About This Issue: Okay so because of my inability to cram everything into the last issue in the space of a week I had to postpone it into this issues week. Both are going to be released-obviously-and I hope to reinstate my issue every week schedule that I’d like to try and accomplish. Returning to the discussion of this issue, however, I have to say it’s going to be about all sorts of stuff. Whatever strikes me that needs to be heard…if you’re lucky you might even get me to rant about something! Awesome for you, I know, but so much has been on my mind lately that I just have to let it all out. Think of it as a brain barf. You know I’ve ingested all this stuff, and now that I have even the smallest of audiences I’m going to hurl it up into all of your brains. As my sister Ashton likes to say-YUM! So don’t get confused, try to just be as open minded about all of this as possible. Thanks!
Meet the Super Collider:
So over in Geneva, Switzerland a bunch of scientists (transcending all bounds…whatever…I heard that quote when I was reading about it and I almost threw up…is that wrong?) got together and decided that they wanted to make a device that would try to recreate the Big Bang. Interesting? I thought so. Yet there are a few issues that some other scientists raised against the idea. These other scientists speculated that there was a possibility that by slamming particles together(which is what the Collider will be doing in order to recreate the Big Bang) it could actually cause small black holes to open up on the earth. Now you see what really caught my attention. My initial thought was “Oh no I don’t want to die!” Then I thought… “Well I always wondered what it would be like to go into a black hole….” (The sad part is that I really do.) Then came “At least you can tell your long-dead relatives that you meet on the others side- “I died cooler than you!” That’s got to be a one-up right? Well I did some research on the subject and everything I read says that “some” scientists believe that that won’t happen, and then they gave a lame excuse story about it happening all over the universe and… “We haven’t seen anything bad yet.” Wait…was that supposed to be good news? To make matters worse…the scientists running the gig are French. I mean-nothing against French people but…well a bunch of unsure Frenchman (while not completely out of the norm) doesn’t make me immediately sigh in relief. So last night I waited for impending doom.
In order to make my potential last night on this earth special this is what I did:
First I watched my little brothers and while I did that I talked to my friend Kenny. It was a none-too-interesting conversation about my being stuck in Gunlock and him going to a movie.
Second I was relieved from duty at about 8:30ish pm by the return of my step-mom Jean, and we put the kids to bed. Then I cleaned up some puppy poop off the floor with water and toilet paper-my dad hadn’t yet gotten home with the wet wipes.
Third my dad finally got home and we ate Dominoes pizza (I love Dominoes!) and watched Scrubs for a couple minutes.
Fourth I got ready for bed in the normal fashion, you know brushed my teeth, changed into my PJ’s.
Fifth I came out to the camper where I sleep and threw in Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers and watched some of the Special Features.
So obviously I was extremely anxious about a black hole opening up and swallowing me whole. I also forgot to mention that I had four Starbursts and a tiny bag of Skittles earlier…I am a party animal!
For those who did panic over this I have only this to say. “What’s wrong with you people?!” Really? I mean, seriously? You think we-as human beings-are capable of destroying a world? We aren’t that amazing; we aren’t powerful enough to do that! I don’t care how smart we are. We are not capable of just going out of our way to take down an entire world, or to create black holes! Black holes are considerably more complex than I am sure we are capable of making.
Now to calm things down a little bit I have heard by a person who commented on one of the stories I read on the Collider that somehow we’ve managed to make tiny Black holes that were so small they couldn’t get enough energy to sustain themselves so they just disappeared. Without doing further research I am going to remain skeptical that we have even done that.
I guess what I’m getting at is we all need to settle down and just enjoy the potential in these sorts of experiments. We aren’t going to destroy the world; we are just going to learn about it. Or we are going to waste a lot of money looking into it. Falling into the Gloom and Doom mind set isn’t worth it because it will do nothing but depress you. Just be happy people.
Credit Card Bill of Rights: I’m sure that most of you haven’t heard about this one yet. I hadn’t heard of it myself until I began doing some digging into both presidential candidates’ plans for our future. It sort of came out of nowhere for me, I was paroosing (actually I was studying) Barack Obama’s own statements about what he would do once he became president that can be found (or rather searched out after about ten minutes) on his website. If you’re lucky I’ll provide a link to it-and I sort of came upon it in the economic portion of his plans. Here’s what the Bill of Rights details:
Credit Card Bill of Rights
1) Credit card companies may not unilaterally change the price, terms and conditions during the credit card agreement period. Revised pricing is prohibited and consumers are protected from rate increases on existing balances for any reason.
2) Accounting should be straightforward and fair to the consumer.
3) Credit card underwriting must consider the borrower’s ability to repay.
4) Binding arbitration is a violation of consumers’ rights to due process and is prohibited.
5) Fees must relate to the cost of providing credit services.
6) Interest rates may be priced according to risk, but must be conscionable.
7) Billing procedures must be fair with the benefit of doubt given to the consumer, i.e., accept the postmarked date as proof of on-time payments with no arbitrary cutoff time on the due date. The billing cycle must be consistent and preferably 30 days.
8) Minimum balance payments must be sufficient to reduce the principle and an explanation should be provided of how long and at what cost repayment of the existing balance will take if no further charges are made.
9) If the company approves charges above the credit limit, then an over limit penalty may not be charged without first granting the borrower an opportunity to lower the balance.
10) Consumers have a right to clear, simple and understandable explanation on the full cost, terms and conditions for credit cards.
Again it’s one of those things that sounds great. Who doesn’t want to be protected from getting screwed by those big evil credit card companies? From there a thought arose. I had to-and trust me it was miserable-take an economics class in my last year at high school, and in that class I learned that there are countless numbers of irresponsible people who get a credit card and abuse the privilege. They use it for all the things they shouldn’t. Buying food, paying bills, so that it racks up huge debts until they are driven to bankruptcy, all things that people who were responsible would avoid. Now there are things in here that prevent the credit card companies from hiking up interest rates, and changing fee charges on a dime and without notice. These I can understand, but my problem with this lies in what it prohibits. In essence it seems that the companies are banded from trying to make profit, as well as forced to take on all of the blame for bad situations when it is as easily placed on the owner of the card. It notes that all customers will be given the benefit of the doubt-even in court-and that the Card companies will be the ones at fault. Now I know that there’s nothing but blank pages in the Book of Fair (trust me I’m constantly reminded) but that isn’t right. People are able-under this Bill-to screw with the system and get out scotch free, because it isn’t their fault that the evil companies want their money. Let me ask you something, how else do companies survive except by making money?
Let me explain something to you. A credit card is not to buy your groceries, it isn’t to pay bills with (in many cases), and if you are doing any of these things you are using it wrong. Use cash for these sorts of transactions because you probably can’t handle all of the charges that will be put on your credit card account, and when you don’t pay all that money back you kill your credit.
I hate to be rude but there are so many people who believe that a credit card is just a free pass into the ability to buy whatever they want scotch free. These people are idiots. That’s not how it works. You pay back everything you purchase, and often times with a little extra added to the total. Who in their right mind would go on a shopping spree if they cannot pay everything back that they purchased? You don’t steal from a shoe store do you? You pay for it? Exactly, you pay for it. You always pay for it because nothing’s free on a credit card. Deal with it and stop demanding that the government come coddle you out of debt that YOU brought upon yourself!
Healthcare: Here’s a hot button topic if I ever heard of one. Okay so here’s the jist of the arguments on the two sides. First on the liberal side:
Everyone in America has the right to free Healthcare; therefore the government should give it to them.
The other side goes something like this:
Healthcare is, and should remain, a privatized business because capitalism is good.
Now here’s what I like to say…and I can go on and on:
Ladies and gentleman PAH-LEEZE! A right? Are you kidding me? If you can find that in the Constitution I’d love to see it, point to it for me-I dare you! “But everyone is entitled to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Chene’!” Yeah…I still don’t see Free Healthcare. “Life!” Oh-right. So you’re telling me that Life equals free healthcare? Is that it? WRONG! You are wrong, you are so wrong you aren’t even right! Life, yes people are entitled to life, you are given the right to live. If someone shoots you in the head they have taken that right away from you…but if you have cancer and want free healthcare and we expect to be reimbursed for the services we give you, that isn’t taking away your right to live!
“But, but, but Chene’ people aren’t being treated when they’re dying because the evil Healthcare companies won’t treat them, the hospitals are turning poor people away!”
Give me a freakin’ break. That argument is false. Do you realize that it is against the law to turn someone away from the hospital if they genuinely need help? I love the argument that babies and women are being turned away from hospitals and dying because they can’t pay for treatment. See, people, again a hospital cannot turn someone away who actually needs help, no matter if they can pay for it. We as a society don’t see needlessly killing people who can be treated as acceptable.
“Well Obama wants to give everyone healthcare and we won’t have to pay for it!”
Wrong, you might pay less, but nothing in life is free. What Obama does want to do is expand the ability of the government to stick their fingers all in the medical care facilities throughout the country. To again address the free thing. In order for Obama to start up free Healthcare he would have to hire a new group of bureaucrats to watch over every hospital and healthcare providers throughout the entire country. These people will exist with the sole purpose of making sure everyone in the system plays by the rules that are to be set up that are made to ensure that all healthcare goes from where it is now (better than anywhere else, but could be much better), to what people are hoping is stupendous. Because of this there will be little enthusiasm in the workers within this system to do well. They won’t be encouraged they’ll be threatened. Instead of working to do better they’ll working to pass the test at the barest minimum. Why do anything else when they have no chance to move up in pay grade or standing within their field. You might get slightly better healthcare for a time, but it won’t last long when there is no incentive.
Obama also has some other beliefs in Healthcare that aren’t quite right, or at least so vague they can easily be brought to question. For instance Obama wants to increase overhead administration within the healthcare system, but in a study by New England Journal of Medicine article it was discovered that the overhead in the U.S system 31% of all healthcare expenditures goes to administrative costs, twice that of Canada, yet in Obama’s plan he doesn’t show how any of the additional overhead will make anything better. He also wants to spend ten billion dollars to federally invest in healthcare information technology saying that it will save money. First by proposing something that costs ten billion dollars is that really SAVING money? I would have thought it was spending….silly me. Secondly in another study by The Archives of International Medicine it was found that technology information didn’t affect the quality of treatment and care. In the study of 14 quality measures only two improved and one worsened…yeah that makes me feel fuzzy inside…I can tell Obama totally gets it! But I want to know in Obama’s words what he’s going to do…well directly from his website here’s what he says: “His plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. His new National Health Exchange will help increase competition by insurers."
I like-particularly-where he says he will “Force” healthcare providers to pay for peoples medical bills…yeah that’s bound to have those companies jumping for joy!
My final point revolves around the quality of the healthcare itself. Okay I have already admitted that we don’t have healthcare that’s as good as we could have it. There are plenty of things that we can improve upon, but-and it is a HUGE but, we have the best healthcare in the entire world! In other countries that have already turned towards the healthcare plans of Obama and Hillary Clinton they have insanely long waiting lists-even for people who immediately need a transplant or an operation. People don’t get very good care because there is no reason for the employees to work hard because they are just getting paid to be there. If we had it so badly why are there leaders and wealthy individuals from all over this earth flocking to America for their healthcare needs? Seems to me that we have it freakin’ good. To all of those individuals who want to argue with me-DEAL WITH IT!!!!
The Bill Has Passed: So remember how last issue I was discussing a huge bailout that the government was preparing to do? Well as I like to say- “’Tis been done”. Originally drafted as a three page document this Emergency Economic Stabilization Act was designed to help the government have the ability to launch a HUGE bailout for the financial sector. As I discussed before it wasn’t exactly the best thing we had going but rather than slamming us headlong into a mountain the drafters of this thing were hoping to slam us into the surrounding forest. Unfortunately this draft of the bill didn’t even make it to the floor of either the Senate or the House and had to be redone. You-who maybe don’t know anything about this-might be asking “Did they make it better?” In the eyes of the politicians playing with it…yes. In the eyes of most Americans…pardon my French…HELL NO! The scrawny little three page bill apparently took steroids and jumped to about 105 some odd pages.
The little jump from three to 105 (no one will notice a few extra pages) is due mostly to what we like to call “pork”. Now pork (though tasty) is not a positive here. Pork is basically the sneaky little additions put within a bill so that it can please everyone who sees it. Actually I just found the definition…you’ll love this. Government projects affording political opportunism: government-funded projects that bring jobs and other benefits to an area and give its political representative the opportunity to award favors and reap the ensuing prestige. “And reap the ensuing prestige”, I like this part…it’s so true. Basically our politicians who REALLY wanted this thing passed walked around to their constituents and asked “Hey, dude, what can I do so that you’ll pay me money?” The answers would astound you.
This draft of this bill (I say this draft because it gets better) allowed the government to stick their slimy hands all in the financial sector and socialize it. It gave the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to-at a whim!-reach in to any public funds such as retirement, and social security and pull out money for the use of the government. AND-it allowed those who I talked about last issue to run the entire fiasco! WHAT?! Excuse me? We’re letting those jokers who hijacked the plane and sent it careening toward the mountain retake the wheel and have another go at it? Are we stupid?
On the 29th of September this new and revised bill hit the floor of the House. Everyone was saying that it was in the bag, I was seriously about to run all the way to the White House and smack the president, but to everyone’s shock and astonishment it didn’t pass. That morning the phone lines had been jammed with angry Americans, but what really seemed to take the cake for every politician was when Nancy Pelosi stood up and called Republicans un-patriotic and unwilling to work with the Democrats to get it done. Needless to say the Republicans weren’t thrilled, and it seemed that there were some nervous Democrats were going to raise a nay against it.
Never to be destroyed this bill walked over to the Senate and was given even more steroids (Is any one else feeling queasy?). The Senators were bound and determined to get this bill through and revamped it to what I am now staring blankly at on my computer…a PDF file of the bill that is 451 pages long. I’m sorry but I won’t be reading the whole thing (weird…I sound like a senator or congressman…wrap your head around that!) it’s just too long and I have a list of things to do. To increase the page age (yeah I did it again…NEW WORD!) in this thing the Senators decided to throw in more pork. There are some truly ingenious things shoved into this, in fact, I’m sure you’ll react in a very loud way when I tell you some of the things I’ve found in here.
To start with I have come across on page 115 a ENERGY PRODUCTION INCENTIVE clause thing in here. It would seem that we are going to shove all sorts of energy stuff into this bill. Here’s stuff straight out of this bill…I’m about to do a copy and paste…:
Subtitle A—Renewable Energy Incentives
Sec. 101. Renewable energy credit.
Sec. 102. Production credit for electricity produced from marine renewable.
Sec. 103. Energy credit.
Sec. 104. Energy credit for small wind property.
Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
Sec. 106. Credit for residential energy efficient property.
Sec. 107. New clean renewable energy bonds.
Sec. 108. Credit for steel industry fuel.
Sec. 109. Special rule to implement FERC and State electric restructuring policy.
Let me warn everyone that this is just subtitle A. There’s also a subtitle B with like five extra Titles thrown in…or thirty-one more of these little Sections. That’s just the beginning though, guess what else we’ve got in here. This little energy chunk lasts 146 pages…from page 115 to 261...my brain is about to explode-no really-I’m not even kidding. Just Google this stupid thing…you can read it for yourself.
Oh-as I go through this bill (that’s right I’m doing this and reading it at the same time!) I have located yet another piece of pork that should not be in here-this time it’s called the B—Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health
Parity and Addiction Equity Act
of 2008. Uhm…what? What is this doing in here? We were dealing with finances…why would they put this in there? Here’s the quickest summary of this that I can copy:
IN GENERAL.—In the case of a group
health plan (or health insurance coverage of in connection with such a plan) that provides both medical and surgical benefits and
mental health or substance use disorder benefits, such plan or coverage shall ensure that—
‘‘(i) the financial requirements appli6
cable to such mental health or substance
use disorder benefits are no more restrictive than the predominant financial requirements applied to substantially all
medical and surgical benefits covered by
the plan (or coverage), and there are no
separate cost sharing requirements that
are applicable only with respect to mental
health or substance use disorder benefits;
and
‘‘(ii) the treatment limitations applicable to such mental health or substance use
disorder benefits are no more restrictive
than the predominant treatment limitations applied to substantially all medical
and surgical benefits covered by the plan (or coverage) and there are no separate
treatment limitations that are applicable
only with respect to mental health or sub
stance use disorder benefits.
I’m about to throw up…it’s just…we’re screwed….this particular portion lasts from 310 to 352 pages…nice.
Now I’m just going to give you a list of titles as I find them…here we go people (as Glenn Beck says…Grab your duct tape so that your head can be taped together to prevent explosions).
I—SECURE PAYMENTS
FOR STATES AND COUNTIES
CONTAINING FEDERAL LAND, ‘‘TITLE IV—MISCELLANOUS
PROVISIONS (this one kills me a little on the inside), TITLE VII—DISASTER RELIEF
Subtitle A—Heartland and
Hurricane Ike Disaster Relief.
But these are just the big print, there is all sorts of extra stuff hidden in amongst everything. Some of these things include funding of a race track, money going to the production of children’s wooden arrows, the funding of rum makers (talk about driving someone to drink), and cash to the Samoan tuna fish company…I think something that my dad likes to say applies here. Our government is full of givers, they are just givers. Doesn’t it just warm your heart to see what sorts of things they actually passed on Friday the 4th of October? I know I’ve got warm fuzzies.
That’s where we are, this stupid bill was passed, it’s got a load of crap so big in it that the banks are estimating the cost to be around $1.75 Trillion dollars…*sigh* I am beginning to feel like Chicken Little… “Is the sky falling, or is it just me?”
An American Carol: Okay so I sort of feel bad for making you have to tape your head together…especially if you are female, we both know that you are going to be loosing some hair when you finally take off that tape…sorry. Because of my sort of bad feelings I’m going to end this issue on a high note. This weekend I went to the movie theater to see the conservative movie An American Carol. It’s a movie that is based around a Christmas Carol, you know three ghosts and the scrooge? In this case scrooge is Michael Malone (aka Michael Moore) played by Kevin Farley the younger brother of the late Chris Farley (you know “In a VAN down by the RIVER!). He is trying to abolish the fourth of July because well…it is Michael Moore we’re talking about. The ghosts he’s visited by include Kelsie Grammar (sorry I really don’t know how to spell his name) as General Patton-who enjoys slapping Michael, George Washington, and Trace Atkins as the Angel of Death “you freakin’ terd head!” (Sorry that’s my favorite quote!).
This movie was awesome! It was great slapstick humor from the creator of Airplane. You can definitely have a watching someone finally rip on the far leftists in this country while promoting being an American and the American way. What I thought was interesting was that through the entire beginning of the movie and into the middle you will find yourself laughing throughout the movie, however, towards the end of the movie you are just sitting there ignoring the funny parts and thinking “Wait…this is…this is true, that’s the way I feel.” Suddenly the movie becomes something that you wish everyone would go see, because it promotes everything that you are all about. I hope everyone goes and sees this movie, it is a great time and you’ll definitely learn something. Oh-and take one of your liberal friends with you…just to spite them! If you have to watch that stupid Michael Moore movie then they have to watch this! Enjoy it!
To Be Continued: Well I was going to try and get more onto what each candidate believes in, but this economic thing is much more important I think. So in the next issue and on the blog, and probably in your e-mails I’m going to be putting as many links to information as I can. The next issue is going to probably end up revolving around the latest aftermath of this bill…hope you have your duct tape.
Thanks for reading everyone. It’s greatly appreciated. If you have any suggestions as to what I should put in my next issue, if there’s questions you need answered you can e-mail me or just somehow get word to me…comments on the blog will work as well. I’d love to answer any questions you have. See ya next time!
Chene’
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