Just in case you encounter anyone who still thinks the Democratic health care proposals would lead to euthanizing your elders, show them this brief interview with Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. He's a solid Republican with impeccable Conservative credentials...and even he describes Sarah Palin's tales of Death Panels as "nuts."
But more and more, I'm coming to like the whole idea of Death Panels. I think we oughta have 'em and I think I oughta be on one. I did fourteen panels at the Comic-Con. Why couldn't one or two of them have been Death Panels? Deciding who lives and dies...I could do that. I could start with all those people I was going to murder if Phil Spector was acquitted and go from there...
Why talk radio is getting loonier. Bottom line: The business has lost 30%-40% of its ad revenues in the last two years and the base is especially deserting the shows that don't feature anger, screaming and outrageous rhetoric. As one person in the article notes, the survival of news talk radio "depends on ratings and revenue, not on getting people elected, or even on being right." That's why it's bad for the Republicans that Limbaugh and Hannity have emerged even as arguable leaders of the party. Neither one is in the business of getting people elected...or even being right.
Fans of Laurel and Hardy (I am one) have long lamented their fate on home video. It's been a frustrating litany of sporadic releases, most of which didn't do a very good job of packaging, presentation or promotion. Sometimes, the issuers have managed to get one of those three things right but never quite all three. You can buy the complete works of Cheech and Chong on DVD. But Stan and Ollie? Well, not in the United States, you can't.
Just to rub it in, a superb set was issued a few years ago in the United Kingdom. It contains darn near everything The Boys did as a team, lovingly restored and presented on 21 (!) DVDs, totalling about a thousand minutes of my favorite comedians. That's the good news. The bad news for most of us is that it's a PAL/Region 2 release. The DVDs will play in Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vatican City, Yemen and Yugoslavia...
...but not, grumble grumble, the United States. Osama bin Laden can watch this set. We can't.
So American lovers of Laurel and Hardy had a few options, one being to move to one of those countries. Another has been to purchase a region-free DVD player. They aren't expensive. WalMart sells the Durabrand-1002, which claims it'll play anything from anywhere, for $24.88 and other brands are available for not all that much more.
Third option? You could always do without. If you've done without this far, the following might interest you...
Laurel & Hardy - The Collection has now been seriously discounted. It originally sold for £199.99 (about $333 USD) and it's now down to £32.98 (around $55 USD). Here's a link to order it from Amazon UK.
There's a fellow skulking around comic book conventions offering a bootleg version of this set, converted to NTSC/Region 1 but you don't want that. First of all, it's a bootleg. Second of all, I saw the picture quality of one disc and it looked like Stan and Ollie were trapped in one of those multi-layer Jell-O parfait desserts with different color streaks throughout. You're much better off buying the genuine article plus a region-free player...especially since there's no reason to believe we'll soon have a playable-in-the-U.S.-of-A. version on this thing soon. If and when we do, it'll cost a lot more than $55 plus the cost of a region-free player.
Thanks to David Kirkpatrick for letting me know about this.
The White House has set up a website called The Health Insurance Reform Reality Check to debunk the main attacks against their proposals. I'm glad they're doing this but just as some people will never be convinced the world is round, some will never believe that the new plan won't involve putting old folks to death when their medicine starts costing too much.
A question for those who read this website: Have you seen — and if so, can you direct me to — an article that lays out a real case against the current reform proposals? I can't believe there aren't genuine, valid arguments against them but all the talking points we seem to get fall into one of three categories...
You take something rotten that health insurance companies do all the time like denying coverage. You make like that never happens but would constantly if the government got into the health care business, even though the government would have little or no incentive to do that thing, whereas for-profit companies have plenty.
You pretend that the government isn't already in the health care business...and quite successfully, at that. Has anyone ever seriously proposed turning the V.A. over to Aetna to run? I mean, besides maybe Aetna and those they pay to say such things. And has anyone checked to see how many Senators who oppose government-run health care are turning it down and buying Blue Shield policies for themselves and their loved ones?
You just plain lie about what's in the proposal. It's so long that no one's going to read it. So if you say, "Under this plan, if you get sick the government has the right to kill your housepets," no one's going to utterly disprove it. At best, some in the media will pit a talking head who says it's in there against one who says it's not and then act like it's all an open question.
Seriously: Can anyone point to an article against the current proposals that doesn't play those games? I'd certainly be open to the argument that this particular Health Care Reform package is flawed in its design and details but no one seems to be making it. Instead, it's all about "death panels" and arranging for Granny to take the permanent dirt nap before she's ready for it.
This isn't an obit but it's going to feel like one. Vin Scully — the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the best darned baseball announcer of all time — is telling folks that he'll probably retire after the 2010 season. I don't even follow baseball much anymore and I'm saddened by the news.
I probably listen to him for about four innings a year but it was always comforting to know he was there, and that it was humanly possible to be that good at something for that long. I don't even care about the Dodgers and couldn't name a member of the team if you had a Louisville Slugger and threatened to belt my nads into left field. I just liked listening to Vin...and I'll be sad when that's no longer possible.
August 11, 2009
