Happy New Year!

I wish you and yours, all Americans, and everyone around the world a happy New Year and all the best in 2010!  Celebrate, be safe, and enjoy.  You deserve it, we made it through 2009!!!

=:-/  —>  =:-}

G’day and may God continue to bless America.

Everyday experience

This is a thought that just occurred to me, for what reason I am completely ignorant of.  But it’s good enough, and I think potentially important enough, to write it down.  So, submitted for your consideration:

Everyone’s life experience is strongly shaped by how the individual visualizes or identifies themselves.

Very little “just happens”, or happens the same to everyone.  How I picture myself in the world, in relation to others, is the perspective I use in evaluating what “just happened”.  I shouldn’t be allowed to apply this to others people until I’ve applied it to my own reaction/perception.

Thanks for your patience with this, I’m still trying to really grasp it.  If you want to share any thoughts, please post a comment.  G’day, all, and may God continue to bless America.

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Sorry about the lack of sparkle on the site here over the past few days.  I’d like to blame the holidays, but the reality is that there’s simply nothing to inspire my fingers to do the old keyboard dance right now.  I do promise that after New Years, I’ll get with the program.

I hope that everything is going wonderfully for you and that the future holds the promise of delights for you.  G’day, and may God continue to bless America.

Stossel with the healthcare solution

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/12/23/the-singapore-alternative/

In case you don’t have time to read the article, the gist is that Singapore is a success story based on Health Savings Accounts.  In that system, people spend their own money for routine care (catastrophic care is covered separately by insurance).  Same as Whole Foods employees.  If someone else is paying, people don’t care what it costs.  When they spend their own money, they shop smart.  I’ve been to Singapore many times, and the people there certainly do seem pleased with their health care (never hear anyone complaining, all seem well cared for, etc).

This is proved out in other areas, as well.  Lasik (sp?) eye surgery is an example, not often covered by insurance and now a competitive enterprise where prices continue to drop.  What baffles me is why this is so hard to grasp.  I can only conclude that this information has not been adequately publicized, and the liberal left is so reflexive in demonizing those who don’t willing march down the road to the vaunted nanny state socialist nirvana that good sense and reason don’t stand a chance.

Health Savings Accounts, subsidized for those who can’t afford it and tax deductible for those who can, any unused funds roll over to an IRA or 401k or whatever. Catastrophic insurance provided separately.  Regulate the free market to insure open competition and fair treatment.  That’s an approach that would solve the problem without creating other, far greater problems.

Thanks, Stossel, feel free to borrow from this blog whenever you want.  G’day all, Merry Christmas to you and yours, and may God continue to bless America.

My note to Governor Schwarzenegger

FWIW, I sent this note to the Governor.  As the last grownup in the room, Ican only hope he gets involved:

Governor Schwarzenegger,

I am asking you to review the below email message I have sent to Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein, and Representative Woolsey. Information is coming out that special deals have been struck to secure votes in the United States Senate for the healthcare reform bill. I cannot overstate how much I object to this, it makes no difference to me whether California benefits or not. As a Nation, we cannot afford either financial or morally to continue “business as usual”. I ask you to state as a matter of policy that California will neither seek nor accept special consideration in order to get a specific piece of federal legislation passed.

I understand the difficult financial straights that we as a State find ourselves in (I participate fully in the tax system .

Difficult situations are never solved by expediency. If you will take a stand on this, I will go door-to-door in my town to explain why pork barrel ‘bribes’ are undermining the future of the Nation.

My sincere thanks,

(Capt) Chuck Becker (retired)

Ben Nelson catches the heat, but…

… it’s Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership who need to have the wick turned up under their bottoms.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/21/nelson-decision-vote-health-reform-met-joy-outrage-home/

My own Senator, Barbara Boxer, seems to think that Harry Reid giving these special deals is just fine (read yesterday’s post).  Senator Landrieu of Louisians seems to think the same way.  For goodness sake, when everyone gets theirs, everyone loses.  ”Politics as usual, go along to get along”, the kind of public funded shenanigans that got us into this mess, seems to be the calling card of the Democratic party in general, and the Pelosi/Reid/Obama team in particular.

Message to Senators Feinstein and Boxer and Representative Woolsey: I do not expect you to bring home the bacon, the Nation can no longer afford bacon.  When you bring home the bacon, we end up paying for everyone else’s bacon instead … we all end up poorer and weaker.  Stop it!  And don’t feed me seriously cooked numbers to support the unsupportable.  Start doing the job you’re being payed to do for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do.

G’nite all, and may God continue to bless America!

Lower lows without the higher highs

As written about yesterday:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/20/nelson-accused-selling-vote-health-nebraska-pay/

In an email response from my Senator, rather then respond to my concerns she stated that,  ”I thank Majority Leader Reid for working with us to ensure that California receives increased federal support as we expand Medicaid.”  I don’t think my Senator gets it.  I don’t want any state to be getting special deals.  My Senator doesn’t seem to understand that a good part of what’s undermining the quaint concept of “trust in government” are all the special deals being cut.

So to the financial damage the health care reform act is going to inflict on our wounded Nation, add yet another slathering of special backroom deals.  That leads to nothing good, there is no objective being discussed that is worth compromising our values and ethics this way.  When all the inside deals are revealed, it may be the final unraveling of trust in our government.

The people in government today did not create this Nation, they didn’t even create the government.  They are riding on the gifts of previous generations of Americans, and on the largess of those few remaining taxpayers.  With a descent into partisanship and self-interest, the Nation is being demolished before our eyes … by our government!

This is starting to read like the list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence (1).  What will it take to start to turn this around?  Well, I can’t solve that one today, so continued until tomorrow.  G’day all, and may God continue to bless America.

(1):
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_were_the_list_of_grievances_in_the_declaration_of_independence

New low for political high jinks

So the reports coming out this morning are that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has lined up Senator Ben Nelson as the needed 60th vote to move his health care insurance reform bill out of the Senate.  Along with this info comes the inside scoop of the kind of BRIBE it took to get Nelson’s vote.  Reid offered the BRIBE to the Nebraska Senator that the state of Nebraska would not have to pay the bill for newly enrolling Medicaid patients in that state.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

The citizens of Californis, New York, Texas, and every other state have to pay the state taxes necessary for their respective states to pay their share of Medicaid costs for their citizens.  This is not fun, but it is reasonable and fair.  Only the citizens of NEBRASKA don’t have to pay for the benefits received by their fellow residents.  And of course what this means by corollary is, the citizens of the other 49 states have to pay for the pathetic weenies in Nobraska.

Politics is politics, none of us like it.  I personally despise it, but that’s how governments work.  This BRIBE by Harry Reid to Ben Nelson and the citizens of NOBRASKA is off the scale.  This is unethical, unreasonable, unacceptable; if this stands it simply ratchets down the standards of public conduct another notch.  We’re already below broke, and now Harry Reid is BRIBING Senators left and right (first Landrieu, now Nelson, who’s next?) with our money to accomplish his ends.  That tab is now up over a billion dollars, for TWO VOTES!  And these aren’t even final “pass the bill and make it law” votes.  This is in excess of a BILLION DOLLARS to assure two votes to move a deeply flawed bill through the first procedural step.

As you may be able to tell, I am outraged by this even in excess of my usual outrage quotient.  There is no good in this health care insurance reform bill, nothing good at all.  This is not the Civil Rights Act or anything like that, it is the selling of America.  Someone once said, “When the people come to realize that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, that will be the end of democracy.”  If this bill passes, we will be witnessing crack in the foundation of the American nation.

I am now going to tell my elected representatives how I feel about this.  However you do feel, I encourage you to do the same.  G’day, all, and may God continue to bless America.

One week to Christmas

Christmas is one week from today, Christmas Eve one week from last night.  Cards are coming in from all the people we’ve known over th eyears, the annual contact that renews the friendship for another year.  I hope that every possible thing is going well for you and yours.

G’nite,all, and may God continue to bless America,

Embarassing …

… even if, as the Lieutenant General talking head claims, it’s no big deal:

http://video.foxnews.com/12604793/hack-attack

Before we start designing the next system like Predator, we need to create a panel of hackers to figure out how this thing could be exploited.  I’m sure the military is very qualified to figure out how systems might be attacked by conventional means, but they seem to have missed the boat on this one.  I hear the sound of a giant can of worms being opened.

Time to get out in the crowd and do a little last minute Christmas shopping.  I hope your holiday preparations are going well.  G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!