Saturday Night Random

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Arcanaut

I’m not sure if this should be a post, but since it’s Saturday night and things are quiet here, I’ll put it up in the spirit of the old Plum Line At Night segments that BGinChi used to host, often about books. (And BG’s planning to stop in here when he has time, which is nice news.)

Some of you may have checked out my publishing website, which is linked to at my profile. I’ve just posted an interview question Bernie asked me to answer about the sensory experience of writing fiction. If you’re interested in how writing fiction gets done, you might want to look.

At the Plum Line, I’ve occasionally commented about things Wisconsin since I lived there for over two decades. As a political junkie, I’ve thought a lot about what’s going on there–that persistent divide that gave the country both the Progressive tradition and Joe McCarthy. During my Wisconsin years, particularly when I lived in the country, I was very aware of the outlook of many of neighbors and how that played out in politics. I wrote a lot of short stories that were informed by my affection for those neighbors and my interest in their attitudes.

For those of you who’re curious about what the real Wisconsin is, those stories are collected in In the Land of the Dinosaur: Ten Stories and a Novella. There’s info on it (including excerpts and music links) and other titles, including my Civil War War novel, Suite Harmonic, on the site. There’s also a related interview question from David Douglas (not somebody from the Plum Line) about the isolation of living in the country in Wisconsin. You’ll want emilymeier dot com.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: | 23 Comments »

We’re Open on Saturdays (An Open Thread)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by lmsinca
Andrew M. Cuomo – Governor


Joint Statement From Governor Cuomo, Christie, Corbett and Perdue Urging Congress to Put Aside Politics on Disaster Assistance

Albany, NY (September 23, 2011)

“Our states have been hit hard by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. While the flood waters have receded and the storms are passed, the damage to communities, businesses and infrastructure remains significant. Billions of dollars in loss and destruction pose a serious threat not only to local and regional economies, but to the nation’s economic recovery.

Our states’ governments and our citizens are doing their part to restore and rebuild.

The federal government must also do its part.

Federal assistance for the victims of storms and floods should be beyond politics. Within 10 days of Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed and the President signed over $60 billion in aid for the Gulf Coast. It’s been 28 days since Irene and Lee started battering our states. We urge this Congress to move swiftly to ensure that disaster aid through FEMA and other federal programs is sufficient to start rebuilding now.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York

Governor Chris Christie, New Jersey

Governor Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania

Governor Bev Perdue, North Carolina

(Bi-Partisan Disaster Relief-lms)

On an encouraging, bipartisan note, I’m happy to report that we saw the trailer for The Thing today, and it actually looks … really good.

I could’t quite figure out how it relates to the first two. It looks like something of a combination of them. But, assuming it reviews well, I cannot wait to see it. —QB

Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

One Man’s Heroic Quest for Truth

Posted on September 24, 2011 by quarterback

Why not a little Palinmania on a Saturday when everyone is looking forward to football, cooking, or other weekend diversions? I saw this semi-explosive piece airing dirty laundry of Joe McGinnis and Jesse Griffen, one of the hardy band of Palin web stalkers, over at Big Government the other day. John Hinderaker raised the obvious question of whether it could be evidence of libel. As interesting to me are the many nuggets the (alleged) email contains reflecting on McGinnis’s MO and agenda, as well as his candid if unintentional indictment of the anti-Palin muckraking web posse. These two paragraphs are striking to me, if in no way surprising for what they admit:

I’ve neither seen nor heard anything that indicates that Ms. Tripp’s story has any basis in fact. None of the endless crap Patrick posted about her before getting the boot from palingates.com offers any substantiation.


And even you write frequently that you know things you can’t yet post, but that soon “all will be revealed.” This has been going on since I first became aware of your blog, but as far as I know you haven’t substantiated a single claim or provided verification for a single rumor that you’ve posted about Sarah’s personal life, or the personal lives of any Palin family members. Thus, she gets to denounce what she calls “lies.”

Here we see a desperate and apparently angry McGinnis, betrayed! by his fellow Palinphobes. Amazingy, McGinnis appears to have submitted his manuscript containing all these rumours while knowing that they lacked any substantiation whatsoever. Tawdry and pathetic are words that come to mind. McGinnis moved next door to the Palins to spy on them but was still scrambling after his manuscript went to the publisher to justify the sleaziest accusations he put in it, and castigating amateur smear merchants for letting him down. The lament at the end is priceless and telling. He isn’t concerned that the internet rumors spread by hate hobbyists might be lies, only that they give Palin the opportunity to call them what they are. Unfair!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , | 18 Comments »

Jobs bill to discriminate against the moderately wealthy

Posted on September 24, 2011 by ScottC

The WSJ reports:

Nonprofits across the state are campaigning against a provision in President Barack Obama’s jobs bill that would limit itemized deductions, including charitable deductions, for individuals with an annual income of $200,000 or more.

The federal proposal, which would cap itemized deductions at 28% from the current 35%, has provoked particular concern in New York, where nonprofits last year lost a fight against a state bill that reduced deductions from 50% for individuals earning $10 million or more.

While that policy ensnared an influential but limited portion of the oppulation, New York charities fear that the federal proposal will curb charitable giving among a much broader swath of potential donors, possibly compounding the impact of the state law.

Why is it that discriminatory laws that would be deemed outrageously abusive (and certainly unconstitutional) if targetting any other demographic of the country are considered perfectly acceptable when targetting a group defined arbitrarily by their income?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 22 Comments »

Saturday Morning Trivia (for LMS)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by ScottC

Since the the Most Valuable Player award was introduced into Major League Baseball in 1931, 12 players have won the award in consecutive years.  The last three players to do it were Albert Pujols (2008/09), Barry Bonds twice (1992/93 and 2001-2004), and Frank Thomas (1993/94).  Amazingly, however, the first 9 players to do it each played a different position, thus making back-to-back winners a perfect starting lineup.  Can you name them?

(Note:  one of the outfielders actually played all three outfield positions at various points in his MVP years, but we will make him our left fielder, since we’ve already got back-to-back winners at center field and right field.)

Filed under: Trivia | 31 Comments »

Bits & Pieces (TGIF)

Posted on September 23, 2011 by lmsinca

George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, and Vladimir Putin all die and go to hell. While there, they spy a red phone and ask what the phone is for. The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth.

Putin asks to call Russia and talks for 5 minutes. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a check.

Next Queen Elizabeth calls England and talks for 30 minutes. When she is finished the devil informs her that the cost is 6 million dollars, so she writes him a check.

Finally George Bush gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is $5.00.

When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Bush got to call the USA so cheaply. The devil smiles and replies: “Since Obama took over, the country has gone to hell, so it’s a local call.”

Filed under: jokes, political cartoons | Tagged: , | 43 Comments »

You’re Kidding Me Right? A Health Insurance Story

Posted on September 23, 2011 by lmsinca

Background

We bought the business my husband worked for the 23 years prior in 2001. We moved it from Huntington Beach to Riverside, CA, brought one employee with us and hired two more. I quickly became a payroll, tax, insurance, quick books, import/export, and photo shop expert of sorts. One of my trickiest jobs though was maneuvering through the maze of health insurance issues. We slogged along for about four years in this manner approaching retirement age. About six years ago we decided to move the business to our back yard and built a warehouse, transformed two bedrooms into offices, brought in three more phone lines with an elaborate phone and intercom system and set up a wired network for the computers etc. and voila we’ve been working from home since 2006. Our employees had drifted off one by one and we kept downsizing as necessary due to both our interest in slowing down and the business climate, so the move ended up being fortuitous. One of the expenses that always caused the most consternation, other than lease agreements of course, was the cost of health insurance.

Small Group Insurance

We originally planned to be semi-retired by this year and in many ways we’re close. When we built the warehouse and moved the business home, according to city ordinance, we are not allowed to have employees unless they live in the home. Obviously, before making this kind of commitment and the expense of building a warehouse, I needed to verify that with just the two of us we could maintain an employer provided health insurance plan. Luckily, any business with between two and twenty employees qualifies for small group insurance. Here in CA you’re required to submit tax returns and DE6 verification as proof, and sole proprietorship plus one employee qualifies. Otherwise, we’d be stuck searching the individual market, and at our age it would probably be priced exorbitantly or nearly impossible to qualify, even though we are quite healthy still. Honestly, we already feel we’re paying exorbitant prices so it’s difficult to imagine anything higher.

In addition to the yearly increases, based on some formula I’ll never be able to decipher, rates increase every five years on your birthday. In other words, when a person turns 60 their rate jumps up compared to someone who is 55. Since 2005 our rates increased substantially and by 2008 we were paying $1600/mo for the two of us for what is comparatively a modest plan with lots of cost sharing. I began looking around for a change on our renewal date of Nov. 1 and managed to switch from Health Net to Blue Shield and we saved about $3000 in 2009, but of course the real savings came with even more cost sharing. Last year I turned 60 (yippee), and so of course we faced another big increase, and by Nov. of 2010 we were looking at $1700 per month. The obvious thing was to begin looking around again. By this time I had taken over the job and no longer used an agent, so I’m pretty familiar with the ins and outs. I have learned that it’s much easier to make changes if you stay within the same company umbrella rather than change carriers.

A local access HMO 30 saved our bacon and we managed to lower our monthly cost to $1500 and keep our doctors group, local hospital and network of specialists that we’re somewhat familiar with. We received our new cards and put them in our wallets.

Yesterday

Every year in September my husband and I begin our yearly exams and let the doctors poke and prod us within reason. Neither of us has been to the doctor since we received our new insurance cards November of last year as we had a good year health wise. My appointment was yesterday morning and I showed up with bells on since I hadn’t been in the office since last year, and was chatting with the usual suspects (a couple of whom I’ve known for 30 years) and what not, when the gal at the desk called me up to speak with her. “I have good news and bad news”……………Oh no. “You’re covered but you need to go to Pomona to see your new doctor” and I quietly shrieked “You’re kidding me right?” Apparently, some wires were crossed last year and we were put into a local access group that’s about 40 miles away. So I flew home and called the insurance company and lo and behold our medical group doesn’t belong to a local access HMO and the nearest one is in Pomona, which apparently the card I’ve had in my wallet for the last 10 months clearly states.

You can switch health providers as long as they accept the insurance you have, but you can only switch health care plans once a year on your renewal date. So right now I have routine blood work and imaging referrals on hold until after Nov. 1, when we’ll switch to yet another plan. If anything happens to either of us in the meantime we get to go see a doctor we’ve never seen who’s 40 miles away. My husband told me yesterday, “No more horse back riding until after Nov. 1st for you young lady”.

Here’s the tricky part. In order to keep our premium in the $1600 range (OMG) we’re switching to an HMO 40 which, if you know anything at all about health insurance, just increased our cost sharing not incrementally but almost unaffordably. I’d say my horse back riding days are over. Another twist, as I had the one prescription I take without any renewals going forward, I went ahead and paid the cash customer fee to see my doctor. In the last 10 months we’ve paid $15,000 for health insurance with only a few prescription costs and I still had to spend $90 for a doctors appointment, sheesh.

I’m not really sure if people who have employer provided large group insurance understand the trials and tribulations or the cost of health insurance compared to the rest of us, so I’m curious what other experiences might be shared by our little group here.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | 14 Comments »

Media Bias? I Report, You Decide

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Let the mutherfuker burn!

Byron York’s interesting comparison of Today Show interview of Suskind over his book critical of the Obama Administration versus their interview of him over his book critical of the Bush administration.

Troll-

Filed under: Obama | Tagged: , | 14 Comments »

On Libertarians and Faith

Posted on September 23, 2011 by novahockey

I was drafting a kind of “this is why NoVA is the way he is” post in response to a brief dialogue with 12Bars and Michigoose on the PL, but it could take weeks for me to sit down and actually write a complete essay with citations on balancing a catholic religious tradition and faith and the associated social responsibilities with a libertarian stance on economic and social issues. Then I realized that you could spend your whole career on such an exercise. So instead I’ll kind of hit the highlights, with the caveat that each of these points could be the subject of much more detail. I’ll also note that there’s a debate within the Church about this and each of my points has a legit counterpoint.

Subsidiarity — One of the facets of catholic social teaching is the idea that the smallest organization possible should be responsible any given activity. Pope John Paul II wrote in 1991 that ignoring this principle deprives society of its responsibility and this “leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need.” Do note, however, that before making this point, the pope when into great detail on the role of the state in the economic sector. This is why I’m libertarian and and not anarcho-capitalist (although at times ….). See point 48 of John Paul II’s Centesimus annus here

Expanding on this, the more powerful and larger the state becomes, the less the need for charity. Instead, we create uncaring bureaucracies that will subsume and control those institutions that reflect our values. The state will not, and cannot, consider our values. You saw this in the health reform debate — under the goal of providing increased access to care, the bishops were shocked to learn of the requirements they will have carry out. They should not have been surprised.

Quoting from Taki’s Mag on this point: “In an American context, given our constitutional heritage and the large body of legal decisions solidifying its interpretation, on nearly any issue, Christians of any denomination should reject the assistance of the State. Our efforts to capture it, the courts have made it clear, will always fail. Any attempt to infuse the activity of the government with the moral content of a revealed religion will be rejected, in the end. Indeed, the more our own institutions cooperate with the government, the more they will be compromised; hospitals which take federal funds will be subject to secular ethics on issues like contraception, end-of-life, and even abortion. Religious colleges accepting federal grants will eventually be federalized, and so on.

Read more: http://takimag.com/article/ron_paul_and_pius_ix#ixzz1Ymq0cWzK

I would add that I have no problem with this. I don’t expect the state to enforce my values. I think we’re foolish to think that it would.

Militarism — In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us “blessed are the peacemakers.” Arms and violence should be a last resort. At this point in our history and for the foreseeable future, our leaders have turned this idea around. We are at perpetual war now. And the technology is advancing at such a rate where we can kill so easily and without risk to our own soldiers that the system is slowing becoming automated.

The idea that our leaders will even consider the catholic notion of a “just war” is hopelessly lost. We don’t even debate war anymore. This is simply incompatible with catholic teaching. And I don’t believe for a second that those who can callously order remote killings on one day can turn around and have any legitimacy on the next when they say we need to raise taxes because of the poor, or schools or any other “public good.” They’ve demonstrated repeatedly they care only about their own power. Respecting authority is a big part of catholic tradition, but respect these guys? The only solution to this is a smaller state.

And we are at this point, because as Lord Acton put it, power corrupts. We can spin our wheels trying to control this through ethics reforms or campaign finance reform. I contend that these efforts will fail and the only true solution is not to attempt to control or weed out the inevitable corruption, but to limit the power. So while we have reg after reg and law after law attempting to control vice, the greater threat is power. You can say we need to give the state power b/c x,y, or z. They will take your good will (and your money) and abuse it

This power, which they’ve used to control an ever larger part of society is a threat to our greatest gift, that of free will, a topic that needs it’s own post.

Thanks — and I’ll (try to) stay quiet in the comments and let everyone else poke holes in it.

Filed under: Libertarians | 11 Comments »

$16 Muffins!

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Kevin S. Willis

Looks like there is a brewing scandal at the Justice Department. They’ve been spending $16 for meeting muffins. I don’t mean meeting muffins in the 1940s slang way, in which case $16 would be a baragain. I mean muffins they eat at conferences. Because you can’t discuss justice without a tasty muffin.

While undoubtedly a blueberry-infested banana nut scandal, a little context doesn’t hurt. $350,000,000 could buy a lot of extra $16 muffins.

However, one nice thing about the $300+ million dollar F-22s and the $16 muffins is at least we know what they cost. The DoD budget, generally, remains largely opaque.

Background Music: Frank Zappa’s Muffin Man. I’m having to trust that Google is giving me a good link, as I can’t check it.

Filed under: budget, dod, doj | Tagged: , | 18 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »