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Gallimaufry Open Thread

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 18th, 2009 at 03:32 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

In honor of Fire Joe Morgan getting the band back together for a day, we bring you a gallimaufry Open Thread.

Moe Lane was interviewed at Blogometer. Teaser: “Why, Moe? Why?”

Google is not letting go of the Google Voice-to-iPhone Net Neutrality issue, having re-released an unredacted version of its letter to the FCC. It’s going to be delicious when T-Mobile USA bans Skype on its phones, and asks Google to uphold that ban.

It’s Follow Friday on Twitter! Many RedStater editors are on there, including @presjpolk (me), @moelane, @jeffemanuel, @ewerickson, @leonwolf, @baseballcrank, @brainfaughnan, @sorendayton, @haystack, @robertbluey, @kevinholtsberry, @krempasky, @cayankee, @paulfuller, @billstl, @jamesrichardson, @markimpomeni, @cianfrocca, @vladimirrs, @tobytoons, @calebhowe, probably more I’m missing in this quick survey, and of course @redstate itself. Gotta catch ‘em all!

Enjoy a peach of an Open Thread.

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  • Mo_MoDo

    Time Magazine is coming out with an attack piece on Glen Beck and Media Matters thinks it isn’t vicious enough (surprise). Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post defends the Time article writer and starts a inter-league squabble with Media Matters. Follow all the action here:

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2009/09/media_matters_glenn_beck_and_t.html

  • Kowalski

    I was in Georgia on I-95 and it’s one of the few states that has full billboard advertisements for good gun shops right there along the highway.

    Beautiful state, even though I-95 isn’t that scenic of a highway, I enjoyed Georgia the most of all the states we passed through on the way to Palm Beach.

    OK, Florida was really cool for the amazing cloudburst rain phenomena they have there, but Georgia got bonus points for the hospitality and the road signs.

    I really wanted to visit Atlanta again after such a long time. As a boy I stayed in Peachtree Tower hotel while my Dad was taking a course nearby on the IBM Series One (this dates me) and I loved the hotel and the city. He let us out of the room with our keys!! At 8 years old!! With $100 in our pocket!! And we had fun!!

    I hope Atlanta is the same way today.

  • Kowalski

    .

  • 4life

    didn’t he! Wow, $100′s at 8 years old. That was big! I can’t imagine parents letting their kids loose at that age today, but I’m glad you got to enjoy the ‘good ole days’ in Atlanta and a trip down memory lane.

  • Alberta

    When they first went away they kept the ‘Where bad sport journalism comes to die’ up and my nagging of them got them to change it to ‘came to die’

    And I got no hat tip.

  • Achance

    In the early ’70s, I’d rather have made the three block walk from my shop in Underground Atlanta to the bank without my pants on than without the pistol tucked in my belt. You’d have some chance of making it with no pants, none with no gun. You literally walked up to the guard at the door, handed him your gun, did your business, and got your gun back on the way out.

  • http://itsonlywords55@wordpress.com paulag1955

    @erickbrockway

  • Kowalski

    And I can say positively that nothing bad happened to us. My father believed the people in the hotel and we walked around Atlanta for about 2 hours without any trouble at all.

    It could be that we were bright enough not to go too far afield, as I remember about 2 blocks was all we were daring enough to try, then we retreated back to the hotel and played video games and had lunch, and rode that elevator on Peachtree about a dozen times looking for Stone Mountain (which we visited and trekked up later that week — you can see it on the horizon from the elevator.)

    We didn’t venture into the Underground even though I wanted to, but I decided that with my younger brother in tow (he was 5) it might be somplace my Dad didn’t want us to go.

    Go figure, we survived. ;)

  • Kowalski

    I always had a knack for urban areas because of living in New Jersey and traveling into NYC almost once a week as young kid, mostly into the downtown area, occasionally to the Village, as a child. My father was a consultant for a number of companies in the downtown NYC area during my childhood and I spent a lot of time in NYC when it wasn’t as civil as it is today, so I guess I picked up the urban survival skills pretty early.

    We used to eat in the Village of NYC about twice a month on the weekends as a family, from as early as I can remember. All kinds of food — Indian, Greek, Italian, etc., etc. My Dad was and is a Conservative but he didn’t believe in “sheltering” us, and in fact he couldn’t have if he wanted to, when I think about it honestly.

  • Next93

    If my memory serves correctly, the Series One was developed just a couple of years after the invention of dirt floors. I’d susped that the inflation adjusted value of that $100 would come closer to $500 of today.

  • Jake W

    I’m now following everyone up there that I wasn’t already following.

    I’m @Jake_W, for anyone that cares.

  • Jake W

    Even in the Atlanta area, I see ads for gun shows and shops all the time. It’s a beautiful sight, really.

  • 4life

    dad bought our TRS80. I took that thing to college and it got me in so much trouble when it would crash mid-paper (mine and my friends)!

  • Richard Mullins

    those machines that were harder than dirt to deal with. I progressed over time to a Commodore 64, a Zenith Baby 148(back when Zenith had the Government contract) and later no more canned systems. Building it myself is much better than one that bought built for you.

  • Kowalski

    We had two of them, along with two 4341 Group IIs and a 4381 and a whole big cornucopia of other IBM mainframe hardware dating back to an IBM 370/135, which was later replaced with a 370/138.

    The most impressive thing about old IBM mainframe hardware from the point of view of someone who had never seen one was the power-up:

    You’d push the button and the motor-generator set would start to gradually wind up and charge the huge capacitors needed for the instant current draw when everything switched on. You’d hear a few relays click and then the motor/generator woud gradually wind up while the capacitors charged, and then…

    …about 60 seconds later…

    *BANG*

    The entire machine powered on throughout the entire room — meaning all of the tape drives, disk drives, etc., etc., and all their attendant hardware and cooling fans. It was an impressive moment, and you didn’t want to do it too often. You didn’t want to shut the machine down too often because powering it back up meant that you might have a maintenance problem. We usually left our machines running 24/7, but the electricity and air conditioning were the driving factors then, and they dictated we retire those mainframes. Otherwise the IBM hardware was so robust that we could have kept them running approximately forever.

  • Kowalski

    I still have the console to the 370/138 and all the lights, dials and switches work except for two. I’m going to mount it to a wall and make them do tricks. It’s a very cool-looking, jet black console with those really nice, super-determinative IBM switches and knobs. You KNEW what you were turning or throwing on that machine because they CLICKED into place with a solid detent and a LOUD noise.

  • Leopard1996

    So was I before I moved to Cincinnati. What part were you from. I lived just outside Asbury Park.

  • Kowalski

    Our 370/138 had an entire megabyte of memory.

    Read that again, because that machine cost approximately a million dollars with all the accessories.

    And it did very useful work, and did it quickly: it didn’t have to drive a graphics display, it just moved character data around.

    Compared to the machine that sits underneath your desk that you purchased from WalMart for $300, it’s approximately a pocket calculator.

    As late as the early 1980′s, those machines required thousands of dollars per month to run and maintain.

    People who don’t understand just how profound the digital revolution has been and who blame capitalism especially do not know how wrong they are. In my youth, the only people who could afford a computer as powerful as the one you can buy right now to play games was….

    …nobody.

    We’re basically a nation of spoiled brats, actually a world of spoiled brats, and we’re getting more spoiled by the day.

  • Kowalski

    For anyone who doesn’t realize how much and how far capitalism helped move the digital revolution and close the “digital divide”, please refer to these numbers:

    Under a 48-month contract, the Model 138 can be leased for $8,730 a month with one-half million characters of main memory, and for $11,415 a month with one million characters. Monthly rental prices are $9,600 and $12,550. Purchase prices are $350,000 and $435,000.

    This was at the start of the Carter Era, a new phase of which we are entering even as we speak.

    http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3138.html

  • http://itsonlywords55@wordpress.com paulag1955

    For letting us know. I’m a-following you now!

  • Jon E. Schultz II

    I feel bad asking because I know it’s been posted in the past, but how do I embed video from another site into a post?

    I clicked on Help -> HTML Central, but that link is still broken.

    Thanks,

    Jon

  • http://www.scottbomb.com scottbomb

    In all the debate surrounding Obamacare, there is actually one very small piece of Obama’s vision I can agree with: everyone should be required to either carry health insurance or prove self-insurance, just like we do in most (if not all?) states when it comes to (liability) car insurance.

    I think most of my conservative brethren would object to this as it’s basically a dictate. Some people don’t want health insurance. They point to the young, 18-30-somethings who think they’re invincible and don’t need it. Perhaps most don’t. But this raises two very serious problems:

    1. What happens when they DO need it? After all, hospitals can’t just turn people away. I was 20-something not too long ago. There were times when I was hospitalized and didn’t have health insurance for the very reason cited above. My employer offered it, but I declined. Next thing you know, a hospital and several doctors get screwed because I needed emergency treatment and I couldn’t (and never did) pay. On a related note, hopsitals are only required to STABILIZE the patient, not necessarily treat the underlying condition. How many ERs are performing chemotherapy or radiation treatment for uninsured cancer victims? From what I’ve heard, some folks really are left to die for lack of coverage.

    2. Car insurance works because those of us who don’t get into accidents pay for those who do. Unfair? No, that’s how ALL insurance works. If I happen to rear-end someone, at least I have a policy that will cover the damages. It’s called being responsible and the state of Texas goes to great lengths to make sure I am prepared for such bad luck.

    I’m not saying we need nationalized health care or a “public option”. No way! But I do believe that if everyone were required to purchase health insurance in the same way they purchase car insurance, then at least the costs for EVERYONE would come down as we would ALL be sharing the risks.

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    at about 4:30 Am this week when I was working a split shift, via twitter. I daresay he hasn’t forgiven me yet! :)

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    into your comment or diary. But some embeds work better here than others, YouTube being one, as is Vimeo. Fox News embeds are kinda hit and miss.

  • JustLeaveMeAlone

    http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/health/090918_pelosi_houston_visit

    The Houston Tea Party folks did a great job of getting the word out that Lyin’ Nancy would be in town — with Arlen Specter in tow — for some kind of talk. So several hundred people showed up to give her a nice, warm Texas welcome.

    Tomorrow she’ll be in Austin (Saturday). Anyone in the area — be sure you extend our hospitality now, y’here?

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    You don’t dig out of the hole of too much government by digging deeper with more government.

    You need to look deeper than the superficial issues. The core problem is that costs are too high. Consider why costs are too high. You see it’s because of gold plated insurance and government subsidy.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Are you willing to send men with guns to people’s homes to round them up if they don’t obey your dictate? Really?

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    What does gold-plated mean?

    If car insurance worked like medical insurance in this country, car insurance would be used to pay for paint jobs, oil changes, new tires and rotations, and a semi-annual waxing.

    Car insurance would be much more expensive than the low-cost liability-only insurance people are mandated to buy. Nobody is quired to buy insurance to cover their own car, only other people’s car in the event of a crash.

  • Jon E. Schultz II

    I didn’t realize youtube gave you the embed code.

    Any idea, if I want to embed something from my local news station and they don’t give an embed code, can I just copy/paste the *format* from youtube and just change the URL in there? Or is there another way to accomplish this?

    I understand major video sites like vimeo or youtube will provide you with a nice handy embed snippet, but I figure a lot of the more local sites won’t.

    Thanks for your help,

    Jon

  • Belle

    Neptune. Right outside Asbury Park.

  • ocleverone

    is that if you cannot afford (or choose not to carry) car insurance, you can get rid of your car.

    How are you going to apply the same principle to health insurance?

  • ocleverone

    Jeez – I can’t type today.

  • Jack_Savage

    Car insurance is mandated only because you can drive your car into other people, houses, other cars, etc. If you don’t have liablity insurance, it is likely that you wouldn’t be able to pay for the damage you inflict. Most states only require liability, issuers of credit normally require collision, etc.

    In other words, we are talking about apples and oranges here.

  • Richard Mullins

    Cypress isn’t a friendly crowd. She shouldn’t try coming down here to Texas in the first place.

  • Leopard1996

    And lived until I moved out to Cincinnati.

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    You’ll just have to link to the page the video is on.

  • Belle

    Did you attend the high school and did you graduate in 96? My oldest brother graduated in 96. I was a freshman that year.

  • Leopard1996

    Yep, I was Scarlet Flier.

  • Belle

    Scarlet Fliers won their game against Freehold Boro Thursday night. 26-20 in overtime.

    Have you been back recently?

  • Belle

    Scarlet Fliers won their game against Freehold Boro Thursday night. 26-20 in overtime.

    Have you been back recently?

  • billyd

    Some other folks from Monmouth County on the redstate boards. Belle, have you signed on for the Bay Shore tea party?

    Leopard. Great post yesterday. Hope Cincinnati is better that Cleveland. I’ve got a sister in law out there. Other than the Browns and Cavs, not much at all to do out there.

  • Leopard1996

    I haven’t been back out since last year. My wife is out there now visiting family. It’s nice to see that they beat the Boro. We might be out there for Thanksgiving. If so, I am so going to the Neptune/Asbury game. Unless Neptune makes the playoffs.

  • Leopard1996

    Cincinnati, isn’t much better than that. You got the Bengals and Reds (both suck). But me and the wife get by, and it is a hell of a lot less expensive out here than what it was in NJ.

    So are you guys going to really kick Corzine in the ass.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    but of course, and as always, he is completely WRONG in how he applies the comment…. He is speaking of Wall Street on this 1 year from Lehman Bros. failure and … well… you all know…..

    The “lack of Common Sense” was that on the part of G.W.Bush and his allowing PAULSON (the real FAILURE point) allowing him into going on his “abandon Free Market principles to save the Free Market” to which we are still all shaking our heads and wagging our finger at W over!!! The ABUSE, of course, is what came with Democrats super-sizing the Waste, Fraud, Abuse, $timulus, Dem. Money Laundering (PC excuses to $pend) (plus “extent possible” language), and countless unintended consequences (Democrats always ignore), expenditures and the other side COSTS: Surrender Doctrine (Democrats ALWAYS cut/weaken U.S.Defense).

  • Belle

    I think it’s at Asbury this year. I should know, my dad’s a coach.

    Corzine makes me twitch when I see/hear him.

  • billyd

    Corzine has tried time and time again to stick it to the people of NJ. Christie wasn’t my first choice, but Lonegan didn’t get the votes in the primary. There’s a 95% chance that Corzine is gone. he’s grasping for straws right now. Trying to bring up how Christie has a bad driving record. I guess he doesn’t realize that if elected Governor, Christie wouldn’t drive himself any longer, and that “Danger” would be avoided. Personally, i want to get rid of Rush Holt more than anything else. I actually volunteered for the first time in my life to help a politician get elected.
    And it’s definitely a lot less expensive out there.
    Have you been following anything in NJ Politics since you left? We’ve have a few corruption scandles in the last few years. Last year the Asbury Park Press app.com had been doing a new corrupt official each week. And this year we had a big bust that netted about 40 politicians. Was great. Everything from bribes to black market kidney sales.

  • Leopard1996

    I wasn’t able to catch anything else. And I find it hard that someone like Corzine is bringing up driving records, when his own driver couldn’t get him from the Rutgers womens basketball vs Imus thing back home without cripping up Corzine for about 6 months.

    What a douche.

  • billyd

    Here’s the main problem with your post, in comparing Car Insurance to Health insurance.
    You say that those without accidents pay for those with. Actually…. If you rear ended me, your car insurance rates would skyrocket. Mine would not change. (Happened to me last October. Was hit by a guy with a suspended license). If the person that hit me still wanted to drive, his insurance would be astronomical. As in… He would pay for the mistakes he made. With health insurance, that connection is eliminated by the government already. Insurance companies are not permitted to charge you more based on your lifestyle. They can only choose not to cover you. Imagine a health insurance company charging someone that smokes, is obese, and has a family history of heart disease $10k per month for coverage, and then charging someone without any of those problems $100 per month. Would never happen. Especially not if the government was forcing people to have that insurance regardless of the rates.
    On top of all of that. Driving isn’t a right. It’s a privledge.

  • billyd

    That’s the other funny thing. He almost got killed speeding on the Parkway. Guess he thought everyone in the state forgot about that. The only thing he’s got going for him is the Star Ledger. Each week, they write up some article blasting Christie. And all the while, they don’t even look at Corzine. Christie’s biggest asset……. The Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guandango (Not sure if that’s how you spell it) is his running mate. My Wife’s cousing is a court officer, and can’t say enough nice things about her.

  • clowngirl

    1. Car insurance, unlike health insurance in most states, is determined by a number of factors which determine how much you are deemed a risk.

    2. Car Insurance , unlike health insurance in most states, offers different levels of coverage. If you own your car outright, you have the option of purchasing liability insurance as opposed to full coverage.

    In other words, car insurance (at least in my understanding) is offered at rates that reflect actual market forces, where as health insurance is sold at artificially depressed or (more often probably) inflated prices do to accessive regulations and things like community rating. And, as billyd pointed out, those who cause accidents pay higher premiums and 1. help cover the cost and 2. have an incentive to not cause accidents.

    You ask what if an uninsured young person gets really sick? we can’t not treat them? This problem is very easily solved and is NOT THE REAL REASON THEY WANT TO ADD AN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE.

    3 simple ways to solve this:

    1. Send them a bill and require that it be paid.
    2. Get rid of community ratings systems that require young and healthy people to pay ridiculous rates for health insurance
    3. Get out of the way of inexpensive high deductible plans so people can actually purchase a level of insurance coverage that is appropriate to their situation.

    None of these options are considered because they want to force people to participate in socialized medicine. Plain and simple.

    I choose not to carry health insurance anymore and I assure you it’s NOT because I’m thinking the government would take care of me if I got really sick. It’s not even because I can’t afford it. It’s because the only insurance policies offered to me are extremely overpriced and only allowed me access to (at best) mediocre doctors. I stopped buying health insurance for the same reason people don’t buy most product. It’s price (in NYC) far exceeds its value.

    ( and that’s even including the value of appeasing my mom who sometimes freaks out about me not having insurance)

    It simply isn’t worth it to me to spend $4-$5,000 a year just on the remote chance I’ll get really sick. I’m healthy. I don’t smoke, don’t drink, I work out 5 times a week….I’m not that worried and besides I just shouldn’t have to pay that much. I choose not to participate in the de facto socialism we call “community ratings” because I just think they’re flat out wrong.

  • clowngirl
  • Belle

    Bay Shore Tea Party. If I can manage it, I may have to go up to Hazlet one Sunday.

    It’s great seeing others from Monmouth County. I thought I was the only one.

    Lonegan was my choice, but I think even my cat would do a better job than Corzine. With the way some people vote in this state, I’m sure if I made flyers and ads for my cat he could win.

  • Achance

    Between our retirement plan and our direct payment, my wife and I pay about $25,000.00/year for health insurance. Now admittedly, it is one of those “Cadillac” plans that Comrade Obama wants to tax.

    I’m reasonably certain that I never used as much as I paid in all through my career. My wife might have when her kids were younger. Now, we’re going to become expensive to the plan over the next ten, twenty, or thirty years unless Comrade Obama pulls the plug on us. That’s just the way group plans work.

  • billyd

    http://www.bayshoreteaparty.com/

    You’ll get periodic e-mails to let you know what’s going on. And we’re working on T Shirts for the group.

  • clowngirl

    The plans I’ve had in NY have been a complete waste of money -not only were they extremely overpriced, but on the occassions when I did get sick the doctors in my network were so lousy that after I’d wasted time going to them I wound up paying (fully) out of pocket to go to a doctor of my choosing.

    I’m willing to risk some bizzarre medical condition hitting me out of the blue. I regard the prospect as about as likely as winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

    People sometimes get an idea of what things should cost…I’m willing to waste around $100 a month on health insurance. Offer me a policy with a $10,000, even a $15,000 deductible for $100 a month and I’ll buy it. But I’m paying much more than that.

    People are required to by car insurance because of the risk of them hitting SOMEONE ELSE. My health is my own and I should be able to risk not carrying insurance if I want to. I don’t regard disease as a purely luck-of-the-draw proposition – I believe people have a lot of control over their own health. And I don’t have kids so I’m the only person who is taking any risk

    To me, having the government say I have to buy insurance because they don’t want to pay for me if I get drastically ill ( Which is not the real motive) is kind of like if they told me I couldn’t make my living in the arts – because it’s a less stable career path (though I’ve found it’s actually pretty stable) and so what if I fail and wind up on welfare – and seeing as they can’t risk that I really need to study accounting.