Left to Their Own Devices

So control of Iraqi cities has now been officially passed back to the Iraqis.  This marks the beginning of the end for all efforts to stabilize the country (i.e. effective counterinsurgency operations cannot be run from distant locations; we already tried that one).  Even though this whole mess is totally the fault of the United States, it is real shame because we are leaving the country much worse than when we first arrived.  All the hard work from the 2007 “surge” has been squandered.  What challenges lie ahead for Iraq?  Well, I am no expert on Iraq, but Thomas Ricks is.  Check out his blog post about the pressing issues at hand.

Celebratory Baking

This afternoon at 4:05pm, I said “see you tomorrow!” to Nora for the last time ever. She’s retiring from Harvard and tomorrow is her last day. I’m sad to see her go but excited for her because she gets to be retired and hang out and have fun with her hubby all day, every day!

So to celebrate her retirement, I thought I’d do something nice for her last day. I made red velvet cupcakes! I found a Paula Deen recipe online… because Paula Deen is the only one I turn to for ridiculously unhealthy and delicious desserts… and made some awesome cupcakes. Check out the photo below! Yum!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

On a side note… The other night, Patrick made me dinner (roast chicken… YUM!) and he decided to make a blueberry dessert from the Anthony Bourdain cookbook I bought him for Christmas 2 years ago. I went a bit crazy at the grocery store and bought like 4 pints of blueberries so he used 2 to make us an awesome dessert with candied lime and orange zest. It was awesome.

Sweetened blueberries with creme fraiche and citrus zest confit

The only thing we love more than food is taking pictures of it and posting it online. Enjoy!

Healthcare Monopolies

At the heart of the healthcare reform issue is the fact that insurance companies stand to lose tons and tons of money.  Health Care for America NOW (HCAN) recently issued some reports on the state of America’s healthcare (state reports, national report).  Their findings led them to write a letter to the Department of Justice and Fair Trade Commission asking them to look into the practices used by insurance companies to price gauge customers.  The most incriminating things that jump out from HCAN’s research are:

• More than 94% of all medical insurance markets in American are highly concentrated.
• The number of insurers has fallen by 20%.
• Premiums increased by more than 87% from 2000 to 2007.
• Profits for the ten largest medical insurers increased by 428% from 2000 to 2007.

Things don’t look good for the medical insurance industry (as in they are abusing their monopoly or near monopoly status), but there are enough politicians out there who would be willing to side with the insurers that the badly needed changes could never take place.  Sigh…

Oh the Irony

Train Wreck

So, Gov. Sanford of South Carolina is finally back on the job (actually giving a press conference at this moment).  I thought about transcribing what is taking place during this press conference, but it is a real train wreck.  I mean it goes beyond words.  Sanford mislead his staff that he was going on a hiking trip, but actually went on a cruise off the coast of Argentina with a woman to whom he is not married.  He admitted to having an affair.  Sanford said he would resign from his position as head of the Republican governors, but said nothing about resigning from being governor.

However, unless there are more secrets to this whole story, Sanford came out there laid all his cards on the table.  When elected officials screw up, the way they dance around the issue rubs most people the wrong way.  Sanford, to his credit, told the truth (or at least seems to have told the truth).  Of course, the intense media coverage of the missing governor kind of forced his hand.

Finally, Some Common Sense

QUESTION: Wouldn’t that drive private insurance out of business?

OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.

The above quote comes from a blog post by Krugman.  The proposed changes to our healthcare system are long overdue and controversial (well at least to private insurance companies).  The fact is, the US healthcare system is broken.  Krugman wrote a book called The Conscious of a Liberal.  The title is pretty telling, but even if you find yourself at odds with liberals, chapter 11 is worth the read.  In it, Krugman recounts how the healthcare system got so bad.  In a nutshell, the US healthcare is the most expensive in the world, but ranks only 37th in terms of quality.  This has to change, especially with the recent rise in personal bankruptcies due to medical bills.  From the Washington Post on 4 June 2009:

Sixty-two percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses, according to a nationwide study released today by the American Journal of Medicine. That’s nearly 20 percentage points higher than that pool of respondents reported were connected to medical costs in 2001.

Of those who filed for bankruptcy in 2007, nearly 80 percent had health insurance. Respondents who reported having insurance indicated average expenses of just under $18,000. Respondents who filed and lacked insurance had average medical bills of nearly $27,000.

Since 2007, the number of Americans without insurance has increased and filing for bankruptcy has become more difficult due to more stringent laws, according to the report.

I hope that this time, the Democrats will make the necessary changes.  For every American deserves quality healthcare at an affordable price.

Kinda getting better

I mentioned in my last post about Georgia that I got sick on my last day there. Well, I’ve been sick all week and even missed the entire week of work except for Thursday morning… and I am finally starting to feel a bit better. Last night, I slept for 12 hours. I woke up at 11:30am!!! I couldn’t believe it! I was feeling pretty good so I had soup for lunch and that made my stomach a bit queasy but nothing like all the food that I’ve had the rest of the week. I’m feeling very optimistic about this because I have a big meeting on Monday that I can’t miss and classes start on Monday too!!! Isn’t that great!?

So I’m taking 2 classes this summer at the extension school. I’m taking Statistics and a psychology class on trauma and development. I’m really nervous that I will have forgotten how to be a good student because I can definitely be a lazy person. I want to do well because I’d like to get my masters but I don’t want to go crazy and take too many courses so I hope that 2 classes won’t kill me. I start on Monday and I have one class on MW and another class on TR. I’m pretty hopeful that this will be the beginning of my master’s degree so keep your fingers crossed that I don’t fail like a crazy loser!

Other than that, not much is going on. Today was Patrick’s last day of work for the school year. He now has the entire summer off. What a jerk. I’ll be working and going to class and he’ll be hanging out at home with the cats and cooking food. I’m so jealous! After being home all week, I totally think I could stay home all summer!! Patrick’s taking a nap right now which makes me wonder if he’s starting to come down with whatever I have been suffering with all this week. I hope it’s not because it’s a miserable thing to have and I wouldn’t wish it on him… or anyone… except maybe my boss. Haha! Since there isn’t much else to report, we’ll post again when something interesting happens!

Georgia visit

I’m back from my trip!!! Here’s how it all went down!

I flew in on Friday morning and Christine and Nathan picked me up from the airport. Nathan didn’t remember me but that was ok. He was still a happy little boy (as usual!) We then drove to the hotel to check in early. It was a pretty fancy Best Western! We had a 2 bedroom penthouse suite (remember, 3 floors only!) and it was pretty cool. There was a kitchen and living room downstairs and then 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. How crazy is it that there were 2 floors in a hotel room? :) We were going to go to the zoo that afternoon but Nathan was really tired. We went to get a few snacks from Target and then he went down for a nap. We just hung out and talked all afternoon and had chinese food for dinner. It was awesome! I bought Nathan a few new toys (because we all know that’s exactly what he needs!) and he played for a bit until it was bedtime. At bedtime, I went to the hotel gym and worked out for a bit. I can’t believe it either! I actually ran on a treadmill because I didn’t like the bike they had in their workout room. I finally got back to the hotel and Patrick told me that he burned his hand on a hot pot… and so I forced him to go to the ER and he found out he had 2nd degree burns on his fingers and palm. Poor him! He was a mess but he survived his hospital visit and walk home. We went to bed around midnight.

As usual, I didn’t sleep well in the hotel. We got up in the morning and had the hotel breakfast. It was pretty good! I had eggs, bacon, sausage, and home fries. Yum! They also had yogurt, cereal, toast, bagels, etc. It was a crazy awesome breakfast that was FREE! We then packed up our stuff and left to go to the aquarium. We got to bypass all the lines because Christine bought the tickets ahead. It was so awesome! We got to see Beluga whales and their feeding time, we got to see all kinds of fish and the fish tunnel. It was awesome! I also got to run around with Nathan for a bit. He insisted on touching every single kids’ face and climb into all strollers that weren’t his. It was cute. We left when he started to get cranky. Instead of going to the Coca-Cola museum, we just drove back to Columbus. It was a quiet drive back because he slept the entire time. Once we got to Fort Benning, we stopped at the grocery store. I picked up some stuff to make lasagna for dinner. It was so yummy! We then hung out and did nothing all night.

Sunday was another quiet day. We hung out at the house for a bit… then we went to lunch at Red Lobster after Christine showed me all the new housing on base. It was interesting to see where people lived. Lunch was awesome and then we went to Kohls. I love Kohls but I couldn’t bring anything back so I didn’t buy anything. After that, we went back home so that Nathan could take a nap. He napped for forever!!! I watched some Animal Planet and it was very interesting! I watched a show called Stranger Among Bears. It was really cool. It’s about this man who lives around bears in Alaska. Crazy! Christine went to visit a friend’s birthday party for a bit and I watched Nathan while watching TV. For dinner, we went to Chili’s with a couple friends of Christine’s. It was fun but I wasn’t feeling so well.

Monday… my last day! I woke up at 4am feeling sick as anything. I was vomiting and bla bla bla. I won’t get into the details but basically I had the same illness that both Christine and my parents had in the past few weeks. I felt like shit. After puking a whole lot and feeling like crap, we got in the car to drive me to the airport. I survived the drive and the flight and got home on time. I didn’t take the bus home because I was barfalicious and took a cab instead. I was so happy to see the Patrick, the cats, and my bed! I took a short nap and hung out with Patrick for the rest of the night. It was nice to be home even though I had a 101 fever and was sick to my stomach. I didn’t eat all day and I lost 2 lbs during my visit to Georgia!!

So now I’m home sick because I can’t spread my germs around the office. I think I’ll go back tomorrow. Click on the photo below to see pictures from my trip. There are also a few videos from the aquarium and when Nathan was ignoring me in the bathtub. :)

Funny cat picture of the day

If only this worked for Noumi.

Visiting Nate

I leave tomorrow morning to fly to Atlanta to go hang out with Nate and Christine for the weekend. :) I’m pretty excited about it. On Friday, we’ll be visiting the zoo and then hanging out in our 2 bedroom penthouse suite at our hotel… Yes, the hotel may only have 3 floors but it’s still a penthouse if it’s on the 3rd floor! Haha! On Saturday, we’re going to the aquarium and the Coca-Cola museum before going back to Columbus. We might go to the beach on Sunday or we might just hang out, it’s still undecided on our end… but it should be great fun and I’m sure that many pictures will come out of it all.

So watch out for my blog next week about the visit to Georgia. It should be a fun one with lots of family pictures!!

Maybe Patrick will even blog about what he’s doing this weekend… a whole lot of hanging out by himself. :) Maybe he’ll have pictures too!