Weekend Vibes [DOT 17/7/21]

17/7/21 MegMegMcGee 26

Hi All!

I went to look for pic to upload for the header and all of Loveshaq’s lovely flower pics were uploaded there so I used one. Go to his Garden Post for more ICYMI:

Garden Tour

More weather news.

Death toll exceeds 120 as Germany and Belgium hit by devastating floods
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/16/western-germany-floods-angela-merkel-horror-catastrophe-deaths-missing-search-flooding-belgium

I mean, what if there was a system where medical care was negotiated by the government and the prices were negotiated fairly for all? Hmmmm.

Nearly all hospitals flout federal requirement to post prices, report finds
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/16/hospital-cost-transparency/

With apologies to Florida Man

Covid-19 ‘is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ CDC director says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html

I’ve basically refused to watch No Reservations since he passed. This seems really gross to me.

Proof that men have been telling women to smile for at least 400 years.

Restoration work wipes smile off the face of Dutch vegetable seller
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jul/16/restoration-work-wipes-smile-off-the-face-of-dutch-vegetable-seller

This is so cool!

Have a great Saturday!

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26 Comments

  1. welp some things never change
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57869880
    the uk is picking on the french again…as the french will need to quarantine when they visit as there are concerns about them maybe bringing in the beta variant…
    never mind that england still has a rising count of the delta variant running rampant and is going to decide that life is back to normal on monday…which is going to go…probably about as well as it did here….but with many more infected to start with

  2. I was up bright and early this Saturday morn’. I resumed my dog walking duties a couple of weeks ago, one of the few useful functions I perform here at the Casa Encantada.  

    Settling in sometime around 4:30 AM a “New York Post” headline screamed at me that Meghan Markle was talking development deals far earlier than she and Harry had let on during that…interesting…Oprah interview, as far back as right around the time of her wedding. An interesting fact is that one of their best friends is David Furnish, who is not a fictional Dickens character but is instead Elton John’s real-life husband, and he, a Canadian filmmaker, is providing all kinds of help and partnership in these media endeavors. Sir Elton is, famously, one the late Princess of Wales’s best friends and performed so memorably, and somewhat startlingly, that reworked version of “Candle in the Wind” at her funeral.

    For TWENTY YEARS I have been following the doings of Harry from afar but I have reached the saturation point. Now I have turned my attention to the 7th Duke of Westminster:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Grosvenor,_7th_Duke_of_Westminster

    Here’s a much better photo:

    https://www.tatler.com/article/who-is-harriet-tomlinson-duke-of-westminster-girlfriend

    How do the Grosvenors/Westminsters have so much money? Well, among other things, if you’ve ever been to London you might have noticed that you spent a lot of time in “The Borough of Westminster.” (London has many boroughs.) Westminster is the equivalent of Manhattan’s Midtown and Upper East Side, and a bit more. The Westminsters own it. Well, they own most of the land on which all those buildings sit, so if you want to build something you will be forevermore paying the Westminsters for the use of the land. Why didn’t I think of this?

    I love this piece from the wiki bio: 

    Little is publicly known about Westminster’s personal life.[19] However, in October 2013, he was named a godfather to Prince George of Cambridge.[20][21]

    “Prince George of Cambridge” is William and Kate’s oldest son and, if he lives long enough, and the monarchy survives, will one day be King of England. But if Charles and then William are going to follow recent precedent and live well into their 90s, that day won’t come until most of us are long dead. If William lives to be 98 and doesn’t establish a Regency, and why should he, his grandmother hasn’t yet and she’s 95, King George VII’s coronation won’t take place until around 2080.

    A wee bit bored are we, Cousin Mattie?

  7. Ashley Feinberg has done a deep dive on Donald Rumsfeld’s memos:
     
    https://www.trashberg.com/p/the-rumsfeld-memos-you-probably-havent
     
    The guy was an obvious kook.  And yet for years, the DC establishment treated him as a serious thinker.
     
    I think the clincher for me was the memo where he berates General Myers, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for being “blind” on “interrogations.” The backstory is that Myers resisted Rummy’s efforts to deny Geneva Convention protections for captured al Qaeda, and Rummy was trying to grind him down to let the torture flow. He was “blind” because the damn torture didn’t work.
     
    The icing on the cake was Mr. Serious Rumsfeld cc’d Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone, his top deputies and three of the dumbest, most incompetent men to hold those positions. And of course, all three remain members in good standing of the DC club, although possibly a little awkwardly since the stench of failure still clings to them after all of these years.

  8. I work in insurance and i didn’t even know hospitals were required to post their prices. We usually get updates about industry news but I don’t recall seeing that one and it seems like a pretty interesting change? 

    • i didnt know hospitals had prices
      i mean..its a bit of a duh i guess
      really never thought about it in anything other than at worst this is going to cost me $385…..in at most $70 a month on top of my insurance fee
      pricing here seems to be very different than there tho… i mean…getting an xray and my foot taped up cost me $35

      • theres a caveat tho….as basic insurance does not cover dental work (other than emergency pulling) mental health care…or more than 3 physio sessions
        so theres a fair few crazies with bad teeth limping around over here
        (i need dental work….im a couple grand short of being able to get it done…..fucking crowns are pricey)

      • Well, we are talking about the USA where a baby or a car accident bankrupts a lot of people. I have insurance and still have to pay $250 to visit the Emergency Room. If I didn’t have that, it would be over $1200 for my typical migraine visit. 

      • the hospital has prices…  everything used on you – bandages, aspirin, IV fluid, needles, etc.  and it’s all excessively overpriced.
        Plus, you have to pay the doctors several hundred an hour for the time they spend on you.
        And there are also fees for the ambulance transportation.
         
         
        And, on top of that, the various insurance companies cut deals with the hospitals and other medical facilites, so they get to pay less than the hospital charges, which the hospital compensates by raising the prices for uninsured folk.
        You just wish you could have freedumb like this…

          • nah, not trying to criticize you or belittle your complaints, I’m just doing some complaining of my own.
            And I’ve been pretty lucky, I’m not prone to illness or injury, and have been able to get by most of my life without needing any medical attention, and most people aren’t that fortunate.

      • The salt in the wound with hospital pricing is that’s it’s such bullshit for how the patient experiences it.

        Like last time I had to go to the ER was a few years ago, it was like 11pm. The hospital was in network surprisingly. So I had the bills from them. 

        And then I got a $700 bill because the attending physician wasn’t in network. But like…. first of all if I had asked and gotten an answer what was my other option? Wait 7 or 8 hours to see the next physician who might also not be in network? Also, there’s no reason that a physician even knows what network they’re in because their contract is with the hospital system, not our insurance companies!

        • Not to mention, 97% of your time in an ER (at least in my experience) is spent with a nurse. The dr just breeeeeezes in and writes a script. Thanks for nothin pally!!

    • I rather like that song, although I’m partial to the Iggy Pop, or at leas Siouxsie version…
      I’m also really curious about that padlock underneath the bus door…

      • oh i love this song….just wasnt expecting it
        i thought the hoff drank himself to death
        i guess we are gonna have a singing zombie apocalypse…
        eh…im good with that

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