“Mulcahy said members of the department’s narcotics team had received information that a man was selling drugs at McDonald’s on Mitchells Chance Road in Edgewater.”

Pertinent facts from this link.    No wonder everyone had the munchies.

January ‘09 brought about another State of the State address from the governor, Martin O’Malley.   Whatever your political views and political affiliation, each constituent of the state of Maryland should be worried about the message.

O’Malley said that the state of Maryland is facing an almost $2 billion budget deficit. 

He says there is hope for change.   "Why do I have hope and belief in that expectation? I give you two reasons. Barack Obama," said O’Malley.

Governor O’Malley – leadership doesn’t mean relying on the coattails of the federal government to bail us out.    Leadership is making difficult decisions.    Its time to make some.

Get ready, your costs are going up again.  According to Consuming Interests, Constellation Energy has announced plans to increase the distribution rates for gas and electricity. 

The main problem I have about this is that Constellation removed all the electric generation capabilities from BGE when they acquired the company.   Now, BGE represents a distribution network of pipes and wires – a one dimensional delivery company.   BGE claims they just pass the cost of the electricity/gas onto the customer.  This would be a rational argument if they weren’t buying supplies from their parent company.  It is not the consumers fault that the parent company is losing money due to their failed commodities trading desks that have tanked in the current economy.  

The second problem is that the generation capabilities that they now privately possess were built on tax dollars.   Our state government failed us with deregulation and the blind turning over of generation assets. 

From Wikipedia…. “Concierge medicine is a term used to describe a relationship with a primary care physician in which the patient pays an annual fee or retainer. This may or may not be in addition to other charges. In exchange for the retainer, doctors provide enhanced care. Other terms in use include boutique medicine, retainer-based medicine, and innovative medical practice design.”

Recently my doctor decided to switch to this style of plan.   For the small (laughable) cost of $2k/yr, he agrees to only keep 600 patients.   So on a yearly basis he walks with $1.2mil without ever seeing a patient.    Now if I was to utilize this plan, he would still bill my insurance for any office visit.    Is this double jeopardy [sic] applied to the healthcare system?

The more I think about this I become enraged and question the moral turpitude of my doctor.    Social class warfare at its finest.   Its time for serious healthcare reform.

Note: Aforementioned doctor’s name withheld.

I don’t know who Liberty Media is but I’m sure thankful that they bailed out Sirius XM today.   If you know me,  I’m addicted to the Coffee House and the Grateful Dead channel.    More coverage from earlier in the morning here.

The time has come where President Obama has signed the stimulus package into law.   Officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.   I thought it might be interesting to dig into some specific details on the bill but I don’t want you bore you.  You can find details of the final agreed-upon bill here.

In a previous post, I talked about holding your lawmakers accountable.   OpenCongress.com is great resource to do this.   You get to see the status of your representative’s votes, the bills they introduce, etc….     Don’t see something you agree with – do something about it!    Write your representatives and make yourself heard.   You can find contact details over at GovTrack.us.   One of my favorite sites is OpenSecrets.   This site allows you to track all campaign contributions to your elected officials.

With knowledge and a little persistence, you can be heard.    

Here is an example in my area:

Maryland’s 7th District.   Congressman Elijah E. Cummings.    According to his official website, his “featured” issues are witness protection, children’s dental coverage, subprime mortgages and Iraq.    So why would CSX Corp be his top contributor in 2007-2008?   Its certainly not because they represent his “featured” issues.  it is because he sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

What will I ever do with my extra $13 dollars per week?  

The more I read about this bill the more I become disgusted.   Obama said he was going to bring change to Washington.  That was his self-certified mandate for which the people voted. 

Just read this article by Jack Cafferty.   Where is the change?    Where is the transparency that our new gov’t promised?

A few observations:

• I don’t see the job creation in the stimulus package.    There is no doubt more money will need to be shoveled out later.
• Treasury Dept (aka Geithner) still has not produced adequate details.   See my other post.
• Real Estate continues to plummet.  “Prices fell by a record 9.5% in 2008”

We as a people need to start holding our legislators accountable.   Pathetic.

This article over at The Consumerist about the Facebook terms of service and more recently this article at The Standard depicts the confusion around the terms of service that Facebook employs.

While I am happy to see that Facebook appears to be doing the right thing in terms of content ownership an easier solution for me is to not post anything on their service.  Assuredly this is somewhat Draconian but that is OK with me.