Read in the local free paper today: government plans to make patients pay for “unnecessary” visits to the doctor or emergency room. This is probably not going to become real policy, but is used as trail balloon to shift the window on how we think about medical care, slowly shifting more and more of the burden towards the individual rather than the insurer or the government. The healthcare system here is slowly being hollowed out, insurance premiums going up while basic coverage is whittled down; this is just one more shot in that war.
Sarah Brightman wants to sing in space
Sarah Brightman wants to be the first professional singer in space:
British singer Sarah Brightman is to travel as a space tourist to the International Space Station.
The classical recording artist, once married to Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, will be part of a three-person crew flying to the ISS.
After completing a tour in 2013, Ms Brightman will embark on six months of preparation at the Star City cosmonaut training centre in Moscow.
She will be the seventh space tourist to visit the ISS.
Once there, she says she intends to become the first professional musician to sing from space.
I say we let her do what she wants, as long as she sings this song:
Dutch government goes apeshit over benefit fraud
If you get any money from the Dutch government in the form of social benefits of any kind, they’ll now reserve the right to come in your house to search it for fraud:
While everybody has been distracted by other news, the Dutch Senate quietly passed two laws that allow the government to enter into people’s homes on suspicion on fraud without having a shred of proof. The second law states that anybody caught committing fraud for the second time will see their entire income automagically disappear for five whole years.
Anybody on benefits of any kind is ‘at risk’ of having a pencil pusher at their door at any time now. As well, anybody who receives money in the form of a government allocation (kids, housing, etc.) is also a candidate for a pencil pusher’s visit. Old people and parents are not amused.
It’s something that has been slowly creeping into the “debate” over social benefits here, the incessant need to be able to check up to see if somewhere, someone is cheating the taxpayer and nothing is sacred to make sure this doesn’t happen. And if you do “cheat”, you deserve to die in poverty.
But let’s not do anything about those poor bankers who made millions through losing billions, legally and illegally.
An alphabet link soup
Let’s swipe an idea from Branko, who after all got it himself from Scalzi and see what sites pop up for each lettre of the alphabet (save for ÆØÅ of course) if I use Opera’s autocomplete (other browsers are available):
A: Acesweekly, David Lloyd’s (off off V for Vendetta and Night Raven fame) new digital comics weekly.
B: the BBC radio player, tuned to radio 4, for my inner fogey.
C: Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter, essential reading to keep up with Yank comics.
D: David Willis’ do-over webcomic.
E: Every Day Is Like Wednesday; more comics blogging.
F: The Guardian‘s football subsite.
G: Girls with Slingshots, comedy soap opera strip by Danielle Corsetto.
H: the Hooded Utilitarian, completely wrong comics group blog.
I: not much here, just where I went to the Saturday before last.
J: James Nicoll’s Livejournal. Come for the science fiction snark, stay for the cats and hare raising, live threatening accidents.
K: another comics blogger heard from.
L: what I use to catalog my books.
M: Metafilter, natch.
N: Making Light
O: Oglaf, not really safe for work.
P: legendary 2000AD writer/editor Pat Mills’ blog.
Q: Jeph Jacques Questionable Content.
R: Requires Hate, which puts the boot into everything that really is bad in science fiction and fantasy, like racist and sexist kind of bad, rather than just awful writing. Is everything people who make the toen argument dislike.
S: oh look, financial analysises of football clubs. That’s interesting.
T: The Comics Journal.
U: Unfogged, a smartypants smart aleck group blog.
V: Voetbal International, not that I visited this site much.
W: Tim O’Neil’s rather good if too infrequently updated blog.
X: XKCD, of course.
Y: yes of course it’s Youtube, but what particular video would this link to? Turns out it’s a metal dude singing to his cat. As you do.
Z: Zelo Street, an UK political/newsmedia blog that does daily battle with tabloid nonsense.
Interesting, wasn’t it?
Eleven months
Eleven months to the day since Sandra died. Time flies even when you’re not having fun. I thougt I’d keep it light today by just sharing some of the songs that would always cheer her up.
Sandra had always been a Paul Weller fan, but never more so than during his Style Council days.
From the Style Council’s Long Hot Summer it’s only a short step to Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine:
Roy Ayers is one of those jazz/funk crossover artists that made the seventies such an interesting musical decade. The Crusaders are another example; their greatest hit Streetlife being not quite like their other work… Here they are at Montreux in 2003, with Randy Crawford:
I’ve talked about how much Sandra liked the Brothers Johnson’s version of Strawberry Letter 23 before, but here’s Shuggie Otis’ original version:
As for the Brothers Johnson, another favourite was Land of Ladies, which always reminded her of driving through France on a family holiday with the album on which this song appeared the only cassette available and hence being played over and over.
Stevie Wonder was another huge favourite of Sandra’s. Y’all know what this is.
Not quite as sophisticated as Stevie Wonder, but certainly as funky was Johnny “Guitar” Watson, who had had a long career already before he reinvented himself in the seventies. Here he is on Soul Train:
Speaking of funk and reinvention, Chaka Khan got her start with this lot, Rufus, long before she became an eighties pop diva:
Let’s leave with another summer song by another favourite, The Isley Brothers’ Summer Breeze: