Saturday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikipedia Commons

For all the gun lovers out there

Well, I'm glad it's possible that this arrest was made in good old Tulsa:

Prosecutors filed felony child-neglect charges Thursday against the parents of a mentally-disabled boy who died in an accidental shooting.

Tulsa police said Douglas Allen and Amber Jordan were at home when their 6-year-old son, Jeffery Allen, shot himself in the face Jan. 21. He died the next day.

Jeffery, who had Down syndrome, was playing with the handgun before it discharged, the family told police.

His three siblings were taken from the home in the 800 block of North Troost Avenue and put in protective custody, police said.

My heart just breaks for that little boy.

Insurance

Here's what's wrong with the insurance model when it comes to health care:

I listened to ABC News tell the story about a McDonalds employee in Arkansas who came to the defense of a female customer being attacked in the restaurant by another man. The abuser shot the McDonalds employee in the chest. And now the McDonalds workers comp insurance company has decided that the employee's medical bills of more than $300,000 should not be covered because the employee was not acting during the normal scope of employment. Huh? Apparently, McDonalds thinks employees who see crimes being committed should first remember that flipping burgers and salting fries are their duties, not defending customers.

Absolutely appalling. Beyond appalling.

When are are we going to "get it" that insurance companies make money by denying coverage?

Why Republicans hate the stimulus bill

Here's something I found on Democratic Underground. It's by McCamy Taylor:

Red States pride themselves on keeping their taxes low. They suppress state and local taxes in order to encourage companies and rich folks to relocate to their states. They keep an unhealthy supply of low wage, under educated, uninsured (often undocumented) workers so that there are plenty of maids, nannies, lawn care workers. This also allows the businesses to keep costs down so CEOs have lots of cash to bribe state officials . The side effect is rampant poverty, lack of health insurance, reduced tax base which leads to poor performing schools and other social ills that accompany wealth disparity. They deal with the inevitable consequences of their broken business model, by taking more than their share from the federal government coffers.

That’s right. These self styled, conservative, pull themselves up by their boot strap, we don’t believe in big federal government Republicans rake in more federal dollars than they give back in taxes. They fine tune their social safety net to keep just enough people alive and breathing to fill their federally funded prisons and dig their federally funded roads and pad the payroll on any other pork they can bring home to help deal with the poverty problem that they have deliberately engineered---because there is money to be made in the misfortune of others.

Well, no wonder they are objecting so strenuously to the Stimulus Bill that is going to give some extra federal funds to the other states in this time of recession/Depression. The Red states have worked hard to socially engineer misery so that they can make profit off of it. They do not want to share their good thing with some Johnny-Come-Latelys who just accidentally developed a problem with rising unemployment and poverty.

What's the matter? Didn't their mothers teach them how important it is to share when they were little kids?

Some current health care realities

Folks, this is happening right now:

As economic conditions continue to worsen, the public is increasingly worried about the affordability and availability of care, with many postponing or skipping treatments due to cost in the past year and a notable minority forced into serious financial straits due to medical bills, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s first health care tracking poll of 2009.

In the face of the country’s current economic challenges, the public’s support for health reform remains strong and their trust in President Obama to do the right thing in health care reform is high.

Slightly more than half (53%) of Americans say their household cut back on health care due to cost concerns in the past 12 months. The most common actions reported are relying on home remedies and over-the-counter drugs rather than visiting a doctor (35%) or skipping dental care (34%). Roughly one in four report putting off health care they needed (27%), one in five say they have not filled a prescription (21%), and one in six (15%) say they cut pills in half or skipped doses to make their prescription last longer.

This is from a Kaiser poll and you can read more about it right here.

Sheer meanness

This simply boggles my mind:

Democrats were outraged Wednesday morning when Republican state Sen. Dave Schultheis said he planned to vote against a bill to require HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he didn’t think the Legislature should “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.” The Colorado Springs lawmaker then proceeded to cast the lone vote against SB 179, which passed 32-1 and moves on to the House.

“HIV does not just come from sexual promiscuity, it comes from many other things — contaminated blood, for one,” fired back one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lois Tochtrop, after Schultheis spoke on the Senate floor.

“What this bill will do and why it’s so important to test the woman when she is pregnant — if she is HIV positive, treatment is started immediately to protect the baby, the unborn baby,” the Thornton Democrat, who is also a nurse, said.

So even if it did only come from sexual promiscuity, does that mean we punish the baby?

Also, suppose a woman was a virgin when she got married but her husband had picked up HIV while "sowing his wild oats" before marriage. Do we punish both the mother and the baby for what the father once did and (let's presume) now regrets?

More about "false economy"

I really want you to take a look at an article published in Common Dreams called "Beyond Scarcity: Re-Inventing Wealth in a Progressive World". Here's a point made by the writer that has bothered me for some time now:

While conservatives lavish young talent with communal supports and lucrative careers, we refuse to invest in our own. Progressive foundations are only willing to fund projects that are “accountable” and “cost effective” - understood as “accountable to higher authorities” (the funders) and “minimizing waste” by treating workers as an expendable resource. These ideas should sound familiar. They are foundational concepts in the conservative attack on government and the governing philosophy that dominates the corporate world.

This is no accident.

I’ve often heard George Lakoff speak of the divergent philanthropic strategies of conservatives and progressives. He recounts the tale of a few wealthy conservatives - the same families who funded the vast network of think tanks and media outlets that dominate our culture today - advising progressive philanthropists to apply cost-benefit analysis to their grant offering programs. The covert goal of this suggestion was to undermine efforts to build a progressive infrastructure.

This advice was taken. Progressive foundations today typically offer small grants, with lots of strings attached, and the absolute minimum of resources to hire people to do the work. This ensures that “costs” (aka investing in people) are minimized. It also ensures that no money is available for long-term “big picture” work to advance the movement as a whole.
...
Conservative organizations pay salaries comparable to the private sector to attract talent that might otherwise go the corporate route. Billions have been spent in a multi-decade strategy to create a conservative infrastructure in the form of a network of think tanks that keep conservative talent comfy as people shift from think tank to political office back to think tank.

You know, plenty of people have pointed this out over the past few years. Why aren't progressives getting it?

The weight of the office

Image found here.

About the airline industry

This is very, very troubling:

Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who has been heralded as a hero for successfully landing a crippled US Airways flight in the Hudson River, told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday that the state of the airline industry is in disarray.

"Americans have experienced huge economic difficulties in recent months, but airline employees have been experiencing those challenges and more for eight years," Sullenberger said. "We've been hit by an economic tsunami, September 11, bankruptcies, fluctuating fuel prices, mergers, loss of pensions, and revolving door management teams who have used airline employees as an ATM."
...
Sullenberger expressed concern that the economic decline has hit the airline industry so hard that "the airline piloting profession will not be able to continue to attract the best and the brightest."

"I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps," he said.

You know, I was just a little kid when I first heard the expression "false economy" and it made perfect sense to me back then.

Okay. So we get mediocre pilots from now on who are willing to fly for smaller salaries and benefits than have been traditional in this business. And then what will happen when there's an incident like the one in which Captain Sullenberger saved the day?

I never used to be nervous about flying. But now I'm starting to be.

This breaks my heart!

Okay, folks. Get on out there and adopt a homeless dog. You'll be glad you did.

It'll give you GREAT karma. Trust me, I know these things! :-)

I don't think we can boast

I completely agree:

When it shall be said in any country in the world, my people are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive..., when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.

-- Thomas Paine, 1737-1809

Thomas Paine is, undoubtedly, my favorite of the Founding Fathers. I do wish his wisdom were more valued today.

Something to think about seriously

UPDATE: Here's a comment I found to the above video:

Actually it's a simple case of economics.. if there is no one with jobs, there is no one to buy products and it doesn't matter ONE BIT how much money you save outsourcing to make your product cheaper if there is no one there to BUY IT (ask anyone in consumer products who outsources and ask them how X-Mas went for them this year). If we stop outsourcing it would cost us the same to make products now as it did in 2000.

You know, this is so OBVIOUS. What's so hard to see about it?

Here's Bernice

She's a sweet, dear black lab mix --- probably has some pit bull in her. And she's VERY energetic. The cats of the household are none too pleased but I'm sure everyone will adjust in due course.

Poor girl. Some horrible person dumped her on the turnpike with her half-grown female puppy. The two could have so easily been killed outright or (worse) injured only to die a lingering, painful death. Fortunately, an obviously well brought up young man stopped and rescued the dogs. The above picture was taken at his mother's house.

I'm sure it will not surprise you to learn that I'm simply thrilled to have her!

This is so true

Rejoice with me, people. I have a new dog! Her name is Bernice. I'll show you a picture later. For now, just think about this: