Open Thread

Comments

14 responses to “Open Thread”

1. 

   J.M. Prince

   March 3, 2010

   No where to put this:

   Southern & MS writer Barry Hannah died Monday:

   http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/barry-hannah-southern-author-dies/

   One more MS All Star gone.

   More here:

   http://gardenandgun.com/article/barry-hannahs-long-shadow

   JMP

2. 

   J.M. Prince

   March 1, 2010

   Psst… just a reminder: You do Not have health insurance! Here’s the details, again:

   http://baselinescenario.com/2009/08/05/you-do-not-have-health-insurance/

   “The Baseline Scenario

   What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it

   “You Do Not Have Health Insurance”

   Right now, it appears that the biggest barrier to health care reform is people who think that it will hurt them. According to a New York Times poll, “69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the government created a program that covers everyone.” Since most Americans currently have health insurance, they see reform as a poverty program – something that helps poor people and hurts them. If that’s what you think, then this post is for you.

   You do not have health insurance. Let me repeat that. You do not have health insurance. (Unless you are over 65, in which case you do have health insurance. I’ll come back to that later.)

   The point of insurance is to protect you against unlikely but damaging events. You are generally happy to pay premiums in all the years that nothing goes wrong (your house doesn’t burn down), because in exchange your insurer promises to be there in the one year that things do go wrong (your house burns down). That’s why, when shopping for insurance, you are supposed to look for a company that is financially sound – so they will be there when you need them.

   If, like most people, your health coverage is through your employer or your spouse’s employer, that is not what you have. At some point in the future, you will get sick and need expensive health care. What are some of the things that could happen between now and then?

   * Your company could drop its health plan. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (see Table HIA-1), the percentage of the population covered by employer-based health insurance has fallen every year since 2000, from 64.2% to 59.3%.*

   * You could lose your job. I don’t think I need to tell anyone what the unemployment rate is these days.**

   * You could voluntarily leave your job, for example because you have to move to take care of an elderly relative.

   * You could get divorced from the spouse you depend on for health coverage.

   For all of these reasons, you can’t count on your health insurer being there when you need it. That’s not insurance; that’s employer-subsidized health care for the duration of your employment.

   Once you lose your employer-based coverage, for whatever reason, you‚Äôre in the individual market, where, you may be surprised to find, you have no right to affordable health insurance. An insurer can refuse to insure you or can charge you a premium you can‚Äôt afford because of your medical history. That‚Äôs the way a free market works: an insurer would be crazy to charge you less than the expected cost of your medical care (unless they can make it up on their healthy customers, which they can‚Äôt in the individual market).” [Much More details @ Link].

   JMP

3. 

   Jules

   February 28, 2010

   Rumors abound that Jon Smoltz will get into the 7th race..

4. 

   innerredneckexposed

   February 28, 2010

   unfuckingbelievable.

5. 

   J.M. Prince

   February 28, 2010

   Angie the Atheist is on TV for blogging & tweeting about her abortion:

   http://angietheantitheist.blogspot.com/2010/02/media-circus.html

   http://angietheantitheist.blogspot.com/

   Just an amazing story all around.

   JMP

6. 

   TimC

   February 27, 2010

   I liked Doug! I hope he runs again. Is he back from deployment?

7. 

   innerredneckexposed

   February 27, 2010

   Olympic fashion from the Vancouver Sun:

   http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Olympic+fashion/2586794/story.html

   They had a story I looked at in today’s paper (but didn’t read) about wearing too much of your fandom on your sleeve (literally) but I can’t find it online.

8. 

   Jules

   February 27, 2010

   Looks like Congressman John Linder is retiring.. I don’t suppose we have anyone to run in that seat…

   Unless Doug Heckman is thinking about it again..

   Thoughts?

9. 

   BEZERKO

   February 27, 2010

   I don’t know about the shoes, all I know is the Norwegian Men Curling Team’s pants are fabulous!]

   http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gdfLnqzAul8/S3rewPcvIGI/AAAAAAAABDE/Yu8Ufz1MpSk/s1600-h/ept_sports_oly_experts-382897659-1266252221.jpg

   Oh yeah, I SAID IT!

10. 

    J.M. Prince

    February 27, 2010

    OK One more Econ Number: Why you might be a Democrat: [Stolen from Prof. Mark Thoma, wholesale]:

    http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/02/physiological-evidence-of-brains-response-to-inequality.html

    “Physiological Evidence of Brain’s Response to Inequality”

    A quick post between classes — the desire for equality appears to be hardwired:

    [See also Link:

    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/ciot-csf022310.php%5D

    [full text removed by MelGX]

    JMP

11. 

    JerryT

    February 26, 2010

    Big fan of Tesla.

    Here’s another bio:

    http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tesla.html

12. 

    Mel

    February 26, 2010

    You really should have warned us about the vegan shoe link. I’m off my dinner now.

13. 

    nicolette

    February 26, 2010

    i’m usually not the biggest fan of vegan shoes – not because i hate animals (though, really, i have no issues with leather), its usually because they are usually bad designs. cant stand stella mccartney and most others that i have seen out there have just been pretty weak.

    that being said, some of these are pretty good. adore these http://www.olsenhaus.com/shoe_gracepurple.html

14. 

    innerredneckexposed

    February 26, 2010

    I’ve found myself becoming a Marxist (in terms of how work defines us as humans) but that’s about it. Still makes me LOL that he thought USA was going to be the first Marxist state.