matthearn.com

Uh…ju…hubb…ow. [INITIATING BRAIN RESET PROCEDURE]

Everybody’s seen this already, but I can’t not post it. That would be wrong.

And of course if you’ve never seen this, you must immediately do so.

As much as my old Libertarian soul hates the idea of embiggening the Gubmint, I find that the idea of letting the U.S. Federal Government take over Americans’ healthcare is vastly superior to a system in which the private health companies go out of their way to deny people benefits.

The This American Life crew…has a segment in this weekend’s episode on rescission of health insurance policies – insurers’ established practice of looking for ways to invalidate policies once it turns out that the insured actually needs significant medical care… The story describes a couple of particularly egregious cases, such as a woman who was denied breast cancer surgery because she had been treated for acne in the past, and a person whose policy was rescinded because his insurance agent had incorrectly entered his weight on the application form.

If the healthcare insurance providers are willing to operate under regulations that require them to pay benefits to their customers, then great. If they insist they can’t make any profit that way, then basically they’re saying “we make our profits by letting people die.” To which I respond: eff ’em. I’d much rather deal with a government bureaucracy than a private bureaucracy that stands to benefit by my death.

Andrew has more:

Everyone gets treatment in emergencies and the uninsured get treatment the rest of us pay for in higher premiums. So the basic point remains: does this form of socialized medicine make more sense than socialized medicine which brings everyone into the system, and tries to find ways to lower costs?

OMG LULZ TODAY’S WIKIPEDIA FEATURED PICTURE IS THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVAH HAHAHA!!!11!!

An “Aha Moment” on the subject of tangible forgiveness. Video’s about 2 1/2 minutes, but it’s worth it. Key description:

When I was pregnant with my twins, I had the realization of being forgiven for the abortion I had in the past and didn’t have to explain it anymore.

Whatever your feelings are about organized religion or abortion issues, the thought of unloading a heaping helping of guilt appeals to anyone, I think.

Keith Olbermann found some neat stuff at the Baseball Hall of Fame over the weekend, although mostly I link to it to show this:

Is it just me, or does Keith Olbermann have the same body shape as me? Thick calves, slight gut, enormous fricking head? And he’s even taller than I am. Remind me to never anger him. By, you know, voting Republican, or something.

My friend Cassie has written a nifty trilogy of teen-oriented fantasy novels, The Mortal Instruments, and Simon and Schuster has seen fit to release the first book, City of Bones, on the intarw3bs. It would behoove you to read it, as it is Pimp.

Getting a late start today. Sorry about that. Speaking of sorry, we have this item from RegretTheError.com:

This is the best thing ever. Seriously, I got kinda choked up. I’ll be watching it all weekend.

Here’s something oddly frightening: did you know that The Prohibition Party still exists? That’s right: there are people so out of touch that, despite what happened from 1919 to 1933 and what’s happening now with the “drug war,” they honestly believe that making alcohol illegal is a good idea.

The website is pretty priceless (animated gifs! lulz), and includes links like “See what the Bible has to say” (warning: immediate sound, like it’s 1997 or something). There’s another site, marginally more professional looking, at prohibitionists.org; it contains a veritable wealth of information about what kind of crazies still live, work, and vote in this country. You know, just in case you hadn’t seen Fox News lately and had forgotten.