AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

I must be missing something, maybe several somethings. Why do so many of my peers & friends detest and oppose the Affordable Care Act? Many people who are either Medicare eligible or federal retirees or both have, if they will admit it, benefited from aspects of “socialized medicine” for significant portions of their professional lives. Yet they now lambast the decisions taken by the country in 2009 and subsequently to extend the availabililty of medical care to large portions of the populace. Why? I do regretfully understand the position taken by some in the 20s – 30s age groups who prefer to roll the dice on their current state of good health and avoid the cost of insuring that it continues. That is and should be their “right”, perhaps. Except that the whole concept of insurance has always been that resources are produced by large portions of a population for concentrated use by isolated individuals when unplanned needs arose. And while a person may choose to go without automobile insurance coverages that address replacement or repair of their car if damaged, they cannot likewise decline liability coverages for dealing with what happens if their wreck damages someone else’s car and injures others. In this vein, I could agree with the libertarians that people should be free to pay or not pay for health insurance. If . . . and only if the hospitals and “the people” were free to decline to treat the uninsured. I also am totally missing the argument in the news the last few days that the ACA represents such a huge “tax”. Which specific taxes are set to rise?? And by how much? The “penalty” or “tax” for those who opt out of the “mandatory” coverage would affect a fairly small segment of the population. But what other taxes besides that will be exploding?

FATHER'S DAY Just glad that my first two kids have memories of Grandpa Delbert. I know he's looking down proud of all 7+ great grandkids (from our progeny) and the other "greats" from my sibs. Fond memories of both Dad and Mom on this Father's Day.

Austin leads nation in job creation since 2004, data show

Austin leads nation in job creation since 2004, data show

I just needed to save this somewhere so I could get to it to show my class today.

Commercials on TV

As a reasonably well-educated man who has lived and observed life for several decades, I am puzzled. What puzzles me is the thinking behind many of today's television commercials. The ones that annoy me the most are those that tell some alleged memorable or supposedly amusing story but that have little or no relation to the product they are selling. Even if I get or appreciate the vignette or story, what makes the creators of these commercials think I will transfer those warm and fuzzy feelings to their product? Or that I will even mentally connect the point of the commercial to their product,their company? "Ah yes, I just love that commercial about the dancing squirrels. But what are they selling?"

Analogies to describe Republican schemes

For various reasons I have taken most of this past semester off from Blogging. I'm not positive I want to dive back into the deep end of the pool. But we'll dabble a little during this "downtime" and see how it goes.
I've been puzzled by the way the media and the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have avoided challenging Republicans on some rather outlandish demands they have made every since they retook the House of Representatives a year ago and retain their stranglehold on the Senate by using Senate rules to insist on super majorities in that chamber. It got me thinking if I could find analogies that would highlight this in different ways. Here's the first effort.
1. Analogy: for those who signed onto Grover Norquist’s “Pledge”.
It’s like the Republican football team takes the field and at the coin toss declares to the referees (media?) that they will only play if everyone agrees that their end of the field, from the 30 yr. line, through the “Red Zone” and their goal line and end zone are all off-limits. They wish to play only from the 30 yr. line to the other end of the field. On any occasion where play penetrates their imaginary new goal, even though it’s not the actual goalline, they will leave the playing field (mostly by invoking Senate filibusters and “super-majority” requirements) until the situation is rectified.
What’s incredible is that the opposing team (Democrats) would agree to continue playing, to give in to these demands.

Geographic Cure?

At the conclusion of this unending burning summer, I'm tempted to consider relocating to the Pacific Northwest. Such a move would solve Global Warming's impact on us, plus put some distance between us and Rick Perry. Where's the down side in this?

Congressional Debt Crisis vs State-sponsored Gambling

Will anyone else note the odd juxtaposition of tonight's "60 Minutes" segment on state-sponsored gambling the very weekend Congress is imploding? We citizens have the budget crisis that we do because we choose to. We throw away resources on gambling, legal and not, state-sponsored and not, because we choose to. We don't pay the cost of having a 21st century government -- but instead borrow up to 40% of those costs -- because we choose to. We could tax ourselves adequately to pay for everything, as we proved in 1998-1999, if we wanted to. But we just don't want to. We want to hit the big payout. We'd like to fund gov't with OPM - (Other People's Money).