Saturday, October 29, 2005

Flu? No, I drove.

When we last left off, I was defending oil companies from the neo-communist senator Chuck Schumer, who wanted them to donate a percentage of their profits to needy people in the United States. But even I’ve reached the limits of my desire to defend the oil companies, Exxon-Mobil in particular, when it was revealed that someone decided to drop the dime on the fact that they were giving fake flu shots to 1,600 employees in their Texas depot.

The owner of a home health business faces at least 10 years in prison if found guilty of Medicare fraud charges accusing him of injecting fake flu vaccine into as many as 1,600 Baytown employees of Exxon Mobil, as well as 14 residents of a La Porte nursing home.

Iyad Abu El Hawa, the owner of Comfort & Caring Home Health in the 10100 block of Harwin, was arrested Thursday evening and is being held without bail, officials said Friday.

El Hawa, 35, made an initial appearance Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Johnson, who scheduled a probable cause and detention hearing for 9 a.m. Monday.

“Because he intended to bill Medicare (for the nursing home shot recipients), as if he was providing a vaccine, this is a fraud on that federal program,” said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.

“We are trying to ascertain as quickly as possible whether more victims received fake flu shots and whether they, too, are at risk,” Rosenberg said. “Other charges may follow.”

Initial tests indicate the shots given Oct. 19 and 20 contained nothing more than purified water, authorities said. There have been no reports of adverse effects from the fake vaccinations.

But because the safety of the syringes is unknown, public health officials are urging shot recipients to be tested for bloodborne pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C as a precaution. Testing of the syringes and the liquid inside is continuing.

First of all, I’d be beyond pissed that some doctor injected me with some unknown fluid, that is believed to be purified water (yet still not unconfirmed). After settling down about that, I’d be even more pissed off that I could have possibly contracted HIV or hepatitis because of this dumbass doctor. Third, I’d be flipping through the yellow pages for a lawyer so I could sue the pants off Exxon-Mobil for contracting with a doctor who had the bright idea to do all of this.

Pass It Around

Fed-up with the fact that the return of communism is nowhere in sight, democrats have decided to take matters into their own hands and make oil companies pay for poor people.

With Americans facing soaring heating fuel costs this winter, Democratic senators on Thursday asked the big oil companies to donate some of their record profits to help low-income families pay their utility bills.

U.S. oil companies’ profits during the first nine months of this year are up more than 35 percent from last year. Exxon Mobil reported it earned $9.9 billion in the third quarter alone.

The Democrats asked Exxon and other major oil companies to be “good corporate citizens” and contribute 10 percent of their profits to fuel assistance programs that help poor families and the elderly cover their heating costs. Republicans have blocked attempts to boost funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to around $5 billion, up from the $2.2 billion it spent last year.

“American families need economic relief from high energy prices,” the lawmakers said in a letter to each of the companies.

“They need the security to know they will not have to decide between heating their homes or feeding their families, and paying the energy bill or buying life-saving medicines,” the senators said.

The letter was signed by 11 senators, including former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton of New York, Mark Dayton of Minnesota and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Democrat Charles Schumer of New York said it did not make sense to fund the LIHEAP program at around $2 billion for the whole year when Exxon made almost $10 billion in just three months. “Something is wrong in this country,” he said, adding that companies “need to share a little bit” of their profits.

In a related matter, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman told a Senate committee that the Bush administration would not tax the earnings of oil companies to help fund LIHEAP.

The Energy Department has forecast that natural gas costs will jump 48 percent nationally this winter, while heating oil expenditures will be up 32 percent and propane users will pay 30 percent more for fuel.

I’m as mad as the next guy when it comes to the fact that I’m paying $3.00 dollars a gallon, which comes out to close to $30 bucks when it’s time to fill up the tank. I can remember when gas here in Southern California was less than a dollar (and that wasn’t too long ago), and you could fill up your car for about $10 dollars. But those days aren’t here anymore, and there’s no use in crying over spilled milk.

Now, are the oil companies justified in spiking oil prices, especially over the past year and a half or so? Beats me, I don’t work in the oil industry. Common sense tells me that time, combined with inflation, will equal prices that go up, so $3.00 bucks a gallon is something we’re going to have to deal with now if not later. I think you’re a fool if you believe we’re getting a bit of relief when the prices drop five cents after jumping forty-five cents, but in no way, shape, or form do I believe the oil companies should get stabbed in the ribs because they’re turning a profit, nor do I believe they should be forced to support the poor in the United States just because they have the ability to do so, or because some socialist senator is pissed-off because the oil companies are making money.

Helo’s Rant of the Day

You know what word has been making me mad for about a year now? The word ”meme," which by definition means:

A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

The only place you’ll hear that word used is in the blogosphere. In my years of post-secondary education, I never heard anyone use it in a sentence, and I think I read it one time in a textbook. Never have I heard anyone use it while talking to their friend, family member, or a coworker. When it became a word that was used fifty times in one blog post starting around the 2004 election, I assumed it was someone misspelling the word memo, until it began to spread like wildfire, mostly amongst people who thought it would bring them to the next level of blog stardome.

In other words, the only place where it’s used is the blogosphere, and its constant use by bloggers rivals the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.

I’m a firm believer that using big words for the sake of using big words does not make you look more intelligent, and if someone has to break out a dictionary in order to find out what you’re talking about, it’s time to go mainstream.