Shooting Ink

2010-03-02T23:16:00.003-05:00

Why am I relieved my small business health insurance rate hiked only 16%? Reconcile this madness http://tiny.cc/jSqwO

Funny or Die PSA: protect insurance companies

2009-09-22T15:45:00.001-04:00

Key to putting insurance reform in perspective: sarcasm, irony and understatement!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/041b5acaf5/protect-insurance-companies-psa

S Carolina rep ID'd as Obama heckler

2009-09-09T21:58:00.002-04:00

Just when you thought politics couldn't get any worse, Obama's speech to Congress interrupted by a Congressional heckler yelling "You Lie."
AP identified him as one of South Carolina's reps. So much for southern gentility, I guess.

Whatever happened to the art of the Great Compromise?

2009-09-09T11:59:00.003-04:00

I'd like to think the health debate is leading to a grand compromise that can win support across a wide swath of politics. But afraid there's just no interest anymore in statemanship winning out over partisanship.

Sarah Palin, in an apparently never-ending search to create relevancy, is at it again raising the bogus death panel argument and the Wall Street Journal shamelessly lets her get away with it in an op-ed also published today.

I keep waiting to here the better way that conservatives supposedly have tucked away in their back pockets. But all I see are efforts to delay and obfuscate in hopes that deadlock will return the GOP to the driver's seat.

Bouncing off the TARP

2009-05-19T09:31:00.002-04:00

Interesting story in the NY Times today about whether US will be leaving potential profits on the table by selling back warrants that it received in exchange for TARP funds.

While some banks were reportedly forced to accept "bailout" funds, others seemed all too ready to sip at the public trough until they found out it came with a bit of scrutiny over pay practices and other issues.

Hindsight is 20-20, but if you think back to the days when it seemed like the banking system was on the verge of collapse last fall, the financial industry was clamoring for government action.

I'd just as soon have the government out of the banking business as soon as possible, but with assurance that government won't let the frankensteins of financial engineering remain hidden off the books.

Let these banks pay back the TARP funds, but let's make sure we know what they're doing once they've reprivatized themselves.

2009-05-15T07:53:00.001-04:00

Hockey hangover ~ game 7s are great, except when your team loses. But we did sweep the Canadiens!!!

2009-05-14T20:52:00.001-04:00

Nothing like NHL game 7 action!!!

Integrating my social media personnae

2009-05-13T14:50:00.004-04:00

Dug in a bit to educate myself on tying together Twitter, Facebook, Blogger to integrate them and eliminate having to duplicate postings. First, I signed up for Blogger Mobile so I can update this blog from my smartphone. Then signed up for the Twitter app on Facebook -- and made sure that I authorized Twitter to update my Facebook status. Then hopped over to Twitterfeed to set up an RSS (can also use Atom) from this blog to Twitter so that new entries will generate a Twit. Now we'll see if it all works!

--addendum - couldn't get Twitterfeed to feed so now trying through HootSuite.

-- addendum #2 (nothing easy in this life!) - seems to be some sort of problem with Blogger RSS feeds, according to other posts I've read. I followed this advice from Brian Hall and headed over to Feedburner , which turns out to be yet another Google service that makes it simpler to set up a feed (why this wasn't clear on Blogger's support pages is a question for somebody else to answer!). So giving it another chance and we'll see if this stuff all connects.

2009-05-12T08:51:00.001-04:00

Spending a little time today compare/contrast mobile blogging and twitter.

Remember all those small business credit card offers?

2009-05-12T07:02:00.001-04:00

Advanta, which made a business out of providing credit to small businesses looks like it is grounding to a halt, according to this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Essentially the company is freezing all of its small business customers' card accounts as of June--you can still make minimum payments, but you can't make any new charges.

There's been lots of talk in press of late about the woes of the card issuing companies, although much of it seems to be scare-mongering aimed at short-circuiting efforts in Congress to limit some of the excess charges that have been imposed in recent years.

Foxes guarding golden goose at State House

2009-05-11T14:33:00.000-04:00

Sometime you just have to laugh. Read this story today in the Boston Globe about the efforts to try and reform a public pension system gone very badly awry.
Does anybody think this crew has the capability of policing themselves? This just days after the Speaker of the House pens an op ed declaring "the House has embraced change and reform."
Think what you will about the Globe, but when they dig into a seamy topic like this, they are at their best.