The Beer:30 Live Show!

Vampire Stories

Show Notes

Vampire Stories

What is The Beer:30 Live Show!?

Home of the original Beer:30 Live podcast from Portland, Oregon. The show ran from 2006 to 2009.

Pete:

Hey, everybody. It's beer 30 live. Hi. How you doing?

Mary:

Oh, hola.

Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't ready for my own cue. I was listening to music. I got a little excited.

Pete:

It started to fade it out. I'm Yeah. God damn. What do I say

Mary:

now? Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Mary:

Oh. Oh Welcome.

Pete:

No. I'm gonna tell you, I'm Pete for, Pete, Wright and, Mary Bradbury Jones. Hello.

Mary:

Hello.

Pete:

And Jamie Whitley, welcome. Welcome back to John Barleycorns and McMiniman's Very quiet in here today. Where is everybody? Where is everybody? And

Mary:

today's Thursday. Day.

Pete:

Day. I think that maybe No. It's like one of those episodes like fringe, you know, where just people disappear. Like, everybody's gone.

Mary:

You know?

Jamie:

And it's wild. Happy, and fringe is starting to come back on. I can't wait. All my

Mary:

will. No.

Mary:

See, this isn't a show I've

Jamie:

heard of.

Mary:

Fringe? What?

Pete:

Oh, you gotta go catch up on Fringe. It's Fringe

Mary:

is dumb. Really? What's this what's it all about? Fringe.

Pete:

It's well, it's like a x file. There it's Oh, it's sci fi. It's sci fi type. It's fantastic. But, you know, Pacey, Pacey Witter is on it.

Pete:

Who is? Pacey's. Pacey's all grown up from Dawson's Creek.

Mary:

Yeah.

Pete:

Don't you? This is like

Mary:

I did not watch

Pete:

Dawson's Creek. Alright. Alright. Well, anyway, he's all grown up, and he has a perma 5 o'clock shadow, going. So that he's very metro and all in and very cool.

Jamie:

But the main character, the lady, she's she's hot too.

Pete:

So that's She's really She's from, like, Australia or something. I'm gonna say it. Yeah. She's smoking. Yeah.

Pete:

She's seems awesome. Yeah. Well They try to they try to blend her down. They do. That hard to do.

Pete:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Really It's

Mary:

not like the nurse. They wanna blend her down.

Pete:

You know? Because she's like this FBI kinda, you know So

Jamie:

you don't want this to really

Mary:

Come on. CSI, they waltz around with other crime scene investigators with their boobs hanging out.

Pete:

Yeah. And let me tell you like that. Not a problem with that. I don't have a problem with that.

Mary:

That's why half the guys in America watch Friends when it first came out because it was 3 chicks that walked around wearing tight shirts.

Pete:

Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. That's the formula for that.

Mary:

So what's

Mary:

the problem?

Jamie:

Yeah. Exactly.

Mary:

Now what channel is this on?

Pete:

Is it on the side of the show? Fox show. That's Fox show.

Jamie:

Bones is back on. That starts tonight.

Pete:

You know, were you into the bones?

Mary:

Did you dig the bones?

Mary:

Bones has a really strong following. I mean, I don't watch it that their people are really

Pete:

into it. Dorianas. People dig that guy.

Jamie:

Yeah. The the bones is really good. The the mysteries are pretty cool. The science is is cool. It's one of the reasons why we watch it.

Pete:

It's kind of interesting to see how they do it.

Mary:

But don't they weave humor into it? Is that right? So it's kind of funny.

Jamie:

A lot of sarcasm and humor

Pete:

that's involved

Jamie:

in it.

Pete:

Have you guys done, psych?

Mary:

No. No. Done psych?

Pete:

Have you done the show? Have you watched psych? Done psych? I'm speaking colloquially. Oh, I get it.

Pete:

No. It's a it's a okay. Remember West Wing?

Mary:

Yes.

Pete:

So the assistant, president's, assistant, Gina? No. His, the, delay hill.

Mary:

Oh, yes. Right. Okay. Who dated his daughter for a while.

Pete:

Yes. He did. He was fantastic. So he is now on the show psych with, another guy, James Roday. It's one of their 4th season.

Pete:

They've been on for a long time, but they're on, like TNT or some ran one of the random networks.

Mary:

K.

Pete:

And it's all about, the other guy plays a a he's very observant. Apparently, that's his character thing, but everybody thinks he's a psychic, and so he just went with it. So now they started a psychic detective agency. He's not really psychic, but it it is a very funny show, and they are partners. And, that's that's one that's worth catching.

Pete:

It's it's lightweight. You know? I like that.

Jamie:

Was lie

Pete:

to me renewed? Do you guys know? I don't know. To me. I don't know.

Jamie:

Have you ever seen that show? Uh-uh. Well, that is a great show.

Mary:

No. I haven't.

Jamie:

You know the show? Yeah.

Pete:

Well, I have it's the, the psychiatrist one. Right?

Jamie:

Well, he he yeah. But he's his studies people's facial features and their gestures to know if they're alive.

Mary:

Interesting. Yeah.

Jamie:

And then so he solves crimes and and things based upon interviewing people and making a video tape. Exactly. Did you flinch? Did you did you scratch your head when you were talking about something? Did you slump your shoulders?

Jamie:

How did you do it? And I've read the the the vast majority of what they do is based upon science that they have some experts who are there consulting with them, and it's very true. So it's really interesting.

Mary:

Oh, that'd be cool.

Jamie:

So then my family then were taking that, and we'll talk we're trying to fool the other person. They say, wait a second. You, you know, you scratch your nose when you said that. You're lying.

Pete:

It's that whole NLP thing. Are you lying because you looked up and left? Exactly. Yeah.

Jamie:

So it's very cool. Yeah.

Mary:

That's right.

Pete:

That's good. Show, but bonus

Mary:

Well, it looks like it must be because I just Googled it, and there it is. That mean, there's Fox season premiere Monday, September 28th.

Jamie:

Coming up. I'm so excited.

Pete:

So That's coming back. Oh, I just went through my my TiVo thing. Got all my things set up. What else?

Jamie:

That's what we did the other day too.

Pete:

Yeah. You gotta get it all set up. What do you mean? Well, you gotta set up the schedule when you want your series to record.

Mary:

Well, I know. But if it's from the last season, isn't it just gonna start recording?

Pete:

I deleted all that. I clean it all. I guess there's shows I don't watch. Yeah.

Jamie:

Or what if they change their nights or different things like that? So we reset it all up. And then we figured out we have a problem on Thursday night.

Mary:

I don't know. I thought

Mary:

with TiVo when you just, like, select the show.

Pete:

Well, I don't actually have TiVo. I say TiVo, but I don't have a TiVo. Oh. I don't know.

Jamie:

You might be right. Yeah. Like Pete, though. We we kinda get rid of it. Oh, do

Pete:

you sound alright? From scratch. Yeah. The, did you catch Defying Gravity? Did you ever look into that one?

Pete:

The space chicks in space, Grey's Anatomy in space?

Mary:

Oh, but you told me about that on that one.

Pete:

I've no idea what they were on.

Jamie:

Think In, like, short tops and

Mary:

stuff.

Pete:

Yeah. Yes. With no gravity. Except for there is mysteriously gravity. It's they're not very good at playing with gravity.

Pete:

Occasionally, they'll talk about how they have all this science about gravity. In the next scene, you'll see, somebody throwing tossing a baseball up in the air,

Mary:

and it

Pete:

has no trouble coming right back down to his hand. So, anyway

Jamie:

Yeah. I would pick that apart too.

Pete:

That one is a 8, they've done, I think, 8 episodes. That's on a break now because it was a early season launch, and, it's been replaced by some of the When

Mary:

is lost? House. When is lost coming?

Pete:

When is lost coming? Probably not till, like, January. I could

Jamie:

never get it. The Lost.

Pete:

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Yeah. Just I I'm gonna get it. I have to watch the season, but do it.

Mary:

Do it

Mary:

Netflix it. Dexter,

Mary:

you guys.

Jamie:

I started watching it. I did. I watched that for a season. It was good. I need to,

Mary:

We like Dexter.

Jamie:

I need to get line and get the rest of him.

Pete:

I just finished season 3.

Jamie:

I just finished True Blood from HBO.

Pete:

That was okay.

Mary:

What did

Pete:

you think of True Blood? It was alright.

Mary:

You know

Pete:

the problem with Suki? Suki? Suki? Suki can't act her way out of a wet paper bag. She's like, she is just terrible.

Jamie:

She doesn't need to act.

Pete:

Oh, well, you know, there's that. But she's just yeah. She's just terrible.

Jamie:

I didn't really like the plot line in this season 2. It wasn't as good as

Mary:

the movie.

Pete:

Well, I haven't seen season 2. We just since we do it after the fact. Yeah. It wasn't as good, I didn't think. So that just ended Sunday night.

Pete:

So I started calling, my wife Sookie. Oh. I had to call her. She doesn't I don't know that she doesn't get the rep. She didn't watch True Blood.

Mary:

Yeah. Okay.

Pete:

She's she's Sookie.

Mary:

Well, we were talking the other night because when you look at the ads, you know, like when HBO is just doing their ads, it it doesn't look like it would be good because of just how the ads are.

Jamie:

Oh, really?

Mary:

But I

Mary:

think it's because you're not you don't understand this you know, you don't know what's going on in those ads. You don't understand the relationships or whatever the storyline is. And so when you just look at it, you know, it's kind

Jamie:

of It's good. It's kind of an edgy vampire. Vampires are in

Mary:

town. Right?

Jamie:

Sex and blood. No. There's a whole Exactly. Vampire Diaries? Yeah.

Jamie:

I watched the first thing. I was like yeah. It was very lame. It was like 90210 was gonna

Pete:

get canceled. Yeah. I mean Well,

Mary:

I don't I I know you're probably on the edge of your seat from Melrose Place.

Jamie:

Oh, no. No. No. You know, it's funny because all the I Melrose Place, of course, what's the other one?

Mary:

The m o two one o is back.

Jamie:

There was a the movie fame is now coming out and and we're betting our

Mary:

house fame.

Jamie:

Yeah. But how long till now there's a fame TV show? I I'm sure. Right? That's not the fact.

Mary:

TV show, but

Mary:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. I did too. But, I mean, it's like everything that was old is

Mary:

Yes. I know.

Mary:

It's all being recycled.

Pete:

Of of creativity. Nobody can come up with anything original anymore.

Mary:

It's all gonna be recycled. Fashion.

Jamie:

That's why you should listen to this show more because it is very creative.

Pete:

Yeah. It is very original. We have no idea what we're gonna talk about.

Mary:

We never prep. We just show up. Start drinking and talking. Uh-huh. I did look up lots like it does not start till it says begins early 2010.

Jamie:

Alright. Alright.

Pete:

So I

Mary:

had a feeling maybe, like, January. You know, we'll be have January to May and it's

Pete:

February. Yeah. Yeah. Glee. Do you watch Glee?

Pete:

No. No. No. I I'm gonna I'm gonna admit it. That's my guilty pleasure.

Pete:

I'm gonna say that out

Mary:

of the shit. So bit queer.

Pete:

Yeah. No. No. It's queer. It's all queer.

Pete:

The second episode, the, Glee coach actually starts a male acapella group, which, you know, I gotta tell you.

Mary:

Part of.

Pete:

It's it's

Mary:

get your little group in here and let's get you

Pete:

It's not it's no. There's you know what the thing

Jamie:

is? No.

Mary:

There's nothing

Pete:

cool about that. Dignity. No. It's there's a lot of dignity, when no one's with you. And it's like this.

Jamie:

And you're all

Pete:

And you're all together. Then you think because there's Nobody knows. You know who's, you know who's cooler? Nobody. Yeah.

Pete:

When you're together and you got your whole group think and you realize, oh my god. We are so stupid. This is so gay. Oh my god. Oh, that's funny.

Pete:

Yeah.

Mary:

Very funny.

Pete:

So that's definitely a guilty pleasure. For some of us. For some of us.

Jamie:

Brothers, not even.

Pete:

Let's see what else.

Jamie:

Yeah. No guilt, no pleasure. Yeah. What's going on the news? What what's new this week?

Pete:

I'm totally okay. So I walk in to set up. I'm totally I've been burning both ends. I got just too many projects, and I'm way behind on news. And the first thing Mary says is, oh, I got stuff, but I can't tell you because I wanna I wanna tell you I wanna get your natural reaction.

Mary:

Well, Mary, you few health care examples.

Pete:

Well, I'm ready. I'm ready

Jamie:

for my health care is

Pete:

still still the

Mary:

the hot topic.

Jamie:

The big debate, isn't it, right

Mary:

now? Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. So I I have a couple things, but you wanna start with health care?

Mary:

Sure. If you want to. What do

Pete:

you wanna talk about?

Mary:

Well, I was just, gonna talk about, you know, when we the whole preexisting condition thing.

Jamie:

Yes.

Mary:

And so just a couple things where I think this is quite interesting, that, are coming out around people with preexisting conditions. So

Mary:

in some

Pete:

out that's fraudulent now?

Mary:

In some cases, in in 7 states plus the district of of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a preexisting condition. Oh my god. So what they say is, you're in a marriage with someone who's beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again, and so therefore, you're too expensive to ensure. We don't or we will, but if you have any injuries due to being beaten, we don't cover those.

Pete:

Yeah.

Mary:

Then you've got,

Pete:

Wait a minute. What? Yes.

Jamie:

Yes. If your spouse beats you.

Mary:

And you need to go to the hospital for

Pete:

treatment. It's your fault?

Mary:

Yes. Well, so It's because you're not with a serious person. Who will be

Pete:

anything to say about

Jamie:

You're managing risks. So I'm not defending the practice. No one's saying I don't think this is cool, but the business is saying how risky are you to to, use services that go beyond your premiums? And if you fall into that category, your the risk is high. So they say we're not going to insure you.

Jamie:

It's shitty, but you understand where it gets run.

Mary:

And this shows you where one of the things I think with the whole health care reform has been, the different things how they they do discriminate based on different groups of people. And, obviously, women are getting hit in a few categories. So that's 1. The second one has to do with, maternity issues. And, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, only 14 states have a requirement to actually cover that.

Mary:

So,

Pete:

to cover

Mary:

some states won't cover pregnancy because what they'll say is having a child is a matter of choice.

Pete:

Mhmm. Right.

Mary:

And therefore, they won't you know, they'll cover you for this, but if you get pregnant, they won't they won't cover that. And and they go on here to talk about how even, Bobby Jindal spoke of that truth when he did one of his, maybe it was when he did that horrible rebuttal to him.

Pete:

Yeah. Which is very funny.

Mary:

Yeah. But where he says there when he was talking about his parents, when they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 4 and a half months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a preexisting condition.

Pete:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mary:

So, so talking there. Well, now here's an interesting thing. So it they go on to talk when a woman isn't currently pregnant, she often still can't get coverage. Now many insurers consider a cesarean, a c section, a preexisting condition. So if you had one prior

Jamie:

You're more than likely They

Mary:

well, and they won't cover it if you need another one. And this is this is coming. There was a Colorado woman, who had Golden Rule Insurance out of, well, obviously, out of Colorado. And she was turned down because she had birth by by c section. And it looks like at least the what it's alluding to here, it looks like that she had the baby by c section, and then they came back around to say we won't Yeah.

Pete:

We're not happy for that. Insane. That is insane.

Jamie:

Well, it does it does show to me that if we aren't going to go to a single pair, and I don't think we are. I just I mean,

Pete:

I think that discussion is dead.

Mary:

They killed that.

Jamie:

Clearly, as part of the process, there needs to be some standards that are set that go across all states. Because what's happening is you have these insurance companies that are cherry picking states or they're the only game in town and they set these standards. And and they're not fair and and they're not certainly, you know, helpful for the average folks. And so you've gotta set some kind of standard as processed in the whole thing. So here's the minimum standard wakes up, or the levels, or whatever you do.

Pete:

I don't I don't think you have a choice. Well, it sounds like that's the you know, I as you look at these state by state rules, those it appears that it's the state by state lack of consistency that's maybe even a bigger problem.

Jamie:

Hey. I would agree with that. I think the 2 major problems are lack and I've argued this before. Lack of competition. There are a lot of states that only have 1 or 2 people that are there.

Jamie:

Right? So there's no competition and then there are no standards and there's no way for you as the consumer to shop eloquently among them and and pick, okay, if if the standards are all the same, who has the best price or and maybe it's service for you, it's maybe any number of things. That's why, and I'll go back and harp on this again, the only plan that's come out that really solves that problem is is the Ron Wyden plan.

Mary:

Well

Jamie:

And and he's finally getting some press.

Pete:

You said that Well, yeah.

Jamie:

Just last week. Outfit. I mean, he met with Obama on Wednesday. I mean, that he's really starting to get it's starting to pick up speed because it's the only one that really sets standards, sets up exchanges

Mary:

Mhmm.

Jamie:

In all the states and then gives you the money, so you can personally make the decision that you wanna make and if you're so many x the poverty level provides you with money and so you can, you know, select your own insurance for your family and then it penalizes you of course if if if you don't select insurance. I mean, he's the only one that really, in my opinion, outside of a single parent system, it's the only plan that really has

Pete:

solved the problem,

Jamie:

that has been endorsed by the CBO and and is cost neutral. Saves money, actually, over a couple years.

Mary:

When you have I mean, the obviously, the finance committee plan or just came out with their plan, and they have fines if you don't

Jamie:

That'll be pretty tough.

Mary:

Have insurance.

Jamie:

Yeah. That's a mess.

Mary:

And yet, there's things in there about, leaving your employer. I mean, it's anyway

Jamie:

convoluted mess.

Mary:

Highly rip off.

Jamie:

The plan that Baucus came out of

Pete:

the water.

Mary:

It's it's

Pete:

it's disgusting. It'll never pass. I mean, he got he got shellacked from the

Jamie:

right and the left. And I mean, it's a it's a pile of

Mary:

shit.

Mary:

And this is what they and how long have they been working on this?

Jamie:

Like, a year? Or, I

Mary:

mean Well, probably not a year.

Jamie:

Like, this

Pete:

is this is your big brain your big brain dress comes up. I'm a big the wife's and wife's was like 2 pages. Yeah. Like, you look Well It's like a sketch on a nail.

Jamie:

His is bigger than that.

Mary:

His summary

Jamie:

his summary that's on his website is only a couple of pages that lays it out.

Mary:

We gotta keep it simple.

Jamie:

But again yeah. But again, the CBO has looked at his and says after 2 years, it'll start saving money.

Pete:

Mhmm.

Jamie:

It'll cover the vast majority of Americans. It'll keep prices down. I mean, it's it's the problem is is it does this. It forces health insurance companies to compete Mhmm. Which I don't think they really wanna do.

Mary:

No. I think

Pete:

that's one of the reasons why no.

Jamie:

It's one of the reasons why

Pete:

There's somebody should tell Obama.

Jamie:

I think it's struggled a lot.

Pete:

Know that. Yeah. Did you know that these guys don't wanna come in?

Mary:

Well, here's what's interesting that Tayibi talks about in here that I didn't really know.

Mary:

I hope

Jamie:

you choke on your hummus.

Pete:

Yeah. I almost did, dude. That was awesome,

Mary:

That's what Jamie called it last week for

Jamie:

Uh-huh. Hard listening. I don't

Pete:

know anything about that.

Mary:

But one of the things that Matt Taby was talking about in this article Oh, man. Yeah. What is this? I highly recommend this article. What What is this?

Mary:

Well, it's it's a very long article. I mean, he's an invest you know, I guess, what's left of investigative journalists. And, so he I think it it just came out in, in the recent issue. And, basically, it just says how it's the title. How Washington's screwing up health reform and how it may take a revolt to fix it, from the people.

Mary:

And and so he goes in here and explains how before they even went in on August recess, there were 4 complete bills done. 1 in the senate out of the help committee.

Pete:

Where it should be?

Mary:

Right? And then 3 out of the house. They were the only ones messing around, jacking around, not getting their work done. And so it's like, well, we know we didn't even hear about how half of these were done. I mean, we heard about h two thirty two hun h r 32100, but we didn't hear about some of these others.

Mary:

Mhmm.

Mary:

And, it it's just it's very interesting. It's, it he talks about Wyden, the free choice act.

Mary:

He he

Mary:

brings that up. It's just really it's very well done. I mean, he's, it it it's gonna it's gonna piss you off.

Pete:

Let's let's talk about that. What what is gonna piss me off? I'm excited about being pissed off. And I wanna know more about this revolt thing. What am I gonna have to do?

Pete:

Do I pick up arms? Do I get to pick up arms?

Mary:

Well, I I I'm ready. Oh, I'm kidding. It's it basically just talks about how they, you know, the it's not just their incompetency that there's more going on here and that Isn't it they've all worked to kill this thing on on, you know, both sides of the of the house and that

Jamie:

Isn't part of it that special interest drives a lot of those guys?

Pete:

Oh, absolutely.

Mary:

I mean, they're bought and sold because

Jamie:

So when they're making these health plan reforms, they're trying to thread the eye of the needle with their language and everything so that they can

Mary:

Well, loophole after loophole too.

Jamie:

Kind of appease everybody rather than just kinda stepping back and saying what's the most pragmatic approach to this and saying that's what we're gonna do despite all the different specialists.

Mary:

Right. And kind of what he alludes to in his, which I which is, you know, it's it's all that shenanigans that they do to really appease their corporate sponsors. I mean, let's let's put, you know I mean, why don't they start work wearing t shirts? I mean, let's

Jamie:

do it. Exactly.

Mary:

You guys all become bikers, like those guys that

Pete:

bike. Exactly.

Mary:

And And

Mary:

I wanna

Mary:

see all the labels Hey.

Pete:

On you where you're gonna be like a car. Can you imagine? That idea has been out

Mary:

for years,

Jamie:

and I agree with it.

Mary:

I mean, that would be that's

Mary:

sponsored by

Jamie:

Yes. You're just gonna wear it all

Pete:

around. Right? And you

Mary:

have to reveal it. Yeah.

Pete:

It's

Mary:

Exactly. Well, so, you know, so yes. So I think because of that, but then they wanna make it look like to the American people that they're doing something for them. So they make all this convoluted

Jamie:

Yeah.

Mary:

Stuff. And then they walk around and say, see, government can't do anything right anyways. And then American people go, yeah, you can't, because look what you just gave us. And it just perpetuates us.

Jamie:

I agree with that.

Mary:

But here's something interesting. So, you know, you got the gang of 6 sitting on this finance committee. And for whatever reason, they must be the most powerful because everybody talks about how even though there's 5 other bills, theirs is the most important, I guess, because they're 5.

Pete:

I don't know. So

Mary:

here you know, we were we just talked about this a little before. You got this group of 6. They represent, like, 6% of the population of the United States. And then

Pete:

they from ridiculously small states.

Mary:

Exactly. Montana, Iowa, Wyoming, you know, North Dakota. Montana. So here you have. So Max Bock is head of the committee from Montana, got received over $2,000,000 in donations from health care.

Mary:

Grassley, who's next is 2 point, is 2,000,000. Snow from Maine received 756,000. NZ from, where he Wyoming, 627,000. Those are the 3, you know, republicans. And then I'm not sure about, Kent Conrad or Bingham from New Mexico, what they got.

Mary:

But, you know, Baca's got 2,000,000. So what we're I mean, we got, you know, a group of 6 people in the back pocket, you know, of insurance companies and

Jamie:

Trying to author the bill.

Mary:

Trying to author the bill. I Yeah. It's

Jamie:

ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It is. I I I just can't, you know, maybe I'm a big believer of Wyden's plan, but you know me, competition's really important. And and so if you can build exchanges that require competition, give consumers the opportunity to pick their own insurance, and then they're gonna make and then subsidize those that can't afford it or or in the lower end, then people are gonna make their decisions and and the best companies and the best will win.

Jamie:

Right. And that seems to be a fair that's the American system. Why not do that and see what happens? You know, it can't be that complicated. Try it out.

Jamie:

Right.

Mary:

Well, I mean, you know, we were when, you know, Johnson was putting through Medicare, I mean, it was doomsday. It was over. It was gonna be the end. It was gonna bankrupt our country. It was gonna do all of these things.

Mary:

Yeah. And it and it didn't. But, here's something interesting he put he has in the article. He says there's currently more than 1300 private insurers in the country, and they force doctors to fill out different forms following different reimbursement procedures for each and every one.

Mary:

So

Mary:

they drown them

Pete:

Yep.

Mary:

In all of this paperwork, and then they turn around and jack up prices. And he says that nearly a third of all health care costs in America are associated with wasteful administration. He goes fully

Pete:

Wasteful administration both on the part, I I of the, of the insurer, right, which we know is 30%, you know, waste anyway or administrative overhead anyway. But now on the doctors too, because they're requiring so much additional

Mary:

Yes. Overhead. And they don't have skills in this.

Pete:

Right.

Mary:

So every doctor's office and I I was hearing a stat that to have a person who can come in, who knows how to maneuver the system and and understands all the different insurance companies and their rules, a doctor's office pays on average. It's about an $80,000 a year job that they have to pay just for somebody who knows how to do all the the filing. So he goes on to say here that fully 350,000,000 a

Mary:

year could be saved

Mary:

on paperwork alone at the 50,000,000,000 a year could be saved on paperwork alone if the US went to a single payer system. Because that's more than enough to pay for the whole thing. He goes he goes if any he goes if anyone has the balls to stand up and say so. Oh. Which, you know, in con nobody will say that.

Mary:

No. Because no matter who you are, you're some you're you're in the back pocket of health insurance. They hedge their bets. They give money to everybody. That's how it

Jamie:

works. I mean, fortunately, the scrapping of our health care system and any insurance companies for a single part repair system just, you know, isn't gonna fly. I mean, it's just Yeah.

Mary:

Man, that's Here we go. The same thing. I didn't even know he thinks it's a good idea.

Jamie:

It's like maybe I mean, we drive on the right side of the road. Maybe it is safer to drive on the left side of the road, but we're not gonna switch systems. It is what it is, you know. So the question is how do we make our current system as efficient as possible? But what that article points out is exactly like, and I posted this on our Facebook page, that book that I recommend that people read called the best health care anywhere.

Jamie:

Yes. That guy did that research,

Mary:

and

Jamie:

it's the VA medical system. And one of the reasons why is because they use electronic record keeping for everything. They've got a very efficient system. They don't have the overhead that you have with $80,000 person at the doctor's office. Right.

Jamie:

Yeah. They don't have that. And if a doctor go if somebody goes to the doctor in on the East Coast and then they happen to be on the West Coast 6 months later, they just pull it up on the computer. They don't have to order anything. I mean, it's just all seamless and all tied together.

Jamie:

So they can focus on just giving service.

Mary:

Yes.

Jamie:

I mean, they have so much data. I don't know if you know this, but one of the examples they were given in the book is they're pulling so much data out of that system that if all of a sudden hepatitis starts showing up somewhere in America in the VA, they can notice that and say, wait a second. Why are we seeing more of this chronic disease or something in this area? Let's go in and let's start figuring it out.

Mary:

Why do you have to

Jamie:

start managing this big pool of people and say, what's going on? And how do we address their needs?

Mary:

And isn't this more important considering, I mean, our overuse of antibiotic? I mean, the super bugs that are happening now because of, you know, are basically overprescribing drugs. And so, I mean, we have the chance to really be in a situation where some major awful stuff comes back to the United States that we haven't dealt with in a long time. And what are we gonna, you know

Pete:

And we're not gonna

Mary:

know about that. Rapid response. I mean, you'd have to. Mhmm. Widens the I've heard the medical, you know, electronic files would be a big one.

Jamie:

I think that should be part of health care reform. Even if you go to an exchange system where people start competing, start setting standards for how you exchange information

Mary:

Mhmm.

Jamie:

And investing money in, in electronic records so that you can get rid of the inefficiencies Right. In the system. Because if you're not gonna do a single single pair where everything's under the same umbrella, so you can kinda do that automatically, you have to set some playing field.

Mary:

Right. But Right.

Jamie:

We'll see. All I know is current plans basically that are out there look like crap.

Mary:

They did.

Pete:

Yeah. Getting anywhere. And I I'm not So what did I miss this week? I mean, is, the plan came out of Bachus' pockets. Yesterday.

Pete:

Yesterday.

Jamie:

Yeah. And it just got shellacked. Just left and right. Just everybody.

Mary:

All over the place.

Jamie:

Just ridiculous.

Mary:

Yeah. And there's there's, you know, of course, no public option at all.

Pete:

Oh. In it.

Mary:

Oh. Whereas the other 4 had public options in it.

Pete:

Alright. So what's the what's the what's the White House's response? Do we have one yet? No. Not yet.

Pete:

Obama's given a lot

Mary:

of talks.

Jamie:

Wyden and his guys met with, Obama yesterday, and there is talk on the hill that Obama might come out and support it. So that would be very interesting to me. Wyden's spot. Oh. Yeah.

Jamie:

See, Wyden's is not one of the 4. Wyden's has been on the front. He's been ahead of health care debate for quite some time. His is now out there for a few years now.

Pete:

Yeah.

Jamie:

And so it's Now maybe you're getting to somebody

Pete:

to listen to.

Jamie:

Yeah. I mean, it's got sponsors. It's got, like, 15 or 20 cosponsors of Democrats and Republicans. Could be though the people cosponsored for cover. Yeah.

Jamie:

You know? So they may not be real sponsors. It's like you can go on the campaign trail and say I supported it.

Mary:

Right. And then Feel good about it.

Jamie:

But you don't vote for it. You're not gonna

Pete:

vote for

Jamie:

it. So who really knows? Yeah. But it is Is it because Wyatt is kind of the nerd of It's exactly why. He comes from Oregon.

Jamie:

Right? And we're the we're the And

Pete:

we're the weirdos.

Jamie:

That's right. We're the weirdos. He talks with a bit of a lisp. He's not the Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

If you've met him before, he's he's a he's a great guy. He's as nice as can be, but he certainly doesn't strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. You know? And I think that's probably why he's not real high in any of the committees and and so I think it's

Mary:

Mhmm.

Jamie:

He's probably hasn't gotten attraction than it should. So that's where I'm I keep rooting for. We'll see.

Pete:

Well, alright. This is this is a real downer.

Mary:

Yep. Sorry. Hey.

Pete:

What do we have what do we have that's good news?

Jamie:

I have kudos to Mary.

Pete:

Really? Yeah.

Jamie:

Alright. When you don't Axel shocked. Your hummus in your mouth. What's up with that? I have kudos for Mary.

Jamie:

So last week, we were talking and Mary brought up the subject of some of the anger that's at the rallies and all this kind of stuff and and some of the signs. And her question was, is there, a undertone of racism going on? And we discussed it and said, well, we hope not. Maybe blah blah. And sure enough, on the front page of the news over the weekend was Jimmy Carter asking the same exact question, and it's really starting to come up as a debatable point.

Jamie:

And so kudos to you for being ahead of the curve.

Mary:

Oh, well I

Jamie:

was I was very observant

Pete:

by 3 days by a few days.

Mary:

Did you see some of the signs at that 9 12 rally? Oh, man. Oh, they were horrible. That one where that woman was like, we've got an African in the zoo. Yeah.

Mary:

We don't need a lion in the White House. Yeah. I I mean, Phil and I, I mean, literally, I I'm like, I mean, my mouth we're both not saying anything. We're just like and then we'd look at each other with our eyes huge. Like, you gotta be kidding me.

Mary:

And she's standing there proud as punch with that sign, and it's

Jamie:

like that. Ignorance. My god. Horrible. It's it

Pete:

I like the one where it was, you know, bring give me back my country, morans.

Jamie:

Oh, yeah.

Mary:

The guy who can't spell moron. Moron.

Pete:

Morans.

Jamie:

Alright. You can have it. Morans.

Mary:

Well, you know, in fairness to him, there's not spell check on cardboard.

Pete:

That's what he needs. Fairness. That's ex you're right, Mary. I need to give that guy fairness. Okay.

Mary:

No. I'm just I'm just

Pete:

he's Good. You know, Truly

Jamie:

the role would say, it's the government's job to provide him with a spell checker so he doesn't make that mistake.

Pete:

Yeah. So, you

Jamie:

know, if we were

Mary:

Spell checks on everything.

Jamie:

That's right. Everything. We should

Pete:

And as a spell checker,

Mary:

I'm always like, I wish the whiteboard had spell check.

Jamie:

Me too.

Mary:

You know, sometimes

Mary:

you're in front of the class and you're like

Jamie:

I just abbreviate it. Yeah.

Pete:

You just take out all the vowels that

Jamie:

are appearing

Mary:

out. Right.

Mary:

Alright. Scribble it really and say,

Pete:

oh, you can't read my script.

Jamie:

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So kudos to you for being ahead of the curve and and the discussion.

Mary:

And I and I haven't seen much on that, but I just heard he's getting just annihilated. What? Carter. Well By the right, I guess.

Pete:

Well, it wouldn't be

Jamie:

the first time for him before

Mary:

a guy.

Jamie:

Bill Cosby, who I have a lot of respect for, came out and asked the same question today. And and Bill's always been known for speaking his mind. And on both sides, Bill is the one who said that African American men need to quit bitching and start standing up and taking care of their families and good for him for saying that. And Obama said that. And Obama said that.

Jamie:

And and Bill Cosby's coming up and saying, you know, maybe there is a little bit of undertone of anger here. And and we need to we need to think about that, you know, as a society. So kudos to him for following him and Jimmy Carter for following

Pete:

are. They must be

Jamie:

I'm expecting the big fans

Pete:

of the show. Yeah. They are.

Mary:

Which is

Jamie:

where they've taken that edge

Pete:

of the island. They've been running

Mary:

with that. So got some

Pete:

ideas out

Jamie:

there. Exactly.

Mary:

I'm I really

Pete:

We're we're still climbing the leading edge of the bell curve.

Jamie:

Yeah. It's also the discussion I've seen come out too is not only is it the issue of, racism, but the issue of anger that's in America right now. And we talked about this last week as well and because it seems like a more angry time. And is it related to the, you know, having a a black man as president? Is it because the economy sucks and people are just feeling this stress in general?

Jamie:

I mean, what is it? But, but certainly, it does feel like there's a little more anger in the air and and on TV and that kind of stuff.

Mary:

And that just everything's more I mean, I don't know. Yeah. And maybe it's, you know, the news is still the same as it always is with all its stories, but because of what, you know, the underlying things going on in society, it feels like there's more bad things happening. More crime, more killing, more

Pete:

all this stuff.

Mary:

But no, it's probably isn't. It's just you yeah. You're probably more You're attuned to

Mary:

it more. Or we yeah.

Jamie:

Or we report on it more.

Pete:

I don't know.

Jamie:

Even the front of Time Magazine is, what's his name? What is his name? I'm looking at this picture here.

Mary:

The executive Glenn Beck.

Jamie:

Right? Yeah. Oh, no.

Pete:

He's Glenn Beck. Oh my god. Well, and and I can't the guy He's constantly there.

Mary:

Every 5 minutes.

Jamie:

He he was a, you know, he's he's a passionate guy and

Mary:

and He's an actor.

Pete:

He is an actor.

Jamie:

But the question is Time Magazine is is Glenn Beck bad for America?

Pete:

Yes.

Jamie:

And it's, you know, driving this this really wedge down either with me or against me and there's very little ground and I'll bleed, you know, I'll cry on my on on my shirt for every little tiny thing that's American, and and I'll be angry and I'll pissed off if I disagree with you. You know, is that is that the sign of the times or

Mary:

I don't know. I don't know. But there was an interesting thing with him where his rally, which I thought, you know, that was his whole thing, the 912

Pete:

912 thing.

Mary:

912 project. And he wasn't even there.

Pete:

7 years or in 2,001. Right? He said he he or 2,003, I think he was on the radio show saying how much he hated the families of the 911 survivors because they just wouldn't quit their bitching. And now he's doing 9 12. The guy is a snake oil salesman.

Pete:

He

Mary:

said Yeah.

Mary:

That's all he needed. At his own rally.

Jamie:

Well, and the question is

Pete:

Because he doesn't care.

Mary:

Is he

Jamie:

feeding off of anger and just kind of drive

Mary:

And it's racking up his ratings. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete:

Did you see this?

Jamie:

Because it's harder to be positive, I think, and raise people up than it is to be angry and divide them. Yeah.

Pete:

I mean, I think it's easy to do that. Oh, it's easy to divide them.

Jamie:

And and the whole kind of rising above that and trying to raise and I go back to Ronald Reagan. One of these Ronald Reagan, they're pretty good. He was he was the optimist, so he tended to talk that way. But I think that's harder to do. It's easy to be angry and frustrated.

Jamie:

So

Mary:

Yeah. Very true. What what I thought was was fascinating was, you know, who had the rally, and I think he was on Fox News, and they were talking about how successful the rally was. And somebody from Fox said, yeah. It looks like there's estimates of, you know, 60 this was from the fire department and the police departments.

Mary:

Right? 60,000. He goes, oh, no. No. No.

Mary:

We had one 200,000. He goes, this university he goes, I don't know which one it was, but this university did a a study. You know, where they look at, they look at photographs and they measure body space. You know, and it's like, you can't even name if this is true. You're like, some university don't know who it is.

Jamie:

Right.

Mary:

Yeah. And so then some other people went back and went back to the fire department and said, you know, report us. It's the 1,200,000, and the fire department's like, no. We stand by our estimates of of 60 you know, in the 60,000. It was just like you anyway.

Pete:

It's, his I I don't know if this is his website. Glenn Beck

Mary:

whatever he wants to say whether it's true or not. He doesn't know.

Pete:

What I this is what I love. Glenn Beck the Glenn Beck program, the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

Mary:

Well, at least he's at least he's

Pete:

The fusion of something, I'll

Mary:

tell you. He's admitting that it's partly entertainment.

Mary:

Yeah.

Pete:

Problem is his audience does at

Mary:

least being somewhat legitimate. True.

Jamie:

It is true. People take a lot of that as the gospel. Right. And and then you come up with signs like that at those rallies. Right.

Mary:

Right? And then the signs that were obviously printed by somebody, by some company. Sure.

Jamie:

Sure. Or it could have been

Mary:

the What

Mary:

was that one? Barry Obamacare with Kennedy? Oh, really? There was one. There were those.

Mary:

Oh, please. Those were fancy printed ones. Because somebody individual though.

Jamie:

I don't like to throw companies on

Pete:

it. Somebody went to Kinko's.

Mary:

Somebody professionally made the signs, Jamie.

Pete:

But I

Mary:

can't do that.

Mary:

Way that I sat at home.

Pete:

Yeah. I can't do that. Nobody's gonna censor me at Kinko's. They could I could bring that up.

Mary:

I

Mary:

could even print our ads.

Jamie:

Somebody could've gone off and done a bunch of Exactly. So, you know, don't throw one to the bus. Remember, I already

Mary:

called you out

Jamie:

on that one on the insurance companies. 3.3% profit

Mary:

there. No profit profit margin. Okay. But what's the amount of money they're

Jamie:

making? Oh, that that's that's not my point. There and the where they got that from was the S and P 500. So I I I'm guessing they're because they're the top 500 companies, they're making 1,000,000,000 of dollars just like other companies.

Mary:

Okay.

Jamie:

Right? So their profit margin is less than say, like, GE for example, that you buy light bulbs from. So

Mary:

Yeah. But GE has got, like, 30 subsidiaries and a whole bunch of stuff.

Jamie:

So My point is I you can't necessarily throw health all health insurance companies under the bus. That that was my

Mary:

point.

Mary:

And what my point was is, you know, I'm not talking about how much money they make. I'm talking about the what they do. This this crap that we talked about, this preexisting stuff, denying people. You know, here's, you know, I put out on my Facebook page the other day about a colleague that I know

Jamie:

I saw that.

Mary:

Whose wife with dementia. Okay. He's paying $8,000 a month in health care. He had to liquidate his 401 k.

Mary:

That's

Mary:

right. So there goes his retire I'm this is what I mean, like, this stuff is all connected. Everything is, and it can't be looked at in isolation.

Jamie:

Yeah. No. And I agree with that. And I tend to argue that that the challenge is a systemic one in terms of we don't have a system of competition, which then allows those health companies to act like that. Because But isn't there but isn't there?

Jamie:

To check them.

Mary:

Is it a check now? What's the definition of a, you know, the main purpose of a business? Which is to make money for its stockholders or its stakeholders.

Pete:

Yeah.

Mary:

So that's that's been peep you know, my whole point the whole time, which was health care should not be something that's for profit, because it it it's something that people have to have. I don't have to have Nike shoes. I don't have to buy Johnson and Johnson products to survive. I you know, these kinds of things. But

Pete:

but health care

Mary:

is at the core of of quality of life here.

Pete:

I I don't think I I don't think that's enough. Because, when you say things like, I don't have to buy Johnson and Johnson products. You know what? You'd anytime you eat a soy product, you're eating Monsanto.

Mary:

Whether you

Mary:

want to

Pete:

or not, you have to. Now that's the next I mean, what's after health care? Alright? We've already had this financial meltdown. Right?

Pete:

The dirty money is not off the books. No. At what point do I am I liquidating my 401 k because some, bastard on Wall Street lost my, lost all my investments or or because of what? That affects my quality of life. My food affects my quality of life when all I can get are the unhealthy mass marketed, mass produced products from cows that are standing in their own fecal matter.

Pete:

I mean, at some point, all of this comes home to roost. And right now, it's health care that's coming

Mary:

home to roost. Food is

Pete:

so health care. Is food. What's after that?

Jamie:

And that is the worry of the far right, which is if you allow take over of health care, what's the next

Pete:

That's right. That should be the worry. And and it should be a discussion though not of just governments taking over everything, but how the hell did we get this way? Right? How did we get to the point where we have to have a babysitter?

Pete:

Because our businesses are too out of control. We cannot

Mary:

trust them. I mean, I think that's a a big piece.

Jamie:

I would actually

Pete:

argue that the regulation is lunatic. I'm not.

Mary:

I don't think

Mary:

so. Doesn't need to take over the food industry. They just need to have

Pete:

They need a baby.

Mary:

Regulation rules in place that they all have to adhere to, and when they don't adhere to them, they get fined. I I Well,

Jamie:

and and we do, But I mean, there might not be enough. And part of the challenge is Oh,

Mary:

we have a hack in the FDA anyways.

Jamie:

I think that I think that we could go back and say one of the things that's allowed companies to grow pretty big is technology. It's allowed them to quickly move money around. It allows them to quickly buy companies, quickly assimilate them. Technology lowers your barrier of entry. You can take a product and, rebrand it really quickly and put it under your name.

Jamie:

And so I think technology has made these big conglomerates a lot more manageable than they've ever been before and and we haven't caught up with how to manage technology. It it's it's ahead of us, at this point and we're playing catch up. The financial situation, they were figuring out new products faster than we could regulate them. Mhmm. And so it kinda, you know, and then, of course, different things happen with paying people off in politics.

Jamie:

But they were

Mary:

advancing the technology. And real estate industry. There'd been a lot of deregulation on them them the last 8 years which started to help some of this.

Jamie:

Technology, a lot a lot of things to happen that couldn't happen before. And so they're they're way ahead of the government, and and then you get in this hole. And so we haven't yet figured out how to manage the technology in our, you know, in our society.

Mary:

Right. Well, here's the bottom line. Here I mean, here's you know, when you when you're dealing with money, okay, and, you know, if you if you if you go with some Buddhist principles, which is that we cling to the things that we I that we deem as our self identity. And we get very concerned of losing that because it's not about necessarily losing the money, but if our self identity is tied up in the money, then then we we cling to things and we get even more. And this is where people who have a lot of money still want more and more of it because it's it's it's part of who they are.

Mary:

It's tied to their self worth, their self esteem, and their self identity. And so if you give that and you think about, then the bottom line is people some people are always gonna be figuring out how to shirk the system and screw people to make more money. I I mean, that that that is the negative side of capitalism. On the other side, there's lots of positive. But that's the negative side of it.

Mary:

There will always be of people trying to figure out how to get around the rules and how to screw people. And so if you end up if you don't have any regulation, if you end up shoving the government, you know, in a corner, or if you're like, oh gosh. Who was that said this? You know, you want to, you wanna strangle the government till it's small enough that you can drown it in the bathtub. Who said that?

Pete:

I don't know.

Mary:

The conservative.

Pete:

Grover Norwood. Thomas Jefferson.

Mary:

No. Grover

Pete:

Benjamin Franklin. Franklin. Says everything. That dude said everything.

Jamie:

Is he?

Mary:

Now we know Ben Franklin never said such a thing. Anyway, but so if you go do you see what I mean? And so that

Jamie:

all about balance.

Mary:

It's all about balance. Yeah. And you gotta have some regulate I mean, I worked in the financial industry for 10 years. I that that's what you're motivated by. That's what you're in the business for.

Pete:

Yes. When your product is money. Yes. Yeah. There

Mary:

every So you're always trying to come up with new creative investments that that get you more money. That's what the derivative scandal was of the 19 nineties when you had, you know, these crazy derivatives that people were buying, and they didn't even know what they were worth. And one day, they had an investment that was supposed to be worth a 1,000,000,000, and the next day, it was 0. I mean

Jamie:

It is all about balance. And doing that without choking out the things that make capitalism great.

Pete:

And and Exactly.

Mary:

And it can be done. I I wanna be I don't believe it can't be done.

Mary:

I think

Jamie:

it can be done, but it's always gonna it's always gonna fluctuate between too much regulation and not enough regulation. I I mean, it's just the natural way of things. That we'll put in a bunch of regulation and people come along and say it's too much and send it, we'll deregulate, then something will happen and we'll reregulate again. I think that's just the way the way it's going to be.

Pete:

But it goes back to your issue of of technology is that the regulation cycles are now so far off the technological cycles that

Mary:

Yeah. That we don't struggle. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah. And and the the challenge of capitalism is capitalism is based upon greed.

Mary:

Exactly.

Jamie:

And so then and and that's okay. I mean, right? That's I mean, that's by its definition. But then there is healthy greed and then there's unchecked unhealthy greed and he's trying to find the balance

Mary:

between the two.

Pete:

Thing though that's different this time around though, and I don't know, check me on this because it's really been this is the piece that weighs on me more than anything. It's that that the the ferocity of the conservative arguments against regulation are they're so, they're so loud that they've lost sense.

Jamie:

Well, I would I I wouldn't say it's conservative because I don't I don't I consider myself

Pete:

a conservative The far right.

Mary:

Or say neocon.

Pete:

I mean, that's what I'm saying.

Jamie:

And and I agree. And I think that technology has allowed the fringe groups to amplify their message with with a megaphone like never before, where before maybe they were kind of ostracized a little bit. And and do they deserve a place at the table? Sure. They do.

Jamie:

Everybody does. But but they're able to resonate pretty loudly, you know, throughout and and make points to the uneducated that may not be, you know, very valid points and it drives these big wedges.

Pete:

Did you see did you see the YouTube video of Franken at the state fair in Minnesota? No. Did you see that? No. He was accosted by the lunatic fringe.

Mary:

And Is this out on YouTube?

Pete:

It's on YouTube, but it's it's fantastic because, you know, he takes about 10 minutes, and he talks them down. He really does. Discussing it with them. By discussing it and being not he he was not louder than they were. Right.

Pete:

He was persistent and more persistent than they were. And, eventually, they got tired of saying the same thing over and over again, and he ended up just getting the

Jamie:

airspace

Mary:

to talk.

Mary:

Yeah. Well, that's there was, sorry. But did you have to Claire McCaskill did that really well in her Missouri one. I don't know if you saw that where they were all and so she just went through a series of asking questions.

Pete:

Yeah.

Mary:

And got them where in the end, they were like, no. Oh, yes.

Pete:

Well, and you know what? But I'm not sure what I'm for. But, frankly, that was it. Totally. Yeah.

Pete:

Yeah. No way. Oh, yeah. No. No.

Pete:

No. But you know what? What Franklin did so so well is he latches on to the one little bit of of truth that they may be having, and he goes crazy for that. He says, you are absolutely right about that. Right.

Pete:

And you are a better person because you're right about that. And then Then he goes and educates them in there. At the end, they ended up being, you know, very civil, civil

Jamie:

old brothers. In 30 second sound bites, we don't do that. We don't

Mary:

do that.

Pete:

We can't do that in 15 minutes.

Jamie:

It's it's really challenging, and it's it goes back and this even goes back to,

Pete:

So, yay, YouTube, actually.

Jamie:

What's his name that was just censored

Pete:

by the by the senate

Mary:

of the house? Joe Wilson.

Jamie:

Joe Wilson. This whole thing about civility, how can we have this discourse if we're sitting there yelling at each other that that you're a liar and we don't sit down and we don't just talk about it Yeah. To try to come to a reasonable point. And say, alright, we disagree here and we agree here and pull out the facts and let's have a have an intellectual debate about it. You know, we'll see where we we arrive.

Jamie:

But if you're just calling people liars and you're holding up signs and that kinda then you don't get anywhere. Right. And that's unfortunately what we want.

Mary:

Those people like. It's just like a football game, but there's sign on

Jamie:

the table.

Pete:

The table. You know, you'll lose your seat at the table if you talk like that. That's I you know.

Jamie:

Do you think Wilson should have been censored? Joe Wilson? Wilson? By his,

Pete:

By oh, yeah. By You know, I I

Jamie:

He's from the senate. Right?

Pete:

In the state?

Mary:

No. He's house.

Pete:

He's house.

Jamie:

So he's censored by the house.

Mary:

He's under the rules. Whereas, you know, because the senate, that was the house chamber they were in, so it's house rules.

Pete:

So I guess they

Jamie:

have rules about what you can say and not say, and, you know.

Mary:

You're never supposed to it's even in even on the floor when you're debating. You never supposed to do whatever they call. Well, you can do that. There were words

Pete:

that you're

Mary:

not supposed

Jamie:

to use. No.

Mary:

You're not supposed to do something where you accuse them where it gets personal, and you lie as a per however, whatever the term they use. Whereas you can sit and say, no. I have a problem with your point there that the and you're on the issues. But you can't sit and say, well, it's because you're a liar or or you're in the back pocket of an they can't say those kinds of things. It's okay.

Pete:

So based on that yeah. He should be sent.

Jamie:

He should be sent.

Pete:

Yeah. Yes. Or

Jamie:

a review to

Pete:

whatever it was. It was, you know, he's rude. It was

Mary:

It works all the same.

Mary:

If it was a Democrat that did it during the Bush administration and those were

Mary:

the rules, I would have said the same thing.

Pete:

Oh my god. Somebody would have thrown up a lung.

Jamie:

The interesting thing to me is he's raised more money than his opponent.

Mary:

Pretty close. I mean, I think they're aren't they?

Jamie:

Got they pretty close now?

Mary:

Well, I

Mary:

don't know. I mean,

Pete:

they've raised

Jamie:

last time I had looked, and this has been last week.

Mary:

Well, they've got bumper stickers now.

Pete:

Oh, yeah.

Jamie:

He had raised a ton of money.

Mary:

This is a guy that nobody even really knew. And,

Jamie:

but see he's getting a neo con saying you go Joe Wilson. Right? Or whatever his name. You go. You stand up for us.

Jamie:

Obama is a

Pete:

big liar. Obama, blah, blah.

Mary:

So And an interesting thing that I cannot we'd need to find this to see if it's true. But one night when I was listening driving home from teaching class, I was listening to this guy and he was talking about Joe Wilson. And, you know, Joe Wilson's whole thing was the immigration you know, lie about the immigration, which, you know, how many people I mean, on both sides have said it's not true. It was not you know, it's never been part of it. He was wrong.

Mary:

What this guy was saying that in 2003, in his state of South Carolina, he was on board with giving, immigrants insurance.

Jamie:

Mhmm. Oh, really?

Pete:

Yeah. At that time?

Mary:

At that time. And so so what the where this guy was going was this wasn't about that. It was about race. Because if it if the guy was truly that passionate about that, well then why in 2003 did he support such a resolution or whatever it was? And I think it was a low it was a South Carolina.

Jamie:

Well, we haven't solved the immigration issue because or the illegal alien issue. Because the health care, one of the challenges is, is supporting people who don't have insurance. And also supporting people who don't have insurance happens to be illegal. And so even by forcing people to get insurance, what do you do with

Mary:

people to come? Do illegals really even go to the hospital?

Jamie:

Well, evidently, they do. I mean, you have to we'd have to Emergency rooms. Yeah. We'd have to dig out some stats, but I I think that's They're

Pete:

working on the dirtiest jobs in our country. Yeah. And probably No.

Mary:

But I

Jamie:

mean They're gonna go

Pete:

be taken to the to the emergency room.

Jamie:

Probably the ones that So

Mary:

you aren't they mostly scared to ever go anywhere where there's anybody that would do that?

Jamie:

I don't know. I don't think so. We'd have to do some research. But then how do this whole healthcare debate, we don't seem to even really talk about that.

Mary:

Need it because if you didn't, I mean, that's the thing. Then they're then they're not going and they're walking around with some godforsaken, you know, contagious disease that's then getting everybody else sick

Jamie:

or, you

Mary:

know, or they're laying on the street corner with their I'm

Jamie:

not gonna stereotype them like that, and everybody runs across the border.

Mary:

I'm not

Jamie:

saying that. Godforsaken disease that they're gonna give.

Mary:

That's not what I was implying. I was implying which is why you you need to have an avenue for people

Jamie:

Yes. You do.

Mary:

To get care because it it hurts us if they don't.

Jamie:

If they don't. Yeah. No.

Pete:

I mean, it's like white

Jamie:

it's like white sugar, you get your swine flu, shot, Pete. Because if you catch it, statistically, you're going to infect 3 other people, dude, and we don't need that.

Pete:

No, man. Just get me started on swine flu. You know what? No. And you're not

Mary:

gonna turn it to a swine flu?

Pete:

Is it the it does not help you. The studies that are coming out now are saying that it helps you know what it helps? 0.81% of those who are vaccinated

Jamie:

with it are actually help. Find that data and post it on Facebook. Seriously.

Mary:

You're gonna

Pete:

you wanna throw down on Yeah. This that thing

Mary:

I already

Pete:

scares the bejesus out of me.

Jamie:

I know. You're shaking my tongue.

Pete:

Do it.

Jamie:

I already got my

Mary:

And you

Jamie:

know what the problem is? Flu shot.

Mary:

You already did?

Pete:

No. I did.

Jamie:

I'm looking good. I feel good. The I haven't you know?

Pete:

You're gonna look that good.

Jamie:

I kid. Not even gonna

Pete:

go there.

Jamie:

Here's the thing.

Pete:

The the the thing is this, that the the problem with the swine flu is that it attacks it it is far more virulent to healthy people because your your own immune system attacks it. And the the, the antivirus or the anti, the vaccine doesn't do anything about what's just called the cytos cytosine. So here's

Jamie:

what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna run on innuendo and Can

Mary:

you get it?

Jamie:

We are gonna find some real facts. We're gonna post them on the website. We're gonna talk about it because I am going to get it at this point when it

Mary:

comes out. Separate shot?

Jamie:

Yeah. It is a separate shot. It's only 1. You don't have to get 2 doses. Everybody in my family's gonna get it.

Jamie:

I mean, my wife's also terrible.

Mary:

Do you normally get 2 doses?

Jamie:

They were talking that it might have to be 2 doses.

Mary:

Oh, oh.

Jamie:

Which they were worried about then compliance wouldn't be very high.

Mary:

How do

Mary:

you get people in for the second

Pete:

one? Right?

Jamie:

Right. So now they're talking 1. But make it be known that I did get my regular flu shot.

Pete:

Need 2 flu shots? Wouldn't you wanna do say, you know what? You just have to get 2 flu shots. You know what that is? A sign that they don't know shit about what this thing does.

Jamie:

Not true, dude. They had to sit down and figure out

Pete:

what was the anti virus response. Make up stuff.

Jamie:

They're not making up stuff.

Pete:

Oh my god.

Jamie:

The liberal left.

Pete:

Liberal left. Not. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie:

The liberal left.

Mary:

I'm not part of this conversation.

Jamie:

Uneducated arguments is just weird.

Mary:

Oh. The nerve.

Pete:

We're I'm I'm on the website now. I haven't.

Mary:

Okay. You'll find it. You'll find it. So here's here's an interesting story. I what about the chick found in the wall?

Mary:

What? The chick found in the wall.

Pete:

On CSI?

Mary:

No. In real life. That gal up in that college campus.

Pete:

Talking about.

Mary:

You don't

Pete:

know that? You gotta fill us in on this. Was she alive?

Mary:

No. No. She was, what can well, it's Annie Leigh. Leigh or Leigh. Some say Leigh and then but her name is Ellie.

Mary:

So I would think that Leigh.

Jamie:

Found in the campus?

Mary:

She was yeah. She didn't she disappeared. She's about to be married. Oh, this is just all coming out.

Pete:

How long ago did she disappear? Oh,

Mary:

she I think she had wait. Let me find the original, September. No. That's when she was found. Like, she was found on the day she was supposed to get married.

Jamie:

Oh, so she didn't disappear that long.

Mary:

No. It would have been may like, maybe 4 days or something like that.

Jamie:

Oh, and they just arrested her fiance.

Mary:

Yeah. No. Not her fiance. A lab tech that also worked with her at the university. Now her fiance was Cleared.

Mary:

Yeah. Cleared or whatever. She was found oh, it was Yale. Wow. Yale University.

Mary:

And, she was found, stuffed in the wall. And what I don't know is how did they find her? Was it starting to smell?

Jamie:

I don't know. Man, that's there's some sick bastards out there.

Mary:

Anyway, 2626 years old or something like that.

Jamie:

Alright. How about this one though? Do you guys see the video with the white kid that was beat up on the bus by the black kids?

Mary:

No. I didn't know. See that?

Pete:

No. Oh, it would've come up with more stories that we know no detail on.

Mary:

Oh, man.

Pete:

God. It was, like, huge list. Say what else.

Jamie:

So, this white kid, on a school bus

Mary:

Yeah.

Jamie:

Trying to find a seat, And I actually saw the video, beat up, very very badly by, you know, a few black kids and and other people standing around, all African Americans, basically cheering them on. You know? And and and the question was, is that racism? Right? So if if it had been the other way around

Mary:

It's racism.

Jamie:

The cry would have been, you know, racism. If it would have been white kids being up black kid, if it's the other way around, is it racism? My opinion. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jamie:

There's no doubt.

Pete:

That's right.

Jamie:

It it's the same thing. But, there was a big debate for a few days about that. And then what do they do, and how do they handle it? And is it to be handled the same or not? Of course

Mary:

it is.

Jamie:

My opinion, it should be handled the same. It should be looked at

Mary:

as probably sense.

Pete:

You know?

Mary:

And where I'm just curious. Where was the bus driver?

Jamie:

I don't I don't remember the

Mary:

I'd have to Driving. He couldn't pull over. So

Jamie:

I'll I'll I'll post it. Yeah. Because it was pretty interesting.

Mary:

Wow. I mean, that would be because that'd be as a parent, that'd be one of just as a concern, you know, what was Yeah. Where was Supervision? Where's the bus driver? Yeah.

Mary:

I mean, you know, it can maybe start, but if it's getting

Pete:

Right. Yeah. The video was from the bus camera, you know, that they had taken it in. So Interesting. Wow.

Mary:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I'd I'd say it's the same thing, and it should be treated

Pete:

the same way. That isn't I would too. Okay. I just gotta go back to the swine flu.

Mary:

Okay.

Pete:

Oh, yeah. Alright. So get a load of this. The the vast majority of health care workers are not going to get the swine flu. Majority of health care workers refused the seasonal flu shot.

Pete:

The most common reason given for the refusal, and rightfully so, was potential side effects followed by questions about the vaccine's efficacy. Even among a focus group of, 85 people recently. Very few said they would get vaccinated in the event of the pandemic. That's Okay. Not the

Mary:

But but

Jamie:

hold on. Hold on.

Pete:

They say, here's this here's what doctor McCullough says. Frequent handwashing, staying away from sick people, and eating well to maintain immune system. These sent sentiments are right on as it's the health of your immune system, which is primarily controlled by your lifestyle habits that will keep you healthy during a flu outbreak. A vaccine is not the answer, and in fact, often causes many other more serious health problems. Vaccine safety advocates everywhere are beginning to make a serious dent according to a recent Fox News poll.

Pete:

The majority of people in the US now believe the swine flu vaccine is deadlier than the actual virus.

Jamie:

So wait a second. For first of all, I question you because you are listening to a Fox poll.

Pete:

I'm not. I'm not. I was doing that because I thought that that's talking to your base. I'm talking to your I

Jamie:

I don't know that we This is from Reuters. I don't know that we have time to go away and all.

Pete:

Emerging health threats journal.

Mary:

Let's get

Mary:

why don't who can we who can we have come join us? And let's talk

Jamie:

So No.

Mary:

I mean, really, vaccines in general because there is a whole kind of, debate around getting your kids with all those vaccinations.

Jamie:

Walk call Jim Carrey and his wife.

Mary:

Doctor Jennifer Ashton. Get your buddies down

Jamie:

in the room. Exactly.

Pete:

Okay. News Let's

Jamie:

find it.

Pete:

Doctor Jennifer Ashton and NVIC's, Barbara Fisher discussing the possible dangers of swine flu versus the more serious h one n one vaccine. I mean, just let's be right. The medical resources I want

Mary:

to have this conversation before I go get one.

Jamie:

Yeah. Let let's have real data.

Pete:

It's serious.

Jamie:

Just because health

Pete:

health care workers aren't going

Jamie:

to get it, it doesn't necessarily mean that they don't believe it. I'll tell you why. My wife's health care worker. And what she'll tell you is because she's exposed to so much stuff all the time, her immune system is on hyper overload all the time. Yeah.

Jamie:

And so what the feeling is is a lot of those health care workers is that they don't need it, and it's just a waste of time for them. And and it might potentially make them get a headache

Pete:

and feel ill for a couple of days. So to say that 80 5,000 healthcare workers aren't gonna get

Jamie:

it, you know, they probably won't. No. No. No. I because they only don't think they need to.

Jamie:

So I I can't run with that and say, your particular point was that the the swine flu virus or or shot didn't protect, only protected, like, 0.8% or something

Pete:

like that. More trouble

Jamie:

than it was. So so if we go back to those, you know, kind of data points instead of looking at the anecdotal who's gonna get it, who not. Let's try and find data on that to say is that true? Because if it's true and it only helps less than 1%, why would I get it?

Mary:

Right. I agree. Right?

Jamie:

But but I'm not I've never seen it. Hassle

Pete:

of having

Mary:

to get to a place. Exactly.

Jamie:

Yeah. So let let's start there and we'll

Pete:

put that in

Mary:

a way.

Pete:

I just can't find that that site.

Jamie:

It's okay. It's okay for you to make up facts.

Mary:

You the

Jamie:

left does that all the time in terms of drive their point

Pete:

Oh my goodness.

Jamie:

Where where we conservatives in the middle

Pete:

Oh my goodness.

Jamie:

Really try to stick with facts to

Mary:

make sure we get the truth

Mary:

out there.

Pete:

That's what they're Uh-huh. Yeah.

Mary:

Mhmm. Well, I actually

Jamie:

So with that, is it about time for us to stop in

Mary:

the We do, but I have one last question for

Pete:

you guys. Yeah. She just keeps going. Look at this. I know.

Mary:

You're the one who has to leave right now. I'd like you to know what what you guys think. What do you think it costs each month for, to, raise

Mary:

Michael Jackson's

Jamie:

3 kids? Oh, wow.

Pete:

I'm gonna say 80 grand.

Jamie:

I am going to say 3 kids, 300 and I'm gonna say 300,000.

Mary:

A month? Yeah. $300,000 a month to raise them?

Jamie:

Because it's Michael Jackson's kids. Oh. I mean, it doesn't cost that much for my kids. My my bill is slightly less than

Mary:

that. But

Pete:

It takes a lot to come up with those 3 diamond studded gloves.

Jamie:

I'm thinking they probably have their own private doctor. They've got their own private nanny.

Mary:

But you gotta have all the guards too. But Yeah.

Jamie:

So I'm I'm guessing 300,000 a month. So Well, okay. 3,500,000 a year.

Mary:

Alright. Well, Pete wins because the answer well, the judge just, approved for a monthly stipend for Michael's mother

Pete:

Uh-huh.

Mary:

To get $86,000 a month from the Wow.

Pete:

$86 a month.

Jamie:

Pretty much right on the money.

Pete:

Well, and by extension, I'm also right about this health care virus thing.

Jamie:

Uh-huh. Yeah. So we will see.

Pete:

We will see. I truly look forward to seeing.

Mary:

I do too. And and we still okay. Next week, really, really, really.

Pete:

We're gonna talk about Hillary We

Mary:

are gonna talk next week. We've got to talk about her.

Mary:

Yes,

Jamie:

we do. Yeah.

Pete:

We're gonna do that. Okay. Groovy.

Jamie:

We're off.

Pete:

Yeah. I think we are. I I think, thanks for listening. Everybody, find us at beer30live.com, and,

Mary:

you get

Mary:

a new machine. We're out.