Biden needs Gibbs to bail his chestnuts out

Gibbs clarifies Biden's forecast

Gawd - How STUPID do you have to be to need Robert Gibbs to clarify to the world what you ***really*** meant to say. 

And this is the guy Obama put on the ticket for his mastery of foreign policy.  This country is soooo screwed. 

Cheney?... Biden?    Cheney?.... Biden?  Is there really even a question there??? 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

PicasaWeb + GoogleApps + Google Profile = MASSIVE FAIL!

There's been a couple of posts here talking about using various "cloud apps", particularly those from Google to get the everyday stuff done - word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, even photo editing. Recently Google introduced a new "feature" to make their on-line photo site more "social" - and in the course of things, threw the notion of privacy out the window and in some cases, just broke the whole thing.  

This problem occurs at the confluence of two Google services.  One is PicasaWeb, which is Google's answer to Flickr. It lets you upload photos and then lets you share them with everyone, or selected people or just keep them to yourself.  Like most Google services, its free and gives you a reasonable amount of storage space, which can be expanded at a pretty cheap price. It also integrates well with other Google services, such as Google Docs.  All in all, I have been pretty happy with it. Until today. 

I logged into my Picasaweb site with the intent of shooting some previously uploaded pics to a friend.  I clicked on the "Share" button and was greeted with a screen that said I HAD to link my PicasaWeb account with my Google Profile.  Huh??? 

Christmas Letter from the cloud....

This weekend I got the annual job of the Christmas letter done and with a new wrinkle. 

I didn't use a single desktop application to generate the document or print it out.  Everything was done using "cloud apps".  

Pondering Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is the first day of the holiday season.  A day to eat way too much, to spend a lot of time watching football on television and get a head start on Christmas shopping.  But thinking about the name of the holiday we are supposed to be celebrating, I truly have much to be thankful for. 

I'm thankful to be alive.  We don't always remember that that is not a given....

I am thankful for my wife, who more than anything else, is my best friend. She has taught me so much in dealing with life's challenges and difficulties that have come her way, but is always the one to be the first to help others. 

I am thankful for my friends.  Not just acquaintances, but those that I know I can count on to listen to me when things don't go the way we wish. 

I am thankful for my dogs.  Truly wonderful companions that can teach you so much. If you want to know the meaning of unconditional love, get a dog. Then try and be the person they think you are. 

I am thankful I have a job - two of them actually.  Way too many people in this country have been out of work for way too long. While my "career" has taken turns and twists, the important thing is I have a job where I can support my wife and I without depending on others. 

I am thankful for a roof over my head and food on the table. 

I am thankful I live in a country that lets me voice my opinions and call out against an arrogant, out-of-touch, inept and over reaching government. 

I am thankful that a majority of my countrymen seemed to feel the same way in our last election.  I have hope....

I am very thankful for the men and women that serve in our military and protect our way of life.  I am also thankful for those that serve in police and fire departments who also protect us and seem to go unnoticed and without thanks. Thank you. 

---------------

Since its just the two us celebrating the holiday this year, like last year, we took a pass on the whole effort of fixing a mammoth dinner that would cost a lot of money and result in way too much food and leftovers that would last forever.  Instead, like last year, we're going to go out for a dinner and let others do the work.  Thank you. 

The downside to that, as we found out last year, is you probably don't end up with any leftovers and sometime around 9 o'clock you are craving a bit more dressing or another sliver of pie, there ain't anything. This year though, we are going to a nice restaurant that is serving up a Thanksgiving buffet and the wife is taking her over-sized purse..... 

Last year we both got a severe case of the munchies before bed time and got dressed and drove all over town looking for something.  There was absolutely nothing open - go figure.  Until we came across..... the What A Burger drive through.  So we satisfied our late night cravings with a What A Burger and fries. 

But I was thankful for it... 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

This is insane - mandating medical payouts.

Could this be the end of the health insurance business as we know it?  Is this setting things up for the single payer government run program that Obama really wants? Or is it going to be the reason why your premiums are going to be going up?  Or all of the above?

 

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Reform/23559

 

Or an article in the Washington Post here.

 

Starting in 2011, insurers covering large groups must spend at least 85 cents of each dollar in revenue on medical care.  For small groups or individual policies, (which would have higher administrative costsas well as a greater risk of adverse selection and moral hazard) the carrier must spend at least 80 cents of each dollar on medical care. 

 

For shame..... some of these companies only spend 60 cents of each dollar in revenue on medical care - the rest is used to pay for salaries, bonuses and marketing. (other administrative expenses, like rent, probably fit in there as well).

 

So if they have to cut their expenses by half to meet this government mandate, how many of these companies are going to stay in this business and how many are just going to say "Fuck It" and go do something else with the financial management expertise.

 

Or its going to mean that health insurance premiums are going to go up - like double - in order to be able to maintain the ability to pay baseline administrative expenses while meeting the 80% loss ratio requirement.  If you are currently paying a premium of $100 and 40% of that is going to expenses, that means the insurance company is paying $40 out in salaries and those evil bonuses.  In order to continue doing that under Nimrod's plan, they would have to charge a premium of at least $200 so they could have that $40 to pay employee salaries.  Or they could cut payroll and maybe outsource the claims handling to India.  Wanna talk to some guy in Mumbai about your Blue Cross claim?  Oh you already do?  Maybe they'll cut expenses there and you'll get the one that doesn't speak any English.

 

Liberals have never understood that price fixing schemes don't work.  It either results in shortages or eventually higher prices. Even Republicans had to learn the hard way with this - remember Nixon's price freezes? It don't work.  But maybe Obama and company are counting on this to shove a government run single payer system down our throats. Just remember, with a single payer system, you don't have any alternatives.  If you don't like the way they are handling your healthcare, too bad - ain't no where else to go.

 

Meanwhile President FuckNut wants to give all of the government employees a raise, paid for by the taxpayer or by the Chinese bond holders.

 

This country is going to be so fucked. Wake up Amerika.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Thanks Google, for remembering Veterans Day

Today, Google remembered Veterans Day with the Google Doodle.  

Thanks Google, for remembering those who serve. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Its startin' to look a lot like Christmas....

I know... the real Christmas is over a month and a half away.  And one thing that really chaps me is when the stores start putting up their Christmas decorations on Halloween. Yesterday, Wal-mart had a real juxtaposition of Jack-O-Lanterns and Christmas Tree displays. With a few turkeys thrown in.

 

But you gotta admit... tonite seems a lot like Christmas Eve with the suspense of the big "surprise present" we're going to get tomorrow.

 

And if we end up with a big lump of coal, there's gonna be one pissed off little boy here...

 

VOTE!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Sherlock - new TV series on PBS

I confess I don't watch that much on PBS even though OETA is one of the better public broadcasting networks I've seen.  But last night, not being able to sleep I got caught up in a new series on PBS called Sherlock. From skimming the brief description in the guide, I thought it was going to be one of those old black and white movies from the 40's and 50's starring Basil Rathbone.  

Boy was I wrong.  

This is a new series with a Sherlock Holmes character but set in the present day. And it was really well done.  And I have to say that I am a student of Sherlock Holmes, having read all of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories and novels at least twice.  They keep the characters true to the original stories but with modern day updates.  Dr. Watson, just like the original is a retired army doctor that is a veteran of Afghanistan war - the current Afghanistan war with some very real flashbacks. Instead of Holmes indulging in his "7% solution" of heroin from the original stories, he now slaps multiple nicotine patches on his arms to get his high. Holmes still plays the violin, is moody as ever, there is a Mrs. Hudson and they reside at 221B Baker Street in London.  But there is an update to keep up with current technology, but in a way that is a believable part of the story and not getting in the way.  Holmes has a web page, the characters have smart phones and send text messages. 

I have to say it took me a bit to get my head around the British accents. 

Dr. Who fans will recognize the work of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss - the creators of this new series. 

Check it out at PBS.org - Your tax dollars are helping to pay for it - might as well enjoy it.  I got it on the TIVO to catch each week. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Juan Williams, @NPRnews and How to Talk Tea Bag

Twitter and the blogospher has been on hot this morning over the firing of Juan Williams by National Public Raido.  Williams had worked there for more than ten years, but apparently the comments he made on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor this past Monday were too much.  On O'Reilly he stated that he gets "nervous" if he's at an airport and sees "people who are in Muslim garb."  Not an unrealistic reaction considering the events of 9/11. Williams went on to argue that the terrorists only represented extremist elements of the Muslim faith and not all Muslims should be considered as terrorists.  But NPR didn't like it and sent him down the road kicking rocks.

 

Now I have found that there is very little I agree with Juan Williams about. He's raised my blood pressure up more than a couple of times to the point of muting the tube. But I will say that he strikes me as honest and his views are consistent. The times he has guest hosted programs on Fox such as the O'Reilly Factor, he has treated conservative guests with respect even while disagreeing with them. I certainly don't think a comment such as the one made on Monday night warranted being fired.

 

In their statement on the termination of Juan William's contract, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said "...However, his remarks on The O’Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a News Analyst with NPR"

 

Yep, Those Editorial Standards are high over at NPR.  If you don't bellieve me, just take a look at this fine piece of journalistic excellence by Mark Fiore from a year ago: OPINION: 'Learn To Speak Tea Bag'  I wonder if Mr. Fiore ended up kicking the can down the road or if Ms. Schiller looked the other way on that insulting piece of crap.

 

So much for the tolerance of Public Broadcasting - anything but "fair and balanced".

 

Attempting to fend off calls for defunding NPR by the federal government, NPR released a chart showing the sources of their funding and the portion that comes from the government.  They seemed quite proud of the fact that less than 6% came from the government.  I say "GOOD!" give it up and quite taking unwilling taxpayer contributions to your operations.

 

PS - Mara Liason - better watch your butt - you're hanging around Fox News an awful lot too!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

ChaCha - an alternative to Goog411

This past week Google announced the upcoming demise (November 12) of their Goog411 service. Goog411 let you call an 800 number and ask for the phone number of a business.  A disembodied voice from deep within Google would deliver the phone number or numbers if there were multiple businesses in that location and you could pick the one you wanted.  All over a cell phone connection, any cell phone - no smart phone required.  All for no charge.  Pretty good deal considering the outrageous fees the cell phone carriers stick you with for their 411 service.  It turns out that Goog411 was really a means for Google to collect voice samples of known lingo for the development of some of the fancy services  being offered up through their Android OS on those cell phones. 

Personally, while Goog411 could get the job done, I found it frustrating that it didn't have enough granularity in making a query.  You could specify a business and the city and state.  That was fine until you needed the number of a business that had multiple locations in town.  The first time I tried it, I needed to call our pharmacy. That's when I found out how many "Walgreens" there were in town. Goog411 read them all off to me.  And the alternative "Walgreens" that we sometimes used wasn't even on Goog411's list because technically they were just outside of our city limits and as far as Goog411 was concerned, they might as well have been on the other side of the state. And I sure didn't want to ask for a "Walgreens" in Oklahoma City - the cell phone would probably have died before that list was finished. 

Instead, I have been using ChaCha as my alternative 411 service. Rather than being a machine driven system, ChaCha uses "real live human bein's" to answer questions you pose over the phone.  Call ChaCha's 800 number (1-800-224-2242), dictate your question (note - this is not limited to directory assistance type questions!) and in a minute or two, you get a text message or messages with the answer. Since you can use ChaCha to ask any question, it can be kind of addicting. Make sure you have a good text message plan - you can get caught up playing "stump the chacha guy". A friend and I ended up playing that one night while partaking in adult beverages.  I'll just say we ran out of beer before we got a bad answer. 

I initially started using ChaCha two or three years ago when they were a start up. They were later bought out by AT&T, and AT&T has done some things that have not exactly improved the service. It seems like more of the "answers" are machine generated. It used to be they were dead on with an answer to your question.  Case in point: I was supposed to meet someone for lunch at a restaurant that I could swear I knew the location of.  Wrong.  I got to the location of where I thought it was and discovered that I wasn't as smart as I thought.  I calledChaCha on my cell phone in the car, asked "where is Casa Pereco Mexican restaurant on the north side of Oklahoma City and what are the nearest major cross streets?".  A few minutes later I got a text message back with the address and the nearest intersection. I found I was off by about a mile. 

Regardless, ChaCha offers some granularity that Goog411 did not have. For my Walgreens example, I could ask "what is the phone number of the Walgreens at 150th and North Western in Oklahoma City" and probably get the right answer without a lot of other alternatives to wade through. 

So give it a try: 1-800-224-2242 (1-800-2chacha)

Oh yeah, and like Goog411 its free. And free is good. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

VirginMobile MiFi - then I'll give it a rest

OK, one more post on VirginMobile's Broadband2Go and then I'll give it a rest. 

I came into a little extra coin this past week - very little, but enough.  I took the VirginMobile USB 3G modem I got a week earlier back to WalMart and exchanged it out for the MiFi.  The MiFi is a small flat slab, with a footprint smaller than the area of a credit card and about a quarter inch thick. It acts as a 3G modem to connect to the internet over the cell phone data network - in this case Sprint's data network - and also as a wifi router that lets you connect up to five devices.  Thus you can share your internet connection as well as set up a local area network through the MiFi to share files between devices locally.  When you connect to the MiFi, you have to provide a password, so there is some security. 

Consider your options on Mobile Broadband

Last week I posted some of my impressions on Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go USB 3G modem and service. Overall, I thought the service met my needs and one of the more attractive features was the pricing and absolute total lack of a contract or any commitment.  On Virgin Mobile, you could pick up the USB 3G modem for about $75 or a MiFi (a 3G internet connection and wifi router all in one) for about $140 (WalMart pricing).  Broadband was priced at two tiers: $10 for 100 MB used within 10 days, or $40 for unlimited bandwidth over 30 days.  This could be done using Virgin Mobile's "Top Up" cards, eliminating even the need to hand over a credit card number.

@Pogoplug - new model - new color, wifi

I'm definitely a Pogoplug fan boy so it nice to see that a new model of the Pogoplug is now out.  The new Pogoplug Pro:

 

• has built in wifi so you can tuck it away with hard drives and printer out of the way and it can connect to your router wirelessly.
• is now at $99 - cheaper than when I bought it back in December
• is now available in black. More business like I guess, but the garish pink and white kind of grew on me.

A quick review is at Wired today. Check it out here. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

VirginMobile Broadband2Go - I need this (like another hole in my head)

Having a ubiquitous internet connection - beyond that of a cell phone - always seemed to be kind of fascinating to me.  I knew that Verizon, Sprint and AT&T had offerings, all of which were designed to separate another $60 from your wallet each month for at least a two year time period. That was too much of an expense for me to try and justify for what I would use it for. Then I heard of Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go offerings from Katie Floyd on a MacPowerUsers podcast. While her experience seemed to be less than satisfactory, I filed it away in the back of my mind as something I wanted to look into.

They left something out....

From Drudge this morning - I think they forgot to mention that it was a Republican President that did it: 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Cleanin' out the ol' Inbox....

(This is a re-post - the first one had some problems with the images)

I don't know why, but I got a wild hair this morning and started cleaning out the e-mail inbox.  

My inbox, my desk, my laundry basket and kitchen sink all have a common reflection of a flaw (probably just one of many) in my character - they are all an unorganized mess.  But since I use the Google Apps implementation of GMail, I don't really worry too much about the Inbox. Since Google is all about search, GMail is all about finding old messages in that big fur ball of mail. I've never been one to use an elaborate taxonomy of folders, labels and sorting and such.  I just type in a couple of key words and names into GMail's search box and I usually end up with a fairly short list of messages to go through to find the one I am looking for.  To be honest, I have yet to not find something I am looking for. And I do save everything - or more correctly, I delete nothing.  I even have a hard time archiving stuff to get it out of the Inbox. 

Its not quite as bad as it sounds. I do have a number of filters set up to apply GMail labels to regular incoming pieces such as newsletters, e-bills and statements, mail from frequent correspondents, friends and relatives and regular alerts ("so-and-so is following you on Twitter" - I don't know why but I do). Some of these are labeled just to flag them with a bright pretty color so I won't miss them in all the flotsam and jetsam of my pile of mail. But it does come in handy. As I found out today. 

So after listening to Gina Trapani on TWIG extolling the virtues of managing her mail using GMail's Priority Inbox and watching her video "Control Your Email Inbox with Three Folders", then thinking back to Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" talks and articles, I guess I got to feeling guilty.  That and the fact that the counter for the number of messages in the Inbox was north of 1,556. 

So we started pruning. I started pulling up labeled groups of messages and got out the machete. I decided I really didn't need to keep five years of notifications from my bank that my statement was available for viewing. Same with the notices from the phone company, AT&T, the gas company and the electric company that my bills were ready for download and payment. I also decided there wasn't much point in keeping all of the Google Voice notifications of pending voice mail messages, so I got rid of a couple hundred of those. Posterous sends out an e-mail digest of all the posts you've subscribed to.  Often times I see those on a computer at an office where they have blocked all sorts of stuff, so I end up saving the Posterous post for later and then not getting around to it. Or at least not getting around to moving it out of the Inbox.  A bunch of those went today.

But that's when I found something almost magical about this big pile of digital debris.  I was going through the old Posterous digests and came across the posts from Andy Inhatko and his trip to Bejing last year.  I've always enjoyed Inhatko's writing and enjoyed going back through them. So I'm glad I kept them. Same thing with many, many messages from friends, family members and others.  Kind of going down a memory lane looking at what we were talking, what the social and political landscape were two years, three years or even six years ago, when I first started using GMail.  So those messages didn't get whacked - just archived out of the Inbox but still safely deep in the bowels of some computer at Google.  I can display "All Mail" and then search on a date range and be taken back in time - sort of.  I know, sounds kind of dopey, but its still fun. 

I didn't get to Inbox Zero. Still, I did make progress.  

And I'm not caught up in having an empty Inbox.  At least until Google tells me I'm out of space. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Cleanin' out the ol' Inbox....

I don't know why, but I got a wild hair this morning and started cleaning out the e-mail inbox.  

My inbox, my desk, my laundry basket and kitchen sink all have a common reflection of a flaw (probably just one of many) in my character - they are all an unorganized mess.  But since I use the Google Apps implementation of GMail, I don't really worry too much about the Inbox. Since Google is all about search, GMail is all about finding old messages in that big fur ball of mail. I've never been one to use an elaborate taxonomy of folders, labels and sorting and such.  I just type in a couple of key words and names into GMail's search box and I usually end up with a fairly short list of messages to go through to find the one I am looking for.  To be honest, I have yet to not find something I am looking for. And I do save everything - or more correctly, I delete nothing.  I even have a hard time archiving stuff to get it out of the Inbox. 

Its not quite as bad as it sounds. I do have a number of filters set up to apply GMail labels to regular incoming pieces such as newsletters, e-bills and statements, mail from frequent correspondents, friends and relatives and regular alerts ("so-and-so is following you on Twitter" - I don't know why but I do). Some of these are labeled just to flag them with a bright pretty color so I won't miss them in all the flotsam and jetsam of my pile of mail. But it does come in handy. As I found out today. 

So after listening to Gina Trapani on TWIG extolling the virtues of managing her mail using GMail's Priority Inbox and watching her video "Control Your Email Inbox with Three Folders", then thinking back to Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" talks and articles, I guess I got to feeling guilty.  That and the fact that the counter for the number of messages in the Inbox was north of 1,556. 

So we started pruning. I started pulling up labeled groups of messages and got out the machete. I decided I really didn't need to keep five years of notifications from my bank that my statement was available for viewing. Same with the notices from the phone company, AT&T, the gas company and the electric company that my bills were ready for download and payment. I also decided there wasn't much point in keeping all of the Google Voice notifications of pending voice mail messages, so I got rid of a couple hundred of those. Posterous sends out an e-mail digest of all the posts you've subscribed to.  Often times I see those on a computer at an office where they have blocked all sorts of stuff, so I end up saving the Posterous post for later and then not getting around to it. Or at least not getting around to moving it out of the Inbox.  A bunch of those went today.

But that's when I found something almost magical about this big pile of digital debris.  I was going through the old Posterous digests and came across the posts from Andy Inhatko and his trip to Bejing last year.  I've always enjoyed Inhatko's writing and enjoyed going back through them. So I'm glad I kept them. Same thing with many, many messages from friends, family members and others.  Kind of going down a memory lane looking at what we were talking, what the social and political landscape were two years, three years or even six years ago, when I first started using GMail.  So those messages didn't get whacked - just archived out of the Inbox but still safely deep in the bowels of some computer at Google.  I can display "All Mail" and then search on a date range and be taken back in time - sort of.  I know, sounds kind of dopey, but its still fun. 

I didn't get to Inbox Zero. Still, I did make progress.  

And I'm not caught up in having an empty Inbox.  At least until Google tells me I'm out of space. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Squirrel Love in the afternoon..

This was just too funny.  

We have finally got a squirrel coming around.  Of course he is driving the dogs nuts.  Yesterday, while the pooches were inside taking their afternoon nap, he found one of Thor's toys - a stuffed plush giraffe.  Now I don't know what he thought he had found, but it was funny to watch and imagine.  After a few minutes of the squirrel holding, sniffing and what looked like kissing on the giraffe toy, he grabbed it and took it up into the Red Bud tree in the back yard. Leaves shook a bit and then the giraffe came flying out. 

Who knows?  I'm just sayin'... 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

#Obamacare "reform" starts to kick in tomorrow

Bend over folks, here it comes again. 

No, I'm not talking about your overdue colonoscopy.... although that will be "free" to you after today. 

Some of the first "reforms" of Obamacare start to kick in tomorrow.  These include: 

• Dependent coverage under a parent's insurance extended to a "child" until age 26. The only real restriction is that the "child" has not been offered coverage by an employer.  Considering our current economic mess, that is highly unlikely - the employer part, not the offer.  Not sure if the new law mandates Mom and Dad have to pay for Junior's coverage. 

• Coverage for preventative services such as the afore mentioned colonoscopy and other services such as mammograms, immunizations and well-child care will not have deductibles or co-payments. 

• Lifetime limits on coverage will be banned.  In other words, its an open spigot for the payout by the insurance companies. 

Now don't get me wrong - I want people to have access to good medical care without having to break the bank.  I have been in the position of having to pay for many of these services myself due to the coverage I've had while being self-employed. The problem with these "reforms" is who is going to pay for them?  Some of these are significant broadening of coverage.  A colonoscopy would cost us about $1200.  My wife's mammogram would be around $800.  Shots for various things could run $25 to $100 depending.... And no lifetime cap on coverage makes it very difficult to actuarially determine what rates should be.

Under many group plans at good sized employers, these services and benefits are already included.  But the plans carried by small businesses or by individuals that don't have coverage through their employer don't have them.  So you say "good - now they do". Yes they do... but at what cost.  Are these costs just going to be eaten by the insurance carriers?  Contrary to what our deal leader would have you believe, insurance carriers profit margins are not so fat as to just absorb them. That means premiums will probably go up. Or maybe the insurance carrier decides that they can't be profitable writing coverage for individuals or small companies and simply pull out of the market.  Less competition for the remaining carriers means less pressure on them to keep rates down. 

I still say that all of this is part of the progressive's plan to move to a single payer system controlled by the government. More and more mandates on coverage provided by insurance carriers without a way of charging an adequate premium will drive more and more carriers out of the market until Obama and the rest of the progressive bunch can point to the health insurance industry and say "see, they don't work..." and they'll push in a government run healthcare system. 

And then get ready to really bend over..... 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Karl Rove looks like a cat in a litter box - and a jerk

Karl Rove was on Fox News Sunday today and alternatively looked like a cat in a litter box covering up his shitty comments about Christine O'Donnell's win in Delaware and then alternatively taking shots at O'Donnell and Sarah Palin, saying that instead of going to Iowa and other spots, Palin ought to be in Delaware campaigning for her good friend Christine O'Donnell.  It was a really katty remark the way he said it.  Hey Karl, maybe you ought to go to Delaware and throw some support O'Donnell's way if you are genuinely concerned about a GOP win there instead of being a jerk and sitting around waiting to say "I told you so.." when she loses the election because the Republicans left her high and dry.

Question: Isn't the issue about a Senate majority somewhat overblown, considering if the GOP does win a majority, it will be by a thin margin.  Such a margin won't let them block a filibuster by the Democrats and won't let them overcome a veto by Obama, so they won't be able to repel Obamacare.  If its too thin, practically speaking it won't be a majority what with the likes of Snow, Collins and Brown - you would probably need a 54 seat majority to be sure. It will let them decide what comes to the floor for a vote, let them establish committee chairs, and most importantly, assign Harry Reid an office in the men's restroom in the basement of the Capitol.  I do think that a majority will let the Senate shut down Obama's agenda and generally stop the foolishness that is coming out of Washington.  And that is a good thing.  Everytime the government accomplishes something, it ends up costing me money or restricting my freedom. But clearly the notion of a Senate GOP majority is not going to solve our problems now. It is more a power play to give power to the Republicans in the Senate that would end up in committee chairman positions - more of the same.  Karl Rove's establishment buddies.  Thoughts?? 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Obama Bin Lyin' about tax cuts

The big conversation right now in the political sphere is whether there should be a tax cut for the middle class or a tax cut for everyone including those filthy rich people.

Let's get something straight.  No one is cutting your taxes.  While Obama would like you to believe that he is working to do that, he ain't

Remember, this argument is about whether Congress should let the Bush tax rate cuts from 2001 and 2003 expire on January 1st.

If they come to an agreement and vote to extend these tax cuts, tax rates will remain the same and your pay check in January ain't going to be any different than what it was in December - at least as it pertains to taxes. Your taxes won't be less.

Now if they can't get their act together and vote to extend these tax rate cuts, that's a different story - regardless of how much you make. Despite whatever fertilizer Obama is pedaling, the expiration of the tax rate cuts is going to affect everyone 'cause these tax rate cuts are not just for income taxes.  It will affect the tax code across the board. 

So unless you use the Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner tax tables, you will be paying more.

(Oh - and it ain't the Republicans that are holding this up - Obama can't even get his own Democrats in Congress on board to increase taxes during this recession)

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

GOP is turning into a bunch of sore losers

This election season is getting interesting with the outcome of several of the recent primaries. Its also starting to show the true colors of the Republican establishment.

First there was Dede Scazzafava in New York's 23rd Congressional district.  The GOP leadership backed this liberal Republican with ties to ACORN and the labor unions in the primary race against Doug Hoffman.  When Hoffman pulled ahead of her in the polls thanks to widespread grassroots support, Scazzafava dropped out of the race and through her support to her former Democrat opponent, Bill Owens.  After the Republican party had pumped over a million bucks into her campagn. Can you say RINO? Even without party support, Hoffman made a good showing against Owens, losing by only 5 percentage points. Probably what Scazzafava's treachery siphoned off in votes. 

You would think the Republican party would take the hint that the voters don't want party regulars at the expense of conservative, responsible government.

But this past week we see more signs of big party politics in the GOP. 

This could be a good thing....

Seen over at Lagniappe's Lair:

 

Now that whack-job "pastor" Terry Jones has allegedly scrapped his plan to burn a Koran or two on 9/11 at the request of just about everybody, we now have the Olympic-class assholes over at the Westboro baptist "church" saying that they are going to burn a few, just for the attention.

 

And in keeping with the tenets of their "religion of peace", numerous radical 12th century goat-rapers (muslims) have sworn to kill whoever does this sort of thing.

 

OK, much as I hate muslim terrorists, I'm willing to take the position that if a few of them go all suicide-bomber and take out the whole inbred Phelps/Roper clan at Westboro, we can just let that one slide, provided, of course, that there are no survivors on either side.

 (My emphasis)

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Paradoxical thought of the day....

Sent to my by my buddy Morgan.  Had to share it.

Paradoxical Thought for Today

 

"Fathom the odd hypocrisy that Obama wants every citizen to prove they are insured, but people don't have to prove they are citizens"!

 

~ Ben Stein

 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Well done @Pogoplug !!

If you thought I was a Pogopug fanboy after my post last weekend about how wonderful this piece of tech is, CloudEngines (the company that makes and sells it) just sealed the deal. 

A couple of weeks ago I saw an announcement that they were coming out with a wireless adapter for the Pogoplug that would let you connect it to your router wirelessly. So I guess you could have your router in one room and your Pogoplug in another room. At the time I thought that was kind of interesting but wasn't sure it would be something I would really use. But then they tweet'ed that they were going to make this available FOR FREE to existing Pogoplug customers.  I thought, "yeah right".  But check this out: 

They did have you pay the shipping, but hey, that's fair. 

And today, the nice folks at UPS sent me this: 

Yep! It is on the bus, headed for the house.  So now there will be something else to play with at del casa this long three day weekend. 

You gotta luv a company that makes a great (and insanely useful) product, provides great service after the sale and remembers their customers with goodies like this!  Thanks Pogoplug!  Well done! 

So, if you ever have a need to access your stuff from some other place or computer than where the stuff is at, check out Pogoplug. And they have even dropped the price while at the same time having good sales - contrary to the ol' "supply and demand" theory. 

*** not an employee, owner or investor of Pogoplug or CloudEngines.  Just a very happy customer. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Breakfast at Cafe 501

The wife and I hit my absolute favorite place for breakfast - Cafe 501 at 5th and Boulevard in Edmond, OK.  They make a breakfast burrito like you have never had before - crispy tortilla stuffed with scrambled eggs, guacamole, sour cream, turkey sausage and topped with black beans and salsa. Served up with home-style potatoes.  Forget about counting calories, carbs, or fat-grams.  You don't have numbers big enough. But gawd, this puppy is good.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Pogoplug - all tech should be this good

I've been meaning to write up piece about my experience with the Pogoplug since I got it last Christmas as a gift to myself. But this thing works so well, it just fades into the background and I keep forgetting about it.

What is a Pogoplug? Its basically a garish pink and white box that lets you connect and access a USB drive from anywhere you have a computer on the internet. Actually you can connect up to four drives - either USB flash drives or hard drives.  Call it network attached storage, call it a file server, call it whatever you want, I call it dead simple.  Being able to access my stuff form anywhere has always been something I've wanted, but until the Pogoplug, it seemed like that was something reserved for folks a lot smarter than me and knowledgeable in all sorts of arcane network stuff.

Not so with the Pogoplug.  The steps are as follows:

1. Plug it into your router,

2. Plug in a USB drive (or three or four - can you say terabyte?)

3. Plug it into the wall.

4. Log onto the pogoplug web site, let it find your little pink and white box and set up a password for access.

That's it.

From now on, you can access those drives from any other computer on the net. Just go mypogoplug.com, enter your e-mail and password that you signed up with and you will get a web browser view of the folders and files on your drive.  From there, you can do all sorts of things.  Pogoplug will let you

• Download files to your local computer.

• Share files or even whole folders with others by specifying their e-mail address.  They get a note with a link in it to go to the file or folder via the mypogoplug web site. They don't have to sign up for anything, get an account or give up any personal information.  This share feature can either be limited to viewing and downloading or can give the other person full access to the file or folder (or even the whole drive), allowing them to make changes.  This has been particularly useful for me where I need to exchange numerous large files with others in my work.  Instead of sending them an e-mail with a bunch of 200 page PDF files to clog up their Inbox, I share a folder with them where they can download the files at their convenience.  Give them full access to that folder and they can upload other files and changes they need to share with me. And remember, all of this takes place on my drive, not from a remote server that I don't have control over.

• Stream audio or video media over the net from the drive attached to the Pogoplug.  Yep, all 50 gigabytes of your music collection and all of those YouTube videos you've saved, all of those movies you've ripped from DVDs (you know, the ones you own) are available anywhere in the world where you can hop on the net. All without any complicated set up.

And you don't even need a PC to do this. You can access, share and stream your stuff from an iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc.

If you are using a PC (or Mac) download the utility that integrates the drives attached to the Pogoplug into your Windows Explorere (or Mac Finder).  This lets you access the files and folders from within other applications on your computer directly. 

And the service and support provided by the Pogoplug people has been great.  Send them an e-mail with your question or problem and you get back - usually within hours - a personal response from a real person that gives useful helpful information.  And I've asked some stupid questions (Couldn't find the power cord when I unpacked the box - look under the packing tray was the answer that came back in literally minutes).  I've even had them follow up with me several days later to see if I had sorted my problem out on one occasion.

And how much does all of this goodness cost?  After all, there are all sorts of online storage services that range from free to $$$, usually the $$$ is a recurring annual fee.  Well, with the Pogoplug you pony up your $$$ once - the garish pink and white box runs about $100.  And that's it.  There are no other annual fees to the Pogoplug people to keep things running smoothly. (yeah, I know, there's the cost of the drives, but you probably have a bunch of those laying around anyway)  I guess the one danger to all of this is if Pogoplug goes out of business and they are not around to route the requests to the appropriate drive. So go out and buy one and help keep them in business. Seriously though, they have put the Pogoplug system software in escrow, to be released as open source in the event they go away.

One last caveat - I don't work for them, am not an investor or connected with them in anyway, except as a very happy and satisfied customer!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Google getting into's Skype's business.

When I'm on my computer, I live in Google. GMail, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google News, you name it.  Google's got me. 

My "published" phone number is a Google Voice number.  Now today that starts to become even more useful.

Google is now getting into the voice-over-IP (VOIP) phone service.  From your GMail account (or Google Voice account) you can call any phone number in the US.  Just like Skype.  Except with Google, its free.

Write up in USA Today here:  http://goo.gl/n8fz

And at CNN Money here:  http://goo.gl/Ui01

(see, I even use Google's URL shortner (g))

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Anyone else see the irony in this? #Clements #Congress

From the Boston globe today:

 

Former Red Sox great Roger Clemens ..... was indicted yesterday on multiple charges of lying to Congress when he denied plying himself with illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

 

Jeezzzz... they lie to us all the time and nothing happens to them.  He just needed Charlie Rangle as his attorney.

 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Google Voice vs The Fax

This just struck me as funny.....

One of the slick features of Google Voice is that you can set it up to e-mail or text you a machine transcription of your incoming voice mail messages. Its not perfect, far from it.  But its usually good enough to see who the caller was and the gist of what they were calling about. 

This past weekend when I was running around doing some errands, I got a call.  Since I didn't recognize the phone number, I punched it into voice mail. Turns out it was someone trying to send a fax and they had punched in the wrong fax number and instead had entered my phone number. 

But GoogleVoice did its things with the recorded voice mail message.  Took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on.  Then had to chuckle. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Awesome Screenshot is..... awesome

Tip of the hat to Simon Mackie at Web Worker Daily this week for passing on the Chrome extension Awesome Screenshot.  

With a name like "Awesome Screenshot", it had better be pretty good.  I think it is, in that its awesomely simple.  This is a screenshot utility that grabs what is in the browser window.  Find something you want to save as an image, activate the extension and you are given an option of either grabbing the whole page or the part of the page that is visible on the screen.  

Once you have grabbed the screen, you can then crop a portion image, and annotate the image with rectangles, circles, lines and text. When you're done, right-click on the result and save the image to your local drive or send it off to Twitter, Facebook, Buzz or e-mail it using GMail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail.  The e-mail option is particularly useful to send the image to another web based storage site, such as Picasaweb, Flickr, or Evernote. 

All of this probably takes less time to do than it does to read it here.  There are other screenshot tools and extensions that do more and have more features.  Both Picnik and Aviary have extensions that will capture the screen and let you edit it in the web based image editors.  For me, that's overkill most of the time.  

You can get the extension at the Google Chrome Extension page here. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Quote of the day.... Defense of Liberty

Quote of the day...

There are four boxes to use in defense of Liberty:  SOAP, BALLOT, JURY AND AMMO. Please use in that order.

Pass it on.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Financial Reform....

Well,

Obama and the Senate Democrats (and I include Snow, Collins and Brown in that label) yesterday wiped their collective asses with the Constitution.

From the NY Times:

It creates a council of federal regulators, led by the Treasury secretary, to coordinate the detection of risks to the financial system, and it provides new powers to constrain and even dismantle troubled companies.

Where does the government get any authority to dismantle a troubled company?  It sure as hell isn't in the Constitution.

Who decides when a company is "troubled"? (Answer: the guy who can't figure out TurboTax)

This country and our economy is so screwed with this bunch.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

@RandyBrogdon or @MaryFalin ?

I think its pretty clear that Oklahoma will have a Republican governor come November.  The question is going to be who.

Straw polls to the contrary, Mary Falin may be the favorite.  I've thought she has done a passable job as a representative although there were a couple of votes I thought she was wrong on, including the TARP bill and the recent bill on the path for Puerto Rican statehood. Both of these are a couple of bone headed moves that really made me question her decision making skill and whether she is a leader or just a "rubber stamp Republican" candidate.  I just don't see the leadership skills - she's a two term representative among about 450 other representatives and doesn't really stand out.  Sarah Palin has endorsed her - Sorry Sarah, I think you got this one wrong.  She also has the endorsement of Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer - but it seems only after she switched her position on the Arizona immigration law from saying it was a federal matter to supporting the Arizona law.

Randy Brogdon is a state senator from Owasso. He calls himself a constitutional conservative and I have to say, I think his record supports that.  He was against the TARP bailout and voted against the state budget that took that money - not exactly a popular position at the time, considering the economy.  He has led the charge on state sovereignty and drafted legislation for a ballot initiative that would allow Oklahoma to opt-out of the Obama Healthcare bamboozle.  He is strong on 2nd Amendment issues.  He has proposed an interesting plan on reducing - maybe even eliminating - the state income tax on both individuals and corporations, thus attracting more jobs to the state and doing this in a way that is financially responsible.  This doesn't seem to just be rhetoric - there's substance to this.

But there is one other overriding thing that has separated him from Falin for me. Falin seems to be a lifelong politician.  Her resume is state representative, Lt Governor and then US Representative.  She started that in 1990, almost 20 years ago.  I couldn't find anything on her website or at congress.org that said what she did before that.  Brogdon's resume shows that before he became a state senator, he was mayor of Owasso, OK (population 18,502) and ran an air conditioner business.  That did it for me.  This guy is not a career politician - he has run a business most of his life.  He's paid bills, met payrolls, worked to satisfy customers and dealt with the same laws and regulations the rest of us have.  As he said last night - "I've signed the front of the check".  His legislative resume is just yummy icing on the cake. 

I'm going with Brogdon.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Google adds rich text sigs to GMail

Google has finally added two of the features I have really been waiting for - Rich Text Signatures and unique signatures for different e-mail addresses.  See Official GMail Blog. 

Rich text signatures let you create a .sig for your e-mail account using different fonts, colors, links, images, etc. Make it as fancy as you want or keep it simple. Add a company logo, highlight your phone number, whatever. 

The other feature was to allow you to have different signatures for each e-mail address you are sending mail from in that account.  I use my Google Apps account as my central e-mail point.  Mail from several accounts end up there and I send out messages from those accounts from there.  In the past, if I let GMail add a signature, it was the same for each of the different accounts.  Now I can set up a different signatures for my personal mail and my work mail. Or no sig file for the account that I use to post to Posterous with. 

Much of this could be done using browser plug-ins or extensions, but this is a clean implementation that works really well.  I've been using Wisestamp to do this.  Wisestamp works in both Chrome and Foxpro, but had the limitation of only giving you two signatures - say one for business and one personal - but did let you embed your twitter, facebook and other social networking stuff in a really slick way.  

Oh... this works with both GMail and Google Apps mail accounts. 

Thanks Google. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

MSNBC AZ Immigration Poll

Wow!

I realize that Internet polls are anything but scientific, but that fact that there were over 2 million presses of the "YES" button indicates that there must be some support for Arizona's immigration law. And for this to show up on MSNBC is even more interesting.  Maybe President BO ought to pay attention to the news - even the news on his news station. 

Tip of the hat to Randy's Place. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th of July and thank you to everyone past and present that made this great country possible. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

100 percent free wifi coming to Starbucks

An interesting post over at ReadWriteWeb this morning, talking about how come July 1, Starbucks will offer free, unrestricted, no-strings attached wifi access at their coffee shops. 

For a while now, you've been able to get a couple hours of free wifi at Starbucks if you used one of their Starbucks Cards, previously set up an account with AT&T and made somewhat regular (albeit not unreasonable) purchases.  Starbucks is also planning on rolling out a new service called Starbucks Digital Network that would give free access to paid content such as the Wall Street Journal and other sites behind a "pay wall". 

Personally, Starbucks has always been the wifi of last resort for me.  Besides the hassle of using their Starbucks Card with an AT&T account, I always found their stores to be crowded with limited seating and the seating that was available was usually the hard wood chairs with a rickity small table to work on.  Panera and even - gasp- McDonalds offered a better wifi experience and was more comfortable. 

And I do think McDonalds makes a better cup of coffee.  Just sayin'. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Obama Bin Lyin'.... Again

In light of his ineptitude in providing any leadership in dealing with the Gulf Oil Spill, the President hit the campaign trail this week to talk up the one thing he has accomplished, his Obamacare that was shoved down the throat of the American people. Talking to seniors in Maryland this week, Barry came up with this whopper:

"First and foremost," President Obama told seniors on Tuesday in Wheaton, Maryland, "what you need to know is that the guaranteed Medicare benefits that you've earned will not change, regardless of whether you receive them through Medicare or Medicare Advantage."  (quote from WSJ)

This is right up there with his statements about keeping your coverage if don't want to change (until your employer drops it or the carrier pulls out of the market) or not having to change doctors (until your doc decides he doesn't want to work for the peanuts paid by the government) . Obamacare makes drastic cuts in MedicareAdvantage. Obama knows it.  This isn't parsing words or spin, its an outright lie and one more reason to not trust this man on healthcare or anything else.

Then in his radio address today, Obama called on Congress to pass the so-called "doc fix" to Medicare, which would avert a 21% paycut to doctors that see Medicare patients. This would cost the taxpayer billions and negate Obama's promise that his healthcare reform would result in a reduction in the deficit. For someone whose primary economic policy is to blame his predecessor for the economic problems he "inherited", the President seems to want to "kick the can on down the road" for future presidents and generations to deal with the deficits created by his healthcare bill.  Unfortunately, Obama is between a rock and a hard place with no real way out in a government run system.  If you pay docs what they need to make a living and run their business (and pay their exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums) and run up the deficit, or you cut the reimbursement rate to docs and run the risk of docs and other providers dropping out of Medicare system.

Yep, Barry seems to have a problem with selling his healthcare program and the truth.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Why do they think government is the answer to everything?

Looking at Google News, the first headline I see is:

BP Oil Spill: Is it time for the Pentagon to take over?

Immediately below that is this headline:

 

Army probe finds 211 graves at Arlington Cemetery mishandled

 

Now if they can't keep track of a bunch of dead people, why does Congress think the Pentago is the answer to solving a problem like the oil spill? I'm not quite sure what the military would know about plugging a hole - they're real good at making holes and big ones at that, but plugging them 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, not so much.

 

 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

@chavezlinda sure made a snarky comment on Fox and Friends this AM

Linda Chavez sure made a snarky comment on Fox & Friends this morning mid-way through the third hour.   She was on the "curvy couch" with Steve Doocy and a couple of other commentator types.  I didn't recognize the other two gentlemen, but one was labeled "Democrat Strategist".  At the end of the segment, both of the two guys were lamenting about Obama's lack of leadership and the current condition of the economy and unemployment. Both of them characterized their position as very "unhappy" with Obama.  The Democrat strategist guy even said .."we need to create jobs to create wealth".  Wow, this guys sounded more like a Reagan Republican.  

 

The only thing Ms. Chavez could come up in response to the other two being unhappy with Obama at the closing was "Hey, I'm a Republican.  I'm very happy, I think the Republicans are going to do very well in the elections in November."

 

Sorry, Ms. Chavez, that doesn't sound very good. You're happy because Obama is doing a bad job?  As a result of Obama's bad job, a lot of people are hurting.  I'd like to think the Republicans are going to do well because they have some good ideas and answers to this country's problems, not just because the other guy is making a mess out of things and you think the GOP should ride in on the coat tails of people's pain.  Part of that pain is a result of the over-spending during the Bush years as well as the absolute mess Obama has made of things.   Show us why the Republicans should do well in November.  Or is this just GOP politics as usual. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Cowboy Hall of Fame....

A couple of shots from our visit to the National Western Heritage Museum and Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City this weekend. 

This is really an amazing museum with a collection that includes just about every piece of American Western art you have ever seen. Russell, Remington, others... they are all there. 

And it was a great place to sit out the local hail storm as well. 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Posterous Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs

Posterous co-founders named Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2010 by Business Week. 

Wow - congratulations guys.  Although this should not come as a surprise to anyone who has used this amazingly simple but very capable posting and blogging platform. And the Posterous crew does not rest on their laurels - it keeps getting better with the features that just keep coming - new editor, themes, domains, post scheduling, cross posting to more platforms, etc, etc, etc. 

Posterous is a great tool and it has been a lot of fun watching this company do their thing.  

Posterous FTW!!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Jobless Claims Rise Again - duh!?!

After the exuberance from last weeks job report and conclusions that we had turned the corner, first time jobless claims go up "unexpectedly" by 18,000 to 460,000. 

Not sure why it is so unexpected.  Nothing has changed in this economy that would suggest that jobs would be created. There's no credit, business is stagnant at best, businesses are looking at what they are going to have to do with the new ObamaCare plan and what that is going to cost, and after promising the HCR would actually help cut the deficit, they are now talking about raising taxes and even floating the idea of a value added tax or national sales tax. 

My basic craphouse economic theories question why anyone would want to hire someone in this economic environment? Its going to cost you money you don't have and won't be getting. 

Keep going Barry - you'll be emasculated in November. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

20 Freedoms You Lose Under Obamacare

This was the topic of conversation on the radio yesterday afternoon drive time.  I'm not sure where the original source was - something like International Business Journal according to the radio guy.  I found this at www.unitedstatesmilia.com via Google. 

If all of this is true, one has to come to the conclusion that premiums will go up and insurance companies will be going out of business. Of course that was the plan all along wasn't it? 

------------------

With House Democrats passing of the Senate health care bill, it is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose.

Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in droves, making it harder to afford and find medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.” 

The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).
That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Give me Liberty or....

On this date in 1775, Patrick Henry gave his famous speech before Virginia's House of Burgesses where he closed with the memorable line  ".... but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."

After what happened this past Sunday, if he would have said that today, they would have said "OK", signed him up for Obama care and let him take curtain #2.

November 2 can't come soon enough.  

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....