If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

In almost every domain of life, countless examples histories of "good" and "cheap" have been written. But we can too often say of some politicians as well as wanna be leaders in just about any other endeavor, what they don't know would fill lots of books. The problem is not that the books have not been written but that too many of them are too stupid to read said books. Not many program agencies, businesses, or for that matter individuals, are operating at the best intersection of good and cheap and too many most often seek cheap as the way to success. The invariant rule for success is go for good and cheap will follow. A present example of what happens when that rule is ignored is Sprint when it tried to cost cut it's way to profits. Now Sprint-Nextel is going down the drain after losing $29.5 billion. Cheap always loses. Keep that in mind when you are tempted to vote for politicians who want to cut your taxes, cut the public programs or scale them back to provide the simplest forms of basics and claim that cutting costs are essential to things like good health care and education. Those are the easy roads to ruin and in domains of common interests, the unfettered free market system almost never operates at the best level of good.

The Rapture Guy On Whales

This is just too funny! I mean it is so stupid I can't stop laughing. More>>>

About Dumbth

Susan Jacoby asks, "If this is to be a “change election,” how about changing America’s destructive drift into anti-rationalism and pig ignorance?"... more»

Ben Stein's "Expelled" is just scum.

His latest press conference to promote his movie is perfect at showing the kind of people he and the liars for Jesus are. Holding a press conference and having your own people ask the questions is typical of that bunch. More>>

Obama

The Democrats have the best problem ever. They have two great candidates running for president either of which will crush the GOP in the election this year. The GOP is trying to figure out who to sacrifice because they know they are done. I think Obama has more on the ball with the best chance of getting the nod from the Dems at the convention as well as an overwhelming victory in November.

I've got just one complaint and it is with both Hillary and Obama, they are not strong enough on health care. So I sent them a piece of my thoughts on the subject via their web sites. Obama has a great site and it is easy to send along your ideas there. So this is what I sent.

The benefits to the people of this nation of good health would be dramatic in every area of our lives. There is no denying that good health and health care are of the highest common interest of any issue facing the American people. But the systems we have are far too costly, fragmented by marketeers and unresponsive to the needs of families and our country. We need to change everything about health care in this country. We must eliminate the word "insurance" from the conversation. We must commit to being the healthiest nation. We must join together and take care of ourselves. The premiums we are paying now for health care are too high. Those premiums pay for only the services that profit insurance companies. We must end our failed dependence on an industry that must make huge profits for it's investors and place the interests of the good health of our people first and foremost. We eliminate the divisions in the health services industries and provide the best care possible from tooth to toe. Dental care is just as important as coronary care. Vision care should be as important in the health care system of the future as the prevention of cancer.

We must build a system on the expertise of the best medical knowledge and technology that can be had. A system that covers every person in this country and every American citizen where ever they are on this planet. The providers of the medical services must know that they will receive fair pay for their service and medications and we must hold them accountable to high standards of practice and ethics. We must pay them direct instead of sending the money through companies that exist only to skim profits off the top. Our new system must be not for profit on the payer side while preserving fair payment to health providers.

We must commit to doing it ourselves, for the profit and future of every American so that we can do our best in every thing we do and every where we go.

We must therefore expect a higher level of courage than ever before from our leaders and our representative as well as ourselves. I hope you are that leader.

Losing Sleep

One of the local major television channels bills itself as family friendly and repeats it's "family first" meme over and over. But, they really talk more in economic terms. Dallas is really more interested in dollars than people. One topic on the news at that channel a couple of days ago was about how impaired folks are when they lose sleep. To make their point, the story went that losing sleep has the same effect on us as booze. Someone who has skipped sleep for one night has the same mental dysfunction as if they were legally drunk. But instead of talking about the devastating affects that has on family life and mood, the news folk focused on how much money it is costing businesses. They said stuff like, "Companies would never allow their employees to handle multi million dollar deals drunk." They said employees run the risk of loosing jobs or even getting into car crashes on the way to work if they don't get enough sleep. Where are the family first concerns this station is always talking about?

Just like drinking, sleep deprivation can destroy families and your circle of friends. Just like drunks, the sleep deprived first deny they are impaired and the rest follows. Just like boozin, the sleep deprived have social problems that screw up everything from their diet to their friendships. So those of us who get a lot of sleep need to start working on the problem if we are to help. I guess I'll start me a chapter of InsomAnon and charge everybody who signs up about a hunnert per session and slip them some knock out drops to help them find their higher snooze.

Or maybe I'll just take a nap while you start by reading this>> and this>>

Fickle GOP Base Jumping Ship

We don't want them on our side but the religious base, knowing the GOP/Bush empire will be crushed in November, are now trying to make nice with the other side.

"We are no longer single-issue voters, number one, and we're not going to blindly follow prominent leaders in the Religious Right or otherwise who are telling us what we have to believe."

--Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, calling for an end to the religious and political polarization in American politics.

Even John Grisham is now distancing himself from religion in politics.

“As a church, our mission is to serve God through teaching, preaching and serving others. When the church gets involved in politics, it alienates many of the very people we are called to serve, and those who push politics will pay a price.”

--Best-selling author and Baptist layman John Grisham, speaking to a New Baptist Covenant about inclusiveness in the Baptist church.