Matt Of All Trades

A scheme by health insurers to deny coverage and medication to patients via bureaucracy has hit Vermont with a vengeance. My health insurer just caught me up in a type of trap I never knew existed until now.  It's called prior authorization, and it is a Byzantine, maddening  way for health insurers to deny coverage of important, sometimes life-saving  medical procedures and prescriptions.   Prior authorization is evil. It's dangerous. It is being done more and more by "health" insurers nationwide. And ot's hit Vermont with a vengeance this month. Essentially, it's the insurance industry trying to make medical decision for  patients they've never met. That is, instead of letting physicians who have actually physically examined and worked with these patients do that crucial work.    This rising tide of  prior authorization denials of medical services has been known to cause poorer outcomes, permanent injury to patients, even extra deaths. ...

Boston Dynamics has dancing robots. Endearing or creepy? Robots are getting more and more lifelike by the day.   Which led me to this weird but serious question: When do we cross the line before we are affectionate toward them? Are we already there?   This thought came to me within the past few weeks after Boston Dynamics put out a video of dancing robots. Said robots were well, almost endearing.  Though the idea of having an emotional attachment to robots isn't new, I think it's going to become more and more part of our lives.  What if you start loving a robot like you'd love your dog or cat, or even your spouse? Where does that put human beings? Or other living, loving creatures like real dogs?  A couple years ago, one of my young nephews got a robot dog for Christmas. The robot dog was programmed to figure out how to follow my nephew's leads and preferences, and it did so beautifully.  The robot dog was cute, had a few mannerisms that real dog...

"No yoga for kids, please, we're Alabama!" Apparently, lawmakers in Alabama are afraid of some odd things.   Yoga, for example. Apparently, doing yoga could make you very un-Christian, or at least do un-Christian things, so it has no place in Alabama. At least that's the opinion of a number of Republican state legislators.  Last month, a bill that would have allowed yoga (allowed, not mandated) was shot down once again in the Alabama legislature.  According to the Associated Press, a bill was introduced to allow yoga in schools. The AP reported:  ".....representatives for two conservative groups objected, saying they were worried it could lead to the promotion of Hinduism or guided meditation practices. The Alabama lawmaker sponsoring the bill, a former college athlete, said the bill is about exercise and not religion.  'This whole notion that if you do yoga, you'll become Hindu - I've been doing yoga for 10 years and I go to church and I'm very m...

Sad faced Larry Kudlow says Biden will force us to drink plant-based beer. .Who wants to tell Larry beer has always  been plant based.  Donald Trump's goofy former economics advisor Larry Kudlow was in yet another panic on Fox News the other day.  Apparently, Kudlow is trembling in his Tom Ford loafers because the Green New Deal, and by extension, President Biden's climate change policies, will force us all to drink only plant based beer!  The horror! Beer is currently made out of hops, grain and yeast --- oh right! Hops and grains are plants! The evil Green New Deal has already changed, um, nothing about beer.  Who wants to tell Kudlow the news? Never mind that the Green New Deal doesn't tell us how much meat we can or cannot consume. Biden's climate policy makes no mention of how much meat consumption Americans will be allowed. But, the ever fearful Kudlow still wants to rile the ever-fearful Trump base. His rant: "America has to, get this, America has to stop...

Ben Shapiro, proud of his, um, wood, outside a  Home Depot in his mocked viral video.   Ben Shapiro bought a little piece of wood at Home Depot.   This sounds like a who cares sentence, but leave it to Shapiro to make this into another farce.  Shapiro, for those who don't know him, is a young, hapless conservative pundit who is expert at self-owns and non-sensical, "helpful" suggestions.  A classic example: He once gave this simple, elegant solution to people who will eventually have their homes flooded by rising sea levels brought on by climate change.  Shapiro sees this as no problem at all.  The flooded homeowners can just sell their property and move.  Sell to who? Aquaman? Anyway, Shapiro is pissed off these days because several large Georgia-based corporations, like Delta and Coca Cola, object to Georgia's new voter suppression laws. Everybody knows the laws are meant to get rid of black voters to keep the GOP in various offices. (It n...

Ted Nugent: In the running for stupidest person of 2021? UPDATE: Though I hate to cheer when people get sick, it does look like Karma has hit our buddy Ted Nugent. After pretty much denying that Covid even exists for the past year, guess what? Nugent has Covid. "I have had flu symptoms for the last ten days.  I thought I was dying. Just a clusterfuck....I was tested positive today.  I've got the Chinese shit." Ever the poet, even in illness, is he? Despite his illness, he's still apparently against the Covid vaccine because, as he falsely says, "Nobody knows what's in it." Well, we don't know what's in that brain of yours, either.  PREVIOUS DISCUSSION I know I'm a bit of a bully but I just love picking on some dumb people.   Not every dumb person.  Hell, I'm not the sharpest crayon in the shed, which is how I like to mangle that expression.   Nevertheless, I still like to take the hot air out of the blowhard variety of stupid person, so ...

One of the worst Congress creatures in the U.S. is  even hated by his own siblings.  Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar might be kind of popular with the Trumpian, frankly rather wacko wing of the party, but it's pretty certain many of his relatives won't help him with any re-election campaign.   I've seen ambivalent family members of politicians before.  But this family is downright hostile. In my opinion, pretty justifiably.   Gosar helped spread false conspiracy theories about the November, 2020 election and was one of the main organizers of the January 6 "Stop The Steal" rally that turned into the insurrection at the Capital. He also recently skipped voting on the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill so he could attend an extreme right wing political event that was organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Gosar's siblings are unimpressed. So unimpressed that they put out a video condemning their brother.  "He should have criminal conseq...

At least in my opinion, this financial company's CEO  is way too interested in his employees' sex lives.  He doesn't want you working for him if you've had premarital sex. Ugh! I can't resist a little more on this terrible boss that has come to light a couple weeks after I first posted this. Dave Ramsey and Ramsey Solutions was predictably sued because the firm is being run as a sort of "religious cult" and demands that employees give "complete and total submission to Dave Ramsey and his views of the world to maintain employment." You can see a lot of the reasons why this seems to be so in the rest of the post below. However, Religion News Service gives additional details in relation to this lawsuit.  Ramsey is a dangerous type. Both megalomaniac and stupid.  The lawsuit, of course, boils down to Ramsey's stupidity regarding the Covid pandemic. Says Religion News Service: "Lawyers for Brad Amos, a former Ramsey Solutions video editor, a...

Meet Stephanie Denaro, my nominee for worst  person in New York.  A vile woman named Stephanie Denaro won viral fame this week after she unleashed some racist words at the Davidovich Bakery in Manhattan's lower East Side.   She did so as she was getting kicked out of the bakery for the usual reason: She refused to wear a mask, against store policy and health department recommendations.  Typical Karen.  Denaro turns out to be a Super Karen, though.   A whole bunch of other videos of this um, thing showed up on the Reddit's r/PublicFreakout page on Wednesday. She really is a piece of work, even more so than all the others I've seen. You might wonder why I waste my time on garbage like Denaro, but I think one of the most effective ways to combat these idiots is to mock them mercilessly.   I doubt this will change them much.  Denaro, for instance is steadfastly unapologetic about all her racists, obnoxious moments.  But I like to...

Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to be one of  Congress' most visible train wrecks.   Poor little Marjorie Taylor Greene, that nutjob Congress creature from Georgia who is a big QAnon fan, among other things.    She's had a rough go of it lately, but she keeps fighting on. So the update: The latest go arounds started a little over a week ago, when Greene informed us that Guam is a foreign country and demanded we stop sending them damn fereners money. To put Greene's February 27 quote out there:  " We love our country, we believe our hard-earned tax dollars should just go for America, not for, what, China, Russia, the Middle East, Guam, whatever, whatever. Right?" Wrong.  As pretty much everybody else on the planet knows, no matter what you think about overseas spending by America, Guam is part of the United States. Been that way since 1899. Of course, white people are a minority on Guam, so Greene probably figures everybody who's not white is a foreig...

One of my favorite songs from the 1970s was " Killer Queen" by Queen.  I'm often, but not always happy when  some of my faves are turned into something else for parody. In this case, I'm happy.   Anybody who knows me understands I'm a real Covid-19 vaccine enthusiast, and I can't wait for my turn to get inoculated. (The state of V ermont Health Department says starting March 29 I can start trying to get an appointment for my shot, so yay!!)   By turn, I'm frustrated by ant-maskers and anti-vaxxers, so any PSA, no matter how biting and comical, gets my Seal of Approval.  Which leads me to the video below, from Meidas touch and Heather Gardner doing a parody of "Killer Queen" urging us get vaccinated and ignore the (mostly Republican) naysayers.  Gardner has done other great parody videos, too, like a takeoff on George Michael's "Faith"   this time pointing a finger at bad faith lies from Fox News.   Seems like Randy Rainbow has ...

This woman in New York found an entire apartment hidden behind her bathroom mirror in a New York City building.  When I bought my house 14 years ago, I was a bit mystified because there either isn't an attic or no access to it.    There has to be at least a crawlspace above the ceilings, but no way to get there. I've occasionally been tempted to cut a hole in the ceiling, maybe inside a closet, and take a peek, but so far I haven't had the guts. Maybe because there was so many other mysteries here. Some of them scary. Each room has multiple electrical outlets. Probably a legacy of a pot growing business back in the day.   Meanwhile, in the basement, you can still see the marks on the floor joists where a guy who was renting a room here used a bicycle lock cord to hang himself.  A cop told me the man who committed suicide had been kicked out of his own house because he cheated on his wife.   He moved in here, became despondent because his wife woul...

Right wingers like Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro aren't affected by talk of saving lives and morality in battling Covid. For people like this, try threatening their power and money to get them to change course.  Brazil's jerk of a president, Jair Bolsonaro,  is even worse than Trump was at making the Covid pandemic worse.  The situation has grown dire.  Live by the sword, die by the sword. According to Euroweeklynews.com: "Silvio Antonio Favero, 54, who proposed a bill before the Legislative of the Brazilian state of  Mato Grosso do Sul to prevent mandatory vaccination of the population against Covid, died on Saturday, March 13, a victim of the disease." The publication said Favero shared Bolsonaro's doubts about the Covid vaccine, and shared social media posts by Bolsonaro of his denial of the pandemic and distain for social distancing. As of last week, at least 277,000 Brazilians have died in the pandemic, the second most of any nation behind the United States. Th...

Raffaela Spone is accused of creating deepfake images of her daughter's cheerleading rivals to get them kicked off the team.  She looks kinda mean, doesn't she? A woman in Pennsylvania wanted her daughter to shine above her rivals on the cheerleading team, as some moms tend to do.   This one took it so much further than anyone I'm aware of.  According to Pennlive.com: "Police arrested a 50-year-old Bucks County woman March 10 for sending her teen daughter's cheerleading coaches fake photos and videos depicting her rivals naked, drinking or smoking to try to get them kicked off the squad, according to media reports." The evil cheerleading mom, Raffaela Spone, is charged with three counts of cyber harassment of a child and three counts of harassment.  Spone is alleged to have sent the manipulated images in an anonymous message  and that she "urged them to kill themselves," which, if true, is especially horrible. The deepfake images were digitally alte...

Off the rails a usual, the MyPillow guy and Trump fanboy says he's starting a social media site.  Which, for all we know will get him sued for another $1.3 billion.   Oh, Mike Lindell, the "My Pillow" guy.  Just gets further and further off the rails.  You have to admit the guy dreams big.  He's surely lacks the intelligence and power he thinks he has, but you be you Mike!    He has a pretty surreal couple of weeks,  but it seems he always does.  Mediaite tells us Lindell thinks he's practically a Get Out Of Jail Free Card: He's telling people if they're in trouble for taking part in the January 6 insurgency at the Capital, he just might be able to get you a reduced prison sentence.  He doesn't exactly tell you how, but you know, details details.  Maybe his pillows come with magic wands? Lindell seems to be a busy man.  As Mediaite reports , he was on Charlie Kirk's podcast last week, claiming he'll have his own social m...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans don't appear to care whether people die needlessly of Covid, because they hope it would make Joe Biden and other Democrats look bad. It's a political calculation.  I'm getting more and more convinced a large number of Republican politicians actually want more people to die or suffer from Covid.   I hope I'm wrong, but I my conspiratorial mind is wondering if believe their political calculations are more important than how many lives are lost.   Or, to put it more bluntly, who cares if people die if I, and the large radical elements in the GOP can regain power. Insurmountably, they hope.  There's been so many examples in the past week that seem to fit. Going against all health experts' advice, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted most pandemic-related restrictions.  It's all part of a feedback loop the GOP has created, led last year by Donald Trump and taken up by most of his minions.  Here's how it works:...

A highlight of this year's CPAC in late February was this, um, unique statue of Donald Trump.  The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC ended a week ago,  and it's our annual opportunity to poke fun and take delight in the absolute insanity that event is.    Bonus: It gets crazier every year. The 2021 version of CPAC proved absolutely stellar.   These conservative politicians and experts tackled the most grave, vexing problems the nation faces, namely a gender neutral Mr. Potato Head and naughty Muppets.  There's a couple of bonus videos of CPAC at the bottom of this post that you'll just have to watch, if you dare.  Aaron Rupar on Twitter  who gave us a delightful blow-by-blow account of how CPAC tackled these critical issues. Among the gems he gave us.   "They banned the Muppets!" Donald Trump Jr, boyfriend of loud  Kimberly Guilfoyle  thundered. (He's apparently been taking voice lessons from her, or some...

Moderate Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger  received a very bizarre letter from members of  his Trump cult family after the rep voted for impeachment. The cult holds strong.   "The Former Guy," as President Joe Biden famously described ex-president Trump, still holds a mysterious power over true believers. That Trump cult lives on strong as ever.   I'll never understand how people continue to regard that third time grifter as a messiah. And how people can sink so low into stupidity and cruelty to almost comic depths.  I still can't get over the fact-free cult following, and it seems like it will never get dislodged.  I'll never understand people, I guess.  Any dissent against the Great Orange One is the absolutely most abhorrent crime in this cult.   Seven U.S. Republican Senators voted to impeach former President Trump last month.  All of them are getting immense blowback.  How dare they speak ill of their god Trump!...

Dolly Parton literally getting a dose of her own medicine Tuesday. Her $1 million donation helped lead to the  development of the Moderna Covid vaccine. A doctor administered a dose to her Tuesday.  America's Most Loved Person, Dolly Parton took to her Twitter page Tuesday to publically receive her first dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine.   Back in April, Parton donated around $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Covid-19 research.   That donation helped lead to the Moderna vaccine.   Tuesday, Vanderbilt returned the favor by giving her a hot of the Moderna vaccine. Which means she wasn't kidding when she said she was getting a dose of her own medicine. Couldn't happen to a better person.  Parton, in her Twitter post , warmly and humorously encouraged all of us to get our vaccines. She even changed the lyrics to her iconic song "Jolene."  Sample lyric: "Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine/I'm begging of you please don't hesitate....