POLITICAL: The debate is really NOT about “insurance”

Sunday, March 4, 2012

http://peadarroe.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/a-woman-said

A Woman Said
Posted on February 24, 2012

*** begin quote ***

What follows was part of a discussion on a well known “social media site”.  I copied it because I thought it said a lot about a great divide in our country, the one between two kinds of people, two generations, two different world views, two different cultures.  It was occasioned by the appearance of a cartoon showing the President of these Untied States wearing the clerical robes of a pope.  It was s satirical cartoon designed for strong reactions, and it got them.  People objected to the artist’s robing Obama as the Catholic Pontiff, commented on his support for abortion and his refusal to recognize the conscience rights of Catholics.  Someone, a young woman, wrote:

I find it disturbing, but I’m mostly offended by the commentary it represents. I don’t like Obama, but I don’t find him to be any more “tyrannical” or arrogant than any other President we’ve had. Calling him a Communist really just illuminates one’s complete misunderstanding of communism, and the equation of abortion with the Holocaust as well as the implication that requiring insurance to cover birth control is equal to abortion, just pisses me off.

*** and ***

As for the requirement that private employer’s insurance policies cover contraception – I could go on at length about the necessity of hormonal birth control for many women (such as myself) for entirely NON-birth control related reasons (if I don’t take it, I get terrible cysts due to my endometriosis – cysts that may very well prevent me from getting pregnant in the future when I choose to) – but also that I don’t think an employer, whether or not it’s the Catholic church, should be making the medical decisions of its employees. Removing one area of coverage allows others to be chipped away at – and employers and insurance companies may find it in their interest to lower premiums by not covering many routine [JR: My emphasis.] and/or necessary procedures they chose not to agree with for whatever reason.

*** end quote ***

Stepping out from the pro-choice / pro-life debate for a moment, I’d suggest that we all focus for a moment on the word “routine”. To me that means, “ordinary and predictable”. And, are we talking about “insurance”? Where a bunch of folks with the same random risk profile pool their premiums to be paid out when that fire, flood, or tornado hits. Here we have a lady arguing that we, as a society, should “insure” “oil changes for our cars.” Where is the random disaster in an “oil change”? Went to aa Jiffy Lube / Oil Well / or some such place last week. In and out for under $100 in ½ hour. Now envision if it was insured. Call 1-800-thrid world country, file a report, yada yada. No way that was going to cost under $100 and less than ½ hour. In principle, it’s the same. Forcing “insurance companies” into the position of paying for “routine” stuff is just wrong. So, if this is NOT about “insurance”, then it must be about “politics”, propaganda, and manipulation. So this circles us back to the pro-life / pro-choice debate. Because it’s OBVIOUSLY NOT about “insurance”. imho. ymmv.

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POLITICAL: Negative rights and free condoms

Saturday, March 3, 2012

http://www.keywestlou.com/2012/03/weather-yesterday-was-fantastic-once.html

Saturday, March 3, 2012

*** begin quote ***

The hit topic was Rush Limbaugh’s abuse of a Georgetown University female student. Sandra Fluke. Sandra testified before a Congressional committee earlier in the week in support of birth control. She believed it should be available free to women under Obama health care.

Limbaugh referred her as a “slut” and “prostitute.” His theory basically was that if  Sandra wanted her contraception pills paid for by another, she wanted to have her sex paid for. Any woman who wanted her sex paid for was a prostitute.

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but I agree the sun has affected your legal mind. Negative rights?

If I have to pay for this woman’s birth control, then I am slave. The only rights a human is entitled to is negative ones. (Like John Locke said.) No one can prevent me from speaking; they don’t have to listen, but they can shut me up.

Positive rights — a “right” to healthcare, condoms, unionize — enslave some one to some extent. DO the doctors have to work 50% for free? Do the condom makers have to give away their product? Do workers have be enslaved to a Big Union and a Big Company at the same time? Positive rights create a requirement that someone provide them. Who?

Sorry, but imho, you are just flat wrong.

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INTERESTING: The ‘dingo baby’ case; it was a dingo!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/24/10493942-australia-inquest-hopes-to-solve-1980-mystery-dingo-baby-case

Australia inquest hopes to solve 1980 mystery ‘dingo baby’ case
By msnbc.com staff and news services

*** begin quote ***

SYDNEY — A coroner on Friday opened Australia’s fourth inquest into the most notorious and bitterly controversial legal drama in the nation’s history: the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say was taken by a dingo from her tent in the Australian Outback.

Azaria Chamberlain’s mother, Lindy, was convicted and later cleared of murdering her and has always maintained that a wild dog took the baby. She and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, are hoping fresh evidence they have gathered about dingo attacks on children will convince Northern Territory Coroner Elizabeth Morris and end relentless speculation that has followed them for 32 years.

Anne Lade, a former police officer hired by the court to investigate the case, told a packed courtroom at the Darwin Magistrates Court in the Northern Territory that in the years since Azaria disappeared, there have been numerous dingo attacks on humans, some of them fatal.

*** end quote ***

Sad for this poor mom who was vilified in the press.

The world is a dangerous place for hairless, slow, “stupid” bi-pod humans. I’ll beat my drum about “guns” being the big equalizer. Every man, woman, and child should be packing. We’ve become so complacent that we presume we have a “divine right” to survival. Foolish people wander around the planet and don’t understand how fragile life is.

Argh!

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INTERESTING: Respect is missing for powerful women

Friday, March 2, 2012

TIP OF THE HAT TO THE IOWA NEPHEW-IN-LAW

http://espn.go.com/espnw/commentary/7601977/connecticut-huskies-prove-weekend-warriors-no-match-elite-women

Weekend warriors no match for elite women
Feb 22  
By Adena Andrews

*** begin quote ***

Earlier this month, comedian Kevin Hart and a group of male friends challenged the UConn women’s basketball team to a game of five-on-five. The video has recently made the rounds on social media.

Hart, who’s so short he calls himself a “little grown man,” was confident he and his entourage could defeat the Huskies, who are ranked No. 4.

That’s right, a group of men whose cumulative collegiate basketball experience was one Division III season challenged one of the best women’s teams in the country.

And, as expected, UConn wiped the Gampel Pavilion floor with Hart and his crew. The only things that may have been bruised during the game were five male egos … and one guy who hit the ground pretty hard after being posted up by a UConn center.

As I watched the video, I laughed — at first. But then I began to seethe. These men actually thought they had a chance against these elite players. The jokes they cracked made it seem like they were surprised women could run and dribble at the same time. Maybe they didn’t get the memo about UConn’s historic 90-game winning streak that ended last season or the 99-game home streak that ended last week.

They may also have just learned women do more than cook, clean and raise children. They are allowed to vote and play sports.

*** and ***

Some players “looked like they might have a hard time competing in a playground pickup game, dribbling the ball off their legs and running into each other on the three-man weave drill,” an Associated Press report said of the tryouts.

Their inflated male egos told them they could actually run with the big girls. Those guys are probably the same ones who sit on the couch saying, “I could beat (insert WNBA player name) in a game of one-on-one.”

They would never challenge Ray Allen to a 3-point shooting contest or claim they could box out Kevin Love. Why? Because they respect their talent. However, that same respect is missing for a woman who has also made the game her career.

*** end quote ***

Remember Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King?

While the bell shaped curve of the physical characteristics of men and women is definitely different, it’s stupid to ignore it.

To think that women can’t be more capable at something than a man, just because they are female, is the height of stupidity.

Ever meet an Israeli woman who fought in the Seven Day War? Definitely, feminine, but had killed to protect her kibbutz. And, I have no doubt could do it again.

Ever see a mother bear with cubs? You better be using binoculars.

Ever …  well you get the idea.

That doesn’t mean that every woman can be a firefighter, a front line soldier, or a weightlifter.

To prejudge anyone is just dumb.

My wife played ball and, on at least two occasions, I saw her “spank” overconfident male friends. One of her “victims” remembered the spanking. LOL!

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2011/03/24/memories-remembering-our-girl/

She’d have gotten a good laugh out of this story.

We, as people, better wake up. Look to Africa and Asia for the stupidity they inflict on women. That’s these fools to an extreme. We need all our “human resources” working for a better world.

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INTERESTING: Writing about death of a spouse

Thursday, March 1, 2012

http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-have-your-spouse-die#ans1038733

What does it feel like to have your spouse die?

by  Betsy Megas, widow.

*** begin quote ***

Only in the last 48 hours did Scott’s spirit begin to fade. He slept, mostly, but he knew he was going. In one of his last lucid moments, he spoke candidly with me and a social worker who had come to visit. He did not feel he knew how to die, he said. I told him I didn’t think he needed to know how, that it was probably a lot like being born. It just happens naturally. And I’m pretty sure I told him I loved him, at least one last time. I don’t know that he had come to grips with it

He died around midnight, just a couple days after his 33rd birthday and three years, almost to the day, after his diagnosis. In all, we were together 15 years. I have very few regrets about the time I spent with Scott.

I don’t think I will ever forget what he looked like when he died. His head leaned to one side, his neck lacking the strength to support it. He turned pale, then blue, and it was a quiet death. That was the moment he ceased to be the person I had known. Still, it’s hard for me to recall that part, to bring it into my mind enough to write about it.

*** end quote ***

Our Girl just stopped breathing.

I was just sitting, hopeless, helpless, waiting. Unable to switch places.

Glad that she was finally released form this vale of tears.

I kissed her again. And, hoped that it was like in the movie “Ghost” where the deceased is drawn towards a beautiful light.

Sadly, I understand how hard it was to write this.

I’m pretty sure that I’ll never wed again. We too had the conversation. I think I always won with “how could someone compare to you?” and I was sure she’d find someone better. How many soul mates can one person find in their life. I found mine.

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POLITICAL: Dependency programs are a moral hazard

Thursday, March 1, 2012

http://biggovernment.com/dturbull/2012/02/22/the-effects-of-dependency-programs-more-harm-than-help/

The Effects of Dependency Programs: More Harm than Help
by Donlyn Turnbull

*** begin quote ***

Aside from the dire economic outlook, equally important is the harm social dependence is causing for people who enter the system and become stuck.

It’s not called “in-dependency” programs for a reason.

Whoever controls your money and your choices controls you.  And when you lose that ability, you begin to stop taking responsibility for your life. Dependency programs breed more dependency and can create the same psychological effects as people involved in abusive or other severely difficult situations.

Many people assume if you are in a bad situation you will do anything to escape it.  However, the truth is, “If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in”.  It’s the very definition of a psychological effect proven in the 1960’s by scientist Martin Seligman, called “learned helplessness”.

When people begin to believe they can’t help themselves they eventually stop trying.

The Administration is allowing people to become fully dependent on them for their basic needs like food and access to health services, even encouraging it. The more they rely on the Government, the more Government has control of their lives and the less people feel they are capable of escaping their situation.  Without responsibility and choices, they give up.

An excellent example of this was presented in a study in 1976 by Langer and Rodin.  It showed the effects of nursing home patients who were given responsibility and choices as opposed to those “where conformity and passivity is encouraged and every whim is attended to.”  The latter dramatically declined in overall “health and well-being”.  The study was extended to homeless shelters.

When people were given both responsibility and choices they were much more likely to find work and a place to live.

A continuation of the same study showed “increased-responsibility conditions” have very positive long term effects as well.

*** end quote ***

I remember my Mom saying to me, when I complained about this or that, “Fix it!”, “Do Something About It”, or “That’s Not My Problem”. And, heaven help me, if I said I was bored. She’d find something that I needed to do. Later in life, when “stuff happened”, as it always does, she’d say: “That’s life; deal with it.” or “Well, what are you going to DO about it?”.

I’ve made many bad decisions in my life. Done dumb things for which a price had to be paid. Squandered tons of money. Burned bridges, spilt milt, and regretted so many missed opportunities. Some, due to NOT making a conscious decision, but many due to a deliberate choice. Good decisions go bad through what I’d call bad luck. But the vast majority of my “disasters” were of my own making.

(In writing this, I wonder what “choices” I missed completely. That’s not “shoulda, coulda, and woulda!” thinking. It’s just realizing that there maybe have been “hidden” options that I’m not even aware of or just didn’t see as a choice.)

I’ve heard this before form the lady who runs a welfare to work charity in Mercer County. How the State Welfare bureaucrats want their “Clients” to stay on the dole. She has to literally retrain people to think independently. She has great success stories which just proves to me that people are beautiful when they are free of these artificial constraints.

I’ve long thought that the Gooferment shouldn’t be in the charity business. Just prevent force and fraud, and allow people to suceed or fail on their own.

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POLITICAL: Sebelius is off the reservation

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/it-is-not-per-se-a-tax-sebelius-contradicts-administrations-legal-defense-of-obamacare/

Government ‘It Is Not, Per Se, a Tax’: Sebelius Contradicts Administration’s Legal Defense of Obamacare
Posted on February 28, 2012 at 8:23pm by Mytheos Holt

*** begin quote ***

In a stunning video from a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee today, Kathleen Sebelius contradicted the Obama administration Department of Justice’s official stance on the individual mandate by denying that the mandate was a tax.

*** end quote ***

These folks in the District of Corruption can’t ever get their stories straight.

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POLITICAL: Stossel balances the budget

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/my-plan-to-balance-the-budget/

GOVERNMENT ON A DIET
My plan to balance the budget
John Stossel: ‘We’re on the way to becoming Greece – while our ‘leaders’ stand and watch’

*** begin quote ***

The military is about a fifth of the budget. I want to support our troops, but we could do that and save money if the administration would shrink the military’s mission to what it is supposed to be: protecting us from external threats. We cannot put America on a road to solvency without cutting military spending, too.

Of course, what will really bankrupt America are entitlements, especially Medicare. That’s the big one.
Why even call it an entitlement? Are we entitled to the money? People think we are, but the money is taken from the taxpayers – by force. The program is totally unsustainable. We now live so long that most of us get back about three times what we paid into these programs.

So we have to raise the retirement age, maybe index it to life spans, and turn Medicare into an insurance plan that sustains itself. That will mean that if I want the latest in high-end medicine, I have to pay for it myself.

We’re on the way to becoming Greece – while our “leaders” stand and watch. A catastrophe is happening before our eyes, but the politicians won’t act to avert it. How did they ever end up with enough power to sink our society?

*** end quote ***

This is easy to say but hard to do.

Too many vested interests; too few patriots.

What happens when the <synonym for excrement> hits the air movement device?

I feel for the future generations. Hope they all learn Chinese.

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RANT: Email option isn’t an option

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

–Original Message–Date; 2/24/2012 2;33;22 PMSubject; When will I get my first pension check?I turned 65 on 1/13/12. It’s says retire 2/1/12/.So where is the check?fjohnp.s., the secondary authentication questions are an invitation to identity theft.

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Pretty straight forward. I hate having phone sex with automated agents. Especially when a human (somewhere in the world) answers the phone and asks me my name.

So this is what I get back. Not so quickly. (I’m thinking auto-responder to clear away old email.)

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To FERDINAND J REINKE JRFrom Credit Suisse Benefits Service CenterDate 02-24-2012 12:00 a.m. Central Standard TimeSubject Re; When will I get my first pension check?Our Response Hello from Your Benefits Resources [TM].

Ferdinand,
Please call the Credit Suisse Benefits Service Center and request to speak with a pension representative. Benefits Service Center Representatives are available by calling 1-888-325-2732 between 9;00 a.m. to 5;00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday excluding holidays.
Thank you for using Your Benefits Resources.

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So why bother with email.

So, I call. Nothing I love better than phone sex.

Six minutes of Q&A and holding.

“Name”!

ARRRRrrrrrgggghhhhhh!

Then the lady wants my computer password.

Argh!

And, she’s upset when it’s a 24 character random string.

(What stupidity is this? Why should I share my shared secret with another human being? I’d have never permitted it when I was their VP Info Sec.)

Lots of checking.

I’m getting a double check in March.

BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), no apology or explanation of why.

SO who gets the interest for that month. You screw every retiree and I bet it adds up.

Argh!

If I had time, I’d get a Gooferment bureaucrat involved.

Argh!

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GAMBLING: Video Lottery Terminals not emulating a physical deck of cards

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

http://robison.casinocitytimes.com/article/do-vlts-emulate-playing-with-real-decks-of-cards-60150

Do VLTs Emulate Playing with Real Decks of Cards?
14 September 2011
By John Robison

*** begin quote ***

VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals) do not emulate playing with a physical deck of cards. A central computer system tells your machine (terminal) what the result of your spin or hand will be, and your machine will do whatever it has to do to give you that result.

Strategies are useless on these video poker machines because they don’t deal from fair decks and because the outcome of your hand has already been determined. Suppose the central system has determined that you should win the value of a full house. The machine may deal you a full house. You can discard the full house and the machine may either deal you another one, or it will deal you a garbage hand and a wizard will appear and award you the value of a full house. Whatever it takes, the machine will give you the value of a full house.

*** end quote ***

I didn’t know that!

Shocking.

Isn’t that fraud?

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