Billions to the VA
President Obama has signed a bill into law that provides $16.3 billion to the VA to improve medical care for our nation's veterans. It's a good bill. That doesn't change the fact that there is one thing this bill doesn't change. It doesn't change the system that allows the people who hid the facts, who took actions to pad their wallets at the expense of getting veterans the care they were entitled to.
A better bill would have criminalized those actions, preferable retroactively. You can throw money at the VA and hire a whole bunch of healthcare providers, but if you don't fix the culture of the administrators and managers at the VA, veterans will continue to find their access to care delayed or denied. Why?
Because there is a small but finite number of employees of the VA who are only there to collect that paycheck. They will do as little work as possible. This isn't unique to the VA or the federal government in general. Like it or not, the Civil Service protections that government employees enjoy allow that very small number of people to get paid whether they work or not.
I may or may not have mentioned one of my former military supervisors in this space. He was nearing the maximum time he could serve in the Air Force without getting another promotion. In his mind he'd retired several years earlier, but he was still on active duty and collecting his full military pay. He wangled orders to spend his final year in South Korea, where I was stationed. He did as little work as possible, telling me that as long as I kept him out of trouble with the boss, he'd let me write my own performance report and come and go as I pleased.
I had worked too hard to get the office the way I wanted it under the supervision of the man he replaced to let it slide in any event, but I just took care of business. However I went on to my next assignment while he still had a full six months left. My replacement wasn't up to the task and the commander wound up firing my former supervisor. Being relieved for cause in your final assignment isn't the way you want to leave the military.
This is relevant because there are a number of people with that attitude in the VA system. I've encountered them. They do as little as possible every day at work. The vast majority of the VA's employees, in particular the healthcare professionals, are hard-working people who do their utmost to ensure we are cared for properly. Unfortunately, the few who won't adopt that attitude can really gum up the works.
We'll see if the Obama Administration deals firmly with the people who are directly and indirectly responsible for denying care to eligible veterans, in some cases causing their deaths.
* * *
Marilyn Hartman did something today that boggles my mind. In case her name doesn't ring a bell, you know her better as the elderly woman who successfully boarded an airplane up North and flew to Los Angeles without a ticket or boarding pass. Hours after her release from jail, she tried to do it again. Part of the terms of her probation involved her staying out of airports unless she had a ticket.
I'm glad they managed to catch her before she got aboard an aircraft, this time. However, I am flabbergasted that she was able to successfully stowaway even once. The Transportation Security Administration had a budget of over $7.3 billion for the current fiscal year, part of which is funded by a tax on every airline passenger's ticket. We're spending that much on airport security and one old woman just walks right through the system without a ticket or boarding pass. If she can do it, what might terrorists do?
Are you scared over this? I sure am.
* * *
There is a café in Minnesota that has drawn a lot of negative attention for their response to the recent hike in Minnesota's minimum wage. They've added a 35 cent minimum wage charge to every check. Why do people have a problem with this? If they'd just raised all menu item prices slightly, no one would have had an issue. But because they're making it clear the extra amount customers must pay is going to offset the increase in wages they are being forced to pay is stated and identified, people are getting upset.
There are a lot of people who want to see the minimum wage increased. You'd think they would understand that part and parcel of making that change means businesses will need to raise prices. After all, the sources from which they purchase materiel have to make the same increase in minimum wage. Cost of goods rising, cost of wages rising, do the proponents of a higher minimum wage expect business owners to cut their already narrow profit margins further?
If you were a low level manager, supervising a crew of minimum wage workers, and suddenly what they're being paid is now equal to what you are paid, I expect you would view that as unfair. Supervisors make more than subordinates in most situations and the exceptions to this rule usually involve highly skilled professionals (doctors, lawyers, pro athletes), or commissioned salespeople who are very successful.
I know I wouldn't stop going to a business that added a charge like that. But if I knew the owner well enough, I might suggest making such a bold statement is a bit risky.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Both former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden referred to Africa as a nation this week. Proof that neither side of the political aisle has a monopoly on stupidity; and that when it comes to our government, it takes a village of idiots.
I still don't understand why the theme music from "L. A. Law" remains my favorite TV theme, more than 25 years later. Or why the couple that seemed a natural fit, Harry Hamlin and Susan Dey wasn't a real couple, while the couple who appeared to be a lousy fit, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker were a real-life couple, very much in love. Doesn't matter, I still love watching the reruns of this show.
It shouldn't take the cable company over four hours to clear a widespread outage.
Lee Ann Rimes has a cute butt. Maybe she did mean to send out that photo of it on Twitter.
Senator Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky is running to retain his seat in the U. S. Senate and accusing his Democrat opponent of wanting to destroy the coal industry. Strange this is, his own wife works for a group trying to do just that. Politics does make strange bedfellows.
I think it's probably a good thing that the restaurant that was giving patrons who prayed before eating a 15% discount has ended that policy. Providing a discount for those who engage in religious activity and not to those who choose not to is definitely a form of discrimination.
Scott Disick referring to himself as "Lord Disick" is just further evidence that he is just another big dickhead.
There's already arguing on the set of The View and they haven't even settled on who else is being hired besides Rosie O'Donnell?
Security camera footage showing a U. S. Postal Service mail carrier throwing at least two boxes of mail into a dumpster caused a ruckus in Cincinnati. Complaints resulted in postal workers recovering the trashed mail from the dumpster. I figure it's just more of the USPS push for efficiency. Rather than delivering mail we just toss in the trash, they're eliminating the middle man.
Fortunately for you, I am not willing to record my impression of Richard M. Nixon's resignation, forty years ago today. So you can watch and listen to him yourselves:
I still don't get it. He would have won in a landslide anyway, why did he bother with all that crap?
Today is the anniversary of the day in 1977 when I went off to Air Force basic training. I won't bore you with a reiteration of how I had to run non-stop for hours to lose weight to get on the plane, but every year on this date, I'm reminded of that very long day.
The feds are proud of their program to monitor the whereabouts of adults who entered the U. S. illegally by using ankle bracelets. They claim it is cheaper than keeping them in custody. Sending them back where they came from, like every other nation on Earth does would be even cheaper.
The only way ISIS will fly their flag at the White House is if they build one in their corner of the world.
The grandmother who is asking for $1,000 in compensation for a bad haircut she got is way out of line.
It is almost certainly accurate to label the death of James Brady as a homicide, but there is no point in bringing any further charges against John Hinckley. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity then and the same would hold true now. No matter what's transpired in the interim, it doesn't change the fact he was not sane when he pulled the trigger.
* * *
August 8th in History:
1220 – Sweden is defeated by Estonian tribes in the Battle of Lihula.
1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on Ven, Denmark.
1585 – John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage.
1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England.
1605 – The city of Oulu, Finland, is founded by Charles IX of Sweden.
1647 – The Irish Confederate Wars and Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Battle of Dungan's Hill: English Parliamentary forces defeat Irish forces.
1709 – Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the King of Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal
1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard.
1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occurs during the French Revolution.
1794 – Joseph Whidbey leads an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska.
1844 – The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
1863 – American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).
1870 – The Republic of Ploiești, a failed Radical-Liberal rising against Domnitor Carol of Romania.
1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
1885 – More than 1.5 million people attend the funeral of Ulysses S. Grant in New York City.
1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers' first public flight.
1918 – World War I: The Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous victories with a push through the German front lines (Hundred Days Offensive).
1927 – The predecessor to the Philippine Stock Exchange opens.
1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight.
1940 – The "Aufbau Ost" directive is signed by Wilhelm Keitel.
1942 – Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence.
1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world's first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.
1960 – South Kasai secedes from the Congo.
1963 – Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.
1963 – The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), the current ruling party of Zimbabwe, is formed by a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union.
1967 – The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
1969 – At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the photo that becomes the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road.
1973 – Kim Dae-jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.
1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.
1980 – The Central Hotel Fire occurs in Bundoran, Ireland.
1988 – The "8888 Uprising" occurs in Burma.
1989 – Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.
1990 – Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.
1991 – The Warsaw radio mast, at one time the tallest construction ever built, collapses.
2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence.
2007 – An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.
2008 – A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others.
2008 – Opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
2010 – 2010 China floods: A mudslide in Zhugqu County, Gansu, China, kills more than 1,400 people.
2013 – A suicide bombing at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 31 people.
Famous Folk born on August 8th:
Emperor Horikawa of Japan
Lt. General Nelson A. Miles (Medal of Honor Recipient)
Bob Smith
Ernest Lawrence
Arthur Goldberg
Dino De Laurentiis
Jimmy Witherspoon
William Asher
Esther Williams
Rudi Gernreich
Jerry Tarkanian (the song below is not the original version which was released in 1987, but it isn't bad)
Mel Tillis
Joe Tex
Serena Wilson
Joan Mondale
Donald P. Bellisario
Dustin Hoffman
Connie Stevens
Ken Dryden
Larry Wilcox
Willie "Too Big" Hall
Keith Carradine
Randy Shilts
Robin Quivers
Don Most
Branscombe Richmond
Deborah Norville
The Edge
Kool Moe Dee
Jon Turteltaub
Sable
Meagan Good
A better bill would have criminalized those actions, preferable retroactively. You can throw money at the VA and hire a whole bunch of healthcare providers, but if you don't fix the culture of the administrators and managers at the VA, veterans will continue to find their access to care delayed or denied. Why?
Because there is a small but finite number of employees of the VA who are only there to collect that paycheck. They will do as little work as possible. This isn't unique to the VA or the federal government in general. Like it or not, the Civil Service protections that government employees enjoy allow that very small number of people to get paid whether they work or not.
I may or may not have mentioned one of my former military supervisors in this space. He was nearing the maximum time he could serve in the Air Force without getting another promotion. In his mind he'd retired several years earlier, but he was still on active duty and collecting his full military pay. He wangled orders to spend his final year in South Korea, where I was stationed. He did as little work as possible, telling me that as long as I kept him out of trouble with the boss, he'd let me write my own performance report and come and go as I pleased.
I had worked too hard to get the office the way I wanted it under the supervision of the man he replaced to let it slide in any event, but I just took care of business. However I went on to my next assignment while he still had a full six months left. My replacement wasn't up to the task and the commander wound up firing my former supervisor. Being relieved for cause in your final assignment isn't the way you want to leave the military.
This is relevant because there are a number of people with that attitude in the VA system. I've encountered them. They do as little as possible every day at work. The vast majority of the VA's employees, in particular the healthcare professionals, are hard-working people who do their utmost to ensure we are cared for properly. Unfortunately, the few who won't adopt that attitude can really gum up the works.
We'll see if the Obama Administration deals firmly with the people who are directly and indirectly responsible for denying care to eligible veterans, in some cases causing their deaths.
* * *
Marilyn Hartman did something today that boggles my mind. In case her name doesn't ring a bell, you know her better as the elderly woman who successfully boarded an airplane up North and flew to Los Angeles without a ticket or boarding pass. Hours after her release from jail, she tried to do it again. Part of the terms of her probation involved her staying out of airports unless she had a ticket.
I'm glad they managed to catch her before she got aboard an aircraft, this time. However, I am flabbergasted that she was able to successfully stowaway even once. The Transportation Security Administration had a budget of over $7.3 billion for the current fiscal year, part of which is funded by a tax on every airline passenger's ticket. We're spending that much on airport security and one old woman just walks right through the system without a ticket or boarding pass. If she can do it, what might terrorists do?
Are you scared over this? I sure am.
* * *
There is a café in Minnesota that has drawn a lot of negative attention for their response to the recent hike in Minnesota's minimum wage. They've added a 35 cent minimum wage charge to every check. Why do people have a problem with this? If they'd just raised all menu item prices slightly, no one would have had an issue. But because they're making it clear the extra amount customers must pay is going to offset the increase in wages they are being forced to pay is stated and identified, people are getting upset.
There are a lot of people who want to see the minimum wage increased. You'd think they would understand that part and parcel of making that change means businesses will need to raise prices. After all, the sources from which they purchase materiel have to make the same increase in minimum wage. Cost of goods rising, cost of wages rising, do the proponents of a higher minimum wage expect business owners to cut their already narrow profit margins further?
If you were a low level manager, supervising a crew of minimum wage workers, and suddenly what they're being paid is now equal to what you are paid, I expect you would view that as unfair. Supervisors make more than subordinates in most situations and the exceptions to this rule usually involve highly skilled professionals (doctors, lawyers, pro athletes), or commissioned salespeople who are very successful.
I know I wouldn't stop going to a business that added a charge like that. But if I knew the owner well enough, I might suggest making such a bold statement is a bit risky.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Both former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden referred to Africa as a nation this week. Proof that neither side of the political aisle has a monopoly on stupidity; and that when it comes to our government, it takes a village of idiots.
I still don't understand why the theme music from "L. A. Law" remains my favorite TV theme, more than 25 years later. Or why the couple that seemed a natural fit, Harry Hamlin and Susan Dey wasn't a real couple, while the couple who appeared to be a lousy fit, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker were a real-life couple, very much in love. Doesn't matter, I still love watching the reruns of this show.
It shouldn't take the cable company over four hours to clear a widespread outage.
Lee Ann Rimes has a cute butt. Maybe she did mean to send out that photo of it on Twitter.
Senator Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky is running to retain his seat in the U. S. Senate and accusing his Democrat opponent of wanting to destroy the coal industry. Strange this is, his own wife works for a group trying to do just that. Politics does make strange bedfellows.
I think it's probably a good thing that the restaurant that was giving patrons who prayed before eating a 15% discount has ended that policy. Providing a discount for those who engage in religious activity and not to those who choose not to is definitely a form of discrimination.
Scott Disick referring to himself as "Lord Disick" is just further evidence that he is just another big dickhead.
There's already arguing on the set of The View and they haven't even settled on who else is being hired besides Rosie O'Donnell?
Security camera footage showing a U. S. Postal Service mail carrier throwing at least two boxes of mail into a dumpster caused a ruckus in Cincinnati. Complaints resulted in postal workers recovering the trashed mail from the dumpster. I figure it's just more of the USPS push for efficiency. Rather than delivering mail we just toss in the trash, they're eliminating the middle man.
Fortunately for you, I am not willing to record my impression of Richard M. Nixon's resignation, forty years ago today. So you can watch and listen to him yourselves:
I still don't get it. He would have won in a landslide anyway, why did he bother with all that crap?
Today is the anniversary of the day in 1977 when I went off to Air Force basic training. I won't bore you with a reiteration of how I had to run non-stop for hours to lose weight to get on the plane, but every year on this date, I'm reminded of that very long day.
The feds are proud of their program to monitor the whereabouts of adults who entered the U. S. illegally by using ankle bracelets. They claim it is cheaper than keeping them in custody. Sending them back where they came from, like every other nation on Earth does would be even cheaper.
The only way ISIS will fly their flag at the White House is if they build one in their corner of the world.
The grandmother who is asking for $1,000 in compensation for a bad haircut she got is way out of line.
It is almost certainly accurate to label the death of James Brady as a homicide, but there is no point in bringing any further charges against John Hinckley. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity then and the same would hold true now. No matter what's transpired in the interim, it doesn't change the fact he was not sane when he pulled the trigger.
* * *
August 8th in History:
1220 – Sweden is defeated by Estonian tribes in the Battle of Lihula.
1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on Ven, Denmark.
1585 – John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage.
1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England.
1605 – The city of Oulu, Finland, is founded by Charles IX of Sweden.
1647 – The Irish Confederate Wars and Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Battle of Dungan's Hill: English Parliamentary forces defeat Irish forces.
1709 – Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the King of Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal
1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard.
1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occurs during the French Revolution.
1794 – Joseph Whidbey leads an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska.
1844 – The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
1863 – American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).
1870 – The Republic of Ploiești, a failed Radical-Liberal rising against Domnitor Carol of Romania.
1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
1885 – More than 1.5 million people attend the funeral of Ulysses S. Grant in New York City.
1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers' first public flight.
1918 – World War I: The Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous victories with a push through the German front lines (Hundred Days Offensive).
1927 – The predecessor to the Philippine Stock Exchange opens.
1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight.
1940 – The "Aufbau Ost" directive is signed by Wilhelm Keitel.
1942 – Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence.
1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world's first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.
1960 – South Kasai secedes from the Congo.
1963 – Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.
1963 – The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), the current ruling party of Zimbabwe, is formed by a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union.
1967 – The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
1969 – At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the photo that becomes the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road.
1973 – Kim Dae-jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.
1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.
1980 – The Central Hotel Fire occurs in Bundoran, Ireland.
1988 – The "8888 Uprising" occurs in Burma.
1989 – Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.
1990 – Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.
1991 – The Warsaw radio mast, at one time the tallest construction ever built, collapses.
2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence.
2007 – An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.
2008 – A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others.
2008 – Opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
2010 – 2010 China floods: A mudslide in Zhugqu County, Gansu, China, kills more than 1,400 people.
2013 – A suicide bombing at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 31 people.
Famous Folk born on August 8th:
Emperor Horikawa of Japan
Lt. General Nelson A. Miles (Medal of Honor Recipient)
Bob Smith
Ernest Lawrence
Arthur Goldberg
Dino De Laurentiis
Jimmy Witherspoon
William Asher
Esther Williams
Rudi Gernreich
Jerry Tarkanian (the song below is not the original version which was released in 1987, but it isn't bad)
Mel Tillis
Joe Tex
Serena Wilson
Joan Mondale
Donald P. Bellisario
Dustin Hoffman
Connie Stevens
Ken Dryden
Larry Wilcox
Willie "Too Big" Hall
Keith Carradine
Randy Shilts
Robin Quivers
Don Most
Branscombe Richmond
Deborah Norville
The Edge
Kool Moe Dee
Jon Turteltaub
Sable
Meagan Good
posted by me at 6:02 PM
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