Helsinki - Cafe Ship KATHRINA

On our first day in Helsinki, we made a trip to the harbor to go have a snack in the sailing ship KATHRINA which is docked downtown most winters where they run a cafe while the ship is locked in the ice. It was a favorite place for me to go have a coffee when living here. One winter they had art for sale and I purchased a nice painting.

From the ship's website:

The history of m/aux Kathrina

M/aux Kathrina was built in 1947-1949 at Sarfsalö, Pernaja, on the east coast of Helsinki. Albin Gustafsson, a Porvoo shipbuilder, was master builder and Walter Forsell from Sarfsalö foreman.

The Kathrina was launched in the spring of 1949. She is an exceptionally wellbuilt three-masted schooner with a length of 31.75 m, breadth 7.34 m, and draught ca. 2.5 m.

With a crew of three to four men, Arne Lindberg, the Kathrina’s first master sailed the Baltic between Finland, Sweden and Denmark carrying cargo such as coffee, bicycles, steel, coal, grain, timber and lime. In 1953-1971 the Kathrina freighted about 300 000 tons of sand for the Finnish building industry.

In the early 1970s the Kathrina was sold to Richard Thompson Coon, who begun a lengthy and thorough restoration intended to transform the freighter into a passenger ship. The work originally took place in Sarfsalö, but was continued at the wharfs of Sköldvik in Porvoo and Ruoholahti in Helsinki, and finally in dry dock at Suomenlinna.

In 1993 the Kathrina was bought by Juha Stillman, who recommenced restoration following a standstill of some years. In 1994 Johanna Panelius purchased the ship, and restoration at Suomenlinna continued at a pace determined by limited means. The ship was equipped with a new deck, masts, booms, after cabin, tanks, engines, and electrical and water installations. The restoration was presented in some radio and TV programs.

Today the fifty-year-old Kathrina is registered as a passenger ship. During the sailing season she is used mainly for chartered tours,both for companys and private persons.During winterseason the kathrina serves as a café and luncheon restaurant, and can also be rented for private parties and sauna evenings. - m/aux KATHRINA

So if you are around it is worth going and getting coffee, a snack or even lunch onboard the ship.

Also downtown was a nice Christmas market where lots of Finnish-made gifts could be found. They must have started this in the last couple years as this was not here back when I was living in the city.

Yes, Helsinki is covered in snow and yes, the harbor is icing over. So far this winter there are no signs of global warming here. Guess we have the idiots in Copenhagen to thank for this freezing weather.

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Helsinki City Rental Apartment - Photos

Here are some photos of our rental apartment for this week. We lucked out and found something right downtown. As a bonus, the apartment is much larger than the one we had last time.

(Living Room)

(Bedroom)

(Kitchen)

(The view)

That is the national museum out the window. Yes, I am checking Instapundit to see what I have been missing while traveling the last day.

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British Airways: 'Sure you can pick your seat. That will be $30, each.' (Updated)

UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter below, it does seem that the fee only applies if you want to pick seats more than a day in advance. I was able to change seats today without paying. So apologies for the rant below, which I am leaving for historical reference.

Now I am dealing with reduced baggage allowance. This is the first time we are flying across the Atlantic with only one free bag permitted and a max weight of 23 kilos instead of 32. I am not bitching about this as it seems that we can fit into the new rules, although we are buying a new bag to consolidate two smaller bags into one....

On Monday we are off to Finland for Christmas vacation. Normally we drive up to New York and take the direct flight to Helsinki via Finnair.

However, this time the wife wanted to avoid the drive to and from New York. We could fly up to New York and then take the Finnair flight, but it is better to get on an international flight, this way you are changing planes closer to the midpoint of the trip, if for no reason other than a distraction for the kids. So we decided to take British Airways for a change. I used to use BA all the time but stopped after they uncovered the liquid bomb attack threat. I stopped going through London not for fear of a terror attack, but just to avoid going through a higher level of security check than faced in the US. (For a while they banned carry-ons, and I prefer to keep my camera equipment out of the luggage compartment)

So far going with BA this time around has been nothing but a hassle, and I have yet to even get to the airport. First, my Aunt wanted to gift us some of her BA points and upgrade us to Business as a Christmas present. But since we did not buy our tickets directly from BA, our tickets were not eligible for an upgrade. Fine, so be it. If those are the rules they have, lesson learned. (One reason my Aunt wanted to gift us points was because she was having a difficult time trying to use them.)

Now I was looking at our seats this evening and to my surprise BA wants to charge $30 a seat to change seats on the Atlantic portion of the trip and another $15 to change seats on our connecting flight. That would come out to $180 to change our seats and I suspect another $180 to do the same thing for the return flight. Fine, if this is what they want to do, so be it. Lesson learned.

I will admit that this is a pretty neat cash generator for BA. I never could figure out how they assigned seats and how best to request a window seat, which is where I prefer to sit. It always seemed like a hassle with BA to request a specific area where to sit. Oddly enough, half the time I did, I ended up not only with a better seat but one in a better class. That was one reason to switch back to BA. But now I am not so sure anymore. I am going to think twice before booking another flight with them. Especially since I think that knowing that I prefer a window seat BA will intentionally put me in a seat most likely to encourage me to 'upgrade' to a different seat.

Something tells me that BA still has other unpleasant surprises in store for my family and I when we do ship out Monday. So far, they have been a huge dissappointment.....

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Carbon Cuts? - Not in my name!

If American's can be against the War on Terror by protesting it, declaring that it is not being done in their name, I guess I can do the same against mandatory carbon cuts in the spirit of fighting Global Warming.

The US Government has been dickering about with various plans for capping and trading CO2 greenhouse gas output. Now in the run-up to Climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, President Obama, while lacking any real plan, has declared that the US will commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

That's great, but I started thinking about what my role and contribution in all of this will be. I quickly realized that I really do not have much carbon to spare, at least not much before my lifestyle starts to get impacted negatively. I suspect that my family and I are not the greenest, however I would not say that we are wasteful. After all being wasteful also results in wasting money. That is something I am very against.

Here is a little more detail on how my family is killing the planet. This way, you'll know at least one person to blame when we are all standing knee-deep in melted glacier:

• Air travel - This is probably the biggest 'sin' that I commit. I travel for work. I do not do it often, but when I travel it is across the Atlantic, which is sure to leave a big footprint in my wake. Also, I travel by air for vacation. My wife is from Finland so we go there once or twice a year. In both cases I have a limited ability to effect the travel schedule, however whenever possible I do try to fly the most direct route possible. Unfortunately, airlines like to route you through hubs which does make the carbon footprint larger since there is an additional take-off and landing as well as a longer route traveled. Now, we could cut back on traveling to see the parents, but that is at the cost of turning relatives into more distant ones. At least, I have no problem seeing my mother-in-law twice a year.


• Home - I guess we are being pretty green in our current living situation in that we rent an apartment and do not live in a McMansion. So here is one for the green movement. (We are looking for a house though, partly because we are out of room...)
  


• Lighting - One product being pushed as an easy way to save the environment is through the use of compact florescent light bulbs. We currently have one in the house and it happens to be in a room that also has an incandescent light. Yes, the lights are getting better, but let's be realistic, the light quality still sucks when compared to traditional (wasteful) lighting. I do hear that some are really good but I have yet to be totally impressed within a reasonable price range. Plus, I have my doubts as to how green these lights truly are. They take much more energy to produce. They use hazardous chemicals and they are much more difficult to dispose of properly. Then there are the reports that even though you use less energy, the power companies need to pump out twice as much into the grid form them to function properly due to a poor 'power factor' of many of the bulbs. So, no thank you. Plus, these are only green if they reduce energy plant emissions from a plant emitting CO2
  


• Energy Use - Looking around the house, it seems that our biggest home energy use is for heating and cooling. We live in an apartment so we are limited in how we can improve the efficiency of our apartment other than blocking off the windows with more insulation. Since we do not want to feel like we are living in a cave (that damn quality of life issue again) and since the windows are double pane, we heat the house to a comfortable level. We will close the blinds at night if it is a particularly cold evening and keep the blinds low in the summer if the sun is on that side of the house to help keep the house cool. But in general we will heat/cool the house to where we find it comfortable, which is normally around 70 degrees. Sure, I can keep the house cooler in the winter and put on a sweater, and I sometimes do. However, I would like to be comfortable when home so I prefer not to wear winter clothing inside the house. If the Government has a problem with this, then maybe they should get out of the way of companies that want to bring more nuclear power online. As far as global warming goes, nuclear power is green. Environmentalists might want to take a second to recognize this very basic fact. Hell, switching to nuclear will help them reduce coal use.
  


• Energy Use (cooking) - We have a gas stove and now we have a microwave. Our least green cooking task is doing barbeque, which I cover below.
  


• Cars / Transportation -We are a two car family. I drive my '94 BMW that I have had since 2001. I think simply keeping this car out of the junkyard by properly maintaining it is being green enough. Two years ago we added a second newer car for my wife. I only use my car during the week to go the three miles to and from work. I could take public transportation and did when we had one car when my wife needed to use the car. However, instead of it being a 15 minute trip, going by bus takes 40 minute. Longer if we also count my time waiting to get on the first bus. My wife too could also take public transportation but with two small kids, it is just not practical. At least, when she goes around, three of the four spots in the car are occupied. As for electric and other alternative-fuel vehicles, they are just too expensive. If I was willing to spend that much money, I'd buy a luxury car. We do occasionally drive from Washington, DC to New York to visit my relatives, but given that there are four of us in the car and most of the trip was at highway speed, I think that is 'green' enough. Technically we could be a little greener by taking the train up to New York, but we still have to get to the train station as well as get to my parents once off the train. When you add in our luggage as well as the need to take two car seats along with us, it is just not practical. Not to mention much more expensive than driving. Anyway, if Al Gore can jot around the planet in private transportation, I am going to reserve that right for myself and my family as well. And one more thing. Many of you are just not pleasant to be around. Nor do I want to expose my kids to many of the freaks out there. I lived in Finland for three years without a car. It was the one thing I missed having the most. People there smoked at the buss stops, despite that being against the rules. They drank on the bus. Puked on the bus. People are rude. People smell. No thank you.
  


• Barbecue - Barbecues are glacier melting CO2 emitting machines. But in the right hands they produce such good food. So I have no plans of giving up barbecues. In fact, if the planet does warm, that means a longer barbecue season for me. You can put fireplaces in the same category or even more wasteful since they are not being used cooking.


• Food - There was a call recently for people to give up meat for the environment. I responded to that lunacy in my post 'Save the Planet - Kill The Animals' making the case that if animals are contributing to global warming to such a degree, more so that humans, then maybe we should be killing off all the animals in nature. At least those we farm are around for a purpose. Really, who are we saving the planet for?
  

Given the list above, it seems that I am just a pig. So be it. That said, I do look to be economical which does often have a side benefit of being greener. We do have reusable grocery bags. My wife uses them. I normally do not but the plastic bags that we do get we reuse as trash bags. This is actually a good thing given that store-bought trash bags are often much more robust and there waste more material to contain the trash. We also tend to buy bigger packages which means less waste overall.

Now before anyone goes all whiney-ass on my lack of sympathy for the planet, maybe they should first look at those who really called this mess, like global warming alarmist Al Gore. He probably wastes more energy in a day than I'll use all year.

P.S. I am not interested in having a third child, however the idiotic calls to limit families to one child are actually one reason for me to have a third child. IF for no other reason to piss off one of these lunatic liberals.

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Canada: Stalin = Hitler

On the heels of Europe declaring that Stalin was as big a murderous bastard as Hitler comes Canadian Liberals calling to take the same position:

Liberal MPs Pass Motion To Mark August 23rd As Black Ribbon Day

03.12.2009

OTTAWA - Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic, the Hon. Bob Rae, passed a unanimous Resolution in Parliament today to commemorate the victims of Europe's totalitarian regimes.

"Millions of Canadians of Eastern and Central European descent whose families have been directly affected by either Nazi or Communist crimes have made unique and significant, cultural, economic, social and other contributions to help build the Canada we know today," said Mr. Rae. "We must unequivocally condemn the crimes against humanity committed by totalitarian Nazi and Communist regimes and offer the victims of these crimes and their family members' sympathy, understanding and recognition for their suffering.

"Every victim of any totalitarian regime has the same human dignity and deserves justice, remembrance and recognition by the Parliament and the Government of Canada."

Twenty years after the fall of the totalitarian Communist regimes in Europe, knowledge among Canadians about these regimes, which terrorised their fellow citizens in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 40 years, is still alarmingly superficial and inadequate.

This annual day of remembrance is to be held on August 23rd to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes.

"Called Black Ribbon Day, the establishment of this Day of Remembrance on August 23rd will show Canadians and those around the world that Canada will not stand for crimes against humanity, and we will be counted among those who stand up for victims of systematic and ruthless abuse.

"Canadians must not allow these crimes to go misunderstood and unrecognized." - CommunistCrimes.org

Lets see if the Canadian Government makes this resolution official.

Where is the US on this matter? I have written before that Russia needs to go through what Nazi Germany went through at the end of WWII with an investigation to the crimes of Communism. (Click the 'Soviet Union' tag to find the relevant posts.) Since it has not happened we have to deal with Russia acting like a bully all across Europe as well as having to deal with ongoing admiration for the Soviet Union and even for Stalin himself. This is mad.

One way to get the ball rolling might be for an investigation into US actions or better put American inaction in fighting Soviet crimes going back to the 1930's. For starters, it would be nice to see an investigation into Why the US State Department did nothing to help Americans trapped in the Soviet Union get back to the US, knowing that those going into the Embassy were being picked up as they came out and set to the Gulag, many never to return. This went on for decades.

Take a look at the US State Department's Freedom of Information Act 'Reading Room' list of Topics. 'Communism' and 'Soviet Union' are not even listed. Doing a search for relevant documents does not bring up much interesting information either.

So, what are they hiding? My guess is lots.
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French Navy Commands Somali Pirate Mothership - Photo

Here is a recent photo uploaded to the French Naval Forces website:

You can find the story and more photos here:

November, 2009 - The French frigate Floreal captured a “mothership” carrying arms, ammunition and fuel as well as two skiffs some 650 miles east of Hobyo in Somalia and 500 miles to the northwest of the Seychelles, spokesman Christophe Prazuck said. - Gulf Times

Nice photo.
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'Climategate' thought - How many times did they adjust each reading?

It seems that we are still only in chapter I in the ClimateGate saga. But one question has come across my mind.

How many times the climate scientists bothered to 'adjust' the data?

For starters, the climate lab in question claims not to have any raw data any longer because they have adjusted the temperature readings and then deleted the source data. OK fine, this explains why they adjusted the data. (Of course this comment ignores the quality of the adjustments for the moment)

However, it seems that they are adjusting the data at least a second time. Why? For what purpose? It seems that the adjustments are dynamic in that different adjustments are made for each year, if the leaked software code is to be believed.

This issue seems to be yet another area of this scandal that is very fishy to me.

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December 7th - Never Forget

Today is the 68th anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

While the attack was done by the Japanese, we in fact have three countries to 'thank' for World War II. Those of course being Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union. To this day, one of those countries has yet to atone for this crime against humanity. Unfortunately, it needs to be stated that the Soviet Union was a leading player in bringing about World War II, because Russia has never really been forced to face that inconvenient detail.

German and Soviet troops at the so-called "Border of Peace", or a demarcation line set up by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; picture taken during the Polish Defense War of 1939. Soviet BT tank visible in the foreground. - Wikipedia

So in order not to forget, we first need to properly remember and recognize the criminal acts of our supposed 'Allie' in that War.

Previous:

• Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Attack (And a Fitting example of the results of dialoging with your enemies who are not acting in Good Faith) - 2006
• Pearl Harbor, December 7 1941 - 2005
• Remembering the Manhattan Project and the end of WWII - August 2005

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Fazer's 'Mignon' Chocolate Egg

Like many people, I love chocolate. And not just any chocolate, but good chocolate. Fazer in Finland makes great chocolate. My MBA classmates would joke that Fazer profits would drop when I left the country.

One of Fazer's products is their Mignon egg.

Mignon (chocolate egg)

The Mignon chocolate egg is an Easter confectionery made by the Fazer company. Its distinctive features are a filling of almond-hazelnut nougat inside a real eggshell. The Mignon is the second oldest Fazer product (only surpassed by the Pihlaja marmalade candy), dating back from 1896, when Karl Fazer brought the recipe from Germany.

Enduringly popular as parts of Finnish Easter celebrations with ca. two million eggs sold per year, Mignon eggs are handmade at the Fazer factory in Vantaa. - Wikipedia

Here are some photos of the 'unboxing' of a Fazer Mignon four-pack. Yes, they are as good as they look. And even though I moved from Finland years ago, I now buy Fazer chocolate by the case whenever I am there.

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Gore Effect - Washington, DC Area

OK, they were predicting some snow, this evening. However, the rain changed started changing to snow around 9:30 this morning instead of late afternoon like they predicted. It is also accumulating on the ground which they did not predict to happen until overnight.

Noontime - 5 December 2009 - McLean, VA

So, thanks for global warming, because otherwise without it we would be buried in snow and ice!

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Congressional ‘Don’t ask – Don’t Tell’ Flanking Maneuver?

One issue the Obama Administration has been facing is what to do with the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell‘ policy. Now comes word that Congress is looking into the matter and would like some servicemen (and women) to publicly ‘out’ themselves. As a reward for doing so, they would be given immunity in the process:

Gay service members who reveal their sexual orientations during congressional testimony would be immune from forced discharges under a bill introduced Wednesday, as lawmakers prepare to consider repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military.

The legislation’s author, U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said the bill is needed to ensure that Congress has reliable and relevant witnesses at its disposal if the House holds hearings next year on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The bill also would protect from retaliatory personnel actions any members of the military who testify for or against lifting the 16-year ban. – Washington Post

It is interesting to see how this would play out as the result would seem to be that those service members who testify would then be serving in violation of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. And once that happens I can see calls to repeal the policy altogether using those who testify as examples why the policy is no longer needed.

Then again, they can turn this into a de facto repeal depending on how they grant immunity. I would think that simply volunteering to testify would be enough to warrant immunity.

The story does note that immunity is not total:

Alexander Nichols, executive director of Servicemembers United, an advocacy group for gay Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, said the legislation is good in theory but on a practical level would not protect gay service members who out themselves to Congress from becoming pariahs within their units.

“This proposal is, of course, well-intentioned and the idea behind it is certainly noble, but I believe it is a bit naive in its conceit and doesn’t reflect a thoughtfulness on what this would mean for gay and lesbian service members,” Nichols said. He thinks it is better for gay veterans to share their experiences than to put active duty service members at risk. – Washington Post

Developing…

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Russia: 'No Copenhagen climate deal unless you pay us billions of Dollars'

While the Obama Presidency has been trying to take advantage of the slogan 'never let a good crisis go to waste', leave it to the Russians to show how to do it right.

Take the urgent call to act to prevent disaster from uncontrolled runaway global warming. The Russians are fully willing to 'do their part' to avert global calamity, as long as they profit in the process:

NEW YORK – A long simmering but infrequently discussed issue over carbon credits that Russia has amassed under its Kyoto Protocol obligations threatens to erupt at Copenhagen and possibly scuttle chances for a politically viable agreement to emerge from the talks, American and foeign analysts have said.

The Kremlin has recently begun to apply pressure that it be allowed to hold on to it Kyoto carbon credits in the run up to Copenhagen. But environmentalists insist that allowing this roll over would hobble any treaty by making it far cheaper to buy up surplus Russian credits than to actually undertake efforts in energy efficiency, renewable energy and technologies to abate global warming. - Charles Digges, 01/12-2009, Bellona Foundation

The Russians know a good scam when they see one. 'ClimateGate' is not the only global warming conspiracy out there. There are a couple of green conspiracies floating around and the reward of billions of dollars in carbon credits to Russia is one of them.

Russia's credits of course were due to the combination of the Soviet Union being both a very dirty polluter, setting the bar high for them and the resulting collapse of the Soviet Union which took down much of their dirty industry with them.

The whole point of giving 'carbon credits' based on how much pollution a country was responsible for was to permit each country a non-destructive path from their current industrial situation to one that was greener without causing complete havoc in the process. However, in the case of the Soviet Union, these dirty factories were closed anyway, leaving in their wake a massive pile of permits of pollute, which Russia has been selling to businesses around the world subverting other country's attempts to push industry to greener alternatives.

Simply put, the Kyoto Treaty enabled Russia to profit from the environmental damage the Soviet Union was responsible for. Now that Kyoto is ending, they want to ensure that they can continue to profit, even though Russia's CO2 output is growing like crazy. They have good reason to demand a continuation of the past agreement given how much it was worth to them:

In futures trading for contracts maturing next year in Europe, prices are about €15 per carbon credit, the Financial Times reported earlier this month. One carbon credit offsets one ton of carbon emissions.

At current prices, the total value for Russian carbon credits could be between €30 billion and €45 billion, ($40 billion to $60 billion) said the Financial Times. The downside is that, should Copenhagen talks to devise a replacement agreement for Kyoto, the carbon credits could become a poof of air. - Bellona

Ideally, if any similar process to Kyoto is put in place, then there needs to have a new benchmark to measure each country's emissions from. It makes no sense at all to continue using emission numbers from 1990 which were already inaccurate when Kyoto was signed in the late 1990's.

Even better would be to get rid of the 'cap and trade' system. It actually undoes green activity.

One reason for this is that in many cases when a company does something to make their output 'greener' they have to completely redo their operations which results in a much greater lowering of their greenhouse gas emissions than is required. (i.e., putting in a CO2 scrubber in a smokestack might reduce emissions by 60% but the company only had to reduce by 10%.) So the environment actually gained by the conversion. So it makes no sense to then take that gain and use it as permission for others not to make their companies greener.

Worse, in the case of the Russian Carbon credits, the reduced emissions came free. So every Russian carbon credit sold actually makes the planet a little less green because there is no Russian factory that otherwise would be spewing greenhouse gasses. It would be like me demanding carbon credits for a third child that I decide not to have. After all, it is not like I am going to have the third child if I am not compensated.

What other global warming madness is out there? (Besides the big question of whether the planet actually is warming or not and if so what is the cause for it!)

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Maritime Monday 190 Posted at gCaptain (My Last)

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.

Maritime Monday 190

You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 140 here. (Published 15 December 2008).

Note: This was my last regular edition of Maritime Monday. After almost 4 years I am ready for a break from the weekly routine. I look forward to reading the upcoming editions instead of writing them for a change!

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Previous Editions:
As linked below or click on the label ‘MaritimeMonday’:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57 - 58 - 59 - 60 - 61 - 62 - 63 - 64 - 65 - 66 - 67 - 68 - 69 - 70 - 71 - 72 - 73 - 74 - 75 - 76 - 77 - 78 - 79 - 80 - 81 - 82 - 83 - 84 - 85 - 86 - 87 - 88 - 89 - 90 - 91 - 92 - 93 - 94 - 95 - 96 - 97 - 98

gCaptain editions: 99 - 100 - 101 - 102 - 103 - 104 - 105 - 106 - 107 - 108 - 109 - 110 - 111 - 112 - 113 - 114 - 115 - 116 - 117 - 118 - 119 - 120 - 121 - 122 - 123 - 123a - 124 - 125 - 126 - 127 - 128 - 129 - 130 - 131 - 132 - 133 - 134 - 135 - 136 - 137 - 138 - 139 - 140 - 141 - 142 - 143 - 144 - 145 - 146 - 147 - 148 - 149 - 150 - 151 - 152 - 153 - 154 - 155 - 156 - 157 - 158 - 159 - 160 - 161 - 162 - 163 - 164 - 165 - 166 - 167 - 168 - 169 - 170 - 171 - 172 - 173 - 174 - 175 - 176 - 177 - 178 - 179 - 180 - 181 - 182 - 183 - 184 - 185 - 186 - 187 - 188 - 189 - 190

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Staying home this year for Thanksgiving.

So no traffic to deal with, a plus in itself.

Best to all.

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Bogus Public Health Care Insurance Option Ad - 'Competition'

I saw this ad from an organization that calls itself 'Health Care for America Now'.

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Link

My first reaction to this ad was that these people are full of bullsh*t.

It is not that they don't identify a real problem, because they do. This organization is full of bull sh*t because of their endorsement of the Democrat solution of a 'public' health care option. Really, for a state with only one or two health care insurance providers, adding a Government-run public option is only going to add one more player to the market. And that one additional service provider will be a Government-run insurance provider that has the ability to offer a competing product at below-cost rates. (Taxpayers then pay the difference from the rates charged and the actual cost of the care provided.) That is not the addition of a competitor but a path to single payer. This is because the 'public' option will drive the competition out of business. The ad give example of the current lack of competition in parts of the US given how some areas have only one or two insurance companies active in those markets.

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Not mentioned in the ad is the reason behind this problem. That being the ban on the purchase of health insurance across state lines. This is another reason these people are full of bull is that if they were serious in solving this problem of a lack of competition, they they would be pushing for an end to the ban on buying health insurance across state lines.

If this limitation was removed, then Congress would achieve their goal of increasing competition across the whole United States without the need of a 'Public' option. However, this is not their goal. Their goal has always been Government-controlled health care. And if they get their way, there will be only one health care organization allowed to offer health care across state lines and that will be the Federal Government.

Another thing about the 'Public Option' is that the current bills in Congress will only permit a small population of Americans eligible to enroll, so for almost all Americans the public option will not change the availability of additional health insurance providers at all, which is the main argument of this commercial. So for most people the situation above will remain even if Congress approves health care reform.

Assuming that those behind the ad are relatively smart and informed people, what exactly are they trying to accomplish with this ad?

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