Males are disposable.

Great post, Amy.

Obamacare didn't solve all our medical problems?

More literally deadly discrimination against males in our society?

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along ....

"We've talked about an appeal, but the Medicaid office didn't really seem to think it would change the law, by filing an appeal,"

Of course not. That's not how you're (supposed) to change a law. It requires a legislative act.

His only recourse is to file a lawsuit with the local Federal District Court, and claim that the law violates the 14th Amendment ("nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws") and see where the chips land.

The alternative is to label it as something other than breast cancer and hope that Medicaid accepts that redefinition.

All the government has to do then is delay the court system long enough for him to die, and they don't have to admit that breast cancer is all about the ladies and the charities don't have to change the color of their ribbons.

I mean, if evil patriarchs can die from breast cancer, then the womyn no longer have a tailor-made disaster to blame on men.

Are "womyn" real a problem in your life?

Academic naïveté about gender matters is not the source of our distress

Crid - did I really need the sarc tags on that?

Although there are likely women out there who think this fair a turnabout, as it was received wisdom for years that women didn't suffer from heart disease.

The larger problem is bureaucratic pinheads making decisions based upon outdated pseudo-scientific dogma about who can get what ailment, and therefore who ought to receive treatment for same.

How come all the sudden everybody's kidding?

"It's a very clear example of how overly rigid federal regulations don't serve the interests of the people we're supposed to be helping."

I'm sorry, but that's wrong - federal regulations are serving the interests of precisely the people they are supposed to be helping - that is, the kleptocrats who take money from the public and then funnel it to their banker friends via "bail-outs" that raid entitlement funds, paid for by purposely created money-printing central-bank inflation. The system is working 100% perfectly as designed.

"Bureaucracy comes in the shape of a hammer, and doesn't allow for reason and fairness to take precedence over ridiculous and unfair rules"....and this is *inevitably* so. Peter Drucker observed that "any government that is not a government of paper forms rapidly degenerates into a mutual looting society." Here is the choice: you can give the bureaucrats very limited discretion, and get unfairness and inefficiency, or you can give them high discretion, and get corruption and tyrannical behavior.

The idea that you can vastly expand the role of government while avoiding both bureaucracy and corruption is a chimera.

DF, consider this quote from a newspaper article about the next topic, the riots in England:

What if the teenager who stole the trainers has schizophrenia?

See the context: The speaker is carrying your (Drucker's) point to a ludicrous extreme.... We can never apply justice, because we'll never be able to consider all the details. And she's an attorney!

But the thing is, criminal justice isn't something most people regard as an elective function of government. We *have* to identify and punish criminals.

And I bet most people aren't so overwhelmed by the administrative challenge that they don't want to even try.

See also the second comment:

Newportonian 11 August 2011 5:30PM

Doesn't seem logical that rioters on benefits get punished more harshly than rioters who aren't.

It really seems like Briton's minds have turned to mush.

I blame ancient servility to royals. They love being wards of the state, and hate themselves for their dependence. (And hate themselves they ought.)

While I both understand and appreciate your passion regarding the issues you reference, the fact that the movies antagonists are white does not denote racism. The “white mercenaries” are the bad evil guys in this movie is a fact. The conclusion you have drawn, however, is your opinion, and not everyone agrees with you. My original statement that each critic who claims the film is racist, states the theory from a different point of view is only meant to highlight that there are, in fact, other perspectives that cannot be reconciled with one another. Each person/group has stated contradictory opinions as fact.You seem to have mistaken my desire to enjoy a movie without feeling enraged for either apathy or ignorance of political issues. I do agree that folks like Pelosi, Reid, and Obama need as many sharp eyes focused on them as possible. James Cameron does not.The GOP has a fine platform and worthwhile goals, but narrow points of view and heavy handed criticisms where they are not warranted undermine those goals. Its a shame that passion is so often accompanied by knee jerk overreaction.I couldnt care less how much the movie made. The studio can worry about that.