From the New York Times:
But Mr. Reischauer said, “A glaring problem with the president’s plan is that he did not call for any stronger regulation of the individual insurance market.” In that market as it now exists in most states, insurers can deny coverage or charge higher rates to sick people.
Because I have had doctor-prescribed antacids in the last five years, I cannot get private health insurance. I get it through my employer, or I’d be eligible for the state-regulated (and much more expensive) insurance plan. If neither of those existed, I’d be utterly fucked.
Which is what Bush can go get, unless he fixes this problem first. Which he won’t.
God forbid the Washington Post let this story go unanswered:
The chief of the U.S. General Services Administration attempted to give a no-bid contract to a company founded and operated by a longtime friend, sidestepping federal laws and regulations, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a former government contractor appointed by President Bush, personally signed the deal to pay a division of her friend’s public relations firm $20,000 for a 24-page report promoting the GSA’s use of minority- and woman-owned businesses, the documents show.
Despite the emphasis added by me, this story could easily stand alone. A person - happens to be a Republican - abuses her office in what is, compared to the war profiteering rampant in the Middle East, penny-ante stuff. Still, certainly worth a story.
You know what may NOT be worth a story - at least not at its current level of detail? Something like this.
When former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally succeeded last month in selling his imposing Georgetown mansion for $5.2 million after it had languished on the market, the names of the buyers were not publicly disclosed.
At the time, Edwards’s spokeswoman told reporters that the house had been sold to an unidentified corporation. In reality, the buyers were Paul and Terry Klaassen, according to several sources and confirmed by Edwards’s spokeswoman yesterday.
The wealthy founders of the nation’s largest assisted-living housing chain for seniors, the Klaassens are currently cooperating with a government inquiry in connection with accounting practices and stock options exercised by them and other company insiders. They are also the focus of legal complaints by some of the same labor unions whose support Edwards has been assiduously courting for his presidential bid.
Scandal! Shock! Armagged-wait a minute. What?
Edwards was told the Klaassens’ name “in passing” around the time the offer came in on Dec. 18, Palmieri said last night, but he did not investigate further and had no knowledge of their business until a reporter’s inquiry Wednesday. Palmieri said Edwards had not delved into the Klaassens’ background: “They left it to be done at arm’s length, real estate agent to real estate agent.”
So the newsworthiness of this story is that a couple offers John Edwards $500,000 less for his house than he’s asking, and he doesn’t immediately run a cross-country background search. And by “a couple offers”, we mean “the couple’s real estate agent offers Edwards’ real estate agent.”
Oh, but don’t forget:
the names of the buyers were not publicly disclosed.
Which would be unusual, if it weren’t for the fact that real estate transactions are not public record. The deed RESULTING from a real estate transaction is public, but if the District of Columbia’s registrar is anything like the clerks of the counties of the Portland area, the Klaassen’s names will appear on the rolls at about the same time Edwards completes his ‘08 presidential campaign.
Still, it wouldn’t be a WaPo story without a heroically buried lede. The closing paragraphs:
Edwards has run into controversy once before on a house sale. In 2002, he reached a deal to sell a Washington house to a U.S. lobbyist for Saudi Arabia and then refused to give back the lobbyist’s $100,000 earnest money when the deal collapsed. At the time of the sale, the Saudis were trying to improve their image in Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Edwards was serving on the Senate intelligence committee.
Edwards said he did not know the buyer was a Saudi lobbyist until after the deal had fallen through.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a seller keeping an earnest money deposit. For example, if the potential buyer pulls out two days after the offer is made, there’s usually just a cancellation fee. If the seller is already moved out of the house and circumnavigating the world on a boat called the “I Sold My Fucking House, You Bastards”, there’s probably a case to be made that the earnest money is forfeit. Without more information, the only thing worth learning from the above is that maybe Edwards needs to start paying attention to who’s trying to buy his houses, if only when there are Washington Post reporters nearby.
But, no, sorry, not newsworthy. But for God’s sake, there’s a minor corruption scandal in the Bush Administration! We MUST BE FAIR AND BALANCED! Solomon! Romano! Write me 1000 words of bullshit on Edwards, stat!
Um, no.
Album sales in the United States - on CD and through legal downloads - fell by 4.9% in 2006, according to research company Nielsen Soundscan.
But the growth of digital music, especially the purchasing of individual songs, meant music sales rose by 19.4% overall, compared to the previous year.
Ohhh pity the poor music companies, whose foot-dragging on embracing downloads was soooo necessary to maintain their bottom lines. This certainly doesn’t imply that all those years spent suing college students could have been spent leading the charge on legal downloads and possibly boosting bottom lines 20% BEFORE 2006. Or anything.
Let’s retrospect, shall we?
(more…)
This story is true. Some minor details have been changed, for reasons which will become clear.
Once upon a time, there was a major biomedical researcher at a major biomedical university who was invited by a minor hospital in a Gulf Coast city to consult on their attempts to start a biomedical research program of their own. While touring another hospital in the same town, the researcher was invited to meet the hospital’s main urologist.
This urologist, an M.D./Ph.D. who was not known as a researcher, did have one interesting observation he wanted to share with the major researcher. He brought the researcher to a pair of microscopes he had set up in his office, and closed the door.
When the researcher looked in the first microscope, he saw something not altogether unexpected, this being a urologist’s office and all:
(more…)
The next time a conservative holds forth on the beauty of free enterprise in this country, make them read this article.
Then have them explain it to me.
