Saturday, November 23, 2013

Not just "code words" anymore . . . now we have "code sandwiches" . . .

I like peanut and butter sandwiches. There. I said it.

According to published reports, Verenice Gutierrez, principal at Harvey Scott K-8 School, has decided that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are racist.

Well, it is a Portland public school.

Wonder why it is that persons of a certain political persuasion feel compelled to seek out and stomp out any little moment of happiness that might be available to others.

It's just a sandwich.

What happened, babe? Didn't things turn out for you in your life the way you felt entitled to? Or are you merely foolish?

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Welcome Home

I just got back from staying a couple of days at a time share near Mt. Hood, right on a golf course. I didn't play -- too wet and windy to play for fun. Rain. You only do that sort of thing when you want to convince somebody of your manliness and I'm just not that interested in manly displays, which, after many long years, I've concluded are exhausting and frequently dangerous.

Anyhow, the location was splendidly quiet, and the only activity on the golf course the whole time I was there was four deer strolling along.

Now I'm back in Portland and it isn't quiet. I've got sirens, and trucks and diesels and blowers and big car thumpers, and a general low annoying hum. I think that's the sound of the universe, complaining. Also, it's raining.

Welcome home to me.

Sunday, November 03, 2013

XX and XY, again . . .

The situation: a married couple is considering buying a countertop home bread baking appliance.

The husband thinks to himself: I can't wait. I love fresh-baked French bread. Thinking about the aroma and the bright, white color and brown crust . . . and I could have it every day! It's just white bread that I love, but plain, fresh-baked and still warm, and melting butter. That's the best.

The wife thinks to herself: I can't wait. I will never have to eat plain white bread again. I can have pumpkin bread, and cumin bread, and garlic and olive flavored bread, and barley bread, and rye and parsley bread, and flaxseed and chickpea bread, and . . . . I promise that once I can bake automatically, I will never have plain white bread in my kitchen again.

The theory of evolution offers no explanation for this sort of thing.

Obamacare, Age of Wonders . . .

According to AP news, only half the states have numbers available, but in that half, at least three and a half million medical insurance policies are going to be cancelled as of the last day of the year. I'm sure that at least some of the policy holders liked their present plan, but they can't keep their plan because it doesn't comply with the requirements for medical plans under Obamacare.

So, cancelled planholders will have to buy different insurance policies, at greater rates. They will have to sign on to a health exchange website run by the states, which will coordinate with the federal website. Or, they will have to go to the federal website if their state doesn't have its own website, which is true of the majority of the states.

The federal website doesn't work. The government hired a Canadian company with a history of screw-ups to build the website, for a price of over six hundred million dollars, with over three years to get the job done. Oh, and there may be more than a little of crony-ism involved. It doesn't work, and all they can say about it is that they are fixing it as fast as they can and soon it will be all better. Trust us.

And this whole thing is such a gigantic, embarrassing disaster, that all the foul, nasty words and colorful, vile imprecations I can think of, are insufficient to say how bad it is. And it is likely to get worse when doctors begin dropping out, and you get politicians thinking about making it against the law for a doctor to not treat somebody insured under the health exchange for the prices set by the insurance company, as at least one has already done. (Can you say, involuntary servitude, boys and girls?) Consider this, the insurance companies writing health care coverage will be selling only products required by the government, because only those kind of policies will be purchasable by customers to avoid the penalty tax imposed by IRS on those who fail to have government prescribed health insurance policy.

In order to control costs, the insurance companies are reducing the number of doctors on the covered panel list.

The standard fellow-travelers who find no fault with notions rooted in socialism, have pointed out that it isn't the government's fault if you can't keep the policy you like, or you can't keep the doctors you like, consistent with President Obama's repeated promises. It's the insurance companies' fault. Yeah, right. There was a bill before congress to fix the problem of policies being cancelled, which would have "grandfathered" polices so people could keep them, but the bill was voted down. The party who killed the idea did so with all of their members voting in lockstep. It would be cruel to name the party containing all these morons, so a hint should suffice. The party which pulled this stunt which made certain the cancellation of so many medical insurance policies consistent with Obamacare has a "D" in its name.

And none of the foregoing, which only skims the surface of this odorous political swamp, is in the least bit surprising. It was all predictable, and predicted.

No, what is most wonderful in this age of wonders -- in the sense that you look, stand back, and wonder at the sheer, cosmic unliklihood of it all coming to pass in a country such as ours -- is that not a single person bearing any responsibility at all for this gigantic, ripping, roaring, raging, flaming, gaping pit of deliberate lies and obvious ineptitude, has been fired. Not one.

Oh, by the way, Obamacare isn't fully implemented through 2014. There are more surprises to come later.

And nobody has been fired. Not one.