Medary.com

I'm traveling, so posting has been nonexistent for a while.  But now, I'm sitting in a hotel lobby on the side of the world that's in the light when it's nighttime back home in the USA, and it's a depressing thing.  No, not the hotel lobby itself, which is as fine as any you could hope for.   But this side of the world is ugly, nasty, poor, and heartbreaking.  It's disgusting, messy, and dirty.  But people live here, laugh here, have fun with friends here.

The news is filled with terror attacks, monkey attacks on city assistant mayors, more terror attacks, cricket, more terror attacks, Bobby Jindal, and more terror attacks. 

Time to start thinking about coming home.

Power Line takes note:

These exhibits come together in Dionne's latest column. It's called "Meanies and Hypocrites," which could be the title of roughly 80 percent of his columns. The meanies and hypocrites are always Republicans and conservatives who disagree with Dionne's views. Today, they are conservatives bloggers, including the Power Line crew.

We stand accused of "assaulting" the family of the 12 year-old boy the Dems selected to give their radio address. The boy is Graeme Frost, who urged President Bush not to veto the expansion of the SCHIP program, which subsidizes health care to children in low income families.

The Democrats' use of Frost for this purpose was cynical at many levels. First, it's ridiculous to have a 12 year-old go on national radio to deliver advice about policy. Second, Frost is already covered by SCHIP and would continue to be covered under legislation that Bush is prepared to sign. Thus, the particulars of his situation, which he set out for the audience, are irrelevant to the policy debate. Third, the particulars of a given child who actually would obtain coverage through an expansion of SCHIP are also irrelevant. The expansion proposed by the Democrats would bring at least one million middle class kids into the program. The individual circumstances of their families will vary widely. Thus, hand-picking one child to discuss his or her situation adds nothing to the debate.

Poopybutt.  Meanie.  Hypocrite.

Republican.

(Not that it's not happening the other way, too . . . ref. Ann Coulter.)

Michael Totten:

This is what it’s like now in and just outside Ramadi. This mission is the kind of thing embedded journalists see, which is why most war correspondents embed somewhere else. Soldiers Hand Out Newspapers and Rice isn’t much of a headline, and it’s even less of a scoop. But this is the kind of work soldiers do now every day in what was recently the most violent place in Iraq.

That doesn’t mean reporters who go somewhere else aren’t doing their jobs, but it mostly explains why you rarely see coverage from Anbar.

Let's see . . . biofuels are good, right?

Not so fast . . .

Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year.

The United States, the world’s dominant donor, has purchased less than half the amount of food aid this year that it did in 2000, according to new data from the Department of Agriculture.

“The people who are starving and have to rely on food aid, they will suffer,” Jean Ziegler, who reports to the United Nations on hunger and food issues, said in an interview this week.

Corn prices have fallen in recent months, but are still far higher than they were a year ago. Demand for ethanol has also indirectly driven the rising price of soybeans, as land that had been planted with soybeans shifted to corn. And wheat prices have skyrocketed, in large part because drought hurt production in Australia, a major producer, economists say.

So, go ahead and feel virtuous using your ethanol and E-85, knowing that what you're burning in your car might otherwise have gone to feed the poorest people in the world.

Here's an idea--let markets decide what we burn as fuel and what we eat as food, not governments and for Christ's sake, not the U.N.

Hat tip:  Instapundit

DirecTV just launched their expanded high definition programming today.

Here's the lineup of new channels I get (which are not all of the new HD channels, by the way, just the ones I'm paying for):

A&E HD
Animal Planet HD
Big Ten Network HD
CNN HD
Discovery Channel HD
History Channel HD
NFL Channel HD
Smithsonian Channel HD
Starz HD
Starz Comedy HD
Starz Edge HD
Starz Kids&Family HD
TBS HD
Science Channel HD
Weather Channel HD
TLC HD
Versus HD

These join the previous HD package:
Local over-the-air channels
Discovery HD Theater
ESPN HD
ESPN2 HD
HDNet
HDNet Movies
TNT HD
Universal HD

I've thought for a while now that one of the biggest problems with health care is the concept of insurance--private or public (Medicare).

John Stossel:

America's health-care problem is not that some people lack insurance, it is that 250 million Americans do have it.

You have to understand something right from the start. We Americans got hooked on health insurance because the government did the insurance companies a favor during World War II. Wartime wage controls prohibited cash raises, so employers started giving noncash benefits like health insurance to attract workers. The tax code helped this along by treating employer-based health insurance more favorably than coverage you buy yourself. And state governments have made things worse by mandating coverage many people would never buy for themselves.

That's the root of our problem. No one wants to pay for his own medical care. "Let the insurance company pay for it." But since companies pay, they demand a say in what treatments are—and are not—permitted. Who can blame them?

Then who can blame people for feeling frustrated that they aren't in control of their medical care? Maybe we need to rethink how we pay for less-than-catastrophic illnesses so people can regain control. The system creates perverse incentives for everyone. Government mandates are good at doing things like that.

Steering people to buy lots of health insurance is bad policy. Insurance is a necessary evil. We need it to protect us from the big risks--things most of us can't afford to pay for, like a serious illness, a major car accident, or a house fire.

But insurance is a lousy way to pay for things. You premiums go not just to pay for medical care, but also for fraud, paperwork, and insurance company employee salaries. This is bad for you, and bad for doctors.

(Emphasis mine)

We need to break ourselves of the habit of paying for routine health care with insurance, and reserve insurance for catastrophic care and for serious chronic conditions.

These 25 Senators voted against an amendment expressing support for the troops, including their commander in-theater.

Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)

This is the language they found unacceptable today:

   SEC. 1070. SENSE OF SENATE ON GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS.

    (a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:

    (1) The Senate unanimously confirmed General David H. Petraeus as Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, by a vote of 81-0 on January 26, 2007.

    (2) General Petraeus graduated first in his class at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

    (3) General Petraeus earned Masters of Public Administration and Doctoral degrees in international relations from Princeton University.

    (4) General Petraeus has served multiple combat tours in Iraq, including command of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during combat operations throughout the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which tours included both major combat operations and subsequent stability and support operations.

    (5) General Petraeus supervised the development and crafting of the United States Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual based in large measure on his combat experience in Iraq, scholarly study, and other professional experiences.

    (6) General Petraeus has taken a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

    (7) During his 35-year career, General Petraeus has amassed a distinguished and unvarnished record of military service to the United States as recognized by his receipt of a Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two Distinguished Service Medals, two Defense Superior Service Medals, four Legions of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, the State Department Superior Honor Award, the NATO Meritorious Service Medal, and other awards and medals.

    (8) A recent attack through a full-page advertisement in the New York Times by the liberal activist group, Moveon.org, impugns the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces.

    (b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--

    (1) to reaffirm its support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, including General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq;

    (2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces; and

    (3) to specifically repudiate the unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus by the liberal activist group Moveon.org.

Reasonable people can draw their own conclusions from this vote.

I would note in passing that one of those Democrat Senators is widely viewed as the front runner to become the Democratic Party's candidate for President.

Both of my Senators, Bond (R) and McCaskill (D) voted for the amendment which passed the Senate, so while this is a partisan issue, it's also a bi-partisan vote.  We live in "interesting times."

Well, maybe not, but apparently a member of the panel of the eminently deridable 'The View" TV show has Gone Poopy:

Sherri Shepherd, the co-host of The View who said she didn't know if the Earth was flat or round and that she didn't care, today said she knew all along it was round. She was just having a “senior brain-poopy moment,” when Whoopie tossed her that difficult question.

As the Brains once said:  Oh, poopie!

Qualifications:
Must:

• Feature regular, extended (15 minutes or greater) one-on-one discussions of policy decisions and implications, from all sides of an issue.  That's ALL sides, which is at times a number greater than two.
• Be based somewhere that still has a connection to reality--i.e. not on either coast of the U.S.  Chicago, perhaps, although basing the network in small-town Iowa (away from Omaha, Des Moines, Ames, or Iowa City) would probably be best.
  
• Regard with healthy skepticism ALL conventional wisdoms from whatever direction.  Reserve extra skepticism for people who advocate any change in the status quo--like advocates of socialized health care, anybody on ANY side of the abortion debate, or human-caused climate change.  Give the highest level of skepticism for wacko conspiracy theorists like UFO people, the 9/11 Truthers, or any organization funded by George Soros.
  
• Recognize and report on good news as well as bad.
• Enforce a scrupulously neutral stance by all on-air personalities, and refrain from engaging in editorials disguised as news stories.
• Hire a staff that "looks like America" ideologically.

Must Not:

• Depend on other news outlets (including and especially the New York Times) to determine what is "newsworthy."
• Cover celebrity train-wreck stories.  If you want that crap, go watch E! or Entertainment Tonight.  Or MTV, for that matter, but don't pretend that what sports figures and entertainment celebrities do is in any way vitally important to anyone.
  
• Carry ANY shouting-head argument shows like Hannity & Combes, or allow any host or guest to raise their voice or depart from civil discourse (assuming anyone remembers how to engage in civil discourse in the first place).
• Drive news using polls or telephone call-in segments to determine newsworthyness, but depend on reporters in the field and on the street to determine what people consider newsworthy.
• Hire any person who has served in an important capacity in any political party or Presidential campaign or administration.

That would be a good start.

Coyote at Coyote Blog doesn't like the idea of a la carte cable:

I see that the drive to force cable companies to offer their basic cable package a la carte rather than as a bundle is gaining steam again.  This is the dumbest regulatory step imaginable, and will reduce the number of interesting niche choices on cable.

For some reason, it is terribly hard to convince people of this.  In fact, supporters of this regulation argue just the opposite.  They argue that this is a better plan for folks who only are passionate about, say, the kite-flying channel, because they only have to pay for the channel they want rather than all of basic cable to get this one station.   This is a fine theory, but it only works if the kite-flying channel still exists in the new regulatory regime.  Let me explain.

I think where we're headed is a la carte programs, not just a la carte channels.  We're far too focused on cable tv channels, which are a legacy of the regulated radio and television broadcast stations that some of us grew up with before the cable explosion of the 1970's.  Channels in an age of digital information are inefficient and expensive--in terms of both the bandwidth needed by the cable companies, and in the dozens of completely unwatched channels which the individual consumer has to pay for, in order to watch what he or she really wants to watch.  It makes as much sense for a sports-hating housewife to pay for ESPN as it does for me to pay for Lifetime Movies.