Monday, January 21, 2008

The Insurance Industry

I’m tired of reading complaints about being forced by the state to wear helmets and/or seatbelts. I’m tired of reading about the smoking ban too. All these regulations are supported by lobbyists for the insurance industry because it translates into lower costs for them.

Did the new-found savings to the insurance industry translate into lower insurance premiums for consumers? This is a question you can only answer for yourself by looking at your old statements, and listening to them boast about their vast holdings. I think you may become outraged.

Have you heard of the Flood Insurance Modernization Project? The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is collecting survey information of rivers and lakes that flood in the state.

This information will show the location and size of previously flooded areas in the state, and will determine whether or not future government Funds will go toward projects within those areas.

Do you live in a flood area? Maybe they think you do. Does your insurance company think you do? Did your home insurance change recently? Are you covered for any kind of water damage anymore? You might want to make sure the status of your farmland hasn’t changed also.

Just like everything else, the industrialists can once again say GOTCHA SUCKA! And they got the government they hate so much, to once again do it for them.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The evolving perception of media power

Media Matters (mediamatters.org) has once again launched a campaign to squelch media pundit Chris Matthews of NBC’s cable network MSNBC for expressing his negative opinion about Senator Hillary Clinton while under the sheep’s clothing of objective journalism.

Broadcast television before Cable was so limited by time that they only had room for straight news. Through this limited capability, journalism was given its reputation.

Suddenly, cable television had so many channels that it didn’t know what to do with them so they invited experienced talent from talk radio. Talk radio talent was a good choice because now the cable news networks had to fill twenty four hours a day.

The old guard television news anchors held a firm grip on their reputations while they had a limited amount of time, but they soon faced competition from their inflammatory talk-radio-to-television-gatecrashers.

The public perception is that what was once considered straight news has now become stained by opinion journalism. The truth is that most information is biased. All news was only covered by one perspective, that which was allowed by the gatekeepers.

We live in an era now where we must understand that an opinion is an opinion, and we can sit back and say “Well, he has his opinion and that’s okay.” A few years ago, during the period between the invention of cable and the birth of the Internet, most of us would still have a problem with that statement.

Today, I have my own media outlet. In fact, I have at least eight. If there was a topic that interested me, I would look it up, find as many differing positions as I could on it, and decide for myself. If it’s interesting enough I might write about it?

So who gives a rat’s ass about Chris Matthews or what he’s saying about Hillary?

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Things are getting desperate

How do we know things are getting desperate?
  • $12.50 for lunch at the Sunrise Cafe.
  • Snooty comments like "Some people think they own the whole world." from people who work at the Bean Counter.
  • Asking for a ten megapixel camera at Circuit City and getting sold a six instead, and with the wrong type of memory card. Now they can't sell my mother a digital camera because they don't have it in stock, nor do they have it at the warehouse.
  • Ridiculously overpriced green bell peppers at County Market that are now rotting.
  • Schnooks doesn't even have space on their shelves for #1 small coffee filters.

Now with the city paying up on it's civil rights violations, things are really going to get stinky. But apparently not stinky enough to prevent the creation of a brand new job at the Lincoln Library on 7Th and Capitol.

The librarians were so suddenly surprised by the brand new job that they didn't have time to apply for it. The position was already filled!

The risk assessment for the position is that there appears to be a potential for Repetitive Motion Injury due to computer mouse clicking at Solitaire.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

AMBUSH

Since the State Journal Register turned off its comments for the story
"Girlfriend: No warning from policeSays boyfriend always shoots for New Year’s" for obvious reasons, I'll comment here: The combined comments of both police and girlfriend result in the conclusion of "Ambush."

"Several officers in the area at the time “heard a number of gunshots being
fired,” police said, and upon investigation found
Wells armed with a handgun."
...

“When he went out, (his gun) went Pow! Pow! Pow! [And then I
heard
] Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! And then I heard him say, ‘They
shooting at me!’ and I heard the back door opening. He said, ‘They shot me!’
And, bam, he hit the floor,” Stapleton recalled Wednesday."

This has to go down in the record books as the fastest investigation in the entire history of the world.