Re- Healthcare Reform

As I understand, the current Senate bill would force us to pay up to 8% of our incomes to insurance cos. while leaving us on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses, fail to end discrimination for most people based on preexisting conditions until 2014, and fail to limit increases in insurance premiums.

Most of the vaunted 30 million additional insureds will be those who need it least – young people likely to generate more profits than costs.

Let's repeat just part of that: 30 million new MANDATED payers of insurance premiums, and NO meaningful caps on what insurers can charge us.

We're being required to pay an awful lot for very little actual benefit to most of the people most in need.

It reminds me of when conservatives argued we had to keep funding the Iraq war or we wouldn't be able to afford to bring the troops home safely.

Our troops then were, and the few sick children who might actually be benefitted by this bill are now, being held for ransom by people who can't be trusted to fulfill any promises once we've paid up.

It also looks like another instance of the conservative strategy of causing us to spend way too much on the wrong things and later screaming to high heavens that we've got nothing left to spend on the right things.

Stewart vs. Cramer

You've prolly seen it by now, but if not, you should, even if you think you probably know what they said.

Stewart: "When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is WORK . . . ." (The wealthy have always known that -- that's why they've kept us working so hard.)

and "Maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I'm under the assumption that you don't just take their [Paulson's et al.'s] word at face value, that you actually then go around and try to figure it out."

and "So maybe we [you, Cramer] could remove the 'financial expert' and 'in Cramer we trust' and start getting back to fundamentals on the reporting as well, and I can go back to making fart noises . . . "

Warning, Comedy Central's interface is really annoying: no embed, and if you try to move the cursor any distance, you have to watch another commercial.

Stewart has single-handedly done a lot more of the media's and Congress's jobs than they have -- and they know it.

More of Jim Cramer here.

More than Half of the World's Largest Economies Are Corps., Not Countries

Based on a report for the Institute for Policy Studies, for example, General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon, and Ford are bigger than Poland, Saudi Arabia, Finland, or Venezuela.

Who needs allies; easier to deal with corps., which are often much less answerable to their supposed constituents.

Help Bust the Media Blackout on Edwards!

John Edwards is the candidate whose positions on the issues are closest to mine -- he's the only one besides Kucinich who seems willing to take on our corporate masters -- and who I believe has a real chance to win -- last I saw, polls showed him more electable than either Clinton or Obama; see, e.g., here.

But the corporate media's pretty much blacked out coverage of his campaign. E.g., in Iowa, where all three top Dem contenders campaigned hard, he beat Clinton, even though I understand she outspent him 7 to 1 -- yet media coverage of the results barely mentioned him. CNN has simply stopped including Edwards in their polls, while continuing to include all four of the top Republican candidates -- even though, despite the dearth of attention to Edwards, the last poll CNN did that included Edwards showed him beating all four Republicans handily (see here).

Let's make it impossible for the media to continue to ignore Edwards. This Fri., Jan. 18, has been designated for an effort to break all records for a single day's donations by raising $7 million for Edwards on that day.

Ask yourself why the corporate media prefer to ignore Edwards. (If nothing comes to mind, see, e.g., David Sirota or jamess on Daily Kos.)

If you like Edwards, put a tickler in your calendar and make a donation on Fri., Jan. 18 -- you can do it here. Remember, all donations will be matched.

(Thanks to KingOneEye on Daily Kos and News Corpse, The Internet's Chronicle of Media Decay, for the info on this initiative).

Last night I happened to see Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961, script by Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett), which yielded this memorable quote, among others: "Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight."

UPDATE: It's official. The Project for Excellence in Journalism's latest campaign coverage index for January 6 - 11 shows that Edwards got only 7% of the political coverage during those days -- less than one-fifth of what Clinton got, less than one-fourth of what Obama got, and substantially less than that given to Huckabee, even though he, like Edwards, finished third in the New Hampshire primary.

In a recent article, "Study: John Edwards Doesn't Exist," Greg Sargent writes, "Indeed, the virtual media blackout of Edwards got so glaringly obvious that even New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt urged his paper to give Edwards more attention back in November. At a certain point we should just acknowledge that Edwards basically got screwed . . . ." Make that present tense.

Product Placement in Art Museums

The recent New York Times article about galleries paying museums to help finance exhibitions of artists represented by said galleries reminded me of a comment by David Lynch:


Also, the common view of politicians' solicitation of donations as "shakedowns."

Fine if you're an open, paid advocate for a certain party or point of view; not so fine if you purport to represent the general public or an independent point of view. The apparent conflict of interest undermines public confidence in the integrity of public institutions.

That said, I love the look of Takashi Murakami's platinum and aluminum Golden Buddha in the first pic above.

(Thanks to snarky for the tip on the Lynch clip!)