deadissue.com

Got this from a movie review at Pandagon:

In real life, being happy takes work. Good relationships take a lot of work. The offensive thing about movie romance isn’t its triteness; it’s its utter immaturity. We’re all supposed to be waiting for that one person to come along and give us the inspiration to be great and whole, which means that we’re not actually responsible for doing any of the work to become a good person. There’s supposed to be someone out there for each of us, and all it takes is a bare minimum of effort – certainly nothing more than an interrupted wedding and a few pratfalls – and voila! We have love!

I am not sure that being happy takes work so much as it takes a willingness to compromise in ways that some people are are unwilling t do, for example some people might be happier if they left the job they claim to hate, but don’t want to take a pay cut. Same with relationships once they become work it might be better to get out of them than keep working at them, as at least in my experience it just becomes more and more work.
My main point with this, however, is that in the real world many people see children as the magic elixer that is going to make them a better person and solve all their problems. Of course it doesn’t work, but it seems that people are told everyday about the joys of children when the reality is they are a lot of work and expense. Probably if your life or relationship has some problems having kids will make those problems worse.
The worst part about reading the review is it makes me want to go see up in the air, somehow I am pretty sure I will regret that choice later.

At least people are going to campaign on the issues:

I don’t think Newt Gingrich necessarily speaks for the GOP these days. But he said over the weekend that he’s sure every Republican in 2010 and 2012 will run on a pledge to repeal Health Care Reform. And though he was less definitive, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel said close to the same thing. Now given the relative unpopularity of the bill at this moment (which I strongly suspect will change) and its extreme unpopularity among partisan Republicans, that’s not a very surprising statement. What’s interesting to me, though, is that Democrats started saying last week that they plan to run on the same platform — namely, that if you vote for Republicans they’ll repeal Health Care Reform.

This really is a debate about what kind of country we want to have as Americans, do we want everyone to have equal access to health-care, or do we want to let insurance companies continue to fleece policy holders; in the name of free market worship.
My guess is this is a winning issue for Dems for two reasons. First, people know the system is broke and the health-care bill fixes some of the problems. Second, if Republicans are going to run against the health-reform bill they might have to say what they would replace it with. The party of “NO” is not very good at coming up with policy and just stamping yoour feet does not win many elections outside of your local homeowners association.

First Tiger Woods then Chris Henry and now possibly Charlie Sheen:

I’m calling first dibs. The question now: Was he trying to get the weapon away from her or was he threatening her with it? Given his lawyer’s statement that he believes it will be shown that no criminality was involved, his wife’s BAC being over the legal limit while his wasn’t, and his wife’s refusal to continue speaking with police, I won’t be surprised if he’s ultimately cleared.

I wonder if domestic violence against men is not one of the most underreported crimes ever.

Looks like another shoe bomber but without the shoe:

A Nigerian man tried to light a powder aboard a commercial jetliner before it landed Friday in Detroit in what senior U.S. officials called an attempted act of terrorism.

Flight 253 with 278 passengers and 11 crew members aboard was 20 minutes from the airport when passengers heard popping noises, witnesses said. Passengers saw the attempted attack, and at least one of them jumped on the man and subdued him, airline officials and passengers said.

The lack of sophistication, shows that while these terrorists can be dangerous, they are more like low-level criminals that should be handled by law enforcement. Treating terrorism as a milatary problem not only doesn’t work, it gives these people a status they don’t deserve.

Vick has not learned anything, nor have his fellow NFL players:

Sorry, Philly Eagles. Anything Michael Vick experienced is a result of his cowardice and cruelty in training innocent dogs to fight, then maiming, beating, shooting and abusing the ones who couldn’t “measure up.” It’s not “courage” to make a comeback in the NFL after doing time in lockup for that sadistic, sick behavior.

Michael Vick’s peers appreciate his tough journey back to the NFL. Vick won the Ed Block Courage Award, voted on by his teammates on the Philadelphia Eagles. The once-disgraced star quarterback returned to the league after spending 18 months in a federal prison for his role in a dogfighting ring.

…The Ed Block Award honors players who exemplify commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage. All 32 NFL teams select a recipient, and each winner will be honored at an awards ceremony in Baltimore on March 9.

”I’ve overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear,” Vick said. ”You ask certain people to walk through my shoes, they probably couldn’t do. Probably 95 percent of the people in this world because nobody had to endure what I’ve been through, situations I’ve been put in, situations I put myself in and decisions I have made, whether they have been good or bad.

Check out that humility. Holy mother of dog. It’s one thing to give the man a fresh start to work (some wouldn’t believe he deserved that), but to honor someone as having courage just because of the media circus he endured that evolved out of the dogfighting catastrophe makes me ill. It only tells me that his teammates and the Eagles need their moral compasses adjusted.

When Vick got caught dog fighting their were rumors that other NFL players were involved in dog fighting, I have always suspected that one of the reasons Vick got off pretty easy, from the NFL’s perspective is that he didn’t turn any of his fellow players in, looks like they are still paying him back for covering for them.

I really don’t get all the details of the health-reform bill but Ezra Klien who is much smarter than me and has spent a lot more time studying the bill says:

Bad a system as it might be, it’s the only one we’ve got, at least for now. This is what victory looks like. The slow, grinding, ineluctable advance of legislation that looks quite a bit like what you began with, albeit not identical. It’s not pretty, and it doesn’t necessarily feel like winning is supposed to feel. But this bill will do most of the things supporters hoped it would do: cover about 95 percent of all legal residents, regulate insurers, set up competitive exchanges, pretty much end risk selection, institute a universal structure that we can improve and enhance as the years go on, and vastly reduce both medical and financial risk for families.

It’s been a long time since the legislative system did anything this big, and people have forgotten how awful the victories are. But these are the victories, and if they feel bad to many, they will do good for more. As that comes clearer and clearer, this bill will come to feel more and more like the historic advance it actually is.

It is important to acknowledge we have a bad system and we are kind of stuck with it at the moment and this bill goes a long to fix some of the bigger problems that are current system has. Single-payer would be better but do to irrational market worship here in America we may not see that for a long time.
As Donald Rumsfield might say, “you get sick with the system you have not the systtem you want”, hopefully, health-care will work out better than the Iraq war.

This has been all over the internet but it is still funny:

Yesterday on C-SPAN, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) fielded calls from viewers, one of whom raised the specter of misdirected prayers. “Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn’s instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn’t show up at the vote the other night,” the caller said. “How hard did you pray because I see one of our members was missing this morning. Did it backfire on us? One of our members died?”

I don’t believe in the supernatural at all, but if their was a god I am pretty sure he or she could tell the difference between Byrd and Imhofe.

I think this post from Talkleft explains the new health-care bill pretty well:

The title of this post is a reference to myself (which is silly of course, while I am angry, I am hardly Left) and people like me. People who agree with the critiques made against the bill, who disagree with the the “regulatory reform” framework that bill elevates, who believe in the public insurance reform framework that would be undermined by the bill – but do not oppose the bill. How can I support passage of the bill? Well, I’m not there yet, but I can tell you why I do not oppose the bill – the expansion of Medicaid eligibility. Having the wealthy pay for public insurance for the less well off is an important good. I just can not bring myself to oppose the bill because of that

I agree with everyting here but would add that as long as the U.S insists on a for-profit health care system any reforms will be compromised, because the profit motive undermines good health-care.

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I had hoped to see a public option, in fact the best solution from my perspective would have been to open medicare up to everyone; the network of providers is already there and most people seem to love the service they get. Plus, most doctors seem happy with the reimbursements they get from the program and I have a feeling that the lower reimbursements may cut down on over-treatment.
I think the two things in the health-care bill that will have the greatest effect is the requirement that insurance companies pay eighty-five percent of their revenue out as claims and the expansion of medicaid.
The expansion of medicaid if it helps, will create a situation where low-income indaviduals have better health outcomes than middle-class and upper-class indaviduals who have access to more expensive health-care; making the argument for single-payer hard to refute. It will probably take another twenty or thirty years but hopefully we are at the beginning of the end of for profit medicine.

The health care as it stands now does some pretty good stuff. My guess is the requirement that eighty-five percent of revenues need to be spent on benefits will really help as insurance companies have just lost the incentive to rip people off. It will be interesting to see how they try to redefine what is considered a benefit to the customer, I am sure some companies will try to claim that paying the CEO millions of Dollars is a benefit to the clients.

All and all it is not a bad start for health care reform, and I mean START.

This is from TPM:

I am unemployed and have a pre-existing condition that requires daily medicines, quarterly doctors visits and an annual test. I am on COBRA, which runs out mid-2010, when I will have to find new health insurance. I will need to purchase some kind of health insurance, assuming I can find provider who will insure me

I don’t pretend to understand all the intricacies of the health care reform bill, but I do read a lot. From what I can glean, if the bill passed, I would be able to find health insurance because I could not to be turned down due to my pre-exisiting condition. And based on my income at the moment, my premuims would be subsidized.
Am I disappointed in the reform effort? Yes. I believe in single payer. I was terribly disappointed the Medicare buy-in for 55 and older was dropped, not because I give a rat’s ass about Lieberman or the political wrangling involved, but because I am two years shy of 55 and I would have loved to be able to tough it out on the private market for a little while longer knowing Medicare coverage was just around the corner. Believe me, it’s scary being 52 and unemployed with a medical condition. Any form of security is vital.

As frustrating as it is that Lieberman and Nelson want to hold these people hostage, at this point any health bill that prevents even one person from dieing due to lack of coverage, or keeps one person from having to file medical bancruptcy is worth passing.

The site is back. Just in time for the big fight on health care reform. I really don’t know what to make of the new proposal, but I think it is safe to say Joe Lieberman cares much more about the profits of insurance companies than the health of the people he claims to represent.

I am starting to think that the lesson from both 1994 and 2009 is that you can’t have both good health-care and for profit health-care.

From the broken clock category of course she forgets to mention birth control will also work:

Camerota asked a guest — perhaps playing devil’s advocate — if there was benefit to a Democratic senator’s healthcare amendment which blocked federal funding for abortions.

“If there is no federal money used to subsidize abortions for low-income women, doesn’t that mean there will be more low-income babies, and do any of these amendments talk about the health care for them?” Camerota asked.

She says what most people know, which is one of the best ways to stay poor is to have children. Of course their are condoms and birth control pills that can prevent a pregnancy as well, but the right-wing seems to have forgotten about these devices.
One of the best anti-poverty programs the government could embark on would be comprehensive sex-education for everyone, will it happen? probably not? As sex-education seems to send wingers to the fainting couch.

Maybe we should pray for Rick Warren not to be so stupid:

Not believing in a Supreme Being takes more faith than believing in one, according to Pastor Rick Warren. “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist,” Warren told Fox News anchors Steve Doocy and Martha MacCallum Monday.

“You know, Steve, if I’m walking down a mountain and I see rock out of place and I go ‘that’s an accident.’ If I’m walking down a mountain — on the trail — and I find a Rolex that’s evidence of design,” he explained. “It actually takes more faith not to believe in God than to believe in God.”

Here is the thing with that argument, if I find a watch I can also find who made it, if I had the resources I could go to the Rolex factory and probably talk to the person who put it together. I can’t talk to the being who created the rock, most likely because that being doesn’t exist. The religous nuts really need to come-up with some evidence for their supernatural beliefs or at least stop pretending they make sense.
He also offers this tidbit:

In April of 2007, Warren told Newsweek that he “never met an atheist who wasn’t angry” and that “far more people have been killed through atheists than through all the religious wars put together.”

“Thousands died in the Inquisition; millions died under Mao, and under Stalin and Pol Pot,” Warren said in 2007. “There is a home for atheists in the world today—it’s called North Korea. I don’t know any atheists who want to go there. I’d much rather live under Tony Blair, or even George Bush.”

Maybe atheists are angry when they meet Rick Warren because the stupid burns.

I got this from TPM:

I finally had to block emails from a couple of my cousins, because they were sending me thinly veiled racist diatribes about the death of America, Muslims, Democrats being the party of the big-city ghettos and the responsibility of poor people for the world economic crisis.
These emails were prompted by the Major Hasan case. It was just too disturbing for me to receive any more of this rubbish.

What is the character profile of a racist? I cannot answer that question in general, but these particular relatives were always controlling, negative people from the time they were little boys. I never did like them.

This is all very sad. I have always supported Obama, I still do, and, for the most part, I trust his instincts. What makes this especially sad is that — alhough I think Obama should have broken up the big banks — I am shocked by the way the Left has abandoned him. I disagree with Joan Walsh, for example, that Obama is a Centrist. That is only a label. I think that Obama is a left-leaning pragmatist, and he figures out a solution to every problem on its merits.

It would be very sad if the left makes the perfect the enemy of the good. At least at this point a grown-up is in charge and the country is moving in the right direction, not as fast as some might like but still in the right direction.

Ross Douthat trys to explain the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church and while trying to minimize the problem he drops this nugget:

Philip Lawler claims that while less than five percent of priests were involved in actual abuse, over two-thirds of bishops were involved in covering it up.) I suspect it isn’t a coincidence that the worst of the priest-abuse scandals have been concentrated in Ireland and America — and indeed, in Boston, the most Irish of American cities

If five-percent of a group is molesting children it seems that group might have a problem. The question that has never been asked about the pedophile scandal is whether pedophiles are attracted to careers in the catholic church, or do careers in the church turn people into pedophiles.

New Orleans looks really good and Vince Young looks like the comeback player of the year. The Colts seem to be cutting it a little close every week, but may be the best in the AFC.

And, Jay Cutler has done everything he can to make the Broncos look really smart.