Moore declares new film to be toxic and dangerous… again….

I think we’ve all heard these claims from Moore about his movies before, haven’t we?

Oscar-winning documentary maker Michael Moore, who this week unveiled plans for a follow-up to his anti-Bush polemic “Fahrenheit 9/11,” said on Friday the new film would cover topics so “toxic” he probably should not make it.

But Moore, whose work ranges from an expose of American gun culture in “Bowling for Columbine” to a scathing critique of U.S. health care in “SiCKO,” relishes controversy, so his unnamed new movie will likewise be risky, he told reporters at the Cannes film festival.

“It’s something I shouldn’t make, something that is dangerous,” he said.

Is is just me or is this hype of Moore’s becoming something of a mantra for him? He said it about Bowling, he said it about Fahrenheit, and he said it about Sicko. Not one of those films turned out to be either “toxic” or “dangerous”, largely due to the hefty amount of factual errors, inaccuracies and outright untruths contained within them. But no… *this* one will be different:

At box offices, his new movie will face risks. Recent films dealing with the current wars, such as “Stop-Loss” and “In the Valley of Elah,” were commercial flops.

But Moore said he believed those movies failed because most Americans no longer support the wars, whereas in 2004, when “Fahrenheit 9/11” was released, most Americans still backed U.S. military pursuits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He believes “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which ranks as the top-grossing political documentary of all time with more than $220 million at global box offices, was a hit because it told audiences things about the Bush administration that they were surprised to hear.

Similarly, he said his new movie will succeed by exposing information about President George W. Bush and his policies that will leave audiences stunned.

“What I’m going to say in this film is what probably 70 percent of them (audiences) don’t want to hear,” Moore said.

Yes, Mr. Moore. You’ve got something right. We probably aren’t going to want to hear what you have to say in this new film venture of yours. You see, we’re all getting a little tired of your fictional diatribes against America getting masqueraded as documentaries. If you’d like to truly shock us… how about making this movie… I don’t know… based on the truth? That would certainly shock me.

Go Home and Die

Here’s some more of that wonderful socialist compassion that is supposed to infuse our cousins across the Atlantic, this proving their inherent moral superiority over us.

An HIV-positive Ugandan woman’s claim to stay in the UK has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.

Her lawyers argued that a lack of medical care in Uganda would lead to her early death, and this would amount to cruel and degrading treatment.

The government denies this, saying all NHS HIV drugs are available in Uganda.

The court agreed that if the unnamed woman were sent back to Uganda, there would be no violation of the bar on inhuman or degrading treatment.

When the woman entered the UK in March 1998 under an assumed name, she was seriously ill and was admitted to hospital.

Soon afterwards, solicitors lodged an asylum application on her behalf, claiming she had been raped by government soldiers in Uganda because of her association with the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group in the north of the country.

The lawyers argued that her life would be in danger if she were returned to Uganda.

By November 1998, she was diagnosed with two illnesses which are known to be indicators of having AIDS, and as being in an extremely advanced state of HIV infection.

Her asylum claim was rejected in March 2001, a decision she appealed against.

In rejecting her claim, the secretary of state found no evidence that Ugandan authorities were interested in her and that treatment of Aids in Uganda was comparable to any other African country.

The secretary of state also found that all the major anti-viral drugs were available in Uganda at highly subsidised prices.

In January the government sent a terminally ill Ghanaian woman who had been receiving treatment in the UK back to her country because her visa had expired.

Now, which do you think is more likely, that she was deported because of a expired viusa, or because and HIV diagnisis would reqire thirthy fo forty more years of retroviral and “drug cocktail” therapy to keep her alive, when we all know that NHS is failing miserably to provide even basic care to the citizenry.  So rather than deal with the expense of treating this woman they’re sending her back home, to her happy land full of sunshine and rainbows and rivers of chocolate, where the children dance and play with gumdrop smiles.

Full discosure:  The US has some pretty draconian laws regarding HIV people obtaining citizenship in this country.  I’m just as opposed to this as I am to what these European dickwads are doing? 

See?  That’s called “intellectual honesty.” You Moore fans should try it once in a while.

Getting Care to the Sick

Michael Moore has stated that evil capitalism is the cause of all America’s healthcare woes, and that only the loving, warm, benevolent arms of the nanny state can provide what we need.  (He has explicitly called for the abolition of private health insurance.) But it seems that (gasp!) maybe one solution to the problem is to get rid of the bloodsucking trial lawyers.

Tort reform, of course, resulting in substantially lower medical malpractice premiums and expenses, and an influx of 7000 doctors, including into many underserved regions. One indirect benefit: with less money spent on medical malpractice lawyers, self-insuring hospitals can spend more on doctors and on medical practice:

Take Christus Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system across the state. Thanks to tort reform, over the past four years Christus saved $100 million that it otherwise would have spent fending off bogus lawsuits or paying higher insurance premiums. Every dollar saved was reinvested in helping poor patients.

Also of relevance: the amusing results when Texas added evidentiary standards of medical harm to their asbestos and silicosis docket. Suddenly, over 99% of the cases went away because so few suing plaintiffs had a doctor willing to certify harm.

My God, what a concept!  It should be noted, gentle reader, that trial lawyers overwhelmingly donate to Democrats.  In return, the Democrats will inevitably put a stop to this terrible example of the deregulated free market actually, y’know, improving the lives of patients.  For liberals, especially those like Moore, the means are more important than the ends.  Moore doesn’t want to see more people get healthcare, he wants to prove that socialism is super peachy awesome, and he pimps out sick people to make that point.  Any solution which is not directly attributable to government intervention will not sit well with him, because it won’t support his overall thesis that eeeeeevil capitalism is to blame for everything.

Update Well well well.  It looks like the Democrats are dutifully bending over for their ambulance-chasing overlords with a nice $1.6 billion payoff which somehow managed to find its way into the Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008.

The language is from Sec. 311, Uniform Treatment of Attorney-Advanced Expenses and Court Costs in Contingency Fee Cases. The provisions allow trial attorneys to deduct advanced litigation fees regardless of whether their contingency fee was structured as a “net” or a “gross” fee arrangement. The law does not now allow lawyers to take a current tax deduction under a net fee arrangement.

Anything that makes it easier for bloodsucking mass tort lawyers to drive up the costs of healthcare (and everything else). 

Ooh, Joy!

Mikey is making a sequel:

Michael Moore is making a sequel to “Fahrenheit 9/11” for Overture Films and Paramount Vantage, which will shop the project to international buyers when the Cannes Film Festival and market get under way today.

--snip--

Sequel will pick up where “Fahrenheit 9/11” left off. In the time since, Bush’s popularity has plummeted, while the Iraq war continues and the economy falters.

“It’s a vote of confidence on Michael’s part and a great partnership for all of us,” Rosett said. “There is a voracious appetite for this kind of commentary.”

Really? Is there? You think beating a dead horse has a market?  A dead horse who will be out of office by the time the movie is released?  I love this bit:

Moore’s decision not to make his next film with the Weinstein Co. comes after “Sicko” failed to ignite at the box office. Film, which took on the U.S. health care system, grossed $24.5 million domestically and $11.2 million internationally. Topically, the film didn’t resonate with overseas auds.

Yeah, it’s the Weinstein’s fault.  It’s not because the film had holes in it that were big enough that Mike’s ego could comfortably pass through them.

Anyway, we’re fired up about this.  We can use the traffic.  And the exercise of debunking Mike’s crapola.

Cuban Doctors

Ah, Cuba the tropical wonderland of freedom and egalitarianism and all the free, wonderful, magical healthcare anyone could ever want.  Strange, isn’t it, that so many Cuban doctors would defect to the country with the world’s 37th best healthcare system.

The Cuban government’s plan was for Beny Alfonso Rodriguez to help lead a group of 72 Cuban doctors on a medical mission in the town of Macarapana, Venezuela.

But Rodriguez, a former soldier, lasted four months. He joined the mission with one thing in mind: to flee Cuba.

“I was born into the revolution, but I didn’t choose it,” says Rodriguez, who arrived in Miami in April.

Rodriguez is among hundreds of Cuban medical personnel who have deserted their country’s overseas medical missions in recent months to apply for fast-track entry into the United States.

News of the U.S. government’s Cuban Medical Professional Parole program, launched in August 2006, quickly reached rural outposts in Venezuela and other countries. The policy allows Cuban doctors, nurses, administrators, lab technicians and other professionals working in humanitarian medical missions outside Cuba to apply at their host country’s U.S. embassy for entry into the United States. After undergoing a background check, most applicants are accepted, according to Ana Carbonell, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami.

“The Castro regime has used these medical professionals as a vehicle for its international propaganda,” Carbonell said.

It’s also used it’s willing Castro sycophant, Michael Moore.  Here’s the best part:  they’re defecting from another socialist utopia, Venezuela.

Cuban exile activists say dozens of Cuban medical personnel have defected in Venezuela. In exchange for cheap oil for Cuba, about 21,000 Cuban doctors staff President Hugo Chavez’s free health-care program for the poor, called Barrio Adentro (Inside the Barrio) — the backbone of the Venezuelan leader’s popular socialist reforms.

“The number one fear of these doctors is that they’ll be deported back to Cuba. Where do they go in a country that’s friendly with the Castro regime? They don’t know who to trust,” said Camila Ruiz-Gallardo, of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Many of the doctors have received guidance from the foundation and another exile group, Solidarity Without Borders. The two groups formed a partnership in 2006 to help Cuban medical personnel reach the United States. With the foundation’s support, Solidarity has expanded a program, Barrio Afuera (Outside the Barrio), that provides doctors hiding in Venezuela or other countries with “safe houses,” money and information about the application process.

Okay, so they’re leaving one socialist wonderland with free healthcare to go to another socialist wonderland with free healthcare, and they STILL want to come to the evil, heartless, for-profit United States?  What could possibly motivate them to do such a heartless thing? 

But some who have deserted missions in Venezuela said they saw a chance to flee Castro’s communist system without risking a high-seas voyage. Others jumped at the opportunity to earn 10 times the salary they earned in Cuba.  …

Miguel Alfredo Jimenez, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, served in a mission in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, from 2003 to 2005 monitoring the health of a group of athletes. He earned about $330 a month, up from $30 a month he earned in Havana.  …

“It hurts to admit it,” Jimenez said of those who join missions to flee or earn better pay. “It doesn’t mean it’s not important in our profession to help others, but we’re in a grave situation in Cuba.”

I think he needs to watch Sicko.  He obviously has no idea how wonderful things are there.  Michael Moore needs to set this Cuban doctor straight. 

Profit in medicine?  What a disgusting concept.  This guy should take his $30 a month and shut the fuck up.

Shameless self-promotion break from the presidential campaign nonsense

Aloha everyone!  I haven’t posted in a while here as there didn’t seem to be much going on with Moore except his kiss-of-death proclamation of support for Obama in the democrat race to the DNC.  I don’t know about the rest of you but I am pretty much done with watching the news for now.  It’s the same old same old: gas prices are up and keep going up, housing market is out of control and nobody can afford to buy a house, the war is still going on, celebrities are sexually harassing people, cults are molesting children, the democrats can’t get their shit together, etc., etc.
So I am offering a break from all of it for all my Moorewatch friends.  This Saturday, May 10th the Sci Fi Channel is showing the film, “Aztec Rex” (check your local listing).  Now, why would I be bringing up a film showing on a saturday on Sci Fi Channel?  Three reasons:
1. Because like I said, it would be a nice break from all the crap going on in the world;

2. Because the film features several Hawaii-based actors in lead roles.  Which is a rarety in Hollywood these days.  Studios tend to think that there are only asians and polynesians living in Hawaii so they fly in mainland talent and occasionally toss us actors who are not asian or polynesian the background or “extra” roles for mere pittances.  Perhaps if studios see there are people who actually WANT to see Hawaii-based actors on the small and big screens, they might start casting us in more principal roles!

3. And finally, because yours truly is in one of those lead roles as the character “Alvarado”.

You can see the Sci Fi channel commercial here:
Aztec Rex commercial on Sci Fi Channel

you can also see the listing on Sci Fi here:

Sci Fi Channel listing

So on saturday pop some popcorn, crack open a cold one, sit back, relax and watch some good old fashioned Hollywood B-Movie entertainment with half-naked Aztec women, dirty conquistadores, dinosaurs, sword fights, murder, mayhem, and Jack McGee playing a Spanish priest with a New York accent!

Thanks and God Bless!