Fucking Morons
mikethemadbiologist | December 6, 2009David Sirota was debating (although given that said 'debate' occurred on cable TV, that's probably far too genteel a word) David Frum about healthcare, when Sirota brought up the finding that 45,000 people in the U.S. die every year from a lack of health insurance. Frum's response is incredibly arrogant (go to the 4:00 mark):
Sirota is absolutely right that Frum's discounting of the study with "I went to Harvard, believe me" is incredibly arrogant. But what's worse is what came first:
"That number is not a reliable number, that number is an estimate."*
And evolution is just a theory. Oops…
mikethemadbiologist | December 2, 2009...might just be too stupid to realize it. A reader sent me a story guaranteed to piss me off. And it worked! Senator Ben Nelson, in all his intellectual glory:
In lieu of a "war tax" to pay for a troop increase in Afghanistan, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) is proposing war bonds.
"We didn't have a war tax in the second World War," Nelson said, and instead the government sold Americans bonds."People invested in their country, in that fashion [and] made a lot of sense back then. I don't know why it might not make sense today, certainly in lieu of jumping to tax."
A sitting senator can't…
mikethemadbiologist | December 2, 2009...at least by the Blue Dog Democrats. Digby, in discussing the history of the demobilization of the Democratic rank-and-file, observes (boldface mine; italics original):
Clinton was pretty good at speaking in several layers of code, but he had terrible problems in 1994, even though he delivered the economic plan he promised. And that's because that economic plan was based on the abstraction of reducing the deficit which is a conservative talking point --- even if not one Republican voted for it. He failed to get health care, of course, and passed NAFTA, another Republican initiative. (There…
mikethemadbiologist | November 30, 2009File this under "Democrats are the stupidest political party in recorded history." A recent poll asked, "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?" The answer:
This isn't just the 'liberal' base: the entire party has been demobilized. Only 56 percent of Democrats are likely to vote, versus 81 percent of Republicans. And now, some Democrats are talking about cutting Social Security benefits, even though there is no crisis. That's not going to rally the Democratic rank-and-file.
Democrats, and Democratic-…
mikethemadbiologist | November 21, 2009Richard Cohen recently wrote that he would like to see an "Institute for the Study of Sarah Palin" receive funding. It's a pretty good piece (which just goes to show that even the dumbest squirrel can occasionally find a nut). But I do have one quibble. Cohen writes (italics mine):
On the other hand, someone else will point out that the very week Palin is promoting her book, the current president is abroad attending meetings in Asia, including a visit with our Chinese bankers. Could those who fault Barack Obama for being callow and inexperienced imagine Palin meeting with the Chinese or,…
mikethemadbiologist | November 20, 2009Seriously. This isn't a problem of the 'fringe' of the party. By way of Oliver Willis, look at what the Layfayette County Republican Central Committee (of Missouri) has erected on a billboard:
This isn't a couple of guys or a crazy businessman--it's an official division of the Republican Party.
"Prepare for war?" Because Obama might raise the amount paid on income above $250,000 by four percentage points? Or pass a healthcare bill that's weaker than a majority of American would like (or realize)? I also like how the sign capitalizes "Beast", when using Grover Norquist's phrase "starve…
mikethemadbiologist | November 13, 2009If you haven't heard by now, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds got clobbered by the Republican candidate. One of the things that hurt him was the poor turnout by independents and Democrats compared to the 2008 presidential election. And why did they stay home?
Consider the answers to these three questions posed to VA Democrats who voted for Obama, but not for Deeds:
And:
And:
If the Democrats don't stop acting like Republican-lite, like Herbert Hoover (although that's an unfair comparison to Hoover, who, while ideologically hidebound, had saved millions of lives from famine…
mikethemadbiologist | November 9, 2009You might think that a bill winding its way through Congress which would lift the ban on organizations using federal funding for needle exchange programs would be a good thing. And it would be a good thing, except for this little provision:
A bill working its way through Congress would lift a ban of more than 20 years on using federal money for needle exchange programs. But the bill would also ban federally financed exchanges from being within 1,000 feet of a school, park, library, college, video arcade or any place children might gather -- a provision that would apply to a majority of the…
mikethemadbiologist | November 8, 2009(from here)
Needless to say, I'm disgusted by the amendment introduced by Democratic Congressvermin Bart Stupak which would effectively make most abortions not covered by health insurance, even though many are now. Given the tremendous numbers of women who have had an abortion, it's not like he's going to put a dent in the 'problem'--women will still become pregnant, still want to become unpregnant, and still have abortions. It's just some will have to go into debt. So I suggest, if you can afford it, hopping on over to Planet Parenthood, and making a donation in honor of Bart Stupak (…
mikethemadbiologist | October 30, 2009Congressman Bart Stupak has helped tank the Medicare +5% reimbursement plan and single payer (italics mine):
The problem with an amendment strategy [for Medicare +5% and single-payer] is that the House leadership will likely not allow many, if any, amendments to be offered on the House floor. The reason is because of Bart Stupak, who is trying to defeat the entire bill by rounding up 40 House Democrats to demand that none of the insurance plans receiving subsidies in the exchange are allowed to cover abortions. If such an amendment passes--and the leadership believes that it would if offered…
mikethemadbiologist | October 6, 2009The wackaloons over at Conservapedia have a new project: releasing a new version of the Bible. No, really:
Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning:
lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts of Christianity
lack of precision in modern language
translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.
Of these three sources of errors, the last introduces the largest error, and the biggest component of that error is…
mikethemadbiologist | October 3, 2009...as any other vaccine. One of the things that was frustrating about the recent report of some (a few) nurses who were concerned about the safety of the swine flu vaccine was the utter ignorance by medical professionals of how the vaccine is made: the swine flu vaccine is no different in terms of manufacture than other influenza vaccines. And since the seasonal flu vaccine is different every year, there's never extensive testing (i.e., months and months) of each year's vaccine. If there were, the vaccine would never be released in time. But don't believe the Mad Biologist, I CAN HAZ…
mikethemadbiologist | September 23, 2009Argh. The post got borked because I'm using a very old computer with weird keystroke habits. The article is from here:
The Oklahoma House of Representatives Education Committee has just approved House Bill 2211. The bill is expected to pass the full House, and then to go to the Senate. Its authors describe it as promoting freedom of religion in the public schools. In fact, it does the opposite.
HB 2211 is identical to bills widely introduced into state legislatures across the nation, where they have met various fates. Texas's Legislature passed it, and Texas is experiencing serious problems…
mikethemadbiologist | September 17, 2009This might seem a ludicrous statement of the obvious, but defining aging as a risk from an insurance standpoint is absurd. First, this summary of the premiums for the Baucus plan:
Key relevant provisions of Baucus' bill [pdf] are called "Rating Rules for the Individual Market" (pages 1-2). These rules apply to people who would be required to purchase insurance in the exchange and define how much more the insurers could charge some individuals compared to others:
Issuers in the individual market could vary premiums
based only on the following characteristics: tobacco use, age, and family…
mikethemadbiologist | September 17, 2009Well done, Max:
People in Massaschusetts are by and large satisfied with the Connector. It's toughest on the fairly small number of families earning just over 300% of FPL (of which there aren't that many), and on the larger number of young individuals who make just over 300% of FPL (which is $32,320 for an individual, so there are a decent number of those folks). Working class families earning up to 200% of FPL have fairly low premiums. $90 per month is going to pinch, but for uninsured households, they'll get some real value out of that: Commonwealth Care plans include dental insurance,…
mikethemadbiologist | September 16, 2009Warren Buffet, the world's second richest man, met with some senators and told them that the wealthy need to pay more in taxes:
"He said rich people are not paying enough taxes," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). "It was interesting to see someone who is such an aggressive capitalist, who believes so much in our capitalist system, saying we've got the scales way too heavily toward people who are very, very wealthy."
Buffett told lawmakers that because of the cuts to the capital gains tax passed under former President George W. Bush, he pays taxes at a lower rate than some of his company's…
mikethemadbiologist | September 9, 2009One problem with the Blue Dog Democrats is that they're corrupt, venial, and cowardly. Sadly, there's not much to be done about that. Another problem, and usually much less noticed, is that many of them are dumber than a fucking sack of hammers, with a good dash of ignorance to boot. Certainly, they have never heard of viral marketing. More about that in a bit.
When thinking about reelection, most Blue Dogs still seem to be focused on traditional fundraising, although a couple probably realize that they could get some money through the intertubes. Let's not be naive about the role of…
mikethemadbiologist | September 2, 2009I'll have more to say about the first part of the post header tomorrow (hopefully), but this exchange between Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, a proponent of a Medicare-for-All public option, and CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo is mind-boggling:
At one point, Bartiromo was critical of the government-managed health care system in the United Kingdom. "How do I know the quality [of health care in the United States] is not going to suffer" with a public option? she asked.
Rep. Weiner reminded her that there already is government-managed health care in the United States -- namely, Medicare,…
mikethemadbiologist | August 28, 2009Michael Seitzman sums up the Mad Biologist's philosophy of dealing with creationists, denialists, and other sundry morons:
I have some advice for all of us. Stop trying to get these people to realize how wrong they are and how right you are. Stop trying to apply reason to the profoundly unreasonable. Stop trying to mitigate or explain their collective temper tantrum. Stop trying to curry their favor, their votes, their attention. They don't care about truth, right and wrong, good or bad. They care about stomping feet, crying victim, and pointing fingers. Barney Frank had it exactly right, it…
mikethemadbiologist | August 23, 2009In various posts refuting the creationist canard that we can't explain everything, I've argued that if biologists knew everything then we wouldn't need to do biology. Comedian Dara O'Briain makes a similar point and many other hilarious ones too:
What does it say when the best observers of our times are comedians?