Deep In The Heart Of Me

I've Got You Under My Skin --Sinatra (Live At The Sands)

Today's Quote

Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

-- James Madison to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822.

hat tip = Charlie Pierce

Happy Newtonmas, Everybody

Hurry Down The Chimney

Santa Baby --Eartha Kitt

Testify, Sistuh Pearl

A Five-Pound Box Of Money --Pearl Bailey

A Joyful Noise

This one's kind of a perennial post for me - just trying to encourage the bible thumpers to devote so much time to making spectacular music that they're left with little to spend mucking about in politics.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, everybody.

Today's Quote

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." --Sir Winston Churchill

A Slightly Different Point Of View

Fuck Christmas --Eric Idle

Lost In The Shuffle

Way too many times, when we're busy sniping and ducking fire, we forget to look at what's actually happening.

WaPo:

Over at Health Affairs, Andrew Steinmetz, Ralph Muller, Steven Altschuler and Ezekiel Emanuel decided to see how health reform looked to hospital executives. They surveyed 74 C-Suite executives from institutions that, on average, employed 8,520 workers and saw annual revenues of $1.5 billion. The survey wasn't scientific by any means, but in a speculative conversation that's proceeding mostly by anecdote, these individuals have a better vantage point on the changes that health reform is making to actual health-care systems than virtually anyone else.

The results? Hospital executives think health reform is going to make the health care they deliver a whole lot better -- and a bit cheaper:

Fully 65 percent indicated that by 2020, they believe the healthcare system as a whole will be somewhat or significantly better than it is today. And when they were asked about their own institutions, the optimism was even more dramatic. Fully 93 percent predicted that the quality of care provided by their own health system would improve. This is probably related to efforts to diminish hospital acquired conditions, medication errors, and unnecessary re-admissions, as encouraged by financial penalties in the ACA.

These are the guys who make money on your being sick.  Not like the docs and nurses who mostly earn every penny trying to take care of us - an awful lot of these guys are cut-throat MBA types with no clinical background, who often speak of their patients as products, and who just as often believe they can't afford the luxury of having honest human emotions when it comes to the business of healthcare.

65% of 'em think healthcare in USAmerica Inc will be better under ACA.
91% think the cost aspects will improve.
And 93% are convinced that the quality of care at their own facilities will improve.

How can there possibly be any question as to why Repubs (and their Press Poodles) are constantly slagging Obama and "Gubmint Healthcare"?

A Bit Shocking

...cuz, when you think of "librul pinko-socialist utopia", you just automatically think - Utah(?)

From NationSwell, via Democratic Underground

Utah has reduced its rate of chronic homelessness by 78 percent over the past eight years, moving 2000 people off the street and putting the state on track to eradicate homelessness altogether by 2015. How’d they do it? The state is giving away apartments, no strings attached. In 2005, Utah calculated the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail stays for an average homeless person was $16,670, while the cost of providing an apartment and social worker would be $11,000. Each participant works with a caseworker to become self-sufficient, but if they fail, they still get to keep their apartment.

And did you catch the part about saving tax dollars?  Wow - turns out the sensible, business-like thing to do is to be generous and charitable.  Hoodathunkit!?!

So, when the clear-eyed rational tough-love austerians are talking about how "we just can't coddle these people because all we're doing by giving them handouts is teaching them to be dependent"? - well, now we have some more very good empirical evidence that they really are just being the short-sighted narrow-minded pricks we tho't they were in the first place.  Not that this particular bit of very good empirical evidence won't be lost on 'em, like it usually is.  To wit:

In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, only 36 percent of Americans reported having "a lot" of trust that information they get from scientists is accurate and reliable. Fifty-one percent said they trust that information only a little, and another 6 percent said they don't trust it at all.

Science journalists fared even worse in the poll. Only 12 percent of respondents said they had a lot of trust in journalists to get the facts right in their stories about scientific studies. Fifty-seven percent said they have a little bit of trust, while 26 percent said they don't trust journalists at all to accurately report on scientific studies.

So it's a complete crapshoot on whether we get our collective head out of our ass, but hey - there's never a bad time to throw some Carlin at ya: