Four insanities, to me, anyway

The reason I started this blog was because, during the George W. Bush administration, there were such crazy, insane things being proposed and even, too frequently, passed into law that I couldn't take it. This blog was a catharsis for me, to state what was wrong.

So today, in that vein, I'd like to point out four more things, going on now, that I believe strongly have no basis in logic or intelligence.

1) There is a woman in the Bush administration--Nancy de Parle--who heads up President Obama's health care inititative to change our system who made $2.3 million in the last year or so, from those same health care corporations.

This is insane.

That woman--any person--who is from the health care industry should not be in charge of changing the system.

She will not, in fact, change it. Not enough, anyway. Not the way we need. Not to benefit us, the users of health care in the United States. She's too invested in its maintenance.

2) Quote from The New York Times today: "The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Clean Water Act does not prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from allowing mining waste to be dumped into rivers, streams and other waters."

Insanity.

This is so insane it makes me angry. I have to not think about this, it makes me so angry.

People will regret that corporations were allowed to do this--to dump mining waste into rivers, streams and other waters. It will be regretted and sooner, not later.

3) The Obama Administration is continuing to imprison people at Guantanamo Bay without charging them with any crimes, with no evidence of any wrong-doing and, on top of both those things, indefinitely.

As The Times says today--Bob Herbert, to be specific--this is not who we ever were. It's not who we should be.

4) Finally, Citigroup, which has done so horribly, business-wise, in the last year to two years (so much so that comic, satirist Bill Maher calls it "ShittyGroup") that it had to accept billions of dollars in tax money from you and me through the Federal Government is now planning to increase its pay to its employees--some by as much as 50%--because it can't hand out juicy bonuses (in your and my tax moneys) to those same employees.

So Citigroup has been a horribly-run business, it wanted to hand out bonuses, it can't so it's going to do an end-around and just hand out pay raises instead.


I would like less insanity in the world. All our worlds.

Links to related stories:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-health-czar-boards,1,5907802.story
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23alaska.html?scp=1&sq=&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/opinion/23herbert.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/24citigroup.html?scp=1&sq=Citigroup%20has%20a%20plan%20to%20fatten%20salaries&st=cse