The post below went in unexpected directions, and although I don’t want to become a 9/11 clearinghouse site, had some interesting information. It devolved, a bit, into a sniping match between Steve and Black Flag, with each of them firing above the other. But I am glad I put up [...]
Number of comments: 10 I write this not knowing whether it will actually hit the sphere and be read by my five loyal readers. It’s a subject that is virtually verboten in respectable circles. Only fools rush in …. 9/11. What happened that day? I hesitate to write about it because I know I [...]
Number of comments: 2 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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...][...]
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, [...]
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, [...]
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: [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I’m diggin the hell out of ECW lately. Every post manages to get my blood boiling as of late.
I guess that’s why I do this whole blogging thing.
Good on ya, Gregg & Dave. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I’m diggin the hell out of ECW lately. Every post manages to get my blood boiling as of late.
I guess that’s why I do this whole blogging thing.
Good on ya, Gregg & Dave. [...] 
