One sure-fire way to cut governmental costs: Abolish the Death Penalty

Completely ignoring any issue of morality, the really ugly side of the Death Penalty is… it’s too damn expensive.

Lawyers are expensive.

Court is expensive.

Trials are expensive.

Life in prison without the possibility of parole – which would include humane healthcare – is exceedingly less expensive.

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Former death penalty supporters now working against it

A lawyer, a county supervisor and a retired San Quentin Prison warden are backing Proposition 34, which would make life without possibility of parole California’s toughest punishment.

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles TimesSeptember 23, 2012

Don Heller wrote the 1978 initiative restoring capital punishment and is now trying to get Californians to ban it. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Donald Heller wrote the 1978 ballot measure that expanded California’s death penalty. Ronald Briggs, whose father spearheaded the campaign, worked to achieve its passage. Jeanne Woodford, a career corrections official, presided over four executions.

The lawyer, El Dorado County supervisor and retired San Quentin Prison warden now want California’s death penalty abolished, contending the state no longer can afford a system that has cost an estimated $4 billion since 1978 and executed 13 prisoners.

“We started with six people on death row in 1978, and we never thought that there would one day be 729,” said Briggs, a conservative Republican. “We never conceived of an appellate process that is decades long.”

Backing Proposition 34, which would make life without possibility of parole the state’s toughest punishment, the three have joined with retired Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti to try to dismantle a system in which each has played a role.

Death penalty supporters concede the system is not working but argue

Does Ann Romney have horse problems? Super Hit, her old dressage horse wonders. So do we.

Ann Romney with her horse, Super Hit, in a 2006 photo. (Terri Miller/Handout)

Super Hit.

Who or what’s that?

Oh… just another dressage horse the Romney’s once owned – and tried to sell.

Selling horses is not illegal, immoral, or unethical.

However, to attempt to sell a horse that is so doped up in an effort to masquerade, conceal or hide a defective, sick, injured or wounded condition… well, now, that’s a horse of a different color.

Ann Romney was named as a defendant in such a case.

Here’s what Dr. Stephen Soule, DVM – an expert in equine podiatry – said of the horse Mrs. Romney was trying to sell:

“In my 38 years of practice, I have never come across a drug screen such as this where the horse has been administered so many different medications at the same time.”

This was not some long-ago issue, for the complaint was filed February 10, 2010 in California Superior Court, Ventura County, is case number 56-2010-00372707-CU-FR-SIM, and was set for trial September 12, 2011.

Here’s the nut of the case:

In 2010, a San Diego woman – Catherine Norris – sued Mrs. Romney, dressage trainer Jan Ebeling and his wife Amy for fraud, claiming that the severity of a foot defect in Super Hit, a dressage horse she purchased from Mrs. Romney for $125,000, was concealed.

The expert equine veterinarian, Dr. Stephen Soule, stated in the record that, “In my professional opinion, based on 38 years of experience in equine veterinary medicine and in conducting nearly 2000 pre-purchase examinations during this time, the HA-VETALOG injections to the left front coffin joint coupled with Super Hit’s inconsistent show record, decline in test scores, consistency in the remarks of different show judges on score sheets that Super Hit was “tense,” had “tension” and “tight” and “stiff,” and the fact that he was not shown for nearly 2½ years prior to the sale in February 2008, Super Hit was more likely than not chronically lame prior to Catherine Norris’ purchase in February 2008.”

A pre-purchase drug screen/toxicology study performed February 13, 2008 by Center for Tox Services, Inc. – an Arizona lab – on 6 blood collection tubes drawn from the horse Super Hit found Butorphanol (a synthetic opioid pain killer), Detomadine (a α2-adrenergic agonist, used as a sedative in horses), romifidine (another sedative mainly used on large animals such as horses), and xylazine (a medication used in horses for sedation, anesthesia, muscle relaxation, and pain relief) in the horse’s system.

Also named in the suit was Dr. Doug Herthen, DVM, the veterinarian who treated Super Hit, and who purposely failed to disclose the nature of his relationship with Ann Romney and Super Hit to the purchaser, Mrs. Norris. In his testimony, Dr. Soule wrote that, “The professional ethics standard in veterinary medicine is to disclose any implied, apparent, or actual conflicts of interest before agreeing to conduct the pre-purchase examination. In other words, there is no such thing as dual representation without disclosure. In my professional opinion, the failure of Doug Herthel to disclose to Catherine Norris his existing and/or prior professional relationship with the defendants Amy and Jan Eberling, prior to the pre-purchase examination, was a breach of his professional duties and ethics.”

For very nearly a decade, Mrs. Romney has held a financial and ownership stake in The Acres, a horse training ranch about 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles, which is also owned by Jan & Amy Eberling. Mr. Eberling is a dressage trainer from Germany. With the Romneys, the Eberlings own Rob Rom Enterprises LLC, a foreign corporation registered in Delaware, which buys and trains dressage horses.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous is nothing new for the Romneys, because in a 1994 interview with the Boston Globe while Mitt was campaigning for Massachusetts governor, Ann described their years as “struggling students,” saying that “neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock [from his father] that we could sell off a little at a time.”

Yeah. That’s gotta’ be a struggle.

Of course, it goes without saying – but here it is, anyway – that, in an interview with Neal Cavuto of Fox News in March 2012, Ann Romney said, “I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing.” Many people would probably find that interesting, too – particularly given that Mitt’s estimated wealth is in excess of $250 Million. Perhaps $100,000 horses are but chump change to that crowd.

The New York Times covered the issue with the following story, which also mentions the $77,000 tax deduction the Romneys took in 2010 for Rafalca, another of the Romneys’ expensive dressage horses.

Other newspapers covering the story included the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. Because of the location of the case

NIMBY: San Diego neighborhood opposes US Veterans

If we adhered to the “we were here first,” model then we should seriously rethink those handful of bangles, baubles and beads for which early settlers traded for Manhattan Island.

And then, there’s the whole other deal of Native American land, and the Trail of Tears.

But the problem with that ideology is that we do not adhere to such philosophy.

Incidentally, that is a direct quote from someone who was interviewed for the story, which quote is the final statement in the story.

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San Diego neighbors oppose veterans treatment center

Officials from a nearby school in Old Town fear disruptions from a facility for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times

June 25, 2012, 8:05 p.m.

SAN DIEGO — A plan for a 40-bed treatment center for military veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering frompost-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury has run into opposition from neighborhood groups and a nearby charter school.

Proponents say that the center will

Americans Love/Hate “ObamaCare”

Does that surprise anyone?

People don’t like being told what to do.

They naturally buck against any system – no matter who or what – that tells them what to do, or how to do it. And yet, we know that civil society abides by rules and regulation which govern every aspect of our lives from the cradle to the grave. We must abide by rules as we grow. In fact, we’re introduced to regulation and rules by our parents who punish us when we disobey them. To hear “NO! Don’t do this, do that this way,” are all common in childhood.

But hopefully, we outgrow childhood and transition through that elongated period of pseudo-adulthood called the “teenage years,” and successfully become responsible adults, and abide by laws, rules, regulations galore… ranging from civic laws, to employer policy, procedure and more. And then, we make more laws, rules, regulations, policy and procedures. It’s a never-ending cycle.

The gist of all, is that by following rules and regulations, we demonstrate personal responsibility, and accountability to others. And rarely is that ever an impediment to progress, or a harm to our neighbor.

So naturally, when we hear or see of someone having a knee-jerk reaction to anything, we can almost immediately discount most – if not all – of what they say, simply because of their radical overreaction. And so it is with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is often misnomered as “ObamaCare.”

The PPACA actually contains more policy and regulation of Big Health Insurance companies‘ egregious practices than it does anything else.

For example,

• It is now illegal for Health Insurance Companies (HICs) to deny coverage based upon “pre-existing conditions” for children and adults.

• It is now illegal for HICs to charge women more for health insurance than they do men.

• It is now illegal for HICs to refuse payment for services rendered by physicians, hospitals or pharmacies simply because the insured person inadvertently forgot to dot an “i” or cross a “t” on an application.

• It is now illegal for HICs to use the majority of healthcare insurance premiums to pay for overhead expenses including executive compensation, stockholder payout, overhead office expenses, advertising, or any other expense UNRELATED to the delivery of healthcare. Now, they must use 80% of premiums to pay for healthcare.

• It is now illegal to deny family coverage for a child simply once they reached aged 18. HICs are now required to continue coverage to children up to age 26 if they are still enrolled in school.

Page 6 from “Assuring Affordable Healthcare for All Americans,” by Stuart M. Butler, Ph.D., The Heritage Foundation, 1989, ISSN 0272-1155

 

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Most Americans oppose health law but like provisions

(Reuters) – Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform even though they strongly support most of its provisions, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Sunday, with the Supreme Court set to rule within days on whether the law should stand.

Fifty-six percent of people are

North Carolina Republicans Seek to Outlaw Scientific Research

Seriously.

They are.

It’s kinda’ like the gun saying, albeit with a peppermint twist:

“When ‘they’ outlaw science, only outlaws will be scientists.”

The whole scientific process means that folks get up and argue about it, and demonstrate their findings, and argue their conclusions, and implications for the same.

This is a prime example of Republican idiocy.

Utter stupidity brought to you by TEApublican TEAvangelical radicals.

Yes, radicals.

What’re these people?

Stupid?

Wait… that was a rhetorical question.

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In North Carolina, a fight over sea levels and science

After a state report predicts higher ocean levels, based in part on global-warming data, new legislation seeks to all but outlaw such projections. The bill has drawn ridicule, as well as scrutiny of the state’s new political climate.

By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

5:00 AM PDT, June 24, 2012

RALEIGH, N.C. — When scientists at a state commission predicted that North Carolina’s sea levels could rise 39 inches by 2100, coastal business and development leaders weren’t alarmed at the prospect of flooding. They were outraged by the report itself.

They complained to state legislators, saying the projection could trigger regulations costing coastal businesses and homeowners millions of dollars.

Waves lap against Johnnie Mercer’s Pier at Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington, N.C. (Paul Stephen / The Star-News / May 29, 2012)

The result is House Bill 819, a measure that would require sea level forecasts to be based on past patterns and would all but outlaw projections based on climate change data.

The bill, now under discussion by a legislative conference committee, has been ridiculed nationwide. It was mocked by comedian Stephen Colbert and savaged in a Scientific American blog post titled “N.C. Considers Making Sea Rise Illegal.”

It has also focused attention on the political shift in North Carolina, where Republicans in 2010 won control of the state Legislature for the first time in a century.

Did you know… Your cooties could keep you healthy?!

It’s true!

You have cooties!

In fact, the 100 trillion+ bugs on your body collectively weigh in between 2 – 6 pounds.

But… there’s a catch.

You need them!

Read on to learn why.

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Microbe census maps out human body’s bacteria, viruses, other bugs

It gives scientists a reference point of what the microbial community looks like in healthy people, and they plan to use it to study how changes in a person’s microbiome can lead to illness.

By Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2012, 5:20 p.m.

After five years of toil, a consortium of several hundred U.S. researchers has released a detailed census of the myriad bacteria, yeasts, virusesand amoebas that live, eat, excrete, reproduce and die in or on us.

An undated handout image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shows a clump of Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria (green) in the extracellular matrix, which connects cells and tissue, taken with a scanning electron microscope, showing. At right, undated handout image provided by the Agriculture Department showing the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, which lives in the human gut, is just one type of microbe that will be studied as part of NIH’s Human Microbiome Project. They live on your skin, up your nose, in your gut _ enough bacteria, fungi and other microbes that collected together could weigh, amazingly, a few pounds. Now scientists have mapped just which critters normally live in or on us and where, calculating that healthy people can share their bodies with more than 10,000 species of microbes. (AP Photo/NIAID, Agriculture Department)

Described in two papers in Nature and a raft of reports in other journals, the data released Wednesday describe microbes of the skin, saliva, nostrils, guts and other areas of 242 adults in tiptop health.

The $170-million, federally funded Human Microbiome Project also cataloged the genes contained within this zoo of life. The results shed light on the hum of microbial activity inside us as nutrients are chopped and guzzled, gas and other wastes are expelled, and bugs send chemical messages to one another, jostling for supremacy or attracting new neighbors to help keep their community going.

The research is important because it gives scientists a reference point of what the microbial community looks like in healthy people, and they plan to use it to study how changes in a person’s microbiome can lead to illness. A spate of studies in the last few years has documented potential links to conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and obesity.

Each of us is home to about 100 trillion microscopic life forms — a figure that’s about 10 times higher than the number of cells in the human body. In a 200-pound adult, these organisms can weigh a combined 2 to 6 pounds.

The vast majority of our microscopic denizens appear to be bacteria; 10,000 types may choose to make Homo sapiens home, the scientists found.

Some spots on the body, such as the mouth, are rain-forest-like in their diversity, inhabited by a rich community of bacteria that is fairly similar from one person to the next.

Other locations, such as the vagina, are more like

“Will that be cash, or charge?”: Many hospitals & doctors offer cash discount for care

Regular readers will recall the entry entitled “Q: Why do hospitals charge $75 for aspirin? A: Because they can.,” which was posted Wednesday, May 2, 2012.

In another venue, I had posted the following remark in response to the exorbitant healthcare costs, “It’s a simple concept, really. Anytime anyone gets in between you & who you’re buying from, it costs more. Insurance does that.”

And it’s true.

It’s not trite.

Let’s consider this example: You’re at the grocery store in the check-out line, about to pay for your groceries which have already been bagged and placed in your shopping cart. When the clerk announces the total, you have some strange feeling because the total is about ten times as much as you imagined.

When you double check the price of milk you find the sticker says $2.50/gallon, but your clerk rang up $25. You double check the price of frozen spinach. The sticker price says $1.37, but the clerk rang up $13.70. The chocolate was $4.50, but the clerk rang up $45.00. And the lean ground beef, instead of the posted $2.60/lb, the 5lb chub was… $130.00.

Talk about sticker shock!

You are aghast at the price, and in frustrated terms exclaim that “there is obviously some gross mistake!” – to which the clerk replies, “Let me check with your Food Insurance Agent,” picks up a phone beside the register, presses one button, and whispers into the receiver. 

Suddenly, out of a door leading to an inside office,

What does a tax-free, worldwide fraud… er, religious media empire look like?

Recall the words to this song?

“Oh, how I love Jesus… Oh, how I love Jesus… Oh, how I love Jesus…”

Well, some folk don’t “love” Him because He first loved them, but because He “gives me power to get wealth.” And THAT, my brothers and sisters, is where it’s at! Money, money, money! Pass the cash! I want more! More! More! More!

Is this abuse?

You decide.

Perhaps the greater question is this: How can this be prevented?

And, this is ALL tax free.

Free.

Remember that word.

(And be sure to watch the hilarious video following the story below!)

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Private jets, 13 mansions and a $100,000 mobile home just for the dogs: Televangelists ‘defrauded tens of million of dollars from Christian network’

By Nina Golgowski

PUBLISHED: 16:21 EST, 23 March 2012 | UPDATED: 16:22 EST, 23 March 2012

Two former employees of the world’s largest Christian television channel Trinity Broadcasting Network are accusing the non-profit of spending $50 million of its funding on extravagant personal expenses.

Among purchases, the network founded by Televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch, is accused of misappropriating its ‘charitable assets’ toward a $50 million jet, 13 mansions and a $100,000-mobile home for Mrs Crouch’s dogs.

Accused: Brittany Koper, center, recently filed a suit accusing the Trinity Broadcasting Network, its founders Janice Crouch (left) and Paul Crouch Sr (far right), in squandering $50 million of its funding

Their granddaughter, Brittany Koper, 26, recently filed her allegations in court after

Hello? Teens! Do NOT drink hand sanitizer. Duh!

Huh?

What IS up with that?

Please, please, please…

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More hand sanitizer drinking cases reported in dangerous trend

April 25, 2012, 10:36 am PST

The California Poison Control System has received 60 reports of teenagers drinking hand sanitizer since 2010, showing the dangerous trend is not unique to Los Angeles.

Hand sanitizer, which has 62% ethyl alcohol, produces a potent drink that can cause alcohol poisoning. Some of the cases involve teenagers who used salt to separate out the alcohol.

There were also 147 cases involving children ages 6 to 12 and 2,180 cases ages 0 to 5, believed to have accidentally ingested the gel, according to poison control service, part of the UC San Francisco‘s Department of Clinical Pharmacy.

The vast majority of all the cases statewide were minor and treated at home, but about 50 of the youths went to a hospital or were referred to a hospital for treatment.

In Los Angeles County since March, there have been 16 cases of teenagers requiring medical attention, according to the California Poison Control System.

Officials began separately tracking hand sanitizer cases in 2010.

“It’s quite a concern,” said Stuart Heard, executive director. “It’s like

What does an unregulated, “free market economy” look like?

{Ed note: This post is dedicated to: governmental deregulators, those whom subscribe to the school of Austrian economics, and their defenders, the ivory-towered theorists of the Mises Institute, whose pie-in-the-sky ramblings are errant and theoretical only, having no real world solutions to real world problems – and whom, ironically enough, have never created anything of any value.}

Let’s travel to La Riconada, Peru – once an outpost for men in the Andes of South America, now an increasingly populous village/town/city, which at approximately 30,000 population, and 16,732 feet above sea level, is reputedly the highest elevated human habitation in the world.

Because of an increase in the global price of gold, physicians & attorneys among others, have flocked to the area, seeking their fortunes, to work in a gold mine in the area.

Here are some interesting photos… and heart-wrenching descriptions of what it is like for people to live in an area that has no formal economy, no taxes and no government services.

Electricity and cell phone service are reliable but sewage and trash collection are non-existent. Even with the harsh conditions, the city’s population keeps growing. Photo by Michael Robinson Chavez/ Los Angeles Times.