Obama Homeland Security Alerts

Commenter Donna V. has come up with this list of Obama Homeland Security Alerts:
Hey, maybe the Obama admin will revise the Homeland Security alerts, now that we know we have nothing to fear from terrorists. Maybe something along these lines:
Level Red: The Great Leader is more popular than Jesus, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson combined. This is how it should be.
Level Green: A few grumblings are heard from disgruntled rednecks in fly-over country. Nothing to worry about, really, but keep your eyes open.
Level Orange: Uh, oh. The peons are doing a lot of grumbling and booing at town hall meetings and there’s a quite a bit of seemingly fishy information (cunningly planted by Fox News) out there on the Net. Couric, CNN, HuffPo, you know what to do.
Level Purple: Lord, the fish is now a great big dead rotting whale on the WH lawn. Comrades Dowd and Krugman, fire photon torpedoes!
Level Gray: We’re screwed. We have now crossed the River Styx and are in Jimmy Carter territory.
Sebelius and Specter Respond

Hattip to the ever reticent Lads and Lasses at the Lair of the Catholic Cavemen. Yesterday I had a post celebrating the warm reception that Secretary Sebelius and Senator Specter received at a town hall meeting. Now the indispensable Iowahawk has thoughtfully penned here, a response to the voters for Secretary Sebelius and Senator Specter. No doubt they will be duly appreciative of his efforts, and Iowahawk will probably enjoy his time on the no-fly list.
Coup as Solution to the National Debt?
From the only reliable source of news on the net, the Onion. The sad thing is, that this scheme only seems slightly less crazy than many a proposal currently under consideration in Congress. Such a stratagem as a fake coup to get out of debt reminded my wife of the plot of The Mouse That Roared, the howlingly funny Peter Sellars film from 1959:
Well, at Least Spell my Name Right

Hattip to DrewM at Ace of Spades HQ. This from the White House Blog:
“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
I trust that some of the Obama supporters who frequent our site will draw the attention of the White House to a few of my posts regarding ObamaCare on this blog. When you do please remember that the last name is spelled McClarey, not McCleery, McClaren, McClary, etc. Thank you!
Update I: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has some pointed comments here about the sheer political stupidity of the White House making this public call for informants.
Post Office Going Broke

As this story indicates here, the Post Office, in spite of a rate increase, is in deep financial trouble. Unwilling to adapt to a changing market, the wranglers of snail mail no doubt will be the recipient of a massive bailout in the next few months to “save the local post office”. Something to keep in mind before the government is put in charge of our health care.
It Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy and Gal
Ah, it does my heart good to see Senator Arlen Specter (D.Pa) and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services exposed to the verbal anger of the public! Now why is that?
Well as to Snarlin’ Arlen, he was for decades a pro-abort Republican and now is a pro-abort Democrat. My reaction when he jumped parties earlier this year was good riddance. He jumped parties of course because he was an almost certain loser to pro-life Pat Toomey in the Republican primary. The hilarious thing is that Specter will face a Democrat primary challenge from Congressman Joe Sestak who announced his candidacy yesterday. If he survives the primary challenge he faces an up-hill fight against Toomey. In a Quinnipiac poll on July 22, Specter leads Toomey by a single percentage point 45%-44%. This is a devastating poll for an incumbent facing a well-known challenger.
As for Sebelius, she is a fanatic pro-abort, as I detailed here, and a close political ally of the late Tiller the Killer. Just before her confirmation it came out that she had received three times the donations from Tiller than she had claimed. Of course this is only the tip of a large ice berg of campaign funds that Tiller used to aid Sebelius as this letter here from Tiller indicates. Her ties to Tiller were outlined by Bob Novak last year here. When confronted about Tiller she was always in full ” Tiller?” mode:
Yep, I can watch these two being booed with a fine enjoyment! Schadenfreude? Indeed!
Excessive Health Care Profits
In the health care reform debate, we often hear about how huge amounts of money that could be going to provide people with treatment is being sucked up by insurance company profits instead. This kind of thing always makes me wonder, since in my experience a competitive market place will usually drive profit margins down pretty low. So I thought it would be illustrative to look up how much money the top private insurance companies make, and then determine their profit margins and profits per enrollee.
The following information is publicly available on Google Finance. Revenue figures are annual ones for the year ending 12-31-2008. The total revenue, income before tax and income after tax figures come directly from each companies public financial reports. The enrollee figures are potentially slightly more approximate, since there I googled for the most recent press release which showed total enrollment for each company.


It struck me as interesting that it was Humana, with the lowest profits per enrollee in 2008, which just posted a healthy profit increase for Q2. Wellpoint and Aetna have suffered membership declines in the last quarter.
In no case is the company making more than $100 per enrollee per year in profits. Given that most insurance plans cost a good $4000-$6000 per year, the amount of what we pay for insurance that goes to “lining insurance companies’ pockets” would seem to be fairly small.
Saint John Vianney Play To Debut In Houston
Saint John Vianney is being staged as a one-man production titled “VIANNEY” and will be debuting in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston on August 4, 2009 AD. This is in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the death of this patron saint of parish priests. The play will continue in other dioceses across America.
Leonardo Defilippis plays the role of Saint John Vianney as he performs at various churches across the archdiocese. Mr. Defilippis’s one-man stage production opens amidst the chaos of the French Revolution, a time which mirrors the secularization, materialism and anti-religious sentiment of today. Against this dramatic backdrop, a simple ignorant peasant priest enters the backwater town of Ars, a place where no one cares much about their faith, or sees the Church as particularly relevant. They don’t expect much out of John Vianney.
Catholic Health Care: Our Lady of Hope Clinic
As Catholics, and other Americans, continue the debate over national solutions to help the uninsured, Our Lady of Hope Clinic in Madison, Wisconsin is helping treat the uninsured one person at a time. Long time reader Steve Karlen is the development director for the clinic, which opened in April of this year. OLHC has a unique model, based on Dr. Kloess and Dr. Johnson’s desire to provide outstanding primary care through a structure designed in accordance with Catholic principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.
Like the increasingly popular private practice or closed practice model, OLHC accepts up to a set number of patients, which due to OLHC’s non profit model are called benefactors. The limit is set at 600, which has not yet been met, so the clinic is still accepting memberships. Benefactors receive unlimitted primary care through the clinic with no additional charges or co-pays beyond the annual benefactor fee — which is set at a 1200 dollars with various discounts which can apply for couples, children, or younger patients. (This pricing is comparable to other closed practice/concierge-style doctor’s offices.) Like a closed practice, benefactors can make same day appointments any time and have direct access to their doctors via phone and email. They are expected to carry insurance for specialist, prescription and hospital care — however benefactors can often save money overall on health care by switching to a high deductible plan for care not covered by the clinic.
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Congress Feeling the Heat

Hattip to Instapundit. Democrat Congress beings are reporting here that they are encountering angry constituents at their townhall meetings. Now why would their constituents be so angry?

Oh yeah.
There is a political storm brewing in this country of immense proportions. If some members of Congress aren’t aware of it yet, they will be after they return from the August recess.
Sink the Bismarck
Something for the weekend. Johnny Horton singing Sink the Bismarck. The Bismarck was the German “pocket” battleship, a superb ship for her day, which was sunk by the Royal Navy on May 27, 1941. A superb movie, albeit with many inaccuracies, Sink the Bismarck!, chronicled the events in 1961. Here is a trailer for the film.
Johnny Horton’s song was written for the film.
Compare and contrast Johnny Horton’s original with this Blues Brothers rendition:





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