What It Islam?

Finding the Middle East more interesting these days? Here is a resource with some concise background information on Islam and this region. You can read about that here.

An Instructive Video

Health Care, again

Universal Health Care. Sounds like a noble undertaking, yes? Health care is a constitutionally mandated "right" for every American. Wonderful.
A Umiversity of Minnesota professor and expert on health care economics testified before the House subcommittee on health Tuesday, and here's the summary of his research:

To achieve a 30% net reduction of the uninsured, it will cost taxpayers about $1.3 Trillion over the next 10 years.
To achieve a 70% net reduction of the uninsured, it will cost taxpayers about $2.7 Trillion over the next 10 years.
To achieve a 100% net reduction of the uninsured, it will cost taxpayers about $4 Trillion over the next 10 years.

So, let's do a little bit of math here.
In 2010, there Census estimates there will be about 310.2 million people in the US. By 2020 (let's call that the end of the 10 year period), Census estimates about 341.4 million people.
According the Census data, the US averages about 2.6 people per household. I want to use Households as the relevant statistic, because most of us live in two income families, or at least the insurance we pay for covers a family and not just a single person.
So, extrapolating on the 2.6 people per household, let's say that in 2010 there will be somewhere north of 119.3 million households and in 2020 there will be about 131.3 million.

Let's take the $4 Trillion number, so we make sure and cover all of the presently uninsured, which is, of course, the goal of Universal Health Care.
We'll assume (simplistically, for the sake of the math) that the $4T will be spread evenly over the 10 year period. That equals $400B/yr.
Divide $400B by the number of households and you get this:
2010: $400B / 119.3M = $3352/household
2020: $400B / 131.3M = $3046/household

That number you're looking at is the amount of additional tax burden per household. The number obviously drops slightly each of the 10 years because the population grows but we're assuming the annual expenditure on health care remains constant. Note that in reality, this will not be the case. In actual fact, the initial (start-up) costs will be high for a few years, then presumably drop somewhat, but continue to rise indefinitely over time (via inflation, if nothing else, but there are many other factors that will cause cost increases).

But again for simplicity, let's stick with the numbers as figured. For comparison sake, I pay premiums to my company's HMO plan of $3480/yr. For an apples to apples comparison (tax increase vs. current premiums paid), it's a net decrease in my out of pocket cost since presumably my deductibles/coinsurance/etc would be comparable. Great!

Or...is it great? What benefit do I get from the $3352 increase in my tax bill?
That's a great questions, Chris, I'm glad you asked.

Again per the good Doctor from Minnesota:

That 4 trillion estimate over 10 years assumes a public option plan with Bronze, Silver and Gold levels in the proposed insurance exchange with a subsidy for premium support that is income-adjusted and calibrated for assistance at the Silver level. The Silver level is equivalent of PPO plan with medium levels of generosity, something with 15% coinsurance rate, manageable copays and average level of access to physicians and hospitals. We accounted for the public plan being reimbursed at 10% above Medicare reimbursement, which is also 10% below commercial insurance premiums.

So. "Medium levels of generosity" = no better than average health care provided. "Average level of access" to doctors. "Manageable copays". A 15% coinsurance rate (mine is 10%, btw). So essentially no better service than what I'm getting now, for roughly the same out of pocket. Yet the health providers are getting 10% less than they do now. If you were asked to do the same job you do now, but take a 10% pay cut, how long do you think you'd stick around in that job? Now do you see why Great Britain has a shortage of doctors (especially specialists)? Oh yeah, one more thing: the 10% above Medicare reimbursement amount? That's not set in stone - that's just the initial amount. Anyone else want to bet that as costs rise (and they will), the first thing Your Government Health Insurer will do is reduce payout rates to providers? Fewer doctors available means that "average level of access" becomes a "poor level of access" over time.

So if I personally am not getting a better deal with my shiny new Gov't Health Care Plan, surely the uninsured are getting help! Those poor people! That was a stated goal of Universal Health Care, was it not?
Assume each year for the 10 year period, 1/10 of those uninsured now are on the Gov't Plan. How many people is that? Well, the Hoover Institute says: 11% of the population are considered Long Term Uninsured (they don't get coverage for at least a full year). In 2010, that's just over 34 million folks. But wait, there's more! The Kaiser Foundation says: 19% of the uninsured can afford it but don't pay for it. 25% of the uninsured are eligible for some current program (employer provided, SCHIP, medicaid, etc) but don't enroll. So that leaves 56% of the uninsured for whom affordability is an issue. 56% of 34 million people is a little over 19 million. If you want to take out the illegal immigrants who are sucking up health care resources but can't pay for them, you drop from 19 million to 15 million or so. But we'll leave it at 19 million just for the sake of argument.
19 million people uninsured who can't afford to get insurance. 1/10 of that would be 1.9 million people that we can move each year onto the government teat. $400 Billion divided by 1.9 Million equals roughly $210,500 per uninsured.

Put it another way: We are proposing spending $400,000,000,000 per year for the next 10 years to move one-half of one percent of the American population per year from uninsured status onto a (marginally useful, massively wasteful) insurance plan. The rest of us that currently have insurance or can afford it also get put onto this insurance plan that provides a low-to-average level of care, massive governmental intrusion into our personal choices, and the inability to opt out into anything better.

Now does it seem like you're getting your (tax) money's worth? Is this really the best way to go, just so we can say "hey! everyone's covered now!"?

No comment necessary

Worth a read

Suggested read regarding truth in the midst of a relativistic society: click here to read.

Color Coded

Suggested read: Thomas Sowell's latest article here.

Because I Must

Nerd-credentials must be kept up, you know. Thanks to a friend of mine, I came across this excellent article that uses a lot of words I don't understand to explain something nerds everywhere have loved forever: the warp drive!

Cleaver and Richard Obousy, the other coauthor, propose manipulating the 11th dimension, a special theoretical construct of m-theory (the offspring of string theory), to create the bubble the ship would surf down.

And by golly if that doesn't whet your appetite for this contraption that is probably a few hundred thousand years away, then nothing will!

S.W.A.T.

What kind of blog would we have here if we came across this video and didn't share it with others?

Chillin' Like a Villain

Pictures here.

It would seem that somebody, somewhere...screwed up. Either these guys didn't belong in Gitmo, or they still belong in Gitmo.

And yet...Americans...remain kidnapped and imprisoned in Korea.

America The Credit Card

O trillion dollar bank account
For greenish waves of cash
Your kids are in indebtedness
All for the left's big bash
America! America!
Please see what liberals see
You're just a big fat ATM
From sea to shining sea!

--Getting a great start on socializing the nation: $1,200,000,000,000.00

--Running a great country into the ground: PRICELESS

Click here to see what we currently owe and here to see a daily treasury statement. Guranteed to numb your mind.

This was the moment...

Look folks, you can worship at President Obama's feet all you want to. He's funny, has charisma and charm, and is very likable. But his decisions are another matter entirely. Remember the words of First Lady Obama, "Barrack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual: uninvolved, uninformed..." First of all, it bothers me greatly when someone casually informs me that "[He] will never allow" some particular thing in relation to my personal life, especially when that person is speaking of a government official who is merely running for (not even voted into) office yet. I'm amazed at how many voters apparently didn't bother to ask themselves: How much more control will he want once in office if he's already talking like a parent? I think we are starting to see the tip of the iceberg now. Secondly, this simple sentence is so telling of what the left thinks of the rest of America.

If you're not in the club, you're scum...or even worse, a white male with a good job. There are two groups of people that the left needs to "succeed": the very rich and the very poor. The rich have to be rich enough (or feel guilty enough) to be willing to throw money away and dumb enough to think they are helping create wealth for the poor (giving to the poor and giving to the poor via the government's sticky bureaucratic fingers are two different things). The poor have to be down and out enough to think they need the government's help and dumb enough to think that will help them be more like the rich. Both benefit psychologically in the short term and probably lose in the long term.

All you need do is simply look at the government's idea of minimum wage which has helped to create lots and lots of unemployed young black men. What is a business going to do when labor costs go up? Use less of it, of course. Suddenly a business goes from willing to pay at least something for work to being forced to either pay more or pay nothing, hence unemployment. And that's supposed to be progressive? People look at these "new" ideas like health care for all and get a stupid sort of giddy over them and pay NO attention to the realistic consequences. Chris Matthews once said in regards to one of Obama's speeches, "I felt this thrill right up my leg." That was Obama reaching for your wallet, Chris. You're in trouble, pal, and you don't even know it yet. And I'm not just talking about your ratings.



My favorite part of this video is how Keith Olbermann is talking about the song, Johnny B. Goode, playing in the background, specifically "instrumental only", right before the words kick in. It's not a huge deal, but this is a typical example of the left having no sense of fact versus whatever they want to say; not really worried whether they represent truth per se. Maybe there is a reason after all that Mrs. Obama said people were uninvolved and uninformed. She's used to spending time with other liberals.

Mrs. Obama was right about one thing: we were uninformed. Uninformed about how many trillions of dollars of debt we were going to incur (more than all the cumulative debt from George Washington to George W), how we were going to become owners of bankrupt companies, how personal responsibility would soon be incrementally replaced by government teat suckling, and how many times we'd be hearing how sorry we are for being raping, murdering, thieving, inconsiderate fat cats to crowds of raping, murdering, thieving, inconsiderate fat cats. But after all, double standards are the leftists' Swiss Army knife. Oh, that's right...George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, most Hollywood actors (to name a few) are liberals. In other words, liberals with more money than you can fathom. They're always trying to tell you that conservatism is a white, rich man's game. Ever wonder why they say that so much? Surely not to get you off of their trail.

To the left, the real people of this great nation mean nothing; they have no inherent value unless they vote left or have money to give to the left. That is why abortion comes so easy, why illegal immigration is necessary, and health care is a hot topic. They need people in the palms of their hands. To them, the citizens of the US are lazy, ignorant, unintelligent, incapable of managing their money and time, and directionless. If that were actually true, do you really think the president of the US is going to be able to change all that in 4 to 8 years? In his own self-absorbed and slick way, Obama proves his incapacity for doing so by ignorantly yet self-assuredly thinking he is the only man for the job. The problem I've always had and still have with Obama is simply this: he is a class president, not a US President.

"5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Many years of working to get back what we didn't know we had until it was gone. This was the moment.

Tribute to the High Pitched Male Vocalist

And now for something completely diff...well ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome, that is. How, you ask, can a man, presumably with testicles, sing so high? The world may never know. Tis not for us to ask but simply to enjoy...maybe with a finger in one ear. Just remember, it's called falsetto, not castrato.

First, we're going to start this thing off old school. The freckly kid in The Sandlot and the high pitched singer in this video...a familial relation? Turns out, this guy was named Larry Henley and co-wrote Wind Beneath my Wings sung by Bette Midler. Go figure.

I am so going to incorporate those dance moves into my everday routine.

But what would oldies be without Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons?


Next up, Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) covered by The Tokens. I couldn't embed this video, so don't forget to come back for more.

Now an earlier version...

Don't worry. I didn't listen to the whole thing either. It's supposedly the more authentic, original version.

Speaking of African trible song. What about the 80's band, Toto? Oh yeah, I went there:

Good times. You gotta love a band where the lead singer looks like Grizzly Adams but can sing like a school girl. Man that was cheesy, and I love it.

While we're in the 80's, why don't you Take on Me? Whatever that means, Mr. "I can just move prepositions around like Yoda, and you'll still love me for it"...


Now then, where else can 3 former pimps, turned librarians, get there groove on? Oh that's right...in a deserted, run-down neighborhood where they can pop out from wooden shutters and scare passers by.

Wait, there are no passers by. Now I realize why they're singing, "Stayin' Alive", because Will Smith was apparently the only other person left alive on earth, and he was just eaten by bloodthirsty mutant zombies. It really just begs one question: what kind of shampoo do they use?

Okay, now enough playin' around. It's time to get serious here, Daniel san:

peter cetera - glory of love @ Yahoo! Video

Don't be ashamed if you teared up just a little bit. I mean it's Karate Kid II. If you don't tear up, it means you didn't watch Karate Kid I. For some reason I feel the urge to go blowdry my hair.

Journey/Steve Perry is just cool, now and forevermore:

An Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu

Click here to watch.

And Joel Rosenberg's commentary on O's speech in Cairo can be read: here.

He Knew Kung Fu

RIP David Carradine. Suicide in Bangkok. He was 72.

Unpacking ObamaCare

Keith Hennessey, a Bush 43 economist, has a great blog post on ObamaCare, mostly without political spin or overheated rhetoric (says the guy who has had a couple of overheated-rhetoric posts on this very topic). Hennessey takes the letter Obama sent out to Kennedy and Baucus, unpacks what Obama actually says, compares it to Obama's (and other Democrats) past proposals on health care, and summarizes the meaning very well. Worth your read, partly as a way to see Obama's triangulation on health care, and partly to get an idea of what might be coming later this year.

Here's Obama in his own words:

Health care reform must not add to our deficits over the next 10 years — it must be at least deficit neutral and put America on a path to reducing its deficit over time.

I have yet to hear a compelling any coherent reason why health care "reform" would lead to lower budget deficits. Come on. Anyone? Give me your best shot.

The System

Two things: first a video then a brief but excellent article.

I'm not a frequent viewer of the Daily Show, but it occasionally piques my interest and vibrates my humerus. Sometimes I find it too left leaning, but this blurb was funny and seems to hit the nail on the head in terms of what we American taxpayers are getting in return for our cash lately.



I think this video is also indicative of our culture (at least our entertainment culture) finally coming around and realizing that there are some questions worth asking our government and that its judgement is suspect, even with Obama at the helm. There seems to be a fickleness at work here that may actually prove useful in turning the country back to a more logical sense of direction versus the current path of social dependency.

Now for that article which has to do with the nature of capitalism and why it works to diversify risk absorbed by the overall economy (that means you): readme

The Nitty Britty Regarding Gun Control