Hooked on Health Care

Hello, gentle readers of my poor neglected blog.

Blogging just isn't the same since the Bushist Fascists were finally rustled out of town. I used to think (until maybe five minutes ago, even) that it was my personal life that was posing an obstacle to blogging, and now I fear that is not so. I think it's more the Obama Letdown Syndrome, if you catch my drift. Beyond that, I won't go there. It's very very STFU. See how very shut up I am become? And of my own free will. Now, that's slick.

On an unrelated note, via the great PZ Myers of Pharyngula, a classic bit by eminent Fetus-Firster Rick Santorum, a guy good for bringing one a toothy sparkly smile:

The Frothy Mix of Lube and Feces Speaks:

Think about how they view you," he [Santorum] told the crowd of Republicans. "They view you no different than the drug dealer views the little kid in the school yard. They want to get you hooked, they want to get you dependent. They want to get you relying upon them for your wellbeing. And once they've satisfied you, giving them that drug, that narcotic, then you'll be reliant on them and, by the way, you'll also be less than what God created you to be."

Yes! They want to get you Hooked on Health Care!

Fighting the War on Two Fronts

Well, dog my cat or something, I inadvertantly stepped on a twitter hornet's nest, and I'm just so sorry that I did. I mentioned in a tweet that I thought the conditions of Bradley Manning's confinement, as I understand them, seemed rather Abu Ghraib-y to me: being kept naked, in solitary confinement. Now, if this is not the case, then I will happily STFU.

If it is the case, I will not happily STFU, and my unhappiness at his being kept in such conditions does not merely include Manning's condition, but extends to anyone who would keep anyone in such conditions anywhere anytime.

I am happy to wage war on two fronts: toward the right wing, and toward the left, when it appears to be supporting things I think ought not to be supported: you know, like keeping one's fellow humans in unacceptable conditions. You don't like it? Meh.

Obama is too timid-centrist for me. Always has been, still is. I held my nose and voted for him, and I'm glad he won. That being said, I don't appreciate a lot of what he is doing, and I don't appreciate a lot of what he is not doing. However, I dislike the behaviors and goals of the rabid right wing much much much much more.

Right wing, left wing, throwing people into solitary confinement, naked, and keeping them in those conditions is unacceptable. Stripping people naked is a form of humiliation, and sexual humiliation at that, and it is not a method to address suicidality. Mental hospitals all across America are filled with suicidal people who, remarkably enough, still have their clothes on.

Rly.



ps.
Here's what Arthur Silber has to say re: Manning. Go fight with him.

Die, Healthcare Serf-Slave Mommy! Die! Die!

Yuh, we hear of employers who want to dump providing health insurance for employees.


This worker's dumping work to dump her health insurance provider-profiteer.

Yes, Ms NBFH just quit her job because the insurance her not-quite-ex-employer offers so sucks.

Big-time insurance profiteering company. Cost $12K a year. New plan began July 1 of this year, effects became clear in the past 3 weeks. Same outrageous price, but even worse coverage. If that is imaginable. $12K for family "coverage," with a huge deductible. You get an ultrasound for $525, they pay all of $125, you get stuck with--surprise! A bill for $400! And they tell you if you'd just driven an hour and a half away for a potentially life-threatening condition, they gladly would have picked up more of the tab.

I've been a healthcare insurance serf-slave to this company for years. And it's just not worth it anymore. I will be saving money by not working, because for the last six weeks, every penny I earn there has gone only to pay this crappy insurance company's crappy rates for crappy coverage.

So I'm done.

I can't be the only one who's re-cycling Paddy Chayevsky: mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Thus Empire crumbles under the weight of its own stupidity and greed.

People Who Love You Get to Hit You and Hurt You, Cape Cod Church Edition

Cape Cod Calvary Church pastor Silas Coellner advocates causing children -- and crawling infants -- pain. On purpose. To teach them that people who love you get to hit you and hurt you, a lesson they will carry with them forever.

MATTAPOISETT — A pastor and father of three poised to become the assistant principal at Old Rochester Regional Junior High School is under fire for sermonizing that spanking children is "critical" — starting with when they crawl.

"I have this little bundle of innocence. When do I start dealing with them?" Silas Coellner said in an online podcast he took down after the Herald inquired about it.

"There's something about when they reach that crawling stage, I have found, in my experience, when you can suddenly see that heart of defiance, of rebellion, for the first time. That's when you begin."

Pastor Silas is one sick puppy. Maybe he needs someone to beat some sense into him?

Things that make you go "Hmm . . ."

So an idea popped into my head. What would it be like if BP is, technically, unable to stop its well from gushing oil?

What if they're not just lying because they want to find a way to save their oil and save their well?

What if the whole thing is totally, technically, out of control?

What is to be done if there is nothing that can be done?





Lambert Strether at Corrente: Are oil leaks really down hole?

Geologist Chris Landau. Wearing tin hat abiotic oil theory, but the other stuff seems ok.

Stupak Is As Stupak Does

Periodically, when I'm feeling down, I launch attacks against the government-forced maternity crowd. And I launch attacks against the separation-of-church-and-state-is-for-pussies crowd, those arrogant guys in those churches that want meddle in the lives of people who don't even GO to their churches.

And, you know, like, I still have my panties in a twist about all that, you know, primary sexism stuff from all those kewl libruls who really have no problem throwing, you know, broads under the bus.

So when I heard about the Stupak thing, I just thought: hey! Broads under the bus 2009? No biggie. It's deja vu all over again.

And, you know -- it is!

I know it's just because I'm so emotional, just that time of the month, prolly, but see, there's another little tiny voice inside my head that is saying:

hel-lo.
fuck this. really.

you really don't have to be physically hit to be abused, do you?

Dept. of Just How Stupid Can You Get?

Army doctors worried that Hasan was psychotic.

"Army doctors worried that Hasan was psychotic"?

Psychotic = he's hearing voices, voices commenting, maybe voices that tell him to do stuff. You know, as in auditory command hallucinations: "Go. Kill. Infidels. Hasan. Right. Now."

No, I am not making this stuff up. This is what psychosis sounds like, is like.

They're worried that he's psychotic. Oh? Are you f*cking kidding me?

And they not only let him keep on practicing, they promoted him?

Who is running the Army asylum?

If someone thinks someone is a danger to themselves or others, one gets to hospitalize them, even against his or her will. At least for a couple of days. Who was Hasan's clinical supervisor? Who was Hasan's therapist? If he didn't have one, why didn't he? This is how they run their psychiatry services? Pretending psychosis will just go away? Would you like a little numbing and avoidance with your homicidal ideation and command hallucinations with a cherry on top?

Cripes.

Another Shameless Sexist Article in HuffPo

Yecch.

"The Original Power Couple Emerges Again With Hillary on Top . . ."


Why not come right out and call her a nappy-headed ho' and get it over with, Bronstein, you um "dickhead"?


And now for something completely different: Arthur Silber, a guy who gets it.

Torture Is as Torture Does (CIA version)

Manacled to the ceiling?

Well, and why not?
They were, like, Teh Enemy! Once they're dubbed Teh Enemy, you get to do anything you want, do you not?

It's All About Me. No Really. It Is.

So I've belatedly discovered that the bushist fascists with their dreadful profit-driven health-insurance-healthcare-denial-serf/slavery system have contaminated my mind, and left me vicariously traumatized. Which had been too traumatized to notice until the day before yesterday. No, really.

Here were (are?) my symptoms: irritability, anxiety, panic, angry outbursts (NOT a usual behavior for me), insomnia, hypervigilance. Occasional upsurges of wanting to kick something sentient (REALLY not a usual discursive thought-stream for me.)

So, in the tiny sliver of co-consciousness that miraculously accompanied these behaviors/subjective experiences, I'm like, where is this all coming from?

Which it took me a while to figure out.

It is not my anxiety. (Although I have every possible reason to worry about what I worry about). It isn't mine -- it's theirs. The people I work with at work. I am bringing my work home. And I have been sharing worry about suicidal clients whose insurance providers, in order to save pennies on meds, are dumping people off the latest anti-psychotic drugs and replacing them with cheaper generics or with really old drugs left over from the 1950's. Thus de-stabilizing the previously stable.

I mean, how stupid is that?

And I can't do anything about it. There is no way for me to intervene in this system. I can watch them go from ok on an outpatient basis, to needing to be inpatient, but inpatient is too expensive, so they re-do their meds and spit them out on the streets again, still unstable.

And what is my part in this? Like watching a plane headed into a tall building.

"Oh. Look."

That plane -- is going to -- hit -- that building."

Boom!


Hmm.

So what am I, what are we, supposed to do?

Rabid Right Mommy Scared Timid Centrist Prez Is Really Tulku of Mao-Tse Tung

How can people be so f*cking stupid?

Really.

Hey, Boys and Girls! It's Time to Mercenary-Up the Army! Privatize Cooks at Twice the Price, at Taxpayers' Expense!

You see, the military is a non-profit organization. Although the military-industrial complex so feared by that commie, Eisenhower, isn't.

So, if you don't want to seem like you're adding more troops in Afghanistan, you can outsource support staff to profit-making outfits, who charges twice the price, and can also do whateverthef*ck they want.

It's WIN-WIN-WIN!


(Which party won the election?)

Barney Frank Slam's Rabid Rightists' "Vile, Contemptible Nonsense"

Barney Frank says arguing with wingnut "like arguing with a dining room table."



Great job.

Dump Glenn Beck -- It's About Time

It's about time people objected to the vitriol-speech of Glenn Beck, one of the many loudmouth fire-in-a-theater screamers that Reagan's Un-Fairness Doctrine produced. He's losing more advertisers. May he lose more. He's like Fred Phelps, but using the public airwaves.

Dirty-Diaper Fetishist Vitter Defends Southern Values

"Southern values"?

Is that what they call it these days?

[coughcough].

Iran Govt. Shuts Up Media After Election

Iran curbs media after election.

In America, a democracy, the government doesn't have to shut up the mainstream media.

The media whore media here are already blind, deaf and dumb.

Fetal Sentimentalist & ProlifeKiller Warns of More ProlifeKiller Death to Come

Yes, that's what he said.

Krauthammer: Sotomayor Is a Racist

So Sonia's a racist, is she, Charlie?

Not to worry, dude.

Hillary was a racist, too.

Same mud. Different face.

Department of Karma, Cause & Effect: O'Reilly's "Tiller the Baby Killer" Rant

Malicious words. Like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, is it not, Billy?

Bill O'Reilly has blood on his hands for this nasty piece of work: Tiller the Baby Killer.

I have never agreed with Billy's fetal position: that fetuses trump the post-born in terms of being worthy of our compassion.

Bill O'Reilly, in addition to being a sexual harasser, is a loudmouth and a narcissist. One who conducts himself in a way that makes him complicit in murder by domestic terrorism. As is Cheney, and the rest of the shrieky hysterical mirror-neuron-deficient, pro-torture, anti-life Talibangelical terrorists: by their works shall ye know them.

How can anyone claim to be Christian, yet fail to follow the golden rule?




---
Jesus' General on O'Reilly, God's Destroying Angel.

Clueless Self-Injurious Behaviorist Gordon Liddy Fears Sotomayor: re: Riding the Cotton Pony!!

Little Gordy don't know much about women, do he?

bwahahaha.

How embarrassing for him. Someone needs to send him a book on physiology, do they not?



hat-tip to bluegal.
Corrente: big tent watch