Violence and American Politics

The left’s fondness for violence largely went away in the early ’70s, with the demise of the Weathermen and similar groups. The right, on the other hand, continues to foster violence at its fringe, by word and deed. “Second amendment remedies,” “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” “Don’t retreat, reload,” etc. These are incitements. And the right’s obsession with guns makes it easy for nutjobs like this Arizona shooter to get them. The NRA continues to chip away at all efforts at reasonable limits on gun ownership and where they can be carried. Our craven legislatures are entirely complicit in this, as is the current supreme court. But “guns everywhere, all the time” is definitely a right wing obsession, not a lefty one.

All the hand-wringing about not blaming the politicians for the acts of a mentally ill man is specious. It’s pretty obvious where the blame lies. Right wingers who want to say “enforce the laws” as the solution to incidents like this need to explain what law and what enforcement would prevent this kind of occurrence.

We live in one of the most violent countries in the developed world. And it’s not because every one goes around with a loaded handgun in the other rich nations.

Safari Photos

Pictures are here.

Annals of insane medical service pricing

I recently had back surgery for a herniated disk. The procedure was pretty high-tech - insertion of a series of ever-larger tubes to create a roughly 1/2" hole, through which the surgeon could get in to my spinal area to clean up the bits of disk and disk gel that were pressing on my sciatic nerve. Time from walking in the front door of the surgery center to getting in the car to go home: under 7 hours. The results have been great - no pain at all for the first three weeks, then some minor nerve irritation as the steroids have worn off. The doc promises that this will go away, which it's already started to do.

As to the title of this post: the outpatient facility (Sam Ramon Surgery Center) is out-of-network. Lucky for me, I have great medical coverage through my employer. But being out of network means that we get billed at the full rate - not a contracted or negotiated rate. The "facility fee" for those 7 hours? Guess, then scroll down.

















$85,000.

I don't know what to say about this except that it's insane. It's obviously completely unrelated to the actual cost of providing the facility to do the procedure or to the skill of the people involved. (Note that the surgeon's fee was separate.) The usual explanation for insane hospital charges is that they have to cover unreimbursed ER and medicaid care. That doesn't apply to an outpatient clinic. They get paid for everything.

This is not the fault of any "greedy insurer". It's the greedy medical-industrial complex...

The only way to make politics tolerable is to watch it unfold on Comedy Central

That is all...

Smedley Butler for President (in 2016)

From Wikipedia

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
...
He became widely-known for his outspoken lectures against war profiteering, U.S. military adventurism and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the United States. In addition to his speeches to pacifist groups, from 1935 to 1937 he served as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism.[49][50] In 1935 he wrote the exposé War Is a Racket, a trenchant condemnation of the profit motive behind warfare. [ Smedley_Butler]

Cutest Name for a Bail Bondsman

Seen near Broadway and 19th in Oakland.

US Chamber of Commerce makes clear where it stands

The headline yesterday said "Chamber's Donohue Says Obama's Rules Suffocating U.S.".

It's an interesting word choice, since one of the highlighted regulations is a tightening of the ground level ozone standard. High in the stratosphere, ozone is our main natural UV protection. At ground level it causes asthma and other respiratory problems. From the EPA's summary: "The proposal to strengthen the primary standard places more weight on key scientific and technical information, including epidemiological studies, human clinical studies showing effects in healthy adults at 0.060 ppm, and results of EPA’s exposure and risk assessment."

Another highlighted Chamber complaint is about tighter regulation of cement plants. Here's the EPA's news release on the regulation: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing final rules that will protect Americans’ health by cutting emissions of mercury, particle pollution and other harmful pollutants from Portland cement manufacturing, the third-largest source of mercury air emissions in the United States. The rules are expected to yield $7 to $19 in public health benefits for every dollar in costs. Mercury can damage children’s developing brains, and particle pollution is linked to a wide variety of serious health effects, including aggravated asthma, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, and premature death in people with heart and lung disease."

So there's your US Chamber of Commerce: fighting the good fight for more asthma, heart attacks and brain damage.