Corporate America, Profiles in Courage

After Obamacare is signed into law, we have Caterpillar, AT&T, and some other corporations complaining about the amount of money it's gonna cost them.
Where were all these corporations BEFORE Obamacare was passed? Could it be that they feared Obama administration retaliation if they spoke out against Obamacare?
Where were Harry and Loise when we needed them?

Electronic Medical Records

I'm listening to a long discussion on TV about the downsides to electronic medical records. Only at the very end of the discussion do the debaters touch on the real problem. Hackers.
Seems like every week I hear another case of credit card records getting hacked and card holders getting ripped off with phony charges. The credit card people are mostly banks with a good tradition of data security, and yet they get hacked on a regular basis. Don't expect hospitals to be any better.
Once your medical records are on a computer, they might as well be posted on a bulletin board in the center of town. They will become public, especially for a snooper willing to spend a little money.
Imagine a hiring manager who, after the job interview, downloads the candidate's medical history to see if he will burden the company medical plan. Or, how would you like your spouse or potential spouse checking up on your health? And God help people with mental health problems or drug and alcohol treatment on their records.
This didn't happen in "1984"

Let's hear a real threat

The democrats are complaining of "threats" conveyed by phone, mail, and email. How real is this? There is a difference between chewing out a congressman and threatening one. The only "threat" that has made it to the media was ambiguous. "There are lots of people who wish you harm".

Do any of these bold congressman have anything worse than this? Or is this just a smear the tea party tactic?

Words of the Weasel Part XV

"Closing tax loopholes" is liberal speak for "raising taxes". NH Public Radio was calling for closing loopholes just this morning.

Things are not all bad when....

When there are more milk bottles than whiskey bottles in the recycling?

Two inches of fresh global warming on the porch

And it's still falling, lightly. On the 24th of March. Brr.

Dark Ages were not so dark

The middle ages, often called the dark ages, started with the fall of Rome and ended with the voyages of Columbus. During this time great technological progress was made. Important inventions include the magnetic compass, stirrups, gunpowder and the firearms to use it, horse collars, the stern rudder, printing, the wheelbarrow, the trebuchet (a weight powered war machine), the art of distilling and hard liquor, three field crop rotation, mechanical clocks, eyeglasses, a whole new architectural style (gothic cathedrals), water mills, wind mills, crossbows and the making of cast iron. Plus others that escape my memory.
The last notable invention of the preceding classic era was the discovery of iron working by the Hittites, around 1500 BC. For the next 2000 years, no improvement in the arts and sciences came forth. The last Roman emperor (478 AD) used the same weapons, ships, agriculture, metallurgy, chemistry, and building techniques as were available to the Hittites two thousand years before.
Any general theory of history needs to explain the technical stasis of the classical era and the great progress made in the "dark ages".