Mar 10

image thumb40 Hate those insurance companies
Maybe he’s talking about Medicare
when he tries to scare us about those “insurance companies”?

I love my insurance company (Intermountain Healthcare). They’ve paid through the nose for me over the last two years. Other than a brief scuffle trying to get a rheumatologist, they been very supportive and helpful through two years of expensive health struggles. They have denied one procedure, recently, and… it turns out they were right.  The referred doctor found the problem was another part of my hip.

My wife mentioned yesterday that for all the Obama griping about “insurance companies” the actual insurance that rejects the highest number of claims is….

MEDICARE

They reject 6.85% of claims.  Aetna came in close – so I doubt many folks are “glad they met ya Aetna”. But I suspect that many of the rejections in the private insurance come in their Medicare gap insurance – or in other words the “no” originates from government rulings.

Now to the OBVIOUS here… when we are all under the government, who will we compare them too, who will we turn to when they decline us – which they will?

Mar 10

image thumb39 What could go wrong?
No papers!

Lindsey Graham has an idea. So you know you are in trouble – right?

He and Chuck Schumer (another paragon of self-promoting idiocy) want to have a national ID card.   Like so many other politicians they want to ride concern over a valid problem – illegal immigration – to promote an idea they will use to squash freedom and dissent.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

Uhmmm. NO THANKS.

I do not want anything Lindsey Graham or Chuck Schumer think is grand.  A national ID would provide a basis for no privacy and internal movement controls. No thanks!

The ACLU, in one of the good things they do to hide their basic anarchist goal, doesn’t like it:

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people’s privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We’re not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We’re also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

And neither do I.   Now an “Idiot Identification Card” might be handy. Schumer and Graham would be first in line for such an honor.

Mar 10

image thumb38 Pic of the Day

Brian waits for another shooter to take a shot.
Green Valley area of St. George
Oct 2001

Mar 10

image thumb37 More constituency paybacks
You didn’t vote for me? Screw you.

Sportsman generally hate Obama. I’ve never met a serious shooter, fisherman, or ATV rider that didn’t tilt way right or libertarian.

Obama hates them right back and appears ready to give the greenies a big thank you by banning fishing in some waters:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

Never mind that Obama is supposed to be EVERYBODY’s President, not just be for those that donated to him.   No, he listens to the greenies and they want fishing stopped, because, as you know, eco-kooks lay awake at night worried that somebody somewhere is having fun outside.

Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable."

This is not the only access issue threatening the public’s right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.

I’m tired of fighting Obama and his minions and we are only a year into it.   I don’t know why they hate us, and America so, but they do, and I guess we will just have to suck up a little wind and continue to fight back.

What I’m really tired of is having a President I’m sure hates America. How the hell did that happen?

Mar 09

image thumb36 Pic of the Day
My wife, Paula, just a few years back

Mar 09

image thumb34 Department of Odd Sports

The USA Memory Championship was held yesterday, further proof that people will compete at virtually any human endeavor. The winner validated his surprise win from last year:

"I am beyond happy because I had to prove that (last year’s victory) was not chance, so now I am totally at peace. I love to compete against myself and getting better and better," said Ronnie White, of Fort Worth, Texas.

Which begs the  question as to why he couldn’t memorize a longer victory speech (-:

I participate in niche sports too, so I’m not mocking. Not at all. I think its great that we like to compete. I hope our economic competition survives the latest onslaught.

The competition sounds tough… memorize 99 names, 100+ digits in the right order. I’d get a headache. But I’m glad somebody can do and enjoy it.

Mar 09

image thumb33 What if
What if Congress had incentives?

Lets travel back in time to Feb 2009. A new President, rich in hope and promise, moved to deal with economic crisis.

He sent a bill with two pages to the Congress. The first page was blank. The second had just one paragraph:

Put your plan on the first page. If it reduces the unemployment rate to 6% in the 1st year, and is deficit neutral over its entire life, each member of Congress will receive $1,000,000.

Might have 2009 been different?

Don’t like bribing Congress to do the right thing?  You could flip it and punish them with 100% taxation on their reelection funds and income.

We need to do something to get that rat bastard crew in Washington to look out for all of us, not just themselves or their SEIU donors.

If you don’t like this idea, I’m all ears for your great scheme, as long as it doesn’t involve saying crapola like “our current system is working” or “you are free to vote out your Congressman”.

Mar 08
Mar 08

image thumb32 Pic of the Day

Jenny, April 2000
Jenny’s face was dirty for the first 3 years of her life.

Mar 05

From image thumb30 Obama puzzles to image thumb31 Obama puzzles in just 1 year!

So far, this week, Barry has asked me to believe:

  • that 10 years of taxes with 6 years of spending is deficit neutral then the 7th year of spending isn’t in deficit. Set up the algebra if you still remember how. It is IMPOSSIBLE. Oh heck… let me do a simple variant of it for you:

    10t + 6s = d
    10t + 7s = d

    Can both of these be true?  Only if “s” is zero. And that isn’t his plan.

  • He invited Scott Matheson (D-Utah) over to the White House to jawbone him about being wishy-washy on the healthcare bill, but DIDN’T bring up putting his brother up for a Federal judge slot?  And Rahm Emmanuel was in the meeting?   ROFL.
  • That he can suspend the law of supply and demand and make price fixing in healthcare work. Let’s review:

    price = supply vs demand

    if you fix price, what happens if supply drops?  Demand rises.
    if you fix price, what happens if demand increases?  Supply drops.

    Sorry Barry, you may be “the one” but not God.

Mar 05

image thumb29 Let the bidding begin

Via http://gizmodo.com/5484997/how-to-save-148-on-an-ipod-touch

Mar 05

image thumb28 Pic of the Day

Yellow Dog swims in Broad Brook
Sharon, VT May 2001
Yellow passed away last year. Good dog.

Mar 05

image thumb27 Borrowing for bad art
We borrowed money from China to pay for this fabulous piece of work

In World War II the nation borrowed so that we and the world could remain free from tyranny.

Last year we borrowed to fund bad art.

Time to stop that don’t you think?

Mar 05

image thumb26 How libertarian am I?

According to the Nolan Chart Quiz I just took at GlennBeck.com

Take it here is you like: http://www.nolanchart.com/survey.php

My desire to project American force abroad against terrorists kept me off the peak of libertarianism.

Mar 04

image thumb25 My School Plan – Pay for it yourself

This is another in the “What I’d do if I were Governor” posts…

My preferred way to handle schooling is to have parents pay for it and require children attend til age 18 or until they pass an adult competency test.

Pretty simple plan isn’t it?  I like it. And guess what… I’m living by it now! I pay for my two kids private and home schooled education. And… so you know, I also pay directly for about 8 other kids education that aren’t even mine. And… so you know, I also pay indirectly for a few million other kid that I never even heard of.

I like my plan so far, except for the part where I pay for a bureaucracy to mishandle millions of other people’s kids. What I buy directly I value more and monitor more.

Below I’ll answer your inane questions…


But Ken… I’ve got 8 kids and can’t afford it.
 

Not my problem.  Find a scholarship. Take a loan. Adopt out some of them.


But Ken… my property taxes are just $800, it’s cheaper.
 

You pay taxes your whole life. Your kids only go to school 12 years. Distribute your 12 years of schooling over your adult life and it beats property taxes. If you have a cash flow problem, choose a cheaper school or borrow and spread out the payments. And since it isn’t a government bureaucracy it will be cheaper than per pupil spending is now.

But Ken… it benefits everybody, so everybody should pay

Under my scheme everybody does pay. Very few people don’t have children, and I’d be glad to hit childless adults for a scholarship fund if it makes you happy.

But Ken… I value varsity sports.

Good. Pay for it yourself.

But Ken…. question interrupted

Look shut up, I don’t care what you say you value.  You clearly don’t value schooling if you want somebody else to decide how it is given to your kids. This is OBVIOUS. So shut up, or go back to school and learn to think.  They are YOUR kids, you should DECIDE what their schooling is.  Do you let somebody else dress them? Feed them? Discipline them?  Get real, schooling need be assisted by experts in certain areas (algebra, so forth), but you need to be in charge.