Announcing the First Ever Epic Art Contest

by RFB

Twice a week, on average, I make a midday 40 minute drive between hospitals. I spend that time seeking enlightenment by listening to talk radio.(Actually, half of that time; the other half is spent listening to commercials). Most days, I leave around one. My choices are then either Michael Medved, or Sean Hannity. Occasionally, however, I  get a pre-noon start. On those blessed days, I  am able to listen to The Great One, the King...RUSH!

I have already written quite a bit about why Rush Limbaugh is the greatest thing ever to pick up a microphone. One thing I have yet to discuss  is the unique insightfulness of his listeners.

For instance, back in September an astute caller provided a look at yet another inevitable downside of insuring the uninsured that I have yet to hear or see anywhere else:

"You talked about the side effects of this health care coverage... when you insure all of these people...they will utilize emergency rooms and they will utilize other health care facilities more than they do now. The only thing deterring them from using these things too much is the fact that they know they'll be responsible for paying for it. So when somebody doesn't want to go to work Monday morning because they're too tired or too hung over from the weekend, they'll go to their doctor's office and ask for a note, and we wind up spending more money on health care than we would if we didn't do this."

So having 40 million or so uninsured people is actually good for the economy. It makes society more productive by forcing lazy people with hangovers to go to work rather than getting a doctor's excuse to call in sick, and it saves on healthcare costs. I know, liberals will probably whine that they can't even get a same-day doctor's appointment on a Monday morning. Why do liberals hate the greatest healthcare system in the world? Because they hate freedom.

Then this past Tuesday, this gem:

"CALLER: I have felt since January that every day President Obama pulls out a waterboard, straps me onto it, raised my head back and pours some wave of something over my head to make me feel like I am drowning in hopelessness... He's strapping individual citizens in this United States to that waterboard every day and pouring water over our heads to make us feel like we're going to drown.

RUSH: I actually like the analogy. We're being tortured. We're being tortured with the fear of hopelessness to control our lives.
CALLER: That's exactly it. It's a daily waterboarding. So I would love one of your fabulous artists to design this and show President Obama pouring water over a citizen every day...
RUSH: You know, we have a great graphic artist at RushLimbaugh.com."

So this masterpiece came to be:

OK, I have to call Rush on something here. He said "we're being tortured." He must have misspoke, for he knows as well as anybody that waterboarding is not torture. It is enhanced interrogation.


That got me to thinking. If the Obama era is like constantly being waterboarded, what was the Bush era like?

I know! It was like one long Thai massage, with multiple happy endings!

Lowering my taxes a lot, lowering less affluent people's taxes just a little...oh baby! Getting out a can of whoopass in Afghanistan..here it comes again! Another can of whoopass in Iraq...better close your eyes, George, or they might get wet and sticky!  Privatizing Social Security...

OK, so that last one was more like handjobus interruptus.

But anyway, I'm not much of an artist. But hopefully one of my five or so readers is, so I would like someone to come up with a  graphic of our own, one that fondly depicts W as a Thai masseur. The winner will have the very great honor of having his or her work posted right here on Epic! Congrats in advance!

                                                                                                                                                               

                    

                            

Where Do I Begin? Part II

by Allen Kolmes

Yesterday a friend sent the following, authored by a fellow physician. There appears to be two schools of Republican thought on healthcare reform--the "Health care reform sucks so bad that there is no point in offering any alternative solutions" school. The other school of thought being"Health care reform sucks because Obama's a socialist and wants to destroy America," expressed so eloquently at town hall meetings. Anyway, here is the link http://www.takebackmedicine.org/?p=1242 This one has a little Joe Wilson thrown in as well.

So...point by point:

I do agree with the first paragraph. While Joe Wilson proved himself to be an asshole, he certainly by no means proved himself to be a racist. I can easily see him yelling the same thing if it were President Hillary Clinton or President John Edwards. While his background (worked for Strom Thurmond, pointed out that the black woman purporting to be Strom's daughter was FOS --oops, can't win them all-,- supported flying the Confederate flag over the South Carolina capitol) makes him statistically more likely to be a racist than, say, Al Franken , it does not prove he is one. Liberals risk major credibility loss for little gain on this one. Would proving his racist-ness make him significantly more of a jerk than he already is? So, fellow liberals, let's just focus on the far-easier-to-prove notion that he is a serious butthead.

#1. Actually, I believe this. This is political Darwinism at its finest. There is a word for politicians who suggest that Americans might actually have to pay for something, no matter how worthwhile--Losers! Like, like when Bush announced that big tax hike to pay for the Iraq war and another tax hike to pay for the prescription drug benefit--he just got creamed in the 2004 election!

#2. I think there are a couple main points in this paragraph. First "poor Medicare reimbursement is forcing Doctors out of Medicare and therefore limiting the pool of doctors available to seniors" and "employees already cannot choose there doctors because they have no control over what healthcare options their employers choose." .

Aren't the problems being described here problems with the status quo? I have always cracked up listening to physicians complain about how bad Medicare reimbursement is and then without stopping for breath complain about how their taxes are too high, without once contemplating the inherent absurdity of these two positions.. Oh--but, but I know how we can lower our taxes and increase Medicare reimbursement to physicians--we can deficit spend!

Sorry to break the bad news, but downward pressure on both government and private reimbursement is going to be intense, with or without healthcare reform. Actually, the AMA cut a deal with the administration not to lower Medicare reimbursement in the near future in return for its support for one of the House bills. From a purely selfish perspective, might be time to get on board.

And how does pointing out one of the many ways in which private insurance sucks bolster the case against reforming it?

And finally, the author (I think unintentionally) points out that if an exchange or a public option exists, at least employees will actually have something to turn to when their employer drops their coverage when the employer can no longer afford it.

And we're going to see a lot of employers deciding they can't afford it. With or without reform.

#3. I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome from writing about this one. Let me phrase it as a question this time. For the Republicans out there who have suddenly become converts to the cause of full-court-press money-is-no-object support of Medicare, I ask: so that we can provide the latest in chemotherapy to cancer patients, pacemakers to Rush's 100 year old, hip surgery for Michael Steele's 85-year old grandmother, and intubation, dialysis, and full-on ICU care for comatose 95-year olds, are you willing to pay your share of the bill? 'Cause the money to pay for all this comes from the T-word.
(for Sarah Palin fans--the "T-word" is taxes)

#4. I translate this as "even if the reform bill explictly prohibits federal funding for abortion, we'll end up with it anyway because that's what liberals do." Straight from the Glenn Beck School of Creative Thinking.

#5. Here is what I think the point of this paragraph is.

"Obama, first you say that 47 million are uninsured then you say 30 million. You lie!"

#6. First of all, given the existential threat that rising health care costs present, the amount of attention paid to the relatively small portion of health care expenses spent on illegal immigrants blows my mind (actually, sadly, it doesn't).

I read recently that thanks to the tireless efforts of that great healthcare advocate, Joe Wilson, Obama has proposed that illegal immigrants be barred from buying into the insurance exchange with their own money. Great idea--prevent mostly young, mostly healthy individuals from buying insurance and likely making it more affordable for the rest of us. Let them be uninsured, and then show up at the ER--where we end up paying for them.

Thanks, Joe!

Doctors for/against health care reform. Whatever.

by Allen Kolmes

Has it escaped notice by the media that one of the interest groups most likely to be affected by healthcare reform--doctors--is among the least monolithic?

One would think that, as a doctor, I would have my finger on the pulse of physician opinion. Sadly, all I can offer is the perspective of the proverbial blind man touching an elephant.
Five years ago I had the misfortune of sitting at a my old hospital's Medical Executive Committee meeting the day after the 2004 election. The hospital was a religious institution. The chief of staff, who was chairing the meeting, announced his excitement at Bush's reelection--and, and, what was really cool was that the evangelicals were the keys to his election.

It was all I could do to keep from channeling my inner Joe Wilson. But keep quiet I did, like the liberal pussy that I am. And I am still working through that with my therapist.

By contrast, at my current hospital in the heart of Henry Waxman's district, I am tempted to buy a Hummer just so I don't have to spend ten minutes at the end of the day figuring out which Prius is mine.

The AMA, the single largest physician's organization, represents a whopping 29% of American doctors. The AMA's position on health care is hard to label. I would arbitrarily describe it as just-right-of-center. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/363/ehi1012.pdf
Actually, I would recommend that Republican politicians memorize this document in the unlikely event that they are ever asked what exactly they are in favor of in the health care debate.

So, for every Chief of Medical Staff who believes that Jesus helped W get reelected, there is me at a town hall meeting trying to outshout all the Sarah Palin fans. We probably neutralize each other. Which means that the IQ-under-70 conservatives, whom Glenn Beck has successfully mobilized, will be more influential in the fate of health care reform than doctors will be.

BTW, what set me off writing this was reading the following on Slate:

"Somebody forgot to tell doctors how terribly unpopular the public option is. Sixty-three percent of them support it, according to a new survey conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, even though one of its chief purposes would be to pay doctors less. "

Which, BTW number 2, leads me to add something--I have a lot of respect for my peeps. Most doctors really want to do the right thing. We just need to work very hard on figuring out what that is.

Update: the day after I posted this it was on the front page that the AMA had come out in favor of health care reform as currently proposed. The price--a promise to freeze Medicare reimbursement levels in return for support. Per the Times, less than Pharma had to concede!
Go lobbyists for my profession!!

I Have Republican Envy

by Allen Kolmes



I am--I must admit it--kind of jeaous of the Republicans. The people they can get away with electing! I seriously envy them their assholes.



Take Tom Delay, for instance. "The Hammer." Why can't Democrats get serious pricks like that elected, much less Majority Leader. O that it could be so--that Steny Hoyer is called "The Dagger?" That Nancy Pelosi is "The Stilletto?" That when during Free Association exercises, when my shrink says "milktoast" I come up with something other than "Harry Reid."


Think about it. Where are the Democratic Ann Coulters, Dick Armeys, B1 Bob Dornans, Tom Tancredos, Rick Santorums (Santori?), James Inhofes, Michelle Bachmanns...the list goes on and on.


Also, I envy the right wing their undereducated noisy politically empowered idiots. Why can't we get an army of brain-dead liberals to plague Republican congressman town hall meetings with meaningless phrases shouted at the top of their lungs? Surely, the laws of the bell-shaped-curve dictate that there must be brain-cell-deficient liberals out there. So how do we get them up from the couch and screaming vapid, but at least somewhat correct, platitudes in the political arena? I'm not expecting much--I just want our morons to neutralize their morons.

So we need a liberal Sarah Palin.
To that end, I have put an ad on Craigslist:

"Wanted: charismatic politician with worldview of Dennis Kucinich but intellectual capacity of George W Bush.. Must be willing to be thrust into national limelight and be mocked on a daily basis. Must be willing to distill liberal message into four 2 syllable words or less."

Letter to the LA Times

By Allen Kolmes---
I recently wrote to the LA Times about something I read in last Sunday's opinion section.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-allen30-2009aug30,0,2592815.story
The topic was somewhat esoteric, not something that I am normally passionate about. What set me off was not so much the content (with which I do disagree) but the extreme vacuousness of the argument. The published version is here--
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/
Unfortunately, I did not keep it within the 150 word limit, so the better part of my letter got chopped off. Here is the original:


In her opinion piece, “Chew on This,” Charlotte Allen voices her disdain for a certain genre of social criticism that concerns itself with the actual cost, as opposed to the immediate monetary price, of the things we consume. However, while she clearly thinks these people are misguided, nowhere in her article does she actually explain how or why.
The lowering cost and increasing abundance of food and other goods in the modern economy has no doubt been a boon to humanity-- at least to those living above the subsistence level. However, behind the apparent—in terms of immediate ability to pay—affordability of food, furniture, clothing, gasoline, and all other consumables are substantial hidden costs. The decreasing price of commodities is often the result of corporations making great efforts towards paying as little as possible to the people who make and move the products they sell. Things are also often apparently inexpensive because the true costs—resource depletion, pollution of the air and water, etc, etc, are often passed on to future generations rather than being paid for by our own.

There is an ever increasing body of commentary devoted to discussion of these issues. This obviously annoys Ms. Allen. She would much prefer that we just enjoy the party and not worry about how it may be affecting the neighbors.

Ms. Allens argument can be summarized as follows:
1. I like things to be inexpensive.
2. If there are hidden social or environmental costs, I don’t want to know about them.
3. Nor do I care.
4. People who worry about such issues clearly have a screw loose.
This is an argument better suited to AM talk radio then the Op-Ed page of a major newspaper. I am sure there is a case to be made against the social critics in question. But it is nowhere to be found in this article.

Where to Start?!

by Allen Kolmes

OK, so we spent the last two posts bitchslapping the opposition. Fun!!! I can see why Rush enjoys coming to work every day.

For many blogs, that would be time to call it a day, move on to the next discussion.

But not at Epic! No sir. We will actually be dipping our toe in the pool of Constructive Debate.
Don't yawn--we'll still be dissing the naysayers, the pawns in the corporate chess game, the clingers to beliefs of convenience. But at the same time, we will also strive to be persuasive paragons of positivity.

So where to start? Need to select a topic. How about the hard one. The really reallty hard one. The really f&%$ing hard one.

Cost control.

This topic is so fraught that Rush's show is practically writing itself, and will continue to do so until he heads off into that great Oxycontin dispensary in the sky.

We have two fundamental choices to make.

Option A is attempting to control costs. While there are various places within the healthcare budget where costs can be trimmed (insurance company executive compensation comes immediately to mind), the major driver of healthcare inflation is and will continue to be increased utilization of services. So, cost control means controlling utilization which means decreasing utilization which means we can't give everybody every medical service possible.

Option B consists of providing everybody (or even not everybody, as in the current situtation, just most people) all the medical services they could ever want, need, or are told they need, and accept that eventually half our nation's income will go to that end.

Option A or option B--these are the only two possible choices. And they are mutually exclusive. For those who fail to recognize this fact (I mean you, Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity)--your opinions can be safely ignored.

If you haven't guessed yet, this column is going to come down in favor of option A. When the choice is put this way--and I think I have expressed it an honest and straightforward manner--nearly everybody would choose option A, except, recently, for right-wing radio talk show hosts, which is really weird.

So the consensus choice being Option A, the debate needs to be about how we go about it. Do we leave it up to government? Do we leave it up to the insurance industry? Do we sponsor comparative effectiveness research? Do we push for preventive care? Do we create Death Panels (haven't ruled them out!)?

This conversation needs desperately to begin. And those whose immediate response to the initiation of this discussion is "you're pulling the plug on Grandma" are doing the country a grave disservice.

And we need to recognize that the conversation is going to be a difficult one to have, one of the most difficult we have ever engaged in.

So difficult, in fact, that I'm going to call it a night, having only offered up rules of engagement.
But more to come.

Boehner Spreads Misinformation About Cow Farts

by Allen Kolmes

Thought I was done for the night, but then I learned something.

I hate bashing Republican leaders for their ignorance.* But then a new one pops up!

"Appearing on ABC's This Week, the Ohio Republican was asked what to describe the GOP plan to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, "which every major scientific organization said is contributing to climate change."
Boehner replied: "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know when they do what they do you've got more carbon dioxide."

While it is not necessarily common knowledge, it should be a prerequisite to winning a House seat to know that--

1. Co2--greenhouse gas, not a carcinogen.

(Actually, if you edit House Minority Leader Boehner's sentence it becomes completely true--"the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen is almost comical.")

2. Cow farts--methane, not CO2

* Actually I don't; it's fun!

Thanks For Nothing

by Allen Kolmes

Today, hundreds if not thousands of terminally ill Americans will reach a point in their disease where further medical treatment will neither prolong nor improve the quality of their life. It will, in fact, make things worse. Many of them will die in an ICU, with a tube down their throat, another in their stomach, and catheters out of every orifice, surrounded my screaming alarms and fluorescent lights that are on 24/7. Most of these could have died at home or in a hospice, surrounded by their loved ones, maybe with a small IV providing medicine that makes them feel better.

The cost of these ICU stays? Tens of billions of dollars every year.

One of the main reasons this happens that patients, and especially their families, have no idea that that point in their disease is coming or happening. Their doctors don't tell them. Our society gives little appropriate guidance in dealing with the end of life. And so patients slip into that irreversible phase with doctors putting on the full court press and their families acting as collaborators, about to spend the last days of their lives being tortured rather than comforted (1).

Whereas a bit of information could have prevented such a fate.

The proposed health care reform took a small, a minimal, step to help prevent this scenario. A provision for Medicare to pay for, not provide, voluntary end-of-life counseling. A good, but insufficient step. Actually, Medicare actually sort-of mandates such counseling. But it doesn't reimburse for it. So, human nature being what it is, those discussions tend to be perfunctory.
The provision would just reimburse doctors for the time spent, with the idea that perhaps under those circumstances a meaningful and useful discussion will occur

Enter that irrepressible GILF, Sarah Palin. This eminently reasonable idea, something that any sane fiscal conservative ought to love, became Death Panels. And a segment of the population whose influence-to-IQ ratio is unacceptably high fell for it.

And so yesterday the Senate Finance Committe dropped payments for end-of-life counseling from its version of the bill. (2)

This is what the right wing is contributing to health care reform.




(1) Personal observation--every day where I work.

(2)http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health-end-of-life14-2009aug14,0,4670272.story

Healthcare reform. Cool! Yawn...

By Allen Kolmes

Given my personally being occupied by the health care industry, I have been following the health care reform debate with a lot of interest.

So I feel compelled to weigh in on it. So this will hopefully be the first of several posts on the topic. The resident dittohead wingnut will of course be bloviating (love that word!) on the topic, but that will be purey comic relief.

This being a blog, the first order of business is to demolish the opposition. Which for this particular issue is extraordinarily easy. Easier than any major issue I can remember.

Every significant issue we face has a compelling argument and a compelling counterargument. For instance, the argument against the auto company bailouts (which I was for) is a very strong one, one I was tempted to favor. And that argument was made.

By conrast, what has me absolutely astounded is the complete lack of coherence of the Republican response to the health care issue. I have no doubt that there is a strong and valid counterargument out there, but I have searched for it in vain on the media sources I use--including many hours of listening to right-wing talk radio. The argument against health care reform has been--(I'll provide a choice of adjectives here--weak; fabricated; complete bullshit). What has been completely nonexistent, however, is any description of what the Republicans would have us do instead.

I exaggerate. I can in fact think of two Republican health care policy proposals.

1. Decrease Medicare expenditures first (this was popular among the more coherent protestors at the town hall meeting I recently attended)

I'm all for this. Unfortunately, this will require Death Panels to make it happen.

2. I think McCain was for a $5000-ish tax credit for purchasing health insurance.

And this helps the minimum wage worker with a pre-existing condition how?

3. The current system is great--let's leave it alone! (I'm extrapolating here).

While this appears to be the default Republican policy position, I have yet to hear it defended with anything resembling logic.

Meanwhile, the "why this won't work" arguments would be hysterical if the stakes were not so high. Among the Republican intellectual elite, we have Sarah Palin describing the Death Panels on Facebook. I had hoped that foreign policy was her weakest subject. Obviously, it isn't.

Capturing the Republican intellectual zeitgeist at the grass roots was the woman in South Carolina who told her Republican congressman to"keep your government hands off my Medicare." I really wish that she is a statistical outlier. But I suspect she is not.

God bless that woman. No one in the past few months has helped me more than her to realize--
we're fucked.

A popular line of argument among conservatives, at least the ones I saw at the town hall meeting, is that the proposals being advanced, reasonable or not, are just lies, designed to advance a hidden agenda--you know, like the destruction of freedom or whatever else we America-haters are up to. I can understand the Republican paranoia there--they have had a lot of experience in the use of that tactic for the last 8 years.

And then there are the internal contradictions--the arguments being presented in favor of preserving access to medical procedures of dubious value vs. the emphasis on the importance of cost control.

In favor of preserving access to medical procedures of dubious value--RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh.

Steele, in a CNN interview, mused on the prospects of an 85 year-old woman being denied hip surgery. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/21/cnr.05.html. BTW, that was one of Steelleto's better moment in that interview.

Rush, in his show, defends the right of a 100-year old woman to get a pacemaker. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072809/content/01125112.guest.html

OK, maybe these women are exceptionally fit for their age, and will actually benefit from these procedures. I hope their doctors are wise enough to make that call.

BTW, Rush, Michael--that's taxpayer money going toward those procedures.

On Bill Maher the other night, California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa was actually worth listening to. He pointed admiringly to the French (French!! Gag Me!!) health care system, whose budget takes up 8% of GDP, as opposed to the 17%-and-rising-fast proportion that the US system requires. I think Bill then blew it--he should have grilled Issa as to how we get from 17% to 8%. Because aggressive government intervention is the only way I see that happening. Is that what Mr. Issa is advocating?

So what will it be? Pacemakers for 100-year olds? Or cutting the Medicare budget in half? Because both ain't gonna happen.

In Which I Choose My Mob Name

by RFB


I just got back from Congressman Adam Schiff's town hall meeting concerning health care reform . My sidekick Allen Kolmes was also there. In the interest of fairness and balanceyness we will both describe what we saw there. I will go first.


My first order of business was to choose my mob name. Liberal elitists have described the patriotic Americans trying to prevent the socialization of the rectal exam as "organized mobsters." Sean Hannity is running with that idea, and has told us that since we are all mobsters, we need to choose a mob name.


Michael Steele decided to adopt the name "Steeletto." (I'm not making this up) Sean was not impressed.

So I am Mack the Knife--out to stab the socialist agenda in the heart.


My main interest was in finding out where Mr. Schiff stood on the Death Panels. You see, Sarah Palin, in her obviously careful reading of the various health care bills, has discovered that the bills provide for Death Panels--panels of bureaucrats empowered to deny lifesaving medical care in the interest of saving money. Shocking! Horrifying! And something the private insurance industry would never do.


Schiff denied that the Death Panels even exist. Of course. So who are you going to believe--Adam Schiff, who is a lawyer (sounds kind of like liar), or Sarah Palin. In any case, denying that the Death Panel provision exists is not the same as saying whether you're for or against it.


So we must extrapolate. Adam Schiff is pro-abortion, which means he is pro-death, which means he must be pro-Death Panel!


I've learned everything about Adam Schiff that I need to know.


And now I turn the floor over to my esteemed-for-no-good-reason colleague, Allen Kolmes.


Allen Kolmes:


Truth be told, Bob, er, "Mack," I didn't hear much of the proceedings, what with you yelling "the Surgeon General is a big fat pig!" in my ear the entire night.


However, I did leave the evening convinced that if the health reform bill does only one thing, it should be to provide for a combo pill made up of Ritalin and Prozac, and should mandate and subsidize the force-feeding of that pill to angry conservatives. Because if they were fourteen years old (and it was awfully hard to tell the difference), that is what they would be on.

For a video of the event:


http://picasaweb.google.com/rhmckay/SchiffTownHallMeeting?authkey=Gv1sRgCNber6qH_LXY_AE#5369124293176092306

In Which I Help Angry Central California Farmers With Punctuation

By Allen Kolmes

First of all, thank you for allowing me to join Epic, the most actively ignored Blog on the web. Rest assured, I will do everything I can to prevent the level of debate from rising above insults and name-calling.

Last weekend, I was driving down Interstate 5, and saw several signs along the road saying "Congress Created Dust Bowl."

My first reaction was from my inner Grammar Nazi. That statement makes no sense! It needs a hyphen (Congress-Created Dust Bowl), or an article (Congress Created a Dust Bowl). I then started wondering who exactly was putting up these signs. Hmmm...of course! Republicans! The party of Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, and W has no need for proper syntax! They're focused on the Big Picture.

But I wondered what this was all about. Surely something to do with all of the dried up orchards along the freeway. So, when I got home, I googled the above phrase.

Turns out, there is an endangered fish in the Sacramento River delta known as the Delta Smelt, the continued survival of which is further threatened by some of the pumps used to pump water farther south to the San Joaquin valley. As per the Endangered Species Act, a federal judge in 2007 imposed limits on the pumping of that water. The result--dried up farms.

This has invoked predictable outrage in the conservative blogosphere (1), the basic theme being that essential human interests are being subjugated for the sake of an insignificant fish.

"We're talking about our food supply, and a federal judge has decided that a two-inch minnow is more important," says Sean Hannity.

OK, it is extremely unfortunate that acres and acres of vital farmland wither and die, and the economic strain that the affected farmers are enduring as a result must be horrific. I get that.

But, what I find very disturbing in all this is what Sheppard and Hannity are implying. It is not acceptable that the farmers be denied water for the sake of preservation of a species. Therefore, the extinction of that species is while perhaps unfortunate, a nonetheless acceptable price to pay .

This begs several questions.

Is it ever not acceptable to those of this mindset to doom a species to extinction, even if
preserving said species would require humans to give up something? Or are all species potentially SOL, so long as there are mouths to feed and off-road vehicles to be driven?

Why are we of the modern age so unwilling to give up anything to preserve a species, when, according to a literal interpretation of the Bible, a long time ago a guy named Noah went to incredible lengths to save every last one of earth's creatures while a Just and Merciful God drowned 99.99+% of his fellow humans?

The phrase "two-inch minnow" keeps popping up, implying that the fish's size and provenance somehow makes it less worthy of preservation than a larger, more glamorous species. Apparently, for the party of Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig, size does matter. Are some species, by virtue of their appeal/usefulness/etc. more worthy of protection
than others?

And, finally, can't they please please put a hyphen on those signs?

1. http://http//newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/06/21/hannity-again-discusses-californias-congress-created-dust-bowl

I Hire a Token Liberal

by RFB
I've decided that Epic needs an alternative voice. I want Epic to be fair and balanced. That's because we conservatives, unlike liberals, want to hear what the other side has to say. We aren't going to learn anything from them--liberals invariably have nothing of value to contribute to public discourse--but we are going to listen. Liberals won't listen to us--which is okay. Their belief system being the result of a bad genetic mutation (see my previous post), listening to anything that makes sense is totally lost upon them. You can't fight nature with logic.

So I looked on Craigslist. And I found the following ad:

"Underemployed liberal journalist seeks Alpha Conservative with whom to share media space. The more FOS the better."

Epic would like to welcome Allen Kolmes to the blog.

Are Liberals Born That Way? It Would Explain a Lot

by RFB

Last Tuesday, I had a rare opportunity to listen to Rush live, as I had the morning off. And on that blessed morning, he said something that blew my mind.

"I think it's time to ask the question, just as many people have puzzled over the origins of homosexuality, people have been puzzling over this. The question is still asked, "Do these people choose that or are they born this way?" I think we need to ask the same question of liberals. Are they born that way, or do they choose it? Because there's no rational explanation for it other than it's easy."

He didn't answer the question, but you know where he is going with this. And if he is right (come on, it's Rush--of course he's right), the implications of this are tremendous.

Back in my old Liberal Elitist days, I found what I perceived as the conservative propensity toward preaching to the choir very annoying (we liberals would never do such a thing!). Now I realize--it is actually visionary! Why waste time, energy, terrabytes proselytizing to liberals, when their deranged philosophy is actually hardwired into their DNA? On the other hand, Sarah Palin fans receive Her political wisdom of their own free will. Their (our) political beliefs are based on Logic, not malformed chromosomes. So drum the Truth into their heads we must.

As for Liberal Elitists (or is it Secular Progressives--Limbaugh, O'Reilly, you're going to have to duke that one out) why even bother preaching to the choir? It's a waste of time! Socialism is genetic! Might as well spend Saturday tending to the organic arugula patch. Your PETA neighbor who's still distraught about the fly The Bama offed? She ain't going anywhere.

My Visit to the People's Republic of Italy

by RFB
This past May I decided to leave my fiscally hamstrung mess of a state (Oh, bless you, Assembly Republicans!) and visit the land of anorexic pasta-munchers (it's true...I think...I read somewhere that Italians are the skinniest people in Europe...something to do with needing to be able to fit into the clothes they make). It was a sociological project--I wanted to observe firsthand the sufferings of a people oppressed by universal health care and free-loving politicians.

The best part of the trip was reading Bill O'Reilly's book "Cultural Warrior" on the way over there. Apparently, while Good People are turning a blind eye to it, Secular Progressives (S-Ps) are taking over America. If they succeed, horrible things will happen--Kansas City will become more like San Francisco, Bobby Jindal will be caught sexting, and the gay guy might actually win on American Idol. I implore you, America--we must make sure this doesn't happen.

So here are some of the horrors I witnessed.

This is an Italian pickup truck. If The Bama has his way, this is what we all will be driving

On the bucket: "Please use the food inside this container to feed these homeless and unloved cats."

Socialism. Even for feral cats. Need I say more.

WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?

by RFB
The afterglow of my conservative epiphany having worn off, I am now faced with the reality of my situation. A month ago, I was still surfing the wave of Liberal Elitist Euphoria. Now, suddenly, I find myself a member of the disenfranchised minority. The other guys are led by a smart, charismatic and clever politician. We are led by...John Boehner? They run the House. They have 58 seats in the Senate, and when those damned activist judges in Minnesota get through with their coup d'etat (oops!-- there again with the French--forgive me, Le Rushbeaux) against the fairly and squarely elected Norm Coleman, they will have 59.

Am I happy that our terrorist-coddling president is going to turn us into a Socialist country in one fell swoop by imposing a 3% tax hike on 5% of the population? Of course not. But as a conservative, my natural instinct is to look on the bright side. Because being conservative is all about being positive.

And there is much to be positive about. For instance, just look at how much better the Republicans are doing as the opposition party. Let's be honest--we didn't always walk the walk the last few years. We increased the deficit by a lot. We increased entitlements. Our Social Security taxes still go to Washington, rather than Wall Street, where they belong. But that has changed. Since The Bama took power, Republicans have not increased the deficit by one cent! (Unless you count the RINOs--Specter, Snow, and Collins). We have been absolutely unified in our opposition to increased government spending. I could not be prouder.

Speaking of the RINOs--another thing to be positive about! We have a wonderful opportunity to purify our party. See ya, Arlen Specter! See ya, tax-hiking California Republican Assemblypeople!

And weren't those Tea Parties the ultimate headrush? I almost can't wait until next April 15!

I feel so much better already.

A DITTOHEAD AT LAST!

by RFB
Yes, at last I have completed the Limbaugh challenge. Thank you, Mr. Andrew Klavan, for pointing me in the right (no pun intended) direction!

As I stated in my previous post, I have been, due to logistics and cheapness, unable to listen to Rush, but I have read plenty of transcripts on his website, including the entire CPAC speech. Let me tell you, when it comes to expanding one's mind, LSD has nothing on Rush Limbaugh. (Actually, you got me again, Mr. Klavan. I have never tried LSD. Everything I know about LSD is what I have been force-fed by the Liberal Elite Media)

I can't begin to describe everything that I have learned from this experience. I can only touch on some of the highlights.

According to Rush, a defining trait of conservatives is that conservatives love people. I love people. I guess I must be a conservative, then. Cool!

Thanks to Mr. Limbaugh, I learned that Liberal Elitists are all about control. And, to be honest, I am indeed a control freak. Which probably explains why, until last week, I was a LE.

This, above all else, is what sets Rush apart from the rest of the pack. He gets into the psychology of the whole political thing. He knows how the liberal mind is messed up.

Speaking of which, it turns out that liberals are actually deranged ! I mean, I was already having to deal with being a cliche, and a lily-livered coward with quivering feet, but to top all of that off I find out that for all of these years I have been deranged! And I had no clue. But I guess the hallmark of the deranged is that they do not know that they are deranged. I can only hope that through my conversion Dr. Limbaugh has cured me of my derangement.

I have learned that branding is essential. For instance, I always thought the LE party was known as the Democratic party. My bad. It's the Democrat party. What better way to express one's contempt for the opposition than to drop the last syllable of their tribe's official name. Take that, Democrat Party!!

And in teaching this lesson, Rush has been an inspiration to others. During drive time, I occasionally tune in to a brilliant intellect named Monica Crowley. She has her own unique twist on the same idea. The POTUS is not to be called President Obama. He's "The Bama." What better way to express one's contempt for the Leader of the Free World than to drop the first syllable of his name and add "the."

Take that, The Bama!!!

Speaking of whom, turns out that Obama does not want Americans to be the best we can be. Au contraire! (Shit, did I just use a French phrase? Ick!) El Rushbo teaches us that Obama wants to control the country through fear! We conservatives sure as hell would never do such a thing.

If you're an LE reading this, you're probably thinking "what about policy? He hasn't mentioned anything about policy." Well let me tell you, my friend--I mean, my enemy--that just proves Mr. Klavan's point. You haven't been listening--or otherwise you would understand that being conservative is not about policy. It's about having principles, and sticking to them. Now I get why Sarah Palin matters. What looks to LEs like unbelievable ignorance is actually just a Big Picture thing. Policy doesn't matter. Core values do. And when it comes to Core Values, we conservatives-and especially Sarah Palin--got 'em and you LEs don't. Which is kind of cool--that policy stuff just bores me, anyway. Yay!

So thank you, Mr. Klavan, for freeing my mind from the tyrrany of The Matrix. Still, one nagging question.

What do I do with my Prius? I still like it, but it makes me look like one of those people who worry about global warming. Which of course I don't any more.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030209/content/01125106.guest.html

THE LIMBAUGH CHALLENGE--DAY #3

Today is Day #3 of my attempt to free my mind from the brainwashing that it has been subjected to over the years by the liberal elite media. It has not been as easy as I had hoped.

I have uncovered a significant reason why Rush is so undeservedly ignored by liberal elitists in LA. He is not on during drive time. He is on 9-12 a.m.. All of the liberal elitists (I'll just use the acronym LE from here on) I know, myself included, are working at jobs that require that they focus too hard on what they are doing to be able to listen to the radio at that time.

Thank Allah, then, for RushLimbaugh.com. I can listen to the podcasts. What! They are only available to members? Well, then, sign me up. What! $6.95 per month! There is a recession going on! Screw that.

At least the transcripts are free. And time efficient--I can read faster than even Rush can talk. But there is a big downside. Much of what makes Rush great is the delivery--the timing, the inflection--and that is all lost in the transcript. Oh, well. When trying to free one's mind from the tyranny of the LE media, one does what one can.

And I have already learned a few things. Including the essence of what makes Rush the alpha right-wing talk radio guy. Listening to Sean Hannity, I learn that liberals are wrong, misguided--OK, downright stupid. But Rush drills down deeper, way way deeper. Actually, I have yet to encounter an instance of Rush insulting the LE intellect. No, he knows what is really the problem with LEs. They (we, for now--I'm still hanging on as an LE, but barely ) hate America. They (we) want to destroy America. They (we) want to take away our (their) liberties.

Which takes us to the biggest recent LE diss against Rush. The famous line, referring to the most anti-capitalist, anti-life president in our history--"I hope he fails." I, like most LEs, saw this as further proof that Rush is just an over-the-top asshole. But that was because I've been spoonfed by the LE media all this time, and just assumed that President Obama was trying to make this a better place. Wrong wrong wrong. President Obama--the LE of LEs--wants America to fail. Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail at making America fail, so therefore Rush wants America to succeed! See! Rush is really a good guy! My bad.

PREPARING FOR MY FUTURE AS A DITTOHEAD

Came across something interesting in the LA Times Opinion section this morning. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-klavan29-2009mar29,0,5456892.story

"If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration's recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That's the likelihood; here's the certainty: You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh."

True, and true. No, wait! I have listened to Rush!

"On further questioning, it always turns out that by "heard him," he (closed minded liberal LA Times Editorial Page Reader) means he's heard the selected excerpts spoon-fed him by the distortion-mongers of the mainstream media."

True again! He got me there.

"You're not a moderate or you wouldn't be reading this newspaper. You're not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven't listened to Rush Limbaugh."

This is getting creepy. This guy knows me just a little too well.

"Which leads to a question: Why not?"

Because NPR's better? And there are no commercials?

Wrong answer.

"Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do."

Wow. This guy's got me so pegged it's scary.

Worse, this is not the first time that my intellectual self-esteem has suffered this bad a body blow. Six months ago I discovered that I am but a caricature of white affluent liberals. I documented this on the net at http://sites.google.com/site/iaminfactacliche/ , and vowed to reform. I bought a country music CD and tuned four of the AM presets in my car to right-wing talk radio stations. Honest! I really did! And several times a week, during my midday drive between work sites, I listen to Sean Hannity intermixed with some woman on one of the other stations whose name I cannot remember.

So far, Sean Hannity has failed to convince me that he is not totally full of shit.

But Sean Hannity is no Rush Limbaugh. Rush is the King! The ur-Voice Of The Right!

"The mainstream media (a.k.a. the Matrix) don't want you to listen to Limbaugh because they're afraid he'll wake you up and set you free of their worldview. You don't want to listen to him because you're afraid of the same thing.

"Therefore, I am throwing down my gauntlet at your quivering liberal feet. I hereby issue my challenge -- the Limbaugh Challenge: Listen to the show. Not for five minutes but for several hours: an hour a day for several days."

How does this guy know my feet are quivering? We are talking oracle-quality insightfulness here. Do I have any choice but to take the Limbaugh Challenge? I will. I will.

There can be little doubt as to the outcome. Our editorialist has been 100% accurate so far, so it is practically a given that by the end of the week I will have been set free of the worldview that the Matrix has inflicted upon me.

It won't happen instantly. I suspect I have one or two good posts of left-leaning drivel in me before my metamorphosis into a Dittohead is complete. But I am already contemplating the titles of future posts.

"Stem Cells Are People, Too"

"Rush Limbaugh is NOT a Big Fat Idiot" (Take that, Senator Franken!)

And I am already looking forward to a more stress-free life; no longer having to worry about, for example, impending global environmental catastrophe. President Sarah Palin--a hope, no longer a threat. I can't wait!

I WANT BARACK TO BE LIKE ROSS

I want President Obama to be like Ross Perot.

Those of a certain age may remember a certain eccentric billionaire who ran for President in 1992, helping Bill Clinton get elected by doing most of Bill's negative campaigning for him. He actually had a viable candidacy until he revealed himself to be a total whackjob.

Yes, he was probably the weirdest guy ever to win more than 15% of the popular vote. But he did something amazing in that election. He endeavoured to not just lay out his policy positions, but to explain them and argue them in excruciating detail. From Wikipedia:

"Perot employed the innovative strategy of purchasing half-hour blocks of time on major networks for infomercial-type campaign ads; these ads garnered more viewership than many sitcoms, with one Friday night program in October attracting 10.5 million viewers.[17]"

Perot would sit down and with nothing but graphs and pie charts explain why the deficit needed to be reduced and how it could be done. Agree or not, his arguments were sophisticated, well-argued, and not bullshit. And people listened, and maybe learned a thing or to. I have never seen a politician (or wannabe politician) do anything like it. But I have always wished for ones that would, ones that would try to convince the nonbelievers rather than just preaching to the choir.

Which brings us to our current president. He has been a busy media presence lately---the Tonight Show, 60 Minutes, 2 prime time press conferences in 2 months, 4 town hall meetings in a few weeks. This has elicited much hand wringing from the media, especially from right-wing talk radio (which I listen to, if only because it feels so good when I finally turn it off)--he should be governing instead of talking to Jay Leno!!!

As regards that last point--can anybody remember a president who has governed more in such a short period of time?

I say--go O-man!

The only way we are going to survive the current economic crisis, much less deal with the even darker clouds that loom in the future (global warming, entitlements, the ever-increasing national debt) is for the American public to realize that there is going to have to be a lot of short-term pain for any long-term gain to happen. It is easy to convince people of what they want to believe (hence the popularity of religion). Much harder to convince people that if they don't want the average daytime high in Houston to hit 115 degrees they are going to have to give up the 10 mpg pickup truck. But that is going to have to happen.

I am encouraged. My heart fluttered when I first heard the phrase "teachable moment." May we have far more More Perfect Union speeches-not necessarily about race, but about all the shit that we have to deal with.

So Mr. President, summon your inner Ross Perot. Be the professor that you once were, and tell us what needs to be done, and why. Make it interesting, make it entertaining, or we are all going to fall asleep, but don't spare any of the gory details.

The Best $165 Million Ever Spent

As we all are well aware, there is a huge firestorm surrounding the payment by AIG of $165 million in bonuses to the executives of its financial services division, the creators of those wonderful credit default swaps that have resulted in AIG owing orders of magnitude more money than what the company is worth. And, as we all are well aware, that $165 million was paid for by U.S. government bailout money i.e. taxpayer money i.e. our money.

Never has $165 million in taxpayer money been better spent.

For decades, we the greater American public have uttered hardly a whisper of protest while being raped by many (not all, to be fair) of the titans of the capitalist system. We have funneled billions of dollars into our ex-VP's corporation for the rebuilding of a country we should never have destroyed. We have spent millions on building logging roads so that timber companies can stripmine our national forests. Medicare is paying full retail for prescription drugs for no better reason than that the pharmaceutical companies have better lobbyists than the taxpayers. We have spent tens, if not hundreds, of billions on cleaning up the toxic sludge left behind at Superfund sites. We have stood quiet while well-paying jobs were outsourced to foreign sweatshops, so that the company's stock would go up and the CEO could afford a new place in the Hamptons. We have willingly assented to allowing coporations to evade hundreds of billions of dollars in tax obligations by renting post office boxes in the Bahamas and calling it their headquarters.

Can you believe that last one? But god forbid that the IRS acquire some muscle and teeth and some new rules that would force these corporations to help pay for some of the infrastructure that has enabled them to do so well. Our freedom would be threatened!

I have always been amazed by the success that conservatives have had in convincing us of their Norman Rockwell version of the very wealthy--that they are people who have worked hard, come up with a great idea, implemented their vision, left society the better for their efforts and have been justly rewarded. The fact and extent of their wealth is a function of the value that they have added to the economy. Okay, for many of the very well-off, perhaps even the majority, this version of events does in fact hold more-or-less true. This is how capitalism is supposed to work, and very frequently does.

But it is also far too easy in this country to become very very rich without adding any value to the economy. Far far too many have reaped fabulous rewards by doing the exact opposite. A significant subset of our economic ruling class has managed to become very well-off by destroying wealth. This is not new for 2008-2009. This has been happening all along, right under our noses, and the response of our elected officials has been to make it ever easier for them to do so, yet all too many people are more worried that the government is going to take away our guns than about our government's complicity in the robber barons' destruction of our 401ks.

Which is why the AIG bonuses are so absolutely wonderful. Because now, finally, FINALLY, the masses have learned that the economic ruling class does not consist solely of an enlightened and motivated group of people who are creating great products, creating jobs for Americans, and letting the wealth that they have created trickle down to the rest of us. No, now we realize that there is a huge subset of them that would happily send the economy into the toilet if by so doing they would be able to afford to hire the Rolling Stones to play at their 60th birthday party. And there always have been. And finally people are pissed off about it. Probably still not pissed off enough, but pissed off nonetheless. And maybe a miracle will occur and our government will start doing its job and begin to actually regulate corporate America the way it should have been all along.

And if it only cost $165 million for this to happen, it will be the bargain of the decade.