The great divide begins around “Captain Mike”

I had been reserving judgment about how “Captain Mike Across America” would be well and truly received until it had its public screenings. So far the only people to see the film were critics and reviewers, who, as I have discussed in previous articles, have unanimously and harshly panned Moore’s newest opus. What I wanted to know is if Moore’s diehard fans would see the same flaws and problems in “Captain Mike” that the critics did - even the critics that were self-proclaimed big fans of Michael Moore and his work. The question I wanted answered was would Moore’s fans still like and appreciate “Captain Mike” despite the critical backlash?

Today we had our first answer to that question. Doc Blog, one of the TIFF 2007 blogs, describes in detail the events that occurred at the first public screening of “Captain Mike Across America”. It was, to put it mildly, a huge and unbridled success with the fans in attendance:

Ryerson theatre was filled to capacity tonight for the premiere of Michael Moore’s latest documentary Captain Mike Across America.  The crowd received Moore with the utmost admiration, as reflected by the loud applause when he entered the theatre…

Throughout the screening, the audience burst into applause and at times even motional reactions.  A woman a few seats from me cried during one of Moore’s speeches about the war and the lives lost because of it.  The energy in the theatre was palpable to say the least.  The screening felt like an instant part of Festival lore as Harvey Weinstein was in the audience watching for the first time. This continued to the end, where Moore received a standing ovation for about 2-3 minutes. His reaction was that of the greatest appreciation. He said, “This is way above and beyond what I expected.  Thank you for that very generous response.” Moore said the ovation was even longer than when he showed Bowling for Columbine here.

When asked if he would do this journey again for a future election, Moore simply answered, “I hope I don’t have to.” He went on to share how the tour was tiring but also physically dangerous.  On more than one occasion, Moore’s life was endangered.  His efforts will not go unnoticed when the film gets a theatrical release.  You can certainly see why his actions are appreciated by many, many people not just in the US but in other countries as well. This film will have you and others in discussion for some time after you see it. 

Judging from this first account, Moore’s fans are responding with great fervor to “Captain Mike Across America”. This fan reaction is a complete 180 turn from the critical reaction, which was resoundingly negative. Several questions emerge now. Is this an isolated report or will more positive fan reactions to “Captain Mike” start popping up? If Moore’s fans do indeed love this new film, why did critics have such a different reaction? What are the critics seeing that Moore’s fans are not? And, perhaps most intriguingly, whose opinion will Moore dwell on the most - the fans or the critics?

Only time will tell, and I will be very curious to see how this continues to play out.

**UPDATE UNDER THE CUT**

“Captain Mike” continues to get panned by critics

Yet more bad reviews for “Captain Mike Across America” rolled in this morning. I can honestly say I haven’t seen a single good - or even a relatively neutral - review of this movie yet. Here are two more excepts from reviews for your perusal below the cut, with the second one being particularly lengthy and scathing.

John Stossel gets at Mikey on 20/20

Wow.  Moore is....delusional.  He’s a terrible actor, we all saw Canadian Bacon.  He actually believes that regular Cubans get that exact level of health care, regardless of the thousands of Cuban-Americans that tell the world otherwise, regardless of the fact that there are mountains of evidence that he’s wrong.  Weirder than that, though, is this: “Cuba’s the red herring.  Let’s stick to Canada and Britain and this stuff...” What the hell?  Why is it so heavily featured in his movie if it doesn’t matter?

Can any Moore fan explain that crazy shit?

The reviews pile in for “Captain Mike”

Well, the reviews have started pouring in for Moore’s latest opus “Captain Mike Across America”, and so far the tone has been unanimous in nature. Unanimously harsh, anyway.

A quick word about a “Captain Mike” review

In the comments to this thread, DVDGuy posted a link to a review of Moore’s new ego stroke, Captain Mike’s Giant Ego Trip And Exploration Of Paranoia And Trumped-Up Fluffery (I may have the name a bit wrong, not sure).  In that review, Todd Brown, a self-confessed Moore fan, has a lot to say, including this:

Mike?  You’re better than this.  And you’d better remember it before all of those adoring people forget why they cared about anything you had to say in the first place.

Todd?  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but no.  No, he’s not better than this.  And to make matters worse, he never has been.  I too used to be a fan and thought Mike was fighting the good fight.  One day I woke up and realized that he was, indeed, fighting a great fight, only it was one designed to bolster his ego, cater to his paranoia and line his pockets.

Everyone should go check out Todd Brown’s review.  It’s very much something I could have written about five minutes after I saw Bowling For Columbine.

Get ready…

I just approved 200 new commenters and damn near 3/4 of them were from European countries.  Prepare for the influx of the same stupid questions and comments as have been posted for the last 5 years…

Why?  Why do I do it?  ;)

Update from Lee Because, my friend, if we don’t fight the good fight who will?  Who will stand up to the lies, distortion, and creeping socialism that is ruining our Republic?  Our elected officials sure as hell aren’t doing their job.

Either that, or we’re a couple of fat bastards who spend too much time in front of a computer arguing with people for no reason other than we enjoy it.  I prefer to think of myself as a crusader for righteousness, but in reality you and I are both like that guy from the World of Warcraft episode of South Park with a little Comic Book Guy thrown in for good measure.

One more reason you don’t want the government providing your health care

Because they can’t even sell sex right.

The Federal Government of the United States can not run a bordello and make money.

One cathouse. Just one. Not “one in every state”. Not “one whether you think you need it or not”. Just one single legal bawdy-house with an already-established customer base.

And they couldn’t keep it out of the red.

Now, this is just my opinion, but if your money-handling skills are so poor that you can’t even make a profit selling sex, then you have absolutely no business getting involved in more complicated financial areas.

OK, so you think that the Fed running the Mustang Ranch isn’t really comparable to a giant, plodding bureaucratic division running the health of every man, woman and child in America?  Is this a little better?

DNA backlog piles up for FBI

The FBI has fallen behind in processing DNA from nearly 200,000 convicted criminals — 85% of all samples it has collected since 2001 — Justice Department records show.

The backlog, which expands monthly, means most of the biological samples the bureau collects have not been stored in the national DNA database and used to solve crimes. DNA from 34,000 convicts has been added to the database since 2001, resulting in 600 matches to unsolved crimes, according to statistics furnished by the Justice Department to the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the same rate, the unloaded samples could help solve an additional 3,200 crimes.

The backlog expanded by about 80,000 samples in 2006, when a law took effect requiring that all federal convicts, rather than just violent felons, submit DNA samples. A new law requiring DNA to be taken from about 500,000 federal arrestees and detainees could swell the backlog. Rules for implementing that law are due early next year, according to Office of Management and Budget documents.

How does this pertain to Special Magic Free Universal Health Care For All?  Testing.  How many blood tests have you had in the last 6 years?  Are you willing to trust your health to a government that has a backlog of six freaking years for one small segment of the population (i.e. criminals)?  How in the name of anything can we expect that adding over 300 million people will go more smoothly?  Feds require certification for everything, so you can’t tell me they’ll just punt it off to local, third-party labs.  That will be expensive, plus not everyone will be able to be certified right away, if ever.  Now what?  We all just sit around, while some building full of bureaucrats “prioritize” who gets test results first?  How is that different from Kaiser, or Humana, or Anthem?  At least the companies have some tiny motivation to provide service.

The government has none.  If you make them your only option, you will get crapped on at every turn and you will have absolutely no recourse and nowhere to turn.  If it ends up, as we all know it will, a tangled mess of complexity and incompetence, you will have absolutely no recourse and nowhere to turn.

Say no to government-provided health care.  It’s the healthiest thing you can do.

Hat tip: Drumwaster.

I Hate to Say We Told You So, But…

Guess what?  As if the food nazis in America weren’t bad enough, now the UK is considering denying medical care to people who lead unhealthy lifestyles.

Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans.

Patients would be handed “NHS Health Miles Cards” allowing them to earn reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending regular health screenings.

Like a supermarket loyalty card, the points could be redeemed as discounts on gym membership and fresh fruit and vegetables, or even give priority for other public services - such as jumping the queue for council housing.

But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act.

I wonder what that fat bastard Michael Moore thinks of this wonderful idea.  Of course, he’s a multi-millionaire, so he’ll be able to live the lifestyle that he wants, while the people will be subject to the government’s draconian health guidelines.  But the kicker of the article for me was this.

The report calls for a greater emphasis on the “citizen’s responsibility” to be healthy and says no one should expect taxpayers to fund their unhealthy lifestyles.

YES!  YES!  This is EXACTLY why we are opposed to socialized medicine!  One citizen should not be forced to subsidize the unhealthy lifestyle of another citizen.  And the best way to make that happen is through private insurance.  Why?  Because you are more likely to go to a doctor if you have a sniffle when going to the doctor is free.  If you have to pay to see the doctor, you might deem than sniffle nothing to worry about.  I remember reading a story a few years back about elderly patients in the UK going to see their local doctors not because they were sick but just because they were lonely old people and they liked the attention.  To combat this scourge of the elderly they instituted a tiny copay, something like one or two pounds, just to discourage this type of wasteful misuse of the healthcare system.

And any moves to impose compulsory cards on patients would provoke a backlash from civil liberties groups.

In a country with CCTV cameras every 10 inches, videotaping everything that every citizen ever does, I think that the UK pissed away the idea of civil liberties a long time ago.

The Dorrell report also calls for a consultation on raising the smoking age to 18 and for shops to be stripped of their licences if they sell tobacco and alcohol to minors.

Why even let people smoke?  Just ban smoking and alcohol sales.  Ban the sale of any unhealthy food.  The nanny state knows what is best for you.  And why shouldn’t it?  Nanny is paying for your healthcare, so nanny will tell you what to do.  Now, run along and be a good little sheep, knowing that nanny always has your best interests at heart.

Photos from “Captain Mike Across America” released

A set of seven new photos from Michael Moore’s new movie “Captain Mike Across America” have been released. Upon looking at the stills, nothing seemed remarkable to me about them. However, this small caption from the article suddenly caught my eye:

The photos look like the film will surprise many people who were expecting something completely different. The film seems like it was aimed at the Bush supporters who crashed the 2004 tour.

This of course made me take a second look at the batch of photos and, sure enough, almost all of them were focused on the Bush supporters outside the rallies rather than Moore and the rally attendees themselves. Ummm… why? I cannot imagine what message Moore is trying to send with this movie or what goal he is hoping to accomplish. I for one will be interested to see how this plays out when the movie finally sees a release.

The US Sucks - We’ll Prove It!

John Stossel tears apart a recent “study” that showed the US system is inferior to everyone else.

But while the U.S. lost points for not having national health insurance, the authors added, “[I]f insured, patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services.” That’s an understatement. Insured Americans have almost immediate access to cutting-edge procedures performed by some of the best-trained doctors. It’s why our outcomes for such diseases as prostate and breast cancer are markedly better than in Canada’s and Britain’s socialized systems. The Commonwealth Fund doesn’t mention that.

I’ll add that uninsured Americans often have access to cutting-edge medicine as well. My dad treats gunshot and car crash victims who are often insured but get astonishing care, surviving injuries that would have killed them just ten years ago. Recently, a disabled friend of mine, who is uninsurable, came down with a serious illness. Not only did he get outstanding healthcare but hospital social workers are helping him acquire retroactive Medicaid.

The Commonwealth Fund’s study has other problems. It was based on telephone interviews with patients and doctors. So it grades nations on people’s perceptions without controlling for their expectations. Yet patients who live in a country with long waits for medical care and bureaucratic inefficiency may have low expectations.

More ridiculous is the arbitrary way the Commonwealth Fund assigns weight to each of its measures. The proportion of patients who say they got infected at a hospital counts about the same in the “quality” measure as the proportion of doctors who use automated computer systems to remind them to tell patients their test results. Those things aren’t equal in my book.

Read the whole thing. It’s ridiculous for anyone to cite this “study” to prove the US healthcare system stinks.

Which, of course, makes it perfect fodder for the Moore-ons who love anything that sounds factual but isn’t.

Slouching Towards Cuba

Here’s how freedom dies—one good intention at a time.  Congress is currently about to increase the SCHIP program, which is “supposed to provide health insurance for children whose families make too much money to qualify for medical welfare, i.e., Medicaid, but who can’t afford to pay for private health insurance. Initially, this meant families whose annual incomes were twice the poverty level. This amounts to a $40,000 income for a family of four in 2007.” Okay fine, it helps people get private insurance.  What’s the problem?

If President George W. Bush fails to keep his promise to veto this legislation, SCHIP would be well on the way to becoming another middle class entitlement. That is just what advocates of government-funded health care want. Rep. Steven Rothman (D-NJ) made this goal explicit when he called the House SCHIP bill “the next step toward universal health care for all Americans.” Expanding SCHIP is what Kathleen Stoll, director of health care policy at the left-leaning lobby group, Families USA, happily identified as sneaky sequentialism. The ambit of private health insurance and health care will shrink as government funding expands.

In fact, this kind of crowding out is already taking place. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report in May that found, “For every 100 children who gain coverage as a result of SCHIP, there is a corresponding reduction in private coverage of between 25 and 50 children.” In January, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber and Cornell University economist Kosali Simon published a study that estimated “for every 100 children who are enrolled in public insurance, 60 children lose private insurance.” And why not? From the point of view of parents, the government is giving their kids free health insurance, so they can pocket the money they were otherwise spending on private insurance.

The CBO also noted that a broadening of SCHIP to higher income levels “would probably involve greater crowd-out of private coverage than has occurred to date because such children have greater access to private insurance.” Recall that 90 percent of kids living in families with incomes between 200 and 300 percent of the poverty level are insured and 95 percent of those in families with incomes over 400 percent are. Crowding out of private insurance helps force the country to take “next step” toward universal government-controlled health care. After all, almost 50 percent of medical expenditures are already paid for by government programs. Advocates of universal health insurance hope that as fewer and fewer Americans rely on private health insurance, government-funded health insurance will grow in political acceptance.

Therein lies the problem.  Even in countries with universal coverage, there are almost always options for private insurance.  In Canada they are in the midst of legal disputes over this very issue.  If socialized medicine were able to meet anything other than the bare minimum of service there would be no need for private insurance in the first place.  So the existence of private insurance in nations with socialized insurance is prima facie proof that private medical care is superior to socialized care.

Over the last 40 years or so, ever since LBJ’s “Great Society,” suckling at the welfare teat has gone from a tool in the war against poverty to an “entitlement” that guarantees people stay mired in poverty.  The same will happen with healthcare.  The more acceptable socialized medicine is, the more likely society will begin to view healthcare as the government’s job, something “they” do.  As reliance on socialized medicine increases the quality inevitably decreases. 

And thus we slouch towards Cuba, in the hopes that the 5¢ medicine will be waiting for us at the end of the rainbow.

Dead Man Endorsing

And now, the most appropriate presidential endorsement you will ever see.

Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, has predicted that Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama will team up to win the 2008 US presidential election.

“The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate,” the ailing leader wrote in an editorial column in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party’s newspaper.

It’s a natural endorsement, considering either Clinton or Obama would bring Cuba’s healthcare system to America. 

Medicare Makes Things Worse

I’m sure you have all heard that preventable medical errors kill . . . well, no one seems to agree. 30,000 patients a year.  100,000. While I believe that these numbers are exaggerated—and not all of the errors are preventable—it’s a serious problem that hospitals, ever fearful of the lawsuit, are working on. My mother’s hospital just implemented an extremely complex computer system to make sure prescriptions, diagnoses and provider notes are available and legible to everyone. (And has been posted on this blog, these problems are worse in socialized systems).

Well there’s never a problem that our semi-socialized medical insurance system can’t step in and make worse.

America’s Gun Culture

In addition to their wonderful NHS, in which every patient gets all the free medical care they want without any waiting periods or rationing, the British are leading the world in ridding from society the scourge of criminals having access to guns.

Teenage gangs in Liverpool are using the popular video-sharing website YouTube to flaunt their culture of violence and law-breaking, taunting each other, making threats, and showing off guns and cars, it emerged Friday.

The video clips have come to prominence following the murder on Wednesday of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, shot dead as he returned from football practice to his home in the well-to-do Croxteth Park area of the city.

On Friday, clips showing the activities of two gangs from the neighbouring Norris Green and Croxteth areas were still posted up on YouTube. Several arrests have been made following the murder but police are still looking for the killer, believed to be a teenager linked to the gangs.

In one clip, a youth can be seen pointing a gun to the camera. In another, an apparently bloodied victim is shown.

Hmm.  I’ll tell you one group in Liverpool which is guaranteed to be unarmed:  those who obey the law.  Don’t worry, though, those dangerous law-abiding citizens have been duly disarmed and are now utterly defenseless.  Surely the government will solve this problem by installing a few more CCTV cameras.

New Moore film to debut in Toronto

This is interesting...

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore will be up to his old tricks at the Toronto film festival, which helped launch his controversial career with Roger & Me. Moore’s latest political doc, Captain Mike Across America, has been added to the sprawling Special Presentations program.

Moore, who has been openly contemptuous of U.S. President George W. Bush for years, is seen on the 2004 presidential election campaign following the candidates in what he called the Slacker Uprising Tour. Among Moore’s “slacker” pals were Roseanne Barr, Eddie Vedder, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Earl and Joan Baez.

I’m assuming this the “sequel” to Fahrenheit 9/11 Moore shot while on the Slacker Uprising Tour but I haven’t been able to find anything about the film on Moore’s site. I find it rather odd Moore hasn’t does any substantial publicity for this project… curious. Anyone know more about this new film?

Hate mail, and Moore breaks the law

It’s been awhile since I got a funny hate mail.  I think this one qualifies, mainly due to the atrocious grammar and child-like rage.

From: “Scott Harding” [email protected]
To: jimk
Subject: jackass
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:44:17 -0500

How the hell can you say these things you pig, he payed for your wifes
health care!
Do you not have anything better to do?
And the canadien system of healthcare is far better than your shitty
way.
FU

Let’s break it down.  I shouldn’t say anything about the quality and veracity of Moore’s work, but this semi-human can call me a pig, get the facts of the events in Sicko wrong, and then tell me “FU.” Kung fu?  Fu Manchu?  What exactly am I supposed to fu?  Is his fu more powerful than my fu?  We must fight!  Only one may reign!  Let the fu fight begin!  Hey, that sounds like a great band name.  Fu Fight.  I should write that down.  ;)

Moving on:  This is an interesting peek into the way Mr. Moore does business on the web.

First, the simple facts: NewWest.Net had a story, with photos, about a protest outside the Jackson, Wyoming home of Vice President Dick Cheney. We soon became aware that the photo and the story were the lead feature story on MichaelMoore.com, but rather than follow the well-established protocol of publishing a short excerpt of the story and a thumbnail picture with a link back to our site, Moore’s site simply took the whole story as well as a full-size image. They did include attribution and a link, but still.

As we normally do in such cases, we sent a several e-mails to the site and to Moore asking that they remove the piece, or follow the proper protocol (and the law) by publishing just a snippet and a link. No response, and no action.

We have a policy here at MW...we quote and link as discussed above, unless the articles is A) very valuable information and B) is from a site that recycles links or destroys archives after a period of time.  If that policy is violated, it is a mistake, and not a matter of habit.  The other instance in which we may reproduce an entire article is with permission.  If someone asks, we take their work down, immediately.

I have no doubt that Moore’s Canadian web team (outsourcing rules!) did this without checking with him first, but the moment it is brought to someone’s attention, you should take care of it.  You know that he knows about it by now, as it seems to have been removed from his front page.

Neither Mike nor I are fond of copyright laws.  This is more than that, though.  When you take someone else’s news or blog items whole and put them on your site, you are simply robbing that writer of eyeballs and traffic, and it’s just rude if nothing else.  It is literally like me stealing the content of Sicko and putting it out under my name, taking away all the impetus to go see the real film.  Moore makes his money, to be sure, but he says that you seeing his films is more important than anything else.  He just wants you to see it.  So why is he (or his team) intentionally depriving someone else of that?  Note his lack of apology and any admittance of screwing up.  No matter how tiny the offense, Michael Moore will never, ever admit he did something wrong.  No wonder he hates Bush so much.  They’re exactly alike.  Half-wits, in way over their heads and unable to admit mistakes.

And so it all comes down to this…

Even after all the coverage, all the raised voices, all the bickering, arguing and all-out-war waged
on both sides of the SiCKO! aisle, a lot of people still didn’t actually believe that Moore’s influence,
or the influence of his “film” would ever amount to any serious discussion of policy change in the
mighty halls of government…

Two Hundred Twenty

No, that’s not the name of a sequel to 300, it’s the number of days some cancer patients have to wait for treatment in Britain’s wonderful National Health Service:

CANCER patients are still waiting up to seven months for treatment.

Patients are supposed to be treated within 62 days of urgent referral.

But figures out yesterday showed only three areas in Scotland were meeting those targets every time.

In the worst cases, sufferers were kept hanging on for 220 days.

The figures, for the first three months of the year, show 85.4 per cent of patients across Scotland were seen within 62 days.

The target set two years ago is 95 per cent.

Now think about that for a moment. The goal of the NHS is to get urgent cancer cases treated within two months. I’ve known people in America’s evil for-profit system to get cancer treatment within two weeks at worst, including many who didn’t have insurance.

Time is everything on cancer. Early detection and early treatment can literally be the difference between life and death.

But the NHS is universal! And it’s free! As long as everyone is equally shafted, it’s OK!

Canadian mother flown to US for birth.  Why?  No room in Canada.

Offered without comment:

A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets.

The four girls were born at a US hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units.

Karen Jepp and her husband JP, of Calgary, were taken to a Montana hospital where the girls were delivered two months early by Caesarean section.

Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia are in good condition at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Montana.

‘One in 13 million’

A medical team and space for the babies had been organised for the Jepp family at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary but several other babies were born unexpectedly early, filling the neonatal intensive care unit.

Health officials said they checked every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada but none had space.

The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician were flown 500km (310 miles) to the Montana hospital, the closest in the US, where the quadruplets were born on Sunday.

Reactions?  Explanation?  Anyone?  Beuller?

Looks like Sicko is about done until the DVD release

According to BoxOfficeMojo, Sicko’s current take is as follows:

It has been losing screens and dropping for awhile.  A few weeks back there was a big push to open on more screens, but the very next week it started losing and has pretty much gone downhill in an even decline.  I predicted $50 million domestically, but it looks like it won’t break 25.  Still a financial success by any standard, as it made money all around and will make some more in DVD release.

Still, what was it that prevented Sicko from being more popular?  Was it the subject matter?  Are Americans simply tired of Moore?  Do we prefer our current system, warts and all?  Was it the long love letters to Cuba and France disguised as “documentary” film making?