QFT. Goldberg is an obvious neo-con troll and tool. “Shanda fur de goyim.”

Thank you for your e-mail. I tracked your package and confirmed that the contents of your package do require FDA clearance. Computers, Notebook and Laptop Computers containing CD/DVD drives as components require clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. Delays due to clearance through government agencies are outside of UPS control. As of 12/06, the FDA has cleared the package. Delivery is scheduled for tomorrow. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. I apologize for the delay.”

My best guess is that since said PC is shipping from China, and the CD/DVD drives contain a health hazard (LASER), the FDA gets to make claim checking them on their budget. Fascinating.

With apologies to Mel “20 Commandments” Brooks.

I guess I have to change my mind about that.

I would try to evaluate the prosecution’s case against Knox charitably, but it doesn’t seem like they even bothered to offer one. They basically offered a somewhat weak case against her boyfriend, and then said, “And here is an American whore! Convict her too!” And got a conviction for it. Because apparently Italy has a Mickey Mouse POS legal system, I guess.

I’m not defensive at all, just hoping (in vain it seems) for some consistency on this issue. Also, the cable analogy was not mine but Boyd Durkin’s, he used it to address me, I think it’s off as well. I’m a longtime reader first and probably last time commenter. The continuous knee-jerk slippery slope-ism that I see here with regards to so many issues but specifically the government’s effort towards reform pulled me in but this format and setting only has so much appeal. I’m by no means a pro-gov absolutist but neither am I a free market or libertarian one. As I’ve continued to say on this thread that insurance companies and corporations in general have done just as much to draw honest skepticism as government. Unfortunately that sort of global critique seems to be lacking here. Other than that it’s a great site.

I’ve said many times here I’m a fan of socialized medicine (those that think I’m an idiot have that line memorized I’m sure) but I recently got my own anecdote to tell…blew multiple disks in my back, couldn’t walk for five weeks, and got a six inch hole cut in me (surgery) to fix it. The surgery only came this fast because I got lucky and knew people that knew people and lemme tell you, five weeks ain’t fast to your boss or your body or anyone else. Besides this I went from a reasonably well-to-do engineer to being broke and having a literally three inch stack of bills that even I am having trouble deciphering….and this is after workman’s comp took over most of my actual expenses and I have *spectacular* group insurance.

So, to reiterate my thoughts on the matter, I seriously dislike the health care bill. It neither seriously attempts to implement gov’t run care nor tries to fix the terrible mess we have…which is my primary point: it’s not that the gov’t is going to do it well, just that even they’ll have a hard time making it any worse than it is already, and change is necessary to move to any better system or implementation of the current system, even if the first steps are…well, terrible.

Also I don’t think the monster cable analogy is a good one. I can use a coat hanger and get a good signal compared to that expensive crap, but I can’t get viable health care for $0.29 (which is the point, there currently is NOT alternative choice in the market)…not that I don’t get your point (which I do disagree with), but try fine tuning the reference; you have good arguments usually and that one’s a bit off.

Their is nothing wrong with conflating health care and health insurance. One feeds into the other, hence the conflation. The goal of insurance is to insure individuals health care so I’m not sure what your point is.

Others-
Again what’s with all the one way skepticism? You want to talk Trojan horse how about the one of deregulation and tort reform leading to higher cost and less coverage. I know these proposals aren’t in front of congress but neither is universal health care, I’m just joining in on the extrapolation game. Read the bill? How about demand that we all read the web of legalese that blankets every private insurance contracts (over 300 companies at last count) or the complex billing templates for hospitals? Again, why concentrate your fire solely on the government? Corporations have just as many nasty tendencies as government, spread the anti-bureaucratic angst around why don’t you. Also, I’m not sure how you make legislation dealing with nearly 20% of the economy a ten page brief or even a 110 page one but apparently some people here are sure it can be done.

Also, they think it is telling that Knox’s DNA was all over the apartment where she was living.

The prosecution’s case just seems so odd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDwgJJzQZOo

“48 Hours Mystery” was dedicated to this case tonight on CBS, and it picked apart the case against Amanda and her former boyfriend. They are both completely innocent.

More people need to be upset about this case.

I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine. Pretty interesting. It’s like you drove a par 4, lagged it within a foot, then inexplicably pulled out the 3 wood and hit an old lady two holes over.

Look man, the public option is a Trojan horse to single-payer. An industry with 300 hundred competitors isn’t going to be transformed by one more. Denying this is disingenuous. Advocate single-payer, and I’ll offer an opposing argument. Advocate publicly-funded catastrophic health care, and I’ll say you’re getting close. But step back and recognize that you’ve just diagnosed the problem as long contracts and lobbying and offered as the solution . . . a fucking 1200 page bill.

Also, conflating health care and health insurance won’t score you any points here.

The government’s current idea of saving health care is to force everyone to buy insurance from the health insurance companies. You know, in the name of the free market. So they basically combined the absolute worst qualities of socialism with the absolute worst qualities of an unrestrained free market. And managed to create something far worse than either could ever have hoped to be.

I’d have been happy with the government creating a public option that allows people to buy in and you have to wait a year for it to kick in to prevent people waiting until they get sick to buy it and no other mandates at all. It would’ve been real competition, and if it sucked you still had the options you had before. And it has to pay for itself. Instead our legislators hand us Frankenturd (no relation to Al Franken) and they wonder why people are pissed off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDwgJJzQZOo

“48 Mysterious Hours” was dedicated to this case tonight on CBS, and it picked apart the case against Amanda and her former boyfriend. They are both completely innocent.

More people need to be upset about this case.

So in your illustration, having Satan, who we know intends ruin for all mankind, run an insurance company would be better than a well meaning bureaucrat? I can see you have principles but come on man! You might be jumping the ideological shark on that one.

Other commenters-

Sorry guys, I’m still reading these posts as being harder on government than insurance companies and as I’ve said before they have done just as much to warrant skepticism. Yes, they are not the state and do not have powers of the state but with health care spending now at 18% of GDP and projected to be closer to a third of GDP in the next 25 without reform wouldn’t insurance companies become a de facto part of the government? Why not extrapolate that they, having that much economic clout and only beholden to shareholders would influence legislation that could end in arrests, seizing of property due to non-payment and all the other nasty things implied by the government attempting to offer an OPTION. This scenario fits the narrative I’m hearing just as much as the one staring the government bogeyman/bureaucrat. Lastly, health Care is not cable, department store goods or a car all of which depend on disposable income and are non-essential purchases. To compare health insurance to those sorts of consumer relationships borders on the disingenuous.

So Radley, if not politicians deciding what’s best for the people, what is your alternative? Robot overlords? Aliens?

Why are you so anxious to have someone decide for you? It needs to go the way of kings and dukes.

Human evolution, man. Catch it!

Then you have issues with efficient allocation of capital, Constitution role of government, and corporate statism. So I think it is unfair for anyone to simply state government bad, corporations good. Luckily, no one I know of is saying that.

I sure hear a lot of people saying corporations bad, government good. And that is just silly.