mavenandmeddler

Friday Fish Wrap: March 12, 2010

2010-03-13T04:50:56Z

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
English novelist (1812 - 1870)

This pretty much describes my week.

I wavered wildly between being an absolute idiot/jackass, and reasonably wise/nice person. I think I may have suffered whiplash of the soul.

The good news: I may be on the road to learning and personal growth.

Health care 'mandates' a must for reform to work

2010-03-12T04:16:34Z

The Right would have you believe that ‘mandates’ are just the most horrible thing since Joe Stalin when it comes to insurance. The fact that most of us are required to carry homeowners insurance to obtain a mortgage (that’s the lender calling the shots, not the government) or car insurance (that’s the state, but I don’t hear too many folks complaining that they got hit by an uninsured motorist) seems to escape them.

Mandates are what government does. The government insists that things be done according to rules that are debated and then mutually agreed upon.

Would you really want market forces to decide whether or not the meat you buy in the supermarket was safe? Get rid of government interference and mandates on clean drinking water?

If you are totally against mandates then to fly without a parachute on a lot of things that have kept you and your family safe and healthy.

Statement on Sen. Harry Reid's wife and daughter

2010-03-12T04:00:16Z

Sue Lowden vs Harry Reid (Obama) on Health Care Reform

2010-03-11T02:39:11Z

If you have been just too busy with multiple jobs, family and other responsibilties to get the facts on Obama’s plan for heatlh care reform, you might be swayed by the claims from Sue Lowden. She would have you believe that the Democrat plan is a “one size fits all’ approach”.

There are just a few things that I’d like to point out.

It’s been tough to keep track of all the various proposed parts of the House and Senate health care proposals, but I can tell you this - they were crafted by hundreds of members of Congress. Laying it all at Harry Reid’s door - like he wrote it - is ludicrous. The final bill will be a hybrid of what the House came up with (not a public option, but not terrible) and the Senate bill (not as good as the House bill ) and what the White House has proposed.

Maybe Sue Lowden isn’t able to keep up with it any better than some of the rest of us out here in the sagebrush.

To keep it simple, you don’t have to look any further than the White House website for the Clif Notes version, as follows:

Breaking News: Glenn Beck Exposes Cynthia Ryan as Agent of Evil

2010-03-10T20:57:55Z

Harry Reid tired of stall tactics on benefits to vulnerable families

2010-03-09T20:13:25Z

Go get ‘em, Harry.

(See press release below)

I love Reid’s tough new tone, but unfortunately, it needs to come with a sharp stick with which to poke Ben Nelson (D-Neb), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo), Jim Webb (D-Va) and Mark Warner (D-Va). Actually, Reid should do more than poke them, he should draw blood.

Leave a mark.

We can bail out Wall St., but not education? WTF?

2010-03-09T06:22:56Z

Mr. Maven and I went to lunch last week with a co-worker. He’s a software engineer from India. Smart guy, who set us straight on a couple things.

Like Pakistan.

Like China.

Like education.

He essentially said what Robert Reich says in this column, that we can’t afford not to bail out our schools. My co-worker thinks that we’re crazy to keep cutting education spending, saying that no other sensible country would do that, and he can’t understand why we are.

I told him: America elected George W. Bush, therefore it’s clear that they don’t value education. Governor Jim Gibbons,( R-NV ) is proof of that on the state level. He’s got his.

Read what Reich has to say:

Bail Out Our Schools

Monday Musings, March 8, 2010

2010-03-08T18:32:01Z

If your Monday is an indicator of the rest of the week, this should be a disaster. Nothing went right. If I could lose it, I did. If I could miss it, I did. It was so nearly a giant CF. The good news is that the rest of the day went reasonably well.

Things got off to a badish start last night. I’d taken a month long ‘rest’ from my chemo-suppressant, Arimidex. It was time buck-up and start taking it again. The side effects make you wonder if the cure isn’t worse than the disease. But since the disease, breast cancer, is probably worse - a Stage IV recurrence isn’t curable at all - that I have to find a way to manage the freakin’ side effects. But, I understand why so many women opt to go off of it and take their chances.

Sigh. Vanity, thy name is woman. I want hair. Hair that actually grows. Hair that isn’t thinning and falling out. Of course, leaving the extreme heartburn, joint pain and water retention behind would be cool, too.

This brought to mind the conversations Mr. Maven and I have been having about the cost of our prescriptions now.

It’s grim

Friday Fish Wrap: March 5, 2010

2010-03-06T04:27:38Z

For all those nay-sayers here in Northern Nevada trying to peddle the nonsense that Harry Reid can’t bring home the bacon - jobs, now - here’s just another way of saying ‘balderdash’:

Senators Reid and Ensign have announced that $5 million of funding would be coming to the Reno-Tahoe International Airport for needed upgrades to the airports ramp. The idea is to keep this airport viable for tourist and business traffic well into the future. All said, this means some 200 well paying construction type jobs, in addition to supplies and materials purchased from local business.

Furthermore, for those who hate everything about the federal government: Here’s a news flash - that money comes from the Department of Transportation. Another one of those nasty federal agencies.

Let’s just say that the likes of Sue Lowdan is right when she claims that private enterprise can handle it all.

Kid cleared for departure by FAA in ATC flap at JFK. Over.

2010-03-05T05:03:26Z

Alright, everybody needs to take a deep breath here. This kid was NOT directing traffic that was in the air or in danger of doing anything more than making the ‘fuzz’ look sillier than it usually does.

The air traffic controllers at JFK do an awesome job in one of the most difficult aviation control environments in the world. My husband, Capt. Maven, has flown into and out of JFK many times over his professional aviation career and he wasn’t perturbed by this ‘childish’ incident.

Capt. Maven has said more than once that pilots going in and out of JFK had better pull their heads out of the dark place, because these JFK controllers are just that sharp and on top of it. You don’t want to be on the back side of their power curve.