lookin

And sometimes it goes the other way . . .

Budget woes probably mandate searching a bit closer to home. Just last week, I found them nosing through my refrigerator.

What an outstanding opening line! I hope you've locked in the screen rights. Pleasure Under The Pampas original screenplay by NeedSome

Here's how The Catholic League and John Boehner are marking the day: Christian activists force Smithsonian to pull Aids video from show One doesn't know what to say.

Interesting article. Thanks. The arguments make my head spin, as both sides seem to have valid points. I'd like to know how much Comcast is charging Level 3 for handling Netflix traffic. Obviously it's enough to make Level 3 squeal. My guess is Comcast is motivated by losing some of its own pay-per-view business to Netflix, rather than by having to handle the additional traffic. Reminds me that we're really still in the early days of the internet, and business models will come and go quickly. So long as Comcast keeps its mitts off Cam4, I guess I'll just bide my time.

As you say, the answers are important. For example, if Canadians were coming across the border for half - or even 20% - of their health care, that would suggest some pretty significant weaknesses in their system. But my understanding is that only a percent or two come to the U S. for health care and, even then, usually when they're here for something else, although the Mayo clinic may indeed be a magnet as it is for many around the world. So the answers are available, and they indicate that Canadians are pretty well satisfied with their health care system. There was a program on TV a couple years ago that showed a hip-replacement patient who went to India for her operation. Not only did she have the option of a less invasive procedure that hadn't yet been approved by the FDA, she also paid about a third of the U. S. price, and recuperated for a few days at a luxury resort with some nice-looking Indian boys bringing her drinks poolside. While it wouldn't be fair to ask our seniors to travel to India for hip replacements, it might be possible to bring parts of the Indian system here. We'd almost certainly have to give up our right to large malpractice awards for a start, and the FDA might have to find a way to streamline its approval process. Of course, there are folks who don't want the FDA to change and others who support the idea of a large malpractice industry. Though that may be more about preserving wealth than about preserving health. In my opinion, our country continues to struggle with universal health care not because we can't find the answers, but because many are not yet willing or able to hear them. But I think the message will continue to get louder as the days go by.

Wish I had one of those down the street from me. They'd get a lot of drop-in traffic just from us locals. San Francisco has pretty good low-cost or no-cost health care too, and Healthy San Francisco is showing that on-going care is better and cheaper than emergency care. I tried to check out Memphis's health care approach through Wikipedia, and so far found only this snippet: Memphis is also home to the Memphis Medical Center, which is locally referred to as "The Med". In recent years, the hospital has experienced severe funding difficulties that nearly led to a reduction or elimination of emergency room services. In July, 2010, The Med received approximately $40.6 million in federal and local funding to keep the Elvis Presley Trauma Center operational. Perhaps the free clinics in your area indicate that Memphis is also shifting its emphasis away from emergency care and toward preventive care. As others have said, emergency room care, even if free and readily available, is often too little and sometimes too late. I think we all need affordable medical care that keeps us well and lets us avoid the emergency room whenever possible.

Call me crazy, but I think all paths lead to single-payer health care. Even though some don't like abandoning the toll booths they've erected along the way, no reason they shouldn't do fine if they adapt their business models, as many have done before them. I was disappointed that the Dems gave up on single-payer, but I think they left enough back roads in the legislation that we'll get there eventually. Who knows, it may be just over the next rise.

≈ ≈ ≈ Sarah Palin on Ice ≈ ≈ ≈

Do please ask him to represent me in a second piece of pie! I'm very thankful for the great group of guys assembled here, and there's not a soul I wouldn't enjoy sharing a drumstick with! A Very Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Thanks from me too! Makes me want to go there.

Just be careful not to drop it anywhere. Enjoy!

A different take on California, this time with a few facts. The truth about California Commentary: Maligned state is actually saving the rest of us By Brett Arends, MarketWatch BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Can everyone please stop talking total nonsense about the California budget? I know that facts and truth seem to be optional these days. I know that in the exciting new world of infinite media everyone can choose to believe whatever fantasies they want. But in the case of California, it's getting on my nerves. Last week Chris Whalen, the high-profile analyst at Institutional Risk Analytics, caused a stir by arguing California was going to default on its debts. "I think they're going to default… I think eventually the debt will have to be haircut," he told Henry Blodget, the former dot-com analyst and now editor of Business Insider. "I don't think the Republican Congress is going to sign on for a bailout of California." Default was "inevitable," Whalen added, and suggested Sacramento might have to start issuing its own currency. Alarming stuff. But when I e-mailed Whalen, asking him for specific calculations, none were forthcoming. "My general comments have to do with my guess as to the impact of mounting foreclosures and flat to down GDP on state revenues," Whalen replied. Do the math Your guess? These are important problems, to be sure. But do you have any actual numbers? "Revenues fall and mandates rise to the sky," he wrote. "You do the math." Er, no, actually. It's your assertion. You do the math. Whalen blamed the matter on Blodget. "I am a bank analyst," he wrote. "I have not written anything on this. My comments have taken on a life all their own… This is all Henry's fault. Call him." Some prediction. Meanwhile Blodget chimed in on the e-mail exchange: "It's a bold prediction! Don't back down now!" Bah. Welcome to the media world in 2010. But this is hardly an isolated case. California bashing is everywhere these days — especially since Californians had the temerity not to vote Republican a few weeks ago. You've probably heard a variant of the following storyline: California is a basket case. The Greece of America. Decades of crazy liberalism and runaway spending have crippled the economy. Wealth creators are fleeing in droves. The people left are spending themselves into rack and ruin. They can't balance their budget, once again, so they are asking the rest of us for a bailout. And they even voted for Jerry Brown, a Democrat! It's time we said enough is enough. No bailout for California! And get out of their muni bonds while you can — they're going to default. Basket case It's persuasive. You can hear it anywhere. But it's total hogwash. You might just as well believe that California is inhabited by pixies from the planet Mars, or that the budget problem in Sacramento has been caused by a giant sea monster destroying downtown San Diego. It's not just slightly wrong. It's almost totally wrong. California's a basket case? The state has one of the highest living standards in the country, yet over the past 10 years the economy has still grown much faster, per person, than the national average. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, it's up 15% — compared to 8.9% for the U.S. overall. It's grown faster than low tax neighbors like Arizona, Utah or New Mexico. It's grown three times faster than Texas. And this was from 1999 through 2009: In other words from the peak of the dot-com years through the depths of the recession. It managed this growth despite the double blows of the tech and housing busts. Most of the states that have grown faster than California during that time are farm states, riding an incredible boom in agriculture prices. Fact. Venture dollars Back in the Silicon Valley glory days, in the late 1990s, California attracted an incredible 42 cents of every venture capital dollar invested in America. Ah, those were the days — when the private sector was still willing to back California with its own money. As any conservative will tell you, that's the real voting in the economy. How far has California fallen from those giddy days? According to the latest data from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, in 2010 California just got a miserable, er, 50 cents of every venture capital dollar invested in America. That's right. Venture capitalists are putting a bigger share of their money into California today than they were in 1999. Wow. What a failed state. What a basket case. Will the last person left please turn out the lights? Don't expect to read about this at the far-right Manhattan Institute or the National Review. Don't expect to read a column about it from George Will anytime soon. Are wealth creators fleeing? I keep hearing this. Did Apple Inc. and Google Inc. just relocate to Oklahoma? Is Twitter being run from Alabama? When Mark Zuckerberg left Harvard to run Facebook full-time, did he open shop in "low cost" Utah? During the past decade, one of the biggest reasons its residents left California was simply because of the astronomical cost of housing. Tax base Now let's talk about taxes. This is where the lies really earn a Ph.D — as in "piled high and deep." The best study of state and local tax burdens comes from the venerable Tax Foundation, an independent non-profit that's been acting as a taxpayers' watchdog in Washington since 1937. The Tax Foundation is non-partisan, but by the nature of what it does it leans politically to the right. According to them, as of 2008 (the most recent year analyzed) state and local taxes in the average state came to about 9.7% of the annual state economy. What was it in crazy, liberal, communistical, socialistical, un-American, soviet-style California? Er, 10.5%. That's right. The burden was all of 0.8 percentage points higher than the average. Higher wages Paging Leon Trotsky! In the late 1990s, when California was riding high, it was...10.6%. Thirty years ago, when even Meg Whitman thought it was a wonderful place to work, start a family, and hire an illegal immigrant to raise your kids, it was...10.1%. You will occasionally hear horror stories about "public sector teachers" in places like "San Francisco" (shudder) earning, say, $100,000 a year. I've never understood why it's wrong for a teacher to earn a good salary. The same people who wouldn't blink at the news that a Wall Street banker made $20 million anthraxing our economy is horrified that a teacher makes $100,000. But even putting that issue aside, it's worth remembering that wages are higher in San Francisco for a very simple reason. It costs more to live there. A lot more. According to the authoritative ACCRA cost of living index, a $100,000 income in San Francisco will only buy you the same living standard as a $55,000 salary in places like Austin, Texas, or Little Rock, Arkansas. Do we hear horror stories about teachers in Texas earning $55,000 a year? But if you think the lies stop there, think again. Because we haven't even gotten to the biggest of all. That California "bailout." There's no such thing. California bails us out. It has been bailing out the rest of America since, oh, about 1849 — before it even joined the union. Californians are so productive that every year they send billions of dollars in surplus dollars to the rest of America. Year after year they have sent vastly more in federal taxes than they ever get back in federal spending. California isn't our Greece, it's our Germany. It isn't Little Orphan Annie. It's Daddy Warbucks. Fact. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, which tracks the data, calls this surplus a "fiscal transfer." I call it a bailout. The numbers are simply staggering. In the quarter century through 2005 (the most recent year for which we have data), Californians bailed out the rest of America to the tune of about $620 billion in today's dollars. In 2005 alone it came to nearly $50 billion. That is 30 times next year's forecast "budget shortfall" in Sacramento. The only reason California has a budget problem at all is because they have, foolishly, spent so much money subsidizing everyone else. If it weren't for that, California could cut its state and local taxes by around $1,300 a person. That's a $1,300 tax cut for every man, woman and child. Hmmm. Funny you never read about that anywhere, isn't it? Meanwhile, take with giant fistfuls of salt those self-serving claims of fiscal rectitude you're apt to hear from politicians in other states, especially in the South and the West. These states haven't balanced their own budgets with their own money in living memory. Without bailout money from states like California, New York and New Jersey, their taxes would be much higher and their citizens poorer. But don't expect to hear any of this from California bashers — least of all those on the right. After this November's electoral humiliations of Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, the Republican Party is putting away the kid gloves and getting out the knife. Could California really default? Run the numbers. State debt costs come to just $6 billion a year — a fraction of the $90 billion-plus budget. Under the state Constitution, the interest on the debt gets paid second, after the $36 billion that goes to K-12 education. Certainly it would be foolish to be complacent. And there are serious problems with long-term budget commitments, especially for the retirement and health care benefits for teachers and other public employees. Future cost growth with have to be restrained, and presumably some planned benefits will end up being renegotiated. But how big are these costs in California? The non-partisan Legislative Analysts' Office in Sacramento estimates there's a $136 billion gap in the state pension and benefits system. It may work out to more or less. But that's the actuarial figure at the moment. Size of the state economy? Oh, $2 trillion a year. That's 14 times the size of this gigantic pension-fund gap. But don't expect any of these facts to surface when Washington starts talking about a California "bailout." This is 2010. Inconvenient facts are optional. - Brett Arends is a columnist for MarketWatch and The Wall Street Journal, based in Boston.

Maybe we could outsource to the TSA. They're already doing physical exams and colonoscopies.

Perhaps then JT's purported public peccadilloes are merely his way of thumbing his nose at the more hidebound views of his adopted religion? Control me, will ya? Ha! Blackmail? I don't think so!! Good for him! Sounds like he's got 'em on the ropes.

You're being far too modest, MsGuy. While Columbus may have happened upon America, it was Isabella who showed him the way.

I think Obama set the strategy, including asking Secretary Gates for the military's report by December 1st and requesting Congress to pass the legislation. I agree that he could have issued an executive order to repeal DADT, but his present strategy involves all three branches of government. If successful, it should not be open to any further challenges. I'm not sure the same would be true of an executive order. The good news is, we should know by New Year's Eve if his strategy worked. If it doesn't, I expect he'll try something else. I believe him when he says that DADT will end on his watch. Must admit to some mixed feelings about the whole issue, as I would like to see our military reduced substantially. If all our gay service members resigned in protest, it would be a start to the reduction in armed forces that I'd like to see. Maybe they could each bring a fellow soldier along with them, and get some of the straight guys back in circulation too.

Indeed there is and, thanks to MsGuy, I've found it as well. On the right of the Similar Topics banner is either a + sign or a - sign, which can be used to toggle the (allegedly) similar posts on or off. They stay on or off until the next time you toggle. Neat, huh? I found them rather unrelated as well and chalked it up to a fledgling algorithm that would improve over time, but no sign of that yet. Still, without the feature, I wouldn't have stumbled upon the doings chez Lucky when the power goes out, and I'd never in a million years have guessed your fantasy upon becoming an Esteemed Member.

Jerry, is that you?

Are you sure you failed? Just looked at the date of your original post, and it's only been a month. You may have just been going down that thirty-pounds-in-thirty-days road that so often leads us back to where we started. Your earlier post inspired me to try to shed a few pounds before my annual physical in May. I decided a little more exercise every day would be my 'permanent' change. Didn't make it every day, but averaged about five days a week, which seems to have convinced my metabolism that I was serious. So I'm down about three pounds in thirty days. I figure I'll put some weight on over the holidays, but it should come off as quickly as it went on. Anyway, longwinded way of saying that if you learned one new thing, or just stopped gaining, that could easily qualify as a success and postion you for the next one. In any event, many thanks for starting the discussion.

Great stories! Thanks! Wonder if somebody from Bel Ami is googling these posts and putting together their next screenplay. I'd love to see Blue Eyes in a featured role.

Never found him particularly attractive myself, and only became aware of him when he took Ralph Woods under his wing, you should pardon the expression. Once he let Ralph go, I knew he was lacking discernment, judgement, or appeal; and likely all three. He won't have to bother cleaning out his chimney on my account.

It does make one wonder how intimately corporate America should be involved with our health, and that includes our food supply as well as our medical treatment. I guess it's possible to be both a doctor and a farmer but, if we're not in that position, big business seems to be perched all along the supply lines. There was a time that I trusted large corporations more than I do today, but I keep hearing these stories that show how their interests are diverging from mine. I'm looking for ways to grab back a bit more control from them, at least in the areas of healthcare and nutrition. I also pretty much believed in the common wisdom that a free market allows me to stop doing business with companies that work against me and start doing business with companies that work for me. But I'm finding it more and more difficult to take advantage of that freedom of choice, and I'm wondering whether my choosing skills are getting worse or whether the good choices are just getting harder to find. I wonder what Tom Brady thinks.

No rush, but I very much look forward to hearing it.

Just back from a look at Daddy's home page where it shows the record high number of online users was 243 in early June before the lock-out. If I recall, it was sitting between 40-50 after Daddy returned from vacation, and it's rarely been out of the 60's ever since. As you say, some have returned, but it appears that most have not, and many of those who returned have reduced their participation substantially. While a few came over here to 'roost', many more did not. And I think those who 'straddle', self-included, have not become prolific posters on either site. There still seem to be a significant number of posts that are going unposted. I continue to believe that, as with so many things, the first step is figuring out exactly what you want. Then comes the second step of figuring out how to get it, followed by the third step of deciding whether or not you're willing to do it. Can't think of any other solution at the moment but, hey, at least I made it into the 'Today's Top Posters' roster!