Come October, your revered blog host will be making his first real foray deep into (the heart of...!)
Yep... pretty excited!
Usually Mary and I would be doing our couples thing with ODM and DT, but due to "circumstances beyond our control" we'll be giving our beloved Key West a pass in order to visit my good buddy Jon in...
(The son of a bitch has a penthouse apartment downtown! Woo-hoo!)
(And yeah... of course he has a pool!)
Also gonna be spending a couple nights in...
Oh, well... decisions, decision...
Anyway, folks... enough pre-vacation banter... on to the newsbites!
(Found... as always... within the comments section.)
5 comments:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/08/27/world/asia/27reuters-afghanistan-shooting.html?_r=2&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065
A rogue Afghan soldier shot dead two U.S. troops in east Afghanistan on Monday, the NATO-led coalition said, the latest in a series of insider killings...
* HAPPY FUCKING MONDAY...
* AND, YEAH... AT THIS POINT YOU'RE GOD-DAMNED FUCKING RIGHT THAT I *BLAME* BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!
* HEY... THE SON OF A BITCH WAS SO EAGER TO GIVE HIMSELF "CREDIT" FOR HIS "BOLD" DECISION TO FINALLY (AFTER JERKING OFF FOR SEVEN MONTHS) "GET" BIN LADEN... THEN HE CAN DAMN WELL SHOULDER THE BLAME FOR ALL THESE AMERICANS BEING MURDERED IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER *HIS* WATCH...!
The deaths in Laghman province...
* THE ***MURDERS!***
* FRIGGIN' SCUMBAGS AT THE NYT...
[The murders] brought to 12 the number of foreign soldiers killed this month...
* NOTICE. "FOREIGN" SOLDERS. DELIBERATELY REFUSING TO SPECIFY AMERICANS vs. NON-AMERICANS. AGAIN... SCUMBAGS AT THE NYT.
...prompting NATO to increase security against insider attacks...
* NATO, HUH? WE ARE FUCKING NATO! AGAIN... LET'S RECAP... AN AFGHAN SOLDIER SHOT TWO U.S. SOLDERS DEAD! U.S. SOLDIERS!
* AS FOR "INCREASED SECURITY," ISN'T "SECURITY" THE ENTIRE REASON FOR OUR PRESENSE IN AFGHANISTAN IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
* WHAT A FUCKING SICK, SAD, PATHETIC JOKE...
[These most recent murders of our soldiers] come a week after U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey visited Kabul to talk about rogue shootings and urge Afghan officials to take tougher preventative action.
* TO "TALK." HOW'D THAT WORK OUT? NOT SO WELL, APPARENTLY. SO MUCH FOR "URGING" AFGHAN OFFICIALS TO TAKE "TOUGHER" PREVENTIVE ACTIONS.
* FOLKS... YOU UNDERSTAND... WE'RE *TRAINING* THESE BASTARDS!
There have been 33 insider attacks so far this year that have led to 42 coalition deaths. That is a sharp increase from 2011, when, during the whole year, 35 coalition troops were killed in such attacks, 24 of whom were American.
* FOLKS. DISECT THAT PARAGRAPH. IF THE NYT COULD TELL US HOW MANY AMERICANS WERE MURDERED LAST YEAR (THE THIRD YEAR OF OBAMA'S PRESIDENCY) WHY MUDDY THE WATERS BY REFUSING TO IDENTIFY - SPECIFICALLY - THE NUMBER OF AMERICANS MURDERED THIS YEAR (THE FOURTH YEAR OF OBAMA'S PRESIDENCY)?
* FOLKS... I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT "TEAM" (DEM OR GOP) YOU "ROOT" FOR. THIS REPORTING IS DISGUSTING. IT'S OBVIOUSLY WRITTEN/EDITED SO AS TO PROVIDE AS MUCH COVER AS THE TIMES CAN GET AWAY WITH GIVING TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.
* FOLKS... IMAGINE THIS WAS HAPPENING DURING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION! HELL... YOU DON'T HAVE TO! YOU ALL REMEMBER HOW BUSH WAS PERSONALLY BLAMED FOR EVERY DISASTER!
* YEAH... I'M ANGRY. I'M BITTER. I'M PISSED! THIS SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING! AMERICANS SHOULDN'T BE BEING MURDERED BY THE SCORE IN AFGHANISTAN IN 2012!
http://news.yahoo.com/17-afghans-beheaded-insurgent-attack-party-105555181.html
Insurgents beheaded 17 civilians in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan, apparently because they attended a dance party that flouted the extreme brand of Islam embraced by the militants, officials said Monday.
* UH... UMM... IF IT'S A "TALIBAN-CONTROLLED" AREA THEN IT'S NOT "INSURGENTS" DOING THE BEHEADING - IT'S THE "LOCAL AUTHORITIES!"
* FOLKS... WE'VE BEEN IN AFGHANISTAN FOR ELEVEN YEARS... (*PAUSE*)... AND WE'RE STILL READING ABOUT "TALIBAN-CONTROLLED" AREAS! WHAT'S THAT FRIGGIN' TELL YA...?!?!
The killings, in a district where U.S. Marines have battled the Taliban for years, were a reminder of how much power the insurgent group still wields in the south — particularly as international forces draw down and hand areas over to Afghan forces.
* EVERY... FUCKING... AMERICAN... DEATH... IN AFGHANISTAN SINCE THE INSTALLATION OF KARZAI HAS BEEN A WASTE.
* EVERY... FUCKING... AMERICAN... MAIMED, CRIPPLED, DEFORMED, WOUNDED SINCE THE INSTALLATION OF KARZAI HAS SACRIFICED IN VAIN. I'M SORRY... BUT IT'S TRUE. THIS "WAR" HAS BECOME A FUCKING DISASTER.
The victims were part of a large group that had gathered late Sunday in Helmand province's Musa Qala district for a celebration involving music and dancing, said district government chief Neyamatullah Khan. He said the Taliban slaughtered them to show their disapproval of the event.
All of the bodies were decapitated but it was not clear if they had been shot first, said provincial government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi.
* THESE ARE THE FRIGGIN' ANIMALS WE'RE DEALING WITH.
Information was only trickling out slowly because the area where the killings occurred is largely Taliban controlled, Khan said. The Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan could not be reached for comment.
* THE... TALIBAN... SPOKESMAN...?!?! THE TALIBAN SPOKESMAN FOR "SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN...?!?!" FOLKS... IT'S BEEN 11 FUCKING YEARS...!!! WE WON WW-2 IN UNDER FOUR AND AFTER THAT THERE WERE NO MORE "NAZI SPOKESMEN" OR "ITALIAN FASCIST SPOKESMEN" OR "IMPERIAL JAPANESE SPOKESMEN REPORTING TO GENERAL TOJO!"
* JEEZUS... FRIGGIN... CHRIST...!!!
@ THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358404577605233123916096.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
No one did more to sell ObamaCare than Peter Orszag, the former White House budget director who claimed during 2009-2010 that as much as a third of health spending is "waste" that doesn't improve outcomes.
But now that he's repaired to Wall Street and writes an online column, he's deriding the idea that better incentives can reduce costs and sneering at the "health-care competition tooth fairy."
So get a load of Mr. Orszag's alternative: The Independent Payment Advisory Board composed of 15 [appointed members] who will rule over U.S. health care.
Who are these "Orszag 15?"
Well, nobody knows.
The board was supposed to be up and running by the end of September, but the White House is avoiding naming names for Senate confirmation until after the election.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
No one knows, either, what this group will propose, but that too is part of the grand Orszag plan.
ObamaCare included dozens of speculative pilot programs that are supposed to make health-care delivery and business models less wasteful. Mr. Orszag's payment board is then supposed to apply the programs that "work" to all of U.S. medicine through regulation, without Congressional consent or legal appeal.
([Never mind that] Mr. Orszag's style of central planning — in what was already the heaviest regulated U.S. industry before ObamaCare — has failed over and over again in Medicare since the creation of the fiat pricing fee schedule in the 1980s.)
Meanwhile, another ObamaCare godfather, the surgeon and influential New Yorker magazine writer Atul Gawande, has further instructions for the medical masses, this time from — believe it or not — the Cheesecake Factory; [yes,] the chain restaurant.
Dr. Gawande's point is that medicine would function better if care were delivered by huge health systems that can achieve economies of scale, like commercial kitchens. Care ought to be standardized like preparing a side of beef, with a "single default way" to perform each treatment supposedly based on evidence, with little room for personalization.
No doubt health care could learn a lot about efficiency from a lot of industries, but to understand the core problem with assembly-line medicine, recall that ObamaCare actively promotes medical corporatism. The reason isn't to encourage business efficiency but for political control. Liberals believe in health-care consolidation because fewer giant corporations are easier for Mr. Orszag's central committee to control, and more amenable to its orders.
Thanks to ObamaCare, Cheesecake Factory medicine is already becoming a reality.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
Irving Levin Associates, a research firm that tracks health-care mergers and acquisitions, reports that M&A hit $61.2 billion in the second quarter and the highest annual levels since the 1990s.
Three of five hospitals now belong to a parent company's network, while more than half of physicians are employed by hospitals or systems, not independent practitioners.
On the insurer side, too, incumbents are demolishing their smaller rivals. Aetna is buying Coventry Health Care, a company that administers Medicare and Medicaid benefits, for $5.6 billion. WellPoint made the same play in acquiring Amerigroup for $5 billion in July, while last October Cigna laid out $3.8 billion for HealthSpring.
This bureaucratization will amplify everything patients and businesses despise about the current system: the unintelligible $103,234.61 bill for a turned ankle, the doctor who can't take a phone call because of how the hospital schedules shift.
Why aren't mom's eight specialists aware of each other's existence? Why is health care mostly conducted via a pad and pen, and beepers and fax machines, in the iPhone era? Why are there so few geriatricians when the first wave of Baby Boomers is already turning 65? Why is it still so hard to find usable information about quality and prices?
The reason isn't a lack of hospital administrators or technocratic experts. More often than not it's that patients aren't the true consumers. The government is, and medical providers inevitably serve the paymaster.
(*NOD*)
The immediate danger of the Orszag-Gawande-Obama vision is that layer on layer of new regulation will lock in less-than-best practices. This makes the status quo worse, because too-big-to-fail oligopolists have less incentive to innovate to reduce costs and improve quality.
The longer-run danger is that Mr. Orszag's cost board starts to decide what types of care "work" for society at large and thus what individual patients are allowed to receive. One way or another, health costs must come down. And if Mr. Ryan's market proposal is rejected, then government a la Orszag will do it by brute political force.
A murderer's row of liberal health-care gurus — Zeke Emanuel, Neera Tanden, Don Berwick, David Cutler, Uwe Reinhardt, Steve Shortell, Mr. Orszag, many others — recently acknowledged as much in the New England Journal of Medicine. They conceded that "health costs remain a major challenge" despite ObamaCare.
(That would have been nice to know in, oh, 2009 or 2010.)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Anyhow, their big idea is the very old idea of price controls that are "binding on all payers and providers," much as post-RomneyCare Massachusetts is already doing. When that strategy fails as it always has, and the public denies further tax increases, the Orszag payment board will then start to ration or prohibit access to medical resources that it decides aren't worth the expense.
(*NOD*)
* YEP. IT'S INEVITABLE.
These political choices will be unpopular and even deadly, which is why Mr. Orszag worked so hard to insulate his payment board from oversight or accountability. Congress can only reject the board's decisions if it substitutes something else that reduces costs by as much.
* UNCONSTITUTIONAL. (*SHRUG*) CONGRESS CAN'T BIND ITS OWN POWERS THIS WAY. YES, THEY CAN REFUSE TO EXERCISE THEIR POWERS... BUT THIS LEGISLATIVE DICTATE CAN'T BIND CONGRESS.
More amazing still, only a minority of the board can be "directly involved" in the provision of health care.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
This latter provision is supposed to prevent the alleged conflicts of interest that come from knowing something about how health care is provided in the real world.
(*SNORT*)
What it reveals instead is that this board isn't about medical quality at all. It is purely a balance-sheet exercise to make sure that the Orszag-Obama agenda of top-down health care can't be undone by something as crude as democratic consent.
The Orszags of the world ultimately have what President Obama would call an "ideological" preference for coercion over individual choice. They want to impose the unilateral decisions of the state over those of millions of Americans.
The larger irony is that ObamaCare's architects claim that all of this will lead to more equity in the delivery of medical services, but in practice it will have the opposite effect. Americans of even middle-class means will not tolerate being told they cannot spend their own money to improve their own health or save the lives of their loved ones, so under price-controlled ObamaCare we will quickly see the emergence of a two- or even three-tier system outside the reach of government.
(*SIGH*) (*SAD NOD*)
* I WAS NOTING THIS JUST THE OTHER DAY...
(*PURSED LIPS*)
The affluent will get their own special level of service. Certainly Mr. Orszag, a vice chairman of corporate and investment banking at Citigroup, won't be getting treatment at some municipal hospital.
(*LIPS REMAIN PURSED*)
The Cheesecake Factory is a great place to eat... but you probably wouldn't want to be operated on there — especially if it's run by the government.
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