Problems of Din’alin’ism (Part MXI)

Dear Dr. Bones,

Though St. Elizabeth, Granny of God ¡and a H*rv*rd man to boot!, cries out to be ridiculed, she will keep till tomorrrow. Unless my signals are crossed, the track must be cleared at once to let this one through:

Report: ‘Romneycare’ a killer Study finds Bay State lost thousands of jobs By Frank Quaratiello / Thursday, September 15, 2011 The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops (_sic_) on the campaign trail. “Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that,” said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings.

There’s a lot more where that came from -- ¿ain’t we got fun? -- but perhaps I have administered too large a dose already. Not having had to turn a page or click a link to get from the shoppe window to the bowels of Kiddiecons-‘R’-Us, you will probably have failed to do Master Frankie Q.’s employin’ Corporation full justice in the matter of Freelord of Romneycare’s *¡*K*I*L*L*E*R*!* status. One was hoping, of course, on the basis of the headline, for hot Tales of Whitey Bulger stuff, at very least, photographs of the graves of thirty-eight (37.709) innocent victims of Willard Mitt.

Only to find that ’tis no more than yet another whight-wing wheeze or burble from The Louisdayhicksville Tuba-Trumpet. [1] [2] _¡Quelle chagrin!_

The Corporation-employed headline artist, who is presumably not identical with the scribblin’ _signorino_, is antecedently prepared to believe pretty well any scabbery that comes down the pike, includin' "Bay State lost thousands of jobs." That is certainly the way Foxworld oughtabe. No pious foxcuckoo is likely to doubt for an instant that anythin' that sounds so perfectly swell for her Party an’ its AEIdeology might not be 1040% accurate.

Decent political grown-ups, on the other hand -- an’ not so decent Willardmitt groupies also, if any still exist around here -- will demand just a little more than the bare word of the all-prestigious "research director at Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute." "¿And how, exactly. would HE know?" is the crux of it, though I have to wonder a little on the side with what "on average, Romneycare cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs" has been averaged.

The odd thirteen slain jobs is a nice rhetorical touch, yet rhetorical is all it is. Had Freelord Bachman an' the B.H.I. b'hoys wanted to just make their stuff up, "18,313" is not significantly more difficult to coin an’ utter than eighteen thousand on the nose would have been. A little farther on, "reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million" seems to me positively finicky in its attempted pseudoprecision.

Be that as it may, I find it an uphill struggle to believe that the b'hoys actually sent out --and received back -- questionnaires to everybooby who has had the bad judgment to specuvest in Romneychusetts. Even more pertinently, to everybooby who did NOT so specuvest. Were you asked, Dr. Bones? Do you suppose the Chambermaids of Commerce at Beijing, for instance, were asked? What about the CoC’s of Bangalore?

Let us face it, sir: an unheard-of crew of Bachmanites can not possibly have paid the postage required, all Coorses an’ Bradleys to the contrary notwithstandin’, one wonders what they actually did do. Perhaps a selective telephone survey of used-truck dealers in Worcester County? Or how about a couple of _indocumentado_ spottin' field trips north of the Mystic? [2] Or ....

Happy days.
--JHM


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[1] One imagines Don Francito, or its employin’ Corporation’s headline artist, or both, twirlin’ their Hoovervillainous moustaches as they came up with the little joke or libel. Not so easy, though, to imagine Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla actually noticin’ it an’ enjoyin’ their factious yuck. "Life is unfair." And Art goes unappreciated.

*

[2] "The only good job is a dead job" tresspasses across my mental front yard.

I shoot the intruded down with gusto and impunity, knowing that if the "Beacon Hill Institute" coven were up to thinkin’ as clearly as that, they would have emigrated to NYC or DC long since. It is an admirable thing, a tribute to Yankee Exceptionalism, that even Cousin Marriage Country an’ the second-string Babbits of Worcester County should possess their very own Tanks of Thought. _¡Nur in Amerika!

Nevertheless, if the BHI were significantly better than a provincial backwater of Foxcuckooland, the Muses and you and I would not need to wonder _¿¡Quienes!?_, or need to turn to Big LEW for confirmation of our uncharitable suspicions about Coorses an’ Bradleys an’ so forth an’ so on. (( Though it *does* make one feel good to have guessed whight about such a neo-thing. ))

The Class of Coorses an’ Bradleys (&c. &c.) will not, be needin’ any lessons in jobicide from their own hired hands. Not only is that "¿My foot, my tutor?" country, ’twould call for the audience to suppose poor Ms. Miranda has a club foot on top of her run-of-the-mill juvenile delinquentisms.

*

[3] Don Juan and Doña Lindita do not themselves specuvest, naturally. Nevertheless, a notable increase in their numbers would almost certainly reflect a decline in specuvestment by their complexional an’ socioeconomic Betters. I have no notion, myself, how the detailed quantification would work. But bear in mind that I never took Ec. 10 at _alma mater_, let alone his freelordship’s "Economics 101" at, say, Wingsdale or St. Dilbert Antistate University.

We ignorant lay sheeps would have no business presuming to follow his freelordship of Bachman an' the b'hoys through a maze of differential equations (or whatever). But, unlike Don Francito de Quaratiello an' the _Herald_ angels, we cannot feel altogether satisfied with an announcement of completely methodology-free neoresults. Not when the neoresults are blatantly designed to be used against us an' to exalt the Horn of Wingnuttiness.