Entitled To Know has a little blog entry (5/31) about the high pressure tactics used by Medicare Advantage insurers and the first, feeble attempts to control them.  It burns me that the government, Bush Administration to be accurate, created a situation where these companies are paid 13% more to provide services that compete with Medicare which is paid for by our tax dollars.  And then we have to consider establishing rules and enforcement bureaus at additional expense to keep them abusing their potential clients?? When did we get government by scam artists and their shills?

This article in the LA Times comes via Ronni at Time Goes By.  It reflects something I have felt in my gut for a while.  I have read AARP Magazine and stories in other outlets about companies that retain or hire older people (55+) but wondered where they are.  As I looked at the lists of featured companies I noticed that  a large portion of the companies are in retail.  Most do not pay a living wage and, lets face reality here, minimum wage is not a living wage.  Most are not looking for full time jobs, no matter what the job ads say.  The article talks about flexibility in hours but the retail outlets around here want you to be flexible, not them.  As the article mentions these are low-skill jobs that don't require a lot of education.  But on the flip side, I have been told in interviews for these kinds of jobs that I am 'over-qualified.'  I have the same education background I had 10-15 years ago when the matter never came up.  My age is the only difference now.  Worse, I never really liked retail.  I did it as a standby, until something better came along.  But those better opportunities are coming less and less.

We all know that Joe Liberman is not really and Independent any more than he was a Democrat before he lost his bid to run for re-election on the Democratic ticket.  This op ed piece in the NY Times lambasting him for his efforts to pressure YouTube into removing  "hundreds of videos produced by Islamist terrorist organizations or their supporters" proves my point.  YouTube did review its sites for those that broke its rules on hate speech and removed 80.  I am disappointed that they did that much.  I wonder what criteria Senator Liberman used to determine which sites were produced by 'Islamist terrorist organizations or their supporters.'  The same, perhaps, that Michelle Malkin used to determine that Rachel Ray was sporting a kaffiyeh in the Dunkin' Donuts ad?  See the details of this ludicrous example of stupidity on boston.com by of by way of Daily Kos.  

Thank you again, Ronni, for this article in Science Daily!!!  I knew there had to be a good reason to be what I always wanted to be: a contrary, cantankerous, irritable old biddy.