CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

Another fact free column, courtesy of Fox news. (especially that bogus uninsured sleight of hand.)

How do you explain that almost 70% of the bankruptcies in the US are caused by huge medical bills, and almost 70% of them ARE people with health insurance?
And great system we have, which puts the cost burden on our businesses!

And FYI the Reagen tax cuts caused the recession of 1982, the worst year since the Great Depression, with -2.2 percent growth.

People like you who don't understand the past are condemned to repeat themselves.

"Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine... Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.
"That was actually the predominant problem in patients in our study -- 78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services,"..."Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance."
From CNN

Another silly straw man argument. "It [UND], among others things, is supposed to train young Catholics in the principles and beliefs of their religion..."

Where did you get that idea?

From Notre Dame's mission statement: What the University asks of all its scholars and students, however, is not a particular creedal affiliation, but a respect for the objectives of Notre Dame and a willingness to enter into the conversation that gives it life and character. Therefore, the University insists upon academic freedom that makes open discussion and inquiry possible."

Dingbat, yes, let's have the benevolent insurance companies make all the decisions about who and what to cover.

And Mr. Kelly, what a shame we here in the US don't have as the same overall life expectancy and low infant mortality rates as other industrialized countries with better and less expensive heathcare systems. Well, your cancer treatment bills were paid for, so that's all that matters to you.

This is all nonsense: "The moral law that once welded this nation together" ??? Really? Slavery? Treatment of the native Americans? Women? The war on the Philippines? Hiroshima? Vietnam? Iraq? Torture? I guess our moral consensus wasn't very moral.

The real immorality today is not abortion but how the poor and the middle class have been beaten down by the corporate interests running the country.

Also, you're lying about Obama's Illinois Senate vote. Where is the morality in that?

You seem to think abortions started with Roe v Wade. You might try to gain a more historical perspective with a little research.

My thoughts are with Andy's family and friends. I loved Lorne. Thank you, Andy!

There will be no revolution here. Not as long as there is TV to watch!

It's my understanding the old house is coming down. The jpg above is an overlay to show scale.

Wellfleet does have an obligation to protect the Seashore. I don't see how this can happen under zoning regulations based on square footage, distance, etc.
I'd rather vague reference to character and ambiance than specific regulations requiring cedar shingles and "antique" lighting, etc.
Maybe any Seashore property should be reviewed by the Zoning Board.
As for "private property" rights, are you sure that owners in the Seashore have the "right" to demolish and rebuild?

Isn't the problem with the Blasch home the disconnect between Wellfleet's building rules and the Nat'l Seashore's building rules?

At the Town meeting, they changed the zoning of the central district (where Higgin's is.) Previously, restaurants were prohibited (since the 80's) but now they are allowed.
Of course you need to get all the permits and approvals, etc.

It was only an abandonment issue since the zoning was changed to prevent restaurants in the central district.

Now that the town has changed the zoning back to allow restaurants there, any prospective buyer of the Higgin's site can begin the process to open a new restaurant.

At last night's Town Meeting, Wellfleet residents changed the zoning for its commercial district to allow restaurants to open so I hope we will eventually see a new restaurant in the old Captain Higgin's space.
There was much disgust among the residents at the way the Zoning Board handled the Pearl applicants.

How have they been appealing to local retirees? Not by ads in the paper.
I guess they think a "help wanted" sign in the window will bring in folks. lol.

No vote for McCain here, since he's abandoned his principles and is now pro-torture.

Andy I don't understand your logic here.
McCain said: "This isn't about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies."
Why did he support for Bush's latest veto? McCain says he does not want to tie the CIA's hands. But if those hands are torturing prisoners, should they not be tied? Wouldn't such a restriction reflect who we are and what distinguishes us from oour enemies?

What can we do to help these folks open Pearl?

It looks like anti-war candidates Paul and Obama are getting the most campaign contributions from members of the military.
Doesn't prove much but it's a reminder that "the troops" are hardly marching in lockstep behind the Bush/McCain perpetual war agenda.

Goodbye Rudy Tuesday! Having experienced too much of that crazy idiot in NYC, I can only feel that the US escaped a bullet with his defeat.

How was Massachusetts better off?
Under Romney, Massachusetts’ Manufacturing jobs declined At double the national rate, the third worst record in the country.
Under Romney Massachusetts ranked 41st in job growth.
Under Romney, taxes in Massachusetts increased more than $700 Million Per Year.
Under Romney, Massachusetts’ State Business Tax Climate Ranking Fell 11 Spots.
Under Romney, over 200,000 people left Massachusetts -- 3.5 Percent of the State’s population.
Under Romney Massachusetts Unemployment Rate dropped from 5.7% in January 2003 To 5.3% in January 2007, a drop of only 7.02%, well below the National Reduction Of 20.69% At the end Of Romney’s Term, unemployment In Massachusetts (5.3%) was higher than National Unemployment Rate of 4.5%
Under Romney, State Spending Increased by more than $5 Billion (24%) In three Years following Romney’s first Budget, an annual increase of 8%.

I guess the Romney press buss isn't as free with the booze as McCain to get better coverage.
Why focus on the small lies and not the big whoppers like Romney's "bringing (auto) jobs back to Detroit" or McCain's “Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues"?

wavemaker, of course we're having a general discussion, so your final remarks are, in this circumstance, silly.
I'm sorry but sex wasn't invented in the 60's.

My power last time was out until Tuesday (from Sat), so I did suck it up! But I don't have to like it.

What can we do to get rid of NStar? We pay exorbitant rates for power and it goes out several times a year. They are pathetic.

wavemaker, to claim diminishment means that there was a past when things were different. I don't think there was.
As far as self-hating, many people who are "pro-family" to use that term loosely are the ones who have extra marital affairs or are on wife number 3. Not to mention the ones who see gay families as a treat to "marriage." So I might argue the same label applies.
You need see a pol, caught with a prostitute, for instance, turn around and argue that prostitution should be legalized. Instead they beg forgiveness and return to their "family" or Jesus.

We won't get workers here from places with 10% unemployment because there is no affordable housing or cheap transportation.
Until we build a different economy, are we willing to kill one of the only ones we have?

wavemaker, moral degeneracy seems a little strong for the examples you give and I still do not understand why you think it is the responsibility of the government to set the standards in these types of situations. or how they even could.
Not that I don't think our elected officials should have high ethical standards. Any high school student looking at the actions of our government especially in the last 35 years would see that cheating works and provides great rewards.
As for those poor closeted Repubs, sometimes people hate in others the things that they hate most in themselves. They feel that if they could wipe it out "out there" it would diminish their own urges. Works for the religious too.

In PA STATE POLICE v NANCY SUDERS, the SC held, 8-1, that defendants can make a sexual harassment claim against an employer when the environment was so hostile that the defendant was compelled to resign.
The one dissenter against the new standard, who wanted to make it impossible for defendants to make a claim under such circumstances: Clarence Thomas.

There are 2 major faults with this blog posting. The first is the racist slant. There is nothing unusual about being black and smart and successful.
The second is the lack of original thought and the repetition of tired right wing talking points. "to be black is to be democrat"? - tell that to the black baptist preachers. Democrats walk in lock step? They are the most disorganized party ever. "Agenda or justice" - what a ridiculous post. Thomas was nominated for his conservative views; he should be judged on them. Republicans do no different with nominees from Dem presidents.
And what justice? Are you implying that a position on the Supreme Court should just have been given over without question? Next time, try an original thought.

I basically agree with you but I wonder what decreasing the supply of labor will do to the Cape.

Has he written any opinion of merit?
No.
Affirmative action worked for Thomas and now he wants to take it away from everyone else. SHAME on him.

Painters, landscapers and cleaning ladies, as free-lance laborers or in "immigrant" run companies can charge what they want. What about the restaurant workers here on the outer cape? They always look over-worked and underpaid to me. Would replacing them with Americans lead to higher meal charges? Probably. Would more restaurants go out of business? Probably. Would the tourist industry suffer? Probably. Where would it end?
In corporate America, jobs are just shifted overseas.
The H2B visa system doesn't work but I don't think we're close to a solution on these problems.

The GOP debate last night showed the complete poverty of ideas in the current crop of GOP contenders. Tax cuts and spending cuts but ramp up military spending, blah blah...
Do they not realize that (to focus on their base) the entire South (excepting maybe 3 economic centers) is living on Federal "welfare" checks?
Americans want the government to do things: build roads, schools, supply an military, run a police force, put out fires, fix things after a natural disaster, keep the whole damn economy running everywhere, and much more. And to do all that, even the bare minimum, costs money. Lots of money. The South has just been too poor for its local governments to provide all the stuff richer states take for granted. Towns have had to rely on the states, the states have had to rely on the Feds.
Where is the $ going to come from?

Did you see how the illegal FBI wiretaps were cut off after the Feds failed to pay their Telecom bills? This Bush admin is a joke.

wavemaker, I'm not convinced there ever was a time of great character and values. Education, for a few, I agree, was probably better at some point in the past (and certainly valued more.)
I have no idea what you mean by moral degeneracy.

wavemaker, "sort themselves out" would include the government at some point, like the abolition of slavery and the expanding of women's rights, neither of which would have passed a "community standards" test earlier.

I've seen so many CEOs who wouldn't be able to find the bathroom unless their admin people pointed them in the right direction and pulled down their zipper.
And when companies need structural change, the CEO is the last to know. That is why most companies change CEOs so frequently and our major corporations play musical chairs with ever-increasing CEO salaries.

Why does umass think Al Queda is dismantled?
“The release of a new report Tuesday that says Al Qaeda has reorganized to pre-9/11 strength and is preparing for a major US strike has sparked debate among government officials and observers about the Bush administration's foreign policy and counterterrorism efforts. The National Intelligence Estimate assessment indicates that the Islamic terrorist organization's rise has been bolstered by the Iraq war and the failure to counter extremism in Pakistan's tribal areas.” - July, 2007

Self deception and inconsistency in the party’s “beliefs” attract people like this: the disconnect between the desire for a strong military and world dominance with lower (or no) taxes; America as the land of Sodom and America as the shining city on the hill; over-idolization of the military with personal military avoidance and neglect of veterans; pro traditional families with multiple marriages, etc.
I wish we could return to central Repub values like balancing the budget and smaller government and leave all these social issues to work themselves out.

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01

Another Bush lie.

“The release of a new report Tuesday that says Al Qaeda has reorganized to pre-9/11 strength and is preparing for a major US strike has sparked debate among government officials and observers about the Bush administration's foreign policy and counterterrorism efforts. The National Intelligence Estimate assessment indicates that the Islamic terrorist organization's rise has been bolstered by the Iraq war and the failure to counter extremism in Pakistan's tribal areas.” - July, 2007

um ass, you've proved my point. Nothing to see here, keep walking, move along!

"blood for oil"? No, I'm not Paul Wolfowitz, sorry. LOL

I agree. I just don't see what we can do to lower the cost of real estate here and increase the amount of jobs.

LOL, umass, and your house is worth less than ever, the Dow is sinking and unemployment is up. The terrorists are still out there plotting their next attack. You're less "free" than ever and you've lost some constitutional protections. The US has built a secret, extrajudicial, international gulag in which to indefinitely detain prisoners and torture them to extract mostly false confessions. The American Empire keeps growing (and you crazily think there is a difference between Repubs and Dems) and who will pay for it? You. War is expensive. I'm glad you're getting your $50 back in taxes from the Bush tax cuts, so let's leave the deficit for our children. Let's forget (again) that spending equals taxing. Let's hope China doesn't want us to pay back out IOU's. We invade other countries for BUSINESS reasons only; it's been that way since the 19th c. Hey, we’re only bombing brown people, anyway.
But we can still post online and call each other names, so all is fine. Keep walking, nothing to see here.

umassjsp, you do know there is a difference between climate and weather?

I agree that someone like Ron Paul but without the white supremacy issues would be good for the GOP. There can be no future "small government" Republican party without giving up the idea of American exceptionalism and imperialism. The GOP now is the party of Big Business and Big Business wants a big powerful government to give it what it wants, domestically and internationally.
Locally, I don’t see what you people think the GOP has to offer on a local level here in MA. I have yet to hear anything new.

Aaron, the fact that Bush, our MBA President, has run the country into the ground kind of defeats your argument.
I've spent years in the private sector working for various sized companies and I would NEVER give any CEO I've run across a second thought as President. I think your lack of experience in the corporate world makes you romanticize business leaders.

"Conventional Mormonism hasn’t been controversial since it dropped polygamy as an accepted practice (1890)."
LOL. As long as you're white and male!

You're thinking of Asbury Park in the '80's.
Gay folks started buying in and now it's all being developed.

Capemom, which thrift shop are you talking about in Orleans? Thanks.

"I believe I speak for the majority of the Cape Codder's subscribers in saying that waking up to an oversized photo of Peake locking lips with her 56 year-old lesbian lover on the front pages of the paper is, well, naseating. Gross man, GROSS!"
lol. Sexual anxiety on parade!

Aaron, the wikipedia article on Margaret Sanger makes it very clear that the content has not been verified.

Aaron I recommend you read Ellen Chesler's Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America.
The internet is filled with distortions by the rabid, doctor-assassinating, clinic-bombing terrorists (the ironically self-named “pro-lifers") who only wish to keep women in subordinate positions in our society. There is still an effort to distort her goal of giving women control over their bodies. For Sanger, poor mental development (the prevailing “white” attitude towards black people) was largely the result of poverty, overpopulation and the lack of attention to children. Racism was the cause and birth control, not abortion was her answer.

"Eugenicists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her first duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother."

—Margaret Sanger, The Birth Control Review (February 1919)

Ron Paul all the way, of course!

Was Aaron not out by September 21?

You've become a joke. Sad.

Again, with the distortion. Why, Jack, why?
I posted in other comments on this board that I'm a liberal. So? I can't find fault with both the Dems and the Repubs?
Do you always have this much trouble following an argument?

Jack, I had no premise except to point out the weakening of our Constitution and our rights. I have made no partisan claim in the above and earlier blamed both Dems and Repubs and I think less of you for making such an inaccurate statement, distorting my point.
In todays news: "According to the Pentagon, new focus group findings in Iraq have produced some good news: it turns out that Iraqis have a number of "shared beliefs" about their current situation that "cut across sectarian lines."
Great! And what is this good news? "Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation.""

Maverick, I didn't realize Michael Vick was running for President. Are you two close?
Or did I miss a racist slant to your comment?
I thought most pro athletes, with those huge salaries and all, were Republicans.

Torturing dogs is that a Republican thing? Remember that story of Romney going on a long car trip with the family dog in a carrier tied to the roof? It was so scared; its crap was sliding down the roof and rear window.

You're welcome. My advice for you is: if you truly want to be honest and original, then don't repeat the same talking points you hear all the time from everyone else, stop with the Repub/Dem divide (they are the same in essence), stop judging people by appearances and stop with the adolescent name-calling.
But I've always been a liberal business leader, so what do I know?

bittersweet, keep up the good fight! Did you read in the Sunday NY Times:
"A lawsuit was filed in federal court in New Jersey challenging [NSA's] wiretapping operations. It claims that in February 2001...N.S.A. met with AT&T officials to discuss replicating a network center in Bedminster, N.J., to give the agency access to all the global phone and e-mail traffic that ran through it.
The engineer...said in an interview that he participated in numerous discussions with N.S.A. officials about the proposal. The officials, he said, discussed ways to duplicate the Bedminster system in Maryland so the agency "could listen in" with unfettered access to communications that it believed had intelligence value and store them for later review. There was no discussion of limiting the monitoring to international communications, he said.
"At some point," he said, "I started feeling something isn't right.""
Notice the date: February 2001 - - before 9/11.
9/11 changed nothing for these people; it only gave them an excuse.

This is a humanistic view? This is honesty and originality? lol. Calling Edwards a sissy and talking of sissy gay guys and angry morbid lesbians? Gee, never heard that before!
I did like the mention of the "healthy looking athletic college students" - did you mean to say "strapping" or “muscular”?
Good use of the thesaurus there with the "termagants, gourmands and viragos" phrase if a bit repetitive.

Why do you hate America?

Aaron, don't you think you are old enough now to stop judging people by their appearances?
You also need to stop with the childish name calling.

Well I'm glad the surge weakened the insurgency since our invasion created the insurgency in the first place. Quite a roundabout way to get peace there!

You have only shown that these are not extraordinary times.
Institutions have no moral agency. Much of what Lincoln, Wilson, FDR and Bush did was unjustified and wrong.
If I've learned anything in the past few years it is that the intelligence is always cooked to justify whatever actions were already being planned.
This crazy Iraq "war" has only made us weaker and more susceptible to more attacks, losing us international friends and creating more enemies.
For this we're giving away our hard-fought-for freedoms?
Enjoy the snow. Still raining here.

It's clear that the leadership of our country (Repub and Dem)is committed to establishing a secret, extrajudicial, international gulag in which to indefinitely detain prisoners and torture them to extract mostly false confessions. These people are SUSPECTS.

I am a parent and I might throw away my principles to hurt someone who is threatening my family (I'm far from perfect) but I do not want the government to be able to do this as a normal, "business-as-usual" thing.
See the difference?

In case it wasn't clear, I answered No.

"would torturing a terrorist be justified to save the life of your 3-year-old daughter?"
No. In reality (as opposed to these fictional situations) you can never be sure that the terrorist has the info you need to save anyone and also you can never trust the info given under torture.
If we are to win this so-called war we must come out of the situation with our moral compass intact. If we torture we lose...it is that simple.

Jack, keep grasping at straws to avoid seeing how fast our country is in decline.
Yes, I am opposed to torture. And to the moral equivalence argument that the ends justify the means.
If killing Mohammed Atta's 3 year old daughter in front of him would have prevented 9/11, would you say it was unjustified?

I don't think that bittersweet being able to post a comment here refutes any claim about the US becoming totalitarian. Habeus corpus…gone. Government spying on citizens…hello. Torture, come on down!
As for Irag progress, glad to see that ethnic cleansing working out for them.

Just yesterday I saw a person speed out of a parking lot in Eastham onto Rt. 6 with a poodle sitting on their lap.
So stupid.

And Huckabee differs from the Republican party how?
I think they have all gone crazy from holding two incompatible ideas in mind: America as Sodom and America as the shining light, beacon of (Christian) democratic hope in our dark (i.e., IslamoMexican) world.

We're a Christian Democracy? Since when?
Aaron, please stop this silliness.

Don't forget Hitler was raised Roman Catholic!
I'll believe these anti-science Republican boobs are REALLY concerned about stem cells when they close down all the fertility clinics they use too have more of their boob babies.

leedaloo, see
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
from the Climatic Research Unit(UK); no one doubts the planet is warming, the debate is more over the "why" and the "what can we do about it."

Why have conservatives become so anti-science?
There IS a consensus:
the National Academy of Sciences; NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; National Academy of Sciences; Environmental Protection Agency; American Geophysical Union; American Institute of Physics; National Center for Atmospheric Research; American Meteorological Society, and many, many other national and international groups of scientists.

Both Ball and Lindzen have made a lot of money as paid advisors to the oil and coal industries. They are not disinterested scientists and their opinions are not to be trusted.

I don't understand why Aaron doesn't use his blog to clarify and expand on his positions. Or answer questions from the people he wants to vote for him.

Where is the outrage over our troops dying for THE OIL?
Here's is what our President told the doper Rush:
"Give me a second here, Rush, because I want to share something with you. I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East. I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage if they do so; that they will topple modern governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West. People say, "What do you mean by that?" I say, "If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies."

The flubbed Kerry joke is small-time. Where is the outrage over our President saying a vote for Democrats is a vote for the terrorists?
I so glad some of you have your priorities straight.

If this election is all about Cape Cod (or the district) then why are you trying to tear apart the gay families living here?

Sorry, Stop, no love for the Dems here. Just spare me this fake outrage. I mean who is the Commander-in-Chief? I thought it was President “Mission Accomplished."

Oh please. We need to impeach Bush and Cheney for lying to us and getting us into this disaster.
They are the ones who ignore the well-being of our troops, using Americans' admiration for our fighting men and women as a cheap wedge to divide the country. They are the ones who exploit the very danger that they have irresponsibly placed our troops in - to score cheap political points in the week before an election. And then they slash the VA benefits. Bunch of cowards who never served.

All this whining just makes Aaron seem immature.

Aaron, is your idea of campaign reform that candidates would only be able to accept donations from people in their own districts? Sounds kind of loony.

Aaron, your post is ignorant. Skip Childs has no "right to serve" in Truro . It was his inability to defend his signing the petition and to answer the question put to him by a Selectman that lost him his position on the Board of Fire Engineers. He’s concerned that “special interest groups” with “strong lobby” will influence judges? Truro is better off without him.