Man, the Chiefs Suck This Year

You’d think they would play a little better for me, since I’m working so hard over here in Baghdad.

 

But no.

Cool Experienc4e

I got to ride in a helicopter for the first time in my life a few days ago.

We took a Blackhawk (H-60) to the Green Zone.

This is one of the things associated with being a General’s Aide.

Great Read on Retribution

Read the whole thing.  Seriously.

Over 25% Done

Only 3 more 3-month blocks to go, and I get to go back home!

My View On Health Care Reform

We don’t need health care reform as proposed by the President and Congress.

We need catastrophic medical insurance only. The same way we have catastrophic insurance for homes.

The way President Obama and Congress propose it, it is like getting “insurance” to cover changing your filters, vacuuming your carpet, mowing your lawn, etc.

It is all paid for by money taken with taxes, which obscures the cost and eliminates any incentive to be reasonable about use.

If you feel you have already paid to have your lawn mowed as much as you want, why not get it mowed every 3 days to keep it perfectly neat/trim? If you have to pay each time with your own money, you can budget for it and make a rational decision on what you actually need. Health care is the same way.

And since the Democrat health care proposal is all based on taxes and then disbursed, it creates several significant problems:
1) There are more transactions, and every transaction adds to the costs. This means it can ONLY increase costs to taxpayers
2) When there is an economic downturn, the govt doesn’t have enough money to pay for everything, and they will make deep cuts in treatment/care. This is happening in Canada and the UK right now, but the US news media’s support of govt-supplied health care leads them to suppress reporting the growing health care supply problems and corresponding growing dissatisfaction in those nations.

Health care costs could be reduced by no less than $50 billion/year (compared to the Obama administrations proposals that will cost $100 billion/year) by just enacting basic tort reform. President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress refuse to even consider it. Sen. Reid dismissed it as not providing enough savings to be worth it.

President Obama said that his health care reform will be paid for in part by $500 billion in savings from ending fraud, waste and abuse. Why doesn’t he eliminate this fraud, waste, and abuse first? Many Americans fear this is another promise he won’t keep, but we won’t know until it is too late, the fraud isn’t cut and we are yet another $500 billion deeper in debt.

There is an essential dishonesty on the part of President Obama and the Congressional Democrats. They make promises of what is and isn’t in the plan. When those promises are criticized or used to make a case against reform that starts to gain traction, proponents of the plan insist the plan isn’t totally completed and passed yet.
If it isn’t completed and passed, how can any promises of what it contains and projected costs savings be considered valid? But health care reform proponents insist that savings are guaranteed, even if it hasn’t been decided whether there will be a public option or not. Democrats people to believe there is a set plan when it comes to making promises, but want to only have a draft proposal when it comes to fact-checking the costs.

We need a catastrophic care coverage insurance plan. That can be backed by the government at an extremely cheap cost, especially if the insurance is purchased at conception.

All other medical costs should be paid out of pocket. Tax-exempt medical savings plans should be approved. Earned Income Tax Credits (which result in more federal money being paid back to low earners than they paid in the first place) can be set to help cover medical payments the same way they already do Child Care. Tort reform needs to be done now. Government scholarships/incentives for medical school to increase the supply of doctors would help decrease costs (based on immutable supply/demand laws of behavior). Doctors can and should be encouraged to do more pro bono work like lawyers do.

I also want income tax day to be on November 1st, I want the 17th Amendment repealed, and I want term limits for congresscritters. But that’s another issue.

Zombies

“Quarantine”

Anyone see it?

Reviews?

Your Perfect Guitar

What if you had $2000 and could have your perfect guitar made?

What would you choose to add? Possibilities:

- premium pickups

- burled wood

- slant-edge 27 frets

- 3 blade humbuckers

- trem or fixed bridge

Which brand of guitar?

Could you get exactly what you want for $1500?  For $1000? For $500?  Used?

Interesting Names

Yesterday I saw a Major Kindness at the Chow Hall. 

A few hours later, I saw a Specialist Anger at the PX (military department store).

No joke.

I’m trying to decide if it makes it more significant that both were females, and I’m leaning towards “not.”

Non-Zombie Apocolypse

Okay, let’s re-adjust.

I know zombie’s are all the rage these days, but what about other types of apocolypses?

What would you do if there was a 50% chance an asteroid would hit the earth within a month?  What preparations would you make?  Do you think civilization would hold in the US with a month to prepare?

Apocolypse Survival

I was thinking about one scenario…

Not zombies…but maybe it could be modified.

The idea stemmed from seeing a graphic that looked like Yellowstone Park would avoid the fallout of a massive (complete?) Russian nuclear attack.  Impact/fallout patterns and wind patterns combine to leave that area pretty safe.  It also has the advantage of being a mountain basin, so there are a limited number of defensible entry points.  Sure, someone could trek over some mountains and avoid the passes…but anyone who did that would have significant foraging/hunting/survival skills, and would thus probably be an asset to the small community that would hide out from aftermath there.

Now, a Zombie scenario there could be cool…

How does freezing temperature affect Zombies?  How long do Zombies last without nourishment?  Are they really dead and subject to decomposition (and thus lost mobility relatively quickly)?

I could see a pretty interesting story arising from trying to answer those questions.