A Test Drive

I just read an article about a couple that didn’t even kiss before marriage. While I have no problem with sex before marriage, I am also fully supportive of those who choose to wait. There is one thing in the article that thoroughly annoyed me:

Yes, they’ve heard “test drive the car before you buy,” but LaLuz has her own analogy.

“You can’t take the car out of the parking lot until you pay for it,” she said.

Yeah, hun, actually you can. That’s what a test drive is. Furthermore, you would be an absolute fool to buy a car you’d never driven. To prove your point, you might want to go with an analogy that doesn’t involve purchasing cars.

Article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-talk-no-sexnov29,0,2758381.story

Silence

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how homosexuals, celebrities, and other undesirables should just get over the Proposition 8 thing. The people voted, the majority rules, quit whining, the end. This attitude is disturbing to me, and it should be disturbing to you. Majorities have often voted for things that are unethical. Majorities have voted for slavery, for the exclusion of certain groups from voting, for eugenics. When the majority votes to oppress, to limit freedom in a country that pledges “freedom and justice for all,” we should protest. To remain silent, or God forbid, to defend this, is unacceptable.

An eloquent reminder, taken from a sermon by Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Work, Life, Etc.

My wages were lowered and my hours were decreased. They’ve also decided that we must all dress “professionally” when they had us dress “casually” before. Working there for three years means that I have nothing but casual clothes, since I have no reason to be dressy elsewhere in my life. So I get a lower wage, fewer hours–and am expected to buy a new wardrobe.

I applied for a part-time job today, but then when I thought about it, I decided that was stupid. I mean, liberals don’t work hard. We’re lazy through and through, supported by the government. Ah, well. I’ll probably work two jobs anyway. I always was a slow learner.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Who would have thought that this horrible work environment would have a positive side–but it does! I haven’t kept a single bite of food inside me for longer than an hour in the past week. In six days, I’ve lost 14 pounds! My pants are loose! I’ve never lost so much weight so fast.

In other good news–which I totally missed until this weekend–there was a mental health parity bill attached to the bailout bill. The previous mental health care parity act said that insurance companies couldn’t put a lower cap on money spent for mental health care than the cap they had on physical health care. Insurance companies got around this by keeping the spending caps the same, but limiting the amount of visits one can use for mental health treatment, both inpatient and outpatient. The new law closes that loophole, stating that the limits must be the same. Some interesting facts about the new law:

• Researchers have found biological causes and effective treatments for numerous mental illnesses.
• A number of companies now specialize in managing mental health benefits, making the costs to insurers and employers more affordable. The law allows these companies to continue managing benefits.
• Employers have found that productivity tends to increase after workers are treated for mental illnesses and drug or alcohol dependence. Such treatments can reduce the number of lost work days.
• The stigma of mental illness may have faded as people see members of the armed forces returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious mental problems.
• Parity has proved workable when tried at the state level and in the health insurance program for federal employees, including members of Congress.
• The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the new requirement will increase premiums by an average of about two-tenths of 1 percent. (FYI, this means that my premiums will be raised by approximately six cents. Assuming I’ve done the math correctly, of course–which is a BIG assumption. Hm. Now I’m getting 30 cents. Either way, it’s not enough to consider.)

My concerns are twofold. One is that it doesn’t take effect until 2010. If we can get a bailout done with lightning speed, there’s no reason not to get this on the ball as well, especially since we’ve waited so fucking long for it. My other concern is that insurers will simply put a cap on treatments they haven’t capped before, and then we’ll still be screwed with mental health, with the added bonus of being screwed for physical health.

There is, of course, the argument that an insurance provider is a business and can cover what they want–and if you don’t like it, you can get insurance elsewhere. My first response to that is that it’s simply unfair for a person to have to pay so much more out of pocket because their illness happens to be of a highly experienced nature that, for whatever reason (likely “because we can”), the insurance companies have chosen not to cover. Additionally, since the law only applies to group health insurance provide by employers of 50 or more, many people still simply won’t be accepted for coverage if they have mental health problems, whether they’re willing/able to pay more or not. This argument won’t fly, though, because the sort of people who argue against parity are the people who have never been touched directly by the expense of mental health care and really don’t have the foresight to see that this will benefit them a lot more than it will hurt them.

I recently read an article about women’s health care parity. Apparently women are charged more than men for the same coverage when purchasing private insurance.

In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses.

So what they’re basically saying is that, since women practice preventative care and are statistically more likely to get certain diseases, their coverage can be up to 50% higher. African Americans, for example, are also statistically more likely to get certain illnesses, yet it is illegal to charge more base on race–as it should be. But the same should hold true for women. This is especially true when you take into account that preventative care costs insurance companies less than treating illnesses not caught by preventative care. (Incidentally, this is also why I never have understood why insurance companies won’t cover birth control, but will cover prenatal care and Viagra; and why they won’t cover smoking cessation drugs/classes, but will cover chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, emphysema, etc.; and why they won’t cover nutritional counseling, but they’ll cover a wide variety of illnesses caused by poor nutrition and obesity.) If the argument is money, then shouldn’t they cover the much less expensive preventative care?

Mental Health Parity Resource: NY Times: Bailout Provides More Mental Health Coverage
Women’ Health Care Resource: NY Times: Women Buying Health Policies Pay a Penalty

More About My Job

So someone pretty high up just said that they’re actually planning to get rid of most of my department, and likely the ones who have been here the longest because they make the most money. They’ve been telling us that they have no intention of letting us go because they don’t want us to quit before the new system gets settled. This person told a few of us because this person is pissed, but it is completely out of this person’s control.

So I have an excellent work ethic, I do my job better than anyone else, and I’ll likely be fired without even a warning. Proof that working hard always pays and nobody ever needs a helping hand, right, conservatives?

FWIW, after I started here and realized I hated it, I looked for a new job for almost two years. That was when the economy was better, and I barely got a nibble. I will make looking a full-time job, but I don’t see why it would be better this time around.

Obligatory Election Nonsense

Yeah, that’s right. We won. As Senator McCain put it so eloquently, “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.” This was no close call, no barely-squeaked-by win. The citizens of this country voted in record numbers, and they voted for change. Not just to get Bush out, but to get Republicans out. The Republican party is not what it used to be, and everyone can see that.

To all the people who’ve posted tongue-in-cheek entries about the end of modern civilizations; fair enough. I posted a similar joking entry when Bush won (although frighteningly enough, he actually came quite close to seeing some of the scary things I predicted come to pass). To those of you who are legitimately afraid…oh, please. If all these years of having the religious right–and notice I said religious right–in charge haven’t turned us into a religious state, then two or four or even eight years of liberal control aren’t going to turn us into the USSR. As for financially breaking us, well, we only have a record $455 billion dollar debt to build on, right? As for killing all the baybeez, give me a break. You all didn’t outlaw abortion when you had control. I hardly think the Democrats are going to make them mandatory, so clearly they’re not really any more the murderous vandals than you are.

It’s a very exciting time, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Scary Socialist Radical

So the conservatives were right all along. It turns out that Obama and Ayers are in, in fact, close friends, confidants, and political twins. Proof? They voted simultaneously* today.

Reuters link

*By “simultaneously,” I mean that they voted in the same location, and that Ayers was gone before Obama arrived. Terrorist BFFs!

Ramblings of a Sleepy Woman

I gotta say, there is no tired like low-thyroid-level tired. Anyway, I’m tired and bored and reading anything that pops into my head to stay awake, and I was just thinking, how freaking cool was Barry Goldwater? Now he was a Republican maverick.

I’m an Idiot

I had a big giant post written about how grammar and usage is important in any public writing, but then, like a complete dummy, I deleted it. I’m utterly exhausted and would be amazed if the entry made sense the first time, let alone if I tried to reconstruct it. So instead, this is going to just be a list of things that get on my nerves. Everyone loves a complainer!

• When I write a big giant blog post and then delete it like a complete dummy.
• People who leave comments at Hecklerspray, whining about how mean the author is. It’s Heckler. Spray. They make fun of everyone. If you don’t want to read an article making fun of someone, don’t read Hecklerspray.
• Poor grammar/usage on public writings–blogs, signage, newspapers. If you want to generate discussion, people need to know what the hell you’re talking about.
• People who, when called upon their poor grammar/usage/writing style, say, “It doesn’t matter and if you had any real points you’d make them instead of talking about my writing and I don’t care what you say, nanny nanny boo boo!” I might make a “real point” if I had the time and patience to decipher your two foot long wall of unformatted, lowercase, punctuation-free text. As it is, I’m making a real point on what I did glean from your nonsense.
• People who can’t follow simple directions: He said to type either “McCain” or “Obama.” He said not to post your views or get on your soapbox. Do it, or don’t reply. It’s not that hard, is it?
• Customers. I hate almost every single customer I come into contact with, because almost all of them are rude. I am invariably nice to customer service representatives, and I can count on one hand the number of times in my entire life that I’ve had less than excellent service. I do not think this is a coincidence. (As an aside, I’m just a voice on the phone, so a lot of people who call in don’t know that I know them. I suspect they’d pay me some serious cash to avoid a tape of their conversation with me being played over the loudspeaker at church. Somehow I just can’t see a modern-day Jesus calling me a stupid fucking bitch because someone in a different department failed to call him back promptly. I’d never blackmail someone, of course, but it’s something to think about if you identify as a Christian–especially you, Sister Mary Crankypants.)
• People who write into advice columns to complain that instead of saying “you’re welcome,” some people now say “No problem.” Are you kidding me with this? This is what you have to complain about?
• When I turn on my blinker to get out from behind someone slow, and then every single other person in the entire line of cars behind me just goes ahead and gets over ahead of me, without even using their signals. Assholes.
• People who want the government out of their own wallets, but don’t mind the government intruding into the bedrooms of others.

Yeah, lots of things annoy me, but this is enough for now.

New (to me!) Lovely Link

Thanks to Carson, I’ve discovered a really awesome blog: Political Cartel. If I keep reading things like this, it might just change my belief that it is a rare, rare individual who makes it out of Harding University without becoming a completely self-righteous asshole. (Yes, generalizations are bad, but like my dad says, if you kick a dog often enough…)

The posts on the blog and the comments left are generally thoughtful, respectful, and on topic. The third issue is of major importance to me. I find that an extraordinarily high percentage of Christians and/or conservatives are absolutely incapable of staying on the topic at hand, instead preferring to either repeat the same points ad nauseam, or arguing with points that nobody ever made. This makes Political Cartel one of the very few openly Christian publications I can stand to read without feeling like my head is going to explode with an overload of the sort of ignorance that my brain just can’t process.

So thanks, Carson!

And slightly on topic: I finally got around to reading Michelle Malkin’s blog. She’s no Ann Coulter–meaning she’s not a sociopathic shrew–but she sure does like to get all kinds of riled up about little things, doesn’t she? Damn if the woman isn’t hot, though.