March 26, 2023

The USPS is really sucking bad lately

It seems worse than the last couple of years. Any news on getting rid of Dejoy? I don't think he gives a shit and his local postmasters are starting to reflect that attitude.

March 21, 2023

Joke of the day

https://twitter.com/LoriSilverthor1/status/1638249692231266306?s=20

A traitor, a tax cheat, a con-man, a racist and a rapist walk into a bar in New York. The bartender asks: "What are you having, Mr Trump?"

March 3, 2023

They could lose the house -- to Medicaid

Found this on NPR - This may have been discussed here before but for those who missed it, like me :

PERRY, Iowa — Fran Ruhl's family received a startling letter from the Iowa Department of Human Services four weeks after she died in January 2022.

"Dear FAMILY OF FRANCES RUHL," the letter begins. "We have been informed of the death of the above person, and we wish to express our sincere condolences."

The letter gets right to the point: Iowa's Medicaid program had spent $226,611.35 for Ruhl's health care, and the government was entitled to recoup that money from her estate, including nearly any assets she owned or had a share in. If a spouse or disabled child survived Ruhl, the collection could be delayed until after their death, but the money would still be owed.

The notice said the family had 30 days to respond.

"I said, 'What is this letter for? What is this?'" says Ruhl's daughter, Jen Coghlan.

It seemed bogus, but it was real. Federal law requires all states to have "estate recovery programs," which seek reimbursements for spending under Medicaid, the joint federal and state health insurance program mainly for people with low incomes or disabilities. The recovery efforts collect more than $700 million a year, according to a 2021 report from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, or MACPAC, an agency that advises Congress.

Henry Ruhl of Perry, Iowa, lost his wife, Fran, in January 2022. A few weeks after her death, he was startled by a notice saying her estate owed a huge bill to Iowa's Medicaid program for her dementia care.
KC McGinnis for Kaiser Health News

States have leeway to decide whom to bill and what type of assets to target. Some states collect very little. For example, Hawaii's Medicaid estate recovery program collected just $31,000 in 2019, according to the federal report.

Iowa, whose population is about twice Hawaii's, recovered more than $26 million that year, the report says.

Iowa uses a private contractor to recoup money spent on Medicaid coverage for any participant who was 55 or older or was a resident of a long-term care facility when they died. Even if an Iowan used few health services, the government can bill their estate for what Medicaid spent on premiums for coverage from private insurers known as managed-care organizations.

the rest is at:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/01/1159490515/they-could-lose-the-house-to-medicaid

March 2, 2023

Recent heavy snow is crucial to the Colorado River but it's not a drought ender

From NPR:

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Rain in California and deep snow in the Rocky Mountains have brought temporary relief to drought-stricken states in the West. But water managers say the long-term water supply picture remains bleak.

California has been hit by a series of storms in recent weeks that's caused at least 20 deaths and lots of damage. But the wet weather out West is also responsible for a deep snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, which might be good for the Colorado River because the snow could boost depleted reservoirs. The thing is, it won't be enough to undo the impacts of a long-running drought. From member station KUNC, Alex Hager reports.

ALEX HAGER, BYLINE: The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing, and high in the mountains of Colorado, the ski slopes are getting busy.

BILL PHILLIPS: To be schmaltzy, it's heavenly. It's a heavenly day of skiing.

HAGER: Bill Phillips stands at the top of a lift at Snowmass Ski Area near Aspen, where the flakes are piling up.

PHILLIPS: It's a fabulous year. And we've had regular snow. It's not just huge dumps, but regular, really nice, powder, fluffy snow to ski in.

HAGER: All of that powder is crucial for the Colorado River. Two-thirds of its water starts as snow in Colorado. This year, with totals well above average, spring snowmelt could help refill lakes Powell and Mead, the nation's largest reservoirs.

But Brad Udall, a climate researcher at Colorado State University, cautions against getting too excited.

BRAD UDALL: Everybody is so eager to make an early call on this. And invariably, you'll get caught with your pants down if you think you know what's going to happen.

HAGER: The Colorado River Basin has experienced more than two decades of megadrought. Udall says climate change is making this whole region drier. And even with snow totals at 130% of average, it would take more than one year of deep powder to make a real dent.

UDALL: We would need five or six years at 150% snowpack to refill these reservoirs, and that is extremely unlikely.

HAGER: Udall says warmer temperatures have already cut into the amount of snow that melts into the Colorado River. Since 1970, temperatures in the region have gone up by 3 degrees Fahrenheit. And on top of that, abnormally dry soil soaks up water before it can reach the places where people divert and collect it.

UDALL: I mean, we need to continue to plan for the worst year. That's what we've seen the last 23 years. That's what these warming temperatures continue to tell us. We have to plan for the worst.

HAGER: But planning has gotten a lot harder lately. Cynthia Campbell knows this firsthand. She's a water management adviser with the city of Phoenix. The fifth largest city in the country gets more than a third of its water from the Colorado River. Lately, she's been keeping closer track of the high-altitude snow.

CYNTHIA CAMPBELL: Our worst-case scenario, from our perspective, is that we have to be in the habit of annually looking to the mountains to see, what is the precipitation?

HAGER: Campbell says reservoirs provide a buffer against the fluctuation of dry years and wet years. But with those reserves shrinking, cities around the Southwest can only plan a year at a time.

CAMPBELL: That's just not enough time to make changes that you would have to make. But that is where we are. And so in some ways we're living - is it the worst nightmare? Might be.

more at:

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149924283/recent-heavy-snow-is-crucial-to-the-colorado-river-but-its-not-a-drought-ender

March 1, 2023

The Twitter Paradox

Op in USA Today about Twitter by Mike Freeman:

During the early days of Twitter, after being called the N-word about a dozen times in the span of a few hours, I decided to leave the platform. I can’t remember why I was called so many racial slurs in such a short period – day that ended in ‘Y’ perhaps? But it had happened many times before. This was the Wild West days of Twitter when there were fewer protections, and many women and people of color were targets.

So I left. A short time later, a friend of mine, who is also Black and had endured similar hatred on the platform, and had also stopped using it, told me she had returned, and it was safer (I remember thinking her description sounded so dramatic). I came back, too, and Twitter was much better, and has been for years.

Then Elon Musk bought it. What’s happened since then is the site has changed, for the worse, so fast that at times I can’t believe it. Nothing exemplifies that decline more than the increase in racism on it. Researchers found that the use of the N-word increased 500 percent 12 hours after Musk purchased the platform. There were also dramatic increases in anti-gay, antisemitic and anti-trans language.

When Musk took over, as the Washington Post and other news organizations note, it was seen as a pivotal moment for bigots. A wide range of anonymous accounts flooded Twitter after Musk started running it.

"Elon now controls twitter. Unleash the racial slurs. K---S and N-----S," read one account, using the slurs for Jews and Blacks, according to the Post.

"I can freely express how much I hate n-----s…now, thank you elon," read another account. It has only gotten worse since then.

I don’t know if Musk is a white supremacist, but the white supremacists think Musk is a white supremacist.

More at:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/mike-freeman/2023/03/01/twitter-elon-musk-gives-bigots-platform-hate-speech-racism/11365275002/