Please, dear reader, consider this a follow up to Pat Edaburn’s excellent piece on Health Care reform. Wow! What A Deal! Insurance companies agree to cover everyone, and not even charge ludicrous extra amounts for people who have been ill, but only if everyone is required to buy insurance. That’s right, the same highly profitable insurance companies that have caused the price of health care to spiral out of control in a system where nearly 1 out of every 5 workers has no insurance says...

While we have been watching this extraordinary Presidential Inauguration, with over a million people crammed into the National Mall and many millions more watching and listening on televisions and radios (and computers and cell phones), something else amazing is happening at the White House itself. It’s moving day: President Bush and his wife, Laura, will wake up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday morning, just as they have the last eight years. But by the time the new president, Barack...

I must not be very imaginative. I say that because I can’t think of a single thing that is so important that it’s worth strip searching a child in a public school, but so unimportant that it’s not worth calling that child’s parents first, and not worth calling the police first. And the thing is that an appeals court pretty much agreed that if the Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our persons didn’t apply to the actual body of a child in a school, who the heck did...

Sadly, late on Christmas Day we learned that Eartha Kitt, the singer of Santa Baby, had passed away. She was 81. My generation became acquainted with her as Catwoman on the old Batman TV show. The following generation knows her — her voice, anyway — as Yzma in The Emperor’s New Groove. Her actual working career spans seven decades. Here’s some vintage Eartha for you: Even as she got older, she was a fantastic performer with a great sense of timing: The world has lost a...

Every once in a while, somebody will ask me “Who is to blame for the current housing and foreclosure mess?” Usually they want a short, snappy answer. The truth is that there is a giant pie of blame, and there’s plenty to go around. In no particular order, here are some of the culprits. This is my opinion alone, and you are welcome to disagree with me. Fannie Mae. The Federal National Mortgage Association, shortened to FNMA and then simply Fannie Mae, is a federally chartered...

With the announcement of President Elect Obama’s economic “dream team,” speculation officially begins concerning what his cabinet will look like. “Which of those heavy hitters will be Treasury Secretary” is merely the first and most obvious question. The Associated Press (yes yes I know many people are still boycotting them) has come up with an interesting collection of short lists for the various positions, with the caveat that “Obama has signaled that he will...

Less than 12 hours from now, the first American polling places will open on Election Day. In many areas, early voting places were very busy with people trying to exercise their rights as they had time to do so. Of course, this helps people who normally work on Election Day, as they don’t have to count on voting during a small window of time before work, after work, or on their lunch break. While many people have certainly already voted, many have not. A massive turnout is expected for this...

The SEC has temporarily banned short-selling of 799 financial stocks. Maybe you don’t know what short-selling is. Here’s the funny explanation first: Now here’s the not-so-funny explanation. Essentially, buying a stock is betting the price will go up. Short-selling is selling shares you don’t actually have, betting the price will go down, and you can “buy to cover” later. One thing to remember: when you buy, you can only lose as much as you spent but your gains...

I first learned yesterday of a police raid gone wrong. Busting down the door when the warrant doesn’t specify no-knock? Bad. Shooting the dogs as they ran away, then leaving them to bleed to death while you interrogate the homeowner? Worse. Refusing to believe that the homeowner is in fact the Mayor as you force him to kneel on the floor handcuffed in his boxer shorts for hours? Worse still! But wait! there’s more! The unopened package containing the drugs giving the cops the “grounds”...

This time, the terror watch list has picked up Clinton-era assistant attorney general, Jim Robinson. He is on this list despite having a recently renewed set of security clearances. It’s ok for him to have access to nuclear secrets, but not to get on an airplane without some serious extra hassle. He’s been quoted several places: I suppose if I were convinced that America is a safer place because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it. But I doubt it. I expect my story...

No, this is not Indiana Jones fan fiction. This morning I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and IndyMac. Let’s start with a little background. Fannie and Freddie are federally chartered entities that buy mortgages from the banks and mortgage companies that write them. The original mortgage holder gets (most of) their money right away instead of waiting 30 years, so they have the money to lend to somebody else in a neighborhood like yours. IndyMac...

Today we learned that in June, our economy lost roughly 62,000 jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Along with this, we learned that even more jobs were lost in May than initially thought. The unemployment rate is remaining stable at 5.5% — this has to do with the very narrow BLS definition of “unemployed” (you had a full time job, you lost it, you aren’t working at all, and you are actively looking for work). Keep in mind, May and June are a time when our...

Thanks to the miracle technology of RSS feeds, I am able to look at hundreds of news stories, blog commentaries, and cute pictures of kittens every day. One of my favorite news sources is the Christian Science Monitor. Their research is solid, the coverage in-depth, and despite the things implied by their name, they are very low on bias. Today, the CSM asks “Can McCain Deliver His Home State?” And they ask, conceding at the outset that Senator McCain “consistently gets 80 percent...

Let me start by extending congratulations to Senator Obama and Senator McCain as the presumptive nominees for their respective parties. And thank whatever Deity you like that the primaries are over! But now the time to throw stones is over; the time to gather stones together is begun. They can throw them at the other party later. Senator McCain has the relatively quiet task of selecting a running mate. For Senator Obama, the task is more complicated. He first has to find a way to turn Senator...

This morning, financial news channel CNBC was kind enough to point out that “The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said the final reading in May for its index of confidence fell to 59.8 from April’s 62.6, slightly above the median expectation of 59.5 in a Reuters survey of economists. May’s reading was the lowest since 58.7 in June 1980….” That’s right, consumer confidence hasn’t been this low since, well, since oil was at record high...

On this, the eve of what I sincerely hope will be the end of the primary season, I am proud to bring you a letter from a registered, card-carrying Democrat. This letter is right now being submitted to the Clinton campaign, the Democratic party, and others. He says, among other things: As a child I was promised that anyone could grow up to be President. For the last 20 years only 2 families have controlled the White House and your election would extend that to 24 or 28 years. That is the death...

Let’s imagine a nice little community of 400 homes. It’s a perfectly average American community, and it could be anywhere: in town, in the ‘burbs, in the countryside. Thanks to the often-cited statistic that 68% of Americans own their homes, we can deduce that perhaps as many as 32% are rental homes, or 128. However, we are going to assume there is an apartment complex down the road, and that only a third of that number are in fact rental homes. We’ll round down to 42. Because...

This post does not reflect the opinions of TMV authors or editorial staff. It is strictly my own. The ArchCrone and the ShortWoman are proud to announce a Mothers Day blogging event called the Mothers Day Blogswarm for Maternal Death. The purpose of this event is twofold: first, it is a counter-protest to a staged "funeral" for embryos and fetuses that hae been aborted; second, we plan to bring attention to the lives of actual women whose lives have been wrecked if not outright ended...

That’s a direct quote from Hillary Clinton. She said it on Countdown last night. She went on to suggest that we would not allow Iran to be a threat to Israel, and that we could “totally obliterate” Iran. And just in case anybody thought it was a slip, she reiterated it on Good Morning America. Whatever you may think of Iran, they are a sovereign nation. It’s just a little reckless to go around threatening to “totally obliterate” them. Granted, some news sources...

CNN has been running a series called “Empowered Patient”. The latest installment is entitled How to find the best ER for your child. I feel that this article is seriously out of touch with the way most Americans interact with the health care system in general, let alone the Emergency Department of a hospital. Most of us choose a hospital based on one of two criteria: it is the hospital our insurance will pay for; or it is the hospital closest to the scene of the accident. Even those...