fayfreethinkers.com

DAR
I have a rightwing acquaintance, Bill, who frequently sends me the nuttiest rightwing stuff. And he really believes it. He is a Church of Christ, old school Arkansas, Limbaugh listener. I used to spend a lot of time roasting it but really can't devote the time to it any more. My rebuttals of his material, over the years, would fill a small book by now.

When I take the time to give something he passes along a good trouncing I'll post it in this thread. Here's a fresh one:

***
> From: Bill...
> Subject: SOMETHING PARTICULARLY AMERICAN ABOUT GUNS IN THE HANDS OF FREE MEN
> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 11:45 AM
> Of all the inanities uttered in the wake of the Supreme
> Court's magnificent
> affirmation of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia
> v. Heller, my
> favorite was on The Huffington Post , where someone named
> Cenk Uygur

DAR
I've listened to the guy. He has a popular radio show on Satellite radio. He's real sharp and he doesn't hold back.

Let's look at his five sentences and see if we can find any "inanities":

BILL
(sounds
> like a Guantanamo guest)

DAR
That's important. Start out by making fun of his name. He's Turkish. Chances are that the right-winger who wrote this blurb couldn't find Turkey on an unmarked map.

BILL
disclosed: "I believe in gun
> control.

DAR
Well, that's an opinion but it's hardly uncommon. Strictly speaking, 99.9% of Americans "believe in gun control." Even NRA members. For instance, they don't want the mentally ill, felons, children, etc. to have unfettered access to any manner of gun. That's gun control. Everyone is for "gun control" just to different degrees.

BILL
I believe
> that guns do kill people.

DAR
Well that's obviously true. In the US, guns were used to dispatch a lot of people:

"In 2005 (the most recent year for which data is available), there were 30,694 gun deaths in the U.S." --CDC

And:

"Every two years more Americans die from firearm injuries than the total number of American soldiers killed during the 8-year Vietnam War. In 2003, the total number of people killed by guns in the United States was 30,136."

http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm

How does this compare to similar countries? Observe:

In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:

* 373 people in Germany
* 151 people in Canada
* 57 people in Australia
* 19 people in Japan
* 54 people in England and Wales, and
* 11,789 people in the United States

--ibid (note: that's only murders. When the other deaths are included it makes the numbers far worse.)

Incidentally, I added up the population of those countries and got: 325 million. This is more than the US population (about 301 million). If you add up the hand gun murders for all of those countries you get:

654

versus:

11,789 in the US.

Yep, looks like the problem is we just don't have enough guns. Why don't those other countries understand how to deal with their gun problems like we do? Oh wait, reverse that.

BILL
In fact, they are designed to
> kill things.

DAR
Obviously true.

BILL
It is
> indisputable that they make killing a lot easier.

DAR
Obviously true. Pull trigger, person dead. Easy.

BILL
> That's what they're made
> for."

DAR
Obviously true.

BILL
Do tell.


DAR
So "of all the inanities uttered" on this topic, this was a favorite? Yet all of his statements were without exception, obvious and 100% true. The first comment was an opinion, but as I said, everyone believes in gun control, just to differing degrees. So where is a single inanity? I don't see one.

I have a couple guns and they are loaded. But I don't pretend that America doesn't pay a terrific price due to it's lack of common sense gun control. This is shown in the following two sentences. So simple a child could understand. Please read them carefully:

“…the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident than children in these other countries.”
--Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm-related deaths among children in 26 industrialized countries. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1997; 46 :101 –105, Link

Those are the rates when America is compared with 25 other countries COMBINED.

Consider the insanity.

I have debated this extensively and examined the science behind the above studies. They are rock solid. The idea that the US is going to improve the situation by further arming the population, is,... how should I put this delicately,... insane.

D.

DAR
More racist crap from Bill.

-- On Mon, 7/7/08, Bill... wrote:

> From: Bill...
> Subject: INTERESTING OBSERVATION
> To: bill...
> Date: Monday, July 7, 2008, 8:45 AM
> WELCOME TO IOWA
>
> Just a personal observation...as I watched the news
> coverage of the
> massive flooding in the Midwest with over 100 blocks of the
> city of Cedar
> Rapids, Iowa under water, levees breaking, and the
> attention now turned
> downstream for when this massive amount of water hits the
> Mississippi, what
> amazed me is not what we saw, but what we didn't see...
>
> 1. We don't see looting.
> 2. We don't see street violence.
> 3. We don't see people sitting on their rooftops
> waiting for the gover
> nment to come and save them.
> 4. We don't see people waiting on the government
> to do anything.
> 5. We don't see Hollywood organizing benefits to
> raise money for
> people to rebuild.
> 6. We don't see people blaming President Bush.
> 7. We don't see people ignoring evacuation
> orders.
> 8. We don't see people blaming a government
> conspiracy to blow up the
> levees as the reason some have not held.
> 9. We don't see the US Senators or the Governor
> of Iowa crying on TV.
> 10. We don't see the Mayors of any of these
> cities complaining about
> the lack of state or federal response.
> 11. We don't see or hear reports of the police
> going around
> confiscating personal firearms so only the criminal will be
> armed.
> 12. We don't see gangs of people going around and
> randomly shooting at
> the rescue workers.
> 13. You don't see some leaders in this country
> blaming the bad
> behavior of the Iowa flood victims on "society"
> (of course there is no wide
> spread reports of lawlessness to require excuses).
>
> Re: Iowa vs. Louisiana:
>
> Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding
> telethons asking for
> help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected
> by the floods?
>
> Where is all the media asking the tough questions about
> why the federal
> government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where
> the FEMA trucks (and
> trailers) are?
>
> Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa
> people to free hotels
> in Chicago?
>
> When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government
> blew up the levees
> that failed in Des Moines?
>
> Where are Sean Penn and the Di xie Ch icks?
>
> Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis
> shoes and big screen
> television sets?
>
> When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he
> wants to rebuild a
> "vanilla" Iowa, because that's the way
> God wants it?
>
> Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete
> with reports of
> cannibalism?
>
> Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates
> white, rural
> people?
>
> How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa
> flooding ever
> again?


DAR
The last time you tried passing along this silly bit of racist effluent, it was January 11, 2007. It contained many of the exact same dis-analogies, but the attempted comparison was a snow storm.

Here is what you sent me a year and a half ago:

***
Weather Bulletin - Denver
Thursday, January 11, 2007 8:33 PM
From:
"Bill...

Weather Bulletin - Denver

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic event---

May I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a
penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments

delivered it to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this
early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.
***

DAR
My response then which pretty much applies again, was:

***
DAR
Three and a half feet of snow in an area known
for skiing? This is supposed to compare to the
New Orleans hurricane and a city flooded by the
ocean? Good grief.
How many people died in this snow storm? Let
me check:

***
Winter Storms Causes Havoc for Thousands

Jan 2, 2007 06:14 AM

Planes flew over Colorado and Kansas Monday
night, searching for snowbound travelers.

A blizzard dumped nearly three feet of snow in
some spots. Some drifts are up to 15 feet high.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses in
Kansas are without power. Utility officials say
it could take more than a week to get them all
back on line.

The huge storm is being blamed for at least 12
deaths in four states.
***

Twelve deaths, in four states.

This one is so dumb, even snopes debunks it:

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp

It's a recycled chain letter from a Dakota storm.

You can shovel snow, but you can't shovel water.

***

DAR
So, lets take a look at some details about this flood in Iowa:

"A mandatory evacuation order is still in effect for parts of Cedar Rapids, which affects more than 20,000 people. Concerns remain for Cedar Rapids water treatment plant. Capacity has been reduced to 25 percent percent and city officials are asking people not to take showers or wash laundry, and to conserve water if they can.

Continuous rain and rising floodwaters of the Des Moines River caused an earthen levee to burst on Saturday forcing the evacuation of north-side Des Moines neighborhoods that affected more than 200 homes and flooding North High School."

LINK

Is there anyone who could bring themselves to think this is a comparable situation? 200 homes vs. what? a 100,000 or so in New Orleans?

I just found this article that nicely responds to yours. Let me know if you are a little ashamed.

***
Column: Despite Framing, Iowa Flood No Katrina

Jun 20, 2008

(UWIRE.com) This story was written by Emileigh Barnes, The Daily Iowan

"This is our version of Katrina." That's what Johnson County Emergency Management spokesman Mike Sullivan told the Chicago Tribune.

Mike Sullivan should be ashamed.

As a transplant from Mississippi, I've known both natural disasters intimately. In both, water rose, ravaged. People were affected. That's where the comparison ends.

For Hurricane Katrina, the death toll is still unknown. Sourcewatch.org argues that, because of the disaster's lasting effects, it's still rising. Some counts put it higher than 4,000.

And how many people have died in Johnson County?

No doubt exists whether this flood has been catastrophic, has changed lives, has altered our view of the world. I was there with you all. I sandbagged, worried, evacuated my own newsroom by hand in the pitch black when electricity was cut. I cried as I read stories from our newspaper and others. I prayed for those affected. I'm still waiting for the water to recede, and I hope just as much that the damage is minimal.

Meanwhile, for those of you who weren't there, I'd like to tell you a little about Katrina:

When Katrina ravaged my Mississippi as well as Louisiana, I watched on the DI television, and I was helpless. My mother relayed to me via the telephone which coworker had lost a husband and baby, who had drowned in their attics as they tried to break through the roof to escape rising waters.

I watched the death toll rise, the government not send aid for days.

People were angry; they were forgotten. They died. And even after they died, they were still forgotten. One news story recounts a woman who tried to flag down police as she stood next to the corpse of her husband. Their advice to her was how to effectively move the smelly body as far away from the road as possible.

At that time, I was in my first semester here in Iowa City, and I knew I couldn't get back until Christmas. When I did visit to the coast in December with a church volunteer group, entire cities were still gone. Most of the highways were closed, and we wove in and out of back streets, among FEMA trailers and volunteer tents.

For miles on each side of them lay only slabs and leafless trees, which were decorated with an array of home furnishings that had been lifted in the wind and placed onto their branches: couches, wallpaper, plastic bags.

We passed several blocks of houses that had made it through the storm, upright, and in various forms of disrepair. Some had X's spray-painted on the door. A family friend explained, the first slash of the X was painted as a tally of how many bodies needed to be removed, the second slash as a mark that someone had picked them up.

More houses had only the first slash painted on, bodies still rotting inside.

My friend Ryan warned me things would be bad. He had spent the many weekends shoveling sludge from houses.

"Careful," one bedraggled homeowner had told him as he scooped mud from her kitchen into a wheelbarrow. "My dog is in there somewhere."

Those memories, vivid, acrid, will always be with me. I can still smell the cool coastal breeze, feel it as it felt on my neck when I bent over a pile of rubble and removed from it a glass tea-light holder, intact save a few bistre flecks of mud. All of these things tug at me, years later, and in that disaster, I was only part of the periphery.

Right now, Iowa City is in a time of worry. Many business owners may have lost their livelihoods, but that's not the same as lives. People have lost their homes, but that's not the same as families.

I am a reporter. I know a thing or two about media framing, or theway stories are organized. I also know that we're deeply influenced by the way our sources present information to us.

A quotation such as "This is our version of Katrina" is a powerful one, hard for a writer to pass up. See how it affected me? At the same time, any death related to flooding is a tragedy. It cannot be diminished or comprehended. My heart is broken to see homes and lives in disrepair.

But to compare one disaster to another is wrong. It needs to stop right here. Instead, I charge you (both press and people) to create our own frames, our own stories.

Link

We don't see looting.
> 2. We don't see street violence.
> 3. We don't see

What they don't see is the difference between an Ocean and a river, between a rainstorm and one of the largest hurricanes in Gulf Coast history.
No Brainer there.

We also don't see the media showing pictures of white folks wading through the toxic sludge covered water with stuff in their hands being called "survivors" while black folks wading through the same toxic sludge covered water with stuff in their hands being called "looters" - and we don't see Blackwater harassing and even "shooting in self defense" unarmed citizens trying to get out of the city. Funny how that works.

Darrel, do you have any information to combat the argument of gun proponents that governments that put gun control in effect subsequently commit democides (killing their own people)? The 6 or 8 countries I usually see them list were never democracies to begin with, with the possible exception of Germany (but the Weimar republic didn't last long). Instead of a previously representative govrnment instituting gun control, a totalitarian government disarms people by force. This is not the same thing as gun control or only the nth degree of it.
Specifically, do you know of any countries with representative governments that instituted gun control and subsequently became more totalitarian? Or any good source listing a broad historical experience of which civilian populations have been armed and which not?

CoralieKoonce wrote:Darrel, do you have any information to combat the argument of gun proponents that governments that put gun control in effect subsequently commit democides (killing their own people)?

DAR
You are probably dealing with Hoggy on this. This issue was debated extensively in Feb of 2006. The claim then was:

"People killed in the 20th century by their own governments after being disarmed by gun control laws: 170 million."

It doesn't hold water. You can read all about it in this thread starting the fifth post down. There were 96 posts.

D.

Fresh Bill roast:

******************************
BILL
you may or may not be aware, that Bill Clinton has actually made statements to
the effect that he regrets that 9/11 did not happen on his watch.

DAR
What's your source for that howler? Or is that tongue in cheek too? I am quite sure that is either another republican lie, or the statement has been so twisted it no longer resembles what he said. I hadn't heard of it, another clue it is a lie because it would be all over if it was true.

If it had happened on his watch he:

a) probably wouldn't have invaded the wrong country
b) would have caught and punished the perpetrators like he did the first time they attacked the WTC.

Cheney had an anti-terrorism committee, he just never chaired a meeting because they didn't have one.

Check out the clip here on Bush's legacy. One of my favorites:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/0 ... hread-859/


BILL
He would very
much like to have taken action against terror in some way. But wait, didn't he pass on taking custody of Bin Laden when he was offered the opportunity?

DAR
No. That's right-wing BS. Debunked years ago.

BILL
He is very concerned about his "legacy."

DAR
Clinton is? That was 8 years ago. He left office with one of the highest approval ratings in modern history. Get over it. His legacy is set. So is Bush's legacy unless he screws things up even worse on his way out. May America recover some day from his horror show.
I actually have a post in our forum comparing the records of GW versus Clinton. Absolutely amazing. I'll have to update it soon since Bush's numbers in most categories have gotten far worse since then. You don't want to compare Bush to Clinton. Run from that debate.

BILL
You
may have heard today, (if not earlier) that John Edwards, (Breck girl) has
admitted to a sexual affair with a woman on his staff, after proof positive
(pictures, videos, etc) was gathered by the Enquirer. And there is some
question about whether he fathered her baby.

DAR
I knew that weeks ago and figured it was likely true based upon the confident claims of the Enquirer (they broke the Limbaugh drug story). There is no question about the baby. It's his. What a dumb-ass.

[Oops, I have read more on this, looks like maybe not his baby Why was he visiting this woman in the hotel room?]

BILL
You seem to enjoy hypocrisy from the
right, how do you feel about it from the left.

DAR
It's good either way but always sweeter from the right because they are the ones holding themselves out as most virtuous and the upholders of "family values."

I never liked Edwards just like I never liked Lieberman. I thought he was a smooth talking stuffed shirt. Now he's done. Good. A total hypocrite. You want to compare lists of demos versus repubs who have put their penises in women other than their wife? Bring it on jack, my list is ready to go, and it's a lot longer than yours. If you want to get into the real perverts, those banging the kiddies and little boys, those who get caught with scuba suits on and dildos up their ass, then your list is much much longer and much more juicy than anything on the demo side. Republicans repress their sexuality so all of this weird sick stuff comes to the surface.
We have a regularly updated list of GOP perverts in our forum. You can see it here:

LINK

33 posts since September of last year. Yesterday a new one was added:

"Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.

The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl’s mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children -- were romantically involved, the woman said."

I added this bit from C & L:

"After so many Republican sex crimes and scandals, you just have to scratch your head and wonder how one party could attract so many deviant hypocrites. Ready for the money shot? Muschany co-sponsored a bill in 2006 that toughened sex offender laws."

Now that's some sweet hypocrisy eh?

BILL
Two America's (Edwards theme) seems to mean different things to Edwards.

DAR
Why would his anti-poverty stance be insincere because he had an affair? If you subtracted the perverts and adulterers from GOP talking heads on Fox News, you wouldn't have many left. Big guys like Gingrich and Dick "the toe sucker" Morris come to mind. He [Gingrich] was banging his secretary when his wife had cancer. Do you dismiss everything he says now?

BILL
All this while he denied the affair
for months while his wife is coping with cancer. You just can't make this
stuff up.

DAR
You don't have to. People use that rat part of their brain and then lie about it. Happens all the time.
Our brain has evolved additional layers over the years, the base parts that control base impulses such as eating, sex, fear and anger are sometimes referred to as the "rat brain." Lower limbic. The upper frontal parts are newer and give us advance thinking capabilities. Not everyone makes equal use of these parts. You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain

BILL
And the real kicker........Bill Clinton is preaching monogamy in marriage as a way to stem the aids epidemic.

DAR
You got a problem with that? He's an Immanuel Baptist. They are big on forgiveness. Lot's of fellows in your protestant religion are past sinners and brag about their conversion, how bad they used to be and how good they are now. Would you like a list of preacher hypocrites? Clinton ain't no preacher.

BILL
Does he really expect anyone to listen to him
pontificate about fidelity in marriage?

DAR
How is it pontification to state the fact that monogamy decreases the risk of AIDS? You got a problem with that? Who's being inconsistent?

Just let me know if you want to compare hypocrite lists.

D.
---------------------
Just a taste of what I've got in stock:

115+ Examples of Republican hypocrisy on moral values:

LINK

Republican Leaders and Pedophilia 60+ examples:

LINK

(Dar lays down his cards) Okay, I've got 60 republican leader PEDOPHILES.

What've you got?

What... Limbaugh didn't tell you about those? I'm sooooooo surprised!

> From: Bill
> Subject: Quote of the Century
> To: x
> Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2008, 11:13 PM
> >Idiot Quote of the Century
> >
> >"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in
> the history of the world.
> >I hope you'll join with me as we try to change
> it."
> >
> >- Barack Obama


DAR
Try again Huckleberry, it's bogus:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/change.asp

D.
-------------------------------
"The same party that brought you two terms
of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask
for a third. And we are here because we love
this country too much to let the next four
years look like the last eight."
-- Obama

A "real" quote. My favorite kind.

Fresh roast:

-- On Fri, 12/19/08, Bill... wrote:

> From: Bill...
> Subject: Understanding Obama
> To: "Darrel...

> Darrel,
>
> The author, Dr. Sam Vaknin, is a world authority on
> Narcissism. It is part
> clinical, part political in nature. Well worth reading!!
>
> Bill
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Barack Obama - Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?
>
> Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/13/2008
>
> Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist. Granted, only a
> qualified mental
> health diagnostician can determine whether someone suffers
> from Narcissistic
> Personality Disorder (NPD) and this, following lengthy
> tests and personal
> interviews. But, in the absence of access to Barack Obama,
> one has to rely
> on his overt performance and on testimonies by his closest,
> nearest and
> dearest.
>
> Narcissistic leaders are nefarious and their effects
> pernicious. They are
> subtle, refined, socially-adept, manipulative, possessed of
> thespian skills,
> and convincing. Both types equally lack empathy and are
> ruthless and
> relentless or driven.
>
> Click below for the rest of the article:
>
>
> http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-b ... -elections


DAR
Various ideological professor types with left-wing agendas and too much time on their hands wrote similar things about Bush. They attempted to measure his I.Q. or assign certain personality disorders based upon his public utterances. Like this above attempt, I gave them zero credence.

Oh, and just for the fun of it, I did a little checking on your "world authority on narcissism." On his own website he notes:

"1. In publishing this Web site, the author makes no representations concerning the efficacy, appropriateness or suitability of any products or treatments. Use this site at your own risk. The author of this Web site, is not a mental health professional and has no relevant background or training in psychology or psychiatry."

http://samvak.tripod.com/disclaimer.html

Also on his main page he says:

"The diagnosis and treatment of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder can only be done by professional[sic] specifically trained and qualified to do so. The author is NOT A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL."

http://samvak.tripod.com/#Warning%20and%20Disclaimer

So to put a cherry on top of the silliness, your guy's a quack. I'm so surprised.

How do I know Mr. Vaknin (bogus Ph.D) isn't qualified to diagnose narcissism? He says he isn't, in all capital letters.

D.

More junk from Bill. Roast below.

***
Re: Well, Finally We Know . . . "Snopes" Exposed

Posted by: "Word Warriorette - Donna" wordwarriorette@yahoo.com wordwarriorette
Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:30 pm (PDT)
Requiem for a country, January 20, 2009, the day America died.
Word Warriorette Motto -- "Will Forward. You Decide."

Taking America Back Ministries http://www.WW123456.com

"Snopes" Exposed

For the past few years snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the 'tell-all final word' on any comment, claim and email.

But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind http://www.snopes.com.

Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know.

It is run by a husband and wife team - that's right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It's just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.

David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions - or skepticisms - is a result of snopes. com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues.

A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet, 'supposedly' the Mikkelson's claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com. In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort 'ever' took place.

I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg's contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from http://www.snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm. Yet, snopes.com issued a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things - not!

Then it has been learned the Mikkelson's are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson's liberalism revealing itself in their website findings.

Gee, what a shock?

So, I say this now to everyone who goes to http://www.snopes.comto get what they think to be the bottom line facts...'proceed with caution.' Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself. Plus, you can always google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems apparent that's all the Mikkelson's do. After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their 'not' fully looking into things.

http://www.WW123456.com
_______________

VERY interesting........Think I'll use

http://www.truthorfiction.com from now on...

****
DAR
Oh for pity sake, this is off the chart stupid. I knew 13 years ago it was a couple that started it. No secret. And I have used it hundreds of times to debunk things and found it always to be extremely well researched and also quite non-partisan and neutral. Of course, if you are a rightwing nutbar, everything will seem to the left.

And what is this, a little anonymous rant written by some "take America back" ministry? Why should anyone believe them? Are there 6.2 million people a month looking to them to find consistent accurate information?

Here's a little wiki blurb on snopes:

***
Snopes aims to debunk or confirm widely spread urban legends. The site has been referenced by news media and other sites, including CNN,[7] FOX news,[8] MSNBC[9] and Australia's ABC on its 'Media Watch' program. Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand considers the site so comprehensive as to obviate the necessity for launching one of his own.[6] Snopes' popular standing is such that some chain e-mail hoaxes claim to have been "checked out on 'Snopes.com'" in an attempt to discourage readers from seeking verification.[10] As of March 2009, the site has around 6.2 million visitors per month.[11]
***

The only people who would be against snopes are people who are invested in peddling patently false junk all the time and don't want it debunked. And people who are against good critical thinking.

You know who you are.

Darrel.

ps I checked snopes to see if they had a debunk of this. They didn't. Not worthy.

I checked this "Wordwarriorette" which part of a "take back America" group. It has 99 members. Their blurb:

We care about Christian Conservative Issues, Policies, and Politics.

We are:

*Pro-life.
*Pro-US Constitution.
*Pro-2nd Amendment Rights.
*Pro-Active.
*Pro-Founding Fathers.
*Pro-Privacy.
*Pro-Parental Rights.
*Pro-Moral Written Law-Word of God according the Bible.
*Pro-Ten Commandments. *Pro-Bible.

Now there is an unbiased reference we can trust!

Darrel wrote:But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind http://www.snopes.com.

Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know.

DOUG
Darrel is right. You have to be pretty stupid or uninformed--or both-- to buy this nonsense. The couple who run the site were even on TV a few years ago in a documentary. I saw them. It sure doesn't sound like they were hiding anything if they sign their names at the bottom of many of the articles and they appear on TV.

DAR
James Carville has a new book. I sent this note to my friend Bill:

****
DAR
I am not that crazy about him as a commentator but years ago I read his "We're Right and They're Wrong" and thought it was really good. Now James Carville has a new book:

40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation

I am thinking of getting it. You want to borrow it when I'm done?
****

Bill responds:

-- On Sat, 5/9/09, Bill...> wrote:

> From: Bill....>
> Subject: RE: Thinking of getting this
> To: pianodarr@yahoo.com
> Date: Saturday, May 9, 2009, 9:25 AM
> I would read it if you sent it to me.

DAR
Okay, let's do it.

> BILL
> But then you would
> have to read my Ann
> Coulter book that I would send you.

DAR
Okay, no problem. I can sail through a childrens book in no time. Since I spent at least 10,000 hours in church activities by the age 16, it's obvious I am quite capable of enduring endless streams of false information.

> BILL
> Ann is an appropriate
> counterpoint for
> James Carvel. They are both outrageous.

DAR
I very much disagree with that claim. The right pretends their nuts are a counter point to serious commentators but this is not remotely true. James Carville is a serious commentator and political strategist and was an adviser to the president. Coulter never has had such a position and never will. To the extend she has been a political adviser or had any influence, she has led the republican party in the wrong direction (thanks Ann). As evidence I submit: today's castrated republican party. Boy you are going to learn a lot from Carville's book!

You would probably like to pretend that FOX is a counter point to sane channels like CNN, MSNB etc. But this is not true. Witness how FOX, a pretend news channel, overtly advertised and promoted the teabag protest parties. There were many protests during Bush's time but no news channel promoted them and cheered people to attend. No comparison.

And there is another important difference. Coulter's book is filled lies and blatant misinformation. If you are speaking of her screed: "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," it is filled with notorious inaccurate howlers but specifically when she waded into the topic of evolution (with Dumbski advising).

You could read a complete roast of just that chapter here: LINK

In fact her material is so bad, so inaccurate (I think she may have even acknowledged this a bit) some people think it is a hoax to make creationists look dumb. See:

The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement

LINK

And it's getting harder and harder to make creationists look dumb, believe me.

Now, there are people on the left that could be considered a counterpoint to Coulter. Mike Malloy would be the only one I can think of. He's a bomb thrower and person who is filled with hate and exaggerates his claims constantly. He throws around the terms "nazi" and "fascist" all the time. He is very much like a Coulter on the left. Carville is not. It's not even close. That you would even say this shows you haven't read anything by Carville.

So a huge and important difference between Carville and Coulter is that her book will be filled with objectively false information, errors and misstatement of fact etc., while Carville's, will not.

How about if we both read both of these books and you see how many factual errors you can find in Carville's book, and I'll see how many factual errors I can find in Coulter's? (I'll even help you and see if I can catch Carville on anything)

If you were to pay me a dollar for every Coulter error and I were to pay you a dollar for every Carville error, who do you think would make the most money?

I would.

And you would lose a lot.

How about it Bill? Wanna put your money where your mouth is?

> BILL
> If you agree to
> that, then yes, I
> will read it.
>
> Bill

DAR
Good, I'll order Carville's book and you can send me Coulter's.

My address is:

Darrel Henschell
<snip>

Oh, and one other thing. You say "they both say outrageous things." So you admit Coulter says outrageous things (and I can provide you a long list of course, see below).

Can you provide me some examples of James Carville saying outrageous things. Can you provide me ONE example? Hit me with your best shot. Do you have something, anything, on par with Coulter's material?

I don't think you do.

Thanks in advance for trying.

Darrel.
------------------
“The January 10 edition of the New York Observer
printed a January 3 interview with right-wing pundit
Ann Coulter, in which she stated that she was "fed up
with hearing about ... civilian casualties" in Iraq;
that "it would be fun to nuke" North Korea; that all
feminists are "weak and pathetic;" that former
President Bill Clinton "was a very good rapist."
Coulter's personal website provided a link to the
interview.

Coulter gave the interview to George Gurley, a
columnist for the New York Observer, who has
interviewed Coulter in the past. During an August 2002
interview, Coulter told Gurley: "My only regret with
Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times
Building."

Two days after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks,
Coulter wrote about Muslims: "We should invade their
countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity." In her new book, How to Talk to a
Liberal, she wrote: "I am often asked if I still think
we should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their
leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer
is: Now more than ever!"

“Coulter has accused the Democratic Party of "support[ing] killing, lying, adultery, thievery, envy," written that the only question about Bill Clinton was "whether to impeach or assassinate,…" --mediamatters.org

Bill finds an example:

****
-- On Sat, 5/9/09, Bill... wrote:
> From: Bill...
> Subject: RE: Thinking of getting this
> To: pianodarr@yahoo.com
> Date: Saturday, May 9, 2009, 11:08 AM
> Darrel,
>
> Just off the top of my head, a Carville quote re: a Clinton
> bimbo rumor which later turned out to be true, (can't
> remember the name) (TV interview)...
>
> "That is what you would expect the right to come up
> with when they drag a $100 dollar bill through a trailer
> park."

DAR
I remember that one. Here is the quote:

"Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find." January 1996

He was commenting on the fact that these woman making charges against Clinton tended to be a little slutty. And he was getting a dig in on Arkansas too I suppose.

This is your outrageous comment? A little zinger about trailer park trash being paid off to go after Clinton? Paula Jones, as part of her pay off, got a new nose paid for by the Heritage Foundation didn't she?

Let's see, I've got Ann Coulter saying:

1) she was tired of hearing about Iraqi civilians dying (about a million have been killed, 5 million orphaned).

2) "it would be fun to nuke" North Korea

3) all feminists are "weak and pathetic"

4) President Bill Clinton "was a very good rapist."

5) Her regret that: "Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times
Building."

6) "We should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

7) the only question about Bill Clinton was "whether to impeach or assassinate,…"

This is just what I had in stock. I didn't go searching. Do you really find the above comparable in any way to Carville's one comment? Your "best" example?

D.
----------------
Oh, I popped by wikiquote and found a few more:

"I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo." --Her column; December 21, 2005

"Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."
--Her syndicated column, September 28, 2001

"The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view."
--Oil Good; Democrats bad; October 12, 2000

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"

--Fox News; Hannity & Colmes; June 20, 2001

And then probably the most outrageous and false claim of all:

"The man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents." --June 11, 2008

On the 9/11 widows: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis... These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them... I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much." --Godless: The Church of Liberalism June 2006

etc.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter

DAR
Another difference between Coulter and Carville. When he says something I think he has a genuine interest in whether the comment is actually true. I don't think Coulter has any interest in that.

For instance:

"They're [Democrats] always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment." --University of Florida speech; October 20, 2005

BILL
> There was nothing slutty about jennifer flowers.

DAR
How would you know? She posed nude for Penthouse magazine. There's "nothing slutty" about that? Perhaps you have a different definition of slutty than others use.

BILL
> Certainly Ann is over the top.

DAR
I think you are right on this. But if conservatives find her speech as a commentator acceptable, then it becomes in reality, for them, NOT "over the top" right? Kind of by definition. They like her, recommend her, they pass around her books. Apparently they think comments about nuking countries for fun, presidential assassination, widows enjoying the death of their husbands and regrets about a terrorist not bombing the New York Times building become okay. After all, of ALL the books you could have recommended, you picked her book. That's not really "over the top."


> BILL
> remember Carville is in bed with a conservative, wife Mary
> Matelyn (sp?)

DAR
Of course, liberals are typically open minded and tolerant.

> BILL
> She said re: a Carville quote best forgotten "He will
> have to take that back if he wants to sleep with me."
>
> the point is, both Carville & Coulter are entertainers,
> not people to take seriously.

DAR
No, the one book I have read of his "Were Right, They're Wrong" was excellent, timely and an accurate political commentary. He has an interesting southern way of speaking, but he has nothing comparable to the vile material Coulter (and Mike Malloy) spew. No comparison. Your attempt to call him a counterpart to Coulter is a false equivalence.

> BILL
> I take the same attitude
> toward Carville that you take toward Ann.

DAR
Yes, but I have provided specific reasons showing why they are not comparable, and you haven't tried to show my claims are not well founded.


> BILL
> just out of curiosity, what do think of Al Franken?
>

DAR
I like him and sent him a little money about three times. Maybe my money helped push him over the line. I had my picture with him when he was signing a book for me in Fayetteville years ago. I'll see if I can find it.

I think I have read three of his books over the years. They were all quite good. One about running for president was just fiction/comedy. Very funny, very raunchy. He did tear Limbaugh a new one in "Rush is a Big Fat Liar" but I think he was far too kind to Rush. His "Lying Liars" was excellent cutting political material and a wonderful combination of comedy and a mountain of research. He had the benefit of a whole team of Harvard students doing his fact checking/research. I hope they got a cut because it made a ton of money (thanks for the lawsuit O'Reilly!). It was astoundingly instructive in how blatantly mainstream conservatives LIE. His examples were incredible, and abundant.

D.
------------------------------
"O’Reilly will say Air America hates America, but it’s especially irritating when the mainstream media writes about Limbaugh conservatives and Franken liberals as if there’s an equivalence. I do the opposite of what he does. We tell the truth on the show. Months ago Limbaugh talked about the minimum wage, and he said 75 percent of all Americans earning minimum wage are teenagers in their first job. My researcher called the Bureau of Labor Statistics and found that 60 percent of Americans earning minimum wage are the age of 20 and older. Limbaugh gets his labor statistics from the Bureau of Limbaugh’s Ass. He pulled that stat out of his ass. It went out his ass and into his mouth, then into the microphone, over the airwaves and into the brains of dittoheads, and they believed it.”
--Al Franken, Feb Playboy, pg. 44

“Most of us here in the media are what I consider infotainers.... Rush Limbaugh is what I call a disinfotainer. He entertains by spreading disinformation.”
--Al Franken at the White House Correspondents' Dinner (4/23/94

Fresh Bill roast, on healthcare:

******
> DAR
> Are you suggesting that they should:
> a) be pushing for more government control and socialism in
> the new health care plan?
>
> Bill
> No. More government control and socialism is what Congress
> is advocating.

DAR
A little more government control but not hardly enough. Nothing to do with "socialism."

> Bill
> This "self finding public option that may cover 2@ of the
> people" is not an accurate description of what is being
> pushed.

DAR
Actually, it is:

"2 Percent Would Reportedly Take Public Option"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11 ... ic-option/


BILL
It would not work well,>>

DAR
Then what are you so afraid of? Your side is terrified, absolutely wetting your pants terrified, that it WOULD work well. And they should be scared because it would work. In fact, it is the inevitable solution we will get to some day. But not this time around. Too many loons.

BILL
...and the populace would not love it.>>

DAR
In Canada they tried single payer in one province. That was in the mid 1960's. They loved it so much that the rest of Canada said, hey, we want that for us too! Then, in 1966, the year I was born, it was passed nationally. The vote was *unanimous.* Any politician who would today mention changing from single payer system, or to anything like the US mess, would be laughed out of the room.

BILL
> Look at what has happened to VA healthcare.
> (government care) It was originally designed for veterans to
> be able to get prescriptions, clinic visits, hospital care,
> etc. Over the years it has had to ration. Now many veterans
> including me can't even get it.>>

DAR
Like most veterans, you probably weren't injured or in long enough to get medical benefits. There are a lot of lies being passed around about the VA, mostly based upon old anecdotes from decades ago (with some truth to them). Many improvements were made in the 1990's and we are starting to reap the benefits of this investment. Observe these extensive studies of this issue:

***
The VA is “one of the world’s purest models of socialized medicine at work.” Yet, the government-run U.S. Veterans healthcare system is now considered significantly more efficient at providing quality care than private-sector healthcare:

• The New England Journal of Medicine ("Effect of the Transformation of the Veterans Affairs Health Care System on the Quality of Care, May 29, 2003)

• The Annals of Internal Medicine ("Diabetes Care Quality in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Commercial Managed Care: The TRIAD Study," August 17, 2004)

• U.S. News & World Report (America's Best Hospitals, Military Might, July 18 2005);

• The American Journal of Managed Care ("The Veterans Health Administration: Quality, Value, Accountability, and Information as Transforming Strategies for Patient-Centered Care," 2004,10; part2);

• Washington Monthly ("The Best Care Anywhere," January/February 2005)

• The Washington Post ("Revamped Veterans Health Care Now a Model," August 22, 2005).

Bottomline, the VA provides superior care (outcomes) for less cost.

A fellow wrote a book which looks at this issue carefully. You could buy a copy for $7. Why don't you do that, and learn something new?

"Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care is Better Than Yours"

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Care-Anywher ... 155&sr=8-1

BILL
Now only the most disabled
> can be covered under VA.>>

DAR
Nonsense. All career military people have medical benefits. I was talking just days ago with a friend who was in the military in the 1980's and he told me of people with very slight injuries who received lifetime medical benefits.

So you are for more, broader, VA (socialist) care? Good. I am too. I think you should all have VA (socialist) care. In fact, I go a little further. I say let all citizens buy into such a system and receive this better more efficient care. The efficiency would save trillions of dollars.


BILL You don't think that will happen
> with "public option? Healthcare?">>

DAR
Healthcare will always be a finite resource with near infinite demand. Right now our method of delivery is so rationed that it kills tens of thousands per year and leaves tens of millions with no coverage, or access to care. In other countries, these questions of who gets care are dealt with by medical professionals, in public, who have no biased interest in the outcome. In this crazy country these questions are dealt with by private for profit insurance companies that make MORE money when they deny MORE care.

Gee, I wonder which system ends up with better results for the populace? I'll take the former method thank you very much.

And the results are in. The US pays more (sometimes double per capita, i.e. double Japan) for inferior, inefficient, substandard care which still denies coverage for at least 30 million Americans. It's a farce.


BILL
> Another example of
> government healthcare. Have you ever been to an Indian
> reservation? Ask about their healthcare. It is dismal.>>

DAR
That may be true. We have an entirely different system for delivery of care to these people. Better to take the best systems that are working very well (VA for instance), and apply it to everyone.

BILL If
> you believe that government can run a healthcare program
> efficiently, inexpensively, without rationing, you just
> aren't paying attention.>>

DAR
No Bill, I have been paying attention to this issue for years and I probably know ten times more about it than you do. I have also lived in Canada for 21 years and the US for 23 so I have some real world experience of living under the two systems (I also know a lot of Canadians and have interviewed them about this). I have lectured on this topic and sat on a health care panel at a local TV station just weeks ago. Check out this picture:

http://media.syracuse.com/news/photo/ob ... _large.jpg

See that doctor to the left of Obama? That's Dr. Hershey Garner. He lives about three miles from me. I visited with him and sat one person over from him on this health care panel a few weeks ago. Of the ten people on that panel the only person who may have (and probably did) know more about this issue than me, was him (but three were far right tea-bagger types, and thus not too bright). We recorded two hours for this show (local cable access). If they put it on youtube perhaps I'll send you the link.

BILL
> Many are covered by insurance through their job, and are
> fine with the plans they have.>>

DAR
That's nice. They can keep them. But they are getting hosed right now because they are paying to cover the millions not covered (through cost shifting) and to pay the profits and wasteful inefficiency of half a million insurance workers that are unnecessary.

One example:

At a U.S. Senate Finance Committee meeting on Nov. 19, 2008, Dr. Reinhardt said:

“We have 900 billing clerks at Duke (medical system, 900-bed hospital). I’m not sure we have a nurse per bed, but we have a billing clerk per bed . . . it’s obscene.” --http://tinyurl.com/9fx2v7

A billing clerk for every bed of the hospital? What an absurd waste of money. And those hospital billing clerks are talking to another employee on the insurance end. We are paying for both of them. In Canada there is none of that. If the doctor considers your care necessary, it's covered. No arguments, no arguing with insurance companies, billing clerks. No claims denied. It's covered.

BILL
> If and when this "public
> option" kicks in, then many employers will no longer provide
> the plans they have now,

DAR
Why is that?

BILL
and employees will be forced to
> another plan,

DAR
Why is that?

> whether public or some other that in many
> cases will be inferior.

DAR
Show this.


BILL
> It is all well and good to be
> concerned about those who are uninsured, but why tinker with
> what is working fine?

DAR
"Working fine?"

Is it working well for the tens of thousands dying each year from lack of care Bill?

Did it work well for Nikki White? Note her example:

***

"Prologue: A Moral Question

“If Nikki WHite had been a resident of any other rich country, she would be alive today.

Around the time she graduated from college, Monique A. "Nikki" White contracted systemic lupus erythematosis; that's a serious disease, but on that modern medicine knows how to manage. If this bright, feisty, dazzling young woman had lived in, say Japan--the world's second-richest nation--or Germany (third richest), or Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Sweden, etc., the health care systems there would have given her the standard treatment for lupus, and she could have lived a normal life span. But Nikki White was a citizen of the world's richest country, the United States of America. Once she was sick, she couldn't get health insurance. Like tens of millions of her fellow Americans, she had too much money to qualify for health care under welfare, but too much money to qualify for health care under welfare, but too little money to pay for the drugs and doctors she needed to stay alive. She spent the last months of her life frantically writing letters and filling out forms, pleading for help. When she died, Nikki White was thirty-two years old.

"Nikki didn't die from lupus," Dr. Amylyn Crawford told me. "Nikki died from complications of the failing American health care system. It was a lack of access to health care that killed Nikki White."

--The Healing of America: The global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care, pg. 1

Note: "a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that 20,000 Americans die each year because they can't get the health care they need."

We are the only nation in the modern industrialized world, among other free-market democracies that:

1) Doesn't cover every citizen in their basic health care needs

2) Has the misfortune that if you lose your job, you lose your health insurance (just when you need it the most)

3) Makes a PROFIT on the basic health care needs of its citizens, to the point where people can't even afford it, and

4) where insurance providers/companies can CANCEL your current insurance.

Is it working well for the people who fall into the categories of 1-4 Bill?

Is it working well for the hundreds of thousands (about 700k per year) who go bankrupt with medical bills?

Is it working well for this local cobbler Bill? From something I posted the other day:

***
Just the other day I learned that a local fellow, a cobbler, went to the hospital thinking he had pneumonia but turns out his heart was failing and he got a quadruple bypass instead (which his insurance covered). Now his heart condition has worsened and he must have a transplant. To even qualify to get on a waiting list for a heart HE MUST HAVE TO LIVE he needs to raise $120-150k. This is because even if he gets a new heart, to quote:

"...[he] has health insurance, which will pay for the biggest part of the heart transplant, but the cost of the drugs to keep his body from rejecting the new heart will cost between $5,000 and $6,000 each month for the rest of his life. The insurance coverage they have does not include the costs of drugs,...".

He's 47. He had insurance. The short article describing his situation is in our local paper:

http://nwat.nwanews.com/news/2009/nov/0 ... ?nwat-news

This happens all across America, all the time. This is YOUR idea of "working fine?"

Note:

"...85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt,"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/healt ... 1poll.html

So apparently the American people, disagree with you and agree with me.


BILL
> So that politicians can have power and
> control over more people? That is the goal.

DAR
No, the goal is to fix the bloated, inefficient, ineffective, pathetic US medical mess which routinely comes in last in comparisons with our peer countries. Our peer countries deliver better care, for EVERYONE, for less money, with better outcomes, less mistakes, less waste, higher satisfaction, less death, less bankruptcies etc. I can bury you in well referenced data supporting each one of these claims if you have the nerve to challenge any of them.

> Bill
> So we agree that the congressional healthcare plans should
> be available to others.

DAR
WELL WE AGREE THEN. You are for government subsidized medical delivery for everyone. Good job!

The irony here is you probably don't even realize how blatantly you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. There are many on the left who would very much like to have the congressional plan be available to everyone (as you say you would like). If Ted Kennedy had had his way we would have had this accomplished in the 1970's and it would be a non-issue today. America would be healthier and wealthier.

But who is opposed to such a sensible idea?

Who would never let this happen? Why is it politically impossible today? Who is fighting tooth and nail to keep something with far less government involvement from happening?

Why it is rightwing ditto-head teabaggers like yourself of course!

Talk about government take over of health care!

So here you want this government plan "available to others" while at the same time opposing Obama's modest plans which have MUCH LESS government involvement.

Which is it Bill? Get you're story straight.

Your position is contradictory and incoherent. Let me know when you figure out what you really believe would ya?

D.
-------------
"...the United States now ranks last in preventable mortality, just below Ireland and Portugal, according to the Commonwealth Fund’s analysis of World Health Organization data. The leader by that measure is France, followed by Japan and Australia."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/busin ... .html?_r=2

Bonus:

Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance

"According to a study released by the Harvard Medical School, 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year as a result of not having health insurance. Researchers emphasize that "that figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001."

The 1.46 million working-age veterans that did not have health insurance last year all experienced reduced access to care as a consequence, leading to "six preventable deaths a day."

Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
[...]

Dr. David Himmelstein, the co-author of the report and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, "On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system. That's six preventable deaths a day."

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/ ... erans_.php

BILL
> Darrel,
> Since you are so enamored with
> government-run healthcare,
> perhaps you would be interested in reading the article
> below. This is what
> happens when the resources are strained and it becomes
> necessary to ration healthcare.
>
*********
> Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room,
> part of the wall is torn
> and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When
> the wounded combat
> engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the
> bathtub on the floor
> above through a rotted hole. The entire building,
> constructed between the world
> wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect
> are everywhere: mouse
> droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap
> mattresses.
>
> This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place
> where Duncan
> expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed
> Army Medical Center
> from Iraq
> last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear,
> nearly dead from
> blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of
> the hospital and five
> miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds
> of maimed soldiers
> recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and
> Afghanistan.
>
>
> The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical
> hospital that shines
> as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of
> sustained combat
> have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into
> something else
> entirely -- a holding ground for physically and
> psychologically damaged outpatients.
> Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some
> Marines -- have been
> released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are
> awaiting
> bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned
> to active duty.
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01172.html

DAR
Walter Reed, building 18. Yes, I've heard this response before. This is cherry picking (a fallacy).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

Cherry picking a single example out of an immense military complex does not counter or respond to the extensive peer reviewed scientific analysis I provided showing the VA obtains superior outcomes. Nor does it show rationing was/is necessary because something is "government run." That doesn't follow (non sequiter fallacy). For instance it could just show that more money should be spent on hospitals rather than $350 million F-22's that the military doesn't need or want etc. (now canceled). It shows poor management and poor allocation of resources.

For instance, because of poor management of resources, Canada's single payer health care system has had some unacceptable problems with delivery of services (rationing). Is this necessarily a problem with the single payer system? No. Taiwan recently modeled their system on Canada's single payer system and they were careful to fix these bugs and provide for the necessary funding. Canada held a conference, is throwing $4 billion bucks at it and, like Walter Reed, the problem will be addressed.

And here is an article that references another careful measurement of how the VA compares with our private sector mess:

***
Does the government actually run the BEST healthcare?

Excerpt:

"The main thrust of the anti-reform argument is that government is bad at running things, and would be terrible at running a healthcare program. Better to entrust running healthcare to the very same private insurers who have gotten rich creating the very problem we have now: skyrocketing premium costs, coverage reductions or limitations, denials due to pre-existing conditions, etc.

But is there really a good argument to be made against government run healthcare plans in general? Certainly, the healthcare enjoyed by members of congress is government-run, as is that offered to our armed servicemen and women. How do they measure up to privately run medical programs?

A team of researchers recently set out to compare the quality of VHA care with that of care in a national sample by using a comprehensive quality-of-care measure.

*VA scores highest in quality of care*

The research team found that patients from the VHA scored 16 percentage points higher for adjusted overall quality...

For chronic disease care, the VA finished 13 percentage points higher...

For preventive care, the VA finished 20 points higher (64% vs. 44%; difference [CI, 12 to 28 percentage points]). The comparison the VA did not win was for acute care.

The VHA held the strongest advantage in processes targeted by VHA performance measurement, where the VA finished 23 percentage points ahead of the competition...

From the study, the research team concludes that patients receiving socialized, government-run medicine from the VHA received higher-quality care according to a broad measure...

What this study really says is that the more accurately we measure, the more we begin to see that socialized, government-run medical programs like the VA provide extremely high quality medical care.

...This recent study of the government-run VA medical system shows that contrary to those doubters, government-run healthcare leads in nearly every measurable category."

LINK:

http://www.examiner.com/x-8543-SF-Healt ... healthcare

DAR
"Leads in nearly every measurable category."

You can read more about this study here:

"Comparison of Quality of Care for Patients in the Veterans Health Administration and Patients in a National Sample"

http://www.annals.org/content/141/12/938.full

Try again.

D.
----------------
"The scandal at Walter Reed led to an extensive analysis of the veteran's healthcare system, as well, managed by the United States Department of Veterans' Affairs. Amidst accusations of mismanagement and excessive bureaucracy [16][17], the VA announced an extensive review of all of their medical facilities to ensure healthcare standards are being met."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ree ... ct_scandal

Bill passes along a little rightie rant that is getting passed around the net. Let's give it a little toasting.

********

BILL
Are you sure you want government healthcare?

Statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.

Percentage of men and women who survived cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%

DAR
That's far too broad of a statement. Types and treatment of cancer vary so much it's almost not right to consider it a single disease. And success rates vary greatly between types, gender, race and also state by state. Consider this more comprehensive study:

Cancer Survival Rates Vary by Country
Study Shows U.S., Japan, and France Have Highest Cancer Survival Rates


Excerpts:

"Where you live plays a role in cancer survival, according to a new study that shows the U.S., Japan, and France recorded the highest survival rates among 31 nations for four types of cancer.

"This is the first direct comparison of so many countries as far as I am aware," says Michel Coleman... While Coleman and other epidemiologists have long known that cancer survival rates vary country by country, and even within a country, the study lends hard numbers to the fact.

"Survival in the USA is high on a global scale but varies quite widely among individual states as well as between blacks and whites within the USA,"

The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women, Coleman's team reports.

In Canada and Australia, survival was also high for most cancers."

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/200807 ... by-country

In my health care lecture, I pointed this out in the very first sentence. If you cherry pick certain categories, the US does well. Why would that be a surprise? We should get a little something for the fact that we spend far more person than any other country in the world (and about twice as much as most of them). And it's just as easy to cherry pick other categories that we don't do well in. In all comprehensive studies of health care, looking at a broad range of components of health care delivery to citizens, the US does not do well. I can bury you in information showing this.

BILL
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:

U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%

DAR
None of these claims are sourced and I don't believe the claim about England. Nor does this claim differentiate between the types of diabetes, which is a huge difference. The US does have terrible (and rising) rates of diabetes (as does much of the world), this is no doubt why we have a better focus on it. And we have the money (mostly borrowed) to throw at it. Hey, we are also really good at treating gun shot wounds in ER. I wonder why that is? Again, all of this is considered in a comprehensive (not cherry picked) examination of health systems, and the US does very poorly in such comparisons.

BILL
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:

U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%

DAR
Hip problems are often something that comes on over time and a person can plan for it. My dad lives in Canada, is 70, and has been having hip troubles for some time. He will need a replacement soon. It will be free. If he fell and broke it today, it would be fixed immediately, for free. It's elective, not urgent, so when he gets around to it, he will get on a list and get a new hip, for free. I just donated my telescope to a lady who had a garage sale to raise the money to go to India to get her hip replaced. It would have cost $40-50 thousand dollars here but she got a vacation and top notch service over there for about $10 thousand I think. When/if I need a hip, that's what I will be doing. I have another friend who recently went in for a fairly minor overnight hospital procedure which turned into a three day event because of some nurses making mistakes. No extra surgeries, no ICU. He just got the bill: Eighty-seven, thousand, dollars.

And that's in a non-profit hospital! Imagine if they were trying to make a buck!

BILL
Percentage referred to a medical specialist and seen within one month:

U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%

DAR
Canada does have delays that are too long for some specialists. This is largely due to a lack of specialists and underfunding. The US has this in some areas. It's also partly due to a small population spread out in a very large country. I addressed this in my lecture with the latest statistics:

**
Canada has had wait times for some procedures that have been too long. In 2007 Canada had a conference about this and is spending $4.5 billion to address this. This is being carefully measured and tracked by hospital. Currently:

“The median wait time in Canada to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 89.5% waiting less than 3 months.” --LINK pdf

"The median wait time for diagnostic services such as MRI and CAT scans is two weeks with 86.4% waiting less than 3 months.” --ibid

“The median wait time for surgery is four weeks with 82.2% waiting less than 3 months.” --ibid
**

Bottomline, do the Canadians look to the South where we have 18,000 dying per year because they don't have insurance and saying "ohhh yummy, we want some of that."? No:

"A recent study (PDF) found that 90 percent of Canadians support universal, single-payer health care. A poll taken last summer shows 82 percent of Canadians believe their health care system to be better than the US's, despite constant grumbling about waiting times for treatment of non-life-threatening conditions."

You know, when you have 90% of people agreeing with something in a democracy, you have extremely strong agreement.

And what do people in the US think?

"...85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt,"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/healt ... 1poll.html

BILL
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:

U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18

DAR
Yes the US has far more MRI scanners. Apparently someone has figured out how to make a buck out of installing a five million dollar machine. Imagine that! You know how much an MRI head scan costs in Japan? $105.

BILL
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":

U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%

DAR
Ha ha. This one turns around and bites you in the bum. Those seniors (65+) in the U.S. ALREADY HAVE GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTHCARE. So why shouldn't we credit their "excellent health" to their government run health care?

Also note that such a question is very subjective and those numbers are very near the margin of error of a survey. It could mean as little the US seniors are a little more optimistic, or warmer! We are comparing different climates and you know how seniors like to be warm. Regardless, it's government run for all of them. Keep the governments hands off of my Medicare! (said the teabagger)

BILL
I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" comparable to England or Canada.

DAR
Comprehensive studies of health care between the US and Canada have Canada slightly ahead. The UK also beats the US in every analysis I have seen. As I have told you before, we already have an idea of what universal, government run health care can look like. See the VA. From my notes: "The VA is “one of the world’s purest models of socialized medicine at work.” Yet, the government-run U.S. Veterans healthcare system is now considered significantly more efficient at providing quality care than private-sector healthcare."

Note: "From the study, the research team concludes that patients receiving socialized, government-run medicine from the VHA received higher-quality care according to a broad measure...

What this study really says is that the more accurately we measure, the more we begin to see that socialized, government-run medical programs like the VA provide extremely high quality medical care.

...This recent study of the government-run VA medical system shows that contrary to those doubters, government-run healthcare leads in nearly every measurable category."

LINK: http://www.examiner.com/x-8543-SF-Healt ... healthcare

DAR
"Leads in nearly every measurable category."

See also here for multiple lines of evidence bottom of the post.

BILL
Moreover, it was Sen. Harry Reid who said, "Elderly Americans must learn to
accept the inconveniences of old age." WELL, SHIP HIM TO CANADA OR ENGLAND!

DAR
When I tried to confirm this unlikely quote all I found was endless copies of this same email you passed along. So it's unsourced and I doubt he said (although it is true). Politicians get in trouble when they say things that are THAT true.

So to answer your question: "Are you sure you want government healthcare?"

Yes please.

I like the government run roads, police, fire, sanitation, water, sewer, electric, food inspection, safety standards, etc., what's not to like about some good government oversight/involvement in the health care sector? You will have to do better than a couple cherry picked categories which ignore the larger picture. The larger picture shows the US system is a mess and is getting it's ass whupped by the countries that have their governments strictly control (not exactly run, doc's and hospitals are often private) health care.

D.

Darrel wrote:DAR
Ha ha. This one turns around and bites you in the bum. Those seniors (65+) in the U.S. ALREADY HAVE GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTHCARE.

Comedy gold. Well done on the whole thing, Darrel.

--- On Fri, 1/8/10, Bill wrote:

From: Bill
Subject: President Without A Country

The president without a country
By Pat Boone

"We're no longer a Christian nation." - President Barack Obama, June
2007

DAR
Poor Pat, he should stay with singing, not thinking. Factcheck has the explanation of how rightwingers are distorting this.

***
"He said we are no longer "just" a Christian nation, but a nation of many other faiths as well. A chain e-mail drops that key word and thus changes the meaning.

This is an example of how omitting a single word from an otherwise accurate quote can twist the meaning so completely as to reverse it. Here's what Obama meant to say, during his keynote address to a "Call to Renewal" conference sponsored by the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners two years ago:

Obama, June 28, 2006 (prepared remarks): Given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

That quote appears also on Obama's campaign Web site. Unfortunately for Obama, he stumbled just a bit when he delivered the actual quote, as can be seen in this video of his speech, posted on YouTube by the Obama campaign. The way it actually came out was:

Obama, June 28, 2006 (as delivered): Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

That wasn't as smoothly stated as he had intended, but the meaning remains clear to any reasonable person. Saying that the U.S. is not "just" a Christian nation carries the sense that it is both a Christian nation and more: a nation of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and nonbelievers as well. Furthermore, any survey of religious beliefs held by Americans will show that to be a factually correct statement.

However, what the authors of this and similar mass e-mails have chosen to omit is the word "just," converting Obama's factual description of America's diversity of religious beliefs to a statement that some interpret as anti-Christian.

This snippet from Obama's two-year-old speech was resurrected June 23 by Fox News, which aired it a number of times. Although the Fox clip retained Obama's awkwardly worded qualification, "at least not just," Fox commentator Sean Hannity said the quote nevertheless showed Obama "seeming to downplay the current role of Christianity in the United States of America." (Hannity also claimed Obama had said the same thing during his 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, but he was wrong about that. No such words appear there.)"

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/d ... onger.html

PAT
" America has been arrogant." - President Barack Obama

DAR
And that's putting a lot of sugar on it.

PAT
"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals."- President Barack Obama

DAR
Let's see, attacking a nation under bogus pretenses, causing over a million people to be killed and five million children orphaned? Yeah, I HOPE that is America not living up to it's ideals!

PAT
“And one of the points I want to make
is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d
be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." -
President Barack Obama, Prior to Egypt 2009

DAR
Yep, Obama got that one factually wrong. We actually come in about 32nd to 50th depending on which loose American Muslim estimate you go with.

PAT
I keep wondering what country he believes he's president of.

DAR
Duly elected president of the USA. No doubt for eight years.

Then Pat drags out some silly old arguments pretending to show the US is a Christian nation. I can't imagine them fooling anyone (just kidding). They're really bad, but then, there aren't any good ones.

The US is not a "Christian nation" now and never has been. It's actually built into law (see treaty of Tripoli).

All carefully explained here:

http://www.ffrf.org/publications/nontra ... an-Nation/

If you find any of Pat Boone's (snicker snicker) specific arguments persuasive, do let me know and I'll gladly knock them down. I really can't take them very seriously. For instance, his first one:

"Did you not ever read the statement of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court"

He then quotes something this fellow said. That's nice. I won't bother quoting it because it really doesn't matter what he said (it included "Christian nation"). See, unless this fellow was writing for the majority, in deciding a constitutional question before the supreme court, this amounts to nothing other than his personal opinion.

etc.

D.

Just using this as a scratchpad link:

But let's consider the Swiss example, since they recently and purposely threw out some of this "capitalization" you speak of. And with good reason. Like our system, it wasn't working.

The Healing of America, pg. 177:

Excerpt:

"In health care,... the equality of society became badly strained near the end of the twentieth century. The Swiss health insurance business was coming to resemble the American system. Traditionally, Switzerland had had a network of "mutual," or nonprofit, health insurance plans; workers brought insurance through their employer. But Switzerland is home to some of the world's largest insurance firms. In the 1980's, these private insurance giants learned a profitable lesson from American insurers. U.S. companies like Aetna and UnitedHealth had been buying up nonprofit health insurers like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and converting them into profit-making operations. As it turned out, for-profit health insurance produced fabulous bottom-line results, especially when the insurers were picky about the people they covered and diligent about denying clams. The big Swiss insurance firms were impressed;they started buying the old mutual health plans in Switzerland
and converting them into profit-making business. By the early 1990's Switzerland's health care system was the closest in the world to the American model. Costs were high--Switzerland ranked second only to the Uniteded States in per-capita spending on health care--and more and more Swiss citizens were being left without insurance. Just as in America, the insurance companies refused to cover anybody with a preexisting condition, on the logical theory that covering sick people would cost more and eat into profits. Even those who had coverage found their claims being denied, because the insurers decided, logically, that every claim they paid would eat into the profits.

It was a fine example of unfettered capitalism at work. But in Switzerland, there was a problem. Even more than it cherishes capitalism and profit, Switzerland cherishes its solidarity. Some Swiss people could afford to see a doctor, others could not. Some people were covered for large medical bills; others faced bankruptcy. By 1993,... about 5 percent of the population had no health insurance coverage. By US standards, of course that would be barely a blip; in 2009, some 16 percent of Americans were living without health insurance. For the Swiss, though, leaving 5 percent of their fellow citizens oustide the health care system was an unacceptable violation of the core national values: solidarity, community, equality.

A special task force was set up to study this national problem.

[result...] Insurance companies were required to offer a basic package of benefits to all applicants, and insurers could not make a profit on basic health coverage (any profits or surplus earnings must be used to reduce premiums for the next year). To soften the impact on the insurance industry, the new law required that everyone buy health insurance; anyone who didn't sign up was automatically assigned to one of the companies, and the premium was deducted from their paycheck... Further insurers were allowed to make a profit on supplemental coverage...

...heated debate, with the for-profit insurance industry, the drug industry, and the most of the rest of the business community fiercely opposed.

The new system went into effect on January 1, 1996.

...a dozen years later, universal health care coverage was so firmly entrenched as an element of Swiss life that nobody seemed to oppose it anymore. Even M. Couchepin, the conservative businessman who became president, agreed. "Nobody would want to go back to the system before, when some people were locked out of the insurance," he told me. "We have a system now that means everybody, rich or poor, can have the best health care we can provide. It is accepted; it is working. We are happy that we made the changes in 1994."