Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
And man, is The Holy One ever ticked. Mister Cool is really wantin’ to lay down the hurt. Again.
In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to challenge industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”
Rather than trying to curb costs and help patients, he said, the industry is busy “figuring out how to avoid covering people.”
“And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our antitrust laws,” he said, “a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing.”
The president’s attack underscores the sharp break between the White House and the insurance industry as the health care debate moves closer to a climax. When Mr. Obama took office, he and his advisers had hoped to keep insurers at the table to forge a consensus. But as the months passed, the strains grew — until this past week, when industry-financed studies attacking the Democratic plan signaled an open rupture.
Hat tip to Neo-Neocon, who adroitly summarizes the state of things as they are…
I can’t recall this level of invective from any American president in my lifetime…Everybody’s a liar except him. [emphasis mine]
I’d like to take this opportunity to reprint Item #9 from the list of ways To Motivate Large Numbers of People To Do a Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating the Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On:
Inject a Snidely Whiplash Into the Situation, Even When There Isn’t One
People have an ingrained instinct to fight each other. They tire quickly of fighting forces of nature, such as the human propensity to spend unearned money, gravity, inertia, or anything of the like. Those things are timeless and inexhaustible. But a human opponent is exhaustible.
You don’t need to offer a possibility of victory, in order to fire up the collective adrenaline of a group of ignoramuses. To simply roll out a communication medium by which the many can convey their dislike of a few, or of a one, is sufficient. In fact, you’ll find it is quite adequate to communicate the message only to that one guy! Letter-writing campaigns — they are nothing more, than this. Just a coordinated attack to blitz some dirty so-and-so with a bunch of boilerplate e-mails…that say nothing more than that the dirty so-and-so is a dirty so-and-so. From a bunch of malcontents who already are on record thinking the dirty so-and-so is a dirty so-and-so. And the dirty so-and-so knows it, and the malcontents are already perfectly aware of that. Purely redundant hustle-and-bustle, in other words. This is far more inspirational to people than you might initially think.
It’s a sad thing about people. If they find someone needs help, they’re moderately aroused into action to make sure that person gets help. But if they catch wind that a dirty rotten so-and-so has gotten away with shenanigans, they feel much more passion about setting things “right.” Overall they’re in a much bigger hurry to inflict pain than to offer aid and assistance where it’s needed.
This is most true of the people who are most energized about conveying the opposite impression. Of all our neighbors, the cruelest and meanest are the ones with all the theatrical “compassion.”
Says more about the rest of us than it does about Obama.
But it might be a productive exercise to cast a jaundiced eye toward whatever politician makes a speech, a year, or an entire career out of churning up hatred. There are people overseas who really want to kill us. Do they have to earn “profits” or “bonuses” before Our Holy President can work up some lathery emotion against them for a change?
Hey…maybe that’s the solution to the problem. Someone get the word to the White House that Al Qaeda is making a profit. And they’re receiving bonuses.
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“Hey…maybe that’s the solution to the problem. Someone get the word to the White House that Al Qaeda is making a profit. ”
Ask and you’ll shall recieve –
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/19/taliban-build-multi-million-dollar-insurgent-operation/
No word yet on how Obama plans on taxing them.
- tim | 10/19/2009 @ 12:35“you’ll shall”
WTF tim.
- tim | 10/19/2009 @ 12:36So, do you think Congress will hold the same glorious show trials they held for the oil executives when stupid congressional and presidential policies caused gasoline prices to spike? Those evil oil producing capitalists also made profits while WE THE PEOPLE were forking over $4.00 per gallon . . . because of idiot politicians who are beholden to the environmental lobby – and other special interests.
- sonofsheldon | 10/19/2009 @ 16:04I suppose I should have been more specific in my comment. The stars of the new show trials would be insurance company executives.
- sonofsheldon | 10/19/2009 @ 18:22