Would it have been too much to ask Obama to have golfed one less day, to allow him six or so extra hours to follow up on his campaign promise to improve VA health care?
Maybe that way he wouldn’t have had to learn about all this by reading about it in the newspapers.
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He really is a piece of work.
Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 5/21/2014 @ 2:47 pmSince Obama learns everything he knows about the federal bureaucracy from newspapers — despite having a massive and well-paid staff at his beck and call 24/7 — should we be forwarding any important articles to his attention? Maybe we can find him a good news-aggregator for his Blackberry.
JVW (feb406) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:18 pmAnswer: Yes, yes it is too much to ask….racist.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:30 pmI mean, trying to keep a black man off the golf course!? Tiger Woods tore down those old traditions bro!
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:31 pmObama’s campaign promise was to improve the waiting times for disability claims processing – not waiting times for seeing a doctor, which he didn’t know about. That was being covered up. Senator McCain didn’t know about it, I assume, and he would have bene very interested, being a Senator from Arizona and all that.
The VA had evidently put in rules saying there must be no more than a 14-day waiting period.
Maybe there were punishments for not meeting that – there were definitely bonuses for meeting it.
The hospitals didn’t get enough resources, and hospitals in areas that veterans were moving to, like Phoenix, didn’t get additional doctors. The person who just retired was apparently co-ordinating the cover-up. Obama is being mendacious in saying that it is still an open question whether this occurred.
The peopole running the system just lied – they kept “off the books” waiting lists, and once they had started, they couldn’t come clean.
The question would be why is there suddenly such along waiting period. The problem was probably worst in Phoenix but also occured other places.
Places that were losing population didn’t have these problems. If people had known, veterans with health problems wouldn’t have moved to Phoenix or tried to rely on the VA.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:39 pmBesides, Climate Change is the primary cause of the VA scandal to begin with…and all those white golf balls reflect the Sun’s radiation back into space.
Don’t side with Exxon. We are all Shinseki.
Don’t toot, it’ll pollute.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:39 pmDear America,
Since I only learned in yesterday’s newspaper that I had appointed the Secretary of the Veterans Administration, why should I be responsible for any of these alleged actions of misconduct in the VA ?
Sheesh !
Love,Signed,
Barack
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:41 pmI swear you used an autopen Elephant Stone. That signature looks digitized.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:43 pmPresident Obama petulantly says he “won’t stand for” his failures that he reads about in the newspapers… or something.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:43 pmnothing happened today, are you going to argue;
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/05/flash%E2%9E%99-good-morning-america-kills-james-okeefe-segment-on-hollywood-sting/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:45 pmObama and his systemic failures. Why you’d almost think he doesn’t give a flying f*ck.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:46 pmFurthermore, President Tiger Beat says he won’t “tolerate” any misconduct in the VA.
At least he finally admits he’s intolerant.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:46 pmThe Obama person also says he’s really angry !!!!!!1!!1!! about all of this. And when he gets really angry about federal bureaucratic malfeasance, he likes to let off all that steam by playing golf. Or having Jay-Z & Beyonce over to the White House for a fancy dinner and an impromptu concert.
Rage !
Or something.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:49 pmYou have a question? http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://guitarparty-static-media.s3.amazonaws.com/CACHE/5a/ca/5aca4cde87f23eee208bf323ecdef3ce.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.guitarparty.com/artist/eric-idle/&h=400&w=400&tbnid=lxUa6Ky70TnxfM:&zoom=1&docid=WoddAOj9BujokM&hl=en&ei=Si19U9LOA4O38AH1pIGQDA&tbm=isch&client=safari&ved=0CEQQMygMMAw
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:49 pmFollowing the VA’s route to recovery, the White House is sending additional Ibuprofen as treatment.
It fixes everything.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:50 pmThere’s a maximum 14 day wait? Who knew? I’ve been waiting since Christmas 2012!
htom (412a17) — 5/21/2014 @ 3:55 pmThe willful dereliction of duty shown by our “media” is a national disgrace.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:00 pm“Heckuva job, Shinsecki !”
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:03 pmC’mon, this scandal can probably be attributed to some lazy administrative work by a couple of rogue employees in the
CincinattiPhoenix Philadelphia Washington DC Pittsburgh Kansas City Jacksonville Denver Baltimore Houston Charlotte offices.Or something.
Let’s get back to talking about how the Koch Brothers caused Hurricane Katrina.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:07 pmBonuses all the way around!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:08 pm“Not enough doctors” is the lie on top of the lie. They have enough doctors, if only they could get them to work more than fours a day. The work at VA hospitals is done by residents, doctors in training. The attendings show up at 10:00 a.m. and leave at 2:00 p.m.; no calls, no weekends. That is the reason they go to work for the VA in the first place — it is understood that they will be paid two-thirds of the private market but will only work one-third of the private hospital doctors. If the VA imposes productivity levels and maximum-acceptable mortality-morbidity levels similar to private hospitals, they will lose most of their doctors.
nk (dbc370) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:09 pm(In “private hospitals” I include university hospitals which, ironically I suppose, provide the VAs residents — the guys who do all the work for a trainee’s stipend.)
It’s been going on for a long time. The WWI Bonus March Veterans got pretty screwed over by the government, too.
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:10 pm*will only work one-third as hard as the private hospital doctors*
nk (dbc370) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:11 pmeric shinseki
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:12 pmthat ass you wear for a hat
does not become you
President Obama says that if Shinseki feels he can’t do the job of cleaning this up, he’s sure he will resign..
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:12 pmYou sound like you take great comfort in that pathetic pronouncement, Sammy. Neither Obama or Shinseki has the first effing clue.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:16 pm21. I know a pharmacist who works at a VA. Same dealio with the hours, nk. She could have a whole second job at Walgreens or CVS (as many of them apparently do) but she’s thrilled with the gov’t benefits and pay and all the time she can spend with her kids and husband.
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:19 pmIf you like your doctor, you can keep him, provided you’re still alive in nine months when your next appointment rolls around.
Period
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:21 pm!!!!.Resign? What kind of a descendant of Samurai is that? And a general to boot. He should commit seppuku or forever disgrace his ancestors whose spirits will wander the world in shame and dejection unable the hold their heads up in front of the Kings of Karma until the next full turn of the Great Wheel.
nk (dbc370) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:23 pmDear President Obama,
If you would watch Fox News more often, you would find out about your scandals a whole lot sooner.
Signed,
Roger Ailes
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:26 pmsomnambulism
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:29 pmmost media afflicted
wear asses for hats
Remember, Shinseki was Kerry’s go-to during the campaigns every time he needed some actual military folks to support him.
Today was the first time in over 2 years Obama and Shinseki met. Yet it was urgent when he ran in 2007. There is nothing left to study. Or investigate. They know what happened.
Obama and Shinseki got ripped on the House floor by a Dem Rep from Atlanta. It was amazing to watch.
JD (e5a0fa) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:31 pmTammy Duckworth, a helicopter pilot who lost both legs in combat and had poltical ambitions, was put in the Veterans Administration by Obama and then won a seat in the U.S. House from IL 8th in 2012 and is up for reelection. I have not heard much from her about this scandal, so far. She has always been very very vocal about veterans deserving and getting good medical care probably because of her own terrible injuries. Where you at, Tammy!!!!!?
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:33 pmShinsekisan meh
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:34 pmfind glory in seppuku
before under bus
I suppose Tammy’s going to have to weigh how much she can afford to tick of the Democrat money machine in an election year.
But I did just find this{
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/20/transcript-tammy-duckworth-on-the-va-scandal-and-eric-shinseki/?wprss=rss_politics
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:39 pmJames O’Keefe has just done some big time punking of some punks.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/05/20/James-O-Keefe-Dupes-Hollywood-With-Fake-Anti-Fracking-Film
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:45 pmObama should’ve started as assistant manager and worked his way up.
He doesn’t really know how anything works.
happyfeet (8ce051) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:48 pmThat isn’t much of a denunciation, is it, Elissa.
JD (e5a0fa) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:48 pmnope.
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:51 pmThe last Q&A of the interview was pretty good, tho.
Most important, how are you doing?
TD: “I’m good. I’m hanging in there. I was in Congress for six months and they put me on blood pressure medication. I flew helicopters in combat and I was fine, and I survived 13 months in recovery in the hospital. … I got to Congress and six months later I’m on blood pressure medication. Fourteen months later, they doubled the dosage!”
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 5:00 pmNo, absolutely not; every moment that President Obama spends on the golf course is a moment in which he isn’t harming our country. I would like to see him golf, every day from now until January 20, 2017.
The Dana who loves our country (af9ec3) — 5/21/2014 @ 5:05 pmtrue story: i applied with the VA several years ago for care of the effects of injuries i received while serving with the CA ARNG from 83-03.
i have yet to receive even a formal denial letter. all i have, so far, is a phone conversation with someone there who told me that, since my service had been in the reserves, i had never actually been in the military, and therefore wasn’t entitled to any VA care or services at all.
makes ya wonder why my uniforms said “US Army”, and my ID card “Armed Forces of the United States”..
as i always say, the real motto is
just once, could it be something other than the 5hitty end of the stick?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 5/21/2014 @ 5:07 pmI am a Service Connected disable veteran. The VA is suppose to give treatment for free for your service connected injuries. I am fortunate and have a job which provides medical insurance, I pay for it. I went to the VA and they billed my insurance for treatment on my service connected right shoulder. I could not get the issue resolved so I no longer go to the VA for treatment. Why would I use my insurance for sub par treatment? Especially since each time you go it is a different resident who forces you to go over your entire medical history?
highpockets (341a10) — 5/21/2014 @ 5:22 pmThat is infuriatingly highlarious, stones
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 5:23 pmhighpockets,
I know a private doctor who treats veterans with chronic conditions. The vets only use the VA for medications. They use their private health insurance to have a private doctor and, should it be needed, private hospitalization.
A cost analysis needs to be done. Do the VA bricks and mortar facilities, and the VA bureaucracy, save the taxpayers money? Enough to justify the vets’ crappy treatment? If not, they should be scrapped and the vets just issued health insurance cards that they can use anywhere.
nk (dbc370) — 5/21/2014 @ 5:54 pmNo one is angrier than Obama and he’s not going to rest until something is done.
AZ Bob (533fbc) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:15 pmHow disconnected is a Commander-in-Chief who doesn’t comment for the last 23 days on the despicable VA scandal?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:17 pm#madderthanHell #gettothebottomofit #apoplecticbutgolfing #senseofcomplacency #sacredtrust? #EPICFAIL
Wrong on all counts Sammy. But I’ll just address these two.
Candidate Barack Obama addressed the VFW in 2007 and spoke very specifically about these wait times. He said veterans shouldn’t have to wait months or years to see a doctor.
Got that? He wasn’t talking about processing disability claims at that moment. He was talking about how long it took to get an appointment at a VA hospital to see a doctor.
And his transition team was briefed about this very problem in 2008. They were warned not to accept the VA’s data on wait times for appointments at their hospitals because it was unreliable.
In reality everyone in Washington should have known since the VA’s IG had been warning of this issue for years. I’m not surprised that McCain didn’t know this, then. We learned at Bob Work’s confirmation hearings for Undersecretary of Defense that McCain was stunned to find out that cost overruns are entirely normal in naval procurement. You’d think that wouldn’t have been news to McCain, since no major acquisition has ever come in anywhere near on-budget for the entire time McCain has been on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
What was going on at the VA, including these wait times for appointments, was not a secret. Obama claims to not know much about what happens in his own administration. But back when he was criticizing Bush, Prom Queen seemed to know about everything that went on in that administration. And it was all awful, especially at the VA. And Candidate Mean Girl made lots of promises about how everything was going to be so much better now that he and the rest of the Harvard student government was taking over the reins.
Including the wait times at the VA to see a doctor.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:27 pmLast time Barack got really mad at Putin, he imposed some sanctions.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:27 pmMaybe he’ll impose some sanctions against the VA Hospitals.
Or something.
Dear Valerie Jarrett,
You famously said that Barack’s brain works differently, so he gets bored easily. And that he isn’t interested in the normal things that normal Americans are interested in. Or something to that effect.
Millions of Americans finally see your point.
Love,Signed,
America
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:30 pmI heard today that actually the VA budget has increased almost 200% since 2000, while the number of vets has decreased by about 4 million.
And, the cost per person is greater for older vets, not younger, i.e. the costs are not going up primarily because of casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think in part it must be the lack of personal responsibility/ownership. It is a bureaucracy, you can’t excel if you want to, you can’t get fired if you don’t do a good job.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:33 pmAnd everyone has the goal of doing their little cog in a wheel thing and going home.
Few people are able to maintain a focus on caring for the people they serve, even when they try. It is like swimming upstream, you have to be a strong swimmer like a salmon to do it, and then many die of exhaustion.
I heard a caller into some show yesterday say that instead of a daily security briefing, which he “doesn’t need” anyway, the heads of various major media outlets should give him a daily breaking-scandal briefing.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:40 pmIf only they could get some of them to do any work at all!
One of the VA IG reports issued during the past couple of years documented at least 26 surgeons at various hospitals who hadn’t performed a single surgery in over a year.
The report blandly said, “Surgeons should do some surgeries.” Ya think? I don’t even know how you remain qualified to be a surgeon if you never perform surgery.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:41 pmI guess that’s what the ‘complete lives’ system is really about;
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/05/sarah-palin-warns-vote-out-obama-democrats-or-face-more-rationed-health-care/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:43 pmWell Steve57, sometimes the facts need to be dug out a little bit more.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:51 pmI could see that perhaps there are senior attending physicians who are not the “surgeon of record”, as that was a senior resident, while the attending provided some level of supervision.
But that is a guess.
Maybe Mike K. will see and comment.
Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:45 pm
I saw the latest O’Keefe work over at PowerLine.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 7:09 pmIs it legal in CA to record conversations if one, and only one, person agrees to it?
But not in all states, right?
Legal in Cali, so long as you’re in a public place with no expectation of privacy. What was done to Sterling was illegal.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 7:13 pmOk, that makes sense, Colonel, thank you.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 7:16 pmwell, they have everything under control, just look at the most recent example.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/05/u-s-deploys-80-troops-to-aid-in-search-for-kidnapped-nigerian-schoolgirls/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/21/2014 @ 7:30 pmWould it have been too much to ask Obama to have golfed one less day
Actually, when it comes to a person with his lousy sense of judgment, lousy sense of right and wrong, lousy perception of reality, lousy way of understanding the good and bad in people and situations, the less time he spends influencing and initiating policies, ideas, programs and concepts, the better.
This nation would have be better off — and would have been better off — if he had been on the golf course (or smoking dope or gallivanting around bath houses, etc) 24/7, 365 days a year since 2009.
Mark (99b8fd) — 5/21/2014 @ 7:55 pmNo, because the people he puts in charge, are figureheads or worse,
http://therightscoop.com/sarah-palin-obama-doesnt-hold-people-accountable-because-hes-lazy/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:02 pmI am completely serious. I hope the President continues to play golf.
I also look forward to every time he steps away from the tee box to address the voters on a serious matter.
I look forward to every public, televised statement by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
The singular joy in my life, right now, is watching Jay Carney explain policy and the President’s position on issues.
As far as I am concerned, the worst thing that can happen to this nation is that they stop talking.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:21 pmI don’t have the inclination to look it up, maybe someone else knows this and can link it.
Some Democrat House member took it right at Obama today in the House after Obama’s press conference.
Downright agitated over the fecklessness of the president, out loud on the House floor, a Democrat.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:24 pmI don’t think you have anything to worry about, Ag,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:27 pmTiger was less tied to his clubs, he did have other distractions, a little Norma Desmond and the Searchlight Strangler goes a long way, though,
MD–JD mentioned that up at #32. Dem rep from Georgia.
elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:41 pmI feel duped! All this time I thought Obama supported going Green…but he was really just going to the Greens.
Well needless to say, I just found out about this today by reading it in the newspaper…and I’m madder than hell!
Dejectedhead (06f486) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:42 pmA little perspective is needed. Back in the day … when LBJ was screwing with everyone’s mind and doing the normal thing with a few female secretaries in the oval office … young men were “drafted”. For those of you who became cognizant of externalities, like the phases of the moon or the changes in season, in the mid 90’s, the draft meant that if you were “selected”, then you got to work for Uncle Sam for about $150 a month (while LBJ and all the other “liberals” were advocating $3.50 minimum wages for their union voting base) in return for being on-call 24-7 with death penalty consequences for not responding. There are 8760 hours in a (non-leap) year, and $150 a month works out to less than $2000 over 12 months (less taxes, and in those days you did pay something,) so LBJ and his “best and brightest” (Robert McNamara comes to mind) were basing American “foreign policy” on the sacrifice of the children of America who were being paid less than $0.25/hour in return for a significant chance of being killed within a few weeks of being deployed to Vietnam.
Clearly this wouldn’t fly politically, so our elite leaders in D.C. sweetened the pot with benefits that accrued to the survivors. The big one was educational benefits (I used mine,) but the other one was the Veterans Administration and it’s hospital benefits. My Uncle Socco was a Bronze Star hero from the Battle of the Bulge in WWII (Google the Battle of the Bulge, it’s pretty well reported) and he had to deal with the VA in the late 40’s and 50’s. My mother, his sister, would rescue Socco from the Long Beach VA every few months in hopes of saving him. If he is any indication of their success, they failed. He died middle-aged, and not happily. So I have never been planning on “cashing in” my VA hospital benefits. I figured that was for guys who believed in “social security” and enjoyed good health. Good luck.
This doesn’t relieve the administration from their responsibilities to our veterans. But HteWon is just another in a long line of administration elistists who tend to value veterans only posthumously, and then mainly in duchies like Chicago, where administration operatives can deliver substantial voter majorities from those who would never have supported the selected candidate were they still alive. The country owes our vets big time. The reverse is not true. And this has been going on since Thomas Jefferson who treated our Marines disgracefully. Give a thought to the USO or Wounded Warriors if you haven’t been doing something for our vets. You need to do something. HteWon looks out only for himself. Their are veterans who need our help.
bobathome (65fa49) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:44 pm“Their are” was almost right … it should have been “Their our” …
bobathome (65fa49) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:49 pmOh gosh! They are our veterans who need our help. Good night.
bobathome (65fa49) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:51 pmAsk him if you see him at one of those DNC fundraisers he’s attending in Chicago tonight. No doubt, they’re a ruse to allow him to make a surprise inspection of the Chicago V.A. hospital tomorrow.
You watch — he’s gonna do it, I swear!
Icy (14327b) — 5/21/2014 @ 8:55 pmOMG, The Humanity.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 5/21/2014 @ 10:26 pmHave you no shame, sir?
Very well said. The only people who really get it about vets and these issues are their families and friends. Since a steadily decreasing percentage of the population has served, the lack of concern is likely to continue. Saw an article that said the Social Security disability fund is due to run out of money in two years and will cause a 20% cut in payouts. The smart money is that that crisis will be solved in short order and ten years from now a new scandal involving vet care will be in the news. As progressively less people serve there will be less people who care.
vor2 (58243b) — 5/22/2014 @ 3:25 amEven John Mccain is leading the charge to have the Tricare benefits for working age vets taken away until they are 65 unless they are disabled.
The vets and military are a political prop used shamelessly by just about every politician. The only one I can think of who really believes in supporting vets is GW Bush who is heavily involved in the Wounded Warrior project. I don’t think this latest scandal will change anything at all.
President Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln would hang their head in shame at what has become of the veteran health system they initiated.
Probably – saw an article that I cannot find now that reported the “impromptu” stops for little league games, etc. are planned out days in advance.
vor2 (58243b) — 5/22/2014 @ 3:29 amHeck, he might even stash an onion in his hanky and shed a couple of tours while visiting the wards. Picture will make Time magazine – wonderous accolades from MSNBC flunkies will follow and life will be good again…./sarc
tours should be tears
vor2 (58243b) — 5/22/2014 @ 3:30 amOne recalls when he went on his world tour, right after the nomination, one place he pointed didn’t visit was Landstuhl military hospital
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 5:26 amwhich does suggest a pattern;
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2014/05/21/actress-stacey-dash-demolishes-obama-va-scandal#ixzz32RnE9DIg
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 5:49 amPainted Jaguar: Hey, this guy is good:
it turns out the law was written in such a vague way that it’s not clear whether there’s any right to appeal under this law. So before they can appeal the dismissal ‑‑ appeal the denial of the motion to dismiss the amended complaint, they first have to appeal to the Court of Appeals to see whether the Court of Appeals will rule on whether this particular law is appealable. And if the Court of Appeals rules that this particular law is appealable, then they will appeal to the Court of Appeals then to hear the actual appeal after the Court of Appeals has rules on whether the appeal is, in fact, appealable.
Mark Steyn at:
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:04 amhttp://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/05/21/interview-mark-steyns-passing-parade/?singlepage=true
Well, yeah. Ordinarily there is no right to interlocutory appeal of a denial of a motion to dismiss a complaint. Or most other interlocutory (while the case is still going on) rulings. Steyn should get a lawyer. Witticisms are entertaining but they will not win the case for him.
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:31 amValerie Jarret, Michelle Obama, and David Axelrod made their living devising ways to keep people from getting treated at their hospital’s emergency room. So why should we be surprised about this administrations’s handling of the VA?
MayBee (846936) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:33 amhe’s got two, but you could ask Tom Delay, or Ted Stevens, the good that does,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:34 amBin Laden is dead, and GM is (pining for the fjords)
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/22/conflict-between-intel-community-obama-administration-over-al-qaeda-strength-and-threat/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:37 amI’m behind, I guess. The last I’d read, he was proceeding pro se. That was at the time he was leaving NR.
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:41 aman update;
http://www.steynonline.com/6201/what-kind-of-fool-am-i
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 7:04 amHe has the dangerous gift of eloquence. — Raphael Sabatini, “Scaramouche”
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 7:09 amHe needs a higher dog whistle.
Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:10 am35. Comment by elissa (b8196a) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:39 pm
I suppose Tammy’s going to have to weigh how much she can afford to tick of the Democrat money machine in an election year.
She also got put on the Benghazi committee yesterday. And it was Hillary Clinton who wanted Democrats on that committee. So she mujst be considered pretty loyal.
Her remarks on the VA seem to indicate she didn’t find it peculiar, or wrong, or at least alterable, the way the VA operated.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:27 am48. Comment by Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:27 pm
In reality everyone in Washington should have known since the VA’s IG had been warning of this issue for years.
I read today that the Inspector General of the Veterans Department had been reporting about this since 2005.
Obama is saying now this is practically normal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-obamas-remarks-on-va-allegations/2014/05/21/b7116db2-e0f6-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html
According to Obama, all someone ever has to do is work “hard.”
What he says he didn’t know, and still expresses uncertainty whether it occurred at all, is manipulated or falsified records.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:38 amzippy has to be the greatest political overachiever and the worst governing underachiever EVAH!
Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:42 amMost successful welfare recipient ever.
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:46 amAlso from Obama yesterday:
After talking about how he’s boosted VA funding, and had advanced appproiations made so that wouldn’t get caught in the budget battles, and given disability benefits to more people, and improved care for women, and slashed the backlog in diability claims in half, and reduced homelessness among veterans, helped veterans get an education, or jobs he says:
The promise that HotAir pointed to, however, seems to have been about wait times to get covered. Which is indeed what Obama talked about yesterday.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:47 amHe gets women to take care of him. Mommy, grandma, Michelle, his largest voter constituency is single women you guys said yesterday. That’s a talent.
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:49 amIt’s Truman’s, Eisenhower’s Kennedy’s Johnson’s Nixon’s, Ford’s, Carter’s, Reagan’s, Bush’s, Clinton’s. and W’s fault?
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:49 am“What he says he didn’t know, and still expresses uncertainty whether it occurred at all, is manipulated or falsified records.”
Sammy – He needs to keep watching or reading the news to find out.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:53 amWhat Obama needs is to appoint a vizier to handle things so he can concentrate on lowering his handicap.
Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:56 amCan hardly wait for Hillary’s list of people who deserve blame rather than her is released.
Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:57 amI wish he spent MORE time golfing, and less time f@cking everything up. On purpose.
JD (e5a0fa) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:03 am51. Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:33 pm
I heard today that actually the VA budget has increased almost 200% since 2000, while the number of vets has decreased by about 4 million.
And, the cost per person is greater for older vets, not younger, i.e. the costs are not going up primarily because of casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan.
You wouldn’t think so from the way Obama talked about this yesterday:
Q. Wouldn’t that add to the wait times, all other things being equal??
He seems to have switched in the middle from wait times for doctors, to wait times to qualify for benefits, which is what cutting down the backlog for evaluating disability claims would reduce..
Or his prepared statement wasn’t prepared carefully enough. He threw in something about wait times, but those wait times were not soemthing he’d ever done anything about.
Obama, continuing:
Sounds very much like the number of veterans increased.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:03 amActually the article that PJ linked to is informative about the relationship with National Review. National Review’s first plan is to try to toss the case out under anti-SLAPP legislation. Steyn prefers the option of saying, “You want to go to court, then let’s go to court, on with discovery”.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:05 amThere is some more to it than that about an old Bob Hope joke, but that is on reason why the legal effort for Steyn and the legal effort for NatRev have bifurcated.
“What he says he didn’t know, and still expresses uncertainty whether it occurred at all, is manipulated or falsified records.”
93. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:53 am
Sammy – He needs to keep watching or reading the news to find out.
Tammy Duckworth says that’s how she found out bad stuff. From being told about it by other people in the VA who’d read the newspapers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/20/transcript-tammy-duckworth-on-the-va-scandal-and-eric-shinseki/?wprss=rss_politics
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:06 amIt’s about time for the media to spawn a national story by reporting someone making an outrageous racial remark that could be insulting to Obama. That dude in New Hampshire wasn’t big enough.
One good story will counterbalance this VA thing nicely.
Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:09 am“Tammy Duckworth says that’s how she found out bad stuff.”
Sammy – I don’t give a crap about Tammy. Obama’s pattern is to claim obliviousness about what’s going on in his Administration even when the people in charge are supposed to be reporting to him.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:20 am51. Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/21/2014 @ 6:33 pm
I think in part it must be the lack of personal responsibility/ownership. It is a bureaucracy, you can’t excel if you want to, you can’t get fired if you don’t do a good job.
There’s a bill in Congress to change that.
But remember, according to Obama, the definition of doing a good job is working “hard.”
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:20 amAnother factor was that the VA didn’t readily change the number of people assigned to a location. Some places were overstaffed, relative to current demand, and other were understaffed (or at least given too few hours)
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:22 amI read today that once somebody does get to see a doctor, the care is good quality – the problem is getting attention.
Tammy Duckworth said to the washington Post that she used to have a problem getting her prescription filled, but now that’s solved since it gets mailed to her. (!)
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:25 amUSA Today needs to do separate pie charts that show Obama’s domestic and foreign policy successes and f*ck-ups.
Colonel Haiku (8699d6) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:29 am25. 26. 29
SF: President Obama says that if Shinseki feels he can’t do the job of cleaning this up, he’s sure he will resign..
26. Comment by Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/21/2014 @ 4:16 pm
Comment by nk (dbc370) —5/21/2014 @ 4:23 pm
President Obama didn’t say this on his own. He was asked if he thought Shinseki should resign.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-obamas-remarks-on-va-allegations/2014/05/21/b7116db2-e0f6-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html
I did think that was actually a good policy, because just replacing him doesn’t do anything, but I wouldn’t have much hope this would be cleared up.
What needs to be done is first of all, find out what the real waiting times are, and prioritize them right, and maybe move people around and add more time or something like that.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:56 amObama continued:
No “rush to judgment” here!! Not him! Obama is cool, and collected.
Note: About 10% (N=26) of the VA facilities are under investigation. He knows that.
Mixing up different kinds of “wait times’ here again.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 9:58 amWell, maybe it is not clear whether they could have met them, but it is very clear there was no auditing done here.
You know, it could be, that somebody proposed it with the intent of lying, and fabricating data, in order to prevent any kind of changes in the VA.
That’s all right, but there are certain things that don’t have to wait.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:03 am“Well, maybe it is not clear whether they could have met them, but it is very clear there was no auditing done here.”
Sammy – Why is it clear to you that no auditing was done?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:21 amYeah, I would expect an audit to be done based on them receiving a bonus for their performance.
Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:27 amYeah, I would expect an audit to be done based on them receiving a bonus for their performance goals being met.
Oops!
Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:29 amBut Obama is mad. He will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears.
CrustyB (69f730) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:37 amFor Obama, veterans are racist Whites from the 1940s and 1950s. That’s it. He probably thinks they all threw rocks at school buses full of black kids. Obama does not understand America, its history, or world history. He’ll never respect what Americans did in Europe, the Pacific theater, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the other places overt and covert where American servicemen and servicewomen served and died.
Gusto Smooth (941ba0) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:48 am“Well, maybe it is not clear whether they could have met them, but it is very clear there was no auditing done here.”
109. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:21 am
Sammy – Why is it clear to you that no auditing was done?
Well, only occasional, sporadic and minimal or ineffective and badly done auditing, or maybe auditing by people who would cover things up.
If there’s been routine checking of these numbers, there would have been no point in fabricating these numbers.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:49 am“Yeah, I would expect an audit to be done based on them receiving a bonus for their performance goals being met.”
Hadoop – If they were hiding things, wouldn’t local management try to discourage any audit attempts? Plus, with collusion to cover up real information, there is no assurance that audits would actually uncover what was going on. That’s why reports have been coming from whistleblowers, because the books have been cooked.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:50 amA couple of times, maybe, somebody did discover a problem.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100704100621/http://www.vawatchdog.org/10/nf10/nfjun10/jun10files/gamingthesysystem.pdf
(April 25, 2010 memo from William Schoenhard, First Deputy Undersecretary for Health for Operations and Management at the Department of Veterans Affairs)
He noted certain scheduling gaming strategies used during the Bush Administration (up to 2008) that a multi-VISN workgroup had identgified, and noted new ones could have been emerged since then.
One example: Cancelling appointments if the patient did not show up 10-15 minutes early.
Another: Refusing to schhedule an appointment more than 30 days in advance, or holding them without scheduling them, until capacity opens up.
Or: Scheduling and then cancelling and marking it as cancelled by patient.
Or: Scheduling a patient without notifying him. This allows a reduced wait time.
Or: Scheduling an appointment at a time when a patient would prefer not to go, so that he will cancel it.
He proposed random audits. And interviewing schedulers.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:09 amThe Inspector General didn’t seem to be too interested in investigating:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/va-hospital-scandal/culture-deceit-va-office-n-m-investigated-phony-wait-times-n111136
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:10 am112. Obama is not John Boehner. He won’t cry.
Shinseki also said he was mad, and comedian Jon Stewart said his emotion was like someone saying he had run out of orange juice.
http://www.wtop.com/931/3625934/Jon-Stewart-lambasts-Shinsekis-response-to-VA-firestorm
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:13 amComment by Gusto Smooth (941ba0) — 5/22/2014 @ 10:48 am
I think you are correct, at least in large measure.
Let’s put together the thoughts of 2 of the President’s cohorts:
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:18 am1) Bill Ayers- 25 million will likely die in the revolution
2) Hillary Clinton- What difference, at this point, does it make?
Well I would think the example of Russell George, of the IRS IG, and Americorp’s investigator, Gerald Walpin, are an enduring lesson,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:18 amI haven’t seen anyone link to this article yet, but here’s a fine opportunity to reflect on the sheer genius of that noted visionary at America’s newspaper of record, Paul Krugman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/opinion/krugman-vouchers-for-veterans-and-other-bad-ideas.html?_r=0
Ironically, he was right about the part I bolded. Just not the way he thought he was.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:31 amYes, this has been evident since around May of ’09. In a way it’s a good thing, since I’m sure he came in with all sorts of plans to undermine America, but his incompetence has prevented him from implementing them.
This is why I don’t support senators for president, even if I like their politics. I want them to have had some experience running a government first. But 0bama wasn’t even a for real senator.
Milhouse (b95258) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:51 amObama did run his campaign, and his Senate office, but he never took over an organization that he didn’t create, or where he wasn’t present at the creation.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 12:07 pmthe problem is, if you read Kantor’s account of his days at the University of Chicago, that aired right before the convention, you would never hire him, to be a process server, much less President,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 12:20 pmDeja vu all over again;
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/05/obama-is-so-angry-montage-obama-just-found-out-about-insert-scandal-hes-really-mad-video/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 12:29 pmsteve @121 I actually remembered some words from that article – where Paul Krugman says that’s socialized medicine.
I read an op-ed by a surgeon in the Wall Street Journal today:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304198504579570231173457524?mg=reno64-wsj
He takes Medicaid. Medicaid now requires him to come up with a surgical plan and obtain surgical pre-authorization.
While doing the surgery, because of what a previous surgeon had done, he realized he needed to change his plan “to accomodate findings resulting from a previous surgery” – and he changed his plan.
He couldn’t get paid, even though the payment for the surgery he actually performed was 40% less than for the initially approved surgery!
The condition was strabismus (crossed eyes) and surgery is sometimes done to try to give a child stereoscopic, or binocular vision.
He says every surgeon has to be free to change his plan without losing his fee. An example might be an operation for appendicitus wheer the surgeon discovers it’s an actually an ovarian cyst.
He tells of another problem: He had a teenager with glaucoma and a pharmacist didn’t want to dispense a prescription for an eye-drop medication, which the teenager was already using, because it was against Medicaid rules.
The bottle was only available in a size that would last for two months, and Medicaid only allows a pharmacy to fill a prescription for a one-month supply.
The pharmacist wanted him to change the prescription and give out another Medicaid-approved medication which was available in a one-month supply, but he refused because what the girl was using was working.
Finally, after a lot of telephone calls, he was able to get it.
Another case:
A 14-month old child with Horner syndrome, which could be caused by a tumor. He ordered CT scans of the neck and the chest. Medicaid approved only the chest scan. It took several hours of telephone calls to get the neck scan also approved. The tumor was revealed by the neck scan.
(I suppose after the chest scan turned out negative, he might have more easily gotten an approval for the neck scan also. But what if it was in both places? Or there was a further delay?)
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 12:43 pmnarciso @124.
What, this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html?pagewanted=all
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 12:49 pmAce: In 2012, PolitiFact Rated Obama’s Promise to “Make the VA a Leader in National Health” A “Promise Kept”
Now they rate it: promise stalled.”
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=349352
Ace: Get rid of the VA Healh system: http://minx.cc:1080/?post=349346
Ae says if some speciality areas are good, keep them or fold them into something like Darpa. It could also be some hospitals are good.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 1:39 pmI once spent probably an hour or more of total time filling out forms and making phone calls to get approval for an Abd scan (I forget if MRI or CT) to evaluate a patient with chronic hep C and HIV. I was given approval, but neglected to get the name of the doctor I talked to over the phone to finalize the approval.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/22/2014 @ 1:56 pmThe next day I got a message that the request had been denied. I called and protested, but the person I talked to the second time denied my first conversation had ever taken place.
It never happened and the person eventually died of liver failure.
In other words, to people who do not deserve it. There is no evidence that Agent Orange has ever given anyone so much as a bad cold.
Milhouse (b95258) — 5/22/2014 @ 2:09 pmYes, it does. But why would you imagine 0bama’s statements bore any relation to reality? Just because he says the number has increased is no basis for questioning a suggestion that they’ve decreased. If 0bama said the sun was shining, and a blog commenter said “I heard today that it was raining”, I’d give more credence to the commenter’s anonymous source than to 0bama.
Milhouse (b95258) — 5/22/2014 @ 2:15 pmGood Allah, he was teaching Alinsky, in lieu of law, he was using Derrick Bell’s primer, all the marxism (critical legal studies) you can tote in a briefcase.
narciso (3fec35) — 5/22/2014 @ 2:29 pm107: SF: About 10% (N=26) of the VA facilities are under investigation. He knows that.
26 is about 10% of the hospitals, I think. The number of facilities is well over 1,000. Someone wrote on Yahoo answers some four years ago that there are 153 medical centers; over 800 Community Based Outpatient Clinics (or CBOCs); 135 Community Living Centers (or CLCs); 48 Domiciliaries; and 232 Vet Centers. Total 1,368+
But you have to assume that 26 is not the total number of places that have done this, and it’s the bigger ones where this happened.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/22/2014 @ 2:51 pmYes, but from a leftist perspective, so? The left is the party of government, and the bigger the government the better. It is its own lobby. To rope more victims into the VA system, or to rope more people into Medicaid, serves the interest of government. Or welfare, for that matter. They are the bureaucracy’s cash crop. And the bureaucracy lobbies government for a larger cash crop to justify its own expansion.
It is why, for instance, in Kali the Corrections officers’ union is the largest singly political force. They want three strikes laws because then they have more prisoners to guard. And more prisoners to guard mean more dues paying members. And more dues paying members means more political clout. So, better pay, better benefits, easier conditions, earlier retirement. And the cycle repeats. kali is literally an asylum run for the benefit of the keepers and not the inmates.
And in Obama’s ignorance, we know that government in general is a factory farm run for the benefit of the farmers and not the animals.
Ironically Obama’s biblical illiteracy is revealing. Because when he mangles Genesis and says “I am my brother’s keeper” he is saying that the people he wants to “keep” are like livestock. And livestock exist to serve the needs of the shepherd, farmer, whomever keeps them. Such as to be fleeced, skinned, eaten, and in the days of the Old Testament to be ritually sacrificed.
Cain was being a “smart @$$” when he asked “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain was a shepherd. Abel was asking if the shepherd was his sheep to be kept.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/22/2014 @ 3:01 pmThis just in. VA is going to h3ll in a handbasket because the fascists in Pyongyang-on-the-Potomac are too busy trying to think up ways to make it illegal to leave the country because of the fascism.
Legislation Aims to Keep Firms From Leaving U.S. for Tax Savings
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/22/2014 @ 3:38 pmI read teh news today, oh boy
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:00 pmAbout big Zer0 who had got real mad
he makes the Office look so small
Now we know how bad it gets
he never shoulda got elected… at all
and he ate a dooooooogggg
I don’t know about that. The word Cain used was שומר, which means “guard”, or “watch”.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:03 pmDear America,
The newspaper has all sorts of informative information. Apparently, Macy’s is having a Memorial Day Sale.
Love,Signed,
Barack
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:19 pmSteve57, the document you linked to is interesting, but unconvincing. שומר (guard) has no implication of providing for, or of ownership or control. Abel was not a שומר of his sheep, he was רועה, a “pasturer”; his main job was to provide for his sheep. Protecting them from harm was a minor included aspect.
Cain didn’t ask whether he was his brother’s pasturer, but whether he was his guard. In other words, “How should I know where he is? It’s not my job to keep track of his comings and goings.” Which was perfectly true. If Abel had simply been off somewhere, going about his business, Cain’s answer to God’s question would have been completely appropriate. He had no reason to know Abel’s whereabouts. The problem was that in this case he did know where Abel was — lying dead where he had left him. When God asked him where Abel was, He wasn’t seeking information; He was after an explanation.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:23 pmComment by Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:00 pm
Good one, Col.
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:34 pmΦυλαξ.
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:35 pmComment by Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:03 pm
correct, millhouse. “Am I my brother’s guardian”?
Anyone who thinks the question “Am I my brother’s keeper” is a deep question to be explored, has missed the point entirely. Like thinking “What difference does it make” needs to be philosophically explored.
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:39 pmIf I were Cain, I would just watch CNN or read the newspaper to find out what my brother Abel was up to.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:41 pmGive us an explanation, Dammit!
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:41 pmCain could learn a thing or two from Shrillery.
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:42 pmAbel was I ere I saw leba.
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:44 pmI’ve thrown down the gauntlet. I’m looking at you col. 😉
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:45 pmLA cigar, too tragical.
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:48 pm10-1 prezzy sfb cheats at golf
mg (31009b) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:57 pmhttp://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-spent-twice-as-much-time-golfing-as-on-the-economy/
I don’t know what Barack’s golf handicap is, but I do know what his Presidential handicaps are.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/22/2014 @ 4:59 pmwoke up, fell outta bed
Colonel Haiku (8f4d9c) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:20 pmdragged the pick across his head
Thought about teh economy
and had a smoke
First Lady spoke
he put on his new momjeans
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah AH Ah Ah
Yer move, felipe!
Colonel Haiku (7ce80a) — 5/22/2014 @ 6:23 pmWhen I get older, losing my hair
many years from now.
Will the people still be voting Democrat?
Getting handouts and getting fat.
I could still fundraise and then play golf.
Who could ask for more?
Would they believe me, would they just leave me,
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:00 pmWhen I’m out the door?
Milhouse, I wasn’t basing my interpretation on that single document. According to theologians I’m aware of, that word is used throughout the Bible, and it means more than simply pasturer or guard. It also includes an element of control. As in “master,” such as a dog’s master. And it is only used to refer to inanimate objects or animals. In other words, things that are more like property than a brother, as in the story Cain and Abel.
1 Samuel 17:22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were.
2 Kings 22:14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Akbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophet Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter.
Jeremiah 52:24 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door.
Song of Solomon 1:6 Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me. My mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:11 pmWhat could I?/ I was not/ in the room.
When all Hell/ broke out in/ Benghazi.
I didn’t hear/ I don’t know/ I don’t care.
It turns out/ this job is/ not easy.
but, I get by/ with a little help/ from my friends
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:15 pmAARRGHH! that first line should read:
What could I do?/ I was not/ in the room.
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:17 pm#153… That was brilliant felipe!
Colonel Haiku (8f4d9c) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:25 pmOf course it’s not deep. That’s the point. No matter how you slice it, Cain was giving a smart@$$ answer to God.
You have to have a very shallow understanding of what was happening in Genesis to think this is a profound statement. And Barack Obama thinks he’s being deep when he uses it.
In that sense you’re right. It is like “What difference, at this point, does it make?” It had to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard a SecState ever saying (although Kerry is a close second). It was breathtaking. It revealed a complete lack of understanding of what the job entails, and a complete lack of concern for actually doing the job.
The MFM thought it was brilliant.
Snark is never brilliant. It wasn’t brilliant when Cain used it on God, it wasn’t brilliant when Hillary! used it in that Congressional hearing, and it’s not brilliant when Barack Obama uses it (incorrectly, I might add, and in ignorance of that fact).
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:26 pmPicture your state
with Obama as governor.
With spending increasing
and no end in sight.
Somebody shakes you
your eyes open slowly
turns out he’s the president
much to your surprise
IRS agents appear at your door
come for to take you awayyyy
A clout from behind and a
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:36 pmknee to the crotch and you’re gone.
Steve, when you were in boot camp, or whatever they call it in the Navy, did your DI, when telling you that if one of you f***s up the whole squad gets pushups, use the expression “You are your brother’s keeper”?
nk (dbc370) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:40 pmIn teh town where he was born
Colonel Haiku (db4096) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:42 pmPunahue or Nairobi
where he learned about the life
Of his hero Alinsky
they all learned how to freeze their enemy
Freeze their enemy taught by Saul ‘linsky
Thanks, col. You picked a great album!
felipe (098e97) — 5/22/2014 @ 8:45 pmNo, that is not true.
Again, you are misinformed. It means “guard”, “watch”, “keep an eye on”. Some examples:
* “May God bless you and guard you” (Numbers 6:24),
* “Israel’s guard neither nods off nor sleeps; God guards you […] may God guard you from all that is bad, may He guard your life; may God guard your comings and goings forever” (Psalm 121)
* “If God does not guard a city then the guard‘s diligence has been wasted” (Psalm 127:1)
* “My soul [watches] for God more than those who watch for the morning watch for the morning” (Psalm 130:6)
* “Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it” (Deuteronomy 5:11).
A person, a nation, a city, the morning, the Sabbath; none of these are property.
“Supplies” is wrong. The phrase is שׁוֹמֵר הַכֵּלִים. That’s the bag or coat check person; the person who looks after other people’s possessions, without exercising any sort of ownership or control over them. His function is merely to make sure people’s stuff is not stolen.
Again, he neither owned nor controled the clothes, he merely guarded them.
Once again, the door (actually the threshold is what it says) did not belong to them, and they did nothing for it; they merely kept guard over it, either to ensure unauthorised people didn’t enter, or just for show.
Wrong word. The word used here is נוטר, not שומר. Still, the meaning is similar; a guard or watchman, to stop thieves. No implication of ownership, control, nurture, or maintenance.
Some more examples of that same, ubiquitous word:
* “He who guards his mouth and tongue guards himself from trouble” (Proverbs 21:23)
* “For One higher than the high is watching ” (Ecclesiastes 5:7)
* “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said: the night has come, and also the morning” (Isaiah 21:11-12)
* “Watch the unleavened bread [to make sure it doesn’t rise]…and you shall keep this day throughout your generations” (Exodus 12:17)
* “Keep My laws and fulfil them” (Leviticus 20:8)
* “His father kept an eye on the matter” (Genesis 17:11)
None of these have any implication of ownership or control, let alone the right to dispose of the object.
Milhouse (b95258) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:30 pmSorry, Cain did not speak Greek, he spoke Hebrew.
Milhouse (b95258) — 5/22/2014 @ 11:33 pmWell, you win, Milhouse. I don’t pretend to speak Hebrew. Nor Greek, so I guess if I’m ever inclined to comment about Paul’s letters to the Corinthians I’ll run it by nk first.
It is still an example of Cain cracking wise to God, though.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:49 amCain was most likely a Horite – he spoke an early version of Arabic which is the founding language of most languages
-back to ban land
EPWJ (8b746f) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:05 amPresident sfb’s theme song.
mg (31009b) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:48 amhttp://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=heard+it+through+the+grapevine+youtube&qpvt=heard+it+through+the+grapevine+youtube&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=814037B47305D42CA055814037B47305D42CA055
Dunno. They might have said something like that. I was usually too busy PTing to pay attention to every little thing they were yelling at me. I just concentrated on how large a pool of sweat I was creating and let the chips fall where they may, a lot of times.
Marines can make a lot of noise. One sort of drowns out the other when they gang up on you. Not like one can’t make enough noise all on his own.
And it was called Aviation Officer Candidate School.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:11 amIf truth be told, I was, in Barack Obama’s parlance, “my brother’s keeper” when we were doing leg lifts. As in, I’d hook my leg underneath another guy’s if I thought he was going to drop it before I would. I was good at leg lifts.
Because if someone’s foot touched the floor then the Marines would make us start all over.
But I just considered that being a team player. Being a brother. Not someone’s keeper.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:23 am130. Comment by Milhouse (b95258) — 5/22/2014 @ 2:09 pm
We made VA benefits available to more than 2 million veterans who did not have it before, delivering disability pay to more Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange,
In other words, to people who do not deserve it.
This is very probably true, but it involves a lot of things besides Agent Orange. When President Obama speaks of reducing the disability backlog, I think that the reason there was such a backlog is that alot of them were questionable – and reducing it is like cutting short bank audits. And it means a lot were resolved in favor of diaability.
Now there is a big problem here. The whole thing, not just here, it’s also with workman’s compensation and so on like that – is very subjective.
There’s just a whole problem with the determination of disability. (although when they give statistics, it is treated like they were hard facts)
And it is maybe unavoidable, but it definitely can be made worse. And it can be made better by avoiding the need, whereever possible, to determine disability. Or relying on some very clear “bright-line” measures, like income, if you can.
There is no evidence that Agent Orange has ever given anyone so much as a bad cold.
Well, here we have something where there actually is a real problem, but it’s been deliberately distorted. And probably made into a worse problem. Agent Orange is not, and never was, a big poison or maybe even any poison. But when manufactured, it often contained an impurity, called dioxin. And dioxin is what is toxic, and causes nerve damage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
If you all you need to say is “Agent Orange” then you never need to prove, or at least demonstrate the possibility of, TCDD.
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin was the poison.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23314332
Wikipedia doesn’t mention nerve damage, and who knows if that is the right dioxin, anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin
I think the real fraud here is that people who, in all liklihood, nver were exposed to Agent Orange are/were having diagnosis made on that basis and qualifying for benefits.
BTW, in the VA system, I think only disabilities related to the service are supposed to be covered. This probably doesn’t work very well.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 5:51 am165. Comment by Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:49 am
Well, you win, Milhouse. I don’t pretend to speak Hebrew.
We’re dealing with two things here.
First, a rather common, persistent, misinterpretation/misunderstanding of what Cain said – which is usually given something like in this fashion:
Using “keeper” in the sense of protector, and meaning helping them.
The word keeper here actually is such a bad translation I wonder if “keeper” had originally a different meaning in English, or maybe it is translating the Latin or something. The word means “watcher” It’s exactly like Milhouse said.
Now the thing is, taking care of the poor etc. s very definitely a Biblical position (at least of your “brother” or people who ask) but it doesn’t have anything to do with Cain, not even as being the opposite of what Cain said.
Second, there’s what you did. What you did was to give yet a third interpretation of that, reading “keeper” is the sense of a zoo-keeper and so on.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 6:01 amMIlhouse:
Re: שׁוֹמֵר הַכֵּלִים.
Where dio you get the Hebrew font, so you can enter it here. I can cut and paste phrases or words like הַכֵּלִים but that’s all, and the cursor seems to reverse itself.
I guess if you enterd the alphabet, I could spell out words.
It looks bigger in the box then after being posted.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 6:06 amSammy, I realize I come from a different tradition from you but:
Mark 12:30-31
Your neighbor is your equal. Someone to be kept or or guarded is not.
But more to the point, Cain’s response to God’s question about Abel’s whereabouts was a wisecrack. It wasn’t, as Barack Obama seems to think, a religious tenet.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 6:29 amNo problem.
I don’t know whether he was cracking wise, or genuinely unaware that God is omniscient. Maybe he thought if he ran with the innocent act he could fool God.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:09 pmNonsense. Arabic is a very recent language, desended from Aramaic. And Cain lived before there were any nations or tribes; there was just him and his parents and siblings. Since it was long — about 2000 years — before the Tower of Babylon, he spoke Biblical Hebrew.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:12 pmThe Septuagint translated the Hebrew to φυλαξ which means guard, both in the sense of prison guard and bodyguard.
nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:18 pmI just copied it from a web page (actually the online Bible at mechon-mamere.org). But in general, for easy entry of Hebrew text, I use Michael Grant’s Hebrew text entry gizmo.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:18 pmMark is just quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, so there’s no divergence of tradition. The word the translators render as “neighbour” is רֵעַ, which literally means “friend”. As you say, it implies a peer. But being vulnerable and needing to be guarded doesn’t prevent someone from being your equal. Hey, the president needs guards; that doesn’t mean he isn’t our equal (present occupant excluded).
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:31 pmIf you say so. But the Hebrew word is also used in all those other contexts that I cited; the core meaning seems to be “to watch”. That word in English has a broad range of meaning; one can watch a clock, or a show, or a warehouse, or one can stand a watch; the Hebrew word שמר seems to me exactly equivalent.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 12:35 pmEver wonder where the Jehovah witnesses get their name from? The scholars who worked on creating the septuagint had to make notations to the hebrew (there are no vowels) to aid in pronuncation. When they came to the tetragrammaton, they put letters to indicate that one should not say the “name”, but rather “adonai”. They ended up using “Kurios” in place of the devine name. Long story short, the Tetragrammaton and the letters AOA got put together, much, much later, to make “yahowah” or Jehovah. Crazy, huh?
felipe (b5e0f4) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:23 pmThis is why I agreed with felipe earlier. It’s not a deep philosophical question.
A neighbor, or a friend, and certainly not a brother would have responded this way.
It is exactly like Hillary! and her table pounding “What difference, at this point, does it make” session in Congress contrasted to her references to “Chris” as if they were tight as brothter and sister.
Which to believe? Which to believe?
I can think of a number of ways to play the innocent.
Like, “OMG, Abel is missing? What can I do to help?” At least Scott Peterson pretended (unconvincingly) to be concerned about Lacy. And it seems to have worked for a while.
Cain on the other hand chose one of the ways that threw more focus on himself rather than diverting it.
“How the eff should I know?”
I believe this will prove instructive in the coming days and years.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:27 pmAnd I’m speaking specifically of this VA scandal. As we watch people claiming to be “mad as h3ll” or “madder than h3ll” react to a situation that no one who has ever been angered could possibly believe.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:37 pm*…react to a situation in ways that no one who has ever been angered could possibly believe.
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:38 pmI thought God’s question to Cain was similar to God’s question to Adam, “Where are you?”
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:50 pmGod didn’t ask because He didn’t know, but he asked to provoke the one addressed to think about their situation.
I always sort of thought of Cain’s remark as kind of snarky, but more importantly, he was denying his responsibility, something he knew was really true but he didn’t want to admit it.
Kind of an early version of Romans and elsewhere, that there is an awareness of God built in to us, but on some level we deny what we know because we want to do our own thing.
BTW, in the VA system, I think only disabilities related to the service are supposed to be covered. This probably doesn’t work very well.
Long, long, long ago the VA covered everything. Congress noticed this was expensive, and started writing rules as to what was to be covered, and for who, and from which wars, and which battles, and which MOS, and how obtained, and how long it had gone untreated, and when it was detected, and … “combat related”; I forget most of the categories of rules (never mind the actual rules!) In some ways, it’s not surprising it takes a long time to make a determination, and then go through the appeals.
They really want to be a secondary payer if you have any insurance at all. And for you to see their own doctors to access their pharmacy; can’t take a prescription from a non-VA doctor there and have it filled. I’m sure it’s a simpler system than 0care.
Same with that free burial. Honorable discharge isn’t enough these days. I was going to copy and paste but it’s grown … http://www.cem.va.gov/burial_benefits/eligible.asp for the whole thing, here’s a taste:
There are lots of ways to be disqualified these days that you don’t find out about until you submit the request. (The list of exceptions to a.2) I can’t find, it used to be there.) There’s no telling when they’ll change the rules again, either.
htom (412a17) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:50 pmBTW, we could run a contest and see how many song references people can identify,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:55 pmfor some, just identifying the band involved may be a challenge for many.
(I’ve got a few, but not all. Was never a big fan).
Hint, they did have electric guitars back then,
but maybe not synthesizers, at least not commonly.
Not quite. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Septuagint.
Hebrew, like any language, has vcwels, but it’s written without them, so one just has to learn how to pronounce each word, just as in English one can’t just look at a word and know how it’s pronounced; one has to hear it, or look it up in a dictionary that uses signs to indicate the pronunciation. And the signs used for the Tetragrammaton in all printed Bibles (and in all pointed manuscripts from before printing) are indeed the ones the Witnesses use. But, as you say, the purpose of the signs is to indicate the pronunciation, and in the case of the Tetragrammaton which is not to be pronounced (except by the High Priest, in the Inner Sanctum of the Temple, on Yom Kippur), the signs indicate which word should be substituted. So yes, those vowel signs aren’t really meant to be applied to the consonants under which they appear; how the High Priest pronounced it is unknown, and when the Temple is rebuilt this knowledge will have to be rediscovered.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:55 pmExactly. Or as one might ask a child “Where are the cookies I baked this morning?”, knowing exactly where they’re likely to be. Not seeking information, but an explanation.
No. As Steve said, he had no responsibility to watch over Abel and know where he was at all times. His response would have been valid, though snarky, had he not actually known exactly where Abel was.
Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:00 pmשׁוֹמֵר and its derivatives seems to be almost invariably translated as “keep” in Biblical translations – the few exceptions are mostly using the word “watch” in the military sense of, for instance, a “morning watch” – the first time at Exodus 14:24.
It is also translated “keep watch” at I Sam 19:11 and there is “watch” at Job 14:16, but there it has the meaning of the idea of God “watching” over a sin (to see it doesn’t get away, or isn’t forgotten)
“Keep” most often (according to strong’s concordance) is שׁוֹמֵר and other times it is most often part of a paraphrase of a Hebrew expression – I’m not sure there is a word in Hebrew meaning keep, in the sense of holding on to, or not giving away. I don’t find a good word in a dictionary.
The idea of “keep” is there in the Bible, like when Jacob tells Esav to keep what is his, but there’s no word for keep except something like (continue to) “have”.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:03 pmMilhouse @ 163. “Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it” (Deuteronomy 5:11).
This actually doesn’t mean “keep” in the sense of observing, like we say “This person keeps Shabbos”
If you think about it, you have to agree.
It means be careful of the day, or arrange your activities so that it is possible. It is the type of thing that you have to prepare, before you do it. I could say also remember, but that’s Zachor.
This is a little more than just not losing track of the day.
http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0326.htm
Here we see Lev 29:3 If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them;
Exceot wait – it doesn’t mean keep.
This is translated all wrong.
First, it is not statutes, but more like protocols or regulations – something assigned.
A “chok” is supposed to mean, acording to one explanation, things that have no logical explanation, but it really means something (semi) arbitrary, not essential morality.
Maybe it is something where you have to have something but it could be this way it could be that way.
These are longstanding mostly.
The next thing is 2) watching the mitzvos – which means being prepared to fulfill them – and then finally, 3) actually doing them when the time comes.
The same idea of watching is at Numbers 28:2 http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0428.htm where here they are translating it as observe but it means watch in the sense of watching over a period of time.
If you want to bring these sacrifices, you have to get the animals in advance, you have to make sure also you are bringing them on the right day.
Also Leviticus 8:35 “and keep the charge of the LORD, that ye die not; for so I am commanded.”
Similarly Numbers 9:19, and 23. It;s translated like this. “they kept the charge of the LORD, at the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses”
But “keep the charge” is not what it means. The root is שׁוֹמֵר – the word is מִשְׁמֶרֶת – it has meaning of watch. It’s watching in terms of time and preparation.
And so we see Nadav and Avihu were in fact specifically warned, but Moses didn’t understand why he was told to say it.
Nadav and Avihu kept the regulations until it was over – and then they proceeded to do something on their own, but they clearly meant to include it as part of the proceedings. They got close – and that was the end for them.
And in their journeys, the children of Israel (awkwartd English) watched in terms of time and ability so as to be able to do it when the time came to do something.
That’s what it means to “watch” the commandments, or watch Shabbos.
Back to Lev 26:
When you stop doing it, as in Leviticus Chapter 26 it’s not in the same order as when you set out to do them.
Lev 26:14-15.
First, you stop listening (or learning)
2) Then you don’t do them. (because most of the time it has been made easy to do from before, there’s no special need to watch.)
3) Then the chukim become disgusting to you – but you still might be doing them because of other people, and because these are very longstanding things that require no preparations. They’re just abhorrent to you.
And finally 4) even the things that reason will tell you to do (mishpatim) you don’t do. You don’t want to do any of the mitzvos. You want to 5) break the covenant.
All this here is based on properly understanding what the word שׁוֹמֵר See how much difference an exact translation makes?
Somebody should write a book “60 or 100 Biblical Hebrew words not properly understood”
Some in Mishnaic Hebrew too.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:08 pmComment by Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:00 pm
His response would have been valid, though snarky, had he not actually known exactly where Abel was.
He was sort of like saying: “why should I know?”
And it’s quite right, it’s almost absurd that he would watch him.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:10 pmWell, in Elizabethan English “hold” would be closer to our modern day “keep”. “To have and to hold …”, whether a wife or a fee simple in land.
nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:11 pmAnd there’s “May God keep you” and “beekeepers”, for in the sense of “take care of”. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:13 pmKind of remind you of our current Preezy, somewhat? President Phony Scandal?
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:14 pm187. The secular scholars say “yahweh” and that’s wrong too, I think. I’ve heard a word used before Rosh Hashonah in Hateras Nedarim (release of vows) – I don’t know what’s going on there.
I think vowing has been pretty successfully stamped out.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:16 pm194. Comment by Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:14 pm
Kind of remind you of our current Preezy, somewhat? President Phony Scandal?
Phony scandal, he says about Benghazi or maybe the IRS. This one he pretends he still doesn’t know if fabrication of records occurred.
Megyn Kelly says Congress passed and he actually signed a bill in 2012 that was supposed to deal with this (but the contents of the bill are not described by her) so it is not clear what was acknowledged then.
But somebody at a high level in the VA knew about this problem in 2010.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:20 pm193. Comment by nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:13 pm
And there’s “May God keep you”
And that also has the same root .שׁוֹמֵר – Numbers 6:24. One of many Biblical translations that made its way into moe general English.
What does it mean “Keep” there? Watch over you (so that no harm comes and the like)
“beekeepers”, for in the sense of “take care of”.
Here they are keeping bees (prisoner)
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:25 pmNo need to turn to Ms. Kelly, Sammy. The guy speechified about it. And the name of the speech?
“A Sacred Trust”
Steve57 (c8cb20) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:37 pm“Not quite. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Septuagint”.
Milhouse, Milhouse, Milhouse. You are in danger of pulling a “Sammy”. I did not say It had to do with the Septuagint, just as I did not say it had to do with the word Kurios, and many other things. The anecdote I related simply included the Septuagint as background info to let others in on some of the context.
It was nk’s (fault, just kidding) mentioning of the Septuagint that sparked my comment. So please remember that my comment did not occur in a vacuum.
Speaking of vacuous, er, vacuums, I mean “pulling a ‘Sammy'” in the sense that needless nitpicking is occurring on things that should be understood, such as:
Ancient Hebrew as written, not spoken
and X has nothing to do with Y
So, my esteemed commenter, let us leave the nits alone.
Sammy, I mean no offense to you, sir. I fully expect someone to correct me from time to time -which I always welcome. By the way, Sammy I rather liked it when you called you info “from the Sammy files”.
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 3:35 pmComment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/23/2014 @ 1:50 pm
MD, you comments so resonate with me. I consider you a kindred spirit.
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 3:38 pm“It means be careful of the day, or arrange your activities so that it is possible. It is the type of thing that you have to prepare, before you do it. I could say also remember, but that’s Zachor”
Could one say that one should be on their “guard”?
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 3:42 pm“Somebody should write a book “60 or 100 Biblical Hebrew words not properly understood”
Some in Mishnaic Hebrew too.”
In all seriousness, I think you should do it, Sammy.
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 3:44 pm202. Only thing is I can’t. I don’t know enough Hebrew. I know individual words better than I know things as a whole.
But I can name maybe a dozen words like that. I could outline things. I’d need a more fluent collaborator, some of my ideas are a little original. Some I got from a lot of reading.
And this total of 60 or 100 includes mistakes made by Jews after Hebrew first ceased to be a spoken language.
I am also thinking of the word “Nes” which really doesn’t mean miracle, but got that meaning because it was applied to the light that burned for 8 days, and that’s the only usage people knew in later times..
There’s “keva” – which later acquired a different meaning than in Mishnaic times, and you even date some prayers by that. It’s a word almost not found in Biblical Hebrew.
“Kivnei Maron” which the Rabbis after the Mishnah had a lot of trouble with and which is found in our most famous Rosh Hashonah prayer. The concept is clear, but not how it comes from those words.
It’s Kih (like) Bih (in) the Greek word Nimoron.
(enumerated – one by one – handing out of army rations. They assembled them that way. English cognate: number.
Modern Hebrew has some definite mistranslations.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:31 pmComment by Milhouse (50cb78) — 5/23/2014 @ 2:00 pm
Well, 50% agreement is a start.
Milhouse, I did not say that Cain had a responsibility to know where Able was.
What I said assumed what we know about the story, that Cain did know exactly where Able was because he had killed him. The way Cain answered was a put-off, trying to make a denial without making a denial, when he knew the answer.
I guess we could say that Cain was the first politician.
In a sense it was a diversion, “How should I know, you didn’t put me in charge of keeping track of him!” (Does that count as a straw man or red herring, or something else?)
“So what?” God asks, “Whether it was your responsibility or not, you know exactly where he is, because you left his dead body there”.
Comment by felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 3:38 pm
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:37 pmperhaps a kindred Spirit.
201. Yes. What it doesn’t mean is keep. But then, what did “keep” mean in Middle English?
Observe, wait, maybe.
Eric Partridge’s Etymological dictionary (lat edition, 1966) :
ME kepen from OE cepan, to observe or notice, to desire to seek, to keep (the semantic chain, or at least interconnexions are worth noting) cf ON kopa, MD capen, MLG kapfen, to gaze or stare. The origins of this v need to be clarified still further.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:38 pmSteve57: In that speech Obama doesn’t menion wait times. Just that his VA Sect would be as imp as Def Sect. And he’ll spend more money. And it will come on budget. And there’ll be no means testing.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:40 pmFelipe re: “from the Sammy files”.
Anything you want me to look for?
I might not have it, of course.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:42 pm180. The Greeks used to mistakle the namew of God for a word in Greek letters because it s often written in the old Hebrew alpphabet.
Another word: Niftar, PPutar realsed by a court which the writer of 2 Maccabes thoiught meant ourified, and got things all mixed up with oil that had once been found in Jerusalem.
Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:44 pmEric Partridge’s Etymological dictionary (lat edition, 1966)
OMG! I was given a copy of Origins (1977 for my birthday ages ago – I have since lost it after many changes (during education) in residences. Good times.
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:52 pmComment by Sammy Finkelman (42d229) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:42 pm
Thank you for the generous offer, Sammy, I’ll take you up on it sometime.
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:55 pmAn aside,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/23/2014 @ 5:11 pmit has been determined that George W. Bush is not responsible for the persistent failure of the Cubs,
suspicion has been directed at the Koch brothers:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/the-roberts-intervention.php
I enjoyed Roberts’s intervention from the get go.
I like the way he pronounces “pleasure’ as “playsure”; so charming to me somewhat reminiscent of the way Barbara Jordan ( Lord Rest her soul) used to promoun her “s” as “sh”. Then his correct usage of the words “quote” at the beginning of a quote, and then “unquote” after the entire quote – instead of the maddening “quote-unquote” that many (that I have suffered) use before actually relating a quote. Does this make me anal?
I appreciate Senator pat’s explanation of Citizens United in the context of reality
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 5:52 pm. It was so simple, a Vulcan could understand it.
I am derelict in my duty (to my parents) by failing to acknowledge the reference to Paul Harvey’s “the rest of the story” in Pat’s speech!
felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 6:09 pmI’m fond of the “like a douche” version…
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/05/23/more-likeaboss-shops/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/23/2014 @ 7:38 pm“Like a connoisseur of canines”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/23/2014 @ 7:41 pmSammy @206, you couldn’t be more wrong. Again.
Obama:
Try again.
Steve57 (4e729f) — 5/23/2014 @ 8:41 pmIf he’s mentioning waits of months, even years, we have entered the tautological when I say we are talking about wait times.
I get enough of this $#hi@ on the gay marriage threads.
Steve57 (4e729f) — 5/23/2014 @ 8:46 pmoh sweet mother of food stamps can failmerica get any more third world?
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/05/portland_issues_boil_water_not.html
happyfeet (8ce051) — 5/23/2014 @ 9:13 pmFeets, teh same state that drained tens of millions of gallons of their water supply because some wiseass kid took a leak in it.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/24/2014 @ 7:38 amSammy… you would benefit from this… KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Resign, Mr. President. “I wrote in passing yesterday that if President Obama or the people of this country had any self-respect, he’d resign over the scandal of the Veterans Affairs hospitals, which needlessly sentenced an unknown number of American veterans to death through their combination of managerial incompetence, medical malpractice, and monstrously cruel indifference to their clients. Other heads of government have resigned for less. President Obama presented himself to the public as an authority in the field of health-care management and as an executive who not only would insist upon but also would in fact achieve the highest standards in transparent, honest, competent government. He has failed, comprehensively. An honest man acknowledges his failures.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/24/2014 @ 9:57 amColonel – I thought it was only Republicans who opposed Obamacare who wanted people to die, or so Democrats claimed. Now we find out that a deliberate falsification of record keeping to mask unacceptable wait times has been has continued under Obama’s watch for years in spite of his pledges to fix the system.
He’ll order up some committees and investigations #likeadouche and hope everybody forgets about it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/24/2014 @ 10:15 amdaley, the whole situation has gotten way out of hand #LikeAParodyOfABoss
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/24/2014 @ 10:29 am220. In fairness to Mr. Williamson, he’s been on record to boot Cocks*cker in Chief for years now, by any means necessary.
At this rate we’re at least going to get a trial.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 5/24/2014 @ 10:30 am216. Being right is obviously not on Samuel’s list of needs.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 5/24/2014 @ 10:31 amEric Partridge’s Etymological dictionary (last edition, 1966)
Comment by felipe (098e97) — 5/23/2014 @ 4:52 pm
OMG! I was given a copy of Origins (1977 for my birthday ages ago – I have since lost it after many changes (during education) in residences. Good times.
I discovered the book first in a library only in 1983. Later on I think it still being sold, in a yellow covered smaller print edition.
It can still be bought secondhand. I replaced (or supplemented)my damaged copy a few years ago.
Here is an Amazon.com link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/?tag=patterspontif-20&link_code=wsw&_encoding=UTF-8&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=origins+eric+partridge&Submit.x=18&Submit.y=9
The actual title is: Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Eric Partridge .
It’s now also a Kindle, but the electronic edition got a bad review.
So, don’t get the Kindle, get the paper edition.
Remember BOOK = Bio_Optic Organized Knowledge or Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge.
Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 5/25/2014 @ 9:42 am198. 206. 216.
Sammy F to Steve57:
Comment by Steve57 (4e729f) — 5/23/2014 @ 8:41 pm
I printed out that speech!
You’re right, except that I’m right too because what I said was he didn’ know about fabricated records.
There s something about waiting for an appointment, but that’s in the context of PTSD and seems to be a problem of qualifying for benefits, which is the way I took it..
Your link’s URL:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=77039
It sounded to me like the long wait fro an appolintment was because of a delay in getting his claim accepted.
In any case, I had written @198:
And you said I didn’t have to listen to Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly had said he sgned abill that was supposed to take care of the waiting lists – but what she didn’t say is what exactly that bill said and did.
Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 5/25/2014 @ 10:00 am“You’re right, except that I’m right too because what I said was he didn’ know about fabricated records.”
Sammy – No, you wrote at #196: “This one he pretends he still doesn’t know if fabrication of records occurred;” even though he has been specifically told fabrication has occurred. When you don’t meet with a Cabinet level member official of your Administration for close to two years, it is sort of tough to make a claim to the American public you are staying on top of an issue you claimed would be one of your priorities.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/25/2014 @ 10:16 amComment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/24/2014 @ 10:15 am
He’ll order up some committees and investigations #likeadouche and hope everybody forgets about it.
On Fox News Sunday a (female)commentator whom I don’t know the name of said, after Fox played some excerpts of the “all I know is what I read in the newspapers” claim being said a number of times by the Obama White House that Obama must keep in the top drawer of his desk a scandal manual (if he does, it was written by Bill Clinton, because that’s what Clinton used too say – he also never read or watched speeches by his opponent, something Obama also repeated)
She said there 6 step scandal handling formula was this: [paraphrased, sometimes shortened, and sometimes lengthened, (and improved?) ]
1. Deny knowledge and say you just heard about it when everybody else did or when it went viral in the major media.
2. Say you are outraged.
3.
Fireappear to fire some low ranking bureaucrat(s)4. Appoint somebody to study it.
5. Say you will wait for the Inspector general’s, or FBI’s or whatever report.
After approximately 6 months:
6a. Say you’ve already taken care of it.
OR
6b. Say it is old news.
Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 5/25/2014 @ 10:19 am227. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/25/2014 @ 10:16 am
No, you wrote at #196: “This one he pretends he still doesn’t know if fabrication of records occurred;” even though he has been specifically told fabrication has occurred.
I know of course he knows that now. In fact, I thought that’s one of his false claims. President Obama seems to think that if he doesn’t have an official government document saying something occurred, he can say he doesn’t “know” that it did.
Megyn Kelly had said that a bill was passed and signed in 2012 to deal with long waiting times, but I said she didn’t tell anyone exactly what that bill how the bill was supposed to take care of the problem. (what it did about it)
So you couldn’t tell from her just what he would have to know if he signed the bill and had some idea of what was in it.
What I told Steve57 was that that’s not in 2007 speech. (fabrication of records) I mentioned what I thought it said. I thought there wasn’t even a mention of waiting times for an appointment, but if you look at it just the right way, there is.
It looked to me like the wait times he was talking about were just a way of emphasizing the results of a long and complicated application process.
Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 5/25/2014 @ 10:33 amWhen you don’t meet with a Cabinet level member official of your Administration for close to two years, it is sort of tough to make a claim to the American public you are staying on top of an issue you claimed would be one of your priorities.
Yes, and I found out a few things.
Obama knows, he has to know, he telegraphed it in fact, who it was that set up a goal of 14 days for wait times for appointments.
It was (fired or retired) Undersecretary for Health at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs Robert Petzel, in 2011.
A 30-day goal had been set in 1995.
This looks very much like an attempt to cover things up by doubling down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-obamas-remarks-on-va-allegations/2014/05/21/b7116db2-e0f6-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html
Well, Saturday’s Wall Street Journal says who it was:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303749904579580473122138420
And Robert Petzel is the person who Obama tried to hide his responsibility for forcing into retirement a bit early. So I mean, he knows, or knew by May 21.
The article says that Petzel met in the VA conference room on Wednesday, May 14 with members of the Disabled American Veterans and AMVETS. The meeting was neither recorded nor transcribed.
And Gary Augustine, the executive director of the Disabled American Veterans, asked him if these goals were unrealistic, and he said:
Maybe.
Or he said:
You might be right there.
The next day, he and Shinseki testified before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and on Friday Shinseki (after telling the committee he wasn’t ready to propose anyone’s resignation) sought Petzel’s resignation (Shinseki wouldn’t say if anyone in the White House had suggested he do so)
There seems to be a claim that Petzel had already announced his retirement, but Petzel stopped work right away after that.
Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 5/25/2014 @ 10:52 am225. Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Eric Partridge.
The edition with the mostly yellow cover is a 1983 edition, published by Greenwich House, a division of Arlington House, and was distributed by Crown Publishers by arrangement with MacMillan Publishing Company. It was available for at least several years from the publisher. You could also get the Simon and Schuster Merriam-Webster dictionary then.
That edition of Origins was only for sale in the United States, its territories and possessions, and the Phillipine Republic. (which used to be a U.S. territory until 1946 – independence was popromised in 1934 – and I guess some commercial arrangements that dated back to before 1946 continued.)
Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 5/25/2014 @ 1:33 pm