Just thoughts......

I didn't really have anything earth shattering to say or any one topic to bludgeon but I have not blogged in a while so I just felt the need to spout off about nothing in particular..

• Health care reform has passed. The means of passing it were more than a little ugly, and people seem to be genuinely surprised that the people have reacted bitterly and in more than a few cases violently. Please don't insult us by faining surprise. Politicians will pay with their offices come the next opportunity, and that will be true regardless of how they voted on health care. The system suffered a high profile systemic failure. Everybody (almost) wanted some kind of health care reform because most people realize the system sucked and was broken. This is not a fix, however, its a control issue. What passed ( and really, who knows what passed, nobody really even knows yet ) doesn't even claim to have a mechanism to reduce the cost of insurance or the cost of health care or the cost of prescriptions. It does have a system to 'force' everyone to have insurance. Don't misjudge that statement either, the government is going to give you insurance, subsidise part of your insurance or just verify that you have insurance if you can afford it. Guess who decides if you can afford it, the government. If you cant afford it, guess who decides how much of a subsidy you get, the government. Guess who decides who gets a free ride, again, the government, in their infinite wisdom of course. Some people would argue that employers are going the be the ones paying, so why do I care. Even if your employer did pay before, they are going to have to pass the cost on somehow to someone, and if they didn't but are pickled into doing it now, its going to cost you. Yes, there are some nice things allegedly in the bill, pre-existing conditions being eliminated is one of them. That is nice, and yes it is a good thing, but it is also an unfunded mandate so what makes anybody think its going to make the cost go down? The prevailing theory seems to be that since the pool of participants will go up the cost of insurance should go down. In a free and competitive market this would be true, and we can debate how free the market is (its not) but there is no real competition at all to even attempt to drive the cost down. The second theory is that people will stop using emergency room services that they end up not paying for because now they can just go to the doctor instead and still not pay for it. This Ponzi scheme does shift the funds around (slight of hand though it is) so that the hospitals can avoid getting stuck with the tab and the doctor actually gets paid, but I ask again, what is the impetuous for either the hospital or the insurance company to lower the price. Yes they will have more paying clients and less waist, which might might might mean they make more money and higher profit margins so they could afford to spread the wealth back down and lower the cost, but without competition to drive that your asking the scorpion not to sting the frog on the way across the river. Its not gonna happen. This bill does come with some interesting funding as well. It taxes tanning bed users a 10% surcharge. While on the surface I have no issue with placing a specific tax on a specific item to generate funds for a specific and applicable reason, this one is a stretch in that it is based on loose science and statistics. Most people will buy the thought that tanning beds increase the risk of skin cancer, proven fact or not. The problem lies in following the pattern the rest of the way, are these folks then a drag on the medical system in large enough numbers that they should need to defray the cost? With smokers, this makes sense, but with tanning bed users the equation seems to fall apart, except in the reality that somebody was grasping at straws trying to find funding for their personal legal triumphs. As a side note, I don't endorse random violence, but please dear government and media please understand something, your dancing with flame in a gasoline suit right now, people feel betrayed by you in large enough numbers that something has to give. If there is not a mass exodus of personnel out of Washington with the next vote, look for more violence and destruction to follow as the frustrated subjects rise up against the broken system.


• Gracie has made great progress this year in school. She is reading now very well. She has a standing homework assignment where she is supposed to read for at least 20 minutes each day. She has mostly been reading her Junie B. Jones books. ( Mrs. looked up at the ceiling, I looked up there too but I didn't see anything) but she also made a request of her parents the other night. She made us and offer we couldn't refuse so to speak. Gracie knew that two of her friends had gotten new bibles, and she knew that dad was going to church early now so he could take a men's bible study class before service started. She asked that if she went to the kids class and read her bible could she have her own big girl bible. Color me suckered 'cause she has a new bible. It is admittedly not a King James version, but it is far from a story book bible either. Its a real live chapter and verse bible. Gracie has made it thru Genesis 3 at this moment. The deal is she reads for 20 minutes and then dad reads to her what she just read in case there are questions or things that require more effort. I am so proud of her I could bust, even if I did get suckered into spending 40 bucks.


• Gracie has also signed up for a one day, and one NIGHT youth camp through our church. This should be interesting. Gracie has only slept away from us twice and both times it was just several houses down the street. This is going to be miles away. A camp like this is going to be really good for her, she will have to build more on those independent functioning skills and rely and trust more in herself and learn the ability to seek help from her peers when required, all those growing up things. Its a safe place with lots of youth workers, volunteer staffs, councilors, and youth pastors, so I am fine with the idea, but having my Boogs so far away for a day and a night is going to be tough on mom and dad, probably worse on us than her truth be know, but don't tell anybody OKAY !!


• Big Lots has some nice and reasonably priced patio furniture. This random fact brought to you only because it caused a temporary cease fire in the nagging process. By temporary I mean momentary, or actually perhaps it was imaginary. Yep, that's it, an imaginary cease fire in the nagging process. Focus switched instantly to the accoutrement that goes with a patio set, including but not limited to a fire pit. Oh, the ' replace the carpet that has been dog ruined, but paint the whole upstairs first, I am not nagging but are you done yet" also started this weekend. Wasn't nagging cause for stoning in biblical times? Could we look into bringing that back please? I think the Supreme Court is still male dominated enough that they would uphold such a thing, don't you?


• I borrowed an electric chainsaw to cut down some bushes in my yard this weekend. ( yes it is part of the project mentioned above ) There is something oxymoronish about an electric chainsaw. There is something inherently unmanly about it. No gas fumes, no mixing oil and gas and releasing puffs of blueish greenish smoke into the air because of the mixture being off. No smell of the chain lube cooking off as it burns against the motor body. No dead spot in the grass where you spill the poorly mixed oil and gas mixture. None of the manly man stuff that goes with a chainsaw. I felt like I should be in heels, hose and a skirt while I was chopping down these shrubs. Actually maybe the term should be electrically sawing the shrubs down. Chopping implies a much more manly endeavor than what I did. Anywho, the mass o' dead shrubs ( dead because me kilt 'em ar ar arrrr) has been dragged to the street. ( should that have been drug, drugged, dragged, or dragathed to the street?) I just hope that the waist collection people feel it in their hearts to haul them off this week. I have been told that they will do so, only if I tie them up first. Tie what, its a whole bush, 7 whole bushes to be exact. Each one is too big to tie to another bush and tying up just one bush doesn't maketh sense to me, its not going to get any easier or smaller, just because I engage in a bondage scene with mother nature. (ewww, I know, too far) If I do end up having to bind them up, I think I will go purchase some yellow ribbon and tie it in a bow, maybe the neighbors will at least get a chuckle that way.


• If you have to cross your legs to avoid flashing your who who at the pastor, your skirt is way to short. Just sayin'.


• I purchased 6 solar lights shaped like itty bitty pagodas to go around the patio. ( again, an imaginary nag stopper ) Is there something just wrong with the phrase , " solar lights " or is it just me. It seems redundant or something. I realize there are lunar lights, artificial lights, florescent lights etc etc. but solar lights are not lights of the sun as the name implies. Lunar lights are light from the moon, artificial lights are light caused in an artificial manner, one would think that solar lights would be sun light, but no. They are really artificial light that is powered by a battery that it just so happens was charged by the sun. I think we should call them wireless lights and get it over with.


• The madness of March is almost over. I have survived yet another year. Its not that I don't like basketball really, its an okay sport. It's mildly entertaining for the most part. The thing that gets my boxers in a bunch is just the shear volume of it all. You have all the tournaments that precede THE tournament. All those po-dunk ( pun intended) conferences that you don't care about any other time. Those conferences with George Mason, IUPUI, Southwestern Idaho Agricultural and Knitting University and the like. These are immediately followed by a selection show in which the field is narrowed down to only, ( yes only) 64 teams. ( actually its 66 teams since the added a play in game) Then the talking heads of sports spend the next little bit of forever arguing about the 3 teams who didn't make it. This continues for weeks or until some Cinderella makes the case that they can actually play, then everybody shuts up. At the same time, in interest of gender equality, the same thing is happening in a women's league. AND at the same time, the NIT, or Not In Tournament tournament is getting underway. AND the division 2AA II NIAI or whatever division it is also is playing on ESPN 18, subtitles in Spanish. Just in case this is not enough ( its enough already ) they have a 3 point competition and slam dunk contest just to kill a few minutes between games. Next year, rumor has it, that the tourney is going to expand one whole tier, that's 128 teams, or 130 if they keep the play in game. Next years play in game will be the Ag-ed nuns from St. Agathas vs. the winner of the prison league play off in Idaho. Go Ag-ed nuns go......... Good thing is, its almost over, bad thing is the only thing on television will now be baseball. Oh dont get me started on that primadona train full of losers.......... ( sorry Patti )

Well, this has been random, but this blog is called Normal Chaos so you should be used to me by now.