Items by Mark Tokarski

• To the good life!

  —Piece Of Mind

  I am thankful for little people. I don’t know who they are, but they make my shoes and clothing, carry away my garbage, and, I am told, even go down in the sewers to make sure that it all flows smoothly. I really, really appreciate them. I am a member of [...]
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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 8:19am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• It is true … I am one of those …

  —Piece Of Mind

  I do not like “the holidays”. I know that there are more like me out there, but the holidays are such a part of our childhood and so much ingrained into our commercial culture that we are supposed to like them, and even pretend to like them even when we [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 2:50pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Our fecally challenged republic

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 6
  I watched a movie made years ago, Gardens of Stone, starring James Earl Jones, James Caan, Angelica Huston, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It was a serious movie and well done, with unresolved differences over the Vietnam War exposed and fleshed out a bit. The “Gardens” are, of course, [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 8:42am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• A dissident voice speaks … somewhere else, of course

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  more about "BBC News – Hardtalk – Chomsky condemn…", posted with vodpod I have very little insight on why we invaded Afghanistan, and await some inspiring insight from some foreign source down the road, long after the goals have been achieved. Meanwhile, in true post-Vietnam fashion, the [...][...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 10:03pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Right wing Christians take credit for Jewish accomplishments

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 5
  The following viral email has something unusual going on in it – it contains truth. It is about Jewish accomplishments in science, economics and literature – they are far disproportionate to their relative numbers in the human population. Of course, the base goal of the email is to degrade Muslims, [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 8:49am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Damned DUI

  —Piece Of Mind

  [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 6:16pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Our choice of poisons

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 10
  I micro-burst or sorts blew through here these past couple of days, in the post below entitled “A Fun Week“. Dave Budge and “Black Flag” had a discussion going on over at Electric City Weblog and it spilled over here. It reminded me of the closing scenes of Blazing Saddles, [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 9:38am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Life in Boulder, part dieux

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  This more or less recaps a conversation between my wife and I as we ate breakfast this morning while looking though a window at the Court House lawn in Boulder: H: That must be a homeless guy over there. I wonder where he stays at night. M: Is that a sleeping bag? H: [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 1:56pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• A fun week …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 10
  It’s been quite an interesting week, what with arguing with Craig Moore about the Lancet study on Iraq deaths and all. Plus, as Steve points out below, Electric City Weblog has been great fun. A lot of it has to do with Budge being back on beam, but the subject [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 10:33am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Adventures in private health care …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 10
  My mother was diagnosed with a form of skin cancer. Her doctor decided to treat it by applying Aldara cream over a period of time. 24 tubes of the cream cost $658.50. Mom’s Medicare D provider, Humana, refused to cover the claim. I got a letter of medical necessity from [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 11:31am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Striaght to DVD

  —Piece Of Mind

  This is really interesting … if you’ve ever wondered how much authors make on books. Dan Brown probably pays for a pack of cigarettes with a million dollar bill, but not so much the others. Lynn Viehl wrote a book called Twilight Fall. It made the New York Times best [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 9:32pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• We sink lower still into banality

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 3
  Carol at her very interesting Missoulapolis blog broaches a subject that intrigues me – tweeting. She references another blogger (making this a blog circle-jerk) who says that, oh my gosh, President Obama doesn’t write his own tweets. I would be so disappointed if he did. I find nothing in our [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 7:55am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• BS

  —Piece Of Mind

  All of my blogging energy for a week got used up in one day today. Craig Moore wanted to have it out with me over the “Lancet 2″ report from 2006, the one that said that 655,000 Iraqis had died in that war. Gregg set up a special thread over [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:30pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Sharia Economics

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 10
  The Muslim faith is widely scourged here in the land of the free, as people are inclined to be provincial and project their own evil onto others. (I’m way above that sort of thing myself, mind you.) But if you set aside the jihads and seven virgins waiting (just as [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:31am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• A day in the legislature …

  —Piece Of Mind

  [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:18pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• The Old Left and the New Democrats and other tedium

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 4
  I’ve had some rumblings that point to yet another awakening, meaning that it is time to move on. We have a young relative who is in the advertising business, and who is currently faced with the choice of working for an agency in a new city, Chicago, or working for [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:56am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

  —Piece Of Mind

  After this, no more body counts. But I was startled not to feel the full impact of something in my own writings down below. It is an accounting summary of “terrorist” attacks against Western Civilization, 1970 to present. These are official numbers – there are people in our government whose [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:09am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• The pending Jesus-sponsored holocaust

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 5
  A statistical abstract of the absurd notion that we are somehow threatened by people with plastic explosives in the soles of shoes or nitroglycerin in shampoo bottles: Number of airline hijackings, Europe and North America, during 1970’s: 31 Number of deaths resulting from said hijackings: 29 Number of airline hijackings, Europe and North [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 7:53am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• An insider talks about health insurance costs

  —Piece Of Mind

  This was refreshing – a letter in today’s Denver Post from Jandel T. Allen-Davis, M.D., Denver, vice president of government and external relations for Kaiser Permanente Colorado. It concerns Colorado legislation, rather than national, but that is beside the point. Not all health insurance companies are opposed to House Bill [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 5:00pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• A bailout under a blue cross

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 10
  Upon hearing of the passage of H.R. 3962, the so-called “reform” bill, the voice I wanted to hear above all others was that of Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He has been the one true reformer among the Democrats. It was Kucinich who offered up an amendment to the bill that would [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 12:07pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Oh Conrad where art thou?

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 8
  With passage in the House last night of the Health Care “Reform” bill, I thought well, we’re f*****. Democrats have done it again – they’ve taken all of this healthy energy for reform that existed, and turned it against us. Industry has a new revenue stream, health care costs will [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 8:00am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Minnesota shines

  —Piece Of Mind

  Several studies here: Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, 2009 (Separate chart from this study here). America’s Health Rankings, 2008 Edition Kaiser Family State Health Facts, 2009 Rankings of Deaths per 100,000 There are scads of charts and comparisons. My curiosity was driven by one anomaly that turns up [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 12:59pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Manager wonders why computer model is not selling

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 2
  COSTCO has on display many computers of various prices, all PC’s. I was looking at the one priced at $999.99 this morning, and there was one of those electronic sticky notes up in the corner that said Check out this sticky note. It’s really cool. Bet it makes you want to [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 12:17pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Conspiracy theories

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 7
  Blogging can indeed be fun. A post by JC this week over at 4&20 devolved into a firefight about conspiracies and “conspiracy theorists”. I believe in several conspiracy theories, and so was victim of the standard “tin foil hat” insult. It’s the easiest posture of all to adopt when one [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 8:18am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Our work here is done …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  This from an amazing email I received from “Bryce, Matt, John and the whole Forward Montana family.” With historic health care reform so close to passing after a meager 60 years of debate, we at Forward Montana are ready to sink our teeth into the next big progressive issue. Suggestion: If [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 6:44am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Agitation Radio

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 6
  Mr. Shackleford put up an interesting post on talk radio, which linked to a series of reports on CNN on the phenomenon. It’s a favorite subject of mine. Different media affect us in different ways. Television is a guest in our home, usually right in the middle of our family [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 3:02pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Bill Moyers interviews Richard Goldstone

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  I listened to this interview of Richard Goldstone by Bill Moyers with admiration for both men. Moyer’s questions are quick, penetrating and fair, and Goldstone’s responses equally quick, thoughtful and erudite. To try to add anything to it would by presumptuous. Moyer’s is my definition of a journalist, Goldstone a fair [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 8:03am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• The inimitable Mr. Shackleford

  —Piece Of Mind

  I get a kick out of Rusty Shackleford. I am one of the few people who puts up comments on his blog, and I had to quit because I could never remember either my name or password, and the password recovery system doesn’t work. I am either Mark T or [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 8:45pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• An interesting Ayn Rand piece

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  Here is a very interesting piece by Johann Hari on Ayn Rand. Hari is reviewing two new biographies out on her which I plan not to read, Goddess of the Market ,by Jennifer Burns and Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne Heller. I have no intention of [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 7:39pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Tea Party Time in Bozeman!

  —Piece Of Mind

  The Bozeman Tea Party group is organizing an event on November 6, 2009, and put out the following email: EVENT NOTICE, FRIDAY, NOV. 6th, 12 PM NOON OPPOSE HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER Visit the offices of Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus. Protest House and Senate health care bills. Bills are rapidly moving through [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 3:10pm EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Quote for the day …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama: “It is self-evident that free economic activity in markets invigorates society. But it is also obvious that the idea of letting markets decide everything for the survival of the strongest, or the idea of ‘economic rationalism’ at the expense of people’s lives, does not hold true [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 7:57am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• Waiting for the Bronco game …

  —Piece Of Mind

  I have never read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. I should try again, but I am either not smart enough or too attention-deprived to struggle through such long bouts of dense prose. I take comfort in knowing, however, that most who cite him have not read him either, otherwise they [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:39am EST
  by Mark Tokarski

• To make it clear to Ed Schultz …

  —Piece Of Mind

  I’m no Ed Schultz fan – I think he’s a blowhard. Liberal talk radio has about 9% of the talk market – too bad he takes up so much of its limited bandwidth. I just listened to a few minutes of him today, and got this: The House Health Care [...]
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  Posted: October 31, 2009, 12:51pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Act 3: Sealing Defeat

  —Piece Of Mind

  The problem faced by private health insurers is simple: How to avoid sick people. The business exists to siphon money off of our health care system, and sick people conflict with that objective. Even supposed non-profit health insurers are caught up in this system – if they accept rejects from [...]
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  Posted: October 31, 2009, 10:48am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Flatliners

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 2
  I’ve been meaning to do this for a while – I have been following several health care stocks, not to buy or anything like that, but rather because I think they are a good gauge of how much “reform” is really in store for us. Other people do this sort [...]
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  Posted: October 30, 2009, 4:01pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• And now for someting completely different …

  —Piece Of Mind

  This is the best laugh I’ve had all week – from Gore Vidal. One advantage of growing old is the freedom to say what you think. It’s not going to affect your income, and your freinds are either dead or senile or they are your friends through think and thin. Megan [...]
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  Posted: October 30, 2009, 9:13am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Bill Maher on the Democrats

  —Piece Of Mind

  Below is taken from Bill Maher’s Real Time, June 18, 2009. (I’m a little behind on my Real Time.) Maher (or his writers) seem to have a good understanding of politics in 2009 America. I hear very few people who understand so well the real differences between the two parties [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 8:31pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• On Lieberman …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  Is anyone (including Harry Reid) truly surprised (except some rank and file Democrats)? CNN reports that there are five or six Democratic senators who will not support a public option – even in its current shabby form where it might reach 10% of us in seven years. The idea of attaining [...]
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  Posted: October 28, 2009, 9:21am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Sophistry, Natelogic, and Baucus’s Bitches

  —Piece Of Mind

  Ah, timing. Sweet motherf****** timing. Things have heated up, gotten really interesting. Electric City Weblog fell for a bit of sophistry, and Natelson is doing his usual “I’m right, I’ve always been right, and here’s an example to prove it” highly exclusionary reasoning, and over at Left in the West [...]
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  Posted: October 27, 2009, 7:54am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Spinning the Numbers

  —Piece Of Mind

  This article, FACT CHECK: Health insurer profits not so fat, by AP writer Calvin Woodward, has turned up in a few places now. It is a well-researched piece that doesn’t begin to tell the truth. But it’s very convincing and well-argued. I think that is otherwise known as sophistry. Here’s [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 8:51pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Senator Franken, please: Stay off of small planes

  —Piece Of Mind

  more about "Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) humbles Hudson…", posted with vodpod [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 11:55am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Cowgirl fake-nails Rehberg

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  From Montana Cowgirl over at Left in the West: Representative Rehberg’s long record of saying “NO” our troops and veterans: Rehberg opposed providing 14,000 new housing vouchers to help homeless and disabled veterans. [Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (H R 1105)] By saying no to the Congressional Budget for FY 2010 (S Con [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 10:20pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Medicare at a disadvantage

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 2
  This article, Questions and Answers: Medicare Cuts May Fund Overhaul, appeared in the Denver Post about a month ago. There is, so far as I can see, very little understanding out there about “Medicare Advantage”, or the private sector part of the Medicare program. At one time, President Obama openly [...]
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  Posted: October 24, 2009, 6:16pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Not rocket science …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 3
  I have been saying for a long time that the only way we will get single payer is to bypass Obama, Baucus and the Democrats, and just do it. I thought California the logical place, post-Arnold. But apparently it’s going to be Pennsylvania. If the Democrats in Washington won’t pass [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2009, 8:30am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• And now for something completely different…

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 1
  Congressman Alan Grayson is mixing things up pretty good. It’s kind of a man-bites-dog story – Republicans are all over the page with insults and smears, death panels and granny dying off in a waiting queue. Some pundits, like Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck, earn their paychecks by being outrageous. [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2009, 4:50pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Sunny Portland

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 2
  We spent the day yesterday in Astoria, Oregon, with Steve. He’s doing counseling and some administrative work while teaching out there, and it looks like it might be a place where he spends some time. Steve is doing well, even seems to be thriving. He has studied the history of [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2009, 8:41am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Helicopters chasing balloons

  —Piece Of Mind

  All of the fuss yesterday over the boy in the balloon merely reinforced my belief that the “free market” cannot do television news unless they remove the profit motive and stop competing for audiences. It’s a race to get the dumbest asses among us to watch their channels. At least [...]
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  Posted: October 16, 2009, 9:03am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Free parking …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 6
  From Dave Budge: Mark, when are you going to answer the questions about tariffs, unions and minimum wages? That’s your run and hide m.o. I’ve asked you several times. From me: Bring it over to my place. We’ll have at it. I’ll set aside special space for you later today. I’m not exactly sure [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2009, 5:30pm EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• Test

  —Piece Of Mind

  Enclosure: [download]

  Click here Click on the above link to be taken to a song called “Broadcast Blues”. The singers are anonymous. Here’s why: Sue Wilson has made a movie of the same name, Broadcast Blues. I haven’t seen the film yet, as it has not been released, but it has had great [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2009, 9:34am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski

• The Ratchet Effect …

  —Piece Of Mind

  Number of comments: 5
  A commenter calling himself “Lizard” at 4&20 Blackbirds put up the following, which is a quote taken from another place. Apparently it is a concept widely understood in economics – even Malthusians use it. But for this purpose, it is used to describe the dynamic between Democrats and Republicans in [...]
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  Posted: October 13, 2009, 8:41am EDT
  by Mark Tokarski