December 2010 archive

Dec 26 2010

about that holy war against health insurers

PhotobucketDoing some reading before bed last night and opened nyceve’s diary over at dKos titled In 2011, these people will launch holy war against the health insurance Industry.

I get here, where she writes:


As insurers continue to raise premiums and cut benefits, Health and Human Services is relegated to pleading, cajoling and threatening, but in the end, can do little to control them. This is an uncontrollable industry.

… and my head explodes: they can’t they be controlled???? Why is that?????? Isn’t that what we should focus on???

nyceve… she’s great, heroic even… out there fighting to make things better. But there’s this one little thing: we are engulfed in lawlessness and lack of accountability. Nobody… nobody… is enforcing the law or holding the powerful accountable.

What does this have to do with health insurance?

Just . . . everything.

cross-posted at writing in the rAw and at dKos

Dec 26 2010

Late Night Karaoke

Dec 26 2010

White Huns in Herat

Hephthalite Coin
5th Century AD Hephthalite coin of King Lakhana

The Hephthalites were a Central Asian nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. According to Chinese chronicles, they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun. Elsewhere they were called White Huns.

Dec 26 2010

Don’t call it “The Big Orange Tumor”

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Whatever you do don’t call DK4 The Big Orange Tumor. Are we clear?

cause It’s not a tumor, it’s li’l kos’s customized money pit. Ads blaze everywhere, on every page, even on the “community” members’ individual diaries. (note use of quotes = sarcasm here P8).

Long time contributors and their diaries have been relegated to the back of the bus, that is, taken off the FP. Why? because according to the BOT’s, Big Orange Tumor’s , surveys most readers never open those diaries, they merely peruse the front page. You see, kos only caters to what’s bringing in the cash – loyalty to “community” members (aka suckers) is non existent.

The tumor place is set up for maximum clicking to maximize lord fauntelroy’s ad revenues.

So eye repeat, whatever you do, don’t think of Daily Kos 4 as The Big Orange Tumor

Thank You.

Dec 25 2010

On Death And Clemency, Or, Here’s A Real Christmas Story

There are many gifts to be given and received this holiday season; some that you can wrap and put under a tree, and some so intangible and ethereal that they cannot be held within the boundaries of paper and ribbon.

Instead, they exist within the boundaries of our hearts.

Among those intangible presents, few matter more than the chance to be with those we love-and at the time of our death, it’s the most important thing of all.

We have a chance to bring all of this to a dying woman and her family-but the only way it can happen is if we convince the Florida Department of Corrections not to kill her first.

It’s not a tale of light and joy-but if we get lucky, there could still be a happy ending.

Dec 25 2010

You Are the Gift!

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

Perchance, on this the twenty-second commemoration of a lesson learned, it is time to reflect on our first, foremost, and greatest Teachers.  More than a generation has passed.  In that time, I have acquired much knowledge. Yet, I am forever reminded that the more I know, the more certain I am.  I know nothing with certainty.  What I once thought was the greatest treasure, a tradition I could never part with, was other than it appeared.  I never imagined what would become my truth.  Today, I share the tale with you.

Dec 25 2010

Evercookies for Christmas

Mom makes the best cookies ever. No one can change that fact. Argue all you like, but you will never be able to change that fact. On Christmas Eve, we leave a glass of milk and a plate of mom’s cookies for Santa.  At night, when we are all asleep, the fat guy sneaks in with his elves to stuff our stockings and pile gifts under the tree. Even Santa knows mom makes the best cookies ever.

Dec 25 2010

Christmas For Children

Dec 25 2010

“Merry Christmas” 2010, not in Iraq

Every action has a reaction, every destructive action has destructive reactions!

This report is just a part of the legacy we’ve left to an entire small Country of innocent people, as well as their neighboring countries, whose doctoral leader was under our thumb, right up till his hanging, as to the policies of that whole region we push in the names of Freedoms and Democracy!

Dec 25 2010

Six In The Morning

I’ll Play Scrooge To Your Grinch



And Don’t For Get To Hand Over All The Damn Money

Daniel J. Langevin was 35, mentally ill and broke. He had been living in psychiatric institutions on and off since his early 20s.

A friend who visited him at the Rochester Psychiatric Center in February 1995 remembered that Mr. Langevin had pain in his jaw, eye and face that was not getting much attention from the staff. A week later, he was discovered unconscious, with a near-fatal infection spreading to his brain and other organs.

Mr. Langevin sued New York State, which operates the hospital, and probably would have won a sizable award.

Dec 25 2010

Late Night Karaoke

Dec 25 2010

Random Japan

 2010 Roundup  

JANUARY

Bored in space

It was reported that Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi celebrated New Year on the International Space Station with hanetsuki (hitting a shuttlecock with a battledore) and kakizome (writing the first calligraphy of the year).

It depends on your definition of “disaster”

After kicking up a national storm by claiming that “[a]dvanced medical care allows those to live who would once have been weeded out by natural selection,” the mayor of Akune, Kagoshima Prefecture, lashed out at his critics via the city’s community PA system, which was set up for use during disasters.

That works out to ¥.00000000003/hr

The Diet is set to consider a bill that would provide compensation ranging from ¥250,000 to ¥1.5 million to former detainees of labor camps in Mongolia and Siberia. Some 600,000 Japanese, mostly servicemen, were thought to have been imprisoned by the Soviet Union after World War II, and approximately 100,000 are still alive.

This just in: asbestos is bad for you, too

For the first time ever, a Japanese court acknowledged that smoking causes health problems.

You hachi-go, Chad!

Attention-craving wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (né Chad Johnson) of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals, who wears jersey No. 85, is considering changing his name again next season, this time going with the Japanese version: Chad Hachi Go.

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