Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Monday, November 23, 2009

The cost of dying

by Jay McDonough



Last night's "60 Minutes" had a really good feature on our health care system and, more specifically, medical spending in the last months of life. 




John Cole wrote this about the segment:

Be great if we could have a serious discussion about this, but as the freakout over death panels and mammogram guidelines show, good luck with that. One party finds it in their advantage to not be serious.





It would be great indeed.  Certainly Republicans can't participate in any serious discussion about end of life decisions and wasteful spending after having labeled those as the equivalent to death panels and rationing.  But suggesting it's just Republicans who aren't serious is wrong, I think. 



I just can't imagine a single Democrat who would have the spine to bring up these issues either.  



If the issue ever does get seriously discussed, it will have to be the American public that leads it.  And that doesn't seem very likely.



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