Why would private insurance companies go out of business, if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.
Either Obama doesn't know the meaning of the word "logical" or he simply can't form a logical argument. Or possibly he can't think logically beyond a single level of complexity. Either way, let's have a look at what's wrong with his argument, which goes like this:
Claim 1: Private health care companies (and presumably their proponents) are worried that a "public option" will put them out of business.
Claim 2: Private health care companies (and presumably their proponents) say the government can't run anything [competently - I assume he means this - ed].
Claim 3: Private insurers (and presumably their proponents) believe they can run their own companies in a competent manner.
Conclusion: If the government can't run anything competently, but the private insurance companies can run their own businesses competently, then the private insurance companies will not be driven out of business by a government run "public option" health care plan.
So, seems logical right? All of us dopes who are worried about the private insurers being run out of business are either stupid or fear mongering. Our worries are illogical!
See, only a dyed-in-the-wool liberal could think that this argument was "logical." The problem, and it's a very simple and obvious problem, is that the government doesn't have to run its businesses competently in order to drive private companies out of business. Heck, government-run businesses don't even have to make as much money as they spend. The key word here is "subsidized!" No matter how poorly the government entities are run, no matter how bad their service, they won't go out of business!
How does one compete with that? Now, in the UK, they have this sort of split up. The wealthy can afford the good stuff, but the rest of the people can only afford the government run crap. And it is total crap. But they don't have a choice. They pay for it, and they might as well use it, since it's "free."
You know, some people will go a long way for anything that is free. I once saw a line that had to be an hour or more long, went around the corner, for a free ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins. Now think about the new public option "Obama Cone" shop that is opening up next door. They'll have "free" ice cream every day. How's the Baskin Robbins supposed to compete with that? The ice cream might suck, but hey, it's free, and you can bet there'd be a line around the corner.
My sixty-something advisor -- a world-renowned Caltech-trained astrophysicist who holds one of the most distinguished professorships in the country -- has started using teeny-bopper "textspeak" in emails to me.
Apparently, the secret to shedding lots of weight quickly is eliminating sugar and starch. I've been struggling to lose weight for months, keeping the total calories down and exercising twice a day, but with very slow, grudging losses. I wasn't being very careful about what I was eating, only how much. As soon as I cut out sugary and starchy foods, the weight started flying off. I've dropped 5.5 lbs in five days, and am hoping this settles into about 2 lbs/week rate of loss.
My diet consists of lean meat, lots of vegetables, some fruit* and nuts, and a small amount of sprouted wheat and dairy. This is very similar to the so-called paleolithic, or caveman, diet. It's touted as an evolutionarily (sp?) preferred way of eating for humans, as opposed to the modern agricultural cereal-based/sugar-laden diet. This is supplemented by modest twice-daily workouts on the treadmill. Starting next week, I'm adding twice-weekly weights workouts to maintain my muscle-mass. (Many years ago, I was a competitive powerlifter, and by some miracle I still have most of that muscle-mass even though I've lifted maybe a week total in the last eight years.) Plus, you lose fat more quickly with resistance-type exercises.
So, if you're struggling to lose that extra flab like I was, consider cutting sugar and starch from the diet and see how that works.
* Naturally-occuring sugar in fruit doesn't seem to have the same effect on the body as refined sugar. Whole fruit is good, juice not so much.
An acquaintance of mine who very much enjoys the fiction of Michael Crichton had this to say about his global warming heresy:
...but when he started with that "we're not warming up" stuff, well... he had to go. It was good he went when he did. He was a good writer. I loved his stuff, but that was just sick.
The eco crowd astounds me sometimes with its inhumanity.
There's a saying people used a lot when I was growing up, which I don't hear anymore: Everyone's entitled to an opinion. Is that even true anymore? Ironically, it seems to be one of the few things we don't get in this age of entitlement.
I'm not even a Christian, but I find it bizarre that people who pooh-pooh the idea that Christ raised the dead or walked on water are totally convinced that a guy who's tossing trillions of dollars into the air is a financial miracle worker.
From "Where Are Liberals Hatched?" by Burt Prelutsky at Big Hollywood
OK, so I am apparently a heretic. Of the approximately twelve-hundred people I know who saw the new Star Trek movie, I am the only one who did not like it at all. I will now expand upon my earlier two-word review and explain why I did not like it.
Star Trek used to be about people. It began on television ostensibly as an action-packed five-year mission to journey to far-off places and encounter new life -- as creator Gene Roddenberry once put it, a sort of Wagon Train to the stars -- but like all enduring fiction, it was really about human relationships. Strip away the alien planets, warp drive, and phasers, and what you had was a story about three men. Deeper than that, what you had was an interplay between three basic aspects of human nature.
Spock, whose alien features and aloofness intrigued audiences, was often seen as the embodiment of rationality. But Spock was much more than that. As half-human and half-Vulcan, he represented the eternal struggle between man's two halves: the animal and the spiritual. Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock with distinction for more than four decades, noted that Spock's popularity took off after an original series episode entitled "Amok Time." In this episode, a virus spreads through the ship causing the crew to lose their inhibitions and behave as though they were drunk. As Spock was forced to contend with his emotions, we realized that his cool and controlled demeanor masked deep sadness and a violent internal struggle. Many who watched the show identified with his pain.
McCoy was perhaps the least complicated of the three. Though he was nominally the curmudgeon, McCoy represented human compassion, warmth, and softness; but he was by no means weak. McCoy possessed competence and intelligence, and when an alien virus threatened to wipe out the crew, he always rose to the occasion. His flaw was a tendency to lose sight of his rationality, and this often placed him at odds with the calm and rational Spock.
Kirk was the glue that bound the three men together. As the alpha of the group he represented essential masculinity: drive, passion, and strength, both physical and emotional. He was the embodiment of command. We admired his ability to weather a crisis. We trusted him to stick it to the villain and save the crew. We admired his loyalty to Starfleet, but much more so his loyalty to his ship, his crew, and especially his friends. So inherent were these qualities to his character, that we could tell instantly, even before the crew, when Kirk had been compromised by an alien being.
For decades, this trifecta served as the basis of the entire Trek universe. What made Trek interesting weren't the plot contrivances that brought these three to any particular place or time, but what they did once faced with their circumstances. Consider the definitive episode, "City on the Edge of Forever." Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are forced into America's past at a time just before the second world war. McCoy arrives first and his presence threatens to set off a chain of events that will ultimately prove to be catastrophic. All three encounter a woman named Edith Keeler who runs a men's shelter. She's compassionate, intelligent, and remarkably insightful. Believing the three men to be homeless, she takes them in and cares for them. As Spock struggles to return them to their own time, Kirk falls in love with Edith. Spock is able to discern future events in the altered timeline and discovers that Edith's pacifism will influence the United States government into delaying entry into the second world war, with a resulting loss of millions of lives. It was not supposed to happen, but McCoy allows it by preventing Edith from being killed in an accident. Spock tells Kirk that Edith must die. Kirk knows, but is tormented by the decision he must make. The defining moment comes at the end when a distraught Kirk prevents McCoy from saving Edith's life, and allows the woman he loves to be killed. Furious, McCoy exclaims, "Do you know what you just did?" Kirk is unable to answer. Spock calmly replies, "He knows, doctor. He knows." Kirk recovers himself, and the three return to the Enterprise and their own time. Spock, despite his emotional reserve, understands the pain of Kirk's sacrifice, and so do we.
This gets to a point that is central to the human experience. Most of us want to know that the pain we experience is endurable. We see the travails of someone like Kirk and that he is able to take this pain and not only endure it, but turn it into strength. The fifth Star Trek movie, though widely considered to be the weakest of the original-cast films, contains one beautiful moment of truth. Spock's long-lost brother, Sybok, who has the ability to pacify people by liberating their pain, tempts Kirk with a life devoid of pain. Kirk refuses. "You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves! I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" We are comforted that it is endurable, and that it is necessary.
These experiences helped shaped what is arguably Kirk's defining characteristic -- his resilience -- which served as the linchpin of the second and third Star Trek movies. Faced with certain death at the hands of fanatical nemeses, Kirk never concedes defeat. Even after his son is murdered in cold blood, he refuses to yield. He may doubt himself momentarily, as he did after destroying the Enterprise in The Search for Spock: "My God, Bones... what have I done?" But McCoy understands Kirk when he observes: "What you had to do. What you always do: turn death into a fighting chance to live." Something he learned from Spock earlier in The Wrath of Khan.
Few can forget Spock's compelling sacrifice to save the crew of the Enterprise in Khan. The titular villain, insane with rage, had suicidally set the Genesis device to go off, knowing it would also destroy Kirk, who was aboard the crippled Enterprise. The only way the Enterprise could achieve warp was for Spock to enter the propulsion chamber and subject himself to lethal doses of radiation while making repairs. It was a logical choice, but few doubt that it was also a choice born out of love for his fellow crewmen, especially Kirk and McCoy. This was followed by the most poignant scene in all of Trekdom, the final moment between Kirk and Spock, separated physically (and perhaps also symbolically) by the glass shield, bidding farewell to one another. The circle is complete when Kirk observes that how we face death is at least as important as how we face life, an idea presaged earlier in the film when we learn of Kirk's unique approach to the no-win situation of the Kobayashi Maru.
Perhaps ironically, the first and most aloof of the Star Trek films touched on the deepest of human yearnings. In this movie, Starfleet is faced with an enormous and implacable entity that is headed straight for Earth. In desperation, the Enterprise is launched to intercept. We learn that the heart of the entity is comprised of an artificial life-form with ties to the Earth. Spock is drawn to it because of its colossal mind of pure logic. He travels from Vulcan to rejoin the crew in its pursuit of the entity, called V'Ger. V'Ger is entirely mechanical in form, but it has acquired so much knowledge that it has become self-aware, and is asking the inevitable questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Is this all that I am? We learn, to our astonishment, that this monumental intelligence is returning to Earth in search of its creator, desperate for a purpose. It is fitting that of all the crew, Spock -- who represents duality and inner struggle -- is most drawn to V'Ger. In the end, the creator and the created merge to form something far beyond our comprehension; as McCoy observes, perhaps the next step in our own evolution. This story spoke to the deepest of human needs: to feel connected, to know who we are and why we're here.
Star Trek has endured for over four decades, from campy television to sweeping cinema, because of its unique ability to address the human condition, to speak to our fears and weaknesses, to our hopes and strengths, and to our need for connection with one another. Everything we admired about Trek was lovingly packaged with a veneer of science fiction, and rounded out with action, excitement, and humor. We enjoyed the cultural affectations of Scotty and Chekov, the feminine allure of Uhura, and the swashbuckling soul of Sulu. We were entertained by the strange planet surfaces, the scanty female costumes, exotic villains, and especially the patented Captain Kirk flying kick. But that's never what Star Trek was really about. It was always about the human condition, and precious little of that was apparent JJ Abram's reboot of Star Trek.
As a hardcore Trekkie, I was compelled to see the new film for no other reason than it bore the Star Trek name. Yet I am not a purist: I don't care if the phasers are set to the wrong frequency or if the Jefferies tubes are the wrong diameter. I only hoped for the spirit of the old Trek. But I was sorely disappointed. I realize the limitations imposed on reintroducing beloved characters in just two hours, so my expectations were modest: I wanted early incarnations of my favorite characters and a reasonably compelling story. What I got were hollow caricatures with familiar affectations draped over a bare thread of a story. Oh, look, there's young Kirk! What a rebel, that Kirk, for stealing a car and driving it off a cliff. Wow, doesn't that Heroes guy look just like Spock? And Scotty's still got his funny accent!
The most developed character was Spock. We witness the torment of his youth, the struggle with his dual nature, and his love for his mother, which he was regrettably never able to express as a grown Vulcan. There are hints at the Kolinahr, the final purging of all emotion, which he was shown to have eschewed in the first Star Trek movie. It is appropriate that Spock is still not in full control of his emotions as a young Starfleet officer, as when he lashes out physically at a young Kirk, but *** spoiler alert*** his deliberate relationship with Uhura is inexplicable and, in my mind, bordered on character rape. *** end spoiler ***
It's unfortunate that Uhura, who was given scant screen time in the series and movies, was so criminally underdeveloped in the reboot. What I remember most of Uhura from the original series was her femininity and allure. It made her defiance in episodes like "Space Seed" and "Mirror, Mirror" all the more exciting. Like most of the Star Trek characters, you realized that there was much more to her than what you saw. But the new Uhura is as bland as a space-turnip. Not only are her characteristic curves missing (the new Uhura reminded me of an extra-long hot dog in a Starfleet uniform), but her allure and strength seemed absent as well. Yes, she was soft and warm, but irritatingly so, and this was offset by occasional bursts of spunkiness that seemed out of character.
Kirk failed to move me in the least. I was hoping for some hint at his torment at the hands of his academy nemesis, Finnegan, but instead the defining moment of his academy days is the reprimand for his solution to the Kobayashi Maru test. He is not portrayed as having much discipline or ability to follow, which is essential to command. And, as with most male characters these days, he seemed more boy than man.
The portrayal of McCoy (by Eomer!) was probably the most faithful, but I missed his role as Kirk's conscience.
Simon Pegg (whom I love) hammed it up as Scotty in a manic, campy homage, but I prefer the serious and slightly more stolid old Scotty, who was practically wedded to his engines.
The plot -- what there was of it -- was not compelling. I dislike intensely what was done with the timeline, which essentially wiped out decades of history in the first two Star Trek series and the subsequent movies. No more will be said about this, lest I give away too much. Not that there is much to give away, because it hinges on the most boring and ill-motivated Trek villain since Malcom McDowell scampered around in his black pajamas trying to get back into the Nexus. Face tattoos do not a scary villain make. Nor do shaved heads. Nero and his henchmen looked like sulky eastern European skinheads, who as teenagers played vampire LARPs and listened to gloomy music. Nero lacked passion; his motivation was vague and unconvincing, and his spaceship reminded me of giant backwards-flying space calamari.
Technical aspects of the film were unremarkable. The CGI was good, but nothing to distinguish it from any other sci-fi movie. The soundtrack was utterly forgettable, in stark contrast with earlier Trek films*. And the camera work made me feel like I was suffering from mal de debarquement syndrome when I left the theater.
All in all, a disappointing experience, and nothing of the spirit of the old Trek I had hoped for.
This movie has one distinction that the rest of the Trek movies do not: it will be the only one that will not find its way into my DVD collection.
* I cannot, for the life of me, remember a single note from the soundtrack of the new Star Trek movie.
This, my friends, is how it used to be:
[BTW, I changed the "original" title of this post -- in my haste to publish, I wrote it incorrectly.]
Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? - John Wayne
Fast Fudge Facts
We're brother (Carnaby) and sister (Stickwick). We're American, but grew up in a foreign country.
We're Christian. We're capitalists. We're gun nuts. We're nerds. One of us is an aerospace engineer, the other is an astrophysicist.
We both use Linux (Gentoo and Red Hat). We're both happily married. We're both married to foreigners. One of us has children, the other has cats.
