"One nation under Gawd..."

Rick Sanchez on CNN this afternoon covered this story about the "birthers" taking over a town hall meeting in Delaware. The gist of Sanchez' commentary was to ask what President Obama has to do to show that he is a natural born citizen. The obligatory couplet of partisan strategists were on the show and the Republican guy said that while he the strategist believes Obama was born in Hawaii, Obama still "needs" to prove he is a citizen to all these idiots in the hinterlands by "communicating, because he is such a great communicator (he said smugly), with a press conference, or something."

Watch the video, and I'll comment below.

My question: Why does Obama "need" to do anything more? He's provided his birth certificate, signed and sealed. He has also shown the newspaper from that week announcing his birth. Why does he "need" to do more?

These dunderheads would never vote for him anyway, and they would never sign onto any of his programs, or even try to understand his motivations. In fact, look at the video and see this Representative Castle, who most likely is a rational well-meaning public servant, flail about and finally surrender his meeting to the morons who cheered the flag and jeered the President. Castle must be thinking, Geez, I gotta pander to these muttonheads to keep my job? There's gotta be a better way to serve my community.

This video is one for the ages, folks. It shows all the irrationality of our modern body politic rolled into a few short minutes: we have the "birther" inanity, the flag fetish, the invocation of WW2, the jeering, even the emphasis of 'under Gawd' in the Pledge of Allegiance... hard to believe we're 400 years out from the Age of Enlightenment; it's like a scene from the Auto-de fe.

Also, in the video, watch the panel of folks look back at Representative Castle once the lady gets going. The look of bewilderment, like, what the hell are we going to do here? Also remarkable, in addition to the shaking emotion of the lady crying "I want my country back", are the loud cheers of approval from her fellow citizens. The hatred is palpable.

Scary stuff. I give Obama a lot of credit for his committment, even if I may have differences of opinion on certain policies. These people are nuts. I'm sure I couldn't be their president, I'm sure I couldn't do it.

Furthermore, I would think the onus is on the GOP to educate their own electorate. This has all the makings of a slow-motion train wreck with 10 or 15% of their voters going off the reservation in the next election cycle: Maybe start a 3rd Party with Sarah Palin as the candidate, and drain off any hope for a Republican win. I doubt Obama or the Democrats want to go to any length to stop this process.

When your opponent is running off the cliff, the smartest thing you can do is get out of the way.

There's more video and discussion at Think Progress.

Barack Obama on Single Payer

The shame is that we have a president who understands the need for a basic health care plan for all, but has settled for the completely disjointed morass that is coming out of the sausage maker in Washington. While health care reform is necessary, passing an inferior bill would be the only thing worse than doing nothing.

Sure, political considerations will always take precedence, but the current bill, in all it's thousand page glory, does not achieve the goals as outlined by President Obama: 1) universal care, 2) paid for within the budget, 3) containing quality standards. None of these three goals are met in the current bill.

Which plan could fit all these criteria? Answer: Medicare for all. This is a program that has been around for two generations with a bureaucracy already in place which has high standards that have been tested and revised, and can be implemented over the entire population fairly easily... certainly more easily than a brand new 'system' made from the existing mish-mash of private insurers with all the various models.

Peter Singer on Rationing Health Care

The third rail of any health care debate is the topic of rationing. The fact is that health care is rationed every day by consumers, doctors and payers. The buzzwords in medicine are 'best practices' and 'evidence-based' to determine the optimal interventions. When do you order a head CT for someone with headaches? When is hysterectomy warranted for dysfunctional bleeding? These are decisions made every day and while any individual decision is hardly going to break the bank, the total allocation of the health cae budget, not to mention risk to the patient, for any intervention muat be weighed against the potential benefit.

Peter Singer has an excellent discussion in the New York Times on rationing health care. He notes that at present health care is rationed, but now it is not necessarily based on any applicable standard, only the whim of a particular insurance payer. Standards on such things exist and he elucidates the mechanism very well.

We all relish the thought that WE can decide what is the best practice: what is best for us in a particular situation. WE want to be the captain of our ship. Granted, nobody enjoys abiding by the dictates of a large bureaucracy, but the goal of a health care "system" is to provide the optimal care for the greatest number of people, and the problem in the US is that we lack a "system" and health care is too often doled out by whim. In every publicly administered health system-- Britain, Canada, Australia, France, etc.-- there exists a provision for individuals to purchase additional insurance and care as they desire. The United States would be no different, but provision of tha basic health care is necessary.

The employer-based health care model is flawed

My response to commenter Mike: Health care becomes an issue of national security and interstate commerce when it has such far-reaching consequences for businesses and the well-being of our workforce, thus it comes under the purview of the federal government. This may be a stretch, but it's the opinion of economists from the frugal Pete Peterson to advocates of single-payer.

The Safeway stores' employee plan, as outlined in one of your references, has merit and should be pursued. No question. The health insurance market in the US will always be a mix of public and private plans and the more efficient will win out... We need to pursue innovation, that's how markets work, and that is why my initial post had the wording single-payer "option" that covers all. There is a baseline level of care that has been accepted as necessary, a de facto right, and this needs to be covered financially somehow or we need to express unequivocally that health care in NOT a right. If you seriously believe that uninsured and underinsured should be left to die (and that is a valid philosophical stance), then your gripe is not with the proponents of single-payer, rather you should be advocating for the rights of hospitals and doctors not to participate in the care of the uninsured. As it stands now, acute care hospitals are required to accept all patients according to EMTALA statutes regardless of their ability to pay, and hospitals in turn require physicians to take emergency call for these patients in order to maintain privileges. Seriously, fight for the rights of the indentured hospitals and physicians! This would definitely lower health care costs dramatically since the uninsured will no longer be a burden to us all.

Opponents of big government health care, such as Rep. Ron Paul, have long held that the implementation of Medicare was flawed from the beginning, and that may be a valid opinion, but we cannot turn back the clock 40 years. My opinion is that Medicare served a severe need at the time it was introduced and has covered people who were unable to get insurance coverage otherwise. Non-union retirees and the disabled were essentially left without any options for private insurance and thus the need for Medicare was born. Opinions of hard-liners such as yourself, Mike, and Rep Paul, should be respected, but realize that Medicare has filled a dire need, done it reasonably well, and could have a place in an expanded role. You may never be convinced and I'll listen to any alternatives you can present*.

My question is why a grocery store like Safeway would even want to be in the business of providing health insurance at all, but if they are concerned with their employees' health, then more power to them and they should be able to continue their plan. Another question is what happens when a Safeway employee gets sick enough to lose his/her job? Does his entire family go without insurance, or would they then be thrust onto the public dole? Finally, if the Safeway plan is so efficient and beneficial, then what is stopping all employers from going to this model now? Mr Burd, the CEO, should not be going to Capitol Hill, but rather the Better Business Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce. We have been living in an environment of free market employer-based private health insurance, now covering 180 million of us, for a couple generations and have only seen costs rise exponentially. Why is that? Furthermore, the current employer-based insurance model drastically limits the mobility of the workforce, which leads to decreased productivity and a stifling of the labor market.

You said previously that Medicare does not "add value." I never said it did; and I would add neither does private insurance. For the most part these entities are benefit administrators-- they collect premiums and send out (or deny) reimbursement checks-- using actuarial data. Incentives to withhold coverage are rampant and care should be dictated by health professionals and standardized evidenced-based data in either model. The corporate executives are very well paid for doing nothing more than collecting premiums and writing reimbursement checks, which is a rather utilitarian function.

You said you worked in a large unwieldy government bureaucracy which has obviously affected your opinion. Have you ever sat in on a private insurance company board meeting? There are just as many cases where private insurance has chosen not to cover life-saving treatments due to cost considerations. The recourse in such a situation is just as dire as when Medicare does it. I'm not saying the profit motive is evil, only that it is no better than the alternative.

My opinion is that there is no way the average Joe or Jane can really know the efficacy of various treatments and screening tests-- heck most physicians are confused once they stray away from their specific specialty-- and the standards need to be more uniform. Pap smears yearly and per a protocol; High blood pressure medicine under a certain protocol based on evidence; Heart transplants when the ejection fraction goes below a certain percentage, etc.

I'm all for websites for cost comparison, but I'm suspicious on where this leads: "Come down to Crazy Lenny's for your colonoscopy! We can't be undersold!" Maybe that has merit, just don't say you weren't warned. The classic example nowadays is "robotic surgery" for prostatectomy and hysterectomy. I know of no reputable non-proprietary study that shows significantly improved results, yet we are inundated with patient requests for "robotic surgery" due presumably to an active marketing campaign by the manufacturer of the robot. The CNN story shows a guy riding a bike who says he wanted this type of surgery, which costs more than double the standard surgery, because he wanted to ride his bike a couple weeks earlier! Now, maybe two weeks of bike riding is worth $10,000, but we should at least pause and stop wondering why health care costs are rising so dramatically. Note the quote by the urologist at the University of Kansas: no evidence that robotic surgery is better. I guess the Intuitive Surgical, Inc. marketing representative hasn't taken him out to dinner yet!

The same goes for a plethora of other screenings and treatments from vaginal mesh to coated cardiac stents to herbal supplements to erectile dysfunction pills, which become popularized, not so much by evidence-based data, but by marketing. And consider pharmaceutical advertising on the evening news: by my recent count the percentage was over 70% of the ads are for drugs. What do you think the odds are that Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson will present a negative story about the pharmaceutical industry? Bought and paid for, my friend. Sure this happens with government lobbying too, but let's not be naive in either camp.

I take this debate seriously. It has been brewing since 1992 when Hillary Clinton was first tasked with the implementation of health care reform. I was a medical resident at the time and I remember having discussions then about the perceived need for such reform. Other thoughtful people were opposed and said emphatically that the failure of Hillarycare was a good thing and that costs would come down by free market mechanisms. Now we are 16 years on and the costs have gone parabolic-- and perhaps they would be even higher had the Clinton proposal passed, but I doubt it, and it's long overdue to try something different.

If someone asked me, and nobody has, I would vote emphatically for a single-payer option for acute care and screening. People would have the option of purchasing further coverage if desired, and employers could certainly offer additional benefits, but a basic care plan needs to be in place for everyone. Our economic survival requires it.

*The WSJ cites the GOP Health Care Alternative, and I admit this has merit. However, it keeps intact the employer-based model and has other flaws that I can point out in a longer post.

Everyday haiku

Dog and Fly

He caught it

and spit it out, crippled and wet.

I killed it.

Medicare, consumption taxes and serfdom...

Hey, I got a comment on a recent post, and since I don't get that many I'll elevate this to it's own post.... even if it's probably just some guy taking a personal swipe at me. My reply follows below.

Mike Szymanski said...

You wrote: "...Medicare program, the lowest cost/ highest quality program in the country..."

Not sure what you are smoking but I sure would like some. Obviously, that massive hit of hopium is still coursing through your system. Please take an economics course and another concerning the Constitution. You will learn that the federal government adds no value to our economy and that it obtains its financing by confiscating private property from the productive members of society. It's a zero sum game. Less resources for the productive side of the economy means a lower standard of living for all. FDR's New Deal set in motion a trampling of the 10th Amendment. We are fast heading down the road to serfdom. Half the people in the country pay no income tax and will certainly vote for anyone promising more "free" goodies. If this half becomes a majority how do you propose the large and bloated federal government finance its ever increasing handouts? Economic illiteracy is as dangerous as ignoring history.

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." Abraham Lincoln

12:21 PM

Tony said...

Mike, Thank you for the personal insult! My self-esteem has been getting a little ahead of itself lately. As for "what I'm smoking", if you must know, it's currently Santa Damiana #600, a mild Honduran blended cigar, rolled between the thighs of virgins (presumably), and finished with a dark Cameroon wrapper. (JR Cigar, $89 per box of 25). Highly recommended.

As for health care, I'm puzzled at your apparent disgust and at first had you pegged as simply a "no-tax" nutjub, but after closer reading, I'll correct my first impression and give you the benefit of the doubt.

I fully understand your angst over a few people paying the lion's share of the taxes while the free-loaders all benefit. Trust me, I pay ALOT of income tax, so I feel you pain, which is the reason that I included the paragraph about health care being paid with a value-added CONSUMPTION tax. Liberal do-gooders typically hate consumption taxes because they are regressive (ie, everyone pays them), so this is the seminal issue of the post.

As for debating whether we should have Medicare-for-all or some conglomeration of private plans, that is really of minimal consequence. The fact is that Medicare is very efficient, as health insurance goes, and comparing private plans versus Medicare is impossible since the demographics, the economies of scale and collection systems are all vastly different.

A large plan like Medicare has inherent benefits such as the huge risk pool, the huge data base that can be studied and, as mentioned above, the economies of scale for cost-cutting. Likewise, Medicare has inherent liabilities, but I would argue that they are fewer. I realize that some folks such as yourself will eschew anything "gov't run", but I would add that Medicare is not really "gov't run", but more gov't financed. As a physician, I can tell you that private payers, for the most part, are at least as intrusive as Medicare in the medical decision- making process.

One other thing about Constitutional rights and your comment about serfdom: health care is a de facto right in this nation whether you like it or not, so we should find a way for everyone to have the means to pay for it. Currently, physicians and hospitals are required to accept all emergency patients without regard for their ability to pay (your A. Lincoln quote is quite appropriate), and emergency patients always could have been managed much more cost-effectively if they had been seen earlier... and the number one reason the uninsured go to the emergency room? Lack of insurance.

1:11 PM

Neil Armstrong's Small Step

"Apollo 40th anniversary: I spent most of my childhood puzzling over difference between "man" and "mankind" (one small step for...). I understand now that he dropped the "a." [before 'man'] but it sure confused me as a kid." -- Tom Tomorrow

Yeah, it's sublime how we can be confused for four decades over something that is so much a part of our childhood and our popular culture, something that goes unexplained for so long and we are expected to marvel at it with an almost religious awe when it makes no real sense, and then someone finally explains that it's been mistaken and incomplete all this time... and now I wonder why I was expected to be so amazed at the misquote (or at least the incomplete quote) for so many years.

Kinda reminds me of the accepted iterations of biblical literalism, religious dogma and religion in general: like how much of that stuff has an "a" left out? But that's a much longer discussion.

The Republican Museum Exhibit: featuring Judge Sotomayor

If you are watching the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, I strongly recommend following along with Glenn Greenwald on Twitter. As a constitutional law attorney and august civil libertarian, he adds essential real-time insight. (h/t Eric for the cartoon.)

The obvious item of note is the incessant deconstruction of Judge Sotomayor's 8-year-old speech invoking the now infamous "wise Latina" comment. The white, predominantly Southern, GOP Senators have taken this opportunity to (ironically) harangue us all on the evils of racism and preferance. Greenwald commented at one point that these hearings are like watching a museum exhibit-- and I would have to agree.

This is history being made, indeed, and at some future point we will be able to tell our grandchildren and grand-nieces and nephews that we actually saw Sen. Jeff Sessions (R- circa 1830) lecture someone on --anything let alone-- racism.

My only comment on Judge Sotomayor's speech is that it really should be read in full to get the full context. What she really is saying is the exact opposite of what the Republican senators are implying: Sotomayor is actually saying that we all bring our own prejudices to whatever we are asked to judge everyday, and we need to recognize that fact. One small excerpt:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Never mind that her nearly 400 decisions from the federal bench are being ignored. Never mind that she agreed with her conservative Republican colleagues over 95% of the time. Never mind that her academic and professional career is deeper and wider than anyone else on the Supreme Court. Fox talking heads will continue to dissemble her 8-year-old speech and confound the facts of her record for apparently purely partisan reasons.

I can understand guys like Jeff Sessions and John Kyl and Zach Wamp going after Sotomayor for no other reason than their constituencies eat this stuff up like lions on fresh zebra. They love the sturm and drang of the theme that "brown people are taking over our country" (after we took it from the red-man fair and square.) But I don't understand Fox' strategy. Let's face it, this racism stuff is pretty long in the tooth and the demographic is dying off fairly rapidly, either by old age or firearm accidents, so why perpetuate the theme? We have a unique opportunity as a nation and a culture to come together to rejoice in our diversity, a culture that has allowed all people to contribute. Prejudice is far from dead, but we could now put a withering hit on it.

Fox "pundits" continue to state that Judge Sotomayor has had "more decisions overturned by the Supreme Court than anyone else, up to 80%!". The horror! The incompetence! Well, the fact is that Judge Sotomayor has been involved in more decisions than anyone else by mere fact of her lengthy career on the bench, and the number of overturned decisions is exactly in line with other judges on a percentage basis. The Supreme Court only chooses to hear controversial cases and as such they are usually making a statement that a certain precedent needs to be changed, so they often overturn lower court decisions. Many famous cases-- Brown v. Board overturned part of Plessy v. Ferguson, Planned Parenthood v. Casey revised Roe v. Wade, and others-- do this. This does not mean the lower court was "wrong" or that it misjudged the case, in fact the lower court is obligated to follow precedent.

Ricci follows this theme. Affirmative action has brought about considerable impact on American society over the past generation and the goal of evening the playing field has had unintended consequences of inadvertently making some winners into losers. The fact is that admissions into law school or promotions into certain jobs are a zero-sum game: for every individual given the slot, another individual is denied. Affirmative action was never intended to be a permanent policy, and every hope was that such preference based on race or ethnicity would be unnecessary at some point.

The precedent, as it stood before Ricci, needed to be respected and Judge Sotomayor did just that. Now the Supreme Court has overturned Ricci, and I would think that if Judge Sotomayor were to rule on a case similar to Ricci, her decision would be different. That's how the system works.

The reality is that Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed, the world will turn one more time, and racism will, thankfully, be dealt another blow. But in the meantime, watch the hearings because the videos will someday be in the Smithsonian along side McCarthy's tantrums and Nixon's race baiting Southern Strategy.

Is Health care a "privilege"?

According to Sen Deputy Dawg it is...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So I suppose we'll just let people die in the Emergency Room if their credit card bounces. Newsflash: the world don't work that way, Ass-hat. Sure, half choose not to have insurance, but doctors are still required to treat all of them... so get them insurance: NOW.

Obama's Health Care Mess

Obama has promised to make health care universal, to pay for it with current revenues, to improve or maintain quality and to reduce the cost of health care in the US as a percentage of GDP.

These are quite desirable goals and certainly much more than the GOP had ever approached in their tenure, which was marked by costly warmongering and deregulation. While it is commendable that the loyal opposition voice their opinions, I find it difficult to believe that their goals are to fulfill the priorities of the average Joe and Jane.

The Wall Street Journal uses a similar title for their recent editorial, but the issues thay have with the Democratic health care fix are 180 degrees off. They oppose Obama by comparing the current proposal to the Massachusetts plan and they go out of their way to show the failings. First and foremost, health care insurance is not automatic and many people choose to open policies only when they are sick and then cancel them once their health is restored becauase the penalties for non-coverage are too small. Other problems are outlined as well.

The fact is that Obama's and the Democrats' proposals are terrible and the GOP is correct that none of the initial goals will be met. The failing of Massachusetts do not support eschewing reform, however... rather it underlines this fact: the only solution is a single payer Medicare-for-all option and anything less will not satisfy the goals as verbalized.

To wit, Obama's plan does not require coverage, so the risk pool will be too small. Obama's plan burdens employers, so the incentive would be to refrain from hiring employees. Obama's plan has no provision for cost containment or quality enhancement. The faults outlined by the GOP and the WSJ only show that Obama has not gone far enough in his proposal.

The Democrats are trying too hard to appease the Republicans and their small-government ideology. The fact is that the only way to reduce costs and cover everyone is to meld everyone into the Medicare program, the lowest cost/ highest quality program in the country, whcih is especially impressive considering it manages the highest risk and sickest patients. Quality and costs can be controlled in such an environment, as they are now. By increasing the risk pool, Medicare would become immediately solvent. People would still have the option of purchasing a private policy, as they do now with Medicare, but at least everyone would have basic coverage.

Paying for the system with a value-added or consumption tax seems the most rational approach, thereby releasing employers from the burden. My employer doesn't pay for my auto or homeowners insurance, so why should they pay for my health insurance?

The political realities that the Democrats much face are daunting, but with such massive control of the Congress and the public's overwhelming support for reform, this is the time for single payer to be passed and, as the WSJ has shown, anything less is foolish.

Resolved: Goldman Sachs "Caused" the Economic Crisis

Argument for the Affirmative: Matt Taibbi

Argument for the Negative: Megan McArdle

Support for the Affirmative #1: Glenn Greenwald

Support for the Negative: Joel Weisenthal

Support for the Affirmative #2: Barry Ritholtz

Versions of this debate will go on for the rest of our lives, and I'm not sure which side I favor at this point.

GOP unraveling over Palin article

When the Vanity Fair article debauching (yet again) Sarah Palin was publicized I was not at all interested. The reports were that the author, while highly regarded, relied on "unnamed" officials form the McCain-Palin camp to put forth a bunch of meaningless gossip about how Sarah Palin ruined McCain's chances of becoming president.

My opinion about John McCain was made long before Sarah Palin came on the scene, and her politics are so far afield from what is needed in the world today that any furhter re-hash of last fall's nightmare would be pointless. Besides, such tabloid journalism is likely only to give Palin's followers more material to support her martyrdom.

But an interesting thing is happening. Two of the three wings of the Republican party are lashing out at each other over the alleged sources from the Vanity Fair piece with finger-pointing and name calling, even to the point of mentioning Dan Quayle! McCain campaign chairman Steve Schmidt is taking offense at comments made by warmonger Bill Kristol about the piece. Listen, when Dan Quayle's name is ever uttered by a fellow Republican, it cannot be good for the party. Cue Keyboard Cat.

I'm not going to venture into worry-troll mode about what's good or bad for the Republican party, but's let's just say this is starting to get interesting.

Michigan's new growth industry

Gov. Granholm to the Governator: Maybe we can't make cars, but we sure can keep folks in prison.

Well, maybe not.

Billy Mays had heart disease?

The only reason I question this conclusion from the medical examiner is that he had been scheduled for an elective hip surgery on the Monday (yesterday) after he died. A 50 year-old man would routinely get an EKG during any preoperative evaluation and I would think that severe heart disease would have shown up. Perhaps not.

Regardless, it is a sad event.

Carlos brings the crazy

Maybe non-Chicagoans wonder why the Cubs-Sox series is such a necessary event, especially with both teams languishing under .500, several games out of first place; watching either team is not unlike seeing a chipmunk struggle against the current during a downpour. Cruelty is hardly ever entertaining....

... except when the Cubs come to the Cell.

When the Cubs lose, they never do it with dignity, and goddam if that isn't funny. Barrett punches Pierzynski instead of tagging him out. The Cubs blame their fans when they lose. And in game 1 at the cell we had Milton Bradley getting kicked out of -- not the game-- but the dugout, by his own manager!

Even with all this comedy, occasionally a ballgame breaks out. How can a Sox fan resist watching this train wreck year after year? This year we had Bradley, sure, but you knew that wasn't the apex of the asininity... no, for that we needed to wait til Sunday: for Captain Carl, the King of Crazy, whose body of work speaks for itself.

With the bases loaded and the game on the line Sunday, the Cubs picked up a steal sign and Zambrano pitched out to the catcher, Geovany Soto. But the errant throw went too far outside with the ball traveling all the way to the back stop, and Getz scored for the Sox.

Instead of mitigating his error, Zambrano compounds it by deliberately hitting the next batter, Dewayne Wise, out of frustration. Cue Keyboard cat. Needless to say, the Cubs unraveled and their only threat was later squelched by the cool defense of the Sox. John Danks appropriately plunked a Cub in the next inning, and the Sox went on to win the game and the series, with their pride intact. Even I have some empathy for Lou, who apparently needs babysitting skills in addition to baseball skills.

I wonder if being a Sox fan would be as much fun if we didn't have the Flubbies 8 miles away for contrast.

BIlly Mays' final pitch [UPDATE]

I can almost hear it...

"Billy Mays here for the CT scan! If you hit your head and it keeps on achin', get a CT scan! Mental status changes are no problem for the CT scan. It scans, it pans, it looks in your melon. Focal neurologic deficits? Lethargy? Check out your noggin after the floggin'... suitcases, hammer punches, baseballs... don't take a chance, just ask to be radiated. Look for midline deviation, hematomas and tumors...with the CT scan. Take it from me, Billy Mays!"

Sad, really, because this was likely a treatable cause of death in a young man.

At left, a subdural hematoma.

UPDATE June 30th:

Billy Mays had heart disease?

Cub fan: Priceless

1. One bleacher seat purchased on Stubhub: $60

2. Ryne Sandberg Cubs' jersey: $45 (1984 dollars)

3. Regis Salon hair gel: $18 for 6 oz. tube

4. Two beers: $15

5. Getting your nuts cracked by a Chicago cop moonlighting as Wrigley security in front of 33,000 Cubs faithful: Priceless

Baseball Weekend: Sox host Cubs

Yup, the White Sox - Cubs interleague weekend never disappoints. So, in honor of the event, I'll give a few links to drink by:

1. Green shoots in Soxdom. Jared Mitchell, the Sox' #1 draft pick this year, was voted Outstanding Player as he led his LSU Tigers over the the Texas Longhorns in the College World Series.

2. After they stop serving beer in the 7th inning, just ask Cubs catcher Geovany Soto for a hook-up: man's prolly got some wicked weed...

3. ...which might also explain Lou Piniella's more mellow demeanor...

4. Ex-White sox player Steve Lyons brings the stupid as Dodgers' broadcaster. (I heard this interchange live during the game and sat slack-jawed.)

5. Ozzie Guillen: "Ramirez not as good as me." True dat. Is the manager eligible for the 25-man roster?

6. Just being a Cub isn't enough of a disgrace? No, I guess not #1. No, I guess not #2.

7. Alright, some gratuitous "Cubs suck" stuff.

Public option in health care

Robert Reich answers the critics of the public option:

Read it here.

White Sox need Quality at-bats

Last night was yet another crappy display of offense by the White Sox, yet another night where some second-rate opposing pitcher gets nine strikeouts and looks like Cy Young.

I realize that the Sox are a young team and some guys are just plain struggling to get their bearings in the big leagues, but Brian Anderson is a disppointment. If he cannot hit big league pitching, then he needs to change something: his stance or approach, or something. He needs to concentrate on making contact, and maybe a bunt now and then can get him on base, especially with his speed. The same goes for Getz and Beckham; small ball could get some baserunners. Last night, we had only two baserunners (one was Konerko's home run) before the ninth inning and not one bunt attempt. Anderson stood there with his bat on his shoulder looking at strike three like he didn't even see the pitch.

Jim Thome is a tool. He is just there to hit as many home runs as he can before he's inducted into the Hall of Fame-- even when just a baserunner is needed for the team. Last night, he's up with a man on and the Sox are down three runs with Konerko, who had already hit a dinger earlier, on-deck. So what does Thome do? Instead of spraying one to left field --which is left uncovered-- to get on base, he swings for the fence... and strikes out. Tool. Heck, Mark Buerhle would make a better DH.

It's not just the outs, it's the quality of at-bats. Koruda, the Dodgers starter, had not had a win since opening day and last night he looked like he was ready for the All-Star game. The Sox had very few quality at-bats, swinging at crap and looking at strike three. If something is close, foul it off!

The fact that the White Sox are still in the hunt for the division is pure luck for being in the worst division in baseball. This is not a good team. Their pitching and fielding are mediocre (although the rookie Beckham is a pleasant addition and Anderson, as dismal as he is at the plate, is an excellent center fielder.)

My recommendation would be to unload all the dead weight before the trade deadline and concentrate on getting a younger team for the future. Maybe someone would want Thome, a National League team who might need a designated hitter for the World Series, or an American League team with a righty DH who could be platooned. Dye, as much as I like him, is a free agent at the end of the year, 35 years-old and still valuable for a trade. Contreras could help someone in a pennant race, even if it's from the bullpen. Play Anderson every day for the rest of the season and if he can't hit over .270, trade him in the off-season; keep Podsednik in right field after Dyes's gone and move him to center for next year.

I'll keep watching, but games like last night make my brain hurt.