Filed under: Bureaucracy, China, Communism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Freedom, Health Care, Iran, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, The United States | Tags: COVID-19, Health, Journalism, science
Looking at the news, listening to the radio. We are sequestered at home, avoiding going out in King County, Washington, ground zero for COVID-19. Confirmed cases have increased to 793 — 131 new cases today. That suggests that more testing of those who have flu symptoms is catching more people in the early stages. This is a good thing. If you have no symptoms, you probably won’t get tested yet. You have been told over and over what precautions you should take. Do it.
There are people broadcasting who are anxiously demanding that “We need answers.” Well, there aren’t any. At this late date, pharmacists are still warning people to get their flu shots. Do you know how many people died from the flu this year? I don’t either, but it is apparently a significant number. We haven’t ever experienced anything like the current virus. It is related to previous corona viruses, which is why this is called COVID-19. There were, I assume, a previous 18. There are shortages of masks, gloves, ventilators, and whatever supplies the hospital staffs require. Companies are gearing up to produce larger quantities. Some auto companies are reported to be gearing up to produce ventilators. Americans and American industry try to respond to the nation’s needs.
There is apparently plenty of toilet paper, and the stores are getting stocked up again, but there are complications. Truckers are finding closed rest stops, closed restaurants. Someone here had their car broken into to steal the toilet paper left in the back seat. Toilet paper companies are hard at work producing more.
President Trump has been aware that bad regulations can cause bigger problems, and is trying to lift those regulations that are not helpful in the current environment. Governors are not experts in contagious viruses and what is needed. A lot of businesses are being put out of business—dine in restaurants are hard hit. Those suddenly unemployed will find other industries hiring. Amazon is hiring large numbers, and there is a clear need for more delivery services for those sequestered at home, but needing food and medicine.
So if you are confined to your home, what do you do? Read those unread books on the shelf, learn a new language online. Do all those little jobs around the house that you have been putting off. Do some research online and learn a new skill. It’s amazing what you can learn online if you try. Start writing that family history, or start researching it. Where did you come from and when, and what do you know about your family?
CNN staffers have admitted that their obsessive Anti-Trump coverage will not stop until Trump dies. Do read that link! Revealing! Just what we thought.
Hot Air reports that Red and Blue America aren’t experiencing the same pandemic. Democrats are expressing more concerns. States with Republican governors have been slower or less likely to impose restrictions on their residents. So far, the greater clusters of the disease, and the most aggressive responses to it have been centered in a few large, Democrat-leaning metropolitan areas, including Seattle, New York, San Francisco and Boston.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper stated flatly that if China was more transparent, we could have contained the corona virus in China. It is common to communist countries that they are always frightened of overthrow, or allowing their subjects to doubt. Had they notified the world that they had a problem when they discovered they had a problem, they could have gotten help and the virus might have been contained in China. Instead, Italy, Iran, Spain and other countries are fighting off the disease. Iran A lot of death could have been avoided.
Seattle is showing some signs of slowing down, but it is too early to be sure. Other Good News: The tax deadline has been extended to July 15.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, China, Europe, Health Care, Immigration, Italy, National Security, Politics, Regulation, The United States, United Kingdom | Tags: CDC, COVID-19, Health, Politics, science, Technology
The virus has been named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “CoronaVirus Disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).
“On January 30, 2020, the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC). On January 31, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) for the United States to aid the nation’s healthcare community in responding to COVID-19. This declaration freed up funding and regulations to aid in efforts until Congress had a chance to act. President Trump also halted all travel from China, other affected areas, and put Americans returning from China into quarantine. On March 11, WHO publicly characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. On March 13, the President of the United States declared the COVID-19 outbreak. a National Emergency
That’s the official language and dates from the CDC. Washington State and New York State each have 501 to 1,000 cases. King County has reported today, March 16, that they have 420 confirmed cases and one more death. Snohomish County, reports 176 confirmed cases and 4 deaths, Pierce County 29 confirmed cases and Island County had 6. Which indicates that a lot more testing has been done. Scientists here in King County have produced a vaccine, which has just begun human testing.
I am currently re-reading John McPhee’s Table of Contents. In an essay about scientists at Princeton, he quotes Freeman Dyson as saying: “The first rule of technology is that no one can tell in advance whether a piece of technology is any good. It will hang on things that are unforeseeable. In groping around, one wants to try out things that are quick and cheap and find out what doesn’t work.” which applies to our current situation rather nicely.
ADDENDUM: Late day, checking in with King County virus updates: Confirmed cases have reached 488. This demonstrates that testing is increasing, and identifying those who have been infected. This is a good thing. As testing increases, you should expect numbers to rise–not because infections are increasing necessarily, but because existing infections are being identified. Sadly, 43 deaths in total, most from the nursing home in Kirkland.
Filed under: Freedom, Politics, Women | Tags: Control, Health, The Left, War on Women
Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) has proposed new legislation to encourage over-the-counter status for birth control. Every medical authority agrees that birth control is advantageous for both individual women and society at large. Removing the prescription barrier would seem to be a great benefit to women, giving them more control over their own health-care choices, reducing costs and improving access.
Well, not so fast! The supposedly pro-woman Left were outraged. Planned Parenthood’s president claimed the bill “is a sham and an insult to women.” NARAL Pro-Choice America’s president called the idea “nothing but political pandering to trick women and families into thinking we are covered while dismantling one of the most critical gains in the Affordable Care Act.” Seventy percent of Americans favored making birth control available over-the-counter in a recent poll.
At the present, the federal government requires a prescription for birth control. The prescription requirement means that women must have a once a year visit to the doctor, for pelvic exams and Pap smears. That can help their physicians detect everything from sexually transmitted diseases to cervical cancer, it doesn’t tell them anything about whether a woman can safely take birth control. The World Health Organization and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have said that doctors can safely prescribe the pill without a full examination.
In 2013, the New York Times estimated that American women undergo more than 63 million pelvic exams a year. That comes at a huge cost to our health-care system, even disregarding the time women are forced to take off work to visit the doctor.
The examination alone costs around $125, and a Pap test adds roughly $40 to the expense, according to reports by the American Board of Internal Medicine’s nonprofit ABIM Foundation. Planned Parenthood alone makes around $1.2 billion each year from contraceptive services.
Filed under: Conservatism, Domestic Policy, Health Care, Liberalism, Politics, Pop Culture, Socialism | Tags: Food Police, Health, Political Correctness
The food-nazis have got their organic cotton, dye-free, carbon-neutral panties all in a bunch because Olympic gold-medal phenomenon, Michael Phelps, has signed a promotional deal with… Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes. Gasp!
Good for him!
It’s exactly the right message to send to kids.
Being healthy doesn’t mean you have to eat like a bird. Being healthy doesn’t mean a diet of brussel sprouts, rice cakes and tofu. Being healthy means you can eat whatever kinds of foods you want if they are a part of a balanced diet and if you get off your butt and move. The man eats 12,000 calories a day for crying out loud.
And he sends an even more important message to all Americans. When city councils and other bureaucratic busibodies are increasingly trying to legislate those choices for us, when socialized medicine threatens a great deal more of the same, Phelps message is right on the money… that this is still America, and you can still eat what you want, you can get physically active if you want, or you can be fat if you want. It is, at least for the time being, still up to you.
Let’s make sure it stays that way.
Sorry for the light posting of late. My mom has just had her knee replaced.
The surgery went famously, but I’ve been busy visiting her in the hospital and preparing for her transition home. I will try to keep up with normal blogging as best I can. But if the next few days are light, you’ll know why. I hope you’ll forgive me and continue to stop by.
The will to live. When does it begin?
…Are you sure?
When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.
Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel’s suffering sooner rather than later.
Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel’s life.
Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.
They then cut Mrs Jones’s placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.
But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.
Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.
Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother’s womb for another five weeks – until the babies were delivered by caesarean section. [read more]
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Politics | Tags: Democrat Lies/Dirty Tricks, Harry Reid, Health, Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Socialism
At the very same time every single Democrat presidential candidate is pushing for socialized healthcare, and at the very same time the incompetent Democrat congress is lying to Americans about SCHIPS (and forcing 12 year old kids to lie for them in their weekly national radio address) in a back-door push for socialized medicine, the British are rushing to privatize their failing socialist healthcare system.
And who are they turning to? The very private American healthcare companies that Democrat policies will destroy:
Britain’s highly-troubled National Health Care system is turning to the private sector for help.
As reported by the National Underwriter, a U.S. insurance publication,
A U.K agency has included U.S. health insurers in the pool of companies that can help administer National Health Service coverage.England’s new “Framework for Procuring External Support for Commissioners,” a kind of buying club for government-owned regional health plans, has chosen European units of at least 3 U.S. health insurers to join the initial pool of suppliers.
The units are subsidiaries of Aetna Inc., Hartford; Humana Inc., Louisville, Ky.; and UnitedHealth Group Inc., Minnetonka, Minn.
The United Kingdom is trying to improve the National Health Service, the agency that provides health coverage in England, by creating a system of regional “primary care trusts.”
The PCTs will be buying developing health plans to meet the needs of local residents and buying health care from the care providers.
Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealth will join with 11 other U.S. and European companies in marketing their services to the PCTs through the “framework,” or “FESC,” the companies say. [read more]
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Health Care, Politics | Tags: Democrats, Election 2008, Europe, Health, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Socialism
By the time he actually was seen, the doctors informed him the colon cancer had spread to both lungs and his liver.
But never fear! the government made everything right…
But hey, at least it was “free.”
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Politics | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Lies/Dirty Tricks, Health, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Socialism
Another day, another Stalinist healthcare plan! Seriously, ginormously Stalinist. Hillary has unveiled her frightening new plan to destroy the entire American Healthcare system. And there is no question it will absolutely obliterate the healthcare system we have today — the finest healthcare in the world. Everyone may be covered under Democrats plans, but God forbid anyone should get sick!
“This is not government-run. There will be no new bureaucracy,” says Hillary.
Horsehockey! That’s a bald-faced lie.
This plan gives government vast new control and power at every level of healthcare. Power over you, power over your doctors and nurses, power over your hospital and other providers, power over your insurance company, and power over all American businesses of any size.
There is no way to do what she is calling for without massive, massive new federal bureaucracy and control.
Hillary’s federally mandated system forces every American to buy healthcare whether they want it or not. The government will determine if you can afford it. It forces every business, small and large, to offer healthcare whether they want to or not and whether they feel they can afford it or not. Again, the government will tell you what your business can afford. And guess what else you’ll be paying for? Everyone who the government determines can’t afford heathcare.
What a BRILLIANT plan to lower the cost of healthcare for Americans! A massive new federal bureaucracy on top of eveything we already pay for that forces you to pay for your own health insurance, PLUS forces you to foot the bill for people who dont have insurance! (a great percentage of the time, for no other reason than because they dont want to). That sounds SO much more efficient and inexpensive. Lord knows whenever I want something done efficiently and at low cost, the first place I turn is the federal government! BRILLIANT!
“Shared Responsibilty”
Her Orwellian plan further Forces insurance companies to insure everyone and cover everthing no matter what. So why have insurance at all!? Why dont we all just wait til we gat sick, THEN get insurance!
Insurance companies will also be forced to offer what she calls “fair” prices, which can only mean that the government will decide what fair is. You should know, the governmen not very long ago decided what fair prices for immunizations were and drove all but three companies out of business! The three that remain often arent able to produce enough flu vaccine to meet demand!
Oh this plan sounds just GREAT!!!
Doctors and hospitals will be forced to offer “affordable” care. In case you haven’t learned to decipher Hillary’s NewSpeak, that means the government will be deciding what affordable is. And you know what that means? That means hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses and other providers fleeing the medical industry because its just not worth it anymore and millions of students who decide they dont want to go into medicine afterall! Brilliant!
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
“Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage…The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans.”
That’s right, healthcare prices should be fair! They should never exceed a certain percentage of a person’s income. And if they do? Generous, benevolent government will pick up the rest!
Except government doesn’t have any money. It only takes money from you and me. So how does Komrade Hillary propose we pay for the program she laughably estimates will cost a mere $110 billon per year? Well, by repealing Bush’s evil, “tax cuts for the rich,” naturally.
But wait, you say, those tax cuts have resulted in the biggest increases of revenue into the government piggy bank in American history — wouldn’t repealing them reverse those record-breaking increases? OF COURSE THEY WOULD! But Democrats are physiologically incapable of understanding any economic principle more complicated than “must-raise-taxes!’
The truth is also that the Bush tax cuts turned the economy around, and kept it from dipping into a second recession after 9/11. Raising taxes, which Democrats are hell-bent on doing, is guaranteed to hurt the economy. And how much more will her plan cost then? When millions more Americans are out of work?
What Hillary has proposed is not a plan to lower the cost of healthcare — it’s a disaster plan that will drive the cost of healthcare into the stratosphere and send quality and availability of service straight to the morgue.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it
Far and away the greatest contributing factors to the high cost of healthcare are the federal government’s already suffocating regulation, and the cost of liability. HMO’s were born from there only adding to the problem. Hillary’s plan does nothing about the latter two and makes the biggest contributing factor one hundred times worse.
And by controlling the prices of prescription drugs, as Komrade Hillary’s plan promises to do, she will destroy innovation.We have been enjoying a virtual gold-rush in new treatments and medicines because pharmaceutical companies have been able to pour money into research and development. When Hillary takes that profit away, you can kiss your cures goodbye.
Above and beyond the cost, and above and beyond the crushing blow her plan will deal to availability of service, the availabilty of doctors and the innovation of new treatments and cures, look at how involved the government has already gotten in making lifestyle choices for you. Democrats are already saying they will force you to buy insurance, force you to go to the doctor, theyre already outlawing fats and going after fast food. Their justification is that the public is having to pay for some of the cost of healthcare. Imagine how involved the government will be in regulating your personal choices and activities when they are in charge of the whole system!
And one and two and bend and three! Stretch, Comrades, stretch!
How long will it be before they have you lined up in rows performing mandatory morning calisthenics?
Other socialist healthcare systems have failed, contrary to what Komrade Michael Moore says. They are falling over eachother in the rush to de-regulate and privatize. In the meantime however, they are refusing service — refusing service — to people who smoke, and people who are too fat. They are encouraging the abortion of babies with medical problems and refusing life-saving procedures when they decide the odds are not good enough. People are dying waiting in line for care.
Oh, and what about the 12-20 million illegal immigrants who make up at least half of the uninsured? Hillary won’t say if they’ll be covered.
OF COURSE THEY WILL! Democrats can’t wait to pass amnesty so they can sign 20 million illegal immigrants up to vote. And who do you think is going to foot the bill for them? You are.
What a BRILLIANT plan! Ingenious really! Make healthcare more affordable by quadrupling the bureaucracy and then forcing you to pay for 20 million illegal immigrants and 27 million college kids who would rather spend their money on beer than on insurance on top of all your normal costs!
Why didn’t anybody think of it before? Oh yeah, they did…
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Humor, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Science/Technology | Tags: BDS, Crime/Law Enforcement, Drugs, Health, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Mental Heath
Scientific studies have established, and review has confirmed, that even mild use of marijuana can increase your risk of psychosis by 40 percent. And the more pot you smoke, the higher your risk of developing psychoses:
“The scientists found a more disturbing outlook for “heavy users” of pot, those who used it daily or weekly: Their risk for psychosis jumped to a range of 50 percent to 200 percent.“
Now, none of this is news to those of us living in blue states, or to anyone who tuned into the “Yearly Kos” convention last weekend. But at last we have a scientific explanation for Bush Derangement Syndrome. (ht: North Dallas Thirty)
And if you need any further convincing, just look at the striking similarities between the following maps. The first map illustrates marijuana use in America, the second the 2004 election. Notice the strong correlation between heavy pot use (dark red on the first map) and heavily Democratic districts (dark blue on the second):
Coninkydink? I think not! It takes a complete nutter to vote for this crop of Democrats!
American Elephants 