Obamacare Turned Democrats into Insurance Industry Lapdogs

Just now the lament is regarding whatever Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and any of the other misanthropes of the modern age will do with the Affordable Care Act.  The wailing and gnashing of teeth is likely to raise to even more of an ineffectual fever pitch as that regarding Betty DeVos who was quite possibly the worst and least-qualified candidate Trump could have selected for Education Secretary.

Cosell:  because she only knows about political patronage?

That's all any of the rich know of politics, Howie.  Trump couldn't have found a crew of such rich bitch losers any faster unless he simply pulled them straight off a golf course.


The Rockhouse contention is chucking the ACA won't do that much since it didn't do that much and it never even approached the ideal of health care for all.  Obama abandoned that before the project even got out of the gate.  Whoops, no public health option after all.

Ed:  easy for you to say when you have VA insurance!

VA isn't even close to insurance and it's where you go when you're already fucked.  For example, I told the Greek police I had VA and that passed as my insurance which is required for anyone in another country.  There was no real insurance since the nearest doctor who would see VA patients was in Athens, five hours away.  The lack of medical cover is the specific reason I ultimately left.

For some considerable time there was guilt about going to VA, taking something for nothing, etc, etc but that's not the situation.  The Army time did huge and permanent damage to my life.  Since no-one could see what it did, that made it less credible but ... after some time it became clear it really doesn't matter if it's credible to you since you probably don't have the same experience and therefore couldn't relate to it anyway.


Everything in the Affordable Care Act has gone toward cementing the Big Med / Big Pharma industries as the most easily-estimable health providers in the world; if you want to find excellence, you will need to go elsewhere.  The American system costs the most but yields only moderate success so, of course, institutionalize that for the good of us all.

Ed:  does this really go back to Bernie Sanders and a 'one-payer system?'

Of course it does but there's no need to reiterate it since you already know it and repeating things to neoliberals has no effect anyway.  They won't remember in any case.

Ed:  due to the Groundhog Day effect of social networks?

Most likely.


Sorry, mates.  I don't have any particular controversy to offer regarding Trump and Obamacare.  You have known all along it was impossible to destroy the ACA so they went back to their standard GOP practice of chiseling at it as if that means something.

Ed:  it makes them feel like they have jobs!

All in all, the people prefer it more when the politicians make us feel like they have jobs and few of us believe that now.

Man Finally Catches Lapras and Dies But Says There Was No Tragedy

Lapras is some kind of creature or thing one must capture in Pokemon Go and it seems he's the hardest to catch of all.  I know nothing about playing Pokemon but I gather there are hundreds of creatures / things to catch with Lapras possibly the most difficult.

Our hero was just about fanatic about playing the game but he had been extremely good at it and had caught all the other creatures but had not caught Lapras.  Finally there was success ... and then our hero expired.  (Fox News:  Man suffers fatal heart attack after catching one of the rarest creatures in 'Pokemon Go,' report says)


Meet Lapras!

Do be cautioned, however, that meeting Lapras may not be such a good idea.

According to his wife, the excitement of the catch caused him to have a heart attack right on the spot. Weiming was transported to the Singapore General Hospital but was unable to be saved and passed away shortly after arriving. He had reportedly also suffered from heart disease and cardiac issues for some time, so it's possible or even probable that any level of excitement would have triggered the dire event, and it just happened to be the glee of finally catching a Lapras.

- Fox


Doctor Phil:  my eyes must deceive me.  Are you really hooting at the death of this man, you cold-hearted liberal bastard?

Actually, I'm not.  The man was sixty-seven, doing that which he apparently loved, and he was with his wife having fun doing that.  I don't see a tragedy in that.  He didn't exactly save the world from polio but not everyone gets the opportunity.

The Crushing Anomie of Online

While social networks are advertised as providing the foundation in human relationships which is seemingly so absent anywhere else, that's not exactly how participation in such networks will play.  (RT:  Facebook blues: Social media linked to feelings of isolation, study says)

Coming as no surprise to anyone:

Facebook may have revolutionized how we stay in touch with friends and family, but a new study has found that too much time on social media actually leads to increased feelings of isolation.

The study, published Monday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, examined feelings of social isolation among more than 1,787 US adults between the ages of 19 and 32. 

The researchers defined social isolation as the lack of a sense of belonging, true engagement with others, and fulfilling relationships.

- RT


The case as developed by the researchers:

Participants were given a questionnaire which assessed how socially isolated a person felt, as well as how much and how often they used 11 popular social media platforms – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine, and LinkedIn.

The researchers found that participants spent an average of just over an hour (61 minutes) on social media each day, and visited social media sites a median of 30 times each week.

Twenty-seven percent of the participants reported feeling high levels of social isolation, with researchers concluding that greater social media use was linked to greater feelings of social isolation.

- RT

That's almost one in three who are getting the opposite effect to that which is suggested develops within such a social network.  In any grading system on the planet, that's an "F" on the report card.


Doctor Spock:  is the thinking the decreases in empathy in societies since the Nineties are due to the increasing isolation engendered by the burgeoning social networks during the same period?

Roger that, Benjie.  (Ithaka:  Britain's Empathy Leaked to the Sand but Education Seeks to Restore It)

That's exactly the premise, mate.  If that cause isn't what did it then what do you propose?


Freud:  why do you keep flogging this topic?  It's about sex, isn't it?

No, it's not about sex and I won't be needing any of your cocaine either, Doc.


The more you use a social network, the worse it gets:

For instance, those who used social media more than two hours daily were around twice as likely to report feeling high levels of social isolation. Those who visited social media sites 58 times or more per week were about three times as likely to report feeling high levels of social isolation.

“We are inherently social creatures, but modern life tends to compartmentalize us instead of bringing us together,” lead author Brian Primack, director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release. 

- RT

Freud:  that did not answer my question about flogging the topic!

Tell you what, Sig.  You have six kids, right?  Think about it.


“While it may seem that social media presents opportunities to fill that social void, I think this study suggests that it may not be the solution people were hoping for,” he continued.

The researchers noted that part of the problem could be that social media can give people the impression that others are leading happier lives, because people sometimes portray themselves unrealistically online.

- RT


Even if Sigmund Freud never did anything else, he would have been cool with this.

Freud quipped: "What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now, they are content with burning my books."

- RT

That was in response to the NAZIs when during the early Thirties they were burning the books he had written.  (WIKI:  Sigmund Freud)


There's no clear answer regarding cause / effect:

“We do not yet know which came first – the social media use or the perceived social isolation,” co-author Elizabeth Miller, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

“It’s possible that young adults who initially felt socially isolated turned to social media.  Or it could be that their increased use of social media somehow led to feeling isolated from the real world.”

Miller also said it “could be a combination of both,” but noted that if social isolation came first, it does not seem to be alleviated by spending time online.

- RT

Britain's Empathy Leaked to the Sand but Education Seeks to Restore It

After seeing the Calais migrant camp, it was safe to say modern-day Britain is entirely bereft of empathy and that doesn't differentiate Britain from anywhere else in the world in which heartlessness has been contrived to be an art form ... but Britain is doing something about it.

A teacher who was shocked by the lack of caring at one of Britain's upper class schools decided, well, this just isn't good enough and the teacher set out a curriculum for teaching empathy to the students.  (RT:  UK private school to offer £20k-a-year pupils ‘empathy lessons’)


The Head of one of Britain’s most prestigious high schools has noticed such an increase in isolation, apathy, and indifference towards the suffering of others in his students that he will introduce empathy lessons as early as next year.

Andrew Halls, the headmaster of the exclusive King's College School in Wimbledon, which costs a whopping £20,400 ($25,000) a year, has decided to take a more proactive approach to help combat what he sees as a growing disconnect between learners at his school and the world around them.

- RT

Note:  as part of Halls' upgrade to the curriculum, he may wish to review the fact "disconnect" is not a noun and the proper word to use in that circumstance is disconnection.  Imitating guttural corporate American slang is no way to go through life, Johnny Appleseed.

- generic picture of a school in case you did not go to one.  Unknown if this is King's College School.


Guy Fawkes:  that looks like one of the schools for the upper class where they have taught young British men how to run one of the world's greatest empires into the ground to leave it no more than a gasping relic of its once-great self.

That it is, Comrade Fawkes.  This probably isn't one of the ancient English schools, tho, since those trees aren't even twenty years old.


Perhaps you have had concerns about newer generations being decreasingly empathic toward anyone but themselves and it's real.

When speaking with the Times, he describes his perception that, as time goes on, students "become locked in a world of incomprehension, with an increasingly two-dimensional understanding of other people, [and are] incapable of forming real relationships in the world of flesh and blood...”

While the phenomenon has been observed worldwide for years, many felt it was just a symptom of the changing times and that a balance would eventually be struck.

New research indicates, however, that adults born in the 1990s have lower empathy scores than those born 10 and 20 years earlier reports the Sunday Times.

- RT


Queen Elizabeth:  how dare you criticize the lack of empathy in the British when America conducts the graduate course in lack of caring!

To be upstaged by the Japanese and even the Americans for snobbery is kind of paltry, isn't it, Queenie.

George Washington:  that charge against America is slanted and unfair!

Oh really?  What happened to the Peace Corps, Georgie Boy?

What's Hot on the Blog 3/6

Entry	Pageviews
"Pink Flamingoes" and the History of America Mar 6, 2017	46
What's Hot on the Blog 3/5 Mar 5, 2017	39
With Jenna Jameson, Donald Trump Has the Last Supp... Mar 6, 2017	37
That Creep is Just a Dirty Old Man Mar 6, 2017	33
Drifting Hard in London with Ken Block & Matt LeBl... Mar 5, 2017, 6 comments	29
Valentina Tareshkova | Another Woman More Bad Ass ... Mar 6, 2017	27
Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Mayan Pendant -... Mar 6, 2017	25
Frank Merino Live at the House of Blues in 2006 Mar 6, 2017	24
Donald Trump Versus the "Enemy of the State" Mar 6, 2017	18
Some Exceptional Clippage of Rally Drivers Going A... Mar 5, 2017, 3 comments	15

Pink Flamingoes - even after all these years, the movie still scares people

What's Hot

With Jenna Jameson - you only thought political matters have become completely ridiculous but Jenna Jameson confirms it

That Creep - in anticipation of the basic reaction of Dirty Old Man to some of that which I post

Drifting Hard - maniacal driving in London with 800+ hp

Valentina Tareshkova - one of the greatest of the early astronauts

Sherlock Holmes - researchers try to determine the meaning of an unusual amulet from the Mayan time

Frank Merino - he probably didn't push Germany to krautrock by himself but he had to have been part of it as he is one of the supreme axebangers

Donald Trump - "Enemy of the State" is a movie which is emblematic of the concerns about the excesses in government which come with mass surveillance

There's a Huge Noise and You Look Out the Window

Would he not be able to see the aircraft by simply turning around in that room.


I searched for aircraft hitting houses as I thought that might yield details on what happened here.  That might have worked except it seems aircraft hit houses quite a bit and there are all kinds of such pictures.  No luck on identifying the circumstance.


The aircraft didn't hit the house fast enough to obliterate it and there was no fire so there may be some chance the pilot even survived this.

Frank Merino Live at the House of Blues in 2006

Frank Merino is everything krautrock isn't since this is part of what the German synth bands were seeing as too mainstream with so much emphasis on the guitar.

That guitar is why we followed him and krautrock came later but Frank Merino and Mahogany Rush are still performing and he's lost nothing over the years.  We have seen some spectacular axemen but, dayum, Merino is an amazement.


Here's about 2.5 hours of Mahogany Rush goodness.



Not too shabby for a Canadian "Aye!"

I was hooked on Frank and Mahogany Rush, since the 70's, when I first heard him on my 8-track stereo!

God bless "Spark-O-Matic."

- YouTube

Valentina Tareshkova | Another Woman More Bad Ass than You

Valentina Tareshkova went into Earth orbit not long after John Glenn did it and she stayed up there for three days, longer than the aggregate for all previous space flights.  That was in 1963 and America didn't try shooting a woman into space until twenty years later with Sally Ride.

Note:  don't read any criticism into that since both went into space when it was time and I never did it so my only comment is as a salute to both of them.


NASA did that too.





Valentina Tereshkova from space.  (RT:  8 surprising facts about stellar career of Valentina Tereshkova, the 1st woman in space)

© / Sputnik


She was bad ass right from the start.

In her early 20s, she was a regional skydiving champion, and already had 90 jumps under her belt when she was selected ahead of more than four hundred applicants to pilot a spacecraft.

It later emerged that not only did her skydiving experience play a role in her selection, but her working class background and character were also key factors in her being chosen to become the first Soviet woman to be sent into orbit.

- RT

Some of the regulars have taken a few leaps and it's a major thrill but none of us managed ten jumps much less ninety and she was a champion.


Actually, she still is a champion since she's still alive and today is her eightieth birthday.

Hat tip, Ms Tereshkova.

Donald Trump Versus the "Enemy of the State"

"Enemy of the State," starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman, carries an exceptional currency with the modern moment even though it was filmed in 1998.  (WIKI:  Enemy of the State (film))

Jerry Bruckheimer was the producer and we can always count on massive explosions from him.  That's part of the attraction of the film but much more it's about the oppressive and invasive surveillance by the state and specifically it's about a telecommunications bill to permit even more intrusion.

That storyline is accurate to exactly the confrontations which for twenty years we have seen repeatedly on Capitol Hill ... except for the murder.  This isn't a bit on conspiracy theories so expand with as many names of people the Clintons murdered as you like and I'm sure the list is long and distinguished but it isn't the point.


In a single administration, Barack Obama made everyone an Enemy of the State or potentially one and that gave he via NSA the justification for hacking every telephone and network in the world.  No-one in the history of the planet ever hacked so many things ... and got away with it.

The justification for that last is Obama's pushing for the Patriot Act, NDAA, solid endorsement of the CIA and NSA, etc, etc.

From the standpoint of the White House everyone is an enemy or potentially one and America never turned that on all of its people at once before.  It has happened in segments of the population with the internment of Japanese civilians during WWII but never with everyone in the country.


In "Enemy of the State," the NSA is using every tactic at its disposal to hunt down Will Smith and that includes satellite surveillance along electronic tracking via cellphones and bugs, etc.  When the movie was filmed, it wasn't legal to do that to America but, after Obama, it is now.


Meanwhile, James Clapper doesn't really seem too sure who is the enemy of the state since he's got a story for every occasion.  (RT:  US ex-intel chief Clapper believes Russia-Trump claims, despite ‘no evidence to his knowledge’)

This is where it gets dance-y with this cat.

“We didn’t include evidence in our report that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians.  There was no evidence of that included in our report,” Clapper said, referring to a paper compiled by the NSA, FBI and CIA, together with the office of the DNI.

When asked if such proof even existed, he said: “Not to my knowledge.”

- RT


In the same interview, I just love the pirouette.

Clapper, however, still appeared unable to put his finger on where to look for any proof of the alleged “dissension-sowing.”

Asked if he still believed the Trump-Russia collusion claims, Clapper stated: “Yes, I do.”

Clapper is not the first to face questions over the issue of any substantial proof – or the lack thereof – of the Trump-Russia allegations.

- RT

Jethro:  it looks to me like that boy's potato patch is growing pumpkins


The amazing part is anyone believes James Clapper about so much as his birthday and yet he remains a noted authority.


Donald Trump has done some delicious pirouettes of his own, sometimes on a daily basis, regarding the CIA when sometimes they represent a major asset and at others they're untrustworthy skankmongers.

There isn't much concern about anyone getting tense about shooting at Trump since he's revealed himself to just about everyone as just another addlemorph who went nuts after he crossed the White House threshold.


Jethro:  so really the problem is the White House rather than the politicians?

It looks that way.  As soon as they move in there, they go nuts.  It happened with Obama, Clinton, Biden, Trump, one after the other so that reveals the immediate answer.

Jethro:  make another White House somewhere else?

Imagine the big fun as the states jockey for which one should host the New Washington.

Jethro:  they may end up eating each other!

Yeehaw

Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Mayan Pendant - Science

The Mayan pendant is an artifact from the Mayan culture which was discovered in situ within a tomb which had been undisturbed.  There were no human remains in the tomb so what was the Mayan pendant and what was it doing there.  (SD:  Puzzle of the Maya pendant)

The jade once belonging to an ancient Maya king is inscribed with 30 hieroglyphs.  It was used during important religious ceremonies.

Credit: Courtesy G. Braswell/UC San Diego

Also important: The pendant was "not torn out of history by looters," said Braswell. "To find it on a legal expedition, in context, gives us information about the site and the jewel that we couldn't have otherwise had or maybe even imagined."

- SD


As the Anthropologist, your task is to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out all there is to know about the pendant.

"A recent theory is that climate change caused droughts that led to the widespread failure of agriculture and the collapse of Maya civilization," Braswell said. "The dedication of this tomb at that time of crisis to the wind god who brings the annual rains lends support to this theory, and should remind us all about the danger of climate change."

- SD

Braswell really doesn't know for sure the purpose the pendant served but tries to deduce it and welcome to Anthropology.  The speculation gets highly creative too.

It could be that king Janaab' Ohl K'inich himself moved to Nim Li Punit, Braswell said.  Or it could be that a great Maya state was trying to ally with the provinces, expand its power or curry favor by presenting a local king with the jewel.  Either way, Braswell believes, the writing on the pendant indicates ties that had been previously unknown.

- SD

Student:  I will have to learn to read the hieroglyphics?

Well, if you will hang out with Braswell, you probably do.  Dig them a little bit, tho, since all of those symbols have serious meaning to rational adults so what is that meaning.  It feels a little bit like a pre-Columbian Rorschach test but make of it what you will and the interested student is advised ...

Student:  read the article?

Yep


Maybe my favorite:

He looks like some kind of deranged cartoon face.


Note to Mystery Lady:  I thought you might dig this one for art and jewelry in the ancient world in a piece fit for a king.  Well, well!

That Creep is Just a Dirty Old Man

Assuming you're not on any particular quest for porno, mostly the Internet is about looking for something interesting to read.  Maybe that reading leads to a video or some such but still it was something you read which led you to believe, well, I think this might be worth some of my time.

Frustrated:  but mostly I run into hordes of psychotic fucksticks on the net!

That has become a bit of a problem and that's part of the Rockhouse interest in Sociology.


Frustrated:  you pretend to be such a Scientist but you're just a Dirty Old Man posting pictures of much younger girls!

The Rockhouse not at all defensively submits there's no more prurience in Ithaka than you could find in the average box of breakfast cereal.  If you see dirt, it's because you put it there, Reverend Mother.

I really won't make it as a Dirty Old Man since I have no easily-concealed cameras or anything of that nature and find it abhorrent that anyone gets off on such material, particularly from the locations such people seem typically to prefer to acquire it.

Mostly thoughts regarding Dirty Old Men are projections of your own wicked thinking with the idea Dirty Old Men are doing the same thing.  The way it really goes, Young Sprout, is you're twenty and you see some twenty-year-old hot stuff which makes you go nuts.  More likely I'm going to think, dayum, what an annoying squeaky voice and I may go nuts but it won't be the same way you will.

Dirty Old People have just as many wicked thoughts as you young 'uns but the difference is we're too lazy to do anything about them.

Frustrated:  except for the Hot for Teacher fantasy

Every young man's dream come true, mate.

Frustrated:  you're not a young man

Now ain't that a tragedy (larfs).


I can write porno which will totally steam your windshield but that's not interesting reading unless it's within some context which has more depth than making like monkeys.  We're all monkeys and I think most of us are ok with that so long as young monkeys are not involved.


Lately there's been interest in high-speed rally driving and it's really not clickbait to post such material since it interests me as well after some experience racing in my own life as well as with most of my sibs (only one did not participate).

There's also been interest in politics but that interest is fickle and at other times you don't want to see a word of it.

My own political interest has been to get away from the generic yak because see above about psychotic fucksticks and the recent example of Sessions is why.  Everything coming from their investigation is a consequence of him talking to Russians and who gives a rat's ass if he talks to Russians when the White House is supposed to be full of diplomats anyway.

Whether Sessions lied or not, frankly, I don't care.  The fact the subject came up in the first place made any consequence of it irrelevant to me.


The science has been running not all that interesting in recent weeks.  There are still daily reports of great things they do but much of it goes toward esoteric purpose and my purpose is much more toward the pop sci aspect of it.

Critic:  must make for interesting reading?

Yep and it has to be interesting for me since writing about something I already know is just a recital.


One irrelevant note since this article has gone rambling anyway.

I may have fritzed the Yamaha audio mixer.  That unit is the input for the instruments and it feeds the audio to the looper which then feeds it to the primary mixer.  It's required as I could otherwise record only one instrument with the looper before I would have to start re-plugging to get a different one.

No audio is getting to the looper but the mixer seems operational and a sanity check of switches, knobs, and whatnot reveals no fault.  It doesn't appear a signal is reaching the mixer but that doesn't make sense for two different instruments (i.e. based on the two things don't fail at the same time rule).

Gearhead:  that rule doesn't always hold!

I know and I've been stung by that before.

Note:  a Boss RC 50 looper is one of the best you can get but it's remarkably primitive in terms of monitoring the input signal since there's no indicator except a red LED to indicate overload and clipping.  Even if the utmost worst happens and the existing looper is the culprit, there is a replacement here so that's not a killer.


There's a stall at the moment since the next move is to try replacing cables to see if that makes any difference but that's such a ferocious nuisance with crawling under things to do it.  There's no wrist-slashing crisis since a replacement is $80-$120 and that hurts but it's not terminal.  Before that will be considered, I have to be absolutely sure it's busted and right now I'm not.

With Jenna Jameson, Donald Trump Has the Last Supporter He Will Ever Need

Jenna Jameson was once the queen of not-so-underground porno and she explored every possible orifice in her search for stardom although not with any black men, no sirreeee, a girl's got standards.

It's remarkable that Jenna Jameson could make the transition from wearing nothing to wearing a sheet at Klan rallies but she's down.  (Daily Beast:  Jenna Jameson’s Shocking Alt-Right Transformation)

Note:  those tats are improbable since I don't see any other pictures of her which show them


Fear not as there's all the weird you can possibly hide in your beard in this one.

Since the start of her conversion to the Jewish faith, a journey she embarked on in order to marry her shady Israeli jeweler/fiancé Lior Bitton, Jameson has adopted a fierce and public anti-Islam stance, ranting against Muslims online and clapping back at those in disagreement.  She regularly shares stories and videos about the alleged havoc wreaked by adherents of Islam from dubious far-right sites like the pro-Trump agitprop outlet Breitbart and conspiracy theory forum Infowars, along with bigoted replies from her army of close to 700,000 Twitter followers.  

- DB

Confused:  what's that about a beard?

Any time a gay man who was not out would go somewhere in the company of a woman, people would refer to her as his 'beard' since her presence may make him look a bit more masculine.


There is genius radiating from this woman on Twitter apparently.

But then there was the time Jameson made headlines for her apparent defense of the KKK. Jameson tweeted: “Do the klu klux klan follow a religion that orders the death of apostates? When was the last time we saw a klan member blow up infidels?”

Answer:  Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries in America, Jenna.  Any other questions?  What did I win?

The Rockhouse assumes burning people's homes and bombing churches meets the specification for 'blows up infidels.'


It gets better.

She idolizes Ann Coulter (“I want to be her when I grow up”) and the illuminati-obsessed Paul Joseph Watson, has called Iran “a cancer,” regularly shares anti-Muslim scare stories, and even tweets anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros funding cabals of liberals (the irony is apparently lost on her).  She even trolled Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who is a Muslim, into blocking her on Twitter—before declaring him “anti semetic” for doing so.

- DB

So now you know what retired porno stars do ... sit around watching Ann Coulter on television.

Jenna:  I'm living the dream, living the dream.