A LITTLE BIT OF THIS AND A DAB OF THAT

Posted by: Fredster on: November 27, 2012

• In: dis 'n dat | Morning Widdershins | Open Thread
• 22 Comments

SURPRISE!

Yes it is I, Fredster the invalid!     I know, I know…you are probably as sick of hearing this as I am of *being* this!  Nevertheless I’m “doin’ mah duty” to get my post done for y’all.  Also, I’m working on a possible “fix” for my needing to have feet and legs elevated that won’t interfere with this computer stuff.  It involves a large storage container placed beside the desk to where I can stick my right foot and leg out and elevate it on said storage container.  Sorta like riding side-saddle…I think.   Anyway, this post is going to be a mashup of some things I’ve seen around the net that caught my eye and I offer them for you to browse.

UPDATE ON MEDICAL SITUATION

I went to the doctor yesterday, it was mainly to get the dressing changed on the boo-boo on my leg and for him to check it.  I have an appointment with a specialist Thursday of this week and I guess I’ll learn a bit more then.  I did, however, have to get very infuriated with my doctor.  He is standing there looking at me and says “Fred, you’ve got to get some of this weight off.  The excess weight is what’s causing a lot of the issues you’re dealing with now.”  Okay.  A few minutes later it’s “Well this is looking good and with the swelling, just continue to keep your feet and legs elevated.”  DOH!   I’m still waiting for him to give me the formula to work on both of those at the same time.     Well, on with the show.

SECOND SHOE DROPS FOR SANDY VICTIMS

The folks in New Jersey and New York have survived the first shoe drop, i.e. the storm itself.  Now they are getting ready to get hit with the second one:  the arrival of the insurance adjusters.

I am terribly afraid our Northern friends who went through Sandy are about to get some very hard lessons about that insurance policy they have and about just what it is going to pay out on.  Having been through this I can tell you now, those folks are going to be amazed at how much of their damage will be considered “water damage”, i.e. from the surge and not from the winds of Sandy.  These folks are gonna be taken aback by what the adjusters will say is ‘water damage” as opposed to “wind damage”.  You see, if the damage to a home is considered caused by water, i.e. an overflowing creek, river or surge from a storm, it is not covered by homeowner policies.  Those things need to be covered by a flood insurance policy.  The difference is that your homeowners policy is issued through State Farm, Liberty Mutual, The Hartford, companies that have stockholders and who don’t like to see losses that affect their shares.  Flood insurance is issued by the Federal Government and does not affect the bottom line of the company or stockholders.

Here are some of the salient points from my link above:

“They’re covering five shingles and a piece of gutter, and that’s it,” says Kathleen Valentine, a fire alarm dispatcher who spent the night of Superstorm Sandy working while her house filled with water and dead fish. Her insurance agent from Narragansett Bay Insurance Company said her policy would pay only for wind damage. She is still waiting for someone from the federal flood insurance program to show up.
[been there!]

[snip]

Only 14 percent of homeowners in the Northeast hold flood insurance policies, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

[snip]

“I kind of thought my policy protected my home, my belongings, my family,” says retired New York police officer Joe McMahon, of Rockaway Beach, who has three children, including one with special needs, and who had homeowner’s insurance with Travelers.

So far, the only thing McMahon says Travelers will cover is spoiled food. They wrote him a check for $500. Travelers says it doesn’t comment on the cases of specific policyholders. Spokesman Matt Bordonaro says the company works “closely with our customers throughout the claims process.”

[snip]

The government’s flood damage policy can also be limited in what it will pay out. For example, there is only limited coverage for basements, usually for things like boilers and water heaters, but not for other improvements or contents.

Those limits are affecting Mary Clemente, 55. Three weeks ago she had the wardrobe of a movie star, multiple fur coats and a 1983 Mercedes SL convertible in the garage. The luxury goods have since been carted away in garbage bags and her car is a sodden mess. Clemente, who lives in Manhattan Beach, had insured it to the hilt for 30 years. Or so she thought.

Sitting in her darkened kitchen, surrounded by dead appliances and her black cat, she says the insurance adjuster was at her house only five minutes before saying Narragansett Bay would cover nothing because the damage was from a flood.

Clemente, who owns the public relations firm M3 The Image Group, has put $32,000 of repairs on her credit cards. Her federal flood insurance policy has said it will advance her $20,000 to help cover the costs, which included new electrical wiring and a new boiler. She hasn’t received the check yet.

A lot of people there in New York and Jersey are going to find out (or already have) they will have little or no proceeds from insurance they thought would cover their damages.  What many of them will end up doing is receiving a low-interest SBA loan for repairs and contents.  So if their homes were paid for, they will be starting over with some new indebtedness for 10 or 15 years or more.  The SBA loan application is an automatic part of the process when you file for benefits through FEMA.  The momster and I were offered one post-Katrina but we figured we could handle it with savings and such and not put a debt on the house.  I wish the best of luck to these folks as they go through the “second wave” so to speak.

AREN’T CHARTER SCHOOLS JUST A WONDERFUL THING?

Well it depends on who you talk to, but if you talk to your state Republican politicians, they’ll admit they are a wonderful thing.

Our Founding Fathers wanted people educated. Schools followed westward the course of westward expansion and were as much a component of Manifest Destiny as the railroads.

The Republican Party wants to undo all that history. Everywhere we see the same push toward privatization that we see in other areas of government.  Nirvi Shah, at Education Week, reported on the GOP’s plans for our education system following release of the Republican Party Platform:

The platform doesn’t see money as a solution, a happy match for Paul Ryan, whose budget called for cuts in education spending. It was big on vouchers.  According to the platform, “If money were the solution, our schools would be problem-free. More money alone does not necessarily equal better performance.”

Privatization is the new Gold Rush. There is money to be made in them there hills. And charter schools are the the Republican hammer to be used to prise it out of our hands.

Go read the rest of the article.  It’s very revealing.

REVENGE OF THE WALMART WORKERS?

Yes indeed, payback is a bitch.  But killing the customers or even shoplifters is a tad overboard.

LASTLY, COULD PAT ROBERTSON JUST STFU?

I’m just pasting in here along with the youtube clip.  Nuff said.

Yesterday on the 700 Club, televangelist Pat Robertson seemed to portray CIA Director David Petraeus as the real victim of the growing sex scandal involving him and his biographer, Paula Broadwell. He described Broadwell as an “extremely good-looking woman” who is a “marathon runner, she’d run Iron Man triathlons and so she’s out running with him, and she’s writing a biography,” and Petraeus simply couldn’t help himself: “The man’s off in a foreign land and he’s lonely and here’s a good-looking lady throwing herself at him. He’s a man.”

NOTE:  Not responsible for when our female readers and front-pagers blow a gasket.

This is an open thread; have at it!

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Tags: Charter schools, insurance, Pat Robertson, Superstorm Sand, Walmart-homicide