Categories
Politics

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.

Categories
Stupidity

It’s a good thing that I don’t have time this morning to write the post I keep thinking about writing.

Because really? I think I might actually do it this time, if I had an hour. But I don’t.

How’s that for elliptical and annoying?

Categories
Business Controversies Money News Politics

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.

Categories
Politics Quiz or Meme

Late Night Quizzes Saved for Morning


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.
It all comes down to which issues matter to you the most.

Should You Vote for Obama or McCain?
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
Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Via Leslie

Categories
Business Money News Politics Stupidity

Darth Spitzer Returns

One of our favorite villains, Elliot Spitzer, may have helped create the AIG situation. Go Spitzer!

Categories
Health Care Kids Massachusetts Medical Money Politics Stupidity Totally Random

Official Shit List

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.

Categories
Weather

Hurricane or Not?

The question came up on account of remnants of Ike having winds in the category 1 range, so people were calling it a “hurricane.” I knew that wasn’t so, because there is a definitional boundary unrelated to wind speed, but I had to look at the details:
Hurricane/Typhoon

Which leads to:
Tropical Cyclone, which is what a hurricane is.

That leads to the distinction between that and:
Extratropical

Which has a money quote of:

It is important to note that cyclones can become extratropical and still retain winds of hurricane or tropical storm force.

So there you go, a storm is a storm and can have whatever wind speeds it wants, which may be spectacular, but if its energy source is or has become baroclinic, it is no longer a hurricane, and no longer gets a name or as much press.

Categories
Controversies Health Care Massachusetts Money Politics

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
Politics

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.

Categories
blogging Business Geekery Health Care Job Hunting Kids Medical Money Quiz or Meme Totally Random

Life Gives Us Deadlines

This is an updated and abbreviated version of a post I have been meaning to write and have a couple times had partially written for weeks, and relates to mentions here (linked by Sarah in this awesome post), and over here, and perhaps elsewhere, like this, and on Twitter.

As you may know, we’ve been financially challenged. Things have become almost but not quite stable on the way to the end of the tunnel. We’re not in immediate danger of eviction for being behind on rent. We can eat. The phone and internet – vital to modern life and in our case making a chunk of money and seeking more – are being kept on. The kids have health coverage and Henry will get his one year checkup and shots – albeit not until almost 13 months old due to doctor vacation scheduling – and that’ll set us on the road to getting an even better handle on the allergy/sensitivity problems, which may also become less critical as he ages. It’s actually been I have no idea what I was about to type a little while ago when I stopped in mid-sentence. I think I was going to say it’s been good I’ve been so available, and that will make working from home a Good Thing, except I must be able to work for that to work which is a matter of some juggling and changes. But I digress.

Have to stop and try to remember where I was going with this in the broader sense. I load my thoughts in my head and risk losing them if they don’t spew right out the keyboard.

Um…

There’s been one big deadline coming at us. The gas & electric can’t be turned off if you have a baby under a year and financial hardship. Henry turns 1 on the 20th. We’ve accumulated most of a year’s worth of balance. In fact, it’s apparently a couple months more than I thought, and the peak bills in the winter weren’t much more than the bills have been this summer. Odd.

We assumed, not unreasonably, that I would get enough work before now to straighten that out and take us the rest of the way out of the basics. As it is, we should be able to cover the current utilities in the future, so it’s mainly about the arrears.

The bottom line is we have to pay at least $1425 by August 22nd to keep the gas and electricity on, and then the other half will be in six installments.

That means needing to come up with about $1000 above what we can otherwise manage.

I have an offer of $150 toward the second installment from a local charitable agency, but not the first, as they have to know the power will stay on and it won’t be wasted dropping in the bucket. That would effectively give me until sometime in October to have gotten the prospective job, or other work sufficient to keep it all rolling.

Someone finally expressed interest in buying the xtremeware.com domain I’ve had for sale for several months, so I thought that might do it, but I haven’t heard back. I just replied a third time, from a different address, making a time-sensitive offer to sell it at the lowest price I can reasonably accept. I’ll probably list it again in a formal service to expedite the possibility and give others a chance if the warm prospect bails. That would help some, if it could happen soon enough. We’re looking at what else we can sell in the next week, focusing heavily on my comic book collection from years past.

For the most part, family isn’t a viable source of help, so I won’t go asking them unless it comes down to, say, the last $100 or so between us and darkness.

At any rate, whatever we could say about how we got here, miscalculating and all that, it’s not as important as moving forward. The consequences, if we can’t keep the utilities on, will be the same as eviction. There are contingency plans for Deb and the kids to stay with a friend of hers. I have no such plans, beyond being acutely aware I still own a tent. That just sets up a much harder scenario to escape, makes it hard to make the money we now make online, makes it hard to get work, makes it hard to take care of the kids, makes it hard to keep Henry’s sensitivities watched and controlled.

I haven’t been eager to say anything by way of asking for donations, as we already got helped once beyond all conceivable generosity. We wouldn’t be so stable now, otherwise. I’m itching to get on the other side of the PayPal button and be able to do the same for others. Surely that’ll come, but isn’t here yet.

This was why I planned to do a fundraising edition of CotC, since that was a different audience and reason – appreciation of the carnival in the past or expression of a desire to have it happen in the future – it didn’t feel inappropriate. My spare time for that never became copious, even though the fundraising aspect made it paying work of sorts. Again, not to reflect on where and why but to resolve and proceed.

So. Anything I receive in PayPal (button at top of right sidebar) will go to the gas and electric arrears until that is paid up or something else is a more immediate threat. I’ll add to this if I see later I forgot something, or will post status updates as appropriate.

The other part of the plan, besides maybe mentioning this in a less frantic way, was a post soliciting micro-work of the sort I can actually do while taking care of the kids and having to fit it into minute or few bursts or sleepy midnight interludes. Ironically, planning that, composing it and so forth didn’t lend themselves to my time and circumstances. While that might not raise what a full-fledged getababysitternow job would, it would have helped. I still plan something along those lines, which was not going to be a mere post, but also a mass e-mail to contacts, some of whom might not even realize I am looking. Even some people I expected were aware things were grim had no idea, so on the periphery, who knows.

Oddly, everyone has left me alone long enough to ramble at length. This is as much as I wrote over the course of a couple weeks in an unfinished post on the topic that reached the point where I wasn’t sure what I’d said and needed almost a rewrite of an edit. However, it’s time to make supper before the kids mutiny.

Update:
We’re down to about $650 $600 $200 needed to make the deadline. Not there yet, but it’s progress. Almost there! Thank you all so much for your links, donations and purchases.

Update on August 19. 2008:

I’ve removed the sticky status from this post and am updating this one accordingly. While things won’t exactly be rosy and we still could use assistance if anyone feels generous (this big push was for half the arrears; it’ll be hard to pay both the installments on the other half and the current bills, if nothing else), with some juggling and astonishing generosity from several people, we’ve reached the immediate goal. Thanks!!

If you do still want to help out, the PayPal button on the top right remains. Deb’s shop still has a few physical items, though it is going largely virtual. We still have books for sale, and may add more along the line. Some have had to be removed after Henry damaged them, which is helpful.

You’re welcome to use the info in the sidebar where it says “Light the power!” to go directly to the gas & electric on our behalf. That’s going to be over $200 a month to catch up, after all, on to of an average of probably $300 a month over the year, with the big ones coming all too soon. That’s anonymous, unless you tell us you’ve done it. We’ll just see that part of the bill has already been paid.

I didn’t end up selling off some of my comics for this emergency, but I’m not attached to most of them, and will probably put many of them up for sale. Possibly right on one of the blogs, or possibly other places. Stay tuned.

I still am trying to sell xtremeware.com, though perhaps I should use that as the domain for selling comics. It has a higher Page Rank now than we do here. Anyway, the auction expires tomorrow, but until then I will accept a bargain reserve price ($500) for the thing. That’s somewhere between 1/2 and 1/20 of what it should bring. I’ll probably put it on longer term offer at a higher price, whether I also sell stuff on it or not. I also have xtremecomp.com potentially available, but haven’t really thought about price.

At any rate, thanks to everyone who donated, linked, and made a point of buying stuff. It was a big help.

Categories
Massachusetts Weather

If This Had Been An Actual Emergency

The blackened sky out there right now, driving a welcome wind through the windows, reminded me I didn’t write about yesterday’s tornado warning. Yes, warning. Not even a mere watch. Yes, in Massachusetts. If that surprises you, by all means Google Worcester tornado and look at some of the results not about the ball team. One of the only times I ever heard the emergency broadcast system used beyond a test was driving down from north of Boston and hearing a tornado watch.

But this was a warning. With our location relatively in bullseye territory. Wow.

We ended up getting everyone dressed and hanging out in the cellar for several minutes during the projected window for the area, at the risk of feeling silly. Deb grew up in an area that had been hit with a tornado and where such things were serious enough they used air raid sirens for warnings and tested regularly. I grew up aware of the Worcesteer tornado, and enough of a weather nerd to be aware they could and did happen here, if seldom, and even rarer with strength. Plus hellow, Wizard of Oz was an annual television event.

In the end nothin happened beside relatively severe thunderstorms, some hail and heavy rain, more darkness in the sky than justified. It was different, though.

I was disappointed that after going offline for the emergency, my Blackberry, from which I am posting this, was not available to look at weather, post, see e-mail, etc. It was as if the cell service shut down completely, right when I wanted it most. Thrilling.

Raining good now, so I’d better make sure no windows are letting it in…

Categories
Business Money News

Perpetual Earning Assets

Exactly what we keep taking about. They don’t want to be repaid. They want to milk you in perpetuity. Well, the teets are chapped and blistered, the udders are dry, and the cows are increasingly skittish.