Persnickety

The Public Option is coming... It's only a matter of time before the public option in healthcare comes back to the table. Why? Because the insurance company's shenanigans will eventually anger enough people that both Republicans and Democrats will see that it is to their advantage to have it implemented. The insurance industry has already begun to exploit the loop holes. People between the ages of 55 and 65 will see their premiums triple. Many will not be able to pay their premiums and will have to forgo insurance entirely and pay the penalty. If there was a public option they wouldn't have been able to get away with that (thanks Republicans!). Think pre-existing conditions went away with this new legislation which outlaws pre-existing conditions? Think again. According to the Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/insurance-industry-alread_n_519503.html], the companies are allowed "to charge as much as 50 percent more for people who engage in unheal...

New York state, the state I like to call the "Fiscally Challenged State,"--and yes, I know that California is a worthy contender--is contemplating a tax on soda and sugared drinks. The idea is that government can alter the behavior of people, dissuading them from purchasing an unhealthy product. The real reason behind this is of course to bring money into the coffers of the state--New York is facing a 9 to 13 billion dollar deficit (and that's only what they are telling us). The Times Union newspaper has come out in favor of the tax, saying that the state needs the money and the people need to be told what not to ingest. "Yes, it would be easy to say, just cut spending" posits their recent editorial. Right. But they left one word out: drastically. Just cut spending...drastically. The problem with New York is not that they don't have enough money coming in. They have plenty. The problem is that they have too much going out. And yes, that means that a lot of p...

I thought I would answer Mr. Lou Pritchett, who wrote A LETTER FROM A Proctor & Gamble Executive TO THE PRESIDENT. For those not familiar with this letter please see my previous post. Lou, You are a former soap salesman, which seems at first glance to be a real nice, clean sort of a job, but you scare me more than WWF Smackdown star "Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman. Why? You scare me because after just fifteen minutes of Internet fame, hundreds of thousands of people have read your letter. And apparently you really did write this. Most people would have said, Heck no, that must have been some other me. You scare me because after a day of trying to figure you out I still can't. And I don't know where you went to school. You scare me because I don't know who paid for you to put that, um, um, stuff out there. You scare me because I don't know how a simple salesman--and I do mean simple--of soap could rise to become a vice president of Proctor & Gamble....

Had to report this, as it surprised me to no end. I recently received from a friend (yes, I have those), a letter circulated the Web by a certain ex-vice president of Proctor Gamble, a Mr. Lou Pritchett (author of Stop Paddling and Start Rocking the Boat ). After reading the letter I was sure it was fake. These sorts of letters are easy to spot and they are constantly flooding everyone's in-boxes. The style is normally a bit high school, their logic jejune, and they are more than a bit combative. The letter I speak of exhibits all those traits, but incredibly, at least according to Snopes.com, it is confirmed by the author to be, in fact, from his own hand. The letter is printed as follows, and I am preparing a persnickety answer and I will post it hence. AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA By Lou Pritchett Dear President Obama: You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me. You scare me because after months of exposure, I k...

Though the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, the Church is having a tough time. Although most Americans view themselves as spiritual, they seem less inclined to stand by religion’s banner. In December, a PEW poll showed an increasing likelihood that people identify themselves with New Age beliefs. A recent Newsweek poll showed that nearly 9 of 10 people identify as believing in a higher power. So people still see themselves as spiritual, just not as inclined to join a church. Something is happening for people to invoke a sense of spiritual need. God still calls to us somehow, but where to? The Church has one job, given it by Jesus Christ with these words from the Book of Matthew: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Note the two parts of this injunction: 1. Make disci...

As reported in The New York Times the awful U.S. healthcare "system" has one shining virtue: It forces people to marry. Philip Swift wanted to marry his sweetheart, Katie Robbins. But she didn't seem to want the commitment, in a reversal of the normal man-commitment-phobia. Three years went by and Mr. Swift developed kidney stones. Mr. Swift, like millions of other Americans, doesn't have access to health care. But Ms. Robbins did. Thus: Katie and Philip Sittin' in a tree. M-E-D-I-G-A-P.

Which is better, a store with many registers where you have to guess which line will be faster (think Wal-Mart, Target, grocery stores)or a store where there is but one queue, one line, and where you are directed to a eventual open register (think Best Buy, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Borders)? Well, Richard Larson, an engineer at MIT, but also known as Dr. Q--a "queue psychologist"--says that there are definite advantages to the single queue line. Though wait times average the same, anger issues are lessened by the knowledge that there is a definite first-come, first-serve. There is also an advantage to the store. While Q-ing up, your attention is focused on all the little things up for sale along the way whilst you wait. Nice for impulse buys (always high profit items for stores). But while Q-ing up at a local Marshals, I thought of another advantage to such a queue: privacy. Here I was waiting for a register with a pair of pants and socks, and I noticed that I was about fifteen or...