The Town Crank

Recent commentary: should we leave Afghanistan?

By Steve Erbach on Friday, August 28, 2009 10:43 AM

Should the U. S. pull out of Afghanistan?

(published 31-Aug-2009, Appleton Post-Crescent)

I decided to ask someone who's actually stationed there. My brother, a retired Marine, works with the Air Force as a civilian contractor in Kabul. He has worked in other dodgy places like Kazakhstan, Bosnia, and Iraq (three times). He made some interesting points: 1) The Karzai government is "despicably" corrupt and we need to cut off its connection with the poppy growers; 2) There's no way with its huge desertion rate (12-15%; unofficially closer to 30%) that the Afghan army can take over the country's security; 3) We should move away from supporting the central government and towards regional and local support to resist insurgents and warlords; 4) Forget nation-building; it never was a real nation. It's a money hole; 5) It's in our long-term interests to prevent de ... Read More »

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A superb letter from DownsizeDC.org

By Steve Erbach on Thursday, August 27, 2009 8:15 AM

I subscribe to Downsizer DIspatch, a publication of DownsizeDC.org. Today's issue is a rip-snorter:

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: The government called three accountants to testify. The defense asked each one, "What is the proper way to calculate income for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code if you are paid in a gold coin that has a $50 face value on it?"

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You can learn from books

By Steve Erbach on Thursday, August 27, 2009 6:37 AM

Anyone recognize the above quote? I'll give the answer at the end of this post.

I'm getting to the end of one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time: The Best Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future. The author, Randal O'Toole, is a lightning rod for government planning lovers across the fruited plain. Some of his staunchest critics include:

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I'd like to direct your attention to...

By Steve Erbach on Friday, August 21, 2009 5:51 AM

...a few postings I made on my political site, NeenahPolitics.com. The 2010 Neenah Mayoral race became very interesting this week because of Scott Rosenow, the first official candidate. An article appeared in the Post-Crescent written by the intrepid Neenah beat reporter, Duke Behnke, describing Rosenow's entry into the race and the fact that he's a 21-year-old college student. Details here.

Rosenow wrote a letter to the Post-Crescent to better outline his reasons for entering the Mayor's race and I posted that letter on NeenahPolitics.com, too.

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Give and take on health care reform VII

By Steve Erbach on Thursday, August 13, 2009 3:42 PM

The Cato Institute has the most detailed and understandable explanation of the workings of health insurance and the effect that government regulations have had on it. The explanation is found in chapter 16 of the 7th edition of the Cato Handbook for Congress.

For example, what effect do mandated coverage laws have on the cost of health insurance? The answer:

All states increase the cost of health insurance by requiring consumers to purchase certain types of coverage, whether or not they want the particular coverage. As a result of these "mandated coverage" laws:

Teetotalers must purchase coverage for alcoholism treatment (45 states).

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Give and take on health care reform VI

By Steve Erbach on Thursday, August 13, 2009 1:38 PM

This makes sense to me, too. From the Wall Street Journal:

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

By JOHN MACKEY

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money." — Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other pe ... Read More »

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Give and take on health care reform V

By Steve Erbach on Thursday, August 13, 2009 1:24 PM

The following is from The News Observer. It's a column written by an Associate Professor at Duke University, John David Lewis.

Mr. Lewis states very well what I have wondered about all along during the health care reform debate: why must we assume that the "solution" is more government regulation?

What 'right' to health care?

BY JOHN DAVID LEWIS

DURHAM - As the issue of health care reform builds to a legislative climax, it is important that we not merely parrot the same kinds of proposals we have seen for the past 5 ... Read More »

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Sedation dentistry

By Steve Erbach on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 9:13 AM

Driving the other day, I heard an ad on the radio for a dentist who performs "sedation dentistry". The dentist himself voiced the ad and he said, "Just take one pill an hour before your appointment and you won't even remember you were there."

Google shows about 10 dental offices in the Neenah/Menasha area, so it isn't a new thing. I had just never heard of it before.

It conjures up some funny images, especially since the ad stresses the "you won't even remember" part. The dentist said that instead of having to go for multiple appointments, one session of sedation dentistry would allow the dentist to get all that work done in one sitting.

According to the Consumer Guide to Sedation Dentistry, the patient is actually awake during the visit -- he just d ... Read More »

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Give and take on health care reform IV

By Steve Erbach on Friday, August 07, 2009 9:57 AM

Tim sent me an article from yournews.com to add "fuel to the fire":

Kicking Up the Cost of Health Care

Aug 6
By Bill Wineke

Medicare Part D pays for an expensive shingles vaccine -- but many physicians cannot bill the government, meaning patients experience red tape and costs increase.

MADISON, WI (YN) --The bill I received from the Meriter Medical Group puzzled me.

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Give and take on health care reform III

By Steve Erbach on Friday, August 07, 2009 7:30 AM

"...sink us."

Those are the last two words from my posting on Monday. That's where my old friend, Tim Morrissey, began his comments:

Your last two words are the most pithy. We ARE sunk. We give gazillions to "banks" with NO strings attached, and the "drive-by media", as Mr. Limbo would bloviate, gin up fake outrage about how B of A used scads of the bailout money to give tens of millions in bonuses to the losers who put the hole in the ship in the first place.

It's Madison-liberal claptrap, but we sink gazillions into useless wars half-a-globe away, wrapped in the flag, with claptrap about "freedom ain't free".

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Obama on the "Birther Conspiracy"

By Steve Erbach on Friday, August 07, 2009 6:20 AM

Obama Debunks Birther Conspiracy - watch more funny videos

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Nothin' yet!

By Steve Erbach on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 11:44 AM

[Impatiently tapping foot] We're waiting!

This graphic is from WeatherStreet.com. It shows that as of today, August 5th, 2009, not a single named tropical storm has formed in the Atlantic. By this time last year we'd already had two hurricanes among a total of 5 named storms.

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The Stockdale Paradox

By Steve Erbach on Tuesday, August 04, 2009 1:07 PM

I'll do more on the health care debate with my old compadre, Tim Morrissey (and others), in another blog entry. For the moment though, I'd like to turn to a different topic.

Occasionally I've posted the e-mails I get from a very worthy lobbying group in Washington, DC, called DownsizeDC.org. The latest e-mail deals with support for Congressman Ron Paul's bill to "Audit the Fed". DownsizeDC is in favor of the bill's passage, of course; but the main point of today's e-mail was to emphasize a point about political activism.

The e-mail is written by one of the most trenchant political activists on the scene today, Jim Babka, the President of DownsizeDC.org. Here's the text of the e-mail containing The Stockdale Paradox and its implications for those of us looking for political change:

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Give and take on health care reform II

By Steve Erbach on Monday, August 03, 2009 4:59 PM

My friend, Tim Morrissey, picked up the gauntlet and responded to my post of earlier today. Here's what he had to say:

Touche', Dr. Erbach! Where do I start.... How about your line about coverages "spelled out in the contract" (policy). Sure. Lots of things are spelled out in the contract language. And you know as well as I that even "covered" procedures are often denied by the faceless bureaucrats in the insurance company. They'll find a way to pull a "pre-existing condition" out of your medical records to deny you a "covered" benefit.

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Give and take on Health Care Reform

By Steve Erbach on Monday, August 03, 2009 12:37 PM

My old friend, Tim Morrissey, has begun blogging since he had the can tied to his tail by the MidWest Family radio stations last November. His "About Me" paragraph gives a pretty good description of the tenor of his blog, "The Way Things R":

Cranky, out-of-sorts, and generally pissed off about a lot of stuff.

That's Tim's picture, if you hadn't guessed. It was taken several years ago before his hirsuteness started to go gray and before he grew a beard. But this is how I remember him best.

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This had to happen sooner or later

By Steve Erbach on Monday, August 03, 2009 6:20 AM

The logical extension of the "it isn't my fault" mindset so popular these days:

College Grad Can't Find Job, Wants $$$ Back

By JENNIFER MILLMAN

She went to college to boost her chances of finding a great job once she got out of school, but now that that hasn't happened, Trina Thompson wants her money back.

Thompson, a graduate of Monroe College, is suing her school for the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn't found solid employment since receiving her bachelor's degree in April, according to a published report.

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