Good Old Neon

I did, and I found one - there were one or two others, but one was a Hannity clip, and the other some high school kid who’s questions were interspersed with stuff like, “what percentage of cream is juice based?” - which, well, I don’t think it counts. The video I did find was produced by How Obama Got Elected, a website/movie devoted to exposing how unfairly Palin was treated by the media, which, in any sane world, was not tough enough. But this is a John Ziegler production, so we’re not dealing in reality here. There’s also a How Obama Got Elected blog, and it publishes the rants of the bi

Palin fans on why they love her... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk&feature=player_embedded#at=73

Since you’re willing to spare no expense keeping terminally ill patients alive, indefinitely, how do we afford ballooning Medicare costs without raising taxes? Health care should be focused on healing the sick and comforting the dying. There comes a point at which terminally ill patients can no longer be helped medically, at that point, we’re expending billions of dollars to buy some time, not medically beneficial care, but time. And when we’ve reached the point at which additional care amounts to little more than time, if further treatment is requested, perhaps it would be best if we were

They're already covered by the Endangered Species Act.

Really, the sky is the limit where using tax payer dollars to keep a single terminally ill patient alive is concerned? Interesting.

Peter Singer wrote an article defending rationing, here is his conclusion - which, I tend to agree with: Rationing public health care limits free choice if private health insurance is prohibited. But many countries combine free national health insurance with optional private insurance. Australia, where I’ve spent most of my life and raised a family, is one. The U.S. could do something similar. This would mean extending Medicare to the entire population, irrespective of age, but without Medicare’s current policy that allows doctors wide latitude in prescribing treatments for eligible patients

Is it? Are you suggesting tax payer money should be used to keep terminally ill patients alive indefinitely? With some of the technology now available, we can keep otherwise failing bodies alive for years and years and years, with zero quality of life – many of these people are on or end up on Medicare – at what point should further treatment be denied? One hundred thousand dollars, one million, ten million - ? - cause, if you think there ought to be an upper limit, you’re in favor of rationing.

I watched 60 Minutes as well, here’s the transcript of the conversation with Dr. Byock: When it comes to expensive, hi-tech treatments with some potential to extend life, there are few limitations. By law, Medicare cannot reject any treatment based upon cost. It will pay $55,000 for patients with advanced breast cancer to receive the chemotherapy drug Avastin, even though it extends life only an average of a month and a half; it will pay $40,000 for a 93-year-old man with terminal cancer to get a surgically implanted defibrillator if he happens to have heart problems too. "I think you

William F. Buckely was conservative, Barry Goldwater was conservative – Sarah Palin is not conservative. Oh, she may identify herself as a conservative, but that does not make her a conservative. She’s more like a cross between a dominionist, a Miss America contestant and an asshole.

Bush deserved just about all the negative attention and criticism he received, and then some. Your continued attempts to equivocate Bush, Obama and Palin, their fans and critics will always fail, as you’re ignoring reality. Again, much of the criticism focused on Obama is entirely fictional and just plain crazy. Contrary to what his critics claim, there exists no evidence to support the death panel charge, or the socialist charge, or the communist charge, or the holocaust equivalency charge or the closet Muslim charge or the hanging out with terrorists charge or the other half dozen or so c

If you think this board is bad, go have a peak at Newsbusters.com – rather than poke fun at Obama and his supporters, they’re calling for all out warfare against the “faggots” and the “libruls” and the “librul faggots” in the media and beyond. I don’t feel the slightest guilt in denigrating the mouth breathing bottom feeders that make up a goodly portion of her base, not even a little. I’m not stroking my ego, I’m just thoroughly pissed that, say, health care reform has turned into a circus partly as a result of Palin’s influence, along with her asshatted supporters. As I was pissed when Bu

Gore’s “fear mongering” is based on actual, like, science, and backed up by pretty much the entire scientific establishment – Palin’s mongering, on the other hand, is entirely fictional – a figment of her cynically calculated imagination – and therein lies the difference. We don’t have to play the bullshit equivalency game here, she is, without a doubt, the dimmest, least qualified political bulb to have graced the nation’s stage since people were shorter and lived near water. I’m not much of an Obama supporter, but since you keep bringing him up, let me remind you that the shit storm w

I get your point – but given the depth of some peoples ignorance, and the way in which they sort of revel in it, take pride in it, I don’t think there’s any real possibility that they’ll suddenly see the light, and allow themselves to be “converted.” So rather than attempt to gain their favor, maybe we should just keep them permanently distracted, with game shows and monster truck rallies and other stuff, not unlike how a snake charmer handles the deadly cobra, who, regardless of the amount of petting, will never allow itself to be domesticated.

Matt (I fucking love you) Taibbi's latest: And Sarah Palin sells copies. She is the country’s first WWE politician — a cartoon combatant who inspires stadiums full of frustrated middle American followers who will cheer for her against whichever villain they trot out, be it Newsweek, Barack Obama, Katie Couric, Steve Schmidt, the Mad Russian, Randy Orton or whoever. Her followers will not know that she is the perfect patsy for our system, designed as it is to channel popular anger in any direction but a useful one, and to keep the public tied up endlessly in pointless media melees over meanin

Gladwell responds to Pinker, Pinker responds to Gladwell. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/books/review/Letters-t-LETSGOTOTHET_LETTERS.html

Some, like their leader, are very dumb. I fucking hate her. I think Matt Taibbi summed up her base, along with a good deal of others, quite correctly when he wrote:

I think all they did was publish his inner dialog.

“Hello Emperor it is my hono…awww hells no, shit. Do you see that chick over there? No no no, not my wife, the blonde – yeah, her. Wait Jesus Christ, don’t stare. Anyways, fuck – look, I slept with her a few times in college and never returned her calls. She was cool, but outside of the sack we had very little in common – plus, she was a bit of a stalker and worse, a Republican so, yeah. Is she looking this way? No, ok, cool, alright so if you don’t mind, I’m just going to bow down in a protective turtle like crouch here a little longer.”

"And so now you've seen what happens when they remove the stick from my ass."

Ohhh…I loved that one as well. Have you read Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us - ? http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312347294 If you haven’t, get to the book store (or library) right now (just don't let your neighbor see you carrying around one of them there books for read'n).

Some of those shows are great fun, but history they ain’t – speculative, maybe. I’ve always wondered why the ghost hunters only hunt at night – wouldn’t it be much easier to explore abandoned prisons and such during the day, or do ghosts only come out after dark?

Seriously, they aired a 2012 program the other night, and rather than focus on the absurdity of it all, they treated the topic as if the end of the Mayan calendar really could spell disaster. I used to love that channel, but like much of what’s aired on cable, it’s becoming more and more sensational.

These are good questions. Rather than attempt to compete with or circumvent the giant assed farms entirely, I wonder if it would make more sense to just regulate the shit out of them. For better or worse (definitely worse), they’re here to stay, so, while they’re here, it might be more feasible to force them to make some drastic changes – and for our part, we might have to be willing to shoulder some of the costs associated with upgrades, regulation, etc.

I would like to think that’s how it will shake down, but those jobs are available now, and few if any Americans want them. According to www.dws.state.nm.us.com – “Nationally, the average wage for this occupation (crop picking) is $8.48 per hour or about $17,630 per year.” That’s more than or equal to McDonald’s starting wage. Now, obviously, McDonalds franchises are a wee bit more common than your average farm, be it small or industrial sized, but the fact remains, most Americans don’t want to do that sort of work, even where and when it’s available. What I know about the history of farming