Daily Archives: November 8, 2009

Ft. Hood

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A couple things on this today.

One – George Bush quietly visited Ft. Hood on Friday along with Laura. I am certain those folks laid up in the hospital there relished that visit.

Two – the Telegraph reports that the nutbag shooter worshiped under an Iman who was a spiritual leader of some of the 9/11 terrorists!

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.

Was this missed during the FBI investigation, or just ignored for expedience??

Health Care Reform (?)

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Thomas Sowell writes of the “need” for reform.

Ironically, it is politicians who have already made medical insurance so expensive that many people refuse to buy it. Insurance is designed to cover risk. But politicians have mandated that insurance cover things that are not risks and that neither the buyers nor the sellers of insurance want covered.

A commenter at Three Sources notes an Ayn Rand quote concerning the coming criminality of not buying health insurance and not paying the government approved fine:

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

I still don’t know, along with most of Congress, what all is in it based on the newpaper articles today, but I did write my congresswoman Betsy Markey-D- and thanked her for voting against the thing.

Toyotas and Lexus’

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Apparently they “suddenly accelerate” yet investigators are dismissing a lot of the cases, because…well, read this:

In reviewing consumer complaints during its investigations, the NHTSA relied on established “positions” that defined how the agency viewed the causes of sudden acceleration. Cases in which consumers alleged that the brakes did not stop a car were discarded, for example, because the agency’s official position was that a braking system would always overcome an engine and stop a car.

This reminded me of the Paul Krugman opinion on the British health care system. (repeated often by James Taranto of the WSJ)

In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.

UPDATE: Apparently they “just accelerate” upon pushing the accelerator. hmmm