Know Your Scumbag, Part 4

This is Angela Braly, CEO of Wellpoint, Inc. In 2008 her compensation package for this insurance company amounted to almost $10 million dollars.

Her opinion of health insurance is "one size does not fit all" which is corporate-speak for "If you're poor, you're screwed."

A recent quote of hers is "‘We will not sacrifice profitability for membership."

Translation: "I've got a private jet  and it ain't paying for itself, Chachi, so ante up, chump, unless you think you can get a better deal elsewhere. Bwahhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!!"

This just in: A subsidiary of Wellpoint, Inc, Anthem Health Plans, is suing the entire state of Maine because they can't make enough profit off of them, in the face of the worst recession in 80 years. You can read the whole disgusting story here.

One last semi-related thing: Canada has had universal coverage for its citizens since 1947. We can, too.




----------

Over the weekend I found myself sitting in a theatre in Garland, Texas watching "Zombieland". The first words out of the mouth of the narrator was to the effect that this wasn't a shit-hole but that "Garland, Texas always looks this way."

Funny. Sure wish I could say that for the rest of the movie.

My mini-review is that it had its moments, many of them quite humorous, one of them featuring a VERY unexpected cameo, but it's basically one long hunt for a Twinkie accompanied by a fitful stream of zombie attacks along the way. Lots of things that go boom and lots of stuff that goes splat. If that's all you require a movie then you're in luck.

-------------

I also watched "Goldfinger" for probably the first time in my life this past weekend. Beloved Girlfriend is mad with lust for Sean Connery and Big Lots just happened to have the entire collection of early 007 on sale for $3 apiece, so I sprung for this title and Dr. No.

I know this is heresy (and I love you, BG) but the audiences of 1964 must have been very easily amused as the plot of this thing was punishingly ludicrous from start to finish.

I'd often heard, from film buffs who supposedly knew better, that Goldfinger is considered one of the best screen villains of all time. Really? This guy who gets caught by Bond cheating at gin rummy? Oooh, scary. And then he coats his female associate in gold  paint, thus killing her via "skin suffocation". Whaaaa? To top it off, he's clearly guilty of the crime but the police don't really seem interested in the all-too-obvious clues and we never hear about the murder again. And that's in the first five minutes.

And then there's the side-splitting spectacle of thousands of soldiers instantly dropping dead as a result of a high-altitude application of the villain's deadly Delta 9 gas. Whooooo-boy!

Meanwhile, Bond himself never seems to escape death with any degree of actual cleverness. It's more like his enemies just didn't bother to shoot him. I suppose they preferred boring him to death with exposition. It sure worked on me.

Tell me I'm wrong.

=Lefty=