I Love Mike Ramirez, Part XXXV
Now THAT’S FUNNY!
Author: Kevin
Gout Sucks
I woke up yesterday morning at 5AM, crippled. My left ankle was swollen and hurt like hell. I had planned on attending the Tucson Tea Party “Tucson’s Last Stand” event at Tucson Electric Park, but seeing as I couldn’t walk, that idea went right out the window. It looks like they drew a pretty good crowd, though.
I just wish I thought it actually meant something.
(A full day on Indomethicin and I’m walking fine again.)
They Don’t Build ‘Em Like They Used To
They Don’t Build ‘Em Like They Used To
Thankfully:
Reality Bites
Reader Bilgeman thought this was important enough to email to me. He was right:
Health Care Speechwriter for Edwards, Obama & Clinton Without Insurance Now
For the first time in my life, I am without health insurance and it is a terrible feeling.
In the past, I paid attention to the health care debate as a speechwriter who prepared speeches, talking points, op-eds, and debate prep material on the topic at different times for John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others. Now, I’m paying attention because I’m a citizen up the creek without a paddle.
Throughout my life, I have been very lucky because my insurance has always been there whenever I had a crisis. When my 10-speed hit a patch of leftover winter sand, and I went flying into a telephone pole, it covered the x-rays and stitches and concussion diagnosis. When a half a ton of sheet rock fell on me, my insurance paid for the cast on my foot. When my depression kicked in and I was hospitalized and painting ceramic pieces in art therapy to boost my self-esteem (sheesh), it made sure that when I got home my medical bills didn’t make me reach for a razor. And when there were growths in my uterus, it covered that medical procedure and every regular check-up, lab test, broken bone, sports injury, and antibiotic prescription in between.
Since I care more about my country than my personal pride, here’s how I lost my insurance: I moved. That’s right, I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Massachusetts, a state with universal health care.
In D.C., I had a policy with a national company, an HMO, and surprisingly I was very happy with it. I had a fantastic primary care doctor at Georgetown University Hospital. As a self-employed writer, my premium was $225 a month, plus $10 for a dental discount.
In Massachusetts, the cost for a similar plan is around $550, give or take a few dollars. My risk factors haven’t changed. I didn’t stop writing and become a stunt double. I don’t smoke. I drink a little and every once in a while a little more than I should. I have a Newfoundland dog. I am only 41. There has been no change in the way I live my life except my zip code — to a state with universal health care.
Massachusetts has enacted many of the necessary reforms being talked about in Washington. There is a mandate for all residents to get insurance, a law to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition, an automatic enrollment requirement, and insurance companies are no longer allowed to cap coverage or drop people when they get sick because they forgot to include a sprained ankle back in 1989 on their application.
Even if the economy was strong and I was working more, I still couldn’t afford my premium.
Remember, kids: insuring everyone will bring costs down!
And fine her $950 for not having health insurance!! (It’s cheaper than $550/month!.)
For the record, my portion of the health insurance that covers me and my wife is a bit over $400/mo., and my employer picks up the rest. I’d love the opportunity to pay only $225/mo. for the whole thing, myself, and carry it with me no matter where I live or who I work for. But the current insurance laws prohibit that.
Reality bites, doesn’t it? That is, unless you’ve mastered the ability to deny it. (Our chocolate ration is about to be increased!)
Not That I’m Not Honored, but WTF?
Not That I’m Not Honored, but WTF?
Checking the referrer log, I discovered this.
I don’t even own an HP printer!
Next, The One Will Walk On Water
Next, “The One” Will Walk On Water
It’s the headline of every news outlet in the country: Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize!
Everybody together now: FOR WHAT?!? I suspect I now know the reason why CNN “fact-checked” that Saturday Night Live sketch with such earnestness.
I’m with the London Times:
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
Honestly, I didn’t think the Nobel Peace Prize could get any more “preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning” than when it was given to Al Gore, but I was WRONG!
UPDATE: Instapundit is staying on top of the snark.
Quote of the Day – Law Enforcement Edition
Swing, though, started in the wrong place. He didn’t look around, and watch, and learn, and then say, “This is how people are, how do we deal with it?” No, he sat and thought: “This is how people ought to be, how do we change them?” And that was a good enough thought for a priest but not for a copper, because Swing’s patient, pedantic way of operating had turned policing on its head.
There had been that Weapons Law, for a start. Weapons were involved in so many crimes that, Swing reasoned, reducing the number of weapons had to reduce the crime rate.
Vimes wondered if he’d sat up in bed in the middle of the night and hugged himself when he’d dreamed that one up. Confiscate all weapons, and crime would go down. It made sense. It would have worked, too, if only there had been enough coppers—say, three per citizen.
Amazingly, quite a few weapons were handed in. The flaw, though, was one that had somehow managed to escape Swing, and it was this: criminals don’t obey the law. It’s more or less a requirement for the job. They had no particular interest in making the streets safer for anyone except themselves. And they couldn’t believe what was happening. It was like Hogswatch every day.
Some citizens took the not-unreasonable view that something had gone a bit askew if only naughty people were carrying arms. And they got arrested in large numbers. The average copper, when he’s been kicked in the nadgers once too often and has reason to believe that his bosses don’t much care, has an understandable tendency to prefer to arrest those people who won’t instantly try to stab him, especially if they act a bit snotty and wear more expensive clothes than he personally can afford. The rate of arrests shot right up, and Swing had been very pleased about that.
Admittedly, most of the arrests had been for possessing weaponry after dark, but quite a few had been for assaults on the Watch by irate citizens. That was Assault On A City Official, a very important and despicable crime, and, as such, far more important than all these thefts that were going on everywhere.
It wasn’t that the city was lawless. It had plenty of laws. It just didn’t offer many opportunities not to break them. Swing didn’t seem to have grasped the idea that the system was supposed to take criminals and, in some rough-and-ready fashion, force them into becoming honest men. Instead, he’d taken honest men and turned them into criminals. And the Watch, by and large, into just another gang.
— Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
From a comment by Unix-Jedi.
I Can’t Wait to See the Brady Press Release
I Can’t Wait to See the Brady Press Release
Gun-toting soccer mom is shot dead
Meleanie Hain, the pistol-carrying Lebanon mom who received national attention for taking a loaded gun to her daughter’s soccer game, was shot to death Wednesday night with her husband in an apparent murder-suicide, police said.
Hain, 31, and her husband, Scott, 33, were pronounced dead by Lebanon County Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Yocum shortly after 8:30 p.m. at their home at Second Avenue and East Grant Street, police said.
The couple’s three children were home at the time and were not injured, and are staying with relatives and friends, police said.
Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday, police said. No other details were available at press time.
Neighbor Mark Long said Meleanie baby-sat his 3-year-old son and that she and Scott had been having marital problems for the last week. Scott left on Tuesday and Meleanie did not know where he went, but he came back Wednesday, Long said.
Meleanie Hain was thrust into the national spotlight when she took a gun, in plain view and holstered on her hip, to a soccer game Sept. 11, 2008, at Optimist Park in Lebanon.
Her permit to carry a gun was revoked by Lebanon County Sheriff Michael DeLeo on Sept. 20, 2008. DeLeo said Hain showed poor judgment in wearing her gun to the game.
Hain’s permit was reinstated by Lebanon County Judge Robert Eby on Oct. 14, 2008, but the judge asked her to conceal it when she goes to soccer games. Hain said she would continue to carry it openly under the Second Amendment.
Hain then filed a lawsuit against DeLeo for $1 million in U.S. Middle District Court seeking reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and costs, emotional distress and lost wages.
“She has been stigmatized unfairly,” her attorney, Matthew Weisberg said at the time.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence then offered to defend DeLeo for free.
Daniel Vice, a senior attorney for the Brady Center, said at the time: “It is a case that calls out for common sense. … It’s ridiculous to bring a gun to a child’s soccer game.”
A hearing on Hain’s suit was postponed in May after one of the attorneys in the case was involved in an auto accident.
In an interview with The Patriot-News published Dec. 27, Hain said: “I am happy being a gun owner.”
She said she had no intention of changing her views on gun ownership and noted her critics had no intention of changing theirs.
She acknowledged the publicity had detrimentally affected her life. “I have read all sorts of slander, personal attacks, and even threats toward me, my family, and, yes, some specific to my children,” she said in the interview.
“The publicity surrounding me as a person makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable. As stated previously, I am willing to talk to the press because the issue is so important, but the focus on me, personally, has been difficult because it simply is not about me,” she said.
About the decision to sue DeLeo, Hain said she did it because she was wronged
“Just the fact that he was wrong is evidenced by the fact that my license was restored to me. … I am a victim of Sheriff Michael DeLeo’s. I am a victim of those in society as a direct result of his actions as well. The way people look at me sometimes when I am out running errands, I feel as if I am wearing a scarlet letter, and really it’s a Glock 26.”
For those interested, Ms. Hain was interviewed by Caleb and Breda on Gun Nuts Radio back in January.
I foresee much dancing in the blood of the slain.
Sebastian has more details. Her husband was apparently the shooter.
Backlash?
Backlash?
In Part II of the “Dangerous Victims” trilogy I quoted something I found over at Samizdata:
Discourage self-help, and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians. Over-stimulate self-assertion, and for the arbitrament of the Courts you substitute the decision of the sword or the revolver. – The Law of the Constitution, by A.V. Dicey (MacMillan, London 1885).
Yesterday I found this story (sorry, I don’t remember where I found the link that took me there) from Saturday’s Daily Express:
TIME TO TACKLE AN ACUTE CRISIS IN BRITISH POLICING
REPORTS of the law-abiding being serially neglected by the police when their property comes under attack are proliferating. Every day brings new stories about people who have been let down by constabularies that always seem to have higher priorities than protecting the public.
It appears that far from being an occasional aberration, such neglect is the norm in many parts of the country.
Too many forces have fallen under the command of politically correct top brass who think officers should be at best neutral when they intervene in altercations between harassed householders and gangs of thugs.
The latest examples are all too typical. In Lincolnshire, Ted Nottingham has felt compelled to advertise a reward for the capture of yobs who have vandalised his car more than 40 times and have now wrecked his neighbour’s vehicle.
In Stourbridge, disabled widow Brenda Hill has been forced to put up notices in her car, begging vandals to stop smashing it up after five attacks in the past year.
She knows who the culprits are and so do the police but nothing has been done to stop them.
We cannot go on like this. The current public outcry must be the catalyst for fundamental change. There is no more important task facing the police and the courts than reclaiming the streets from young hoodlums.
There must come a point when offering understanding and support to the fractured families of the underclass is not enough.
The time has come for the police to get tough and give decent people their neighbourhoods back.
I’d like to think the unspoken next sentence reads “Or we’ll take them back ourselves,” but I’m not sure there are enough dangerous victims left in (formerly) Great Britain.
But I can hope.
UPDATE: Reader “teqjack” links in comments to the latest bit of insanity from across the pond:
You can’t expect the police to be heroes: Public want too much, says health and safety report
The public have ‘ unrealistic expectations’ that police will put themselves in danger to protect ordinary people, according to new safety guidelines for officers.
The Health and Safety Executive caused outrage by declaring that officers confronted with dangerous situations-while fighting crime or trying to guard the public ‘may choose not to put themselves at unreasonable risk’.
Its guidance published yesterday firmly plays down the need for officers to show bravery in the course of their duty if they make a ‘personal choice’ not to.
It states: ‘There is often an unrealistic public expectation that officers and staff will put themselves at risk to protect the public.’
The document concedes that ‘very occasionally in extreme cases’, police may be justified in putting themselves in jeopardy – in which case they may be let off without being prosecuted under health and safety laws.
The report – which has the backing of senior police chiefs – prompted anger and astonishment last night.
Paul Beshenivsky, whose police officer wife Sharon was shot dead by armed robbers in 2005, condemned the HSE as ‘meddling do-gooders’, saying: ‘At the end of the day a police officer’s job does involve putting your life on the line. Sharon knew that, and she got killed.’
He told the Mail: ‘The public are not allowed to take the law into their own hands, and now the crazy health and safety brigade want to stop the police dealing with criminals as well.
“Where would you draw the line? Would you say, “That shoplifter that looks on drugs, he might have a knife, I’ll walk away from that one?” The whole thing is madness.’
Police forces have been subject to health and safety legislation since 1998.
But it is the latest document’s advice on risk-taking by individual officers that has caused anger.
The report says police officers ‘may, very occasionally in extreme cases, decide to put themselves at risk in acts of true heroism’.
In these ‘rare circumstances’, the HSE adds, ‘it would not be in the public interest to take action against the individual’.
But it adds: ‘Equally HSE, like the Police Service, recognises that in such extreme cases everyone has the right to make personal choices and that individuals may choose not to put themselves at unreasonable risk.’
The guidelines have been backed by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the rank-and-file Police Federation.
But Sid Mackay, a retired Met Police Chief Superintendent whose daughter, PC Nina Mackay, was stabbed to death on duty in 1997, said: ‘They claim it is “unrealistic” for the public to expect the police to face danger, but that’s what the public believe the police are for, and rightly so.
‘The HSE will never understand, because they are completely risk-averse, but they have got their fingers into operational policing and they think they’re the experts.
‘The police are choking on paperwork, carrying out endless risk assessments for every operation, and then we wonder why they have become so cautious.’
Anthony Ganderton, the stepfather of ten-year- old Jordon Lyon who drowned in Wigan in 2007 after he jumped into a pond to save his stepsister, also attacked the guidelines.
Two police community service officers who arrived at the scene stood on the bank and radioed for help instead of jumping in to rescue the children, because they were not appropriately trained so risked breaking health and safety rules.
He told the Mail: ‘The point is they should do whatever they can to help people in trouble, especially when there are children involved.’
HSE chairman Judith Hackitt said yesterday: ‘This statement will assist senior police officers in balancing the risks involved in their duties to fight crime with meeting their health and safety obligations to their own employees and the public.’
The Home Office said: ‘Health and safety laws are there to protect the police as well as the public, but they must never hinder officers in the execution of their duty.’
They’ve gone completely batshit fucking insane over there.
Quote of the Day – Socialism Edition
Quote of the Day – Socialism Edition
The architects of the State can have all the good intentions in the world – they can be paragons of selfless virtue – and it doesn’t change a thing. The nature of the system they create will inevitably corrupt it, because the nature of the people trapped in the system doesn’t change. They want more for themselves and their families, and if they can’t earn it, they will band together to demand it. There is only one reliable way to hold those bands together over the long term, only one predictable response to the diminishing returns gained by each sacrifice of liberty… and only one emotion the leaders of each collective entity can easily encourage, to maintain their own power: hatred.
When everything you have is provided by the State, you will easily come to hate anyone whose demands take priority over yours. They are not your competitors. They are your enemies. Even now, in what may prove to be the last days we can regard ourselves as a free nation with a bloated government, we can see how much anger simmers among those who believe the urgency of their demands outweighs any consideration of the cost to others.
— Dr. Zero – Socialism: A Hate Story