Afternoon Surfing

By John Ballard

Maybe it's that last cup of afternoon coffee, but for some reason I'm coming across a bunch of links that deserve wider exposure.

?Munch ado about Doritos, one man�s iconic snack
Arch West, creator of Doritos, died last week at the age of 97. Should we all be so blessed to pass on leaving as much pure pleasure for millions in our wake. This is a quick, fun read. Go for it. 

The Dorito is what you bring to a barbecue when you forget to bring anything else. The Dorito is the intersection of taste and shame. The Dorito represents the proud audacity of slovenliness. Not only are they bad for you, but they are loud. Not only are they loud, but they are messy. Not only are they messy, but the messiness is egregious, offensive, stubborn. Snacking Without Borders.

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�The flavor. I mean, you put them in your mouth � even today! It�s a taste sensation! The fact that it�s remained an important snack food for so long?.?.?.�

Alone in our living rooms, after everyone else has gone to sleep, we dig the crumpled red bag out of the trash can, dip our moist finger all the way into the bottom and suck off the crumbs.

?Terrible Ten in Congress
This link is more serious than the first.
Katrina venden Heuvel writes about Half in Ten, The Campaign to Cut Poverty in Half in Ten Years. 
Five members of the House and five Senators have been dubbed the Terrible Ten for their voting records. Any one of them might be a poster child for mean-spirited treatment of the weakest and poorest people at the bottom of the social and economic ladders.
Hold your nose and go to the link.  Here are the names if the reader hasn't time for further details.

1. Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX-27)


2. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY-5) � House Appropriations Committee Chairman


3. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL-3)


4. Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM-2)


5. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-1)


6. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS)


7. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)


8. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)


9. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)


10. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) � Senate Minority Leader

?Gold Rush by Elizbeth Dickenson, Foreign Policy Magazine, August 9. Somehow I missed this last month. Beneath the headline...With markets in a panic and investors fleeing to gold, Colombia's armed groups are making out like bandits. 
Willie Sutton said it best when asked why he robbed banks. "That's where the money is."

Some 2,500 miles away from Wall Street, the gold boom has fueled a different kind of crisis: a crisis of opportunity. From 2006 to 2010, Colombia -- Latin America's largest gold producer since 1937 -- more than tripled its production to 59 tons per year. Next year, it intends to double the amount mined in 2009, attracting investment from top international firms such as AngloGold Ashanti and Cambridge Mineral Resources. But multinationals aren't the only ones getting in on the action: Leftist rebels, drug cartels, and regular old criminals are also edging for a piece of the multibillion-dollar annual trade. As commodity prices have gone up and up, and as drug trafficking has gotten more difficult, gold has become the new cocaine.

?HCR -- Medicare and the President�s Deficit Reduction Plan: Shifting Costs to Seniors
How Cost-Sharing Leads to More Cost-Sharing: A Slippery Slope
Hot off the press today, Maggie Mahar takes a look at what may be in store for Medicare beneficiaries and the unintended consequences that vry well may result. (It's a looong look, by the way. With her customary economy of words she squeezes policy matters into a mere four thousand words...)

...when compared to more Draconian solutions�such as giving 80-year-olds vouchers and letting them fend for themselves in a for-profit insurance market�President Obama�s recommendations seem mild. This may explain why many progressives appear willing to accept what I see as another step on a slippery slope that, ultimately, could destroy Medicare.

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Starting in 2017, this provision aims to save approximately $2.5 billion over 10 years by collecting surcharges from new beneficiaries who purchase supplemental MediGap policies with particularly low cost-sharing requirements. The surcharge would equal roughly 15 percent of the average Medigap premium. The hope is that if seniors duck the penalty by switching to less expensive MediGap policies that don�t offer �first dollar coverage,� they will be less likely to seek out �inappropriate� or unnecessary care. This provision appeals to those politicians who cling to the fantasy that if only the elderly had more �skin in the game,� they would suddenly become medical experts, able to make more prudent decisions about what care they need.

But as Naomi recently pointed out, when co-pays and deductibles are not covered, seniors are just as likely to defer preventive care as they are to skip an unnecessary doctor�s appointment. This, she reports, is particularly true of �the most vulnerable��those who are �poor and chronically ill.�

The typical 70-year old simply does not possess the medical knowledge to discriminate between essential and optional care. Should he go to a doctor to check out that odd-looking growth on his back? After all, it�s no bigger than a pencil eraser; years ago, when he had a doctor look at something similar, it turned out to be nothing. The average senior also doesn�t know when he needs a colonoscopy, and almost certainly isn�t particularly eager to find out.

What many politicians don�t understand is that medicine is not �consumer-driven.� The supplier is in the driver�s seat. Relatively few patients wind up on an operating table because they �demanded� surgery. A doctor tells them what they need. Most patients then do what a doctor tells them that they should do. The only way money is saved, Naomi points out, is when �participants decide not to initiate care.� In other words, if a Medicare beneficiary doesn�t go to a doctor in the first place, no one will tell him that his blood pressure is going through the roof�or that he should pay more attention to his diabetes. In these cases, patients just don�t receive the preventive care and chronic disease management that they need.

Once patients finally do go for help, the fact that they have a high deductible has virtually no effect on how much Medicare will wind up laying out for their treatment. In the healthcare market, the supplier determines how much care the patient needs, and sends Medicare the bill. As Naomi writes: �once patients are hospitalized or under a physician�s care, the choices about the kind of treatments or cost of treatments they receive are no longer in their control.�

And yes, the unintended consequences are as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise. Details follow. But don't expect little things like that get in the way of policy makers.

?Wael Ghonim is getting a groundswell of support to have his name put into nomination for a Nobel Prize. 

Heard the news. Truly believe Nobel
nomination should go to all the Egyptian
people, as I was one of many. Appreciate
all your nice msgs.

?And for readers who still don't have a Twitter account, you don't know what you're missing.
I grabbed these in just the last couple of hours.

• #GOP bromancing #Christie: sure, he hates school teachers, but #baggers are going to be disappointed to learn that he hasn't killed any. LINK


• Michele Bachmann says Cuban regime working with Hezbollah to "perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites" in Cuba  LINK with video


• Quip on the Bachmann video comment thread: "What's worse is that Hezbollah is going to load the missiles with the HPV vaccine"  LINK


• (From Julia Ioffe, freelance writer living in Russia)
  Dad: "If crisis hits Russian shores, Putin will ask all the Russian people to step back, take his shirt off..."
  "...and jump into icy cold water and kill it right there with his bare arms. That�s how they gonna deal with crisis." 


• It baffles how easily Israel can unzip & piss right at the US in plain sight� AFP: US angry at Israeli settlement move http://is.gd/PVUA81  LINK 
  (...a bit later: "Correction: I guess one would piss ON people, not AT them...")


• And finally, a book recommendation by Lindsay Bayerstein...

Secret societies, pillars of American democracy. http://amzn.com/k/18M2TYJZGLB47 #Kindle
(This is on my list of books to buy. I'm hoping it's an epitaph for the Reagan revolution.)