Thursday, May 30, 2013

Cutting Out the Middle Man


South Portland doctor dumps insurance, posts lower prices online
Before the switch, Ciampi had about 2,000 patients. He lost several hundred, he said. Some patients with health coverage, faced with having to seek reimbursement themselves rather than through his office, bristled at the paperwork burden.

But the decision to do away with insurance allows Ciampi to practice medicine the way he sees fit, he said. Insurance companies no longer dictate how much he charges. He can offer discounts to patients struggling with their medical bills. He can make house calls.

"I'm freed up to do what I think is right for the patients," Ciampi said. "If I'm providing them a service that they value, they can pay me, and we cut the insurance out as the middleman and cut out a lot of the expense."
More doctors need to do this. Insurance should be for emergencies and catastrophic events.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Do Nothing. Maybe They'll Go Away


Parking Tickets Issued on Wrecks while Stockholm Burns
But while the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. "Our ambition is really to do as little as possible," Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday.

"We go to the crime scenes, but when we get there we stand and wait," elaborated Lars Byström, the media relations officer of the Stockholm Police Department. "If we see a burning car, we let it burn if there is no risk of the fire spreading to other cars or buildings nearby. By doing so we minimize the risk of having rocks thrown at us."
What you will not find in this article is that the rioters are Muslim - just a little (apparently unimportant) fact. Only it is important and it is not a localized problem and it will not go away by ignoring it.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Intimidation Factor


Obama is not nearly so violent in his intimidation, but he is much more sophisticated in it, and it has been extremely effective. The same cold, heartlessness is behind it.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sounds ... Devilish


Partisan Nation
Obama is not a creature of the old partisan politics of a balance of power. He prefers imbalances. He chooses chaos. By exercising power he destroys and in his ideological sphere, that destruction is creative. Destroying health care will usher in national health care. Destroying public trust in government will usher in an even more oppressive government.
It is devilish. Yes, but how do we get him out? Even the Republicans are sitting on their hands. We all know what's wrong but no one will do anything about it. Do they have the dirt on everyone? Everyone is scared? Go along to get along is the new Republican motto. So, we've already got the tyrant that no one will touch, and that's it then?

Yeah, I know some are trying but this should be a slam dunk, this administration is so corrupt that the only thing that surprises me is the complete lack of interest by the American people on this. Sign another petition, write another article, write a letter to your congressman - nothing works. We the people need to get outraged and let our government know it in no uncertain terms, without violence, but we must put some real pressure on those we elected. They have to feel it, their backs will have to be against the wall or they will do nothing. What we did for gun control barely squeaked by, there needs to be more pressure than that.

And if you are a believer, especially if you are a Christian, you're gonna need to get right with God. Whatever it takes, look at yourself through the eyes of the Word and repent of what doesn't belong. This is probably the most important thing, without it this country has no chance. We've drifted, time to get back.

Monday, May 20, 2013

It's Here


Probable Cause
Catherine Engelbrecht is a small businesswoman who three years ago, for the first time in her life, got politically active. In short order, she attracted an IRS audit of her personal taxes, and of her business, and the full proctological monty of her non-profit — plus visits from the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF. The most powerful government on the planet decided, for no valid reason, to go fishing in the Engelbrechts’ lives in a sustained effort to turn a law-abiding couple into criminals, and determined not to rest until they'd got the goods on them. There are no goods to be got, but to America's shame this is now a land in which there are laws against everything — or, at any rate, regulations (we're way beyond laws at this stage) — and any one of us is in non-compliance with something or other any hour of the day. So, if they’re serious about getting you on something, anything, eventually they will. And they’ll take as much time as they want: The process is the punishment.

Meanwhile, who regulates the regulators? The president's senior communications adviser dismisses media queries as “offensive“; the attorney general sneers at attempted congressional oversight as 'unacceptable"; and the IRS commissioner insists that to target individual citizens for bureaucratic harassment on the basis of their political beliefs is "absolutely not illegal."
Best argument for limited government is no longer just theory in the United States - it's REAL people. It's happening. What's next, jailing political enemies? Firing squads? We're not there yet but we are heading in that direction. It's time to put the reins back on our leaders. Wake up, you can't keep your head low enough forever.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Col. Jeff Cooper


Giving a speech to doctors about firearms and personal defense. Makes an excellent case for civilian ownership and hits political correctness upside the head.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Entrepreneurship


KFC smugglers bring buckets of chicken through Gaza tunnels
For six years, Rafat Shororo longed for the taste of a KFC sandwich he had eaten in Egypt. This week, he got his finger lickin' fix at home in the Gaza Strip after a local delivery company managed to smuggle it from Egypt through underground tunnels.
See a need, fill it.
The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple the price to 100 shekels ($30) to cover transportation and smuggling fees. The deliveries go from the fryers at the Al-Arish KFC joint 35 miles away to customers' doorsteps in about three hours.
Now if I can just get some Chicken Delight down here in Florida, that would be great.

Monday, May 13, 2013

When a Nation Forgets God


"Statism," someone has said, "is the Golden Calf of the modern world."
When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany
"Whether it's Nazism, Marxism, or Secularism, the state is always in conflict with religious freedom. And the more power the state has, the more laws it will pass to diminish the role of the church. What makes this so difficult is that these changes are made under the rubric of freedom and "what is best for everyone." Thus the true nature of a totalitarian state is always hidden and always couched in the language of morality, progress, and liberty. As in George Orwell's 'Animal Farm,' slavery is defined as freedom, and suppression is defined as "the quest for equality and fairness."
I recently stumbled upon this book on Amazon and thanks to it's low Kindle price, I picked it up to see what it was about. It is a surprisingly good book and I highly recommend it. From the book description:
Years ago, a cartoon appeared in a Russian newspaper picturing a fork in the road. One path was labeled freedom; the other path was labeled sausage. As we might guess, the path to freedom had few takers; the path to sausage was crowded with footprints. When given a choice people will choose bread and sausage above the free market and individual liberties. The promise of bread gets votes, even if the bread is at the expense of freedom. The people of Nazi Germany weren’t any more barbaric, uncivilized, or depraved than any other Western nation of the early Twentieth Century, yet the Nazi regime will forever serve as an example of brutality and extreme racism run amok. What led so many people to such extreme ends? According to Dr. Lutzer, the German people’s progression from civility to barbarity was not extraordinary, and more than a few benchmarks from their transition can be observed in present day American society (Do any of these sound familiar?): - The Church is silenced - The economy is king - The lawmakers determine behaviors - The media controls beliefs - The Gospel and nationalism become inextricably tied to each other - And yet, heroes still have power This short, manageable book does not suggest the United States is definitely marching toward authoritarian oblivion, but that we — especially we believers — must be vigilant in our stand for truth, justice, and righteousness. We must take note of these lessons from history. The parallels are real, but the conclusion is not a foregone one.
Well worth the five bucks.

But, of Course, We Already Knew That


The Broken President's Broken Politics
It was so much easier for Obama to be president when all he had to do was come up with sunshine words and rosy promises, as opposed to, say, executing unworkable legislation, controlling a suspicious congress, creating policy that gave to the rich in order to secure “some liberty for most;” or following a budget that isn’t even written down on a napkin.

Talk is cheap- as is writing- but when you claim the mantle of leadership you actually have to do something. And in doing something Obama has revealed to Americans the underside, unspoken ideology that belongs to the spirit of the Bastille, rather than that of the Boston Tea Party.

It's the spirit that talks about immigration reform, but ignores immigration law -or not- depending on how the spirits move him. It's the spirit that plays the part of constitutional law professor, while ignoring the duty to defend the constitution. It's the spirit that tells banks to lend money to poor people, but punishes banks through extra-legal means- because they loaned money to poor people.

And those spirits create misgivings in most Americans; and those misgivings are strongly confirmed by the economic failures they have engendered.

When you measure those failures against the expectations that the liberal left pinned on Obama via speeches and skin color, and subtract out the deepening number of Americans who think the country is on the wrong track, we can quantify how cheapened the presidency has become. All you have to do is subtract the Obama expectations from the Obama result.

What you are left with is a remainder that confirms that this president is broken.

How broken?

Utterly, 100 percent, non-fixable broken.
Just can't wait until the American people realize it.

Monday, May 06, 2013

The Jubilee


The Jubilee is a concept with which most people are not familiar and when they find out it's origins, will most likely want to ignore. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to me to see how God would order a society because, frankly, it has been my experience that what God says works - whether we deliberately or accidentally follow His principles.

Book Review: The Jubilee Principle
Hopefully without oversimplifying White's thesis, he argues that a society can either plan for the inevitable economic cycles with predictable and controllable results or be blindsided by them with random results.
This is a book going on my reading list.

Defend the Constitution


Some people get it, we need more who do.



Via The Smallest Minority

Saturday, May 04, 2013

There Is a Way


There is a way. There is a way to live, there is a way to love, there is a way to think, a way to act. You act that way and life works. You act the other way , life comes apart and eventually it comes apart catastrophically.