Day: March 8, 2012

RANT: Fluke was a head fake away from the military retiree’s benefit costs

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2012/03/tale-of-two-hearings.html

Monday, March 05, 2012
A Tale of Two Hearings

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Never mind that Ms. Fluke’s claims are demonstrably false. There are plenty of places where a struggling college students can obtain contraception, some within a few minutes of the Georgetown campus. And, there’s the little matter of how much protection a student needs and how much it costs (assuming they don’t want to go the “free” route). A month’s supply of generic birth control pills can be purchased at Wal-Mart for $4. Total cost for three years at Georgetown: $144.

Or, if a student prefers condoms, they’re readily available and affordable as well. In fact, the “contraception cost” cited by Ms. Fluke could cover a swingin’ weekend at the Kennedy compound, or for mere mortals, enough protection for five sexual encounters a day for three years (emphasis ours). We’ve heard that law profs try to “bore their students to death” during year three; looks like Ms. Fluke (and her fellow students) have found a new way to beat the boredom during their final semester at good ol’ Georgetown.
But that isn’t the real irony of Ms. Fluke and her contraception plight. That was provided in another hearing room, on another subject, military health care. While the MSM media was atwitter over Ms. Fluke, they largely ignored the latest revelations on healthcare fees for military retirees. Appearing before the House Budget Committee, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta affirmed that out-of-pocket costs for TriCare (the health plan covering military dependents and retirees) will continue to rise.

Just how much? According to California Congressman Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, some military retirees will see their TriCare fees increase by as much as 345%. Supporters of the fee hike note that TriCare went more than 15 years without an increase. Critics note that the average military retiree leaves the service as an E-6, with a monthy pension of roughly $1600 (after taxes). While the revised system will be means tested (so higher-ranking retirees pay more), any increase will have a major impact on service members who retire at lower grades.

Of course, that means little to members of Congress (most of whom never served in the armed forces), or the Obama Administration, which is equally lacking in military experience. They have no problem in raising health care fees for military retirees and dependents, while pushing for free, unlimited contraception for those young-skulls-full-of-mush on campus.

Did we mention that the retirees actually earned their benefits, through decades of service and sacrifice? Or that they were promised free, on-base healthcare for life at the time of their enlistment? But then again, retired military members aren’t viewed as a crucial “swing” voting block in this year’s presidential election.

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Argh!

Once again, “We, The Sheeple” fail to keep our eye on the ball. In this case, military retirees and their problems.

I’m sure the congresscritters won’t have any trouble with their benefits.

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INTERESTING: I pledge $100 donation to the charity of her choice … …

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/taylor-swifts-bikini-australia-photo_n_1323914.html

It’s well know that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Taylor Swift. I’m not some dirty old man; just old. I think she’s got a lot of attributes worth emulating. The recent bikini picture upset me. Not for the suit or that it’s on the net, but she looks anorexic.

So, I pledge $100 donation to the charity of her choice for her to gain ten pounds.

I’ll even take a picture of her eating fast food. (If you listen to the “food police”, that will make you instantly fat.)

You look at pictures of her from 2004 to today and you can see the girl get thinner by the year.

Now she looks like a death camp inmate.

So, I hope she can “plump” up a little. She doesn’t have to become a heifer. Just make it back a few pounds.

Think of all those young girls with body image issues.

Hope her Mom speaks to her frankly.

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Hardware: YouTube is hiccuping

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

Maybe I am seeing network issues. It could be Verizon. But both Verizon Filos and Verizon vwbbie (Verizon’s wireless broadband hooked thu the mifi2200) are failing to play Taylor Swift videos. (yes, I know a terrible loss to western civilization!) but could it be a conspiracy to sell ipad3s and 4g service. If I was the cynical type, I suspect Verizon want folks to upgrade to 4g and may have degraded the 3G performance to pop sites. I’m sure that biz, who uses it for DR and salesforce automation, will not have any problems. But that’s cynical. After all, not like anyone would collude to fix prices on ebooks? Or anything else! Argh!

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HARDWARE: stuck cd advice

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 8:12 AM, XXXX wrote:

Thanks John.    I have another favor of a technical nature. A DVD is stuck in the R-drive. It wants to open, but something is preventing it-sounds like a Twilight Zone story.    Any suggestions?

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Two ideas:

(1) there is usually a hole for “emergency open”. You mae need a magnifying glass and an unbent paper clip to insert.

(2) sometimes the CD doesn’t get flat on the “turntable”. I’ve found that inverting it and then back can sometimes free it. Also, a gentle washing machine agitation — 5 or 10 minutes — just put it on the machines when they cycle. :-) It sometimes will let the cd reset in the “tray”.

Just some things that I’ve done.

BTW the disk and the drive are probably toast. When it attempts to force the drawer open, it knocks the “heads” out of line.

Hope this helps,
fjohn

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