The-Asterisk

All this talk about price increases with your current health insurance and how much it will cost to pay for Obamacare got me to thinking... Health insurance is a lot like the Soda Pop industry, isn't it? Take a walk through the refreshment aisle of your local supermarket and just look around. You will see Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Cherry Coke, Diet Cherry Coke, Coke in 8 oz. glass bottles, 16 oz. and 24 oz. plastic bottles, 12 oz cans in 12 packs and 24 packs, one liter bottles and two liter bottles. And lets not forget those awkward 8 oz. cans. Have you ever noticed how the smaller the container, the more expensive the product seems to be? And I haven't even talked about Pepsi, Mountain Dew (regular, diet and EXTREME), RC and Diet Rite, plus the ubiquitous 3 liter barrel of house brand soda for 89 cents per bottle. Next, check out 7-Eleven. There you will find an endcap display of Coke products for $1.89 per 2 liter bottle right next to a Pepsi display for 99 cents per bott...

I have always been a proponent of transparency in government. I even crafted an elaborate scheme about 10 years where each political ad would have a 6 digit tag line for radio and TV or a code at the bottom of each printed piece. You could then go to www.fec.gov/open , type in that number and find out who or what paid for the ad. If there were other entities involved, you could drill down until you found the true source. I sent this suggestion to all of my federal, state and local representatives. I got NO response from any of them. So what changed my mind about disclosure? Militant liberals, that's what. In case after case, left wing loons (I love calling them the same thing that they call us) in California have used the state's FOIA law to find out who is contributing to political races. A prominent businessperson could donate $5,000 to a candidate for Attorney General because he agrees with the candidate's stance on business and regulation. An abortion rights fringe gro...

I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday describing how lawyers "concerned about consumer protection" are scouring the shelves and racks of retailers looking for expired patent numbers printed or embossed into products. If the attorneys find an expired patent number, they are filing suit against these companies in the name of the federal government for violating a law that until recently was seen as about as serious as jaywalking. A recent ruling, however, stated that they could sue for a $500 fine for each violation and each violation could be interpreted as every box, package or item with the bad number. Additionally, the interesting part is that the lawyers split the spoils with the government, so there is no impetus for the feds to pull back on this extortion. Is this all that these scumbags have to do? Read the article and see the self-aggrandizement dripping from these attorney's statements. To me this law breaking is about as serious as a company ha...