Today Started at Midnight

When I started writing this, the day was 13 hours and 20 minutes old.

In 13 hours and 20 minutes the global population increased by more than 117,000 people. More than 82,000 people became malnourished. 41 species became extinct.

During those 13 hours and 20 minutes more than 41,800,000 tons of CO² were spewed into the atmosphere, the U.S. produced more than 335,000 tons of garbage, 41 tons of oil spilled into the oceans, and some 19,800 hectares of the planet’s forests were razed to the ground. In that 13 hours and 20 minutes more than 46,500,000 barrels of oil were pumped out of the ground.

What time is it?

Doesn’t matter.

It’s later than you think.

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The Truth is Out There

“The truth is out there.” —Fox Mulder

For Barking Moonbats, courtesy of MoveOn.org:

Top Five Health Care Reform Lies—and How to Fight Back

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."⁴ What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.⁵

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.⁶ Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.⁷

If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.⁸ But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.

Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.⁹ And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!

The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.¹⁰ Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.¹¹

Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy.

Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.¹² The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade¹³—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.¹⁴ Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.¹⁵

We're closer to real health care reform than we've ever been—and the next few weeks will decide whether it happens. We need to make sure the truth about health care reform is spread far and wide to combat right wing lies.

Sources:

1. "More 'Town Halls Gone Wild': Angry Far Right Protesters Disrupt Events With 'Incomprehensible' Yelling," Think Progress, August 4, 2009.

2. "Fight the smears," Health Care for America NOW, accessed August 10, 2009.

3. "Palin Paints Picture of 'Obama Death Panel' Giving Thumbs Down to Trig," ABC News, August 7, 2009.

4. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," The Associated Press, August 10, 2009.

5. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," The Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.

6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.

7. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.

8. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" The Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.

9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

10. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009.

11. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

13. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.

14. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009.

15. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

Sources for the Five Lies:

#1: "A euthanasia mandate," The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.

#2: "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009.

#3: "Rationing Health Care," The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.

#4: "60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation," Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.

#5: "Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation," The National Review, May 13, 2009.

Thanks to Nita Chaudhary and others at MoveOn.org for providing the contents of this post.

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Food for Thought

Here’s a little something for President Obama, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, and other members of the anti-marijuana crowd to “chew” on:

The Truth about Marijuana

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HorseCents or Horseshit?

Either this guy is a fucking moron or he’s a brilliant satirist. I haven’t decided which. Maybe you can tell:

Overpopulation crisis debunked in 5 minutes, by HorseCents


The only thing HorseCents debunks is the notion that giving a moron who had an excess of beer on Saturday night access to a video cam on Sunday morning is a good one. Another perfect example of a person who failed to ask the next question.

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The Three Most Addictive Drugs

Many drugs are addictive to one degree or another, legal status notwithstanding. The reality is that legal prescription drugs can be just as dangerous and addictive as their illegal counterparts.

Of the illicit street drugs, methamphetamine is the most addictive, the most dangerous, the most destructive. Watch the video and you’ll understand why I don’t do meth.

Always found in combination, the remaining two of the three most addictive drugs aren’t really drugs at all. But they behave very much like other highly addictive drugs in that anyone who gets so much as a taste of either of them becomes immediately addicted; the more of them people get, the more of them people want. Enough is never enough.

Once hooked on these “drugs,” addicts quickly learn to lie with conviction, to manipulate events with impunity, and to exploit their fellows without guilt or remorse. Prolonged abuse often strips addicts of their humanity, inhibits sociability, triggers paranoia and fear, fosters delusions of grandeur and feelings of superiority, increases arrogance, selfishness and greed, diminishes compassion, and floods the brain with endorphins.

Although these “drugs” are legal, a double standard regarding their usage seems to apply. Some people are encouraged—even aided and abetted—to help themselves to generous quantities, while most others face numerous obstacles that prevent them from getting anywhere near the supply.

Perhaps you’re among the elite group of people who have privileged access to these highly addictive narcotics, but chances are you’re not.

After all, wealth and power aren’t for everyone.

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Nicola Tesla Never Envisioned This

Is this the future of the automotive industry? Stay tuned.

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Think for Yourself

“The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.” —Gloria Steinem

Think for Yourself

Question everything. Question authority (I don’t care if it is an emergency, you can’t park there), question premises (the policeman is my friend), question advertizing (It’s waaay better than fast food . . ..), question the media (illegal drugs are destroying the country), question corporate influence (we need to destroy the environment so we can increase our profits), question politicians and the lobbyists who buy their favors (we can’t support a public health care option because it would destroy private insurance companies), question religion (Jesus is God), question the motives of all who claim the power to bend you to their will (we know what’s best for you).

Ask yourself if what the powers-that-be are telling you squares with the reality of what you see going on in the world around you. If their rhetoric doesn’t match up with your perceptions and experiences, there’s a high probability that they’re lying to you. Tune out the bullshit, trust your instincts, and don’t concern yourself about being politically correct. It’s not against the law (yet) to have a differing opinion.

Inspired by Hart Williams’ blog post on 22 April, I decided to include, at the end of every article I post to this blog, the following symbol:

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It’s my constant reminder to Frieddogleg’s readers to always ask the next question. Of course, the “ask the next question” symbol that Hart used to illustrate his “FISA — Asking The Next Question” article was probably generated in a high-end graphics program, whereas mine was rendered on my computer keyboard using the Trebuchet font in varying sizes so that everything more or less lines up. I took the liberty of adding a couple of embellishments, i.e. extra arrow points, to remind readers that there is never just one next question, and that the next question is often times followed by many more.

But don’t take my word for the importance of asking the next question. Hart’s late friend and mentor, the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, originated the “ask the next question” symbol to illustrate an article he wrote for the June, 1967 issue of Cavalier magazine. In that article, Mr. Sturgeon concisely and succinctly tells us why human evolution depends on asking the next question.

You see, it’s not so much about asking questions until you get the answer you want as it is about asking enough of the right questions until you arrive at the truth.

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News Flash!

“Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.”
— White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, at a Fresno, Calif., press conference yesterday.

If this is change I can believe in, why are the morons still in charge?

Fuck you, Gil! Marijuana is not dangerous, and it has numerous proven medicinal benefits. Volumes of information exist attesting to marijuana’s efficacy in treating many ailments, but you obviously haven’t been curious enough or sincere enough in your job to apprise yourself of the facts.

You’re either a fucking ignoramus or a fucking liar. One or the other. But you can change that; you can educate yourself on the subject, or you can start telling the truth. In the meantime, Gil, spare us any more of your ignorant, disingenuous bullshit. Resign your position, immediately.

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What Would a Ferengi Think?

As it turns out, a lot of the things I’ve never owned are things I didn’t need in the first place. A credit card. A cell phone. An iPod, Game Boy, BlackBerry, or PlayStation 3. A snow machine, a personal water craft, or an ATV. A Ferrari. All kinds of stuff. But foremost among them the credit card, because ownership of that little item would have made it too easy to acquire all the other stuff. Truly, credit cards are the bane of the American middle class.

A wise man (or maybe it was a wise-ass) once cautioned that the amount of a person’s possessions always increases to fill all of the space available for storing them, in turn creating a positive feedback loop and endless cycles of acquisition and expansion.

But, hey, don’t take my word for it. Check out George Carlin as he talks about stuff; his stuff, your stuff, my stuff, our stuff, everyone’s stuff:

George Carlin, “Stuff”

And Bill Hicks tells us who to blame:

Bill Hicks, “Marketing”




Two late, great comedians who clearly understood what it means to be a debt slave.

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Breathing Water in Shadow Country

Late last Wednesday afternoon, I finally finished writing my review of Breathing Water, a novel by Timothy Hallinan, and posted it online. With that belated accomplishment behind me, I fired off a brief e-mail to Tim to reassure him that the ARC he sent to me in early June had indeed fulfilled its purpose. A return e-mail from Tim graced my inbox on Thursday morning; his message said, in part:

“So THAT's why I became a writer. Reactions like this make it all worthwhile, even the days (weeks) when it's impossible to write a simple declarative sentence. Weeks like this one, in fact.”

You see, Tim frequently alludes to his struggles with writer’s block, an affliction that affects most writers (with the possible exceptions of Dean Koontz and Stephen King) at one time or another during their careers. I, too, struggle with writer’s block—usually on a daily basis—and I tend to regard any day that I’m able to add at least a single finished paragraph to whatever project I happen to be working on to be a highly productive day.

Unfortunately, when it came to writing my Breathing Water review, I couldn’t attain even that low standard. Having written more than two dozen reviews—none of which took longer than two or three days to write—I reasonably expected this one to emerge in a comparable time frame. But it just. Wasn’t. Gonna. Happen.

But let me begin at the beginning. When the Breathing Water ARC arrived at my door, on June 3^rd, I was about a 100 pages into the second of two books I’d checked out of the local library a couple of weeks earlier, and I needed to finish it before starting another. Five days after its arrival I began reading Breathing Water, which I finished reading six days later. In the meantime, I’d returned the borrowed books to the library and checked out two more.

For me, the problem with having an unread book on hand (and no other reading in progress) is that I can’t wait to start reading it. As soon as I closed the covers on Breathing Water, I immediately launched into reading Shadow Country, a huge, rambling novel (892 pages), by Peter Matthiessen, about the fictional E.J. Watson’s life in the Florida Everglades during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. And that’s when things really started to bog down.

Instead of banging out the review when plot and characters were still fresh in my mind, I procrastinated. And, as I became mired ever deeper in Shadow Country’s complexities of plot and character, my memories of the sequence of events in Breathing Water became hopelessly scrambled. When I was finally ready to start writing the review, I discovered I wasn’t ready to write the review; no way was I going to write a coherent review based on a quicksand foundation of fading memories. My only solution was to read Breathing Water a second time.

It proved to be a wise decision. A second reading not only refreshed my memory of Breathing Water, it restored my enthusiasm for the story and gave me a new appreciation of Tim’s writing skills. Even minor details that had somehow escaped my attention in the first go round took on new meaning and greater importance. Take Breathing Water’s opening sentence*, for instance:

“The man behind the desk is a dim shape framed in blinding light, a god emerging from the brilliance of infinity.”

Powerful imagery born of pure genius. The first time I read those words I thought, oh, that’s good, Tim. The second time I read those words I thought, oh, now that’s just absofuckinglutely brilliant. Compare Breathing Water’s opening sentence with another great and memorable opening sentence, this from Stephen King’s The Gunslinger (first book in The Dark Tower series):

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

To my mind, these are two of the best story openings ever written; they’re the kinds of story openings whose raw energy draw in readers and help to create legions of fans for the authors who write them. And when such powerful, well written openings are backed up by equally powerful, well written stories, the results are—more often than not—spectacular.

Stephen King already knows this.

So does Timothy Hallinan.

*The Breathing Water ARC is an unedited, pre-publication version of the story, so I can’t say with absolute certainty that this beginning will make the final cut. What I can say with absolute certainty is that if it doesn’t make the final cut, Tim has an idiot for an editor.

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