Hal O'Brien

...at least somewhat.

My letter to the editor regarding Rob McKenna's illegal law suit has been posted on their "Northwest Voices" blog. That's basically their letters overflow page. It's possible it'll be printed in the paper version of the newspaper, but it's unclear.

In the comments section:

*^*^*^*

"If you are truly a conservative, then you must be appalled that for the 1st time in 200+ years, the Federal Government is forcing everyone to purchase a product from a private business."

But those previous times Congress did force everyone to purchase a product from a private business are instructive, especially since they're from early Congresses composed of many of the Framers of the Constitution.

There's the Militia Act of 1792, which mandates every male citizen, "provide himself with a good musket or firelock..." and various other supplies. This was not provided by the government; the citizen had to buy it on his own from private vendors.

Then there's the Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen from May 1802, which establishes both a government mandated insurance program and the first payroll tax in America.

Many say they respect the Founders; few act like they do when the Founders disagree with them.

From a tip I just sent to Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo.com:

*^*^*^*

Josh and crew:

Given coverage on TPM about the TeaPartyNation.com folks, I decided to check out their page.

The first thing that caught my eye was a banner ad for someone named George Noel in the lower right corner of the browser window. It shows a fighter plane against a sky-blue background:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hal_seattle/4266511796/

If you click the banner, Mr. Noel uses his whole home page for the same image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hal_seattle/4266513056/

Why is that odd? Well, the fighter in the photo that Mr. Noel uses so prominently isn't an American USAF fighter. It's the "Eurofighter."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hal_seattle/4265767503/

So I guess TeaPartyNation.com and Mr. Noel endorse the idea of outsourcing our defense to Europe. Or having European air forces take over our skies. Or something.

-- Hal

*^*^*^*

All I can say is, these people wouldn't be allowed to fly on Air Canada, by God!

I'm not kidding, below. They really do make the claim Hawking couldn't survive under NHS. {hat tip to Talking Points Memo}

*^*^*


Sirs:

I will mention only in passing your Gross Factual Error about how physicist Stephen Hawking "wouldn't have a chance in the U.K.," since he's been a U.K. citizen since his birth there 67 years ago and thus has lived his life under their National Health Service ("How House Bill Runs Over Grandma," unsigned editorial, Friday, July 31, 2009 4:20 PM PT). My guess is you've received voluminous feedback about your journalistic carelessness.

No, I'm here to write about your disingenuous tone regarding how you are shocked, shocked! that anyone would apply a cost-benefit analysis to health care. Are you really of the opinion such analyses are not done today by U.S. health insurance companies? Are you either so naive or protected to think individual Americans who have no insurance don't do the same? Have you heard from no doctors who grieve over patients who have been refused care either from their insurance companies or their checkbooks?

Must you complain of the mote in health care reformers' eyes, while you studiously ignore the beam in your own?

Sincerely,

etc.

*^*^*

UPDATED TO ADD:

Howard Dean, MD, on yesterday's "THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS" on ABC:

I don't want somebody in between the doctor and the patient. I don't want the possibility of losing your health insurance. I don't want people setting standards or denying care. That's all what we have now under the private health insurance system. That's what happens.

Look, I've practiced -- I've practiced for 10 years. My wife is still practicing. Never once did I have a Medicare bureaucrat tell me what I could or couldn't do for a patient, but all the time we have bureaucrats from the insurance companies calling up and saying, we're not going to cover this, and we're not going to pay for that, and we're denying coverage of that.

The system we have right now is broken. We need to fix it.

I think giving the American people some choices about how to fix it makes sense.

--

Imagine. A doctor with actual experience of private-sector bureaucrats rationing care. Who'd'a thunk?

John Markoff ("Do We Need a New Internet?" 2/14/2009) saves the flaw in his argument for his last sentence: the goal of, "a completely trustable system."

This goal is without precedent. It does not exist in software, nor in the material world -- which is why we have police, attorneys, diplomats, and soldiers.

His suggestion for attaining this goal is what software expert Joel Spolsky has called, "the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make": Rewriting the code from scratch. Only it wouldn't be for one company, it would be for all of the Internet.

Rewriting the code is a mistake because it turns out the most arcane parts of it are responses to situations in the real world. Throwing out the code means throwing out that learning and experience.

"Reinventing the internet" wouldn't create something safe. It would only create something unsafe in different ways.

Speaking of things I've been meaning to post, and since they don't appear to be picking it up, here's a letter I sent to the Seattle Times:

*^*^*

To the editor:

How fascinating to read that the Bush Administration (and Mr. Cheney especially), wanting to pry ever more deeply into Americans' private matters, obstinately insists on creating more and more secrets for itself. You'd think this self-proclaimed faith-based Administration had never heard of the Golden Rule. To remind them: If you want citizens to be more open, the Administration itself must be forthcoming. If the Administration is needlessly secretive, it only fuels speculation "secrets" are being created to cover-up deeds that are illegal, unethical, embarrassing, or all three. As supporters of the NSA spy program remind us, If the Administration has done nothing wrong, it should have nothing to hide.

Sincerely,

etc.