The Commentariat -- Nov. 16, 2013
White House: "In his weekly address, President Obama discusses progress in American energy and highlights that we are now producing more oil at home than we buy from other countries for the first time in nearly two decades":
AP: "The Obama administration will allow some relatives of U.S. service members living in the country illegally to stay, according to a policy directive issued Friday. The nine-page memorandum is the latest in a series of immigration policy changes made by President Barack Obama since he took office. The department has long had the power to stop deportations for relatives of military members and veterans, but Friday's memo lays out how and when it can be used."
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post interviewed AG Eric Holder: "In the wide-ranging interview on Thursday, Holder also discussed the prosecution of the alleged Boston Marathon bomber, efforts to bring former NSA contractor Edward Snowden back to the United States, leak investigations and some of his plans."
Robert Pear & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Friday approved legislation that would allow health insurance companies to renew individual insurance policies and sell similar policies to new customers next year even if the coverage does not provide all the benefits and consumer protections required by the new health care law. The vote was 261 to 157, with 39 Democrats bucking their party leadership to vote in favor of the bill." This Times interactive graphic shows how each member voted. ...
... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "... it's ... hard to fathom why 39 Democrats voted for a bill in the House that would allow people to retain current, substandard individual policies, and renew them next year even if they don't provide the basic coverage required by the Affordable Care Act." ...
... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Republicans used a technicality on Friday to prevent the House of Representatives from considering a measure that would have extended additional consumer protections to beneficiaries who remain in their existing individual health care plans." Or, as the headline to this post aptly puts it, "Republicans reject Obamacare 'fix' because it includes too many consumer protections." ...
... William Branigin & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "... President Obama hastily summoned insurance industry executives Friday for what he called a 'brainstorming' session against the backdrop of widespread anxieties about how the new twist in his health-care law will be carried out. A day after announcing a plan to delay insurance cancellations in the individual market by one year, Obama is grappling with concerns that the shift could disrupt the market and lead to higher premiums. So far, two states -- Washington and Vermont -- have announced that they will not allow their health insurers to extend insurance policies that do not comply with minimum standards set by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the health-care law widely known as Obamacare. Three other states -- Ohio, Florida and Kentucky -- announced that they would allow the renewals. At least eight states and the District of Columbia said they are trying to decide what to do...." ...
... Reed Abelson & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "A day after they were caught off guard by President Obama's proposal to prevent cancellation of insurance policies for millions of Americans, top executives of some of the biggest insurance companies emerged from a meeting at the White House on Friday, expressing mixed feelings about whether the idea could work in every state.... The insurers, many of whom expressed anger that the president had not consulted them before Thursday's announcement, said they had come away from the meeting willing to work with the White House...." ...
... Ron Brownstein of the National Journal gets today's Munch Prize: "For decades, Democratic strategists have viewed universal health care as their best opportunity to reverse the doubt among many voters, especially whites, that government programs can tangibly benefit their families. Now the catastrophic rollout of the health law threatens instead to reinforce those doubts. That outcome could threaten Democratic priorities for years." CW: Don't worry, kids. There will be plenty more prizes in days to come. ...
... Update. Jonathan Bernstein on Brownstein's thesis: "For better or worse, there's little evidence that public opinion works that way.... In fact, it's almost the opposite. While public opinion is mostly stable over time on big-idea questions about ideology, to the extent that there is change it's pretty simple: Public opinion moves in the opposite direction from incumbents." ...
... "The Public Is a Thermostat." Bernstein links to this enlightening piece, dated June 2010, by fellow political scientist John Sides: "When government spending and activism increases, the public says 'too hot' and demands less. When spending and activism decreases, the public says 'too cold' demands more." Another nice feature of Sides' essay: he demonstrates that David Brooks doesn't know what he's talking about. ...
... Like most pundits, Gail Collins was underwhelmed by President Obama's apologies about the problems with the ACA: "The public is so inured to responsibility-taking by executives under fire that it's little more than a polite reflex, like 'thank you for your service.' George W. Bush took responsibility for the Katrina foul-ups, for heaven sake. Presidents have generally been bad about apologies. See: Richard Nixon resigning. ('I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the nation.') Bill Clinton was more forthcoming when he apologized for lying about Monica Lewinsky. ('I misled people, including even my wife.') But he had a little help from a grand jury." CW: For the record, I still think President Obama said exactly what he had to say, & he struck just the right tone. If you remember Bush's & Clinton's "apologies," they were canned, read-from-the-teleprompter statements of contrition. (Here's Bush.) ...
... Steve Benen: "Even by the standards of contemporary conservatism, there's something morally bankrupt about wealthy far-right forces targeting struggling Americans and telling them to go without access to basic health -- on purpose -- apparently because they don't like the president." ...
That's a scandal -- those people are guilty of murder in my opinion. Some of those people they persuade are going to end up dying because they don't have health insurance. For people who do that to other people in the name of some obscure political ideology is one of the grossest violations of our humanity I can think of. -- Sen. Angus King (I-Maine)
One of These Things Is Not Like the Other
... ** Charles Pierce enjoyed Michael Shear's piece in Friday's New York Times (linked in yesterday's Commentariat) on "Obama's Katrina" as much as I did. But Pierce's takedown of Nicolle Wallace's prattling on the same subject is a classic. ...
... Jamelle Bouie in the Daily Beast: "Failing to build a website that can reliably provide health-care coverage to consumers -- a noble goal hindered by flawed implementation -- is categorically different than a non-response to a natural disaster that claimed thousands of lives.... Overall, the comparison is superficial, subsuming serious differences for the sake of a banal point. As far as parallels go, it's glib, useless, and -- when you consider the terrible damage done by Katrina -- pretty shameful." ...
... Bill Scher of the Campaign for America's Future on "another way Obamacare is not like Katrina": "The failed Katrina response was the result of Bush taking an well-functioning government agency and deliberating degrading it: taking it from disaster management professionals, giving it to political cronies and beginning a process of reckless privatization. With the Affordable Care Act, President Obama is not tearing down an existing agency, but trying to build up a new government program from scratch.... New government programs typically suffer bumpy beginnings, but by facing up to new challenges, our government innovates and advances to better address problems the public wants solved." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Obamacare rollout is merely Obama's most recent Katrina, following in the wake of previous Obama Katrinas such as the Gulf Oil spill, the 2009 swine-flu outbreak, the humanitarian disaster in Haiti, the General Motors bailout, Hurricane Sandy, Syria, and the now-forgotten springtime scandals.... If every one of Obama's Katrinas were an actual Katrina, America as we know it would long since have ceased to exist and we'd be living in a watery post-apocalyptic hellscape. If every one of Obama's Katrinas were an actual Katrina, America as we know it would long since have ceased to exist and we'd be living in a watery post-apocalyptic hellscape." ...
... ** The Handwriting Was on All the Walls. Jerry Markon & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: "The lead contractor on the dysfunctional Web site for the Affordable Care Act is filled with executives from a company that mishandled at least 20 other government IT projects, including a flawed effort to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers, documents and interviews show. CGI Federal, the main Web site developer, entered the U.S. government market a decade ago when its parent company purchased American Management Systems, a Fairfax County contractor that was coming off a series of troubled projects. CGI moved into AMS's custom-made building..., changed the sign outside and kept the core of employees, who now populate the upper ranks of CGI Federal."
... Jonathan Bernstein on President Obama's "plunging" poll numbers. ...
... Ed Kilgore on the same.
Charles Blow on "Disrespect, Race and Obama."
Taking A Page from Rand Paul's Book. (Hey, Why Not?) Mary Bottari of Campaign for America's Future: "... Jon Romano, press secretary for the inside-the-beltway PR campaign 'Fix the Debt' and its pet youth group, The Can Kicks Back, have been caught writing op-eds for college students and placing the identical op-eds in papers across the country. This is the latest slip-up in Fix the Debt's efforts to portray itself as representing America's youth. Previously, they were caught paying dancers to participate in a pro-austerity flash mob and paying Change.org to gather online petition signers for them. The newspapers involved in the scam were not amused." The Gainesville (Florida) Sun, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the New Hampshire Foster's Daily Democrat all have removed the plagiarized op-eds from their Websites. Via Charles Pierce.
AP: "JPMorgan Chase & Co. has reached a $4.5 billion settlement with investors who said the bank deceived them about bad mortgage investments. The settlement, announced Friday, covers 21 major institutional investors, including JPMorgan competitor Goldman Sachs, BlackRock Financial Management, and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. The mortgage-backed securities were sold by JPMorgan and Bear Stearns between 2005 and 2008."
Joe Nocera: Gary Gensler is leaving his post as head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. In implementing Dodd-Frank, he brought more transparency to the financial derivatives market. He also was responsible for cracking the Libor rate-fixing scheme that has led to big bank fines & some indictments. CW: I don't much trust Nocera's views, but the fact that House Republicans don't like Gensler's regs is a sign Nocera is on the right track. Michal Hirsh of the National Journal also credits Gensler, along with Elizabeth Warren, for doing "more than anyone in Washington to bulk up Dodd-Frank from its rather flimsy beginnings and turn it into a financial-reform law with some weight." So. It is possible to work for Golden Sacks for almost two decades & come out as a decent public servant. That's something.
Local News
John Upton of Grist: "Last year, the 17 refineries and two associated chemical plants in [Louisiana] experienced 327 accidents, releasing 2.4 million pounds of air pollution, including such poisons as benzene and sulfur, and 12.7 million gallons of water pollution. That's according to a report published Tuesday[PDF] by the nonprofit Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which compiled the data from refineries' individual accident reports.... The findings are grim, but they may actually understate the problem. The nonprofit claims many refinery accidents are underreported or covered up...." CW: Yeah, they're definitely ready to start refining Canadian oil sands. Via Charles Pierce.
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Reader Comments (14)
I have absolutely HAD IT when it comes to whining about the glitches of signing up for ACA and killing it instead! Angus King speaks my thoughts:
..." That’s a scandal – those people are guilty of murder in my opinion. Some of those people they persuade are going to end up dying because they don’t have health insurance. For people who do that to other people in the name of some obscure political ideology is one of the grossest violations of our humanity I can think of. -- Sen. Angus King (I-Maine)"
This is true. All of these "immortal" people--mostly young and healthy--who LIKE their present insurance policies, have never been dropped from their insurance companies for pre-existing conditions, nor have they exceeded their maximum "insurable conditions." We will see some of this plays out (unfortunately) in the next couple of years. How can it be that so many American people are so short-sighted and selfish to realize that: "But for the Grace of Whoever Go I?" I guess it takes the experience of death and the caving of one's denial to get there. How unfortunate.
I am upset and depressed that our sick little country can be so ignorant--and be represented by such dopes. I guess it is related to our belief that we are somehow "exceptional" and exempt from ordinary human misery and death. Since I lost a brother at a very early age, I know better. But that should not have to be one's teacher!
Plus--may I remind everyone for the 100th time, Medicare was a disaster at its rollout! It took three years and lots of hard work and changes to the program to implement the functional system we have today for older people. Which, of course, is what ACA should have been from the get-go! But we are "small-minded" people, and quite selfish. Therefore, we do not readily accept sane, humane, and commonsense new ideas. More is the sad!
"For people who do that to other people in the name of some obscure political ideology is one of the grossest violations of our humanity I can think of"
It is not an obscure political ideology, it is an ages old practice called war. What we have been party to (by the obscure mathematics of nationality), as a misinformed but sometimes well intentioned public--for my entire lifetime--is now being more directly focused on the "homeland" itself. We are now the indigenous, and we are being led to the reservation, to dwindle.
We are now the peasants, of no value in the struggle of the chosen to secure their vision of the kingdom.
We are now the gooks, the shines, the micks, the dagos, the towelheads, the savage, the ignorant, the collateral damage.
How many times have you heard someone you know, someone you love, someone with genetic material highly similar to yours declare,
"my god is going to kick your god's ass into oblivion."
Thomas Robert Malthus was not born yesterday. Neither Ayn Rand. But compared to the arc of the Crusades and the rise of the Sheriffs of Armageddon, they might seem like summer reruns.
Strangely absent through all the discussion of ACA is the deeper question, also bound and gagged and lashed to stocks in the town square, of what the true formula for human health might be?
Ask any physician practicing today, who still recalls the hippocratic oath, how many administrators and accountants can a proctologist fit up your backside divided by how many patients per hour you can herd through your office before your kids college bills come due on the eve of your next big game of chance and still call it healthcare?
The struggle begins very close to home, it begins with a thought. So that is where the war begins. And the thought becomes a word.
Is it hate?
Disdain?
Fear?
Education?
Can a heartless, soul-starved murderer appreciate the gift of life inherent in all the lives he's taken? Does he appreciate the lovely playground he's bullied his way into? Not while he is still drunk on his notions of individual greatness. Not while he is closer to his god than you are to yours. With the weapons and spoils to prove it.
Ask yourself if unity among a species is possible. If the answer is no, what group will you be joining? The one that has the most access to worldly resource is where you will find the bankers, lawyers, educators, and insurers.
But what of the nature of healing? How will they ever know? And if they don't. How will we? And if we don't, what in purgatory are we fighting for? Better and quicker access to misanthropic professionals who we trust to assuage our fear of a natural death, which we hastened through abuse of our own minds and bodies. No, we didn't invent the abuse. Some among our species did, long ago. But it is and has always been our right, by birth, to end it in our lifetimes, beginning with ourselves.
The work which follows will be something to see.
There is a big difference between Bush's horrific blunders and what we have here in the implementation of the ACA–-most sane people agree with that. There is, however, a real difference in how the diverse parties have reacted. Katrina and Iraq were viewed by liberals as a collective catastrophe, and as much as we blamed Bush &Co. we were heartsick at the outcomes. Today I see the conservatives full of glee, big smiles on their faces, some look as though they are bursting with satisfaction. They now not only have Bengazi in their quiver, but now have Obama's "failure." Angus King speaks for many of us––these destroyers of a better, more equal, more civil and more humane country are morally bankrupt and can hardly contain their smirks. But given all this Angus and his party best rally together, stand firm, and give it their all. Those Democrats that voted yea yesterday don't count––shun those suckers and move on.
P.S. and I absolutely agree with Marie that Obama did a splendid job giving the "I'm sick and sorry we fucked up" speech.
A harbinger for some interesting changes?
"Kshama Sawant, a Seattle socialist who campaigned for the city council on a promise to lead the fight for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, is poised to join the city council."
One swallow does not make a summer, but another socialist besides Bernie Sanders just may portend some warmer weather.
Reading the latest string of opinions on racism in America has been enlightening. The Richard Cohen story (read Charles Blow's take) is just a small piece of how we try to hide from reality. You know the racists are not exactly racist. It's just normal human behavior, you know, just worries about whatever, you know.
So here is my take. Racism is a form of 'natural' human behavior, i.e. we evolved this great ability to demean others to protect our worthless egos. But then again there are lots of other interesting behaviors that we evolved including the willingness to murder our fellow humans. We figured this out 5000 years ago and wrote a well known statement that 'natural' human behaviors like theft and murder are not right. (The Old Testament view was not exactly perfect since the murder deal only seemed to apply to your fellow whatevers). So there are lots of naturally evolved activities of the human mind that made sense maybe 200,000 years ago that don't do well in the current reality. That is why we created the concept of immorality. And racism is immoral (and pathetic).
And what people have the hardest time dealing with is that the definition of immoral changes. For 10,000 years slavery was just routine business. The problem , in part, in the modern world is that because of the new nature of life (technology) changes are likely to happen a hell of lot faster than many people are capable of dealing with. Climate change, a gay person was not a choice but was actually created by your god. Dealing with things like this requires humans to accept a level of reality that many cannot deal with. But slowly and surely it moves in. The gay marriage story is the best news for what the word 'evolution' now means. The good news about human evolution is that we get a new generation about once every 25 years.
And what is also clear, this behavior has a cultural derivative. It is not just a coincidence that racism prospers most in the same places that loved slavery. And the cultural component is good news because it shows that such behavior, while inherently within the human mind, is not a fixed functional feature. In other words someone has to teach their children. And like the gay marriage story, the changes are made fastest by the interaction of peoples. It is a lot easier to accept 'others' if one happens to be your friend. (and I still like to watch Will and Grace).
And last, to help understand another take on the cultural concept of behavior and how we evaluate it, here is my favorite 'definition'.
999 people believe in this really weird, irrational idea and we call it a cult. 1001 people believe in this really weird and irrational idea and we call it a religion.
And may I add to Marvin's post a comment from contributor gemli on Blow's piece:
"I fully agree that racism is not only a conservative thing. Individuals of any political stripe can be more or less racist, sexist, homophobic or exhibit any other unpleasant form of social exclusivity in varying degrees. But the essence of the conservative ethos is to exclude the "other," and assume that the accident of their genetic whiteness, or heterosexuality or ethnicity is an award that they somehow earned, presumably bestowed upon them by a loving God who also thinks less of those who are not straight and white. At the very least their views demonstrate a lack of empathy with others, a trait which has unpleasant consequences for many people when conservatives find themselves in political power. Racism may not be confined to conservatives, but conservatives are the ones pushing voter suppression to exclude minorities from the democratic process."
@Marvin: I always thought a religion differed from a cult owing to its ownership of property.
@Going Commando on health insurance: A friend of mine works in home health. As such, he goes to patients' homes and takes care of them for the day. Fortunately, his charges are all veterans covered by the VA. Anyway, one of them has Lou Gehrigs' diseease (ALS). He's in his 40's. Last year, he was doing karate roundhouse kicks; now, he's almost helpless. What would he do if it weren't for the VA? The average health insurance company would want to dump him pronto.
There is no cure for ALS. It rarely strikes people in their 40's, but it does happen to people even younger.. (I was in my 60's when I was diagnosed with it, which is more common. Fortunately, I also have the VA.)
You sure can't get treated for ALS by a trip to the ER. Nobody knows what causes ALS, and it's tough to diagnose. Suppose you're someone in their 20's diagnosed with it who decided to take the Koch Bros' offer and forgo health insurance or you find that your garbage policy that you so desperately wanted to keep doesn't do you much good. Riluzole, the only FDA-approved drug for ALS, can cost up to $1,000 a month and it doesn;t make ALS better--it only slightly extends your survival.
A side note, my ALS is progressing slowly although my speech is getting hard to decipher and I type with one finger. If we hadn't had the VA and Medicare/, we would be totally bankrupt now. I guess that makes us and others moochers.
So, in Russian Roulette, there are five empty chambers and one live round. Spin the cylinder, point the revolver at your temple, then pull the trigger. You might get lucky and find the live round. Then you needn't worry about health insurance.
Dear Bob,
"There is no cure for ALS"
Something you have been led to believe, which you must decide to accept, or not.
"Nobody knows what causes ALS, and it's tough to diagnose."
A similar statement, the truth of which is said to be 100% unadulterated. Such pure alloys are rare. It might be worth another look.
"Spin the cylinder, point the revolver at your temple, then pull the trigger. You might get lucky and find the live round. Then you needn't worry about health insurance."
You know from your time in the service, your number isn't up until it is up. What have you seen that you would wish this on yourself? You are free to forgive yourself, or are you not? What you can do for yourself you can then do for others, your brothers in arms. They need it as much as you. It wasn't your cross to bear.
The Kochs don't care about you. I do.
I can't vouch for this volume, as I just now happened upon it. This is another man's story, FWIW. Maybe it's a clue.
http://books.google.com/books?id=NyinLB8wo7EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Haven+Trevino%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LqaHUtS7H7HIsASK-4DoBg&ved=0CD0QuwUwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
I apologise, in advance, if my comments are unwelcome. This is a very sensitive matter and I respect your openness about it. Peace be with you, sir. Thank you for your service.
Sincerely,
Todd
Dear Todd:
You obviously didn't understand my Russian Roulette analogy. What I meant to say is going without decent health insurance, is like plaaying Russian Roulette. You may go through life without needing it (the empty chambers) or you might hit the live one (something really serious and expensive). I knew a young man who, at the age of 19, developed a malignant tumor on the back of his right knee. The surgeons removed the tumor and his knee, replacing it with an artificial knee. He had insurance to cover the multi-thosand dollar medical bill;
Are you saying that there is a cure for ALS and someone knows for sure what causes it? If so, let my doctors know.
You may think I'm downhearted about all this. I'm not. Everybody will die someday. I just go along to get along and keep myself entertained with Reality Chex. I get the best care possible, so what's te problem?
Bob
Bob,
Thank you for the additional words. I understand better now. I am of the opinion that VA services are a critical part of the (to quote a corporate acronym) TCO for people in uniform, and should never be shorted when the true cost of military commitments are assessed, though some will always be dreaming up a work-around.
I have friends who make prosthetics, more who lead activities for the newly fitted--as well as those seeking a greater challenge--and they have never been busier, nor more successful in what they can accomplish.
I have an in-law who spends a lot of time at the wall, taking care of short notice calls to intervene. He's sleeping a little better these days.
I have family who passed away at all sorts of early ages, at five weeks, five years, and at forty five and leaving three young kids. Lots of cancer.
Most people I know who are over 55 are lining up some kind of medical intervention, or have already had a number of significant procedures.
I know it can happen and I know it costs a king's ransom by now. I don't believe in going commando, nor do I believe in multimillion dollar paychecks for insurance CEOs or medical product speculators.
As the VA is a form of single payer for the veteran community, as is medicare for seniors, so, I believe, should healthcare be for all citizens. But as we can see, of late, this model cuts across the grain of profiting off a limited market, designed to maximize the cost of services (and revenue) while eliminating a large slice of those who are abandoned when they are most in need. It's also hungry for fresh, healthy meat to pump up the premium pool.
I'm glad to hear you are good. I wish you the best with the ALS. I know people who have gotten good results with a host of autoimmune and and degenerative illness, using other than MD approaches, but that is all hotly debated, I know. Most doctors--of all stripes--that I know are heavily invested in their own skill and point of view, so I wouldn't hazard a call to any of yours. I would leave that entirely to you to investigate and satisfy the question for yourself, if you felt like it. You are, of course, welcome to inquire of me and I will help if I can provide a worthwhile reference.
I apologise for mis-acquiring your RR analogy. I don't take the self-destructive thing lightly, since the roll call on that one far exceeds that of those seeking treatment. I have been foolish with my concerns at times.
No harm no foul. Entertainment is, I understand, where you seek it. Thanks again for the follow through.
Todd
Barbarossa has identified one of several underemphasized deficiencies in our health care system: that the use of the ER for medical care accounts for a relatively small part of the problem, as most care requires continuity, and in most cases an initial visit would only result in a referral from an ED physician, or more likely PA or NP. Then what? He also points out correctly that most health issues arise not from our behavioral choices, but whether the bullet is in the firing cylinder. About 10% of ALS is hereditary, the balance either a mutation or other random event (the cause is indeed unknown), and there is at present nothing that can either prevent or attenuate its progress. So, Todd_K: With respect, there is not a shred of evidence that Tao or any other so-called alternative therapies have any impact on ALS, or virtually any other disease process. Meditative and other therapies can provide means to help tolerate the symptoms, but even there, most of the peer-reviewed studies have used self-reporting of outcomes. Anecdotal reports are worse than useless. For an ALS example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11677007
While promotion of these therapies is sometimes well-meaning, they undermine reality, engender false hope. I rather would speculate that the lion's share of alternative promoters have the same in$entive as our commercialized medical care system - as Dr. Schwalb has so clearly pointed out.
Whyte,
I have seen this kind of antagonism before from the medical community. I'm not, rest assured, a practitioner. Just a patient, born of patients. I think it safe for you to make your claim about your experience, the rest is overreach. I'm sticking with Wordsworth on this one:
"We murder to dissect."
I'm not interested in starting a fight with someone I barely know, least of all one with substantial oomph behind their claims to expertise. The google pull was a quick one, don't make too much of it, please. As I said to Bob, my bad.
At the same time, I urge you not to be too dismissive about the subtler dimensions of human awareness which can and do, in my experience, have a significant role to play well before we wind up looking at the barrel of a gun.
And let's figure out how it's all going to be funded. You guys presume to own the last word on the body, but what kind of intelligence delivered it to you?
References, please. It' s a really big question. And a useful one when things start to fit too tight.
With all sincerity,
Todd
Can we all just hold hands and dance in a circle? Maybe that'll fix it.