A Dove Hunting Resolution

Just returned from dove season opener with my son.  We had a great time, shot fewer doves than we wanted to, but also discovered a cafe in a nearby town that serves an awesome apple pie.  All that having been said, I’m giving up on the all-day hunt.  From now on, its a morning hunt and then home.  Trying to find something to do and a place to hang out for five hours between the morning and afternoon hunt is just too much.  And then there’s the heat.  By 3 PM it’s almost always in the 100s in the inland San Diego County areas where we hunt.  It’s miserable.  Sucking down bottled water and gatorade, battling fatigue, spending more time trying to find shade than birds.

But even then, it was hunting, and the alternative was a day at the office.  So I’m not really complaining!

Obamacare Gives Health Bureaucrats Access to Your Tax Records

Thanks to Declan McCullagh at CBS News Blogs for pointing out another horrible aspect of the Obamacare plan.  This time, it has to do with healthcare bureaucrats having access to your IRS tax records. (Read  Declan’s blog story here.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.

There seems to be no limit on the intrusions the Democrats are willing to make into your private life.  From deciding what healthcare you should have to spreading around your tax records, they think they’re entitled to all of it.

By the way, if you’d like to read the whole stinking pile of manure for yourself, go here.

Beware The Expedient Religion of Barack Obama

Pastors and rabbis had better beware the expedient religion of Barack Obama.

Today it was reported that President Obama attempted to enlist the assistance of Jewish rabbis during the Rosh Hashanah holiday to further the promotion of his health industry takeover.  Speaking to around 1000 rabbis, the President urged the religious leaders to preach healthcare deform reform from the pulpit over the Jewish New Year, saying:”We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

Immediately I remembered his answer to Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren during the campaign, when asked at what point an unborn child might deserve human rights.  Obama demurred, claiming:“… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question  with specificity … is above my pay grade.”

So let me get this straight.  The President knows for certain that he is cooperating with God in the “matter of life and death” that arises from health care deform reform legislation, but when it comes to life and death of an innocent unborn American, he can’t be certain at all what God wants him to think.

All of this suggests that Barack Obama’s theology — like his attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and his relationship with its former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright — constitute matters of simple political expediency.  He embraces them when they suit his current political need, and he throws them under the bus when they stand in the way of political victory.

Did Patrick Henry Foresee Obamacare?

Hugh Hewitt has received another outstanding post from Bearinthewoods, an anonymous conservative advertising executive (You can imagine why he needs to be anonymous.).  In any case, he lived in Canada, under socialized medicine, for three years.  You really need to go read this post.  This is what awaits us under Obamacare.  

It just struck me that when Patrick Henry said “Give me liberty, or give me death!”  he didn’t know that he was talking about Obamacare.   Socialized medicine will take our liberty, and give us death.

Hunting Fever Strikes!

Dove season opens Sptember 1.  Deer season September 26.  Quail in there somewhere.  I might as well tell my boss that I’ll be worthless till the end of January.

How the Obamacare “public option” will control costs

I just came from a social gathering tonight that happened to be hosted by  medical doctor.  I engaged this gentleman in a conversation about the pending healthcare legislation.  He is very active in the California Medical Association and quite conversant on the proposals.  We were talking about the so-called “public option” and how it will affect the delivery of healthcare services.  He is a partner in a 700-physician emergency room doctor firm.  

He asked me: “Do you know how much I get paid to see a Medicaid patient?”  Answer:  ”Twenty two dollars.  It costs me three dollars to send the bill, and three more to pay my insurance.  That’s before anyone has seen the patient, before we’ve paid any staff or anything.  I can only see four patients an hour, maybe.  It just doesn’t work.” (The doctor then shifts cost to privately insured patients.  This is why private insurance costs more every year — because the government keeps squeezing doctors.)

That, my friends, is how the government controls its healthcare costs right now, and how it will control healthcare costs in when the government has a monopoly on the industry.  Now I ask you some questions:  

1. How long do you think your insurance company will stay in business when the competition (the government) is paying the doctor 20% of what a private insurance company has to pay?  

2. How long do you think your doctor will stay in business ( or accept government insurance)?

3. What will be the incentive for an investor to invest in new medical technology, new drugs, or even a hospital building, when the medical industry is being asphyxiated by lowball government reimbursement rates?

Obamacare will result in fewer doctors, fewer hospitals, fewer drugs, less innovation, shortages of every product and service, long waits for every kind of treatment (if you can even get it), and lousy quality of care.  That’s even before we consider the fact that it constitutes a severe encroachment on your personal liberties where it counts the most — the care and feeding of your body.

Only idiocy could drive this nation to approve such a disaster.

Lies about Obamacare (by Obama)

The president and his team like to say that the “public option”, a government run health insurance plan, will “keep the insurance companies honest” and “make them compete.”  This highjacking of capitalist rhetoric may fool some people, but not me.  If you want to know what government-run enterprises really think and do about competition, read this article by Stephen Spruiell at National Review Online.

I have been interested in Hawaii because my family vacations there frequently.  It is a more rural, poorer state than most people imagine.  Its citizens are not often served well by the paternalistic government. The state of Hawaii, you may remember, attempted to control gasoline costs last year, resulting in shortages almost immediately.  They also tried to create a “public option” in health insurance, and soon discovered that instead of covering poor children, they were covering middle class people who dumped their private insurance for the free state policy.  The cost skyrocketed, and they abandoned the program.  Now it seems they are saddled with taxpayer costs because they refused to allow a permit for private investors to bear the risk of investment in a new hospital on Maui, where the state hospital enjoys a monopoly — entirely on the grounds that it would compete with the state run hospital!

Obama has no intention of the government merely competing with private insurance companies — he wants to destroy them.

I love the mountains!

Spent the Independence Day weekend at the cabin.  We took some jeep rides around to the rim of Kings Canyon.  Spectacular.  Also visited some meadows in the 7000 to 8000 foot range.  Walked up on a large bear in one of them.  It was really a sight to see him take off running accross the wet, spongy meadow, leaving a furrow in his wake.  The fat rolled under his glossy coat, and he looked really healthy.  This is the second year in a row I’ve seen bears at this particular complex of meadows.  I’ll be going back during bear season!

More Mountain Quail?

We went to the cabin this weekend and did some exploring in the Jeep.  Driving down some higher elevation roads we saw more mountain quail in two days than i saw all year last year  In one spot we saw a hen with a brood.  This is a very rare sight, and a very encouraging one.  All of them were between 6000 and 8000 feet elevation.  I didn’t get any pictures, unfortunately.

Mountain quail fertility rates are very sensitive to water availability.  Snowpack was better this year than last year in the Sierras (though still below average).  The point is, conditions are better for quail, and that means they are probably better for mule deer as well.

Happy Father’s Day, Hunter!

To all the father-hunters out there:  Happy Fathers Day!

You are needed, and you matter to your family.  Read this article by W. Bradford Wilcox at National Review Online if you need some encouragement.

Now get back to barbecuing!