Well buddy when I die throw my body in the back
And drive me to the junkyard in my Cadillac

— Bruce Springsteen, “Cadillac Ranch”

Say goodbye to that $500 deductible insurance plan and the $20 co-payment for a doctor’s office visit. They are likely to become luxuries of the past. . . .

Then blame — or credit — the so-called Cadillac tax, which penalizes companies that offer high-end health care plans to their employees.

— High-End Health Plans Scale Back to Avoid ‘Cadillac Tax’ – NYTimes.com

You’re probably thinking: “So what? I don’t have a high-end health care plan. I’m a working stiff. Let the Wall Street fat cats pay their Cadillac tax.”

Actually, because the plan cost that triggers the Cadillac tax is not indexed for inflation, Bradley Herring, a health economist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, estimates that as many as 75 percent of plans could be affected by the tax over the next decade.

The hospital where Abbey Bruce, a nursing assistant in Olympia, Wash., worked, for example, stopped offering the traditional plan that she and her husband, Casey, who has cystic fibrosis, had chosen. . . .

She has had to drop out of school and take on additional jobs to pay for her husband’s medicine.

“My husband didn’t choose to be born this way,” Ms. Bruce said. The union representing her, a chapter of the Service Employees International Union, has objected to the changes. Her employer, Providence Health & Services, says it designed the plans to avoid having employees shoulder too much in medical bills and has reduced how much workers pay in premiums.

Abbey Bruce, a nursing assistant who works a second job cleaning, will pay a sharply higher deductible.

ObamaCare proponents say the Cadillac tax is bringing down employer (not patient) costs as planned.

Cynthia Weidner, an executive at the benefits consultant HighRoads, [said] that the tax appeared to be having the intended effect. “The premise it’s built upon is happening,” she said, adding, “the consumer should continue to expect that their plan is going to be more expensive, and they will have less benefits.”

Key takeaway: Pay more. Get less.

I hate to say I told you so, so instead I’ll say say an insincere thank you to Obama and all the delusional fuckers who voted for this goddamn law.

Cam Cameron

The Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors Wednesday approved newly hired LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron’s three-year contract but not without faculty members voicing concerns. According to the terms, Cameron will receive $600,000 for the 2013 season, followed by $1.3 million and $1.5 million in the last two years of his contract.

— NOLA.com

LSU has faculty?!

Donald McKinney, director of wind ensembles and conducting and associate professor in the school of music, said he was “disheartened” in LSU’s handling of the future. He said the morale has been low and hopes LSU would change to retain faculty. McKinney, who’s a newer faculty member, said he’s heading to another university at the end of the semester. . . .

Nathan Crick, an associate professor in communication studies, echoed similar sentiments. Crick said he was sold false goods and now “it’s time to return them.” The professor said he’s leaving LSU for Texas A&M.

GOOD RIDDANCE, YOU PUSSIES! Your departure frees up more money for football!

Newly appointed LSU President King Alexander said he isn’t surprised of the issues in Louisiana because they are strikingly similar to California. Alexander is currently the president at California State University Long Beach but will take the lead at LSU beginning July 1.

King Alexander!? Well, President of LSU is quite a stepdown from King of Macedonia. He must be a big football fan.

Wait — what? Cal State Long Beach?! That place is a shithole. I guess it’s hard to find a guy who’d consider LSU an academic advancement.

God-DAMN I can’t wait for football season!

Take that, liberal heathen! She’s not “supposed” to pray in a school but she did it anyway! And that’s why she’s alive today!

It would be useful to know for the purpose of assessing the value of prayer as a tornado survival tactic, how many of the 24 people who didn’t survive the Oklahoma tornado were praying at the moment of their death.

Of the 10 children who were killed, were any of them praying? Maybe God said to himself, “Okay, change of plans. I was going to hit Rhonda Crosswhite with this tornado, but since she’s praying out loud in a school, I’ll redirect it into those 10 kids.”

[Editor's Note: Obviously I disagree with this egregious opinion, but I'm committed to hosting a wide range of viewpoints. -- PE]

You have mothers, you have wives who are also mothers, you have daughters who are also mothers . . . attention has to be divided and no one is satisfied with her share of the pie. As a son, husband and/or father, you can’t win, it’s just a question of how badly you’re going to lose.

Women are bitching on the run-up to Mothers Day, they’re bitching on Mothers Day, and they’re laying down ground rules regarding what they will and will not put up with on next year’s Mothers Day.

It’s a big foofaraw and nobody’s happy.

Conversely, on Fathers Day, everyone’s as happy as a lark, despite the fact that Fathers Day is commemorated, in my family at least, by absolutely nothing.

Did you hear about these three women in Cleveland who were kidnapped and held in a house for 10 years?

They were rescued on Monday of this week when one of the women screamed through a small opening in the front door, “I need help! I need help! I have been kidnapped for 10 years.” Two men in the neighborhood heard her screaming, kicked the door in and the women were able to escape.

(Why it took 10 years to think up the Scream for Help strategy, I don’t know. I wish the reporter had asked about that.)

A childhood friend of one of the women said, “I’m so thankful, God is good. I’ve been praying. Never forgot about her, ever.”

So let’s see . . . 10 years of prayer = no results. Screaming for help = instant results.

I know some wiseass is going to say that prayer did bring results because God sent someone to kick the door in, but did he have to wait 10 years to do it? It’s a good thing the guys who heard the screams didn’t take 10 years to mull over their next move . . .

Look at this — before Jackie Robinson, they didn’t let black guys play major league baseball!

Right . . . that was 70 years ago, in the 1940s. Let’s move on already.

You know what else they did in the 1940s? They rounded up Japanese Americans, just took them right out of their homes and their jobs, and stuck them into “relocation camps.”

When’s the last time you heard a Japanese person talk about relocation camps? They don’t talk about relocation camps because they’re too busy being engineers and doctors and businessmen and raising their families and sending their kids to top universities.

You can focus your mind on what other people did a long time ago or you can focus your mind on what you’re doing right now.

Let’s move on already.

Rating:

Footnote: We’ve come full circle on blacks in baseball. The defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants don’t have a single black player on their current roster (although some of the Latin players are pretty dark). Black men can play baseball if they want to but they don’t want to.

Jon Provost and Lassie

A new study from the American Council on Education shows that the percentages of black, Asian and Hispanic provosts have declined over the past five years.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports this story under the headline “Falling Diversity of Provosts Signals Challenge for Presidential Pipeline, Study Finds.”

FALLING DIVERSITY! LOOK OUT BELOW!

Ha ha . . . but seriously, who even knows what a provost is? I don’t. I’ve vaguely heard of it as an academic job title but that’s about it.

I know that Jon Provost played little Timmy on the Lassie TV series. I know that Marie Prevost was a one-time Mack Sennett bathing beauty and leading lady in the 1920s whose screen glory had faded by the time she died of acute alcoholism in a small Hollywood apartment at the age of 38.

By the way, I notice that Asian students are continuing to excel, even in the absence of Asian provosts. Go figure.

I am sick unto death of recruiters with titles like Director of Talent Acquisition or Executive in Intellectual Capital Development . . .

Recruiters who write job descriptions with requirements like this:

• Great Communication – must be able to speak very clear

We are all receding — waving or beckoning or just kissing our fingertips, we are all fading, shrinking, paling. Life is all losing, we are all losing, losing mother, father, youth, hair, looks, teeth, friends, lovers, shape, reason, life. We are losing, losing, losing. Take life away. It’s too hard, too difficult. We aren’t any good at it. Try us out on something else. But shelve life. Take life off the stands. It’s too fucking difficult and we aren’t any good at it.

— Martin Amis, Money

That reminds me — it’s probably about time to schedule an eye exam because I can’t goddamn see any more . . .

I worked with a woman whose last name was Messenger. Every time I saw her I said “Don’t shoot the Messenger.” I never tired of it . . .

• Parents who let their kids grow up stupid and blame the schools
• People who yawn or sneeze a LOT louder than necessary
• People who use the expression “we tip our hat [or cap] to those guys,” especially if they’re wearing a hat and they don’t physically tip it

According to a new survey, just over 10 percent of Berkeley High ninth and 11th graders reported carrying a weapon onto school property, while about 35 percent of 11th graders reported attending class drunk or high.

If I had a kid at Berkeley High, I’d be moving out of town yesterday, but I’m reading in the Daily Californian that this news has been “met with surprise and joy from administrators,” the reason being that a similar survey two years ago reported about 17 percent of ninth graders and 16 percent of 11th graders carrying weapons onto campus, and 48 percent of 11th graders attending class drunk or high.

Progress!

“We’re very pleased with the survey results all around,” said Director of Student Services Susan Craig, “and at the same time we’re not at all complacent.”

If by “pleased” she means “horrified,” I couldn’t agree more.

In other news, Barack Obama got more than 90 percent of the Berkeley vote in the recent presidential election, while Mitt Romney got 4.6 percent and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, got 3.2 percent.

The liberal voter looks to government to solve problems that many people prefer to take on themselves, like raising their children.

America in the 1950s made the rich pay their fair share; it gave workers the power to bargain for decent wages and benefits; yet contrary to right-wing propaganda then and now, it prospered. And we can do that again.

— Paul Krugman

I hardly know where to begin with this . . .

First of all, what is the relevance of the 1950s as opposed to any other period of American history? America prior to 1913 had no permanent income tax and contrary to left-wing propaganda, it prospered. Why can’t we do that again?

Of course we’re all in favor of fairness — right? — but why is it only important that “the rich” pay their “fair share”? I don’t remember ever hearing anyone, certainly not Krugman, use the phrase “pay their fair share” in reference to any group except “the rich.”

If you’re concerned about fairness, isn’t it also important that the middle class “pay their fair share”? Isn’t it important that the poor “pay their fair share”? Shouldn’t we all have some skin in the game?

Why not say that everyone should “pay their fair share” instead of making a class warfare issue out of it?

As George Harrison used to say:

Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all

America in the 1950s had a top tax bracket of 91 percent for incomes greater than $200,000. For every dollar you made in excess of $200,000, the federal government took 91 cents as its “fair share.” You got to keep nine cents as your “fair share.”

Out of those nine cents, you also had to pay Social Security taxes, state taxes, local taxes, sales taxes, property taxes and excise taxes. Am I forgetting anything? It doesn’t seem unlikely to me that nine cents on the dollar wouldn’t be enough to cover all those taxes, in which case you’d actually lose money on every dollar.

If I’d been a business owner in the 1950s, with the knowledge that once I made 200 grand, I’d be operating at a loss, I would have just shut the place down at that point and sent everyone home till the next year. I don’t care if it was November or August or January.

Finally, when Krugman talks about workers having “the power to bargain,” he’s talking about unions, as though the two things are inseparable. I’ve never been in a union but I’ve bargained for wages and benefits at every job I’ve ever had. Anyone with marketable skills can bargain for wages and benefits.

P.S. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but “workers” is a telling choice of words, isn’t it? Why not “employees” or just “people”? “Workers” calls to mind communist rallying cries and the Wobblies.

From the Offical Voter Information Guide:

Requires labeling of food sold to consumers made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways. Prohibits marketing such food, or other processed food, as “natural.” Provides exemptions. Fiscal Impact: Increased annual state costs from a few hundred thousand dollars to over $1 million to regulate the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Additional, but likely not significant, governmental costs to address violations under the measure.

Notice this phrase: “Provides exemptions.” In other words, the statute requires certain things and prohibits certain other things — except when it doesn’t.

Not that it matters because $1 million a year isn’t going to buy you a lot of enforcement anyway. Who wrote this proposition, Dr. Evil?

Prop 37 is supported by people who hate freedom and having to think for themselves.

Edward Archbold was, according to those who met him on Friday night, the life of the party – a bit of a showoff who was up for anything, even a giant cockroach-eating contest.

He won. And then, tragically, he died.

— Florida man dies after winning cockroach-eating contest – U.S. News

Not every death is a tragedy. (We pause here for a moment to give Darwin a chance to spike the football.)

Whenever I hear someone described as “a bit of a showoff who’s up for anything,” I find myself wondering how soon they can die in some bizarre attempt to attract attention.

Given what we know about the deceased, how surprised are you — on a scale of zero to 10 — that a shirtless mug shot was available for use in his obituary?

I’m going to savagely murder the next person I hear use the word “spend” as a noun, as in “leveraging our spend.”

Spend is a verb. Spending is a noun, e.g., “leveraging our spending.” I would still have to maim you for saying “leveraging” though, so try “getting the most for our money.”

You can also avoid death by saying “How much does it cost?” instead of “What is our spend?”

You have been warned.

Cops: Teens beat man because ‘they were just bored’ — NBCNews.com

Strange piece of “journalism” from NBC News . . . basically just a rewrite of a story in the Cincinnati Enquirer in which a 45-year-old man named Pat Mahaney received a senseless, brutal beating from six boys, ages 13 and 14:

Mahaney was taken to Mercy Mount Airy Hospital, where he was treated for four days before being released Tuesday. Police said doctors had to insert a tube down his throat to remove all of the blood from his stomach.

A tube remained in his right nostril as blood continued to seep out of his head, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, and his left eye is heavily blackened.

Police said the teens admitted that Mahaney had done nothing to provoke being kicked and punched repeatedly in the face while he lay helpless on the ground. One of the boys allegedly told police they only stopped assaulting Mahaney when a neighbor began yelling at them and said he was calling police.

The strange thing about the NBC article, though, is that it deletes information about the race of the kids, which is in the Enquirer article:

“It was a heinous crime but it was not a hate crime,” said North College Hill Police Chief Gary Foust of the teens, who are all black.

He said several residents have called police inquiring if Mahaney was specifically targeted because he is white. He was not, the chief stressed.

Two questions:

1. If the boys were white and the victim black, would NBC have deleted that information?
2. Do the boys look like President Obama’s son would look if he had one?

80 Percent Of Lightning Strike Victims Are Male, But Why? — NPR

Same reason all of your top executives are men — because we’re risk takers and we don’t run and hide under our blankies at the first sign of danger.

‘Big Bang Theory’s’ Jim Parsons comes out as gay — latimes.com

Never heard of him, never seen the show, but do you really expect me to believe that the guy in this photo is gay?