Everytime you think Bush can’t hit a new low…

He surprises you.

Vetoing a program designed to use a tax on cigarettes to provide health care for poor children? With reasoning that prioritizes the needs of huge health care companies over helping sick children?

Does he remotely think that ANYONE is going to be fooled into thinking that his motivations come from anything other than protecting big business interests over the interests of the most helpless sections of the population?

Yes…it’s a new low. And if Congress can’t override this veto, they’re fricking useless.

PAD

221 comments on “Everytime you think Bush can’t hit a new low…

  1. Posted by: Jerry Chandler

    “Speaking of TV police shows, Jerry, what do you think of the Wire?”I don’t know. I work 4 to Mid, so I really only see programs that I can DVR and I don’t add much to that unless the ads really hook me.

    Dennis Smith, publisher of Firehouse magazine, was a working firefighter back in the 60s, and continued on the job for some years after he published his bestselling Report from Engine Co. 82 about his experiences as a firefighter in the busiest house ion the country.

    TV Guide asked him to review Emergency, which was new that season.

    His review consisted of several variations on “I sat down to watch it. The firefighters were eating lunch/playing basketball out back/doing maintenance and the alarm went off and they had to drop what they were doing and head for the scene of the action. I was waiting to see how realistic the call was and then the alarm went off and I had to stop watching and get on the truck and I didn’t see the rest…”

    He concluded “Well, it’s realistic in at least one way.”

    Jerry, you mention Hill Street – it was al;most canceled after its first season; the ratings were horrid. But NBC had faith (perhaps recalling Star Trek) and renewed it for half a season with an option.

    And then they carpet-bombed prime time for a couple weeks before it returned with promos showing real cops saying in their own words how much they loved it…

    BTW – the Chicago precinct house used for exteriors of the Hill was widely known back in the Old Days as the most currupt precinct in the country. at one time the Captain handed the local bagmen hsi official personnel list because cops from all over the city were dropping in on pad day and standing around with their hands out.

    My Dad was born in Berwyn (on the other side of Cicero, which was Capone’s base of operations, from Chicago), and his grandfather was a saloon keeper in Cicero. He knew the kids of both cops and mobsters; one of his classmates came to school in an armoured Cadillac and had a bodyguard who followed him from class to class.

    The RObert Stack Untouchables was one of his favourite teevee comedy programs.

  2. Dan I would be very careful before mucking around with the drug companies. The stuff they have been pumping out has made life incredibly better these last few decades. We are on the cusp of what could be the greatest breakthroughs in medicine ever–ever! Maybe now’s not the time to be breaking something that has been working pretty well.

    Are the drugs expensive? yeah. So’s being sick, plus…you’re sick.

    If it becomes less profitable to develop drugs, the people who do these things will have many other more profitable ventures to switch to. (there’s always that Pentagon Death Gel Project! Or the top secret Gillette 8 track razer with the foaming aloe strip and mp3 player in the handle. And 8 blades, of course.).

    Would this be the wisest move on our part?

  3. Ok, I’m back. Please keep the applause to a minimum.

    Micha: “I think that’s the kernel of truth in what Ben said”

    Not really. I am for actual police organizations that work with community groups in order to deal with things like crime prevention, watching out for gang activity moving into the area and assisting in the overall well being of a community. I also feel that, if a group is on patrol and sees something really bad going down, these groups should call the police. I don’t want to see the actual police departments replaced with volunteers who got their police training from TV Land reruns of S.W.A.T.

    Ben has repeatedly stated that he would like to see police departments replaced entirely with his antiquated volunteer system. What he doesn’t know, beyond the obvious things, is just how useless that would be on so many levels. He also doesn’t realize the dangers involved with even minor events.

    Ben, as a private citizen, and his merry band of volunteers have absolutely no right whatsoever to know my personal, private information or things like my medical history. He has no right whatsoever to know if I have ever had a ticket, let alone been arrested. That being the case, how does he know who I am?

    Yeah, I could be nice and show him my driver’s license, but that doesn’t really tell him anything. How does he know it’s not fake? How does he know it’s really my license? How does he know, after I’ve been charmingly nice and explained that I just got lost while out on a stroll, that I’m not wanted for multiple murders committed the day before, or earlier that day, one city or one state away?

    He doesn’t. He also has no good way of finding these things out. I can. Professional officers can. And we can only because of the training we went through and the long legal classes. And if we do anything stupid with that power, we face getting fired, getting fined and maybe even getting jail time.

    This all has to do with the VCIN/NCIC system. It allows agencies to share information from county to county, city to city and state to state. It also hooks into DMV and a number of other informational sources. If the general public really knew just how much can already be looked up through VCIN/NCIC (Oh, VCIN is just Virginia. That’s the V in it. Other states have their own set up. NCIC is national.) they would be queasy as it is. But there is no way that any sane person is going to want to let a bunch of part time weekend warriors have that kind of power.

    Oh, and I can be warned when I need to use universal protection. That means that our systems or records popped out information on a subject that warns us of his or her TB, AIDS, etc.

    There’s also the legal end of it. Do you really have any clue how many laws we had to learn in academy and, even worse, how many legal updates, refreshers and recerts I’ve had to go through just in the last five years? Do people like Ben even have the first clue what the laws in their area really are? You bust, harass or detain somebody for something that you “know” is illegal rather then something that actually is… Have fun with the lawsuits, fines and jail time, Ben.

    No, there is so much more to what we do in order to become a police officer then just being able to shoot straight and look pretty in our uniform. People like Ben have no idea about that or what they’re talking about. That’s just another reason why his idea and mine are nothing alike.

    David Hunt: “Thanks for your kinsights into community policework. It was very interesting to read.”

    That was nothing. You aught to talk to your local police department about community policing. Yeah, it includes stuff like working with neighborhood watch groups and getting out of your car more often to walk a neighborhood, but there’s so much more. Officers go to schools to talk to students about issues in the community or drugs. Officers attend local or state fairs or events to set up a booth and to talk to the community in a casual setting about problems, solutions or just general information. It involves getting to know the community and the people in it as well as you can to both build a trust with them and to be able to know when something is wrong just by the smallest of irregularities. It also involves learning the cultural rules of everybody in your community in order to better understand them and to avoid accidentally offending them.

    I mean, there are entire books on the subject. If I really wanted to get into detail on every aspect of it, I would double the size of this thread in one post.

    Bill Mulligan: “I think it’s clear that within a very short time after the zombie outbreak we would rapidly lose all medical, police, and firefighter resources.”

    Only because the idiots don’t know what they’re doing. Yeah, we would eventually have to fall back, but the C-1 plan gets me, my guys and others out of the city, kills butt loads of zombies and saves civilians. So there.

    Bill Myers: “Jerry Chandler is a known Zombie sympathizer.”

    Only if his name is Rob. And squirrels!?!? Yeah. Haven’y you ever bothered to watch the really bad films from Italian and Spanish movie houses? The animals will become infected to. God, what we had to go through with those dámņëd birds…

    Dan:”*”

    Uhmmmm… Yeah. Moving on.

    Mike Weber,

    Yeah, my wife went to school with some kids in NJ who had parents in the mob. They all thought that stuff like that was funny too. Jenn still does.

  4. dan: “Public tax dollars already pay for much of the R&D for these companies (grants, tax cuts).”

    False. According to the April 2001 edition of Reason Magazine, 90 percent of all drug development is privately funded. Most government grants go to universities for the purpose of conducting “pure research” that rarely leads to usable drugs. Pharma companies take a huge risk by taking that nascent research and attempting to turn it into a viable product. If they can’t own the patent for a time, there’s no incentive for them to take that huge financial risk.

    (And patents are time-limited, by the way. Otherwise there would be no generic drugs.)

    Dan: “It’s abhorrent we pay for Big Pharma to develop new medicines, only to see the Gov’t give them exclusive ownership so that they can charge US through the nose to get it.”

    Also false. According to the April 2001 edition of Reason Magazine, pharma companies have to write off their R&D expenses differently than other companies under GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices). As a result, their profits look inflated. If you adjust for the difference in accounting standards, pharma companies on average turn profits about twice as high as most other industries. That still sounds like a lot, until you factor in the huge risk drug companies take when trying to develop new drugs. The overwhelming majority of drugs in the “pipeline” turn out not to be viable — after years of research and millions of dollars spent. Drug companies couldn’t afford to take those kinds of losses without cash reserves that exceed what companies in most other industries need.

  5. Micha: “I think that’s the kernel of truth in what Ben said…”

    Yeah, I have to agree with Jerry. You’re trying to hard to find the good in what Ben is saying. Usually that’s an admirable trait, but sometimes nonsense is just that: nonsense.

    My reasoning mirrors Jerry, so I won’t belabor the point. And I have no interest in talking any further about Ben. The discussion about health care, and separating what’s real versus what’s merely perceived, is infinitely more fascinating to me.

  6. Posted by: Bill Myers

    (And patents are time-limited, by the way. Otherwise there would be no generic drugs.)

    Yup. Year before last, our doctor prescribed a druig for me that the insurance wouldn’t cover at any level. (Lamisil, an anti-fungal that may be the only thing that can clear up a condition that nothing else has managed to knock out – including [skip the italics if you’re squeamish] the surgical removal of my toenails and cleaning/disinfection of the nail beds.)

    It cost $13/dose – needed daily for at least six months (assuming my liver can stand the gaff). About $2400 for the minimum course of treatment.

    June of this year, the patent expired.

    Last month, WalMart began selling the generic for $4. (And i think that’s for a month’s supply.)

  7. Mike Weber: “… including [skip the italics if you’re squeamish] the surgical removal of my toenails and cleaning/disinfection of the nail beds.)”

    Eeeewwww. Ok. I’ll see if your suggestion works.

    “including [skip the italics if you’re squeamish] the surgical removal of my toenails and cleaning/disinfection of the nail beds.)”

    Nope. Reading it that way still made me flinch.

  8. “Public tax dollars already pay for much of the R&D for these companies (grants, tax cuts).”

    According to the April 2001 edition of Reason Magazine, 90 percent of all drug development is privately funded. Most government grants go to universities for the purpose of conducting “pure research” that rarely leads to usable drugs. Pharma companies take a huge risk by taking that nascent research and attempting to turn it into a viable product.

    Let’s not mix basic and applied research….both are needed and both are hard (in fact, you can’t do the applied without doing the basic). Mixing the two often leads to the underfunding of the basic part.

  9. I said: “On the other end of the spectrum, take the radio and TV series Dragnet. It didn’t make police work look glamorous or “sexy”; but on the other hand it also didn’t address the occasional bad apple on the force very often, no doubt giving the impression that the police department (at least the LAPD) was infallible.”

    Jerry said: “Actually Dragnet, at least in the radio form, addressed crooked cops at least once. I wasn’t as big on the TV show so I can’t remember if it did or not.”

    I think I own that episode (if not, I’ve at least heard it); and I also recall that one episode of the later Dragnet TV series (i.e. Dragnet 1967, not the earlier black and white TV series from the 1950s, had an episode that dealt with a crooked rookie cop (or one heading in that direction). He was played by a young Kent McCord. Later officer Jim Reed in Adam-12..

    While the character of Jim Reed appears in episodes of Dragnet according to IMDb (Jack Webb created Adam 12 so that’s no surprise), I assume his crooked rookie cop was a different character. It’s been years since I’ve seen Adam 12, but I never got the impression that Reed was someone who’d been swayed by the Dark Side for a time.

    Anyway, as I said in my initial post, Dragnet didn’t address the bad apples on the police force very often. My understanding is that the LAPD of the 1950s deserved some criticism, but Jack Webb chose not to go that route. In some ways that’s curious, because I’m sure he could have criticized certain things while putting them in the context that police officers– as a whole– are not like that and that keeping such people on the force only hurts the department. Or something like that.

    In fact, I believe in the aforementioned TV episode Joe Friday tells the crooked (or was thinking of going crooked or maybe tried to cut some corners and got caught) cop that behavior like his brings everyone else down by implication.

    Or maybe he gave that speech on the radio show. Or both. Some of the early TV shows were taken directly from the radio scripts.

    And for the record, while Jack Webb himself respected the police, not all his characters did. His San Francisco waterfront troubleshooter Pat Novak, in the radio show Pat Novak for Hire, often had little use for cops; and his PI Jeff Regan of Jeff Regan, Investigator also may have had similar feelings. I’d have to review my copies of those episodes to be sure.

    I’m fairly certain his Kansas City Jazz musician character of Pete Kelly in the radio show Pete Kelly’s Blues took a more or less neutral stance.

    One other question about community policing. What would be your personal preference: Walking a beat or bicycling it? I’d assume the bike patrol would cover a larger area, since you could travel faster. On the other hand, I’d also assume you’d be biking at a relatively slow speed, so you could note what’s going on and be able to stop more or less on a dime. So maybe it wouldn’t be that much larger.

    By the way, what is your rank? Patrolman? Sergeant? Lieutenant? Captain? Detective? Detective Sergeant? Deputy Chief? Chief? Commissioner? Kneel Before Zod?

    Thanks,

    Rick

  10. “Posted by: Jerry Chandler at October 10, 2007 11:04 PM

    Micha: “I think that’s the kernel of truth in what Ben said”

    Jerry: Not really.

    Ben has repeatedly stated that he would like to see police departments replaced entirely with his antiquated volunteer system. What he doesn’t know, beyond the obvious things, is just how useless that would be on so many levels. He also doesn’t realize the dangers involved with even minor events.”

    This was not what I meant when I said that Ben was right. I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear.

    Ben presents a problem: police officers are distrusted. There is a kernel of truth in that in some places though not to the degree or for the reasons he presents. Being inundated in his own ideology Ben assumes that everybody looks at the police through the ideological specticals he does. But still, I assume that mistrust by the community can be a problem for police.

    Ben’s solution, dismantle the police and let volunteers police the community.

    Some police forces present a different solution, which is the one you presented, namely community policing.

    And that’s what I meant when I said that extreme ideologies ask the right questions but offer thte wrong (simplistic) answers.

    ——-
    I should also add that Bill Myers idea to use squirrels to fight zombies is absurd. You can’t send amatour squirrels to fight zombies without proper screening and training. That would be silly. So, Bill Myers will recruit the squirrels. As per Ben’sd suggestion, we wil recruit them from the local community. And Jerry wil have to find the time in between real police work and taking care of a newborn to train the squirrels. Bill Mulligan will oversee the whole process, while Sean will be responsible for the special highlander unit. Of course you could send them to train with the Israeli special rodent commando unit, but that would mean to much taxation, and we have to keep this realistic. My solution, we should medicate them, which brings us to the question: should squirrels receive medicaid?

  11. Year before last, our doctor prescribed a druig for me that the insurance wouldn’t cover at any level. (Lamisil, an anti-fungal that may be the only thing that can clear up a condition that nothing else has managed to knock out – including [skip the italics if you’re squeamish] the surgical removal of my toenails and cleaning/disinfection of the nail beds.)

    What’s the status of your phantom toenail pain?

    It cost $13/dose – needed daily for at least six months (assuming my liver can stand the gaff). About $2400 for the minimum course of treatment.

    June of this year, the patent expired.

    Last month, WalMart began selling the generic for $4. (And i think that’s for a month’s supply.)

    If you’re lucky, maybe toenail fungus will undergo a mutation that renders the Lamisil obsolete. That way, no one will be able to exploit the 99% drop in the price your timing forced you to pay anymore.

  12. “Yup. Year before last, our doctor prescribed a druig for me that the insurance wouldn’t cover at any level. (Lamisil, an anti-fungal that may be the only thing that can clear up a condition that nothing else has managed to knock out – including [skip the italics if you’re squeamish] the surgical removal of my toenails and cleaning/disinfection of the nail beds.)”

    My doctor prescribed that for me once.

    It lit up my body like a Christmas tree. Within 24 hours of taking it I was covered with a head-to-toe rash, resulting in a week of itching agony.

    PAD

  13. Thinking about the whole expensive drugs thing, and the research that goes into it, I can see where it’d be an expensive prospect. I used to do research for a company that was just trying to find the owners of assets that had gotten lost, and it’d take forever sometimes. I can only IMAGINE how some of those drug researchers feel. Putting everything they have into something only to have it be a dead end. I don’t know that a lot of people understand that part of it.
    June of this year, the patent expired.

    I read that quick, and also not quite awake yet, and thought the patient expired, and was ready to be very sad. Then I realized that you were talking about yourself, Mike, and realized either I’d misread it or our ubiquitous living-challenged topics of discussion had suddenly gained internet access.

    And don’t worry. My Highland Squirrels won’t have their pipes. The will, however, have the Haggis of Havoc! Tremble in fear before my disgusting food!

  14. My doctor prescribed that for me once.

    It lit up my body like a Christmas tree. Within 24 hours of taking it I was covered with a head-to-toe rash, resulting in a week of itching agony.

    At least you can’t say it didn’t take your mind off your toenail infection.

  15. Rick,

    Patrolman (with specialties) at present, bikes all the way and we really have to compare notes on good audio productions and whwere to find good ones for good prices some time.

    Micha,

    Ok, I can see where you were coming from with that point. Still not 100% with you, but close.

    Sean,

    Haggis of Havoc? Don’t make us call the CDC on you again.

  16. My God…

    Anybody else got the cable news channels on right now? On the heels of yesterday’s shooting, they’ve just busted some other 14 year old who was planning a Columbine style spree of his own. The thing that’s mind blowing though, is what they’re showing right now on MSNBC. They’re showing the weapons cache that they recovered from this, again, 14 year old boy. It looks like half a F’n gun store.

    I mean… WTF!

    This kid has more dámņëd guns, swords and exotic bladed weapons then most the people I know.

    Thank God his schoolmate (if early reports are correct) turned this kid in when he tried to recruit him. If he had actually gone on this attack he was planning, just about anything he had would have created pure carnage before he was stopped.

  17. Jerry,

    Glad to compare notes on old-time radio, and where to get good quality tapes, CDs, MP3s whatever. Let me know your E-Mail address, please. Thanks.

    Rick

  18. Ok, posted too fast. They just had someone on CNN from the police department to clear up some early press report misconceptions. Seems that there were only two real guns in that haul while the rest were BB guns that looked like assault weapons that would have been used more for intimidation. Still, the guns he did have combined with the bladed weapons would have done some damage and the officer did point out that he had made homemade grenades out of plastic grenades, BB’s and black powder. That’s still enough to kill. Not as bad as it was being reported thirty minutes ago, but still really messed up.

  19. Posted by: Mike

    What’s the status of your phantom toenail pain?

    They growded back.

    (And i’d like to apologise for my post that came out in all boldface – that’s the only post i’ve made recently that i didn’t preview to make sure something like that didn’t happen…)

  20. Are they supposed to be able to grow back? I think you might be some kind of human-shark throwback.

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