A Blog Named Sue

So why don't you use it? Try not to bruise it

This graph, created a few months ago by National Geographic and reprinted today by Boing Boing has been bending my brain all afternoon (click for full size, better yet, click the link above to go to the original Boing Boing posting):                                                                                                              

Now, it's no shock to anyone reading this that the United States is paying approximately sixty percent more per person per year than the next closest country on the graph and enjoying a far worse result, if we define "worse result" as life expectancy. That's how I would define it, but these days I think a fair number of people believe our health care system is a success because it's "not socialist," which is a bit like me deciding I'm a success in life because I'm not Kirk Cameron. There may be some merit to both arguments, but really, we're not using any logical metric for "success" in either case. I also think Americans' willingness to accept more expensive and less effective care is indicative of a deep seated paranoia in our culture - we're willing to pay more to make sure that we're not the one who gets stuck on one of those waiting lists somebody told us that they have some place in Europe. That's a post for another day, though.

No, what struck me the most about that graph is how clearly it demonstrates that we are paying more than any other civilized nation on Earth for health care that we don't even use. If you haven't clicked on the full sized version of the graph, do so now. The density of each line on the graph indicates how many times per year that an average citizen in a given country visits the doctor. Apparently, here in America we see the doctor so infrequently that our annual visits barely make it into the low single digits. What the hell?

Part of this may be our good old fashioned Yankee willingness to "walk it off." Lord knows I'm guilty of that more often than not. (I've always thought of Monty Python's quadruple amputee black night threatening to "bite your legs off" as uniquely American.) Another factor might be the large numbers of uninsured we have here in the US. Thirty million people who can't afford to see the doctor at all are going to skew your averages a bit. But let's face it: the bulk of us aren't going to the doctor because it costs a shitload of money, we know that if the doctor finds something serious we're screwed, and honestly, even in a best-case scenario, dealing with insurance companies is a royal pain in the ass. 

Our "greatest healthcare system in the world" has become a white elephant. Thai emperors would bestow white elephants on nobility who had displeased them. Outwardly, bestowing such a gift seemed like a sign of the emperor's favor, but soon the nobility who had been so blessed found themselves going broke trying to take care of the damned thing. They suffered, and the emperor continued to enjoy a reputation for justice and generosity.

Who saddled us with this white elephant, and what the hell did we ever do to them?

(Hat tip to guy in milwaukee at The Crack Den. Stole Monty Python image from here.)

Your mouth is moving but the words aren't clear

It's no secret that the teabag movement and sundry other anti-health-care reform protesters claim the work of Ayn Rand, and specifically her novel Atlas Shrugged, to be the philosophical underpinning of their resistance. And it's not hard to determine where those officially charged with propagating Rand's ideas stand on the issue.

Which begs the question: would the highly paid CEOs of the health insurance companies that the Randians are defending qualify as the creative, productive champions of industry that Rand maintained were the fundamental pillars of society? They are neither patient nor doctor; they skim off the top of the transaction between patient and doctor. (And by skim I mean suck mercilessly like a huge mutant lamprey.) What, exactly do they contribute to the process? Just because you make a lot of money doesn't mean you're a creative, productive person. The world is rife with wealthy parasites.

Let me put it another way: in the novel, all the creative minds gradually abandon society, leaving it to fall apart on its own. Would any of us even notice if the CEOs of Cigna, Blue Cross, Aetna, et. al decamped for the wilds of Colorado to establish their own Utopia?

We're so sorry, Uncle Albert

I've lived in America my whole life and I have never understood our cultural obsession with apologies, and endless wrangling over how "genuine" a given apology is. A good tearful apology seems to rank higher than fixing whatever the hell you just broke (if possible), and certainly seems to matter more than any particular act of atonement made by or punishment meted out to the offender. I've seen the Nancy Graces of this world huff and sputter over whether or not death row inmates seemed "apologetic," because, you know, killing the bastard just isn't enough. We need that apology.

Which brings us to Joe Wilson and Serena Williams. (I didn't watch the Video Music Awards so I don't have an opinion on Kanye. Sorry.) Serena mouthed off to an official, got herself penalized and summarily eliminated from the US Open. It happens. They also fined her ten grand - and I don't care how rich you are, no one wants to get fined ten grand. That's it. End of story. Is she "sorry?" Who cares? She got eliminated from the US Open. What the hell else do you want? Why people keep on insisting she keep on apologizing is a mystery to me. If mouthing off to an official means you have to apologize until the end of time, then Lou Pinella might as well spend the rest of his life going around wearing sackcloth and ashes.

Similarly, I don't care if Joe Wilson apologizes to President Obama, or if he gets censured for that matter. The president is a big boy and I'm sure he's been called worse things in his day. If Wilson formally apologizes or gets censured by the House that makes the whole thing go away, and, frankly, I'd rather he explain precisely why he thought President Obama was lying than apologize.  In that situation, there are no good options for Wilson, because he would have to admit that either he hasn't read any of the House bills up for consideration, has the reading comprehension skills of a tapir, or that he was engaging in a cheap political stunt. Which is it, Congressman? I'm much more interested in hearing your explanation than your apology.

Of course, I realize some of my remarks in this post may have offended some readers. If that's the case, then I offer my heartfelt apologies.

What do you do when all your enemies are friends

I've long wondered what would happen when conservatives realized that Israel, a nation made of awesome thanks to God's special awesomeness, practices socialized medicine. I mean, if Israel does it, it can't be bad, right? We're always supposed to do things the way those tough-minded, clear-eyed Israelis do it, right?

Um, maybe not. (Oh, yeah, that woman who yelled "Heil Hitler" to an Israeli citizen is, in fact, wearing and Israeli Defense Forces t-shirt. Your eyes are not deceiving you.)

In case there are any foreigners who haven't figured it out yet: when it comes to money, American conservatives will shit on you. Now and forever. More specifically, they will shit on you to defend some billionaire's money. What's even sadder is that they will never see a penny of that billionaire's money or gain any real material benefit for all of their shitting.

Look what they did to Great Britain. They've slandered the government of of one of our closest allies, implying that the National Health Service would let one of Britain's most prominent and respected citizens die because he would have been too expensive to care for. A few years ago, Great Britain was the one nation that "got it," that stood by the United States when Bush began his disastrous adventure in Iraq. To this day Britons continue to fight and die alongside our troops.

It all means nothing to them. Their outrage du jour demands that Great Britain be a nation goverened by heartless bureaucrats to whom human life means little or nothing. 

I'm glad they believe in a philosophy of radical self-reliance because at this rate they're going to run out of friends pretty quickly.

And will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are

In the wake of the murder of George Tiller and the murder of Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum, it seems as if some of our nation's conservative luminaries have become a bit uncomfortable with the asses they've been leading. Too bad. You people wanted to be famous, you wanted to be influential, and you didn't seem to care too much about who you were influencing. And it paid off for you, richly. You aimed for the lowest common denominator and by gum you hit it. The people making you squirm right now are some the same people who made you stars - and as the late, lamented Molly Ivins famously said, "You got to dance with them what brung you." If you suspect your dance partners are planning on slipping a cat valium into your punch, well, it sucks to be you. Everyone knows you were "asking for it."

On the best of days I can't imagine what goes through the head of a conservative pundit, but lately I can't even imagine how fucked up it is in there.  What's it like knowing that a crazed murderer likes the cut of your jib? Now, I don't hold the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reilly's of the world legally responsible for the actions of James Von Brunn, Richard Poplawski, Jim David Adkisson, or Scott Roeder (did I miss anyone?). These men are clearly disturbed - trying to prove the Holocaust didn't happen by killing jews is some pretty dubious reasoning, even for a delusional murderous Nazi geezer fuckhead like Von Brunn. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go along with their blackly hilarious attempts to distance themselves from them either, especially when they try to do so by attempting to paint unapologetic white supremacists as liberal Democrats.  Nope, sorry, conservative luminaries, these guys are all yours - and don't even bother trying to say "liberals are just as bad." When a liberal shoots up a Baptist mega-church with a copy of Al Franken's book in his pocket I'll listen; until then sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

But if, like Shepard Smith, the crazy is getting a little too crazy even for you, I will offer you this one glimmer of something I wouldn't quite call hope. This remarkably depressing post by Digby on the radical anti-abortion movement's efforts to turn the murder of George Tiller to their political advantage featured this tidbit:

Press conference 1 PM, Thursday, to announce details how Pro-life groups can derail Sotomayor, and root out hypocrisy in pro-life ranks. (Emphasis mine.)

The extremists get their first whiff of "success" and, right on schedule, start the purges. Actually, they're a bit early. They really should wait until they have some sort of power before the long knives come out, but these people always have been prone to delusions of grandeur. But on the plus side, all you wingnuts who are actively seeking to distance yourselves from the even nuttier wing of your movement have a purge to look forward to. Problem solved! You'll be off the hook. Just keep calling those neo-Nazis liberals!

Because everything I say is everything you've ever wanted to hear

You could make a full-time job out of shooting down the bullshit that oozes forth from Dick Cheney's bilious maw. Since I already have a full-time job, I usually leave that to others. But I've got to take a moment to point out this particular bon mot from his national security speech:

It is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. You've heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, who has also boasted about his beheading of Daniel Pearl.

That is one hell of an attempt at misdirection, even for him. First, assuming that we only waterboarded three suspects (I'm old school, I still call them suspects), we waterboarded two of them nearly three hundred times! Also, Dick, it's not only about waterboarding. None of the Abu Ghraib pictures, to my knowledge, portray waterboarding, nor (again, to my knowledge) do the pictures President Obama has declined to release. In fact, we have every reason to believe that what those pictures show is even more horrible than waterboarding. And are you seriously going to tell me that everyone we kicked the living shit out of at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bhagram were of the highest intelligence value? Was this guy of the highest intelligence value? Either Iraq and Afghanistan are stuffed to the gills with terrorist masterminds or Dick Cheney has a remarkably broad definition of "value."

The bullsh*t event horizon

Let me see if I've got this straight: Nancy Pelosi should resign because she knew about the program that Dick Cheney should get a Medal of Freedom for. Because, um, she should have told everyone about the double-secret classified program that wasn't illegal at all and in fact saved American lives because it was so classified and wonderful and not at all illegal. Do I have the gist of it?

If I do, shoot me now because that would mean I'm starting to understand how Republicans think.

Looks like the modern Republican party has finally gone and done it: they've crossed the bullshit event horizon and entered into a region of nonsense and mendacity packed together so tightly that even coherence cannot escape.

I wouldn't even care about this so much (well, OK, yes I would) if the cable newsreaders hadn't predictably and eagerly followed them across the bullshit event horizon and made Pelosi the story, even though she had nothing to do with formulating or implementing the torture policy. Granted, she was in a role to advise the administration and we all know how well Bush and Cheney took advice. Especially from Democrats. In the unlikely event that anyone cable news personalities are reading this, I have to ask you: you do realize that you are pursuing a story that doesn't make a lick of sense, right? You're spending hours of airtime trying to get to the heart of a matter that is completely illogical. Good luck with that. Even Colin Powell (allegedly) got to the point where he said, "I'm not reading this, it's bullshit."  But I guess we can't expect you all to be Colin Powell.

You want to know what the story is? Try this: the United States is now a country that abducts people off the street based on hearsay evidence and tortures them, in some cases to death. This is an incontrovertible fact. We started this policy of imprisoning and torturing people based on hearsay evidence in a country known for generational family and tribal bloodfueds - damn, you just know we were getting good intel from those locals. Many of those we imprisoned and tortured could be charitably described as "minors" but let's call them what they were: children. That's your fucking story, but I can see how that's not as interesting as the deliberations of the House Intelligence Committee.

Cheney's jumping in front of every damn camera he can find to demand the release of documents he claims prove that torture worked and lives were saved. We're talking about two documents here, by the way  - two documents, two interrogations out of the hundreds if not thousands we've conducted. And the CIA is not refusing to release them on the basis of national security concerns but rather because the documents are relevant in two FOIA lawsuits the CIA is fighting. One of the parties suing for the release of the documents is Amnesty International. Somehow, I don't think these documents say what Cheney wants us to believe they say.

As vocal as Cheney has been about the release of the documents, he's been completely silent about the release of the torture photos. Why? Because they're fucking horrible. What we did was fucking horrible. We can pretend we give a damn about parlimentary procedure all we want but the story here is that we did awful things to people, many of whom were simply in a shitty place at the shittiest possible time. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

So, Byron, are you trying to tell me ...

... that Obama's polices are only 3/5 as popular as we think they are?

(h/t to HoneyBearKelly @ the Crack Den)

UPDATE: Dammit, I beat Atrios by three solid minutes with my post! I did not steal this one!

Mentat, Master of Assassins

Jesus H. Christ, what a fucking heartless cyborg no-dick loser fanboy asshole.

Seriously, Cheney - seriously. A ring of assassins? For real? Command of the world's most expensive military and a metric shitload of nuclear weapons wasn't enough to stir the frigid sludgy crap swirling around in your chest that you call blood? You had to have your own ring of assassins just so you could feel even more like a Bond villain?

I bet they were all babes, too. With cool code names, like "Black Mamba" and Cottonmouth." Oh, wait - you wouldn't have wanted anyone to think you were ripping off Kill Bill so you were probably stuck with lame snake names like "Rosy Boa" and "Trans-Pecos Ratsnake." Although, to her defense, I hear "Trans-Pecos Ratsnake" was a bad motherfucker.

Is there a supervillain cliche that didn't apply to Dick Cheney? Damn, I bet Seymour Hersh's next scoop will be that Cheney had a twisted bootlicking hunchback for a lab assistant - despite the fact the Cheney didn't have a lab because he doesn't know how to invent shit.

You're a really sad person. So sad.

The rise of "Galtism" (and by "rise" I mean pathetic aggrandizement by self-important blowhards) has lately been much discussed on the Internets (and by "discussed" I mean openly, deservedly, and ruthlessly mocked).

Now, if a bunch of overpaid investment bankers and orthodontists want to decamp to the wilderness and start their own "capitalist commune" that's fine with me. My only request is that they bring a camcorder so they can record their inevitable grisly fate - whoever finds that footage is a virtual lock to win the Oscar for Best Documentary. But, really, the "Galtists" have to stop saying shit like this:

A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama tax plan be passed by Congress and become law.

"We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00," she said.

"We have to find a way out where we can make just what we need to just under the line so   we can benefit from Obama's tax plan," she added. "Why kill yourself working if you're going to give it all away to people who aren't working as hard?"

People who aren't working as hard? And you know you're working harder than they are because you make more money? Really?

There is no hard correlation between hours worked and salary earned - not even within the same organization. Don't believe me? Ok, who puts in more hours? You? Or your company's CEO?

Maybe someone out there isn't making as much as you are because he or she didn't have the opportunity to go to law school. Maybe they didn't have the aptitude. Maybe they decided that they could do more good for the world as a social worker. Or a nurse. Or a cop. Or a firefighter. You know, those slacker cops and firefighters?

I work pretty damn hard but I have a very clear idea of where I rate on the "busting-my-ass" scale, and I suggest these Galtists take a good look at themselves and figure out where they rate too. Better yet, they should just get over themselves entirely. Wile E Quixote, in comments at the Ballon Juice post I link to above, has some good advice on how to do that:

 I was a teenage Randroid but now I thank God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster that my father     introduced me to Hunter S. Thompson. After reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Hell’s     Angels", and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972" I realized that getting stoned   out of  your skull on a variety of controlled substances and blasting through bat country at 110MPH in a convertible with one of your best friends and some good tunes would be much more fun than running off to the mountains, hanging around with a bunch of humorless drones and inventing new metal alloys all day long.

Works for me.