During a CNBC interview on Monday, President Obama called Kanye West a “jackass” regarding his behavior at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Every so often …

(I keep telling myself those are mostly tugs and accessory boats in the picture …)

Ian Welsh wrote about an experience he had with Canadian health care. Three months in the hospital, expensive drugs, physical therapy – no charge.

According to President Obama:

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone.

Which is the way of the other 21st-century democracies.

On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

Which is the out-of-pocket way of the third world. But Obama continues:

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.

So, to avoid that disruption, Americans shall be left with something in the center, between the 21st century and the third world.

SWELL. JUST FUCKING SWELL. Is Nader willing to run in 2012?

The Space Merchants is a science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth first published in book form in 1953 […]

Plot introduction

In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by far the best-paid profession. Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market. However, the most basic elements are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel. […]

The protagonist, Mitch Courtenay, is a star-class copywriter in the Fowler Schocken advertising agency who has been assigned the ad campaign which would attract colonists to Venus. But a lot more is happening than he knows about. It soon becomes a tale of mystery and intrigue, in which many of the characters are not what they seem, and Mitch’s loyalties and opinions change drastically over the course of the narrative.

Get the picture, this was first published in paper in 1952. 65 years ago, these guys had an accurate grip on how our government would devolve into a transnational corporatocricy. And the protagonist is a “word smith, star class”, i.e., a master propagandist, a Frank Luntz, who finally gets it.

Good night firedogs.

me too. nite you guys

If that happened to any of us here we’d be paying off the hospital for the rest of our lives, assuming we weren’t just dumped out on the street.