If you have to resort to smears, shills and thugs to win a debate, maybe your position is bankrupt.
There's a common axiom that when accusations start getting thrown around, the accusers are often likely to project their guilt onto others and be engaging in exactly the kind of wrongdoing they decry. This seems to be proven very true by recent accusations from the left that protests against health care legislation were inauthentic "astroturfing" bought and paid for by the health care and insurance industries.…
Article comments
226 - roger nowosielski
#223 certainly isn't short in that department. Good object lesson, Andy, take heed.
227 - STM
Doc: "Then again, they do have a habit of bottling indescribable liquids and claiming that they're beer ... They are a bunch of dills sometimes..."
I discovered recently that Foster's is actually an American beer. The Foster brothers came out to Oz from the US in the 1800s with a recipe for cold beer which took off like wildfire, and later sold the operation to Carlton United.
(Suddenly, it all made sense!)
No one knows what happened to them after that, except that they went back to the US.
They vanished in the mists of time, never knowing that if they'd stayed, they would've made a squillion ... and been the object of scorn from beer lovers the world over.
Actually, an icy-cold DRAUGHT Foster's isn't that bad on a really hot day. It's the canned stuff that tastes like possum's piss.
228 - STM
Nothing like a nice big slab of dolphin.
Sorry, make that mahi-mahi. Nice "cooked" in a marinade, and best eaten at sunset overlooking the gentle waves of the south pacific on a remote Fijian island sitting in a jeweled sea.
Yeah, that's the life ...
229 - Andy Marsh
Ape shit? Wow, you really do read into things! I disagree with you and I'm going ape shit...
You folks just keep watching MSNBC with the rest of your friends...
Happy hour runs 24 hours a day at my house..you're not invited!
I asked a question about your name, sorry I don't speak what you liberals believe should be our national language. But since I babble fished it, I guess it's really the nickname all your old girlfriends gave you...to bad about the tiny part...they always called me grande pistola!
230 - Andy Marsh
handy - I agree that things have to change and I gave you plenty of areas where it can change...but mandates and govt run BS isn't the way to fix it. Giving it to nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to figure out will NEVER be the way to fix it. Their political views don't come close to representing the wishes of the American people. When I hear congressmen say that they're gonna vote for it no matter what their constituents say, and most of them haven't even read it, I get really pissed!
Maybe, just maybe, if this new president took SOMETHING other than the Cambridge police and grabbed it by the balls and said, this is the way I want it, then people might be able to get behind him. But all he's done is spew bullshit and let the most liberal part of our govt try to fix things and that doesn't work for me or many of the people I talk to on a regular basis...here I go...apeshit again!!!
Ruvy may be right when he talks about nucking something...damn shame I live so close to DC!
231 - Dr Dreadful
Highly recommended: Betsy McCaughey's appearance on Jon Stewart last night. Both hilarious and informative.
Yes, that was lively, wasn't it? So much so that they ran out of time! Haven't got around to seeing the full segment online yet - have you?
232 - handyguy
I have not, Doc. Rachel Maddow offered some highlights last night. It couldn't have been better if it was a scripted comedy sketch [and some may say that's really what it was].
233 - Silas Kain
I loved it. How things have changed... comedians provide raw, factual news and journalists provide comic relief.
A very interesting exchange between Jay Leno, Chuck Todd and Jeremy Scahill where Schahill pointed out that the media has been complicit in this shell game not only by the previous Administration but the present. With the release of Gov. Ridge's book I sense the widening of division. What Ridge claims is something that requires a Special Prosecutor. We have several serious charges being made here. While Barack Obama urges us to look forward, we need to stop and take stock before we invest in this government any further.
234 - Dr Dreadful
I loved it. How things have changed... comedians provide raw, factual news and journalists provide comic relief.
Perhaps Fox News is really just one big, endless comedy skit. :-)
235 - Dave Nalle
A very interesting exchange between Jay Leno, Chuck Todd and Jeremy Scahill
Don't miss my new article on the dismaying but unsurprising ignorance of the Constitution which Scahill displayed on that show.
Dave
236 - Ruvy
I was off the computer for a couple of days - but I noticed that for all of zing zing's whining, Clavos, when told to put up or shut up - shut up.
That made me smile.
In the meantime, you clowns are still clowning around, with a very fishy smell, to boot.
Do carry on....
237 - zingzing
let's all give ruvy a round of applause. he's right! nuking tehran is a wonderful and pleasant idea. when it's safe, let's go and play with all the little dead kids' blood and juggle skulls around. we could make necklaces out of their finger bones and sit the more complete corpses around tea tables texas chainsaw style and have a little party. on the living ones, we could have a contest to see who can spot the biggest tumor or who can make the largest ball of skin from just one person's peelings. what fun!
238 - Silas Kain
Actually, I'd rather nuke Afghanistan. Or better yet let's give Afghanistan a 2 state solution. The southern half can become Pashtunistan and the Northern half can be Talibanistan. If women want to live in Talibanistan they do so at their own peril. In the meantime let's delay nuking Tehran just yet; I'd rather send in a missionary force from Blackwater to try and convert them to Christianity.
239 - zingzing
silas: "If women want to live in Talibanistan they do so at their own peril."
well, that would take care of the taliban in a generation or so, which might be faster than we could do it. also, talibanistan would most certainly have the highest beard per capita in the world. also, heroin would be cheaper.
240 - Cobra
Cannonshop writes: #217
"Cobra, Minimum Wage, ANY minimum wage, no matter how high you set it, will always be insufficient to support a family.
Always.
Raising it just cuts back on the number of employers willing to hire people who're just starting out, and increases your cost-of-living (i.e. makes everything more expensive, cutting back on the number of customers.) Arguing minimum wage vs. insurance costs for FAMILIES is, therefore, a red-herring, and fundamentally disingenuous."
I point this out not to protest how low the minimum wage is, but how expensive employer provided health insurance is in comparison. Even with jobs that offer TWICE the minimum wage it would be hard pressed to justify paying $20,000 to cover one employee.
If by 2020, as analysts say, health insurance costs are indeed twice the cost of what they are now, how many employers will drop insurance coverage altogether, or switch to plans with impossible co-pays and deductables?
--Cobra
241 - Silas Kain
Precisely my sentiments, zing. If they're unable to reproduce they'll take the gay paradigm and go out to recruit new members kindda like Menonites with attitude and turbans.
Besides, Talibanistan has such a nice ring to it. The national anthem should be a hoot.
242 - Cannonshop
#240 The rising cost is an artifact, in large part, of the problem I've pointed out before-due to ins. companies being immune to antitrust law, you've got a serious case of no-competition going on, also price-fixing, and adding Government just means you also add in additional Bureaucracy and price-fixing along with the delights of Government Graft, government corruption (which is both more refined, and less easily removed, than Corporate corruption thanks to there being no effective way to shut the Government down, break it up, dismantle it, or prosecute it employing a neutral third party who can't be favour-traded into laying off when the press finds something else to look at...)
Other externalities include the Lawyer-Bonanza available in our Tort system, and the jackpot awards that drive up both un-necessary testing (and re-testing, repeatedly) driving up costs, added Bureaucratic red-tape (which will, guaranteed, be even Worse with Universal "Care"), and Medicare cost-overruns provide an artificially high "What the Market will Bear" for Drug companies (given what the percentage of prescriptions are going to recipients on the Government dollar already-Uncle sam is often willing to pay ridiculous prices because Uncle Sam doesn't negotiate...he pays what's demanded no matter how ridiculous if the right forms are approved...witness the 50,000 dollar claw hammer or the five thousand dollar SAE hex-nut for examples.)
Flatly, Government doesn't PROVIDE competition when it enters a market, it ELIMINATES it in favour of Government Monopolies that are often worse than Corporate monopolies and always far less answerable to..well... anybody.
Break the Monopoly, and reform the Tort system, and costs will fall down to where they should have already been-this was shown with the break-up of the "absolutely necessary" Ma Bell monopoly on telephone service, as well as the breaking of railroad, oil, and steel monopolies, and the post-depression breaking up of banking trusts (which were, regrettably, re-allowed under the last five presidents, resulting not only in the present Economic maladies, but also the S&L scandals of the eighties).
The other problem with that projection, (possibly THE problem) is that we're set up for an inflationary spiral thanks to the "Stimulus" packages sponsored by both Bush, and Obama, and the whole ludicrous idea of "Too big to fail". Our currency is devaluating and will continue to do so since economic production does not line up with our debt load as a nation. EVERYTHING is going to cost more, and wages will continue to be dropping in real-dollar amounts (That's adjusted FOR inflation) as a result of these types of policies, along with the constant increase in what Uncle sam is willing to step in and offer easy credit terms or other short-sighted non-solutions (Spending, increased taxes, assuming tacit monopoly, etc etc.)
We're heading for where Britain was in 1977 economically, or Ireland at about the same time, and it's for the SAME REASONS.
243 - Clavos
#242,
Damn well put, Cannon.
Excellent comment.
244 - Diningroomtable
'externalities'...fucking things...if we could just get 'em then we could have some pure capitalism
...wanders off giggling to play whack-a-mole
245 - Cannonshop
244 "Pure" Capitalism doesn't work in the long-term any better than Socialism or Communism. There DO have to be limits-but the limits need to make sense. Preventing single enttities from buying their way to Monopoly status, for instance, makes sense. Protecting contracts with Law makes sense. Enforcing "Good Faith" negotiation in Labour makes sense, and consumer protection from fraud makes sense.
Methods like price-fixing, quotas, and central planning do NOT MAKE SENSE-the reason for this, is that they don't WORK-at least in the positive sense of providing protection for consumers and labour. Price-fixing generates shortages and low quality, the british steel industry's fall demonstrates the problem with never-ending subsidies and government being in bed with industries. (the Soviets, of course, are so hammered upon that it's become kind of pointless, but isn't it interesting that the Chinese abandoned central planning in their economy in order to build one that functions?)
246 - Cobra
Cannonshop writes:
"Break the Monopoly, and reform the Tort system, and costs will fall down to where they should have already been-this was shown with the break-up of the "absolutely necessary" Ma Bell monopoly on telephone service, as well as the breaking of railroad, oil, and steel monopolies, and the post-depression breaking up of banking trusts (which were, regrettably, re-allowed under the last five presidents, resulting not only in the present Economic maladies, but also the S&L scandals of the eighties)."
You can find the genesis of almost all of these deregulatory nightmares on K-STREET. Lobbyists for Big Insurance, Wall Street, etc. set the table. Common sense, and the historical precedent of trusts and monopolies in this nation would dictate that your logic, well versed here, should be followed.
Problem is, Washington doesn't run on logic. It runs on campaign donations, commercial ad buys, and walk around money.
Were you, "Congressman" Cannonshop, to annunciate your ideas at a Town Hall meeting, you'd have Insurance Company cheerleaders show up with Mao signs decrying that you're an "anti-capitalist", and you're trying to "knee-cap free enterprise." You'll have Fox News hating on you, that's for sure.
But you make a lot of very good points. I just don't think that against the sea of lobbyist money, trust-busting reform like you suggest could happen.
--Cobra
247 - handyguy
The excellent economics columnist at the NY Times, David Leonhardt, writes today about the interest that employers, unions, and drug companies, as well as insurance companies, have in keeping the system uncompetitive, i.e. monopolistic.
The administration shied away from the type of competitive health insurance marketplace proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden as well as Rahm Emanuel's brother Dr. Zeke. They believed it might prove too disruptive and cause strong opposition from a public wary of big changes.
Unfortunately, that has happened anyway, so a system with increased insurance competition probably should have been proposed after all. Maybe it's not too late?
Real Choice? It’s Off Limits in Health Bills
248 - Clavos
Here's Ezekiel Emanuel's paper on the allocation of medical resources to patients, published in The Lancet in January, 2009.