We haven’t had one of these for a while so we  might as well open it on up.  I also need a place to put up a few admin notes. 

For the past month, Anti  been operating with one hand tied behind our backs.  There was an upgrade and we could not look at more than one comment at a time behind the scenes.  If you commented and your polite comment never appeared, and if you are a newcomer or a regular posting under a  new name or email address,  try again.  We are sorry, we had software glitches.  

I went through some of the unpublished comments tonight.  You might find them buried in the middle of other comments, at the time they were posted.  Also, the blog is now set to cut  off comments on any thread, after 2 weeks.  That helps us stay on top of things better.

A newer, better wordpress upgrade is out and we can now perform tasks that we have been unable to do for the past month.   Thanks Alanna for sticking with it and coming to our rescue.

This might be a good time to revisit some of the blog rules.  First off, the H and N words having to do with Germany are still verboten.  It was getting out of hand.  Maybe some day….  I, M-H, confess to being the one who finally lost it over those 2 words. 

Ad hominem attacks on contributors or on the admins are discouraged.  That kind of discourse is counter-productive and hampers discussion.  95% of our contributors are courteous and polite, even those who strongly disagree with some or all of us.

So enough business.  Happy weekend.  I am just sitting here listening to some Bob Dylan, celebrating the blog being healed and enjoying Windows 7.  It really was the computer fix I needed.  I am not disappointed.  🙄

For those of you who still think that insurance coverage denial is simply few and far between, here is ANOTHER outrageous story. I truly believe, once again, those opposed to insurance reform have simply NEVER been faced with serious health challenges. Is it just me, am I the confused one about the purpose of health insurance? Isn’t insurance meant to cover you when you are SICK? How many other rape victims have suffered this same “pre-existing” reason for coverage being dropped?

When Christina Turner feared she had been sexually assaulted after two men drugged her drink in a bar, she did what most women facing that situation would do. She turned to her doctor, who prescribed a month’s worth of anti-AIDS medicine to be on the cautious side.

Only afterward did she learn that her choice left her with a “pre-existing” condition that had made her practically uninsurable.The episode started when Turner accepted drinks from the men at a bar in Fort Lauderdale. She passed out and later woke up lying beside a road with cuts and bruises that pointed to a rape or a sexual assault.

Fortunately, Turner did not contract HIV, and remains free of HIV infection. However, a few months she lost her health coverage. When she sought new coverage, she was told that her treatment raised too many potential issues.

Turner, 45, worked previously as a health insurance underwriter herself, and said the insurance companies naturally checked her health records. Even after she explained the sexual assault and the precautionary nature of the treatment, the insurers declined to sell her a policy, saying that the HIV medication made her too risky. The company told her they might reconsider the decision if she could show she was still free of HIV in three or more years.

All the geeks and geekesses know that October 22 is the big day.  Those who are normal are probably shrugging their shoulders and looking about.  What’s so special about October 22?  It is the day that Windows 7 comes out!

Besides thinking new software is way cool, many of us just never took to Vista.  Vista is a pretty software.  Your desktop looks pretty.  However, behind the scenes, Vista is awkward.  It asks too many questions.  It questions your every move.  It thinks it knows better than you do.  Many people returned to XP or never left it in the first place simply because of Vista’s drawbacks.

Unlike Win 95  and XP, Vista was just never intuitive.  It somehow managed to break that natural linear thinking so many of us had gotten used to with Win 95 and XP.  I find myself dumping money into my hold workhorse XP laptop because I still haven’t gotten used to Vista.  It just isn’t natural.  I have had almost 2 years  to get used to it.  It isn’t going to happen.

So tomorrow is Nirvana for all of us geeks and geekesses.  The reviews make me sort of nervous.  I haven’t seen anyone swoon yet.  I want to see swooning!  I want this to be the best and most beautiful operating system ever!  Who is getting it?  Who is upgrading?  Who is getting a new system?  Who simply doesn’t care?  Does anyone out there like Vista?

I am beginning to believe that the most adamant voices against insurance reform must be healthy individuals. Written on a inner office e-mail, this human being, who fights daily to survive and thrive despite his disability, is likened to a “dog”. Gaurdian Insuracne Company contemplates dropping an entire population just to get rid of this person and a few other sick individuals.

Good Lord, how many more examples do people need before they finally admit that MAJOR insurance reform is needed. First there was a baby that was too “fat” now we have a two year old that is too skinny and denied coverage by insurance. People should be able to buy, maintain, and expect affordable health-care!

When Aislin’s father, Rob, worked for another company, Aislin was covered under the company’s group health insurance plan.

Now that Rob is working on his own, he’s had to get new insurance. The company, UnitedHealthcare’s Golden Rule, sent the family a letter, which says in part, “We are unable to provide coverage for Aislin because her height and weight do not meet our company standards.”

“It took me by surprise,” said Rob Bates. “I didn’t think that her size was that abnormal and that it was something that you’d consider to be unhealthy.”

Mandating people be covered widens the risk pool, creating more funds for insurance companies, not just “sick” people, but healthy people too will be required to purchase coverage.

However, this pending legislation can’t just be a slam dunk for insurance companies, now reveling in all their new potential customers, there must be REAL competition and the public option infuses just that paradigm. Congress can legislate all the regulations they want, but until there is forced competition, health care costs will not substantially decrease.

People from South Carolina must be mortified these days by their GOP leadership. Can you fathom actually saying that out loud and believing it would be seen as a compliment? Do these GOP Chairmen not know that there are factions of people that believe Jews control the worlds wealth and are the evil incarnate?

As quoted from these two men, I kid you not.

South Carolina Republicans found an unfortunate way to praise their U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, extolling how, like wealthy Jews, the senator is “watching our nation’s pennies.”

That description came in an op-ed over the weekend written for The Times and Demcorat of Orangeburg by a pair of county GOP chairmen, Edwin Merwin and James Ullmer. The chairmen’s opinion piece was first flagged online by the liberal tpm.com.

“There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves,” the two wrote.

Poor Senator DeMint, through no fault of his own, has been caught up in this luncacy! His response was excellent!

DeMint, who is up for reelection next year, said, “I just read the op-ed last night and the comments were thoughtless and hurtful. The chairmen have apologized as they should have.”

22 years ago today the nation suffered a horrible finanical set-back known as Black Monday.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a whopping 22.61% in just one day.  Recovery would not be quick or easy.  The Dow dropped 508 points to 1738.7.

The drop started in Hong Kong and moved west through the international date line.  China was hit the hardest and things from there just raced around the world.  According to that great source, Wikipedia:

By the end of October, stock markets in Hong Kong had fallen 45.8%, Australia 41.8%, Spain 31%, the United Kingdom 26.4%, the United States 22.68%, and Canada 22.5%. New Zealand’s market was hit especially hard, falling about 60% from its 1987 peak, and taking several years to recover.^[2] (The terms Black Monday and Black Tuesday are also applied to October 28 and 29, 1929, which occurred after Black Thursday on October 24, which started the Stock Market Crash of 1929. In Australia and New Zealand the 1987 crash is also referred to as Black Tuesday because of the timezone difference.)

 

It is still pretty much a mystery why things happened as they did October 19, 1987. However, financial experts have named leverage as the cause of both crashes, 1987 and 2008.  However, in 87  bank leverage was given as the troublemaker and in 2008,  derivative leverage was given as the culprit.   Insurance derivatives were also mentioned in 1987. 

Actually, there are as many theories out there as there are mouths to utter them.  There are no conclusions.  However, one of the immediate responses was for the federal reserve to pump liquidity into the system.  33 nations met in December to discuss the problem.  They predicted that the world economy could be as bad at in the 30’s for the next few years.  Obviously, it wasn’t.

However, still fresh on our minds, is the day we watched the Dow drop more than 800   points in one day  in what appeared to be a free fall.  Overall, in Black Week, as the crash of 2008 has become known as, the Dow lost  1,874 points in ne week.  Black Week  began October 6, 2008.

So have we survived it?  Are things getting back to normal?  While it hasn’t been officially named a bull market, stocks have done well since March.  It is said that the stock market runs about 6 months ahead of the rest of the economy.  That means things should be looking up, right?  Right?  RIGHT?  Somebody say RIGHT back, please!