Newscoma

I understand checks and balances and being accurate as well as fast, but

“blink and you’re beat.”

Go read the rest.

Man, sometimes I’m left in the dirt. BUT, it’s groovy.

I’m learning.

I’m watching.

Dang, if I’m not cool as I’m checking it out.

“Blink and you’re beat.”

Wow.

As my RSS feed goes from nine readers a day to 60, umm, could you oblige?  I only bite on Wednesdays.

I give you this for your kindness and thanks.

And go to the website here because, hell, they have penguins in sweater.

I was going through our medical bills this morning and I found about $264 dollars that the Vanderbilt Medical Center charged me for a test that according to my doctor ended up being “not processed properly as ordered.” No where on the bill is the $264 credited. There was also a $45 blood test that did yield results according to my MD. My insurance company credited the $309 bill $222.04 for “contractual discount,” which friends in the medical profession tell me is a standard discount that insurance companies give to hospitals for supplies and service. And my MD tells me that I will need to do the test over again in the future.

Do you see the problem here? Not only is the hospital going to make a percentage of the $87.00 that they say I owe on a test that they screwed up, but the insurance company is going to count a percentage of the $222 they paid toward a total lump sum of expenses that they will use to calculate in the future costs to be passed along to consumers. Once I am charged a second time for the test, then both the medical and insurance entrepreneurs will be guilty of double-dipping. If the hospital labs screwed up the test, then the hospital should eat the loss and not pass them along to their consumers and the insurance company discount should not be paid on the charges.

I offer this to you because I’m about to get my own degree in alchemy and start boiling homemade roots that will most likely make me see my grandfather that I adored and died 28 years ago. And get naked in Wal Mart. These things happen when people need help.

Health care, campers, is a big deal.

Out of control, even those with insurance. A nightmare for those without it.

Gear Diary has a great post with this awesome picture.

I thought it was great. Head to Gear Diary for the whole thing.

On a side note, I’ve always wanted to have pens printed up that said Master Bait And Tackle Shop or Kick it over, Mary Lou.

But, of course, there is a story to that which makes me laugh every, single time which is Smiley’s to tell.

I know, I’m 12 damned years old.

This story is what I’ve been waiting for. It was a matter of time.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if “small numbers” of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.

I am requesting legal representation as well whenever I do something. Sometimes I wonder if this was one of the reasons we’ve had such high gas prices in the first place.

Between the cracks, that’s where these stories always are.

Quite by accident.

Yeah, old school notes.