Today is one of those rare instances where it is a public holiday in both Japan and the States. Here it’s “Sports Day”–how about that? So it is one where I get a well-deserved day off.
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Update of old business –
The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 – this is the bill that caused me to have the spat with that awful knee-jerk left winger on Daily Kos. As it turned out, Congress finally passed, and the President signed a bill providing some relief. It was basically H.R. 2669 — not the Kennedy bill! — but a couple of anonymous characters in the Senate, and probably asshole Representative Adam Putnam in House, made stinks about some of the more valuable provisions to get them curtailed.
With all the scandals being reported about the student loan “industry”, it is a wonder that Congress just doesn’t shut down the practice of student loans. But the problem is, they have ALSO become the mother’s milk of a lot of colleges and universities. (This was the whole scandal: financial aid officers were receiving kickbacks to send loan business to these private student loan companies.)
It’s like I have said at one point or another: in any other country, the students would be overturning and setting cars on fire (or worse), and making working for a student loan company a walk-you-to-your-car kind of experience every day. But in America, we just take a quarter-century (or more) to fix chronic problems that affect young people.
Speaking of that, I noticed that Bush veteoed the children’s health care “SCHIP” legislation. (Wasn’t he an old governor of Pennsylvania? No, that was Schapp.)
The Senate has enough votes to override Bush’s veto (if everyone stands solid), but apparently in the House, the leadership is a few votes short.
If the Republican Party knew what was good for it, they woud simply join in for a veto override. I don’t think these people realize how they have alienated the moderate Republican voter over the last six or seven years. And a veto override on this one—one that would clearly send a message back to the White House—would do a lot to bring some much needed sanity to Washington for the next year-and-a-half.
The people running the White House seem to want to spite every set back and defeat that the GOP experienced from about 1964 onward. “They’re not going to beat us on this one this time!” sounds like the motto.
But really, what is happening, is that their antics just alienate more and more and more people.
I’m living in a country with the so-called socialized medicine. It’s a non issue, as it is in most other developed countries. You set aside a certain percent of GDP to pay for healthcare, you tax to fund it, and it’s always there. (This is basically the Medicare system in America.)
Just like with any change, people can dig up horror stories from places that have the change. But look at the horror stories in the American system. And including the fear people have, about losing their job AND their healthcare coverage. Or having some pre-existing condition or other bad ailment that will somehow effectively be uninsurable. Why be subject to a system like that, so that fat cat insurance moguls, and big lobbyists, and these various administrators and marketing executives, can live off an overpriced system that doesn’t even cover everybody?
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A few years back I started pointing out the similarities between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War. Which seemed pretty radical at the time (maybe 2003 or so).
But is there anyone that still does not see the connection? It is like a bad sequel to an original horror movie.
Is it true what I hear that Rush Limbaugh compared veterans against the war to terrorists? There’s another guy who went from interesting critic of national affairs to tasteless, classless boor.
Can anyone imagine Limbaugh actually serving? For one, he has always been too fat. Secondly, I think if the bullets started flying, he would be the first to take a shit standing.
Rush should have stuck to the kind of shtick that gave him an appeal to the right-side diehards, and avoided topics (like personal aacrifice for your country) where clearly he knows nothing about it.
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Thank you to the handful of people that send me an appreciated e-mail from time to time. Unfortunately, I can’t blog the way I used to several years back. There just isn’t enough time. And I just feel that, if you can’t make any distinct posts, then you are just adding to what other people are all saying already. There is more enjoyment in reading than in writing.
So I will try to throw something in here every now and again. But I am really in a semi-retirement.
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Hoofin 