The following is a recent posting by Wil Wheaton. You might recognize the name from movies such as Stand by Me, or television shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Big Bang Theory. Hopefully, you have also read one or more of his books.
Wil Wheaton – Feb 10, 2012 – Public
Caution: contains political thoughts.
I’ve been thinking:
- If government was acting in the public — and not the corporate — interest, #Occupy wouldn’t be necessary.
- If journalists were adversaries to the rich and powerful — instead of their stenographers — #Wikileaks wouldn’t be necessary.
- It’s pretty unbelievable to me that a group of people who covered up pedophile priests for decades has any moral authority at all.
- I keep hearing conservatives complaining about government intruding on their religious freedoms. It’s hard to take them seriously when they’re doing everything they can to impose their narrow beliefs on the rest of us.
100% digital, done with the GIMP this time around. A little tongue and cheek prod at both Apple and Occupy Wall Street’s worship of Apple products while vilifying the very foundation of what Apple is; a multi-national corporation that has outsourced American manufacturing. Yes, Apple builds stuff in China too… They are a regular computer company that imports components and uses cheap labor costing Americans jobs… Just like that evil Microsoft and IBM.
Really, if they truly were devout in their Socialism, they’d run Linux devices. Every single one of them, but they aren’t smart enough to (well, some have got to be… but in general…).
US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security continue to astound me in their hammering of US Citizens returning home with COMIC BOOKS while completely ignoring the gaping hole in our Southern Border that allows drug cartels and terrorists to waltz right in un-opposed (with the BATFE now supplying some of the guns to the cartels through OP Gunrunner…). Instead of dealing with the existential threat of dirty bombs coming from the south, they focus on comic book collectors coming back with Japanese Manga and Anime; charging them with child pornography. This after searching all their electronic devices, from computer laptops, net books, and flash and thumb drives.
While some of the Japanese hentai and ecchi manga/anime is indeed disgusting, it is legally obtainable in the United States… Which makes me wonder why they are wasting time charging comic book geeks at the borders with child pornography… Unless of course, at the border, your 1st Amendment Rights mean nothing (and to some extant, the ICE does need the greater latitude to search for contraband to protect the US…). I’m not going to condone pornography of any sort, however if our resources are being expended on some ICE officers interpretation of child pornography in the context of drawn pictures of Japanese comics, instead of on the guy down the line who is a drug smuggler or terrorist… Then we as a nation are in trouble.
It reminds me of going to Korea. We had Security Forces at Osan AFB give us the briefing about contraband, and any pornography imported to Korea was considered contraband. So, the guys with Playboy in their bags had to drop it in the ‘Amnesty Box’. Then after clearing customs, go pick up the same issue at the AAFES Shopette down the road… Or pick up the local stuff off base (which included some ‘black market’ American stuff obtained through AAFES and likely the Customs Amnesty box!). Gee, lets make contraband what can be acquired in country anyway? Oh, yeah, because it bypasses the normal importation procedures and taxation? So do cigarettes, yet every nation I’ve travelled to allows for small quantities for personal use to be brought by individuals in country… The same can be said for COMIC BOOKS and other media. If we allow latitude for the personal use of TOBACCO, the same should apply to comic books, books, games, and other media that is being brought in by people for their own personal collections.Its truly eerie to see artwork treated in such a manner, as well as electronic media. So far, we aren’t at the European standard of tyranny yet were you are required to give the Customs agents your user names and passwords for your accounts on your laptop along with any encryption keys so they can scan your computer by routine (the UK…). However, we aren’t far off. This the United States of America; art, written word, and other forms for free speech are to be cherished and protected. If something is suspicious, then there is probable cause. However, in this case I believe they are moving too far; and I’m a person opposed to pornography for moral and religious reasons!
Really, we have bigger fish to fry on the border than the dirty minded comic book fanboy.
First off we’ll start will some Boring stats. In a 40 year time span (1967-2008) Median Household Income has increased by $250 a year. It was roughly 40K in ’67 and 50K in 2008. For more information on Median household income please click here. If you want to see a pretty picture of the break down based off of Ethnicity, that can be found here.
So roughly your take home pay is 66% of that, so the median take home, or monies you can buy crap with, is roughly $33,000. Over the last 10 years heath insurance costs have roughly doubled. Graph Statistics
Year
Single
Family
2000
$2,471
$6,438
2009
$4,824
$13,375
That’s 40% of your take home pay for those of you playing at home, just for insurance. Not counting all the additional monies needed.
This is your capitalism at work. No hand outs. I can raise prices on something you have to have; faster and easier than you can increase your purchasing power. The great thing about 2000 is that it was a boom year. People are actually earning less now than they were 10 years ago. So the purchasing power for each family has gone down all the while health insurance costs have doubled. WOOT capitalism.
Personally I can tell you a little about my story. Back in 2006 when I got health insurance for the first time on my own, I was paying roughly $120 per month. I read through the benefits, and we really had good coverage. If anything major happened I wouldn’t have to sell off everything I had just to pay for it. Not bad for a single guy who was approaching 30. In the previous 10 years I only went to the hospital for mandated physicals (sports and driving permits) and once for stitches. I hadn’t had anything prescribed to me by a physician in those 10 years.
2007 my monthly cost went to $150 a month. 2008 was the kicker. They changed the insurance plans. To get the same coverage as I had in 2007, it was going to cost $275 a month. This didn’t get any news coverage because a) no one cared and b) they didn’t raise rates, they “decreased” coverage. Which as a 30 year old healthy male, was no big deal. Luckily we do corporate health insurance renewals in Feb because I would have realistically dropped my health insurance down a bracket to be $150 with lesser coverage than I had, because $275/month is pricy. I say luckily because in January I found out I had cancer. WOOT. So instead of being a 30 year old college educated kid on the brink of bankruptcy, I only had to fork up my down payment for my house and the rest of my savings to pay for the cancer.
Cancer treatment:
Cut out the cancer, go through a couple rounds of chemo. All in all done, not too terrible. Cancer is in remission. Next meeting with my oncologist when exactly like this. The recommended prevention plan is X. However all your insurance company will only approve to reimburse you for is Y. Really? Statistics says that the best chance for me to survive 5 years is X, but we have to do Y because I’m not wealthy enough to pay for X on my own. What can a kid do?
Consultation for how much life support or the extreme measures you want to stay alive towards the end of your life (what Palin and the Republicans call death panels), is BAD. Rationing of Health Care = BAD. What we have today, it’s totally fine. I’d agree with that. I would much rather have profit driven people, who are making more in bonuses than I have as an accumulation of life work, rather than a panel of medical professionals that are trying to do right by the patient, approve treatment plans for patients. Luckily for me cancer is one of those things you get, overcome and never have to check up on. It’s not like it could come back and kill me or anything like that.
Now comes the good part. 2009 comes along and they raised insurance premium on my plan to be over $375 a month. Which is almost as much as I pay for rent a month. 2009 must have been a bad year however. Now in 2010, my monthly costs are staying the same, however my coverage went down again and there isn’t a plan anymore that gives me same coverage I enjoyed in 2006. But what’s a person to do. I can’t even begin to imagine what my payments would be without my employer covering some. (That’s what you’d pay on COBRA for up to 18 months until they kick you off). Forget will work for food, will work for health insurance. So with my current insurance, I’m going to end up spending an extra 3K in medical fees this year. And that’s just for scheduled medical procedures.
Whine whine whine, I know. And I’ll figure out a way to make it work, but many people are not as fortunate as I am. Essentially if I was to lose my job and have to work at a place that didn’t provide health insurance, (I did that math) these would be my options. 1) Go into 20K worth of debt per year 2) play roulette with cancer. This is the reality for many Americans. We’re not talking about a government take over. We’re not talking about Nationalization of the health care industry. We’re talking about our government being an insurance agency and if everyone has to have health insurance (which would benefit everyone), we’d be able to rein in costs better. Now granted I may choose to leave my current plan and go back to my $300/month plan even though the government is my health insurance provider. Because that would personally save me a bunch of money, but I’m just a crazy gun touting member of the NRA. You can keep what you have. All those stupid small businesses. They could supply employees health insurance. That’s crazy talk I know. Think of what insurance companies would have to do then. They’d have to competitively price their plans so it’s not extortion. Their higher ups might only make 2 million a year versus 8 million. CRAZY TALK.
This is what a Public option could do. Instead of having a pocket of 20, or 30 or 10 people try to get competitive health rates, (The math is against you in small number because you can’t distribute the costs. That’s how insurance companies make it work.) you pool the millions into 1 group. Come up with their plan options. GO. Immediately you reduce the cost of insurance on millions of Americans. It will be easier to absorb those who have no health insurance that way too. So instead of you and I getting charged $20 for a tongue depressor on our bill to help cover the ER visit someone without insurance or ability to pay racks up when they are sick, the hospitals can lower what they charge. It’s not like hospitals are raking in the millions in profits. Because they have to help people, they are over charging some to pay for those they help that can’t pay.
But you’re right, change is bad. What would the founding fathers think? Listen, you want to talk about free market and talk about founding fathers, look at the FCC controlling what’s OK to watch on TV. Janet Jackson’s nipple is shown for the briefest of seconds and you can’t really see it, that’s a 100K fine. Where is your bleeding heart for the protection of your 1st amendment? So it’s ok for me to be limited to not say Cock on TV shows, but letting people die because you don’t want people to have an option of going through the government for health insurance. Let’s march on the capital, yell at our elected officials and sin (lying). Great priorities. But then again it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a bunch of poor people dying.
The worst thing that would happen if health care reform passes with a Public Option. Rush L says he’s moving to Costa Rica. I mean they have a well established system like the US is moving too. That would be a huge loss for America. I mean that’s easily 2 million a year of taxable revenues we’re missing out on. SAVE RUSH. WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR SENATOR TODAY saying you want to kill more people because they don’t have health insurance.
Thank you for your time
Josh Left-Right
“The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.”
- Edsgar Dijkstra
For those of you that missed this AWESOME speech, here is the link. Now I will admit that it was a wonderful presentation and that it was a good speech as far as stirring up to who he was presenting too, but that’s as much praise as I’ll give him.
Now onto his speech points or rather some of them, as I don’t think I can write about them all. Beck was telling a touching personal story that when he was down and out and at rock bottom, no one helped him get back up on his feet and that everyone should have to do that. Glenn good for you. I’m proud of you. Having had many similar daemons found in the same places, I know that being clear and sober is a difficult daily battle. And the road back can be treacherous. But did you use AA? Ever have a sponsor? Some people no matter how hard they try on their own need help. And America no matter how hard you bang your individual drum is still a society. And in order to be a successful society you have to either be ok with killing poor people or willing to sacrifice small measures to help them out.
He goes on to claim that we get our only right from G*D, not congress. We have no right to healthcare, housing, or handouts. That’s when I knew Glenn’s G*D was different than my G*D. (Mine believes in helping the poor and loving thy neighbor not hating) But that’s probably a little much to tackle now and would derail Glenn’s points. If you can make money you’re ok. If you can’t then as an American, you have earned your right to die. And since the Constitution was written by men, then I guess we can just replace the Toyota with it.
Something Glenn and I almost agreed on was too big to fail. He said, we should have let those banks fail. Obviously Glenn doesn’t have an economics degree because that would have almost killed American. I mean look at the ramifications it had as is? No we acted appropriately however now, now we need to do that anti-American/capitalism thing. We break them up so that they are no longer too big to fail. Then, next time they behave badly, we can let them fail without killing our economy.
My favorite quote after his lead in of Ronald Reagan is a hero of mine is that, ‘Every time the government grows, we lose more of who we are.’ Because until Bush, no one Grew the size of the government like Ronnie. Do people actually know the facts. Yeah I know what Ron stood for, but he did what was best for the American nation at the time. Our deficit to GDP ratio grew more then, than since WWII. I think Reagan was a decent President. I think he mainly did right by the American people and sometimes running a deficit is a necessary. I’m not going to let some selling of weapons to stop the commies and to be used on the US later tarnish his legacy. (It’s a lot like Final Fantasy VII for the PSOne. It hasn’t gotten any better since then. People care more about graphics now than Content. Sometimes you just need to appreciate the classic and know that it’s never going to get better. All they are going to do is tarnish your memories claiming to be the same)
I’ll end with my absolute favorite. Glenn meanders through how he went to college on and off but didn’t have the money for it. You know what he did? Did he ask for hand outs? NO! Did he piss and Moan about how the government should provide for him? According to his story, NO! (it’s his story so I guess he can tell it how he wants) You know what he did. He went to the Library and read, because those “books are free”. He didn’t need the horrible government to provide for him. He went to the library. WTF? Really Glenn? Now up until this point he was laying down some good stuff. Libraries are a shining example of socialism and progressivism. The Cancer of America. And this is where the infamous Glenn Beck learned everything. Most of us went to a Capitalist form of higher education after we left our socialist secondary education system. Not Glenn. He attended Socialism U. I’d like that with a side of hypocrisy and a nice think layer of smoke and mirrors to smother the rest.
Art by Michael “Sudsy” Sutherland, Captain America is owned by Marvel Comics; created by Jack “The King” Kirby
Since when does Marvel Comics do Government Propaganda?! Its one thing to commemorate a real historic occasion with the Inauguration of the first African American President (yet somehow I’m sure they’d have overlooked the first female Vice President if McCain had won the election…) with Spiderman and all the Marvel Crew paying a visit to the White House to meet President Obama.
Its another to decide to move beyond the abstract point of view of being anti-War and into the realm of specifically targeting Americans of a the Conservative/Libertarian/Republic point of view with Captain America, painting them as just a bunch of angry white racists. Never mind that more taxation in this poor economy is adding a burden on the every man’s back; no, Tea Party protesters cannot be the every man, they are just a bunch of stupid white hicks who don’t want to do their patriotic duty and pay more taxes.
Thanks Marvel. I’m pretty sure Jack Kirby is spinning in his grave. I want the good ol’ Cap back, not your brainwashed post assassination version.
I was browsing my regular sites and came across this piece of hard hitting, well researched news. Ok, it is not hard hitting, nor is it researched, at all. Take a look at the video and let us know what you think. Should journalists/reporters be forced to have a license or ethics waiver to not put out such obvious BS? I know that law would cause many a site to shut, and news station to shut down, but really, I do believe it would be worth it.
Bill Watterson changed the world. He was a visionary in many ways. Recently, he sat down to do an interview nearly fifteen years after saying goodbye to the medium that he used to touch people the world over.
Please, take the time to to read the interview of the man who created one of the best known comic strips of all time, Calvin and Hobbes
As you might notice, there is a banner off to the right of the page. It is for the Video Game Voters Network. The VGVN is dedicated to spreading Education of the ESRB and keeping the Government from regulating video games. From their site:
Americans have embraced interactive games played on the Internet, computers, game consoles, cell phones, and PDAs. For over 30 years now, millions of Americans have played computer and video games, and this pastime has become an important part of American culture. Yet, as this entertainment medium grows, it has also become a frequent target of political criticism and legislation.
The Video Game Voters Network is a place for American gamers to organize and defend against threats to video games by registering to vote and letting Congress know how important this issue is to the community. Without a critical mass of adult video game players who are registered to vote and willing to stand firmly behind their games, politicians will continue to fire criticism at games and game players in order to score easy points for their political campaigns.
Video games are fully protected speech under the Constitution, and receive the same First Amendment protection as books, movies, music and cable television programs. The Network opposes efforts to regulate the content of entertainment media, including proposals to criminalize the sale of certain games to minors, or regulate video games differently from movies, music, books, and other media. The Network also enables gamers to stay educated about issues, reach out to federal, state, and local officials, and register to vote. The Video Game Voters Network is a project sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group representing America’s video game publishers.
I would highly suggest you take the time to check out the site. Right not, Politicians like to point ot games as the cause of violence, and how games need to be regulated to keep them out of the hands of children. “Won’t somebody think of the Children” is screamed out across the land. Yes, someone should think of the children, their parents! It’s not up to the Government to determine what games my child plays; it’s my job. Parents need to step up and take responsiblity. Just because your kid asks for a game does not mean you need to buy it. If you don’t know what the game is about, research.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.
