Thursday, December 30, 2010
Today's quote
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Today's quote
If parents can't be trusted to properly feed their children, then what can they be trusted to do when it comes to their offsprings well being? The government will now be feeding hundreds of thousands of children three meals a day not only during the school year, but during the summer vacation time as well. The Dept. of Agriculture will also be setting new standards for school nutrition. I can't see anything going wrong with that.
This is just one more example of overreach by the Federal government. There is no reason why the bureaucrats in D. C. need to be telling local school districts what they can and can't serve in the cafeteria. But because the school districts have whored themselves out for federal tax dollars they have now become their defacto slaves and must knuckle under or lose funding.
Michelle Obama is concerned (and rightly so) with childhood obesity which has become a problem in the United States, however I would argue that childhood obesity has more to do with what children eat at home and their lack of physical activity more than what is being served at the local school cafeteria. Get the kids out from in front of the TV set and on to the basketball court and most of the problem would be solved. We don't need a 4.5 billion dollar government program to slim our children.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Today's quote
Teach, your children well
Dominic joined dozens of children yesterday at the annual Toy Gun Bash in the gymnasium of Pleasant View Elementary School. There, they lined up to toss their toy guns, from dainty purple water guns to camouflage-painted pistols, inside the Bash-O-Matic, a large black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and the shape of a cockroach spliced with a frog.
Prodded by Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, who wore a fuzzy Santa hat, the children stared curiously as the Bash-O-Matic mashed up their guns and digested them into a plastic bin near its tail.
“He ate it,’’ squealed one delighted little girl.
’Tis the season for joy, peace, and grinding up plastic, orange-tipped AK-47s.
For seven years, Providence municipal and law enforcement officials have organized the event around Christmastime as a way to raise awareness of the dangers of playing with guns, real or fake. The event is a mix of the macabre and the playful, a children’s version of the gun buyback program in which adults trade firearms for gift certificates.
Yesterday, younger children ran through a rubber obstacle course while officials told the older children the story of a 14-year-old boy who police nearly shot after they confused his air pistol with a real gun.
In exchange for their toy guns, all the children received wrapped presents that were indisputably not violent — dolls, stuffed animals, and board games like checkers.
Some children were not thrilled with the trade.
Malik Hall, a round-eyed second-grader, looked apprehensive as he stood in line with his favorite toy, a thick, blue gun with plastic sword underneath the muzzle. The 8-year-old was furious when his mother, Amanda, told him he would have to give it up. Yesterday morning, he tried to hide it under his pillow, she said.
“I’m worried,’’ she said. “He might cry.’’
But when it was his turn, Malik strode dry-eyed and with quiet dignity to the Bash-O-Matic and fed it the gun. When his mother approached, he said nothing.
“You don’t want to talk to me?’’ Hall asked. He looked at her stonily and left to retrieve his gift.
Hall said she had no regrets. The 26-year-old mother of six said she has been trying to wean her only son off toy guns for years. In kindergarten, he brought a pop gun to school and shot at a classmate when the child refused to return his toy truck.
The police and representatives of the state’s children services department rushed to the school, and the boy was expelled.
“He had it in his pants like a gangster,’’ Hall said. Yesterday, she had six other of his guns to feed the Bash-O-Matic, but she admitted she had let Malik keep one, a small pistol that shoots rubber targets.
“I mean, he is a boy,’’ she said.
Many of the children at yesterday’s gun bash were not making anything like Malik’s sacrifice.
Some parents confessed that they bought guns just a couple of days before the event so their children could get a gift or watch the Bash-O-Matic do its work.
“He likes the feeling of breaking things without getting in trouble,’’ said Dominic’s mother, April Johnson, who bought his gun just a couple of days ago.
One parent was motivated by tragedy.
Ardella Powell, 28, who came with her four children, said she wants to see the guns destroyed because it helps her cope with the violent death of the father of her 11-year-old son. The man was gunned down in 2003.
“I tell them that this is for a good cause,’’ she said. “It’s not just for a toy.’’
About 200 children attended the gun bash, said Jim Baum, a prosecutor with Lynch’s office who helps run it. The event used to be held four or five times a year, but budget cuts have forced them to scale back the program, he said. City and state employees donate many of the toys, along with nearby businesses.
“We hope it makes a difference,’’ Baum said.
Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College, said police and parents coming together to destroy toy guns sends a powerful message to children.
Take away all the toy guns you want, you will not teach a child (especially a boy) that guns are bad. What you will teach him is that he will either need to hide his toy guys from the adult Gestapo or he will use any material at his disposal to create one, be it a stick, piece of bread, his finger etc.
Why not instead teach children about responsible gun ownership and its potential benefits as well as dangers? We seem to feel it is o.k. to teach grade school children about things like drugs (including tobacco) and STD's so guns shouldn't represent too much of a difficulty especially for those ultra-sharp members of the teachers unions.
My dad purchased a BB gun for me and my brother at a very young age and instructed us in its proper use, safety and potential for great bodily harm if used improperly. Maybe the problem in Providence isn't guns, maybe it's people.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Your overlords know what's best
From a recent interview of Justice Breyer by Chirs Wallace on Fox News:
WALLACE: I understand. But it certainly didn’t provide for a ban, at least that’s what the court’s decision was, your court’s — it didn’t provide for a ban on all handguns as they have here in Washington, D.C.
BREYER: Are you a sportsman? Do you like to shoot pistols at targets? Well, get on the subway and go to Maryland.
A condescending answer from on high. Of course I'm sure justice Breyer never has to worry about his security.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Today's funny
"Yes, I am."
"Well then, better tell me what you got."
The guy says, "Well, I got a .357 revolver in my inside coat pocket.
There's a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box. And, I've got a .22 magnum derringer in my right boot."
"Okay," the cop says. "anything else?"
"Yeah, back in the trunk, there's an AR15 and a shotgun. That's about it."
"The cop asks, are you on your way to or from a gun range ?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what are you afraid of ?"
"The guy responds, "Not a damn thing."
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Meet your heart surgeon
Chris Link, MD
One of the most interesting, if unanticipated, effects of posting YouTube videos is managing the “comments” section. I have a serie s of politically oriented song parodies that I have posted over the past eight months. The first, “One Single Payer System”, has more than one million views (thanks to links posted in blogs such as The American Thinker). However, I did not realize I would be taking up the job of de facto moderator for a running debate with more than 1,200 entries in the case of “Single Payer”.
One post asked a very good question: “Why can’t we just put everyone in the country on Medicare?” Aside from the problem of a huge expansion in the unfunded obligations for the Medicare program, currently estimated to be $89 trillion, my immediate thought was that you can’t stay in business as a physician at Medicare reimbursement rates.
I used my specialty, anesthesiology, to illustrate the problem. Using the best information I could find and the example of my own solo practice, I came up with some sobering figures.
Anesthesiologists bill for most surgical cases with a combination of base units depending on the particular surgery (e.g. cardiac bypass has a higher base value than a hernia repair), plus one time unit for every 15 minutes. The average anesthesiologist bills 10,198 units in a year. Medicare pays, on average, $20.925 per unit. Now $213,393 a year sounds like a pretty decent living for most of us and it certainly would be until you start backing out expenses.
A billing service is in the neighborhood of 6% ($12,804) and average malpractice is about $23,000. I’m paying around $15,000 a year for health insurance for a family of four. Various expenses for continuing education, computers, cell phone, office supplies, etc. adds up to around $5,000. AMA, state and local medical society and American Society of Anesthesiologists dues add up to $1,700, if one chooses to join. I’d like to retire someday, so I put away 10% for retirement. Self-employment taxes take $17,154. And I have no employees or office. Most medical practices have a much higher overhead both in real terms and as a percent of revenue.
So what’s left?
$117,753, but without the “doctor fix” it would be $85,770. All that in exchange for 50-60 hours a week (including being on-call), coming out of school with an average student loan debt of $156,000 with a payment of over $1,000 per month, and putting your life on hold until at least age thirty. Suddenly it doesn’t look like such an attractive option.
And then there’s the guy you knew in college who coasted through studying sociology and went to work for the US Department of Health and Human Services right after graduation. He’s had eight years to climb through the bureaucratic ranks and is now one of the 19% of the federal workforce that makes over $100,000 and that’s before bonuses and overtime. And you always thought he was kind of an idiot.
The average pay of a federal worker in now $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector. Excellent fringe benefits widen the gap even more.
Most of my colleagues are similar to me in coming from middle class backgrounds. I worked to go to school and probably paid for half of my education at a state university. I borrowed money for medical school. Another significant number of doctors are second or third generation physicians, but very few come from well-to-do non-medical backgrounds. And what will happen when medicine is no longer an attractive option for bright motivated youth to move up the socioeconomic ladder?
See that assistant supervisor at your local DMV? The guy sitting in the office drinking coffee, shuffling reports and playing solitaire on the computer?
Meet your heart surgeon.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Today's quote
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Unemployment or welfare?
Update: it is still only 99 weeks of unemployment, just extended for a year to those who qualify. See here for details if you want to go brain dead.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Today's definition
40 square miles surrounded by reality.
Note: For Washington D. C. you may substitute, Berkeley, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle etc.
