Techdirt points out how the Government Accountability Office is getting things done.
complaints about ER
I found a post at The Blarg complaining about ER a few days ago. I started commenting on it, but there’s a lot to say, so I’m moving here. Now, I’ve only seen ER a few times, and like all TV shows it’s unrealistic, but the parts he labels “liberal nonsense” are not especially fantastic.
1) Huge numbers of people are gay, and they don’t act anything like gay people do in real life. Gaydar need not apply, because you could never guess, because the show wants you to think gay people are just like straight people, but gay. Oh wait, that’s not all, gay people are actually more with it than the straight people. The gay relationships are always great, and the straight people are screwed up.
There are a lot of GLBT people in the real world. And being queer does not mean you act a certain way. Otherwise, you wouldn’t need to come out. Everyone would already know. Sure, a lot of queer people have rejected gender norms, but a lot haven’t and that isn’t necessarily visible. And straight people reject gender normas too.
There doesn’t need to be a breakdown between straight and queer relationships. Relationships are the same pretty much everywhere. And after being accused of rape, pedophilia, bestiality, mental disorders, etc., it’s really nice that ER does portray good queer relationships.
2) Everyone is dying in Iraq. Last year a main character got killed in Iraq, and this year there was a family whose father had died in Iraq. They wouldn’t want to have a character that came back from Iraq alive and emphasize the good they were doing. No, Iraq is the devil and everyone is dying.
I’m sure some people do come back from Iraq and feel they’ve done something good. Most of the people I know either died or came back wishing they’d never had to kill anyone. Veterans of other wars are the same. My grandfather was proud that he helped in WWII. But he had a lot of terrible memories he didn’t want. People forget that no matter how good the cause of the war people die horrible deaths and see horrible things. Being reminded of that isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe we’ll try harder diplomatically.
3) National healthcare mumbo jumbo! The ER is always full and nobody has health insurance on the show. The characters are always screaming about how we need a national healthcare plan. What BS. Where are the illegal aliens in the ER? Oh that’s right, they never show any.
National healthcare isn’t mumbo jumbo. In a rich country like ours, it’s ridiculous that so many people who work so hard can’t afford decent healthcare. And yes, illegal immigrants do show up in the ER.
When I suggested that treating them was the right thing to do the author pulled out the teach a man to fish analogy. But many illegal immigrants do know how to take care of themselves. They’re doctors, teachers, farmers. As I mentioned a few days ago, our agricultural subsidies have done terrible things to the Mexican economy. These people come to the US looking for work so their families could eat. They are not looking for a handout.
They are accused of taking American jobs. But the only reason employers hire them is because they don’t get in trouble for paying them far far below minimum wage and the workers don’t complain about poor working conditions for fear of being deported. Illegal immigrants are rarely paid enough to eat well, let alone get a decent place to live or buy health insurance.
People say that illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes, so why should they get health care? How can they pay taxes? Despite the long long hours they work, they usually don’t make enough to have to pay taxes.
Fixing this system should be a priority. But until then, taking care of these exploited people who pick our food and clean our businesses cannot be compared to giving away something for free. We should be ashamed of how we’ve treated illegal immigrants.
fox news
This isn’t spin. It’s an outright lie.
And people believe it (from the video comments):
Why does it bother you that the violence and immorality of homosexuality is finally being exposed for the evil that it is? What is so wrong with letting children grow up normal and without fear rather than deal with filth like this? They should round up these gangs and give them all major prison terms! The prisons are overcrowded? Too bad! They should have thought before inflicting their evil on innocent young lives!
whee, global poverty, or agricultural subsidies
Originally uploaded by boubou1
LMB recently wrote about farm subsidies in the US and the damage they do. They affect the major ingredients and prices of the food we buy.
there are five crops which receive huge, huge payouts from the US government: corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and cotton. None of these five are all that nutritious (particularly the cotton), while healthier produce like broccoli and carrots and such get almost no subsidies.
The result? According to Pollan, “real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) [he means corn syrup] declined by 23 percent.” Calories are cheap and nutrients are ’spensive.
Since high fructose corn syrup is actually quite bad for you, it seems that one effect of subsidizing corn so heavily is to make Americans unhealthy. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to put that subsidy money into other crops and healthcare?
But the most devastating result of these subsidies is felt in other countries.
The second catastrophe that these food subsidies is the destruction of foreign agriculture. If you get a jillion dollars in free government money for growing soybeans, you can sell them for much cheaper than the amount it cost to produce those soybeans. And if those subsidies encourage you to grow more soybeans than you can sell domestically (and they do), then you’ve got extra to sell abroad. And if your exported soybeans are competing with local farmers who do not get a jillion dollars in free government money, then your soybeans will sell over your competitors. Then your competitors go bankrupt, and whee, global poverty.
This year’s Farm Bill might be different. Don’t just keep your fingers crossed, write to your elected officials about it.
terrifying questions
The left is often accused of slippery slopes when it comes to abortion: If you kill your “unborn child, ” what’s stopping you from killing your child after it’s born? But with the recent supreme court decision upholding the federal abortion ban, it seems we are heading down the other side of the hill.
If the government can choose to advance fetal interests over the pregnant woman’s health in the context of abortion, why can’t so-called “fetal rights” prevail in the context of birth?
Unlike the left, however, which never advocated for killing babies and children, pregnant women’s lives are now sometimes a secondary consideration.
In fact, this argument is already being used to justify court-ordered Cesarean sections in cases where physicians believe that a c-section will prove more beneficial to the fetus (this despite the fact that c-sections constitute major surgery and pose increased health risks to the pregnant woman and in some cases the fetus as well). True, most courts so far rule that such interventions unconstitutionally strip women of their civil and human rights, including bodily integrity, informed medical decision-making, liberty, and, in one case, life itself. In that case, later reversed by an appellate court, both the woman and her baby died after a forced c-section ordered to protect fetal life.
But at least one federal court has said that sending police to a woman’s home, taking her into custody while in active labor and near delivery, strapping her legs together and her body down to transport her against her will to a hospital, and then forcing her, without access to counsel or court review to undergo major surgery constituted no violation of her civil rights at all. The rationale? If the state can limit women’s access to abortions after viability, it can subject her to the lesser state intrusion of insisting on one method of delivery over another.
The Louisiana Senate recently passed a bill completely banning abortion in the state. There are no exceptions for a woman’s health, rape, or incest. And contraceptives like the morning after pill are also banned. This bill would not go into effect until after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But
[Senator] Nevers said he feels the likelihood of such a move is high after the appointment to the Court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.
Via Our Bodies Our Blog.
Comments
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andrea gibson
1 third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to “Support Our Troops”
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands