Casey Anthony–guilty or not guilty? The jury says not, but millions of avid followers of her trial disagree. Therein lies a hint of the limitations of the criminal justice system. I have no opinion one way or another. I chose not to pay close attention to media coverage, knowing full well the limitations of the media too. As most people know, especially those who watch the plethora of lawyer shows on TV, conviction in a criminal trial requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors present what evidence they can find, subject to the rules of procedure and judicial discretion. In Anthony’s case, there were a number of unknowns: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Casey Anthony
Shameless self-promotion: you can download Waiting for Westmoreland as an epub now for $8.99. Go here if you have an iPad, etc. with which to view it and are so inclined. If you don’t know about WFW, hit the last item in the links to your right.
Also, belatedly, if you had a comment that was trashed erroneously (i.e., you are not a spammer) try submitting it again and I will review what comes in for integrity. I had to do a lot of bulk deletions to clean up this blog.
Tags: Buddhism, human revolution, self-realization, Vietnam
Kiplinger’s says, in it’s August 2011 issue, that J&J is one of 6 cash-rich stocks to buy now. They note that J&J shares “have mostly lagged the stock market since the March 2009 bottom.” And also point out that “One of J&J’s problems has been quality-control issues at its McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit that resulted in massive recalls and a reprimand from the Food and Drug Administration. But fund manager Osterweis sees that as a temporary problem.” But are the problems at McNeil a “temporary problem”? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: corporate responsibility, investing, recalls
Did TSA really ask a 95-year old wheelchair-bound female leukemia patient to remove her (wet) depends undergarment to make sure she wasn’t carrying a bomb? Do they really pat down small children/toddlers? If so, does that make you feel safer flying? Here’s the deal, Osama Bin Laden, apparently was fixated on airplane terrorism. Two reasons why EVERYONE gets inspected: Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, still here and still hacking away at the spam comments.
A road (too long to call it a driveway) is progressing nicely at the dream house site. Water line will go in next week, in the road. After that, the road can be surfaced. The local electric company, PNM, has staked their pole locations but power must await review and approval by corporate types in Albuquerque of the survey and easement agreements. We hope to have some site development and a foundation coming by September.
Coming blog topics: Airline/TSA zealous security–are we really any safer? What’s up with Johnson & Johnson–lost their PR mettle (and their consumer product market share after massive recalls (will Mylanta ever come back? Why no information after many months?)
Last year we spent many months getting the old house ready to sell. Finally, after the first of the year, it went on the market and sold in 34 days. It looked like something on HGTV if I do say so myself. We moved in March and are settled in now for the duration of getting the dream house built. That will probably be 8 months from now. In the meantime, I should have time once again to devote to writing–including this blog.
First on the agenda, having upgraded to the most recent version of WordPress and updating the plugins, is getting rid of the enormous volume of spam that has accumulated here in my absence. That may take a few days, given the quantity. But I will plug away at it. Look for periodic updates on the house
The yard is looking more grassy green than snowy white now. It’s been a long time coming in this record breaking winter not of discontent as much as surprise. I thought my house had been relocated to Buffalo, Erie or some other such place. The most snow in a season since recordkeeping began for Washington, DC. Also Baltimore and Philadelphia. It looked pretty for awhile but dingy later; like the snow in Minnesota does because once it falls it may remain for weeks up there. Something more pithy soon.
A break from health care reform. The Obama administration has apparently finally embarked on the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy implemented during the first Clinton administration. Reinforcing the conclusion that he was just as much a politician that will say whatever needs saying to be elected (except he didn’t succeed), John McCain has done a 180 degree turn from his previous position and now is “disappointed” in Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mullen’s opinion that gays in the military pose no problem. It’s difficult to fathom why McCain needs to curry conservative favor at this point in his political career–at his age and his showing in the last election he has no future in politics. Anyway, assuming the gossip is correct, if Alexander the Great was in fact gay, then why should being gay in the 21st century U.S. military pose a problem? With an all-volunteer service having at least some difficulty getting people to enlist when the real likelihood of posting to a combat zone is high, why discourage gays from joining? It is time to end the charade. Let them in and leave them alone.
Tags: Don't Ask Don't Tell, gays in the military, McCain, Obama
OBE, for short–that’s a much used phrase from a once upon a time former supervisor. Applied to projects, assignments, etc., it meant the task at hand no longer needed doing. Some might suppose that recent election results might make that an epithet applicable to health care reform. But as President Obama said in his state of the union address, it still is something needing doing. As an aside, in my own case, OBE also refers to the bronchitis that took a toll on me recently–a partial excuse for the interval between my last post and this one. So, a couple more installments on the main topic.
Prohibiting insurors from refusing coverage of pre-existing conditions seems a bit unfair to them on the one hand or a prescription for higher rates for everyone does it not? However, while there may be some cross subsidization by healthy people of sick people, consider the alternatives. Those sick people who can’t afford or are unable to obtain coverage, will go to emergency rooms–soaking up available resources from people with genuine emergencies. Those uncovered people will also be out and about in stores, schools, neighborhoods, etc., where any communicable illnesses they may have can impact on the rest of us. In other words, we may all wind up paying for or suffering on account of denying coverage to others. So in the long run, it may make more sense to find a way to pay for coverage for them, pre-existing conditions and all.
In most cases, insurance is something you buy to cover yourself in case the unexpected financial setback occurs–damage to your house or car for example. Or in the case of health, an acute illness or event such as a stroke or heart attack. On the other hand, you can and should expect to have some routine preventive care like physicals, vaccinations, periodic blood tests or various scans depending on your age and gender. While the high cost of treating acute illnesses is something few people can absorb absent insurance, the routine tests could be afforded by some to many people. Still, insurers are generally happy to cover payment for the preventive care because, at least in theory, that may lower the risk of the much more expensive acute care. How likely it is for an individual to need the pricier care is what makes the risk pool definitionand the pre-existing condition issue a driving concern in the health care debate.
The theory of insurance is that among a large group of people, only a relatively small percentage will suffer very severe ailments necessitating very costly medical treatments. Accordingly, the risk-based premium set for the members of the group of insureds can be set low enough for the premiums to be affordable (much more affordable than risking one’s own bank account). Of course, this means that if you are very healthy, you are subsidizing sicker people’s medical care. On the other hand, if you are the sickly one, you have other people paying for you. Still, I for one would rather help someone else pay their medical bills than be sick myself and make out better financially. In any case, a major component of the health care reform debate focuses on preexisting conditions.