Allegedly, JK Rowling missed out on receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom because some people felt her books promoted sorcery. A BBC News article, linked here, notes the revelation in Matt Latimer’s book titled ‘Speechless: Tales of a Whitehouse Survivor’.

Matt Latimer, former speech writer for President George W Bush, said that some members of his administration believed her books promoted sorcery.

Sorcery. Dangerous stuff!

The article goes on to note previous authors who were awarded this honor.

Past literary recipients of the award include John Steinbeck and Harper Lee.

I have to admit, I am not really a Harry Potter fan, but even if I were I don’t know that I would be comfortable trying to compare it as a literary work against ‘Of Mice and Men’ or ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.

What do you think? Is this a clear case of religious bigotry, or just the wild claims of someone out to make a buck?

Here I am worried about cancer or diabetes making me solely responsible for medical expenses that I could never possibly afford. Apparently being battered is also something that the insurance companies think you should pay for yourself.

But, in DC and eight other states, including Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, insurance companies have gone too far, claiming that “domestic violence victim” is also a pre-existing condition.

…according to this article posted on SEIU.org.

Not meaning to belittle the issue, so far I have not quite been able to qualify this claim, based on what I read in the article. Is anyone out there able to cite reliable media coverage of this?

The article goes on to ask readers to do something about it, stating:

It is clear that insurance companies refuse to police themselves. It’s up to us to call on Congress to take action now to pass health care reform and end discrimination against patients with pre-existing conditions.

Again, I think domestic violence is pretty crummy, but is this article about domestic violence being labeled as a pre-existing condition, or about pre-existing conditions being bad. Does this mean that a person who is not against pre-existing conditions is not against domestic violence?

That’s as far as I’m going to stick my neck out on this one. I dare not play devils advocate on the question of whether or not it should be legal for an insurance company to make these claims. Nope. No way. Not going to do it. You want to? Fine. Comment!

7 of them, apparently. 7 scary numbers and prophecies and codes and the likes that suggest scary things about President Obama and the future of not only our country, but even the world. Signs of the end times? Watch and decide for yourself!

Best we start stockpiling the ammunition and canned goods, just in case.

This seems to be the suggestion over at http://www.merchantfraud.org/, a web site offering stickers to those who feel they need them in order to combat the inappropriate practice of requiring a minimum purchase amount in order to use a credit card. Worried that stickers are a little too easy to remove? Based on the FAQ, you’re not the only one.

Q:  How do I make sure the sticker sticks?

What does the site say about that?

A:  We recommend first wiping the surface with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol, then letting it dry, then placing the sticker.

Huh. Sound advice, I suppose. Everyone knows that adhesive materials do better with a clean surface, right? But that’s not really enough for some people who go on to ask…

Q: What if I really want the sticker to stay put?

Oh, hey! That’s a good question. (Because we were assuming, perhaps, that the original question meant you only kind of really wanted to make sure it would stick?) Well, surely there’s a good answer to that, right?

A: We’ve heard that spraying it with a clear lacquer can help with that, though we’ve never tried it.

Of course! Heck, that would probably work almost as well as just spray painting something onto the door. Now, before you get all up in arms about this being wrong, let’s be sure to point out just why, exactly, this web site has taken it upon itself to attack those businesses which persist in this minimum purchase practice.

Visa has certain regulations that all merchants that accept Visa cards must follow. One of those rules is that Visa merchants are not permitted to establish minimum transaction amounts, even on sale items.

Well. Surely a little vigilante vandalism is appropriate then. Can’t be letting these guys get away with this unpunished. That quote actually comes from VISA themselves. Of course, the next bit in the same quote doesn’t seem to make mention of stickers at all in it’s master plan for taking down these would be fraudsters.

If you run into a problem like this with a merchant, please notify your Visa card-issuing bank. Visa member banks have access to the appropriate Visa rules and regulations as well as to the Notification of Customer Complaint forms which should be used by the bank to document and file merchant complaints.

At least they aren’t condoning violence. Yet.

According to this video, healthcare is like water treatment and that which is made available through police and fire services. What do you think?

Town meetings seem to be great places where politicians can be themselves and say what they really believe and really mean it. Senator Jim Inholfe spent some time expounding on how President Obama is bad for the United States, as noted in this article from Tulsa World.

Just what did this gentleman have to say? I’m glad you asked. Let’s take a peek at some of the good bits.

“Every institution that has made this country the greatest nation in the world is under attack,” he said at the end of the 75-minute session.

Now if that isn’t in the spirit of zOMGWTF?!, I don’t know what is. The only way I know of to make that a stronger statement is to add in some expletives and tack a ‘yo mama’ on the end of it in some way. Wow. How about some specifics?

He is also alarmed, he said, by the proposed closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Obama administration wants to shutter the camp because of its association with torture.

Really? Why? Is torture one of those institutions that make America great? No, apparently allegations of torture at Guantanamo are a lie, or something.

Inhofe said: “There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons.”

Huh. Well, okay! That seems reasonable, then. What else?

He also said he continues to be proven correct in his claim that global climate change is a hoax.

I knew it!

“More and more, with each month that goes by, more scientists agree with me,” he said. “We are winning.”

Yeah, take that you pansy Liberals! There may be floating islands of plastic in the Pacific, but this whole global warming cataclysm thing is a joke. Could be, I guess. I’m no scientist.

Is that it? Making life easier for terrorists and distracting us with non-issues? Nah. Obama has more going on. He is also disarming America. No, he doesn’t mean he’s collecting up our guns, (yet?) it’s worse than that. He’s stepping on the military. Oh, you want proof? Check this out!

Inhofe’s third concern, he said, is that “Barack Obama is disarming America.” He conceded that Obama requested more military spending, but he criticized the elimination of several weapons systems, including the F-22 fighter.

And that’s not all!

Obama, at the urging of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, also scrapped one of Inhofe’s pet projects, a cannon that was to be assembled at Elgin in southwestern Oklahoma.

I see the doubters out there and I know they’re getting ready to say, “Oh, it’s his pet project, no wonder he’s crying up a storm”. Hey now, let’s be fair. Maybe it’s his pet project because he believes in it, not the other way around. This probably wouldn’t have happened if we had more people from the Bush administration shaping decisions, right? Right? Hm…

Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, advocated abandoning high-tech systems such as the cannon and the F-22 for cheaper, more reliable weapons.

Oh. Well, is it a laser cannon? Because anyone who says no to laser cannons loses my vote.

There’s more, but that’s up to you to look for in the article. I’ll give you a hint, though, he mentions health care reform and energy bill.

…and for that matter, will it be MANDATORY that we get it? ZOMGWTF?!

To sum up what I got from the video, which may not be entirely accurate as my mind wandered some:

1. Those that worked on the vaccine are unwilling to take it.
2. Those that worked on the vaccine urge their friends and family not to take it.
3. The vaccine may be linked to something bad.
4. The U.S. government may be cooking up some form of requirement that people take the vaccine.
5. This vaccine may turn you into a zombie!!1!1!!

So, ready your shotguns and as always, discuss!

Perhaps among the most popular news items for people to scream zOMGWTF?! to in recent times has been that of health care reform. As such, we wouldn’t want to miss the boat completely, so let’s drag up this old article from CNN Money, ‘5 freedoms you’d lose in health care reform‘, and see if anyone is brave enough to discuss!

As we expect most readers to be a bit lazy and not particularly interested in wandering off to read whole articles, let’s get a quick overview here of just what we’re doomed to lose out on:

1. Freedom to choose what’s in your plan
2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs
3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage
4. Freedom to keep your existing plan
5. Freedom to choose your doctors

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage — including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money — but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can’t have. It’s a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.

Ooh. That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Let’s look at the details and dare to consider whether or not this article rings true today.

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through “qualified” plans offered by health-care “exchanges” that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can’t really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.

The reactions I’ve seen to this assertion range from breaking down in tears to screaming ‘It’s a lie!’ to shrugging shoulders and saying ‘So what?’, with some people actually going back and forth through each almost as though they suffer from some manner of psychological disorder. Truly impressive.

… the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that’s understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That’s hardly a formula for lower costs. It’s as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

So, prior to this there’s some mention of carrying the overly sick types, but here it concedes that this has to be done anyway, but really, shouldn’t people who are doing all they can to be healthy get some sort of benefit? (I’m not too sure about you, but I do feel like being healthy is, in and of itself, a pretty darned good benefit!)

The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical expenses. “The government could set extremely low deductibles that would eliminate HSAs,” says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. “And they could do it after the bills are passed.”

Nooooooooo! Not my High Deductible/Health Savings Account plan! ZOMGWTFMMABBQWWJDFAIL!!!1!!1!! Yeah, this just goes right on back to one the (if not THE) biggest disagreements here. Some people want for everyone to be responsible for their own health and others want everyone to pitch in so that everyone can all have the same and still more want to try to find some sort of balance. HD/HSA’s, for those of you who are unfamiliar, are probably the absolute epitome of the idea of keeping your own money as your own and not having anything to do with every other person out there when it comes to health care.

I’m not even going to look at the whole freedom to keep your own plan thing here. There’s just too much to it, and I am le tired. Just pretend I typed in some reasonably snarky, yet relatively neutral comments here about it along with some quotes from the article which you really should have read in full already if you’ve made it this far.

Next is the freedom to choose your own doctors and such. Yet another huge issue for the people who are more concerned with what they get for their money than the welfare of their neighbors. The concern is that a person may have to pay a premium amount, previously a personal choice, and get non-premium (welfare level) choice in who takes care of them. From what I can tell, the concern here is that we all end up going to the local government funded medical clinic for everything rather than going to our fantastic doctor’s plush family practice offices. Maybe this is a knee-jerk (zOMGWTF?!) reaction.

The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges — and as we’ve seen, that will soon be most Americans — must get their care through something called “medical home.” Medical home is similar to an HMO. You’re assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.

Did he say assigned? I didn’t care for assigned seating in high school, personally.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America’s health-care cost explosion.

I’m not actually sure, is being rewarded for saving money really worse than being rewarded for pushing name brand pharmaceuticals that may or may not be necessary? What do you think?

Maybe you have been to a bank before that required you to give up a thumb print when cashing a check. Perhaps you felt a little put out for having to go through this for any number of reasons. Well, you should count yourself lucky. At least you have thumbs, unlike Mr. Valdez who was refused when attempting to cash a check at a Bank of America branch in Tampa, FL. Lacking arms, he was unable to give up the requisite thumb print and the manager was unwilling to break policy.

Steve Valdez says he was shocked when he was told he had to put his thumbprint on a check written on his wife’s Bank of America check. Valdez says the check was written to him with the same address he has on his driver’s license. Although he had two forms of identification both with pictures, the bank still required Valdez to give a thumbprint before it would cash the check.

Yeah, but were they real ID or did they have the name Mclovin on them? Allegedly they were real and the upper level suit wearing types think the manager was made of FAIL, not win and awesome. Oops.

A spokesman for Bank of America says while the thumbprint is a requirement for those who don’t have accounts, the bank should have made accommodations.

Don’t take our word for it, though. Check out the article over at the WTSP site. For that matter, look around and if you find anymore zOMGWTF?! news, pass it along so we can share it with our readers.

That is the ‘dangerous precedent’ a Brooklyn born and raised judge has been setting down in the midst of our troubled economic times, according to this New York Times article. How dare he, a supreme court judge, expect that such important financial institutions as Deutsche Bank or Wells Fargo have evidence of their ownership of a property they are foreclosing on?

He has tossed out 46 of the 102 foreclosure motions that have come before him in the last two years. And his often scathing decisions, peppered with allusions to the Croesus-like wealth of bank presidents, have attracted the respectful attention of judges and lawyers from Florida to Ohio to California. At recent judicial conferences in Chicago and Arizona, several panelists praised his rulings as a possible national model.

I’m not sure what I am more impressed and amazed by in all of this. It could be that the financial institutions have their paper work so fouled up. It might be that a judge is actually stepping up to the plate and saying no to them. Both those are good, but I’ve got to say it’s also rather astounding that the financial institutions seem to think of this as some sort of travesty of justice. Are you kidding me?

His opinions, too, have been greeted by a cry of affront from a bank official or two, who say this judge stands in the way of what is rightfully theirs. HSBC bank appealed a recent ruling, saying he had set a “dangerous precedent” by acting as “both judge and jury,” throwing out cases even when homeowners had not responded to foreclosure motions.

ZOMGWTF?! How dare he?

“If you are going to take away someone’s house, everything should be legal and correct,” he said. “I’m a strange guy — I don’t want to put a family on the street unless it’s legitimate.”

Right on, man. Right on.