Category: Government

The patient:

On October 2, 1996, at age 25, Armstrong was diagnosed with nonseminomatous testicular cancer. The cancer had spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain.

The treatment regimen:

The standard chemotherapeutic regimen is BEP (Bleomycin, Etoposide and Cisplatin (or Platinol). Armstrong, however, chose an alternative, VIP (Etoposide, Ifosfamide, and Cisplatin), to avoid the lung toxicity associated with the drug Bleomycin. Armstrong had surgery on his brain tumors, which were necrotic, and an orchiectomy to remove his diseased testicle. After his surgery his doctor admitted that he had had less than a 50% survival chance.

I wonder if a government health program would have been so flexible.

Or would Lance Armstrong have received a couple of prescriptions for pain pills and the affected bureaucratic sympathy in a form letter?

Read this piece at Ace of Spades HQ about how nobody can make Obama prove he’s an American citizen and thus eligible for the presidency and about how no one seems to care that Hillary Clinton is textually barred from serving as Secretary of State (because she, as a legislator, voted to increase pay for that position).

Once the incoming administration has finished rendering those obscure bits of the Constitution obsolete, wait until they get into the choice bits. If we’re going to start the pool, I think they’ll nullify portions of the first amendment first, because if they reinstate the Fairness Doctrine or otherwise impede freedom of the press, religion, and assembly, they won’t trigger an uprising.

Here in the great county of St. Louis (no relation any more to the city of St. Louis, ha ha!), the county council has determined that you, citizen, must not only pay for weekly trash removal under penalty of a fine, but you must now also have weekly recycling pickup, too, whether you want it or not. Oh, yeah, you have to pay for it, too, which makes it yet another unfunded mandate from your elected representatives.

One of the good councilmen, John Campisi, is trying to get an exemption for citizens who don’t generate that much. But one of the whiny government officials is afraid of what that would cost the government:

Garry Earls, the county’s chief operating officer, said finding out who would be exempt would be an administrative nightmare. “Somebody would have to pay the cost” of such an effort, he said.

Companies that add a charge for recyclable pickups “are challenging customers to shop around for another hauler,” Earls said. The bidding by hauling companies for the trash collection districts should drive down prices, he said.

Hah, hah! One, Earls is pointing out that it’s okay for the government to force citizens to pick up a tab based on its whims, but the government paying for administration of its own intrusive powers, whoa, Chester!

Also, the fair COO fails to note that in many municipalities and garbage collection districts, your government does not let you choose a waste hauler and/or subsidizes a particular hauler. Because that would distract the reporter and the paper readers with facts, when it’s more important he get a self-serving snarky remark in.

Nutria Recipes, courtesy of the United States Geological Survey. Yes, that is your government and your tax money at work.

Government succors the stupid and suckers the rest.

I made that all up by myself.

Over at Wizbang!, Kevin Aylward describes what happens when you write to your member of Congress:

Inbound letters and calls are ‘issue coded’. For example, if you write a letter to your representative in which you urge the member to support gun control legislation, the staff members who open and read the mail enter a record of the correspondence and select a gun control issue code. If you address multiple topics you get multiple codes.

The staffer at that point has the option of creating a response (which as I recall they usually do) by picking one or more items from a list of issue talking points.

Keep that in mind when any of you (El Guapo) write to your representative. Your call is important to us….please stay on the line and you will be answered in the order your call was received…..

It also explains an experience my mother had writing to her representative, Richard “Il DicK” Gephardt. She wrote complaining that her particular military command was becoming a fully non-smoking environment; his reply was that he was really trying to keep the command open.

She voted for Wheelehan, Federer, and would have even written in her dog’s name on even-numbered years to keep from voting for him.