The NBC Scandal: The True Story

I was astonished to learn there was a scandal at NBC. But if the New York Times says there was a scandal, then there must have been a scandal. In today's New York Times, Alessandra Stanley, wrote the following.

"Possibly the most incisive joke about NBC's late-night meltdown came from Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” sidekick Andy Richter. “It’s been the most fun I’ve ever had in a show-biz scandal,” Mr. Richter said sardonically to Mr. O'Brien on their set on Tuesday.

The NBC scandal isn’t fun exactly, but it is has produced the kind of must-see-in-real-time television that late-night comedy shows rarely offer anymore."

While it would be foolish to challenge anything said in the New York Times, perhaps the above bears some further investigation। According to Webster's online dictionary, the top three definitions for the word scandal are listed below.

1 a : discredit brought upon religion by unseemly conduct in a religious person b : conduct that causes or encourages a lapse of faith or of religious obedience in another
2 : loss of or damage to reputation caused by actual or apparent violation of morality or propriety : disgrace
3 a : a circumstance or action that offends propriety or established moral conceptions or disgraces those associated with it b : a person whose conduct offends propriety or morality

As I read the above definitions, nothing that has happened with Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien meets any of these criteria. Why should I be an old curmudgeon and ruin the party? After all, the public's appetite for information about scandal seems bottomless. The David Letterman scandal in the fall, was a small prelude to the Tiger Woods scandal. Though Tigers pummeling is far from an end, the day will come when he crawls back onto the golf course to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or is that outrageously bad boy behavior? Never mind, it's probably the same. It's probably best that I not get involved with such controversies. I have to help my publisher get my vampire novel ready for publication. Vampires. That's a safe subject. You've never heard of a vampire scandals, have you?

Sphere: Related Content

The Obstructionist Republican Party

What's left of the Republican Party has a new motto. It's "Just Say No" again, and again to anything proposed by the current administration. It could be argued that the Republicans are fulfilling their role as the loyal opposition. However, that argument is terribly thin because it is hard to know what the Republican Party stands for, if it stands for anything at all.

The main mission of the Republican Party seems to be to prevent President Obama from implementing any plan in any area. The Republicans voted against the stimulus package, and offered very little in the way of an alternative that made sense to anybody but fellow Republicans. They were against the bailout of the big three automakers which ought to be interesting the next time they're trying to get votes in Ohio and Michigan.

The essential nature of the current Republican Party position was eloquently stated in July, by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. When talking with Republican activists regarding efforts to stop the current health care initiative he said, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." If Senator DeMint were interested in serving the interests of the people of South Carolina, he might remember the large percentage of his constituency, which has either no health insurance or inadequate health care coverage. The senator from South Carolina may be prescient in his prediction of Waterloo, but it may be about his own party rather than the president.

The Republicans rightly raise concerns about the amount of money being spent by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration. Unfortunately, the Republicans are adept at raising concerns, but short on offering realistic alternatives to solving the critical problems facing this country today. The continued absence of meaningful leadership within the Republican Party has allowed Sarah Palin to develop delusions about her ability to run for the presidency in 2012. Perhaps the Republican Party will get its just reward after all.

Health Insurance Companies Cannot Be Trusted with Our Health.

In an article in Slate magazine, Timothy Noah stated, "Private insurance companies dump very sick claimants based on stupid technicalities. That's reason enough to support health care reform." To back up his point, Noah described what is known as "Rescission," which is the process health insurers use to avoid paying out benefits to treat serious illness by finding minor errors in policyholder's paperwork that can justify canceling the policy. John Grisham's Book, The Rainmaker, described this process in detail, and was the basis for the movie of the same name starring Matt Damon.

Noah's article describes two specific instances in which persons were denied critical health care based on the flimsiest of excuses. Actually, it's very simple. Health insurance companies are in the business of making money. Their primary obligation is to their stockholders, not to the people who purchase health insurance from them. Is it fair to castigate everyone working in the health-insurance business? No, but that's besides the point. The system isn't working. That is the point.

This country has the highest level of medical technology in the world, but an inept, fragmentized, and at times highly unethical system of delivering health care services. The current health care system is bankrupting the country and denying critical medical services to millions of people. It is the ethical responsibility of Congress to put in place a better system. Of course, no one wants to put in place a system that can't be funded. Members of both political parties owe it to their constituents to work together to put in place a system that can at least start to provide adequate health care coverage for everyone.

I wanted to keep this post a positive one, except for the comments about the health-insurance industry. However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina. Senator Demint's personal beliefs are more important to him than the welfare of the constituency he is supposed to serve. Otherwise he wouldn't be making reference to stopping President Obama on health care being the equivalent of his Waterloo. Senator Demint created his own personal Waterloo by making this remark.

The Supreme Court and Other Myths about Judges

For two days Sonia Sotomayor has repeatedly stated the mythical mantra that all decisions made by judges are based on the law. She has had to do this while Republican senators have baited her about her "Wise Latina" remark. Again, and again she has reassured each Republican Senator that her decisions have been, and will be, based solely on the law. Did you miss that? Her decisions have been, and will be, based solely on the law. If she were to do this, then she would probably be the first judge in history to accomplish this feat.

Every human being makes decisions based on a variety of factors. The decisions that people make are ultimately based on information they believe to be true. This information is gathered through a filtering process based on people's belief systems, emotions, and a whole host of unconscious and subconscious feelings and experiences that all people possess. To assert that a judge is able to bypass to all past experience, ignore emotions and feelings, and be totally aware of all the subconscious motivations is utter nonsense. Millions of people saw the interview with Chief Justice Clarence Thomas on 60 minutes. Can anyone actually believe that this angry man who grew up with a tyrant of her grandfather does not have his decisions influenced by that experience?

During the current hearings to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, stated that in every major case Supreme Court Justice Roberts sided with the prosecution over the defendant. I'm sure that the Chief Justice could cite his reasons for each and every case, but the sheer consistency on his decision-making pattern speaks to an internal believe system that outweighs the impartiality of the law. Justice Roberts has a view of the way the world should be. The information he gathers on a cognitive basis is filtered through that worldview. To believe that all all his decisions are based solely on the Constitution, legal precedent, and total impartiality beggars the imagination.

The notion that "facts are facts" is also nonsense. I live in the South where the civil war never happened. Rather, there was a war of Northern aggression called by Southerners the War between the States. The southern conceptualization of the civil war is very much alive, and if anyone doubts it, there are many Southerners who would be more than willing to debate the issue. Belief systems structure "facts" and marshal them into a coherent view of the world that enables people to live in a society that make sense to them. Judges, and Supreme Court justices, are not immune to this process and cannot render judicial systems in isolation from the society in which they live in the believes they have about themselves in the world around them. The fact that only one member of the Supreme Court is a woman is testimony to the impact of society. The fact that only one member of the Supreme Court is black or Hispanic is also testimony to the impact of society.

The Price of Oil: Problems in Future Predictions

When the price of a barrel of oil went below $40, no one expected it to stay that way. The question was how high the price of a barrel of oil would go once it had bottomed. Now that it is approaching $70 a barrel, all sorts of experts are making predictions about future prices. I am not an expert, but it doesn't take a forty year background in the oil industry to know that in the short and intermediate term the price of oil will go up. The big question is the long-term price of oil, meaning how high will it go.

An article in Fortune states, "there are signs that a demand recovery could be on the way in Asia. China's crude consumption averaged 7.6 million barrels per day in April, according to Alidena the highest level on record, amid reports that the government was stockpiling commodities. Goldman Sachs was confident enough of a demand rebound to come out in early June with a price target of $85 a barrel for West Texas intermediate crude by the end of 2009 and $95 by the end of 2010." There are some, although not many, who predicts that oil will reach a price of $250 a barrel.

As a worldwide recovery begins, the demand for oil will increase. Most experts say that worldwide production of oil is at or near its peak. The problem with long-term predictions is that they don't take into account the secondary effects that high oil prices to create. While the amount of energy produced by wind power is very small at the present time, $100 a barrel oil will have a significant impact on it. Also, the nations of the world know that their economies begin to begin to slow down significantly as the price of oil arises. No one can predict the impact of all the measures taken by the major oral consuming countries as a response to high oil prices. On a recent trip, I continually parked my Toyota Corolla between fleets of SUVs and minivans. When the price of gas goes over three dollars a gallon again, people will seek other options. In fact, the new SUVs are becoming much more fuel-efficient.

The wild cards in the deck in efforts to predict future oil prices are things yet to come and be invented. New wind power generators take up much less room, and people can now have a wind power energy generator put in their backyard for $8,000 to $10,000. With so much money can be made in viable alternative energy production, it is impossible to predict what new inventions will be created the young men and women at MIT and Caltech as well as the large oil companies. For an undefinable period of time the price of oil will be high in the amount of economic pain will be all also be high. But in the long run, those countries that are thriving on the production of will eventually be trying to find a market for unwanted thick black sludge.

The Dark Shadow of Socialism Descends on America

First, the government took over the banks, and then it took over the automobile companies. A completely socialistic health-care system is next on the agenda for the Obama administration. These people call themselves "progressives" are really socialists bent on destroying the free market system and the American way of life. Only a handful of conservatives led by such people as Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and the number of others are crying out into the sending darkness that will obliterate America as we know it. Shame on us for letting this happen.

The mistakes made by the Bush administration, compounded by its free spending ways, helped lead to the perilous situation we now face. Yes, there was greed and avarice on Wall Street and elsewhere in America, but the Socialists have been patiently biding their time waiting for an opportunity to force their agenda on the rest of the American people. Freedom of choice will become a dim memory as the government becomes the "Big Brother" telling us what to do. the government will soon dictate energy policies from what we used to produce energy, to the last detail of how we use it in our homes.

The Obamaists believe that the individual citizen cannot make intelligent choices without the aid of the government. This type of thinking dehumanizes Americans and renders them little more than socially programmed robots. In the New America sex education will be mandatory in the schools. The rights of the parents will be ignored as these few who think they know what is best for us will crush us with their paternalistic approach. We will lose once and for all the opportunity to teach alternatives to the so-called theory of evolution. Evolution, as anyone with any common sense knows, is a poorly thought out theory that barely explains the history of this planet. The knowledge of the Bible will be prohibited, and lost, in our public schools.

Salaries are already being set for people in the private sector who work in banks and on Wall Street. Soon, the government will be deciding what everyone should earn, how they should spend what they earn, and what they should spend it on. They'll be telling us what foods to eat, how much to eat, and what time of day to eat. This is a mind-boggling attempt to intrude on every aspect of our daily lives that will crush the last vestiges of freedom in America. Again, shame on us for letting this happen.