Exactly so. That our exceptional establishment propagandistic news media choose not to run a sidebar on the company Thompson headed says far too much about them and us and what a fucking decadent* nation we are. (*As always, h/t to Stalin and company.)
Not saying CEOs should be shot down like dogs of course. Just some honest perspective in reporting maybe...? You know, as Roy sort of said: before his killer had blood on his hands, Thompson had blood on his hands. Should add that there are much preferred ways to deal with all that Thomson reflected than killing but that's for a better nation than we are. Assassinations on the street pretty much what we are, I guess.
Of course, the better way would be vigorous New Deal-class policing of the fuckers which is to say a 180 from neoliberalism and the above-the-law, unaccountable shit attendant to same — just like the Founding Fathers fought for our independence for.
But since that ship has sailed, maybe a little classic terror [god help me] can achieve let’s say silver lining stuff. Even more crumbs than with which the DNC gifts us.
Lucy Parsons: Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or a knife, and lay in wait on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot the owners as they come out.
Lagniappe: The Mad mag panel in which an announcer says, "And now let's return to (name) singing an aria from 'Lucia de Lammermoor,' which, if my high school French doesn't fail me, means 'I Love Lucy.'"
Great observations! If we do not discuss economic violence openly and candidly, physical violence will increase. When justice is denied through rule of law, lawlessness increases.
Private health insurance giants are evil by definition, as health care SHOULD be a human right in a society as affluent as ours, not yet another avenue to profit for those who subsidize it. I had the irrepressible first response of “I’m sure he had it coming” when I first heard the news. I’m not proud of my response, but I’m also not too proud to admit I had it.
If it gives other health insurance CEOs some sleepless nights, good. And if billionaires also start to get nervous, even better.
I'll just note that the last time we got some good stuff out of them and the government they mostly own and control, it was the 1930's, and they were VERY scared, like "Bolsheviks under my bed!" scared.
Much of the enshittification of American life in the following decades was from CEOs losing the fear they once had.
For some reason I'm thinking of the old Libertarian bit about the government fearing the people, which I've never believed because the State has a monopoly on violence in its defense. The corporations, on the other hand...
Yeah, there is definitely hay to be made here. Looking around the innertubes today I see the “oh, that’s too bad…anyhow moving on” response is pretty universal, regardless of political affiliation.
Not me. I see, everywhere, writing like Roy's. The still-unresolved dilemma is, Was it a hit by a disgruntled insurance customer (line from Raising Arizona: "They're ALL disgruntled.") OR, maybe more intriguingly, because Thompson was scheduled to testify in an insider trading case involving him and others?
“Because this society rewards, in ever-increasing amounts, the spread of misery far, far beyond what I could accomplish even at my most cruel in a hundred lifetimes, and says the real crime is failing to show respect for it.”
Now that Mehmet Oz is going to run Medicare and Medicaid, we can look forward to older folks like me starting to be killed off by the hundreds of thousands. Oz plans on forcing all Medicare recipients into Medicare Advantage plans--private health insurance administered by the likes of UnitedHealthCare. Those companies are already well known for costing Medicare, on average, 22% more than just straight Medicare, AND they have long established records of refusing coverage and then arbitrarily canceling policies of sick elderly clients.
It's all just so fantastic to me because my Medicare coverage is now all of 5 whole days old, and it's looking like it might not even last 90 days.
From your lips to the goddess's ear! Sadly, it seems much more likely that if Trump bellowed out "Repeal Medicare!", within hours there would be at least 200 representatives and 45 senators who be on the floor offering repeal bills.
And we know they’re there since we already have goppers like that Georgia rep yesterday talking about how they have to bring in Dem reps to “address” Medicare and SS. Fat chance.
My mom has Medicare and an Advantage plan. Medicare pays 90%, the Advantage plan (sometimes) pays the rest. I bet if you asked seniors where their healthcare is coming from, a lot of them would think it's the Advantage plan they pay $100 a month for that's paying for all of it, because they never get a bill from Medicare. Plus the Advantage plan (Quartz) is always mailing her stuff, but we never get anything from Medicare because they just quietly pay the bills and don't bother us.
Anyway, the idea that Advantage plans are now going to take over paying for services at TEN TIMES the rate they're currently paying I find comical (When I'm not screaming, that is.)
Also, this is the open-enrollment period for Advantage plans (so the TV commercials tell me) and there's one commercial where an elderly woman, quite annoyed at all these TV commercials about how it's renewal time, gets patiently lectured to by the announcer, that this is just a thing we all must endure, BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER WAY (last part is me, not the announcer.)
Which is why I always laugh when somebody acts like "Choice of health care providers" is some kind of Super-Fun Luxury Capitalism, instead of a source of stress and annoyance for all of us, and a thing that people in civilized countries would never put up with.
The capitalist hassle is something both Republicans and technocratic Democrats have gifted us. Republicans because they want to kill the programs and make people hate all the hoops they have to jump through; savvy technocratic Dems because they imagine every person as a “consumer” with the time, ability, and desire to “shop” for services. (It’s ridiculous on residential real estate loans where you get a list of providers from which you can “shop” for your title company, insurance, etc—as though any normal person wants to do that or even knows *how* to go about it.)
Add to that, "Vote for me, I'm offering this tax break for disabled veterans who start small businesses in an opportunity zone!" Followed by total puzzlement that they didn't get 100% of the votes from the people in the targeted demographic.
Advantage plans are back door Medicare privatization. In my limited understanding, it seems this is being pulled off through the catch of needing Medicare + supplemental plan.
The fine institution from which I'm retired pushed us into Advantage plans last year. The old way, Medicare processed billing first; eventually, we'd receive Medicare statements and supplemental plan EOBs. Re your mother's mail, Advantage plans bill Medicare directly, that's why she's seeing stuff only from them.
It's certainly the case that the public rarely understands how things work. If not by direct design, it's the useful result of a system that avoids universal care by being cobbled together, and with generous carve-outs ("Medicare Part D," anyone?) I retired so long ago that not only was HR more than a call center, but it offered an in-person workshop on figuring out when to apply for Medicare. Besides basic age requirements, the workshop was to go over how length of employment and marital status determined monthly deductions paid to said fine institution, for the part of supplemental they didn't cover. I’ll never forget the attendee who shrieked, "I gotta pay *how much* every month?!" (She was there with her husband, who'd figured into her math.) She was hardly the only attendee who'd had no idea this would not be free.
Personally, family members and I are lucky (so far), in that the fine institution seems to have negotiated decent contracts with insurers. We're in the Advantage plan version of our previous Supplemental, and the plan's covered what it did before. In year 1, and for however long that can be said.
One of the many joys of the holiday season has become my 90+ year old mother calling me freaking out because one or more of the many robocalls she's getting daily scared her into thinking she has to do SOMETHING to preserve her healthcare, although she knows not what.
My favorite part from the pharmacy end was always the first of the year, when people would have their benefits change on them, no longer covering a med or raising copays or switching to a totally different provider, which is when I learned that insurance companies are under NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to inform members of changes in coverage, the fuckers.
Hunter Biden is the one white guy they don't think should have all the guns. I'm pretty certain that Jim Dave Vance didn't say about UHC's Thompson shooting that it was a "fact of life".
I stop a little short of " good riddance" while acknowledging people like him should be arrested and thrown in jail for their wrongdoing. They should be shunned and punished. I don't mind that they're afraid to go out in public.
Maybe there's a pool of families that hired a hitman. Or the hitman first sent solicitations out, mass email: "Been turned down for necessary medical costs? Want to strike back?"
This seems quite reasonable, you have an unexpected expense - like hiring a hitman - that's way outside your means, so you and others pool your resources, perhaps paying some kind of monthly "premium" into a common fund. Perhaps you'll never need to hire a hitman to assassinate a health care CEO, but now you have the peace of mind of knowing that, if you do, your needs will be covered.
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of "The Equalizer", but taking down an insurance company who thinks it only needs to work two-thirds of the time would make a great "Leverage" episode.
Or a gang of conmen who trick the healthcare CEO into putting down half a million on Blue Note in the first race at Narragansett, then the money really goes to provide actual medical care.
This could make a funny Law & Order episode, where the victim was some guy so universally hated that every rando on the street who gets questioned by the cops says, "Sure, I wanted to kill him myself, but I was busy that night."
It was like the first tRump assassination attempt: it should have been expected.
The core of Neo Liberalism seems to be that, as money is The Most Important Thing, nothing, certainly not moral considerations or so many inevitable deaths, shall impede its piling up, sucked into the economic black holes of inequality.
The widely held assumption "If I only have enough money, I'll be ok(even if no one else is)" is clearly false. But Conservatives can't admit that...
Is the guillotine or the gun a more humane method of ridding society of the vampires who siphon off society's wealth for themselves while leaving crumbs for the rest of us? Discuss —
There's an account by a guy who witnessed the good ol' guillotine days who claims he watched his friend's disembodied head respond to his voice by looking at him and blinking for a couple minutes...
Our seventh grade history teacher told us about that one, and we walked around pretending to be disembodied heads and blinking for the next few weeks. Good times.
". . . if his responsibility for the suffering of his company’s “beneficiaries” is different from my own responsibility for the sufferings of indigents and unfortunates that I see every day and do not exert myself to aid, it is mainly a matter of degree . . ."
Um, no.
Are any of those indigents and unfortunates paying you to provide them with relief? No, they're not. And, frankly, I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to discover that more than a few of those indigents and unfortunates are now living on the street because UnitedHealthCare denied coverage for some ailment and left those unfortunates indigent due to medical debt.
It is one thing to fail to help someone. It is a sin, in my opinion, to REFUSE to help someone who has PAID you to help them in that very situation--and all the more so when your refusal is based on how much more your stock options are worth when that person dies from lack of care.
"Here, pay us $1500 a month for this garbage that'll never be useful to you no matter how hard you try. It's not a scam, I swear!"
I've hated private for-profit insurance since I had to fight them every day as a pharm tech, and, even though I'm not allowed to deal with them these days, I'm sure it's no better than it was then.
The Monty Python insurance sketch: “You see, you opted for our Never Pay policy, which if you never file a claim is quite good. However, you chose to file a claim, and, well…”
Nah, he was the head of a large corporation that's only job is to kill people by keeping as much of the money they collect to help people in their own pockets so they can get that next nesting yacht He wasn't a mass killer on Kissinger's level, but he was a mass killer. He did not, not give the extra 10 bucks to the beggar on the street, he actively pulled the money out of the beggar's hand, if I may be permitted a strained comparison. So there is definitely nothing that I (and I doubt you) have done that compares to what he did everyday of his life.
The best I think I could manage (at least I hope so) would be: "Sorry your husband/father is dead hope he had a good insurance policy." And even that would be stretching it.
But they MOVED that sucker, used to be bottom-right, now it's top-right. I can't count how many times I tried editing the comment below mine since they made this change.
"People are starting to figure out how this thing works! Let's move some stuff around!"
Now you've triggered me, re: Zoom. Takes me to my "Profile" page every time I open it, even though I've edited my Profile exactly once, four years ago when I first set up my account. So then I click on "Meetings", every damn time, and I feel like that one click has been STOLEN from me, I'll never get that click back, if we all have a finite amount of clicks in us, I will die early because of those fuckers at Zoom.
I installed a more recent OS [1] on my home machine, and have spent the last few days trying to figure out how to undo all the new things Apple Tim has decided are in My Best Interests Because They're Better.
[1] Certainly not the newest one, OS15! I'm gonna give them a year to get the bugs somewhat more worked out before I even think about that install.
My doctor sent me for an abdominal ultrasound last month. When I got to the place, they were concerned about whether UHC would pay for the procedure. Apparently you’re limited to one PER LIFETIME and I’d had one back in 2011 when they were diagnosing my heart problems.
Not having the procedure due to cost seemed foolish, so I asked what it would cost without insurance. $160. Not thousands, or tens of thousands. $160. They were going to be cheapskates about MY health for a lousy $160.
I would shake the shooter’s hand and tell him thanks for his service.
Well, for the most part, you get 'em in pairs, so it's hard to assess what a single goes for, tho you can't go wrong with a playful squeeze now and then...
At first I didn't feel anything either way, but a bit later I smiled at the concept of health care CEOs being gunned down like gangsters. Late-stage capitalism so rules!
Exactly so. That our exceptional establishment propagandistic news media choose not to run a sidebar on the company Thompson headed says far too much about them and us and what a fucking decadent* nation we are. (*As always, h/t to Stalin and company.)
Not saying CEOs should be shot down like dogs of course. Just some honest perspective in reporting maybe...? You know, as Roy sort of said: before his killer had blood on his hands, Thompson had blood on his hands. Should add that there are much preferred ways to deal with all that Thomson reflected than killing but that's for a better nation than we are. Assassinations on the street pretty much what we are, I guess.
Counterpoint: Of course CEOs should be shot down like dogs.
Kristi? Heeeere Kristi Kristi...
Agreed, just wouldn’t go on the record with it.
Of course, the better way would be vigorous New Deal-class policing of the fuckers which is to say a 180 from neoliberalism and the above-the-law, unaccountable shit attendant to same — just like the Founding Fathers fought for our independence for.
But since that ship has sailed, maybe a little classic terror [god help me] can achieve let’s say silver lining stuff. Even more crumbs than with which the DNC gifts us.
Minor spelling error:
“… with which the DNC grifts us.”
Can go either way.
I’m thinking it’s what they gift in response to what we’ve give them (or tolerated?) per the grift.
But ti-may-to/to-mah-to and all that.
Lucy Parsons: Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or a knife, and lay in wait on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot the owners as they come out.
I love Lucy!
Lagniappe: The Mad mag panel in which an announcer says, "And now let's return to (name) singing an aria from 'Lucia de Lammermoor,' which, if my high school French doesn't fail me, means 'I Love Lucy.'"
JUST once I'd love to hear the opera orchestra break into the Desi Arnaz theme for the show at the magic moment.
Except that dogs should not be shot down. Let's leave it at "CEO's should be shot down like CEO's".
Fair enough -- note accepted
"C'mon, we're havin' a shareholders meeting in the gravel pit."
Great observations! If we do not discuss economic violence openly and candidly, physical violence will increase. When justice is denied through rule of law, lawlessness increases.
These are not good outcomes.
"Or does it explode?"
Let me go oooooooooon, like a raisin in the sun
Big hands, I know you're the one
Guess that means we can cross Donald Trump off the list of suspects.
[insert tiny oof here]
Private health insurance giants are evil by definition, as health care SHOULD be a human right in a society as affluent as ours, not yet another avenue to profit for those who subsidize it. I had the irrepressible first response of “I’m sure he had it coming” when I first heard the news. I’m not proud of my response, but I’m also not too proud to admit I had it.
If it gives other health insurance CEOs some sleepless nights, good. And if billionaires also start to get nervous, even better.
I'll just note that the last time we got some good stuff out of them and the government they mostly own and control, it was the 1930's, and they were VERY scared, like "Bolsheviks under my bed!" scared.
Much of the enshittification of American life in the following decades was from CEOs losing the fear they once had.
I had similar feelings but also the line from Unforgiven, "We all have it coming, kid."
We'll always have Paris? Here's looking at you? The jokes help. Gallows humor: We hang together or we hang separately.
We do. Some have it coming harder and faster than the rest of us.
For some reason I'm thinking of the old Libertarian bit about the government fearing the people, which I've never believed because the State has a monopoly on violence in its defense. The corporations, on the other hand...
The 2028 Dem candidate better have these companies lined up for attack.
Yeah, there is definitely hay to be made here. Looking around the innertubes today I see the “oh, that’s too bad…anyhow moving on” response is pretty universal, regardless of political affiliation.
Not me. I see, everywhere, writing like Roy's. The still-unresolved dilemma is, Was it a hit by a disgruntled insurance customer (line from Raising Arizona: "They're ALL disgruntled.") OR, maybe more intriguingly, because Thompson was scheduled to testify in an insider trading case involving him and others?
ding ding ding
I feel myself being drawn into an online community of conspiracy theorists, just for this one conspiracy theory.
Once, JUST ONCE, I'd like to meet a gruntled insurance customer...
Truer words, Roy…
“Because this society rewards, in ever-increasing amounts, the spread of misery far, far beyond what I could accomplish even at my most cruel in a hundred lifetimes, and says the real crime is failing to show respect for it.”
Now that Mehmet Oz is going to run Medicare and Medicaid, we can look forward to older folks like me starting to be killed off by the hundreds of thousands. Oz plans on forcing all Medicare recipients into Medicare Advantage plans--private health insurance administered by the likes of UnitedHealthCare. Those companies are already well known for costing Medicare, on average, 22% more than just straight Medicare, AND they have long established records of refusing coverage and then arbitrarily canceling policies of sick elderly clients.
It's all just so fantastic to me because my Medicare coverage is now all of 5 whole days old, and it's looking like it might not even last 90 days.
That's not just Oz, it's in Project 2025 https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-medicare-changes-would-restrict-older-americans-access-to-care-and-imperil-the-programs-financial-health/ If there's any issue where some Republicans in Congress are likely to manage to grow a pair, though, Medicare is it.
From your lips to the goddess's ear! Sadly, it seems much more likely that if Trump bellowed out "Repeal Medicare!", within hours there would be at least 200 representatives and 45 senators who be on the floor offering repeal bills.
We only need 3 in the house.
And we know they’re there since we already have goppers like that Georgia rep yesterday talking about how they have to bring in Dem reps to “address” Medicare and SS. Fat chance.
Yeah, when people say "I want the Dems to FIGHT", if they just maintain a solid block with no defections, that's all I will ask for the moment.
Not to mention half of our colleagues and neighbors, who will be screwed like the rest of us.
Medicare and Medicaid, which have a operations cost of about 1% compared to something like 30% for private insurance.
Well, SURE, if you're just gonna PAY for stuff, like some kinda IDIOT.
Won't somebody think of the superyacht industry?
The orcas are!
Bless them.
Speaking of orcas, this thread!
https://bsky.app/profile/criminalerin.bsky.social/post/3lckmye2m6s25
Sing Ho! for Cetaceans (Cetaceans! HO!)
As they scuttle yachts of the rich and infamouses
They've got killer instincts – they're Orcas, you know
And will happily sink CEO ignoramuses!
My mom has Medicare and an Advantage plan. Medicare pays 90%, the Advantage plan (sometimes) pays the rest. I bet if you asked seniors where their healthcare is coming from, a lot of them would think it's the Advantage plan they pay $100 a month for that's paying for all of it, because they never get a bill from Medicare. Plus the Advantage plan (Quartz) is always mailing her stuff, but we never get anything from Medicare because they just quietly pay the bills and don't bother us.
Anyway, the idea that Advantage plans are now going to take over paying for services at TEN TIMES the rate they're currently paying I find comical (When I'm not screaming, that is.)
Also, this is the open-enrollment period for Advantage plans (so the TV commercials tell me) and there's one commercial where an elderly woman, quite annoyed at all these TV commercials about how it's renewal time, gets patiently lectured to by the announcer, that this is just a thing we all must endure, BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER WAY (last part is me, not the announcer.)
Which is why I always laugh when somebody acts like "Choice of health care providers" is some kind of Super-Fun Luxury Capitalism, instead of a source of stress and annoyance for all of us, and a thing that people in civilized countries would never put up with.
The capitalist hassle is something both Republicans and technocratic Democrats have gifted us. Republicans because they want to kill the programs and make people hate all the hoops they have to jump through; savvy technocratic Dems because they imagine every person as a “consumer” with the time, ability, and desire to “shop” for services. (It’s ridiculous on residential real estate loans where you get a list of providers from which you can “shop” for your title company, insurance, etc—as though any normal person wants to do that or even knows *how* to go about it.)
Add to that, "Vote for me, I'm offering this tax break for disabled veterans who start small businesses in an opportunity zone!" Followed by total puzzlement that they didn't get 100% of the votes from the people in the targeted demographic.
Normal people, how do they work?
And now that the Democrats have captured about 90% of the college graduates, I'm afraid this is only going to get worse.
Yeah, back in my Libertarian-adjacent days I believed that "informed consumer" bullshit. I am not proud of this.
Advantage plans are back door Medicare privatization. In my limited understanding, it seems this is being pulled off through the catch of needing Medicare + supplemental plan.
The fine institution from which I'm retired pushed us into Advantage plans last year. The old way, Medicare processed billing first; eventually, we'd receive Medicare statements and supplemental plan EOBs. Re your mother's mail, Advantage plans bill Medicare directly, that's why she's seeing stuff only from them.
It's certainly the case that the public rarely understands how things work. If not by direct design, it's the useful result of a system that avoids universal care by being cobbled together, and with generous carve-outs ("Medicare Part D," anyone?) I retired so long ago that not only was HR more than a call center, but it offered an in-person workshop on figuring out when to apply for Medicare. Besides basic age requirements, the workshop was to go over how length of employment and marital status determined monthly deductions paid to said fine institution, for the part of supplemental they didn't cover. I’ll never forget the attendee who shrieked, "I gotta pay *how much* every month?!" (She was there with her husband, who'd figured into her math.) She was hardly the only attendee who'd had no idea this would not be free.
Personally, family members and I are lucky (so far), in that the fine institution seems to have negotiated decent contracts with insurers. We're in the Advantage plan version of our previous Supplemental, and the plan's covered what it did before. In year 1, and for however long that can be said.
There outta be a law.
Being on an institutional plan. lets me ignore all ads and recycle all Advantage junk mail.
One of the many joys of the holiday season has become my 90+ year old mother calling me freaking out because one or more of the many robocalls she's getting daily scared her into thinking she has to do SOMETHING to preserve her healthcare, although she knows not what.
For-profit healthcare, BRINGING FAMILIES TOGETHER.
My favorite part from the pharmacy end was always the first of the year, when people would have their benefits change on them, no longer covering a med or raising copays or switching to a totally different provider, which is when I learned that insurance companies are under NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to inform members of changes in coverage, the fuckers.
I'm already going to hell. My thoughts:
Maybe now the RWNJs will want to do something about gun control, now that a rich white guy got it.
Who is the shooter and can we hire him to take out Trump?
When do we see the report that Thompson was no angel?
Hunter Biden is the one white guy they don't think should have all the guns. I'm pretty certain that Jim Dave Vance didn't say about UHC's Thompson shooting that it was a "fact of life".
I stop a little short of " good riddance" while acknowledging people like him should be arrested and thrown in jail for their wrongdoing. They should be shunned and punished. I don't mind that they're afraid to go out in public.
https://youtu.be/nGZpgUBVC98?si=I6cMRgtHBXIXFdu6
"Rave on Walt Whitman, nose down in wet grass-"
My first reaction was, “a hit on a health care exec? Surprised it took so long.”
I would imagine that they are looking at families who were denied coverage recently.
Gonna be quite a task to narrow the pool of suspects.
As Paul Newman said to Robert Redford, "After what they did to Luther I don't think I can get more than two-three hundred guys."
Maybe there's a pool of families that hired a hitman. Or the hitman first sent solicitations out, mass email: "Been turned down for necessary medical costs? Want to strike back?"
Isn't there TV show about a hitman like that?
This seems quite reasonable, you have an unexpected expense - like hiring a hitman - that's way outside your means, so you and others pool your resources, perhaps paying some kind of monthly "premium" into a common fund. Perhaps you'll never need to hire a hitman to assassinate a health care CEO, but now you have the peace of mind of knowing that, if you do, your needs will be covered.
"What do you mean, my prescription for a hitman has been denied?"
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of "The Equalizer", but taking down an insurance company who thinks it only needs to work two-thirds of the time would make a great "Leverage" episode.
Or a gang of conmen who trick the healthcare CEO into putting down half a million on Blue Note in the first race at Narragansett, then the money really goes to provide actual medical care.
Well, Dexter only killed serial killers. That said, I find your idea intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
What's 22% of 80 million?
Isn't their denial rate more like 32%?
"I see we're still approving more than TWO out of every THREE claims, this has got to stop!"
Erp, you're right. Gaaah!
a little under 18 million
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd2c8d70ea3f783091ad1e000466384e2ddb346d373d828ec0cbf1bf6726b7a6.jpg
TWICE the industry average. Or, as the CEO would have said, "Not enough."
I think I saw (but can't find) an Onion headline like, "Health Insurance Executive Killed. 80 Million Suspects Questioned"
That's an awful big suspect pool.
This could make a funny Law & Order episode, where the victim was some guy so universally hated that every rando on the street who gets questioned by the cops says, "Sure, I wanted to kill him myself, but I was busy that night."
It’s the biggest cast of Murder on the Orient Express ever. (If you know the spoiler, you know what I’m saying.)
Thanks for the reminder. Our copy of that movie wouldn't play more than the first fifteen minutes before it choked. Gotta get a new copy!
Cue "The Cell Block Tango"
It was like the first tRump assassination attempt: it should have been expected.
The core of Neo Liberalism seems to be that, as money is The Most Important Thing, nothing, certainly not moral considerations or so many inevitable deaths, shall impede its piling up, sucked into the economic black holes of inequality.
The widely held assumption "If I only have enough money, I'll be ok(even if no one else is)" is clearly false. But Conservatives can't admit that...
Is the guillotine or the gun a more humane method of ridding society of the vampires who siphon off society's wealth for themselves while leaving crumbs for the rest of us? Discuss —
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10170670809975323&set=p.10170670809975323&type=3
There's an account by a guy who witnessed the good ol' guillotine days who claims he watched his friend's disembodied head respond to his voice by looking at him and blinking for a couple minutes...
I've heard that disembodied heads retain consciousness for about 20 seconds. That must be a most peculiar sensation.
Our seventh grade history teacher told us about that one, and we walked around pretending to be disembodied heads and blinking for the next few weeks. Good times.
Seventh grade was cool.
Just before puberty kicked in with a vengeance.
Nobody ever thinks of these things from the headless body's point of view.
Spare a thought for the headless!
Never forget Headless Body in Topless Bar
Considering the medical angle with this guy, cranial amputation seems like the better choice.
ETA: In an operating theatre, so the major shareholders can be made to watch.
". . . if his responsibility for the suffering of his company’s “beneficiaries” is different from my own responsibility for the sufferings of indigents and unfortunates that I see every day and do not exert myself to aid, it is mainly a matter of degree . . ."
Um, no.
Are any of those indigents and unfortunates paying you to provide them with relief? No, they're not. And, frankly, I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to discover that more than a few of those indigents and unfortunates are now living on the street because UnitedHealthCare denied coverage for some ailment and left those unfortunates indigent due to medical debt.
It is one thing to fail to help someone. It is a sin, in my opinion, to REFUSE to help someone who has PAID you to help them in that very situation--and all the more so when your refusal is based on how much more your stock options are worth when that person dies from lack of care.
That last paragraph is a serious 2-marker.
"Here, pay us $1500 a month for this garbage that'll never be useful to you no matter how hard you try. It's not a scam, I swear!"
I've hated private for-profit insurance since I had to fight them every day as a pharm tech, and, even though I'm not allowed to deal with them these days, I'm sure it's no better than it was then.
The Monty Python insurance sketch: “You see, you opted for our Never Pay policy, which if you never file a claim is quite good. However, you chose to file a claim, and, well…”
Nah, he was the head of a large corporation that's only job is to kill people by keeping as much of the money they collect to help people in their own pockets so they can get that next nesting yacht He wasn't a mass killer on Kissinger's level, but he was a mass killer. He did not, not give the extra 10 bucks to the beggar on the street, he actively pulled the money out of the beggar's hand, if I may be permitted a strained comparison. So there is definitely nothing that I (and I doubt you) have done that compares to what he did everyday of his life.
The best I think I could manage (at least I hope so) would be: "Sorry your husband/father is dead hope he had a good insurance policy." And even that would be stretching it.
Apparently the editing button is gone?
Check the little grey dots on the right side of your post...
Yes
But they MOVED that sucker, used to be bottom-right, now it's top-right. I can't count how many times I tried editing the comment below mine since they made this change.
"People are starting to figure out how this thing works! Let's move some stuff around!"
I see you’ve found the UX/Design Team’s raison d’être.
Now you've triggered me, re: Zoom. Takes me to my "Profile" page every time I open it, even though I've edited my Profile exactly once, four years ago when I first set up my account. So then I click on "Meetings", every damn time, and I feel like that one click has been STOLEN from me, I'll never get that click back, if we all have a finite amount of clicks in us, I will die early because of those fuckers at Zoom.
I installed a more recent OS [1] on my home machine, and have spent the last few days trying to figure out how to undo all the new things Apple Tim has decided are in My Best Interests Because They're Better.
[1] Certainly not the newest one, OS15! I'm gonna give them a year to get the bugs somewhat more worked out before I even think about that install.
Computers are most annoying when they're trying to be "helpful."
No, dammit, stop automatically numbering my lists! I KNOW HOW TO COUNT.
Substack app for Android STILL has no "edit". We can't HAVE nice things.
Based on an assumption that people who use Substack on Android are all so smart they never make mistakes?
Geez, some people just can't take a compliment.
Ah!!!
Doeth not the exec who worries about his grandchildren while his company burns down the world bleed?
Don't know! Let's find out!
My doctor sent me for an abdominal ultrasound last month. When I got to the place, they were concerned about whether UHC would pay for the procedure. Apparently you’re limited to one PER LIFETIME and I’d had one back in 2011 when they were diagnosing my heart problems.
Not having the procedure due to cost seemed foolish, so I asked what it would cost without insurance. $160. Not thousands, or tens of thousands. $160. They were going to be cheapskates about MY health for a lousy $160.
I would shake the shooter’s hand and tell him thanks for his service.
I've seen the word "titrate" on this blog like three times in the last four weeks.
It's a sign to use it more often....
So, advocating for a higher titrate*?
*I'd apologize, or could blame the caffeine, or maybe not.
Just what does a tit go for these days?
Well, for the most part, you get 'em in pairs, so it's hard to assess what a single goes for, tho you can't go wrong with a playful squeeze now and then...
The answer is yes ;)
I just wanna know whom I need to speak with to increase my titration...
Nude Africa dot com just upped their titrate to 9600 baud.
I titrated a citrate solution
Had no idea. News-free zone til just this moment.
Charlie Dickens tried to warn us almost two centuries ago.
Let's just say we got tired of that "Visited by three ghosts" shit, which took FOREVER, and we just cut directly to the chase.
Thompson got the Ghost of Coverage Denied
Coverage Denied with Extreme Prejudice
"Thank you very much
Thank you very much
That's the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me. . ."
(Source: 1970 "Scrooge" musical w/Albert Finney)
"This in the comments on one of the WaPo articles this morning:
"The staff member heard the chief cardiologist say "You will cath everyone. It is where we make our money." "
At first I didn't feel anything either way, but a bit later I smiled at the concept of health care CEOs being gunned down like gangsters. Late-stage capitalism so rules!
If elections come down to whoever shows up with the largest armed mob, expect more Sovereign Citizen style justice on the fringes.
What are you talking about? Our elections go smoothly according to all applicable laws and the Constitution (when the Democrats lose.)