April 29, 2011

Another Disposable Income Vacuum

I'll probably spend part of the weekend perusing the content on Dark Horse's new digital comics store. I've been meaning to check out the Hellboy universe for a while and the Dark Horse store is only too happy to get me started. The Umbrella Academy looks interesting as well. I still wish I could get all my comics from one site instead of having to visit different sites for different titles, but the Internet gods haven't see fit to grant my request yet. Ah well, the big red guy is waiting for me.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2011

F5

A local TV station in Tuscaloosa captured some terrifying footage of the huge tornado that struck that city yesterday. I can't even imagine the fear that residents must have felt when they saw this thing tearing a path towards their homes.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2011

Not Listening

The SETI Institute is shutting down a radio telescope array designed to search for extraterrestrial signals because of a budget shortfall. My Altairian overlords are actually quite relieved. They were were worried that humans might start receiving messages from the Stellar Alliance warning us of the Altairians' invasion plans. Of course, those warnings were sent a thousand years ago and the Altairians have since, er, assimilated the Alliance. Still, those messages might have set off a panic.  My masters can certainly deal with a planetary freak-out, but their methods can be messy. Now that humanity has gone off-line, we can enjoy a few more years of blissful ignorance before you all get hauled off to the asteroid mines and I get my genetically engineered harem.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2011

Rick Santorum's Got My Back

Remember Senator Rick Santorum? This darling of the right lost his re-election bid in 2006 and has spent the last few years cruising the conservative talk show circuit while steadfastly refusing to Google himself. He's now gotten it into his head that he might like to run for president and he recently made a visit to Iowa to test the waters. In an interview with The Des Moines Register, he explained that his opposition to health care reform is the guiding force steering his political ambitions. Santorum has a young daughter with a disability and he also discussed how "socialized medicine" is a threat to kids like her:

"I look at how society with socialized medicine treats children like  Bella, and children like Bella don't survive," Santorum told The Des Moines Register on Monday, the first leg of a three-day swing through Iowa. "Children like Bella are not given the treatment that other children are given."

Santorum said the new health care law, championed by President Barack Obama, will mean disabled people are denied care more often, and repealing it is the best way to address mounting national debt.

It goes on:

In the Register interview, Santorum spoke at length about his belief  that care will be reduced for disabled children: "In socialized medicine countries, where is what Obamacare is and leads us, children with these types of disabilities simply are not given the access to care. Care is rationed, and it's rationed by government agencies who decide which lives are valuable and should be cared for. ... They just simply refuse care. It's just too expensive. These children are not a good investment of critical taxpayer resources."

So we have another Republican saddling up his white horse in a noble quest to save us unsuspecting gimps from the evils of socialism. Cynical fearmongering has become such a predictable feature of Republican politicking, but I still get annoyed when noxiously self-righteous pricks like Santorum try to portray their opposition to health care reform as a selfless effort to protect people with disabilities. I'm willing to bet a hundred bucks that Santorum also loves the Ryan plan to slash Medicaid, which really would jeopardize the well-being of millions of people with disabilities. Perhaps he can explain his opposition to socialized medicine to a roomful of middle-class families who rely on Medicaid to care for their kids with disabilities. Perhaps he can explain to them how private insurers stand ready to provide for their children's significant needs at a fair and reasonable price without any pesky government oversight.

I'll almost feel sorry for Mitt Romney when he has to start formally debating Santorum and his goofy, crazed ilk. Almost.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2011

What Paul Ryan's America Will Look Like

I've already explained at length why Paul Ryan's plan to transform Medicare is a deeply flawed idea. But let me try to make my objections a little more concrete via judicious use of YouTube. If Ryan's plan becomes law, millions of senior citizens and people with disabilities will be unable to afford expensive medical devices. Instead, they'll be forced to jury-rig solutions that are barley adequate and quite possibly hazardous to themselves and others. They may even resort to using lawnmowers to power their manual wheelchairs. I'm not sure what dire circumstances pushed that poor woman to such desperate measures, but I sure don't want that to become a common sight across the nation.

And in case it needs to be said, I'm only half-kidding.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2011

Partly Cloudy

I'm uploading a few gigs of music to my Amazon Cloud Drive as I write this. When Amazon first unveiled its remote storage and streaming service, I didn't think I'd have much use for it. Then I realized it might be nice to have access to some of my music collection from my work computer. Because sometimes writing a policy bulletin demands the accompaniment of Gorillaz. Apple will likely unveil a similar service in the near future and the competition should result in cheap, plentiful storage for anyone who wants it. Cloud computing boosters love to proclaim that soon nobody will need anything more than a few gigs of local storage because inexpensive wireless broadband will let us access our data from any device. Perhaps, but I'm not quite ready to give up my capacious local storage. Servers crash with disturbing frequency and I'm not ready to entrust my choice collection of, uh, stuff to some faceless corporation.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2011

Picking And Choosing

Linda Holmes at NPR's MonkeySee pop culture blog has a great essay about how I shouldn't despair about not getting around to every book, movie, or TV show on my "to consume" list. The sheer amount of human creative output is so vast that we can never hope to absorb the totality of even the best works. Even though digital technology has made all this content more accessible than ever, we will die without having experienced little more than a sliver of all that humanity has thought, dreamed, and shared over the millennia. And that's okay.

I would sometimes chastise myself for failing to read a certain author or to familiarize myself more with a certain genre of music. But I continue to read, to listen to music, to watch movies. I'll eventually get to some of the things on my list, but not all of them. My curiosity will never be satisfied, nor should it be. I'll do my best to explore and sample, which is probably the best any of us can do.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2011

Gimps Get Ratings!

The Star Tribune appears to be on something of a disability kick lately. Here's an article by local TV critic Neal Justin on the increased visibility of people with disabilities in reality series. The current season of The Amazing Race features a deaf man and another man with Asperger's Syndrome while American Idol includes a man with Tourette's.  I've noticed this trend also and it's encouraging to see reality series including people with disabilities in a way that scripted television never has. Of course, most reality TV contestants also tend to be quite attractive, but we can't expect TV producers to completely give up their old ways. Baby steps, etc. Still, I'm hopeful that somebody at MTV will watch my audition video. I could teach those Real World snots a thing or two.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2011

The Sporting Life

Some Minnesota schools are beginning to add wheelchair track and field to their athletics program. These events don't yet qualify for team points in competitive meets, but I suppose it's a start. And check out the biceps on one of the students featured in the article. He could knock me into a coma with a couple slaps.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2011

Critic At Large: Game Of Thrones (HBO Series)

A few thoughts after watching the first episode of HBO's Game of Thrones:

• It was faithful to the book without being slavish or plodding. The openings scenes set near the towering Wall were brilliantly executed, establishing the same tone of foreboding that permeates the book. The rest of the episode mirrored the brisk pace of the book's opening chapters. I'm curious about to see how the series will adapt a plot that sprouts a lot more branches as the story progresses.
• Peter Dinklage (as the lecherous and height-challenged Tyrion) and Emilia Clarke (as the exiled princess Daenerys) are the most compelling presences in the first episode, particularly Clarke. She brings a devastating pathos to her performance, making us both pity and admire a young woman who is forced into a terrifying situation. And I'm eager to see more of Tyrion.
  
• The sets and costumes are stunning, as do the few examples of CGI scattered throughout the episode. This is the kind of television that simply demands to be watched more than once to admire the little flourishes on the suits of armor or the soaring buttresses of Winterfell.
• Middle Earth looks like a Bible camp compared to the land of Westeros, a fact that HBO is only too happy to illustrate for us. This series is probably going to annoy the puritans who can't countenance even a hint of sex in their sword-and-sorcery epics.
• The episode ended on a perfect cliffhanger that should keep the uninitiated interested enough to tune in next week.
  
• It would be a shame if we don't get a second season. This is great stuff.
  

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:12 PM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2011

Critic At Large: Avenue Q At Mixed Blood Theater

If you're looking for something to do this weekend in Minneapolis, you should do like I did last night and check out the musical Avenue Q at the Mixed Blood Theater. Avenue Q won kudos on Broadway for its story about humans and puppets struggling to make something of themselves. It's an adult-themed version of Sesame Street where everyone struggles with dating, money, and the ordinary disappointments of adulthood while belting out catchy numbers about casual racism, being gay, and (my favorite) schadenfreude. The Mixed Blood cast is uniformly great, both as actors and singers. Mixed Blood is a lot smaller than Broadway venues, but that intimacy imbues the actors and their puppets with a kind of genuineness that might seem forced on a big stage. The whole production is great fun and it should give Mixed Blood some well-deserved recognition as a theater company that can bring big, vibrant spectacle to a small stage.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:17 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2011

So Tired

I was otherwise engaged for most of the evening, so not much time for blogging. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2011

I Just Can't Resist

I'm going to break my pledge on Monday to not talk about budget-related matters to give a few thoughts on Obama's long-term budget plan that he set forth in his speech today:

• People already have pretty positive views of Medicare and Medicaid, but it was good of the President to remind everyone that this safety net is a contributing factor to this country's greatness. It's a stark contrast to the Republicans' worldview of government as a hindrance to individuals' aspirations. 
  
• I'm still not sure how he plans to reduce costs in Medicaid without cutting services. Medicaid already pays low rates to providers--sometimes too low to ensure access to needed services. I'll reserve judgment until further details are released. 
  
• Republicans will have to tread carefully on the issue of taxing the wealthy. Most Americans are quite enthusiastic about the idea. Republicans did so well in 2010 because they were perceived as sympathetic to the concerns of everyday people. That could change if they aren't nimble and willing to abandon their rigidity on the subject.
  
• Obama wants an agreement by June? Pfft. He might get a partial deal on spending reductions or some additional health care reforms, but both parties are going to resist any global agreement until after the election.
  

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2011

Past Its Prime

I love my job, but I hate my work computer. The longest ten minutes of my day are when I'm waiting for that relic to boot each morning. Yes, ten minutes. That process alone is enough to make the machine start wheezing. Open a couple PDFs and browser tabs and the thing will start choking like it's 1995. I probably lose a good thirty minutes of productivity each day while my computer struggles to catch its breath. I've asked nicely for a new computer, but bureaucracy being what it is, I'm not anticipating a replacement before the next presidential election. As frustrated as I am with my office desktop, I'm not quite ready to follow the example of other workers who destroy their work computers to get an upgrade. While it might make a statement on the state's outdated IT standards, I can do without the black mark on my personnel file. Instead, I'll just keep asking nicely for a replacement.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2011

We Are So Dead

My mission for this week is to write five blog entries that don't include the words "budget", "health care", or "policy". I need to save my strength for the coming battles.

Instead, let's talk about aliens. The Fermi Paradox asks this simple question: "If one assumes that the galaxy is teeming with intelligent life, then where is everybody?" According to one theory, the civilizations that keep to themselves and stay under the radar of the more aggressive civilizations are the ones that probably stand the best chance of enduring. The loudmouthed cultures are the ones that get invaded, pillaged, and turned into slave labor or snacks. If this theory turns out to be true, then humanity might want to constructing its battle armada now. That, or find a way to make our flesh taste like whatever substance aliens find really disgusting.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)

April 08, 2011

Talking To Myself

Researchers have demonstrated that speech sounds, or even just the thoughts associated with speech sounds, can be used to control a computer cursor. Soon the day will come when I'll simply have to think "porn" to launch Chrome in Incognito mode.

I should start a separate blog exclusively devoted to news on brain-computer interfaces. I could call it something like "Jacked In" or "Cyborg In Waiting". Hmm.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

April 07, 2011

Round One

The federal government shutdown, if it happens, likely won't last more than a few days. But it's probably a sign of things to come over the next couple years. This batch of House Republicans are deeply conservative and a wide chasm separates their ideology with that of Senate Democrats and the President. Negotiations on any matter of substance are going to be difficult when the two sides have such opposing worldviews. Many of us wonkish types will probably look back at 2009-10 with wistful fondness as a time when government actually got things done. The solutions weren't perfect, but they were serious efforts to address serious problems. We certainly won't see much of that from the current Congress.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2011

Blink To Click: Part II

Remember that eye-controlled laptop I blogged about last month? The manufacturer has released a commercial version of the interface called the EyePC that can be attached to any computer via a USB interface. I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who has actually tried the PCEye, but most people probably won't be able to afford the $7,000 sticker price. I wonder if it's worth contacting the company to request a loaner that I can test myself. I may have to slightly inflate my readership numbers to get their attention, though.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:41 PM | Comments (1)

April 05, 2011

Shredding The Safety Net: Part II

Yesterday we looked at how the proposed GOP budget cuts would affect Medicaid. Now we'll look at Medicare, the federal health care program that provides health care to the elderly and people with disabilities. The proposal would end Medicare as it currently exists (but not for another 10 years, thus shielding Republican lawmakers from the immediate wrath of angry senior citizens). Medicare beneficiaries would be required to enroll in private health plans and would receive government vouchers to help pay for the insurance.

Hmm, this sounds awfully familiar. Hang on, I'll think of it. Of course! It sounds like the plan envisioned for everyone else under the Affordable Care Act (or, to use the language of conservatives, Obamacare). Except that Republicans also want to repeal the ACA and only give vouchers to Medicare beneficiaries. And since Medicare beneficiaries are older and sicker than the general population, private insurers would charge higher rates to cover them. Government vouchers probably wouldn't cover the full cost of the premiums, so beneficiaries would likely pay more than they do now for less generous benefits. Isn't reform great?

I'm not saying that our debt problem isn't serious and that adjustments to entitlements shouldn't be part of of the solution. But the hard question that Paul Ryan's hucksterism avoids is this: what is government's role in caring for its most vulnerable citizens? Without question, caring for me or your grandma or your nephew with autism is expensive. Republicans would have you believe that "reforming" these programs through spending cuts alone won't harm the people who depend on these programs. The only reasonable conclusion to draw from their claims is that they are either stupid or lying. Neither possibility gives me much hope that we can expect a reasoned policy debate.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2011

Shredding The Safety Net: Part I

Tomorrow House Republicans will unveil their plan for reducing the federal deficit. It's the brainchild of the GOP policy wunderkind Paul Ryan, who hails from my home state of Wisconsin. If this is the best wonk, the nation is well and truly fucked. I use that epithet because that's exactly what this plan would do to the elderly, poor, and people with disabilities. It savages Medicare and Medicaid by cutting trillions of dollars from both programs while making the Orwellian claim that these cuts will promote "reform." I'll look at the Medicare cuts tomorrow, but let's take a look at how Medicaid would fare.

Right now, Medicaid is an "entitlement" program, which means that anyone who is eligible for the program is entitled to its benefits. Medicaid rolls increased exponentially during the recession because more people became eligible as they lost their jobs and their income. Ryan's plan would transform Medicaid into a block grant, which means that states would get a fixed amount of money to spend on their Medicaid programs. Once the yearly allotment is used up, that's it. What happens if another recession hits and the allotment isn't sufficient to provide services to everyone who is eligible? Too bad.

But it gets even better. States would have wide latitude to set eligibility criteria and determine what services to offer. Since states have to stay within their allotted grant caps, they will have every incentive to restrict eligibility as much as possible. Many working poor families who rely on Medicaid because they can't afford private insurance might find themselves without health coverage because their incomes would be too high under "reformed" Medicaid. Medicaid buy-in programs like the one I use to purchase Medicaid so that I can keep working could disappear because "reformed" Medicaid can't afford to support employed people with disabilities. On the services side, the same dynamic exists. States may decide to cut services to the bare essentials, leaving many people without access to therapies and treatments that keep them out of the emergency room. Nursing homes would probably survive because they are a politically powerful lobby (nobody wants to imagine Grandma out on the street), but at the cost of home and community-based services that keep people with disabilities and the elderly out of such facilities. Much of the progress made over the last few decades in integrating people with disabilities into the community would be lost.

Medicaid serves an inherently vulnerable and politically disenfranchised population: the poor, people with disabilities, and the elderly. "Reformed" Medicaid would make this population only more vulnerable to the whims of legislators who might not be terribly sympathetic to their plight. Of course, that's exactly what Ryan and his colleagues intend.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the proposed cuts to Medicare.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2011

Punk'd-Free Zone

I was going to write something about how I have to cut this post short because a trio of beautiful women in fishnets and very little else are waiting for me in the other room, but my readers are much too clever for easy April Fool's jokes and as such they're beneath both you and me. If you want such chicanery, Google has you covered.

Besides, my, um, friends aren't scheduled to show up until next weekend.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)