ObamaCare Survives The Supreme Court

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Breaking News – the United States supreme court has upheld the contested parts of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), ruling it constitutional, in a blow to Republicans who had tried to characterise the bill as a grossly unconstitutional overreach of government power.

I haven’t had a chance yet to see the ruling, but it is hard to see this as anything other than a huge victory for the Obama administration in this election year, given the fact that the health care law is widely viewed as his signature domestic achievement and the fact that so many commentators – including many of those on the left – had predicted that large parts of the bill would be struck down.

My full reaction and thoughts on this developing story will follow in due course.

A Milestone Passed

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

The Telegraph reports today on a scientific and technological milestone about to be passed by the human race – Voyager 1, the NASA space probe launched in 1977, is due to become the first man-made object to leave our solar system, the Milky Way:

Scientists launched Voyager 1 in 1977 on what was meant to be a five-year mission to Jupiter and Saturn, however 30 years later the vessel has continued towards the boundary of our solar system 11 billion miles from Earth.

Once the spaceship crosses this border it will enter interstellar space – the void between our solar system and the rest of the universe – becoming the first man-made object to venture beyond our solar “bubble”.

In the newspaper’s own comments section, many readers have been responding with the sentiments either of nostalgia (look what we could do as a species when we put our mind to it in that era) or with happiness (how nice to see a positive story in these difficult times, etc.). One reader, identified only as Hardeep_Singh, summed it up best for me:

“Extraordinary a glimpse of when anything was possible compare that to today’s mindset, ‘fairness’, protest, ‘lessons must be learnt’, etc.”

I know that I am in a small and diminishing minority of those who believe that even in these recession-hit, austere times, we should continue to dream grand dreams, and implement the ambitious programmes to make them possible. But it is my view that our societies cannot be built of just hospitals and schools and roads and bridges and the utilitarian things that bind us to the present; there must be room also for the arts, for medical research, scientific exploits and human-inspired voyages that perhaps don’t have a pre-determined goal in sight (Voyager 1’s mission after Titan was made up on the fly, the craft was not expected to remain functional for so long) but which generate new knowledge and bring back riches for us all nonetheless. I hope that our leaders will remember this, and that it will not fall exclusively to China and the developing world to explore these new frontiers and pass these milestones.

On a much more lowly, terrestrial scale, this article also happens to represent a small milestone in itself – the 100th piece that I have uploaded to this blog. Many thanks to you all, frequent and occasional readers alike, for your time, your comments and your support.

And God speed Voyager 1 on its journey.

Music For The Day

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

You can take your Alfred Brendel recordings and Daniel Barenboim discs and let them gather dust in a cellar as far as I’m concerned; Glenn Gould made Beethoven sound fresh, exciting and just plain fun to play in his quixotic romp through the piano sonatas (the ones he liked, at least).

No more so than in this recording of the opening movement of the Piano Sonata no. 6, Op. 10 no. 2:

 

Makes me want to stroll to the piano showroom down the road and pretend to be an interested buyer so I can abuse one of the lovely remodeled Steinways again for an hour or so.

Love In A Nursing Home

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

A thoughtful and well-written piece from NPR about the complications and considerations arising when nursing home patients – particularly those suffering from dementia – try to maintain existing or form new romantic relationships:

[Gerontologist William H.] Thomas said that we need to see a shift in our society’s understanding of aging. “We need to normalize the idea that older people are human beings,” he says. “They have the same needs and same desires they had before. Age changes those needs and desires, but they are still there.”

He recommends that adult children talk about the issue of sexuality with their aging parents in nursing homes. “They never thought that Mom would have a boyfriend at the nursing home, but it’s true,” he says. “As we become an older society, this is something that we need to learn to better address.”

I quite agree that these important matters should be discussed between care homes and their patients or those with power of attorney as part of the process for selecting the right care home – it is vital that the staff know how to handle such situations and how to respect the wishes of the patient.

Somehow, I also know that just as the end-of-life care discussion morphed into “death panels”, any discussion of this topic in the US will immediately be hijacked by today’s GOP and mischaracterised as “mandatory orgies for grandma” or something else of the like.

Let’s Fly

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Apparently the Conservative-led government can no longer be relied upon to do anything that doesn’t make me want to bang my head repeatedly against a brick wall in open-mouthed astonishment at their zesty blend of rank incompetence and lack of principle, so it was particularly refreshing today to read this piece in The Telegraph, reporting that the Taxpayers’ Alliance is renewing their call for an abolishment of air passenger duty (the ludicrously huge tax on passenger air travel in the UK).

The Telegraph reports:

The pressure group – which was formed in 2004 and supports lower taxes for UK residents – has given its backing to the Fair Tax on Flying campaign, which is urging the Government to reduce or abolish APD.

“Britain’s punitive taxes on flights, now the highest in the world, are an incredible burden on families taking a well-earned break,” said Emma Boon, campaign director at the Taxpayers’ Alliance. “Jobs are also at stake as tourists and business travellers choose a destination to visit or invest where they won’t get ripped off. APD should really be abolished, but the very least politicians can do is cut this tax to a fairer level.”

Absolutely. Air Passenger Duty is just another typically, depressingly British example of the government picking an arbitrary thing to fixate upon, and gradually cranking up the tax in each successive Budget to help fund whatever addle-headed, moronic scheme happens to be flavour of the month at that particular time. It penalises business travellers, leisure travellers, people trying to visit far-flung family, people in long distance relationships and  anyone else whose only crime is their need to transit through one of Britain’s dilapidated airports.

The article goes on to explain:

APD is paid by all travellers departing from a UK airport. Following the most recent rise in the tax, an eight per cent hike made in April, a family of four travelling to Europe must pay £52 in APD, while those flying farther afield are hit even harder. The cost of APD for a family of four flying to the United States or Egypt, for example, is £260; for those travelling to the Caribbean or South Africa, it is £324; and a family visiting Argentina or Australia must pay £368.

Those figures are doubled for those flying in premium-economy, business- or first-class cabins.

That level of taxation is simply not funny, in fact it is intolerably ridiculous, and ought not to be allowed to remain under a Conservative government. Staggeringly, in 2005 this tax was only £5 per person for a European flight and £20 for a longer distance flight. A 360% rise in any tax over just seven years is quite ridiculous, and this one is proving to be a real dampener on the economy at a time when we need to be keeping business and family costs down the most. It’s typical of this rudderless, unprincipled government that yet further rises are also planned this year.

I strongly encourage everyone to sign the petition to scrap Air Passenger Duty at this website.