Russell & Kimmy

So after writing that previous craptacular post I decided to watch Fox 7 News for some inspiration. Luckily I can always count on Fox 7 News to infuriate and threaten me with a stroke. Most of the local news in Austin is crap; luckily we live in one of those nice little cities where the biggest news is 3 bats were found with rabies and my mattress may not be safe. Occasionally something tragic happens in Austin and gives the crows vultures scum media something to feast on. This week the butchers are gearing up for the battle over S-Chip. Rather than subscribe to the usual political rhetoric I decided to use the power of the internet and dig a little further before shooting my mouth off; see dad I can think before I open my mouth.

What I found disturbed me.

The battle over SChip is not about excessive government spending to providing health care for an additional 4.4 million children; it is about scoring political points and ensuring those campaign contributions. As far as I can tell, the additional 35 billion dollars that S-chip will require for the next 5 years will come from a 39 cent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes. Note that the spending increase is covered by a tax on cigarettes. This increase of 35 billion dollars (or 7 billion a year) will provide healthcare for 4.4 million children at $1,600/year per child; that is slightly more expensive than my $1,200/year healthcare for Kimmy and I but mine has a $5,000 deductible and no dental or doctor visits. Now compare that with the cost of the Iraq war, which currently cost 7 to 13 billion a month or 84 to 156 billion per year which is currently not covered by an increase in taxes but rather an increase in borrowing. If you do the math in your head (or on a calculator) one cheap month in Iraq will provide insurance to an additional 4.4 million poor children. Currently 26 out of the 50 states allow SChip to cover a child whose parents have an income of twice the federal poverty level which is equivalent to $41,300/year for a family of 4. 15 out of the 50 states allow SChip to cover a child whose parents have a higher income than twice the federal poverty level; and 9 out of the 50 states allow SChip to cover a child whose parents have an income of less than twice the federal poverty level. No where in that coverage does the federal government actually buy coverage for these 4.4 million additional children; it isn’t socialism President Bush, get over it and don’t veto this bill.

But wait it gets better…

In 2006, 7 out of the top 10 contributions made by the insurance industry went to Republicans; two went to Democrats and 1 went to an independent. Rick Santorum (R) got the most money at $487,406 in 2006 and he has consistently voted against providing affordable healthcare. Mitch McConnell (R) who is also vowing to fight against the expansion of SChip has received a hefty $347,153 from the insurance industry. Instead of worrying about poor children these two fine upstanding Americans are more worried about the effect that SChip will have on the private insurance industry. It amazes me that two Republicans can be bought so cheaply and ignore the economic impact that the uninsured have on the health care cost of consumers. It is people like Rick Santorum and Mitch McConnell who are slowly sending the US down the tubes; forget terrorist we have more to fear from our own congressmen/congresswomen.

I encourage you to call your representatives and let them know that you encourage them to vote for SChip and to tell President Bush that it’s not cool to be a lackey for the insurance industry.

Links to for further reading on SChip:

House Passes Children’s Insurance Measure

Congress Set for Veto Fight on Child Health Care

Program Known for Flexibility Trimmed Ranks of Uninsured

Mitch McConnell’s Top Contributors

Sometimes you feel like a nut
Sometimes you don’t ~ Weird Al Yankovic

And sometimes you don’t really feel like writing a post. I have eaten way to much baked zita and it is a bit to warm; I am feeling incredibly drained. Kimmy is sitting on the floor working on school work and the cat is doing her best to drive me nuts and I am sitting here forcing myself to blog. The last week has been a pleasant little slice of hell. From Kimmy’s car getting nailed by a tree to family tragedy, this year has been doing its best to bog Kimmy and I down. Unfortunately it looks like it is not going to get any rosier anytime soon; Kimmy’s car is going to be totaled out, we are waiting on the insurance adjustors to give us a call so we know what is what and how much they think the Malibu was worth. Hopefully it will be enough to put down a serious down payment on a new car.

Work was entertaining today. I had the pleasure of re-writing abut 45 queries in Microsoft Enterprise Manager. I have learned the incredibly important lesson of not hard coding database entries in production pages. At first it was fun; but after screwing up a find/replace and having to spend 45 minutes typing out masterbase.dbo it gets a little tedious. Tomorrow I have a DTS package waiting on me. Normally it would be a piece of cake except I have no clue how to format a DTS package so it will be interesting. I am also expecting about 40 inches of servers that I’ll need to install. I am not sure when we started measuring servers in inches but each server is going to be about 18 inches high so it is going to be interesting. I am predicting back pain and aching muscles, and possibly a workman’s comp claim.

Besides killing myself at work; Kimmy and I have absolutely nothing else planned. We are going to do our best to do absolutely nothing this weekend. Not sure if we will be able to succeed or not but we are going to try.

I apologize but there will be no post today.  The words i wanted to write elude me and we both need sleep.

~Russell & Kimmy

Well since the networks have deferred in providing quality entertainment, Kimmy and I are once again relying on Battle Star Galactica as our sole source of entertainment. We just started season 3 and the first episode is dark. The Cylon occupation of New Caprica bears eerie resemblance to Vichy France; right down to the random executions. Like I said dark; yet strangely enjoyable. I don’t know how long it will take us to burn through all the episodes but hopefully they will last till the networks put quality program on the TV; or at least till pigs fly. Speaking of quality programming, FOX has been banned from our house. Evidently Kimmy didn’t realize that FOX was responsible for canning Firefly. Needless to say this discovery did not please her and we are now protesting FOX. I’ll miss the Simpsons but I am sure I can convince some of my friends to defy the ban on FOX and smuggle me their new episodes. Not so worried about Family Guy since it is a hit or miss with me and it seems to be missing a lot recently; it just re-enforces my opinion that everything FOX touches turns to crap. (Note: I tried to find a list of all the shows that have crapped out on FOX and it appears that such a list doesn’t exist. Could it be that FOX closets it’s failures and the brutally murders anyone who drags them back out into the light of day? Is Bill O’Reilly their splotchy hitman? Is your mattress safe?!? All this and more answered on Fox 7 news.)

Speaking of crap and fans and collisions; today at work was one of those interesting days. I learned first hand what happens when a rollout of a major system doesn’t go so well. Even more importantly I learned what happens when the rollback of the rollout goes down the tubes and takes down some major systems. There wasn’t quite panic in the air but there was a twinge of madness. Luckily there was nothing I was involved in and nothing I could do; so I pretty much got to set back and watch the chaos ensue. I also learned how to deactivate the cards on a Siemens PBX. Nothing beats learning the correct way to shut down and remove a$6,000 dollar circuit board from a$100,000 PBX OR all the calamites I can cause by doing it the wrong way.

Speaking of calamites, Kimmy picked up her rental car today. She got a shiny red Pontiac G6, so far she likes it. The only down side is we can’t leave the state of Texas and we have to keep putting gas into it … and I really wanted to leave the state of Texas. We also have a fun time explaining to people that a tree hit the Malibu; evidently trees don’t jump out and slam into stationary vehicles. Hopefully the Malibu will make a quick recovery, OR even better, get totaled out so we can buy a better car that doesn’t hate me. Malibus are man hating cars that are un-holy and evil; so if you have cajones (or like Hondas) I recommend avoiding them like the plague.

So Kimmy and I were hanging out with our friend Robert when the phone rings. I answer and it is the apartment complex asking if we owned a Chevy Malibu. Evidently another resident was driving home after pulling a double shift at Home Depot when he nodded off, bounced off the curb and clipped a tree … the tree clipped Kimmy’s car. So we ditched Robert and head home. We spent an hour or so with two very nice motorcycle cops and finally the tow truck company arrived and hauled the busted Malibu off. Now we get the pleasure of dealing with the insurance companies; yippy-skippy.

Despite Kimmy’s car being hauled off, this week has been pretty good. Yesterday we celebrated our 3rd anniversary by blowing a couple hundred bucks at Truluck’s on 4th and Colorado; for the record the roads downtown SUCK!  Kimmy got a nice leather jacket (which she loved) and I got a nice leather recliner (which I don’t get until we have a house) and we both gained about 10 pounds from gorging ourselves.

Well I would love to write more but we are heading of to Double Dave’s to continue the gorging.  Soon my fiendish plan will be complete and I will be able to block the sun; eclipsing the Earth in my massive shadow.