Artificial lifeform created: Microbe declares mankind "already dead."

Via the Daily Mail:

But the breakthrough, which took 15 years and £27.7million to achieve, opens an ethical Pandora's box. Ethicists said he is 'creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history' - with unparalleled risks.

There are fears that the research, detailed in the journal Science, could be abused to create the ultimate biological weapon.

And there are also warnings that one mistake in a lab could lead to millions being wiped out by a plague, in scenes reminiscent of the Will Smith film I Am Legend.

Like this

That fucking tears it. Every crap sci-fi film you've ever seen or even heard about is coming true. Soon, the killer robots will feast on our flesh side by side with all the victims of the zombie-sparkly-vampire-apocalypse virus, right before the killer tidal wave washes a bumper crop of giant monsters into the remains of our more-photogenic cities. Indeed, God help us all.

In Deference to Reason

...Reason Magazine, that is, we celebrate the First Annual Everybody Draw Mohammad day. And, since I can't draw, I offer you this blast from the past:

(The Prophet Mohammad defends Washington D.C. from the ravages of a giant, stone Abraham Lincoln. Circa 2001.)

Time Warner Gives USCG, Federal Courts, One-Fingered Salute.

In a strange twist of fate, Time Warner Cable threw itself under the anti-movie piracy bus today, stating publicly that it had no intention of complying with the 2,049 subpoenas generated by German crap-filmmaker Uwe Boll's suit against peer-2-peer downloaders. None. Zip.

I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, this is just one more example of the fact corporations can do whatever they want, and will do whatever they can get away with, employing any excuse. In this case, it's lack of manpower, and resources tied up in the parallel wars on Crime (remember that one?) and Terror.

"Copyright cases involving third-party discovery of Internet service providers have typically related to a plaintiff's efforts to identify anonymous defendants whose numbers rank in the single or low double digits," wrote the cable company. "By contrast, plaintiff in this case alone seeks identifying information about 2,049 anonymous defendants, and seeks identifying information about 809 Internet Protocol addresses from TWC."

Time Warner Cable does not have enough employees to respond to these requests. In a typical month, the company receives an average of 567 IP lookup requests, nearly all of them coming from law enforcement. These lookup requests involve everything from suicide threats to child abduction to terrorist activity, and the company says that such cases take "immediate priority."

On the other hand, I cannot support anyone, anywhere, exchanging money for a Uwe Boll film. Fuck Uwe Boll, and his horrible movies. Fuck the underwear models posing as lawyers on the U.S. Copyright Group's website. USCG has made a name for itself partnering with independent film studios, distracting the courts with these massive lawsuits in a futile attempt to roll back the technological clocks to 1995.

On the third hand, I can't support illegal file sharing, because I'm afraid I'll get sued if I do. And that, in case anyone was wondering, is how terrorism works.

The Policeman Will Shoot Your Pet

On February 12 of this year, police in Columbia, Missouri, serving a search warrant for narcotics, raided a man's home in full SWAT regalia, guns drawn. Acting on a tip that the man was some sort of Kingpin of Pot, the police handcuffed him and "accidentally" shot his pet corgi.



Via the very evenhanded (all things considered) Reason Magazine, which rightly points out raids like this go on all the time. The only difference is, this one was caught on film.

Look around your back yards. Ask yourself, what are your local police doing? Do you even know? Quick, who's your local Commissioner Gordon? Mine's the mayor, Sam Adams. He just fired Chief Rosie Sizer two days ago, officially taking the helm of a police department he'd delegated to city commissioner Dan Saltzman. Saltzman must've drawn the short straw. He got the task of apologizing to the family of James Chasse Jr, who died in September 2006. Portland police officers broke 16 of his ribs in the process of tackling him, puncturing his lungs.

And my friends tell me the drug war is over. Barack Obama is supposedly going to save us all. But how long will this naivete allow our nation's cops to take out their pent up aggression on the nation's defenseless pets?

Answer: As long as Pakistani's trying to set off bombs in Times Square.

Question: Why in God's name would anybody want to blow up Times Square?

Answer: Because nothing's changed. Two wars going nowhere fast, U.S. sanctioned torture, spying, environmental catastrophes...sounds like 2005 to me. Where are we again?

I would communicate with others...

...but I'm in school. I'll let Professor Chomsky explain that to you:

New Review: Predator (1987)

Predator (1987): Arnold Schwarzenegger and his elite Special Forces squad of doomed, ancillary characters, must outwit an extraterrestrial trophy hunter and escape the jungles of Central America. It must be the 80s.

The Cartoons that Shook the World

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone received several (not-so) veiled death threats over the very idea of depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name) in their show's two hundredth and two hundredth and first episodes. The later, which aired last Wednesday, ended with a multi-character "I-learned-something-today" speech, a callback to nearly every South Park episode of the first six-or-so seasons. A series of drawn-out, audio "bleeps" completely obscured the content of these speeches in what I first took to be a meta-joke on the boy's part. Then I read their statement @ South Park Studios:

We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. [Show's what I know. - ed] Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear.

Well, shit on that idea. Intimidation and Fear rule the land, and the creators of South Park are in a better position than anyone to realize it. Their battles with the MPAA are legendary. Yet their home network has always backed them previous to this.

Comedy Central's decision to be chickenshit corporate scumfucks, and then hide behind some delusion that they're "protecting their employees" (as Jon Stewart, loyal company man that he is, put it) reveals a truth even the South Park boys probably haven't guessed. For all their excessive obscenity and supposed irreverence, things have only gotten worse in the fourteen years since their debut. The nine years since they last depicted the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name) certainly seem to have been one long, downward spiral of censorship and intimidation. We had Janet Jackson's breast in 2004, the original Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005, a flare up one year later, and just last year Yale University Press beat Comedy Central to the punch, preemptively removing all Muhammad cartoons from their upcoming book, titled...The Cartoons that Shook the World.

Were I a more conservative commentator, I might suggest the terrorists are winning. After all (and I'll say it again, because this bears repeating), Yale University Press decided to remove all Muhammad cartoons from a book titled Cartoons That Shook The World. Only Fear and Intimidation could inspire such a colossally stupid decision. But of course there are no terrorists...only a few crazed maniacs on the one hand and clutches of toothless, suit-wearing shills on the other.

So, in solidarity with Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kurt Westergaard, Roger Köppel, various members of the Danish People's Party's youth wing, and all artists the world over who labor under the threat of religious intolerance and extremism, I offer this pictorial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name):

along with a fervent prayer to all the messiahs of the world, whatever their affiliation:

Lords, save us from your followers. They know not what they do, but we know very well what they'd like to do. Especially to those of us who don't want to turn the clock back to the eleventh century. Help us, Super Best Friends. Like the sign in The Crow: City of Angels said, "Save us."

What Every Person Should Know About War

Via WikiLeaks ("The intelligence network of the people.") And God bless the Pentagon for finally talking about them, allowing the mainstream media permission to do so as well. I would've never heard about the damn site if not for the fact that it's suddenly everywhere. All over an incident that took place two years ago, in a little country no one really talks about very much anymore. Almost as if we share a new national hope: if we just close our eyes and click our heels often enough, the whole sordid, evil nightmare will just go away...

There's no place like Iraqi. Unless you count Afghanistan.

New Review: Watchmen (2009)

Watchmen (2009)

Health Scare: The Final Friday

Dateline: Constantine's Rome, U.S.A. After a year of fearmongering, deception and compromise, our bought-and-paid-for political system at last knelt on the Great Toilet Bowl and squeezed out a fibrous chunk of a bill, now being sold as “the most important piece of social legislation since the 1960s”.

That from David Frum, a “fellow” at the right-wing, non-think tank, the American Enterprise Institute...who lost his job yesterday after he dared criticize the Republican Party's flailing, and ultimately failed, strategy of Fear and Surprise, Surprise and Fear.

Yes, the battle is over, and the narrative is already set. One must either embrace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 as a milestone carved from gold and set at the latest American Crossroads...or despise “Obamacare” and everyone who supported it, “baby-killers” and “assholes” that they are. This bill with either usher in a new bumper crop of healthy, wealthy and wise American citizens...or bring about the “Apocalypse” We've been marinating in Right Wing fear-juice for so long now, I'm not surprised by any of this...only saddened that, as usual, those of us who don't align our thinking along what Jon Stewart called “the Hannity-Olbermann Scale” are not allowed to sit and talk at the Big Kid Table. Can't something be “the most important piece of legislation since the 1960s” and a massive corporate welfare boondoggle? In today's Washington, these are not mutually exclusive things. It seems like giving free money away to corporations is about the only thing the two wings of our one-party state can agree on.

At least the Republicans remain honest to a fault. They have the stones to brazenly declare, loudly and proudly for all who might hear, “Yes: we are the party of eternal warfare, greed, fear mongering, and bigotry.” The Democrats try to look like they feel bad about eternal warfare, greed, fear mongering, and bigotry, even as they tacitly support all of those things in a continuing bid to Right-flank the Republicans. Because bourgey suburbanites are the only people who bother to vote any more, and they're so mean and stingy they'd rather bankrupt themselves putting their kids through private school than pay another dime in taxes that might go to help brown people.

I do not cast my tar with a wide brush. I am not Glenn Beck...though, if you believe him, I am a Cancer on the American Political scene. If only I could metastasize a few members of Congress...I'm sure Joe Liberman would get stuck in my throat...but what if I dissolved him first, in some sick, twisted, pre-digestive process...then again, why waste good vomit drop? Liberman's so desperate to be noticed these days he'd probably get a kick out of the free publicity:

“The Huffington Post received word today that Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Himself) will convene a press conference in the Senate Briefing room at three p.m. There, a strange combination of human being and house fly, a freakish, bastard child of Science Gone Horribly Awry, will dissolve the Senator's face with what the estate of esteemed Canadian physicist Seth Brundle described as, 'a corrosive enzyme.' Pundits from Faux News to the General Electric Pseudo-Liberal Primetime Lineup are already speculating that this may be Liberman's first act in a 2012 bid for the White House.”

Meanwhile, back in the real world...there actually are eighty-three out-and-proud, real-life Progressives in the Congressional Progressive Caucus—including my Representative, Earl Blumenauer. They are not the malignant, flesh-consuming disease that Glenn Beck would have you believe. They did all they could to keep their yuppy-fied “allies” in the Corprocrat Party from turning the bill into an even bigger hand out to medical supply industry. But their efforts were largely in vain. They'll be no “public option,” for anyone. No universal health care. No socialized medicine. Not even its shammiest sham of a cousin. Merely a requirement we all buy into the same, piece of shit, for-profit plutocracy that's killing us now. Hillary Clinton loved the "individual mandate" system (it's got the word "individual" in it - it must be good). Candidate Obama decried it...but the people who get money from medical insurance companies (hospitals, corporate drug dealers) loved it, and those are the people who put money into politician's coffers. It's not a Donkey vs. Elephant thing: don't think of either. The corporatocracy doesn't care. It throws its cash around wherever power resides, hedging every bet against the chance of a real socially-democratic revolution in this country.

They get what they pay for. The whole Health Scare debacle just goes to show you can have all the Committee Chairmanships you want, in both Houses of Congress, plus the White House, and every left-leaning weirdo in whole country at your back (as Obama did, this time last year) and still cave in on everything the people who put you in office held dear, thanks to venial, virulent vermin like Bart Stupid (with his need to control women's internal organs) or Joe Sleezeberman (with his vindictive temper-tantrums – hey Joe, Ned Lamont may be a playboy millionaire, but at least he's not a complete dickhead). Our esteemed Progressive members still have only the same number of votes as those two jackasses. And there are a lot more Stupak's than Blumenauer's in the Democratic Party's ranks.

As a nation, we're over-worked, drugged-up, nail-bitingly paranoid, and (more than likely) not making enough to scrape by, petrified by the possibility of our job disappearing into the wilds of India, China, or Taiwan. So it's no wonder we're reacting to all this with name calling, death threats, and random shots into the air.

At least 10 House Democrats have had to request additional security since Sunday's health-care vote. Someone left a coffin on the lawn of Rep. Russ Carnahan's home in Missouri. Glass doors and windows were broken at the district offices of Reps. Louise Slaughter of New York and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. Vandals have damaged Democratic Party offices in Wichita, Cincinnati and Rochester, N.Y.

And Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, whose last-minute compromise on abortion funding guaranteed final passage of the reform act, has received a flood of abusive phone calls at his office and home. Someone faxed him a drawing of a noose. One voice mail, subsequently posted on the Internet, was left by a woman who wanted Stupak to know that "there are millions of people across the country who wish you ill." Another caller was more direct: "You're dead. We know where you live. We'll get you."

Indeed. Check it out, people: it's getting dangerous out there. So stay in your homes and let Super Rockin' Mr. Magic entertain you. After all, according to that great storehouse of modern journalism, Access Hollywood, those White House party crashing yuppies we were all supposed to care about months ago are set to appear on Real Housewives of D.C.

According to The Daily Beast, they also have a tell-all book in the works, which will “set the record straight” on the rumors that have surrounded them since their uninvited adventure.

“People will be surprised when the truth about the Salahis is finally told,” literary agent Sharlene Martin told the Beast.

Meanwhile, the real housewives, house-husbands...real people, in fact, of all genders and social situations...seem poised to catch one final “fuck you” before “our” Congress goes to its Easter recess. After proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are terminally disconnected from the tribulations of really-real Americans, none of the "leadership" in Congress seems to mind that unemployment benefits, flood insurance, and all manner of things that actually provide real, immediate help to real, immediate people...the ones they supposedly represent...are set to expire. Again.

Last week, the House approved a $9 billion measure containing one-month extensions of unemployment insurance, COBRA health benefits and federal flood insurance. Senate Democrats hoped to have their chamber approve the same bill Thursday. But Republicans refused, complaining that the bill is not offset with spending cuts elsewhere.

They said the same thing in early March, when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) brought the chamber to a halt for five days over another extension that wasn't offset.

Senate Democrats and Republicans spent hours negotiating among themselves and with each other to find a compromise. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) discussed the possibility of a one- or two-week extension of benefits that would be fully paid for, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was opposed to the idea, according to two Senate aides.

As a result, the House and Senate will leave town without further action. COBRA and flood insurance will expire March 30, and unemployment benefits will expire April 5. The Senate will return to session April 12.

Meanwhile, AIG CEO Robert Benmosche took home a cool $7 million this year, along with $3.5 million in bennies and stock options. This is the “socialism” Glenn Beck keeps yammering about. This is a “redistribution of wealth” on a grand scale. For a year and half I've watched these bastards feed at the public trough and all I see are the rich getting richer while the rest of us get stuffed.

Six of eight [AIG] managers who had their 2009 awards set by Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on executive pay, had their overall packages increased this year, according to a Treasury Department report [released on the 23^rd].

As “special masters” go Feinberg's sure made a mess of things. His “socialist takeover” of America's businesses looks a hell of a lot more like a giant cash-grab. Corporate welfare. Socialism for High Society. That's the real danger, lurking out there in the noise fields. And unless people wake up and realize that corporatist politicians (whatever the consonant next to their name) aren't going to ride in on their white horses and save us, we'd all better get ready. Things'll get a lot worse before they get any better.

With the Great American Health Scare “debate” tabled for Easter, our national Infotainment Complex will have to flail about until it finds the Next Big Thing to distract from how badly we're getting fucked. Sure, it's a mid-term election year, but who cares about those races anyway? Osama bin Laden just put out another mix tape, threatening to...gasp...harm Americans he's supposedly holding prisoner. (Gee, what a surprise. And here we thought you'd just sit them down for a nice, hot meal and a discussion of the Theodicy Problem, O-man.) Sister Sarah has returned to the headlines yet again, swooping down from Alaska to try and save old man McCain's ass from a loony, disingenuous, teabagging primary challenger. Election 2010 icons are already appearing across this great Web of ours. And that new Twilight movie's coming to a theater near you. God must be in his heaven, and all is truly right with the world. More wine, please? Thank you...I think I'll go for a garden stroll, my path lit by bodies of a few burning terrorists. Oh, sure, they call themselves “martyrs,” but what the hell do they know? Then we've got the orgy at three...and that bribery session at four...what's the point of Easter if I can't go home to extorting some more cash out of my past contributors?...And what the hell is that sound I hear in the distance...is that...Mel Brooks shouting something...what could it be?

“Gentlemen! We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs!”

Well said, Mel. Well said.

Jon Stewart's "Con-serv-ative/Li-bert-arian"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Conservative Libertarian
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Just when I thought it was safe to write a send-up of Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart does my job for me. Damn you, Stewart! Stop reading my mind. Bastard.

New Review: Q (1982)

Q (1982) @ And You Thought It Was Safe(?)

New Review: The X From Outer Space (1967)

The X From Outer Space (1967)

Health Scare #5: Eric Massa Admits Love of Grabass on Glenn Beck

Gay Bashers of Not-Too-Distant Future Claim Apocalypse Imminent, Obama-era Navy Full of Gay

Rep. Eric Massa's resignation from the House of Representative's is a intergalactic bummer on a lot of fronts. For one thing, his tales of a vast, left-center conspiracy to oust him from office over health care "reform" made him the new It Girl of the Rupert Murdoc's noise machine, Faux News. Every time Glenn Beck interviews a guest, somewhere, a kitten dies.

But what an interview. And what a wonderful opportunity to showcase a madman and claim, “He is a gigantic Progressive,” as Beck did. “And I think I'm pretty clear on where I stand with Progressives.” If nothing else, it's a good excuse to laugh at Glen Beck's demagogic style. But first, the apparent facts:

Former representative Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the [Congressional Ethics] probe.

The allegations surrounding the former lawmaker date back at least a year, and involve "a pattern of behavior and physical harassment," according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

I'd like to propose a joint investigation into allegations I've just made up that Representative Massa is completely out of his gourd. How else can you explain his statement that, “I wasn't forced out. I forced myself out,” which came in the same breath as this: “And goodness only knows what kind of allegations they're gonna throw at me.” They?

"If someone on my staff thought I was un-Congressional, that I was inappropriate, I own that. That's why I resigned." But he seemed to have no trouble blaming anonymous “attackers.” Glenn displays little interest in figuring out who these attackers actual are during the interview, seemingly more concerned with being a total bastard. Rather than wring an actual accusation out of his guest, Beck implores Massa to think of the “damage” he's doing to “your lovely wife" his children and "the country.”

Massa thankfully avoids this proto-fascist trap and repeatedly apologizes...while simultaneously making sure we all know he's the real victim here. “What my attackers don't get—and trust me this is all planned and calculated—we'll leak this, we'll leak that—”

Despite Beck's stupidity, its not hard to figure out which attackers former-Congressman Massa might be thinking of. Rahm Emanuel's showertime fun, whether true or not, is now a story for the ages, and a mental image I'd rather get out of my head. Does Rockin' Rahm just wander the halls naked, ravaging interns and lobbyists, foaming at the mouth and spouting obscene, Lovecraftian gibberish unfit for human mouth parts to pronounce?

Seriously, though, I can believe Rahm is a dick. He may, in fact, be exactly the kind of dick George W. Bush found in Dick Cheney. Those not rendered impotent by the thought of arguing with Naked Rahm in the Congressional showers, I ask you, join me in solving the overpopulation crisis and consider arguing with Naked Dick Cheney. There. Now you all know my pain. Stew in it.

But you'll have to watch the whole interview to really enjoy the pain. Let it settle in there. The centerpiece comes when Massa pulls a photo album out for Beck. Identifying several photos, he declares, “It looks like an orgy in Caligula, and anybody who's been in the Navy knows it.” Cue the Village People and expect Pat Robertson to jump on this new evidence of the Gay Navy, set to bomb Colorado Springs with absolutely fabulous Tomahawk missiles.

The worst part of all this? Massa may have once believed in a single payer health care system, yet at one point he plainly states, “We're never gonna get there,” conceding the debate before it even begins. In this he's the perfectly groomed “Progressive”: bloodless, devoid of balls, and stupid enough to go on Glenn Beck's TV show and admit the Navy gave him a life-long love of playing grabass.

It's no wonder Emanuel went after him, in the showers or otherwise. Bullies have uncanny senses. They can sniff out psychological weaklings across miles of swampy ground, and our capital is the biggest swamp going. Your nearest grade school can provide all the examples of this that you need. And Rahm Emanuel is nothing more than a sixth grader who can't let go of that time his older brother paid someone to beat him up, back in third grade, and must now beat your ass in turn.

In the grand tradition of small minded jocks from sea to shining sea, Rahm views politics as a game. He talks of “scorecards,” “winning,” and “loosing.” He's called his boss' natural constituency “fucking retarded,” when they dared try and do his job for him and twist some Conservative Democrat's arms. Note that he apologized to the head of the Special Olympics rather than those whom he actually declared “fucking retarded.” One would think intelligent {rogressives would take a hint from this: Rahm Emanuel is not our friend. Never was and never will be. This is the man who strong-armed NAFTA past the few Progressives who doubted its wonderfulness back in 1994. He does not give two shits about us.

In his year in office, Emanuel's displayed a Machiavellian willingness to play paddy-cake with whomever he can, regardless. The man has no principals. He's not even a man. Rahmbo is an Aristotelian political animal, a so-called “realist,” who'll sacrifice it all for the “big win.” Whatever that means to a millionare Richard Daley fundraiser, Bill Clinton adviser, and former-Freddie Mac director. As my old St. Louis connection used to say, “Never trust a politician from Chicago.”

Or...never trust a politician. The conservatives are all theocratic monstrosities, and “progressives” like Massa make even Teddy Roosevelt look like a rational being (albeit a racist, ecocidal one). At least Teddy's “muscular Christianity” propelled him to get the occasional Big Thing done. Would he knuckle under to every threat the American Taliban threw at him? Or is it Rahm who, scarred by his experiences in Clinton's White House, reacts with shame a horror at the thought of every little conservative backlash? Is he the one tossing red meat to the mouth-breathers while reducing “our” so-called “team members” into rambling shells of themselves with showertime shakedown sessions?

Many have called for Emanuel's replacement, from Sarah Palin to Michael Moore (who's agent, Ari Gold, oddly enough, is Rahm's brother). I'd echo that sentiment if I thought it went far enough but I say, throw all of them out, from our Glorious Leader on down to the last, yellow-bellied, slime-sucking lobbyist on K Street. March every white man with a suit and tie out of Washington and lead them, like the Piper, into the sea. I think I know a song that might get them all going.

In the Navy
by scorpiomusic

Health Scare #4: Profits Matter More Than People

Nothing could be more truthful than the fact that I don't want "government run health care." But I don't want for-profit health care either. So, as usual, I'm left with nothing. No options, no outlets. Trapped out in a world where Onion stories come true with remarkable ease and depressing regularity. Like this gem from last year:

WASHINGTON—After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.

"Both parties understand that the current system is broken," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. "But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue."

"Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve," Pelosi added.

The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

"We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population."

(Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care, The Onion, August 19, 2009)

The bald-face, plain-as-day fact remains: people are dying, right now, from lack of health care. While Our Glorious Leader and his Randian hack "opponents" sit around a table and spar over bullshit talking points, people are dying. Yesterday, today, every day. It's gotten so bad even the New York Times finally noticed:

As members of the Obama administration and Congress met on Thursday to try to find common ground on health care, a new report warned that without comprehensive legislation, more than 275,000 adults nationwide will die over the next decade because of a lack of health insurance. Nearly 14,000 of those deaths would occur in New York State. [Emphasis mine.]

An earlier study by the Institute of Medicine estimated that 18,000 people died prematurely in 2000 because they lacked insurance; the Urban Institute updated that figure to 22,000 in 2006. The new study, by liberal advocacy group Families USA, applied the same methodology used in the previous reports to drill down and calculate, on both a national and state-by-state basis, the latest figures.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg, and the most severe consequence, which is death,” said Kathleen Stoll, director of health policy at Families USA. In addition, thousands of other citizens, perhaps millions, are experiencing a reduction in the quality of their lives and their health because they lack insurance, she said.

Unfortunately, the Time's reveals its real concerns by burying all of those horrible numbers in its websites Health section, safe from the prying eyes of everyone who isn't already and old fart, or an old-fuck-at-heart (like your humble narrator).

On the more-prominent U.S. page we find a more typical example of the media's Health Care "Reform" coverage under the headline Pelosi Struggles to Corral Votes for Health Care Bill:

The future of President Obama’s health care overhaul now rests largely with two blocs of swing Democrats in the House of Representatives — abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives — whose indecision signals the difficulties Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces in securing the votes necessary to pass the bill.

The article is a prime example of Horse Race Journalism, a genre that now dominates American political writing thanks to years of pressure from the mouth-breathing media whores on the Right and the more-intelligent but (apart from Michael Moore) ideologically hamstrung media whores of the "Left." That is, the politically empowered "Left," symbolized by Pelosi, Reid, and Our Glorious Leader, the president, who are little more than rich, privileged shills for the very power structure left-wing politics are supposed to oppose.

This creates the twin phenomenons of political "centrism" and policy "triangulation," rhetorical red herrings meant to mask what the economist John Williamson identified (way back in 1989) as the "Washington consensus."

Being an economist, Williamson saw nothing particularly seedy or evil in this term (at least, not at the time...he has since recanted his choice of words for all the usual, wrongheaded reasons). At the time he originally coined the phrase he was attempting to outline a complex of economic ideas that everyone in Washington could agree upon, regardless of their politics. These included deregulation, unfettered access to credit, trade liberalization, the privatization of state assets, the deification of private (which, in most cases, means "corporate") property, and the destruction of even the the shadow of a functioning "welfare state." All of this motivated by a free market fundamentalist belief that economics can do more for people than politics.

If you happen to be rich, then, yes, it can. If you're poor, well...fuck you running. It's your own fault for not playing the proper Horatio Alger game. You must be out of favor with the Invisible Hand of the Market, what Jello Biafra called "God Incorporated." Did you eat meat on Friday? Sacrifice the wrong goat? Whatever it was, it certainly can't be the fault of a system that threw you overboard before you were even born. In any case, the System couldn't care less. It's far too busy bribing Congress with one hand and slapping their pitiful excuses for "reform" back with the other:

Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of WellPoint, recently informed subscribers in California that premiums for individual insurance policies would rise an average of 25 percent, with some rates going up as much as 39 percent.

“Raising our premiums was not something we wanted to do,” [WellPoint CEO] Ms. [Angela] Braly said [in her testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday]. “But we believe this was the most prudent choice, given the rising cost of care and the problems caused by many younger and healthier policyholders dropping or reducing their coverage during tough economic times. By law, premiums must be reasonable in relationship to benefits provided, which means they need to reflect the known and anticipated costs they will cover.”

Translation? It's not our fault we're so rich, or that we're legally bound to do everything we can to get richer. It's those damn doctors and their damn hospitals. It's the damn old people and their stupid needs for care. It's the damn young people jumping ship because they can't afford our base rates in the first place, only to slink back like beat dogs when something goes wrong.

According to Reuters, Ms. Braly pulled down over $9 million last year. Now that she's Chairman of the Board as well as President and CEO she can expect a raise this year, at the very least. The other witness quoted by the Times, Lauren Meister of West Hollywood, can expect to supply Braly with that raise now that WellPoint has pushed her premiums up by two hundred dollars:

“We saw what deregulation did to the cost of utilities in California,” Ms. Meister said. “We saw what the lack of regulation has done on a national level to our financial and banking system. Well, it’s doing the same thing to our health care system.”

Ms. Meister added: “The City of West Hollywood, where I live, regulates how much landlords can raise the rent each year to keep rents stabilized. Why can’t the federal government regulate how much health insurance companies can raise their rates per year, in order to stabilize premiums?”

Well, Lauren, it's got a lot to do with the insane amounts of money the health care industry has used to grease our government's wheels. Since 2005, that's been a $46.6 million investment, counting publicly-disclosed campaign contributions…who knows how much more cash changes hands away from the cameras? It's all a matter of profits over people, power of progress, and money over matters of life and death. So rejoice and be exceeding glad: they'll be no "government run" health care in this country. Not until the greedheads and glandhanders figure out how to run it straight into the pockets of their true constituents.