of proof of income, if they didn’t hear from us by the 8th.
So this is apparently how they are handling the insane budgetary overrun ComneyCare is creating, by arbitrarily making people unable to obtain the coverage they are legally required to obtain or be fined for not having. Go Massachusetts!
Friday afternoon I faxed that Taunton office the entire original 20 pages of application, affidavits, ID, and pay stubs, a WTF letter, and two subsequent pages of paystubs, supplying phone and e-mail for them to contact me. One secret of being sufficiently broke is that it’s a surprising time sink, where people like to make it hard for you to do anything but deal with crap like this, or where you spend time instead of money because time is what you have.
No word yet. Oh, forgot to mention why I faxed. Besides to get the actual paperwork back in someone’s face ASAP.
The number they supply on the notice is not for the local office, where the fax is. The number they supply lands you in a full voice mailbox – can’t even leave a message – and tells you try again later. Convenient, if they don’t want people to actually get the coverage.
Today I need to contact the doctor’s office and see what they want to do about the appointment Thursday. It’s at least $95 if paying cash (which may as well be the moon). We already owe over $700 from apparently far more visits on grace than I realized last October/November. To the extent it’s up to the doctor, he’d probably say come in anyway and not to worry, because that’s him, so it may be the case. Apparently the shots are paid by the state, so it might be possible simply to go in, get the shot, and leave. But if we’re there, the doctor won’t be able to resist having a good look, so it amounts to the show up and don’t worry about it option. What we can’t do is be referred to any dermatology or allergy specialists without coverage. So it’s good thing we have his condition in such good control, and he’s doing so well at acclimating and outgrowing it so some degree already.
Loads of fun. If McCain had picked Mitt Romney, it would have shown horrible judgment, as well as lack of political savvy. Ultimately they’re all control freaks and would-be tyrants to some degree, but Romney showed naked ambition and elitism over sense more than most.
Categories
Lopsidedly Hypothetical
There’s another Instapundit poll I just had to point to because the results are so fascinating (and it’s an interesting question, which I’d love to see the results of if the 1st place finisher were excluded). The question:
If you could choose one of these recent presidents to be elected in place of McCain or Obama, which would it be?
The options are every President from Eisenhower through Clinton.
The overwhelming choice is obvious, and underscores where the Republicans have gone awry in the past several years, both rhetorically and in practice.
What’s fascinating is not who is a solid second, which probably takes the preceding paragraph and amplifies it. No, the intriguing part is who came in third and fourth, and how strongly.
I’d love to see the distribution if 82% dude’s votes were divided up to all the respective second choices.