In August of 1980, I was in LA on a business trip. My hotel provided free copies of The LA Times. On the day I left for home, the paper had a frontpage article with the headline USG changes the way inflation is measured. What followed was a very good article that discussed the new inflation figures just released. Why they couldn't be compared with the previous month because the government had changed how they calculated it, what they had changed, why they had changed it, and what the effect was likely to be on the value assigned to inflation. I came away with a good factual understanding of what had happened.

I got home and picked up my copy of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Banner headlines - across the entire frontpage (the LA Times story was only one column wide) - Inflation Down. What followed was: Jimmy Carter's economic policies beginning to work, isn't he better than pizza and canned beer, vote for Carter in November. I thought back to the informative LA Times article and looked at this one which was devoid of all facts except for the accurate reporting of the new inflation figures and I thought, "Surely, they have this information somewhere.". So I went to the continued on page 99Z. After several tries, I found the rest of the article on page 99Z. There, on a page otherwise given over entirely to advertisements, was a small, one column wide sentence that basically said, Uh, oh, by the way, they changed the way they calculate inflation.

Worthless as tits on a boar hog.

I don't have a problem with opinions - they're like assholes - everybody's got one but where can you find a news service that provides facts instead of opinions masquerading as fact? My answer is: not in the MSM. The on-line community provides plenty of opinion but at least you also typically (but not always) get the facts behind the opinion. By reading enough of them, you can typically get a pretty good picture.

So when is someone in the MSM going to challenge the opinion as news peddlers?

The Republicans are notorious hypocrites. Not only have you and others documented the serial hypocrisies but anyone with two brains to rub together can read the newspaper and see the hypocrisies right there in front of God and the gang.

Will someone who gets listened to kindly stand up and tell people that anyone who doesn't realize that 9/11 was a direct result of years of meddling in the Middle East is so myopic as to be legally blind? Ascribing Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 to divine retribution shows the same type of mentality that caused people to ascribe the black death to divine retribution back in 1349 (obviously no progress in religious mentality in the last 750 years). It was, in fact, caused by a much more prosaic source - yersina pestis. As any kid can tell you, making a pest out of yourself can result in your getting popped one by the kid you're annoying.

What scares me is that, just as a doctor who misdiagnoses his patient will be unable to cure him, misdiagnosing the reason for 9/11 will render us unable to avoid another 9/11. Indeed, it may make it worse, as we have seen.

In your article, you, like all the media types, talk about "national health care plan". As far as I can tell, no one is proposing any such a thing. They are proposing a national health insurance plan which isn't the same thing at all.

If something useful, like a national health care plan were being proposed, you'd see government funded clinics popping up all over where you could go for medical attention and your entree to these locations would be a paid income tax receipt. But no, they will want you to purchase insurance (weather or not you can afford it if Three Names has her way), then you will doubtless have to endure all the bullshit associated with private health insurance and be faced with exclusions, deductibles, and co-pays. All this paperwork and crap is expensive, by the way, and guess who ultimately pays for it. I'm old enough to remember doctor's offices as the doctor and a nurse who doubled as receptionist. Now that office will have one to three admin types who do nothing but handle the paperwork. That does wonders for your overhead.

And, if you rail against big Pharma, just wait 'till you get to big insurance (hint: if you think the government is going to run this insurance program, you're a fool).

(sung to "The Halls of Montezuma")

When someone makes a move

of which we disapprove.

Who is it that always intervenes?

UN and OAS

they have their place, I guess.

But when in doubt

Send the Marines!

We'll send them all we've got

John Wayne and Randolph Scott.

Remember those exciting fighting scenes?

So from the shores of Tripoli

but not to Mississopli

whaddwe do?

We send the Marines.

'Cause might makes right

until they've seen the light

They must be protected

all their rights respected

until somebody we like

can be elected.

and so on....

--Tom Lerher, 1965

It has been going on for a while, Glenn.