Hinessight

In some areas the United States may truly be exceptional. But our health care and criminal justice systems suck, big time. We should learn from other countries who do a much better job keeping their citizens healthy and safe. In health care, we spend twice as much as other industrialized nations, yet our health status indicators are below average and forty or fifty million Americans are uninsured. Crazy. The Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction. A single payer health care system, a.k.a. Medicare for All, would be a leap in the right direction. Our criminal justice…

The more I read about the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17 year old, by a neighborhood watch volunteer who followed the black boy around his neighborhood, looking for an excuse to play policeman even though he was told by a 911 responder to stay put in his car, the more absurdly dangerous "Stand Your Ground" laws look to me. And many others. Like a former Miami police chief.  Police officers are trained to de-escalate highly charged encounters with aggressive people, using deadly force as a last resort. Citizens, on the other hand, may act from emotion and perceived…

My wife and I are seriously considering selling our Nissan Leaf and getting a Chevy Volt. We've got good reasons for doing so, but that's the subject of another post. What I want to talk about now is the trashing of the Volt by conservatives such as Rich Lowry, who wrote an absurd column, "The Sad Plight of Obama's Edsel," that ran in the Portland Oregonian yesterday. There's so much wrong with Lowry's piece, it's tough to know where to start with truth-telling. I guess the title is a good place. The Volt isn't Obama's car. General Motors revealed the…

We own an electric car, a Nissan Leaf. So while I'm irritated when right-wingers lie about anything, it particularly bugs me when untruths are spread about alternative energy cars -- including the Chevy Volt.  Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer joined the Volt lie parade in his "Obama's Oil Flimflam." In yesterday's Portland Oregonian, I read: Instead, Obama offers what he fancies to be the fuels of the future. You would think that he’d be a tad more modest today about his powers of divination after the Solyndra bankruptcy, the collapse of government-subsidized Ener1 (past makers of the batteries of the future) and GM’s…

It gives me great satisfaction to correct conservatives, who, as I said in a previous post, are more fact-challenged than liberals. Someone left a comment on that post, after I noted that Pete Dominick had asked on his radio show: What's the weird unfactual stuff many liberals believe that is equivalent to conservative lunacies like Obama being a Muslim? He offered up ten supposed answers to the question he phrased as, "What's the weird unfactual stuff many liberals believe?" I'm pleased to correct him on each. 1. that killing coyotes means more coyotes (1) Yes, I said this in a blog post,…

Yesterday I heard POTUS's Pete Dominick ask his satellite radio listeners an interesting question: What's the weird unfactual stuff many liberals believe that is equivalent to conservative lunacies like Obama being a Muslim? Dominick observed that a majority of Republican voters in Mississippi think President Obama is Muslim rather than Christian. That's crazy!  So he asked conservatives to call in and give him examples of what lots of liberals/progressives believe that is similarly wildly unfactual. I listened for quite a while as I was driving around. The answer: nothing. A few people cited "Bush was responsible for the 9/11 attacks." But…

Death isn't a joking matter. Still, I can't resist saying "Way to go, Bob Caldwell."  The Oregonian newspaper reported Monday that Bob Caldwell, the long-time editor of the editorial pages, died in the apartment of a 23-year-old woman after going into cardiac arrest following a sex act. The paper had previously reported that Caldwell was found in his parked car. The paper now says the woman was the one who called 9-1-1 on Saturday to report that Caldwell was unresponsive. According to the correction published in The Oregonian, the woman told deputies she met Caldwell a year ago at Portland…

Reading over some piled-up Oregonian's, I just came across a letter from a Salem resident, James M. Schultz, about the debate over whether religious institutions should have to comply with the same laws and regulations that govern other businesses. Great letter, Mr. Schultz. I hadn't thought about the "competitive advantage" argument -- just how absurdly unworkable it would be if every person or organization could claim an exemption from laws on moral or ethical grounds. Here's the February 25 letter to the editor: Regarding the current debate over religion and insurance coverage for contraceptives, the First Amendment says, in relevant…