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  • More Market Magic

    Private for-profit health insurance is a significant factor in our high medical costs in this country. The reasons are many, but one is externalization of their internal contradiction. In order to enhance and preserve their profits, insurance companies have to go to great lengths to avoid people who are already [...]
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    Posted: December 11, 2009, 8:36am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Market Magic

    Number of comments: 8
    This has nothing to do with anything that has transpired before. I am curious about one thing. It’s not because of what I am reading of what I have read before – there’s no great philosopher behind it. It’s just my own observations. A workman who uses tools keeps his tools [...]
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    Posted: December 10, 2009, 10:54am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • The Fix Up

    Number of comments: 2
    If only Kramer were here to break up all blog-o-wars – things would be a lot easier ’round here.Β  For this particular one, I suggest fast-forwarding to 2:35 – it’s strangely apt. [...]
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    Posted: December 09, 2009, 8:18pm EST
    by Steve T.

  • On Adam Smith and Wulfgar

    Number of comments: 10
    Years ago, in the mid-90’s, I attempted to read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. In those days my time was limited, and I tried to be at my desk at a certain time each day, and so was distracted by the anxiety of a day’s work ahead and all of [...]
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    Posted: December 09, 2009, 8:06am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • The words of the prophets …

    Number of comments: 9
    The removal of inhibition can be liberating as well as criminal. Recently, a Reuters reporter expressed frustration that American soldiers stationed in Iraq would tell him nothing until he went to the latrines. “You have to go to the Port-o-Potties. For some reason, they talk there. You can read how [...]
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    Posted: December 08, 2009, 10:29am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Now it can be told …

    Number of comments: 8
    What did Richard Nixon really believe about Vietnam? The best testimony comes from the memoirs of Leonard Garment, his partner in the clambering over the pool-house fence belonging to financial backer Elmer Bobst. [Nixon and Garment had spent the night in Bobst’s pool house to avoid being photographed by real [...]
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    Posted: December 07, 2009, 7:50pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Narratives

    Number of comments: 5
    I am accused now and then of reducing things to “narratives” wherein I link un-linkable events and imply cause and effect and planning. The post below, “Pipeline Wars“, is a good example – I linked the 1991 U.S. attack on Iraq to both the 2003 invasion and the 1990 collapse [...]
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    Posted: December 07, 2009, 9:29am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Pipeline Wars

    Number of comments: 10
    In a post down below, I asked for opinions on why we are in Afghanistan. I got four responses: Wars always come in pairs (rightsaidfred); domestic politics and some pipeline geopolitics (ladybug); destruction of the Obama presidency (Charliecarp); and finally, encirclement of Iran in preparation for a three-pronged invasion (Blackflag). [...]
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    Posted: December 06, 2009, 4:04pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • A royal screwing

    Number of comments: 7
    Years ago, in the early 90’s and while still single, I briefly dated a former Baucus staffer. (It didn’t work out – we were never that close, and when she said “Stop following me or I’ll call the cops!”, I sensed that it was time to move on.) Even as [...]
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    Posted: December 05, 2009, 10:01am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • I pledge allegiance …

    [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 9:24pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Bright Sided: How the ...

    Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America Crazysexycancer.com [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 5:31pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Againistan*

    Number of comments: 5
    I leave this space for any passer-by to fill us in on what the f*** we are doing in Afghanistan. (*From a cartoon by Marc Murphy, Courier-Journal of Louisville, KY) Thank you. [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 8:32am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Continuation of thread …

    Number of comments: 8
    I enjoy both “Blackflag” and “rightsaidfred” – they are the types who eventually make their own blogs and join the futility frivolity. This post is a continuation of a debate down below which went so far down the page that it got annoying to have to scroll down. Black Flag: [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 8:31am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Miss South Carolina writes a book

    Number of comments: 10
    I knew it was in the works – friends said she had been burning the midnight oil, that drafts had gone back and forth between her and the publisher. There were writes and rewrites, arguments over tone and content, and especially about her writing style – she claims to be [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 4:50pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Adventures in free markets

    Number of comments: 10
    Two things caught my eye in today’s Denver Post: One, a front page headline about how area libraries are in financial bind, and how they are ignoring “millions of dollars in tantalizing revenue” by not going after past-due fines. I have a free market solution: run the libraries like a credit [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 8:00am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • When unfathomable goes unreadable …

    Number of comments: 10
    Here in our little blogging community, Left in the West is one of the more active sites. It’s a nice venue and offers up good fodder, but has a software glitch: after a certain number of responses are put up, the text goes to single line, and to read someone’s [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 7:22am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Passive Agressive Payback

    [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 11:32pm EST
    by Steve T.

  • …so, what have we learned?

    Number of comments: 10
    The post below went in unexpected directions, and although I don’t want to become a 9/11 clearinghouse site, had some interesting information. It devolved, a bit, into a sniping match between Steve and Black Flag, with each of them firing above the other. But I am glad I put up [...]
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    Posted: November 29, 2009, 9:32am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • …where wise men fear to tread

    Number of comments: 10
    I write this not knowing whether it will actually hit the sphere and be read by my five loyal readers. It’s a subject that is virtually verboten in respectable circles. Only fools rush in …. 9/11. What happened that day? I hesitate to write about it because I know I [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2009, 10:35am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • To the good life!

    Number of comments: 2
    I am thankful for little people. I don’t know who they are, but they make my shoes and clothing, carry away my garbage, and, I am told, even go down in the sewers to make sure that it all flows smoothly. I really, really appreciate them. I am a member of [...]
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    Posted: November 27, 2009, 8:19am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • It is true … I am one of those …

    I do not like “the holidays”. I know that there are more like me out there, but the holidays are such a part of our childhood and so much ingrained into our commercial culture that we are supposed to like them, and even pretend to like them even when we [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 2:50pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Our fecally challenged republic

    Number of comments: 6
    I watched a movie made years ago, Gardens of Stone, starring James Earl Jones, James Caan, Angelica Huston, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It was a serious movie and well done, with unresolved differences over the Vietnam War exposed and fleshed out a bit. The “Gardens” are, of course, [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 8:42am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • A dissident voice speaks … somewhere else, of course

    Number of comments: 1
    more about "BBC News – Hardtalk – Chomsky condemn…", posted with vodpod I have very little insight on why we invaded Afghanistan, and await some inspiring insight from some foreign source down the road, long after the goals have been achieved. Meanwhile, in true post-Vietnam fashion, the [...][...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 10:03pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Right wing Christians take credit for Jewish accomplishments

    Number of comments: 5
    The following viral email has something unusual going on in it – it contains truth. It is about Jewish accomplishments in science, economics and literature – they are far disproportionate to their relative numbers in the human population. Of course, the base goal of the email is to degrade Muslims, [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 8:49am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Damned DUI

    [...]
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    Posted: November 22, 2009, 6:16pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Our choice of poisons

    Number of comments: 10
    I micro-burst or sorts blew through here these past couple of days, in the post below entitled “A Fun Week“. Dave Budge and “Black Flag” had a discussion going on over at Electric City Weblog and it spilled over here. It reminded me of the closing scenes of Blazing Saddles, [...]
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    Posted: November 22, 2009, 9:38am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Life in Boulder, part dieux

    Number of comments: 1
    This more or less recaps a conversation between my wife and I as we ate breakfast this morning while looking though a window at the Court House lawn in Boulder: H: That must be a homeless guy over there. I wonder where he stays at night. M: Is that a sleeping bag? H: [...]
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    Posted: November 21, 2009, 1:56pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • A fun week …

    Number of comments: 10
    It’s been quite an interesting week, what with arguing with Craig Moore about the Lancet study on Iraq deaths and all. Plus, as Steve points out below, Electric City Weblog has been great fun. A lot of it has to do with Budge being back on beam, but the subject [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2009, 10:33am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Adventures in private health care …

    Number of comments: 10
    My mother was diagnosed with a form of skin cancer. Her doctor decided to treat it by applying Aldara cream over a period of time. 24 tubes of the cream cost $658.50. Mom’s Medicare D provider, Humana, refused to cover the claim. I got a letter of medical necessity from [...]
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    Posted: November 19, 2009, 11:31am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • A Confession

    I’m diggin the hell out of ECW lately. Every post manages to get my blood boiling as of late. I guess that’s why I do this whole blogging thing. Good on ya, Gregg & Dave. [...]
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    Posted: November 19, 2009, 10:24pm EST
    by Steve T.

  • Striaght to DVD

    This is really interesting … if you’ve ever wondered how much authors make on books. Dan Brown probably pays for a pack of cigarettes with a million dollar bill, but not so much the others. Lynn Viehl wrote a book called Twilight Fall. It made the New York Times best [...]
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    Posted: November 18, 2009, 9:32pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • We sink lower still into banality

    Number of comments: 3
    Carol at her very interesting Missoulapolis blog broaches a subject that intrigues me – tweeting. She references another blogger (making this a blog circle-jerk) who says that, oh my gosh, President Obama doesn’t write his own tweets. I would be so disappointed if he did. I find nothing in our [...]
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    Posted: November 18, 2009, 7:55am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • BS

    All of my blogging energy for a week got used up in one day today. Craig Moore wanted to have it out with me over the “Lancet 2″ report from 2006, the one that said that 655,000 Iraqis had died in that war. Gregg set up a special thread over [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:30pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Sharia Economics

    Number of comments: 10
    The Muslim faith is widely scourged here in the land of the free, as people are inclined to be provincial and project their own evil onto others. (I’m way above that sort of thing myself, mind you.) But if you set aside the jihads and seven virgins waiting (just as [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:31am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • A day in the legislature …

    [...]
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    Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:18pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • The Old Left and the New Democrats and other tedium

    Number of comments: 4
    I’ve had some rumblings that point to yet another awakening, meaning that it is time to move on. We have a young relative who is in the advertising business, and who is currently faced with the choice of working for an agency in a new city, Chicago, or working for [...]
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    Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:56am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

    After this, no more body counts. But I was startled not to feel the full impact of something in my own writings down below. It is an accounting summary of “terrorist” attacks against Western Civilization, 1970 to present. These are official numbers – there are people in our government whose [...]
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    Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:09am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • The pending Jesus-sponsored holocaust

    Number of comments: 5
    A statistical abstract of the absurd notion that we are somehow threatened by people with plastic explosives in the soles of shoes or nitroglycerin in shampoo bottles: Number of airline hijackings, Europe and North America, during 1970’s: 31 Number of deaths resulting from said hijackings: 29 Number of airline hijackings, Europe and North [...]
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    Posted: November 12, 2009, 7:53am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • An insider talks about health insurance costs

    This was refreshing – a letter in today’s Denver Post from Jandel T. Allen-Davis, M.D., Denver, vice president of government and external relations for Kaiser Permanente Colorado. It concerns Colorado legislation, rather than national, but that is beside the point. Not all health insurance companies are opposed to House Bill [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 5:00pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • A bailout under a blue cross

    Number of comments: 10
    Upon hearing of the passage of H.R. 3962, the so-called “reform” bill, the voice I wanted to hear above all others was that of Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He has been the one true reformer among the Democrats. It was Kucinich who offered up an amendment to the bill that would [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 12:07pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Oh Conrad where art thou?

    Number of comments: 8
    With passage in the House last night of the Health Care “Reform” bill, I thought well, we’re f*****. Democrats have done it again – they’ve taken all of this healthy energy for reform that existed, and turned it against us. Industry has a new revenue stream, health care costs will [...]
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    Posted: November 08, 2009, 8:00am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Minnesota shines

    Several studies here: Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, 2009 (Separate chart from this study here). America’s Health Rankings, 2008 Edition Kaiser Family State Health Facts, 2009 Rankings of Deaths per 100,000 There are scads of charts and comparisons. My curiosity was driven by one anomaly that turns up [...]
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    Posted: November 07, 2009, 12:59pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Manager wonders why computer model is not selling

    Number of comments: 2
    COSTCO has on display many computers of various prices, all PC’s. I was looking at the one priced at $999.99 this morning, and there was one of those electronic sticky notes up in the corner that said Check out this sticky note. It’s really cool. Bet it makes you want to [...]
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    Posted: November 07, 2009, 12:17pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Conspiracy theories

    Number of comments: 7
    Blogging can indeed be fun. A post by JC this week over at 4&20 devolved into a firefight about conspiracies and “conspiracy theorists”. I believe in several conspiracy theories, and so was victim of the standard “tin foil hat” insult. It’s the easiest posture of all to adopt when one [...]
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    Posted: November 06, 2009, 8:18am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Our work here is done …

    Number of comments: 1
    This from an amazing email I received from “Bryce, Matt, John and the whole Forward Montana family.” With historic health care reform so close to passing after a meager 60 years of debate, we at Forward Montana are ready to sink our teeth into the next big progressive issue. Suggestion: If [...]
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    Posted: November 05, 2009, 6:44am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Agitation Radio

    Number of comments: 6
    Mr. Shackleford put up an interesting post on talk radio, which linked to a series of reports on CNN on the phenomenon. It’s a favorite subject of mine. Different media affect us in different ways. Television is a guest in our home, usually right in the middle of our family [...]
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    Posted: November 04, 2009, 3:02pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Bill Moyers interviews Richard Goldstone

    Number of comments: 1
    I listened to this interview of Richard Goldstone by Bill Moyers with admiration for both men. Moyer’s questions are quick, penetrating and fair, and Goldstone’s responses equally quick, thoughtful and erudite. To try to add anything to it would by presumptuous. Moyer’s is my definition of a journalist, Goldstone a fair [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 8:03am EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • The inimitable Mr. Shackleford

    I get a kick out of Rusty Shackleford. I am one of the few people who puts up comments on his blog, and I had to quit because I could never remember either my name or password, and the password recovery system doesn’t work. I am either Mark T or [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 8:45pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • An interesting Ayn Rand piece

    Number of comments: 1
    Here is a very interesting piece by Johann Hari on Ayn Rand. Hari is reviewing two new biographies out on her which I plan not to read, Goddess of the Market ,by Jennifer Burns and Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne Heller. I have no intention of [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 7:39pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski

  • Tea Party Time in Bozeman!

    The Bozeman Tea Party group is organizing an event on November 6, 2009, and put out the following email: EVENT NOTICE, FRIDAY, NOV. 6th, 12 PM NOON OPPOSE HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER Visit the offices of Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus. Protest House and Senate health care bills. Bills are rapidly moving through [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 3:10pm EST
    by Mark Tokarski
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