Some holiday comics! The Kiss Elves return.

Oh and I am posting journal type comics on twitter sometimes. If you are on twitter I am @beatonna

I can't shake the feeling that there must be something I didn't do in relation to school... hmm.

I saw a stage production of A Christmas Carol today. I love Dickens, I will always love A Christmas Carol. Even if they don't do smoking tricks in it.

Death of military personnel: my comics specialty. Anyway, I like Montcalm. He wasn't, I don't think, as talented as his young rival James Wolfe, but he was among the best they had and a well experienced, hard working man who did his job as best he could. Montcalm had a hot temper and didn't like Quebec, but he tried to save it, even though he was almost always at heads with Vaudreuil the Canadian born Governor- to whom he was supposed to defer. Vaudreuil was experienced in North America and cared passionately for Quebec, but had never really encountered modern European warfare, and didn't understand it. Montcalm hated the corruption in New France, thought the war was useless, and tried to leave but wasn't allowed. In his final letter to his wife he writes, "I think I should have given up all my honors to be back with you, but the king must be obeyed; the moment when I shall see you again will be the finest of my life. Good-bye my heart, I believe I love you more than ever." I like Montcalm.


Wolfe, of course got the most famous painting in this country's history done up for him some years after the Plains of Abraham. Montcalm got one eventually. It's ok.

Alright, ignore all the conflicting reports about the health care bill, here is the condensed version.

*The bill opens up Medicare to those 55 and up.
*The bill has some general restrictions on the health care industry (no more dropping people for pre-existing conditions and the whatnot)
*The bill has a public option . . . but it is "triggered". Basically, the public option only occurs if the insurance industry does not form some non-profit options for people in the next four years.

Crappy? Yes. Toothless? You bet. Able to get Republican and moderate democrat votes? Probably. Basically, the public option ran into a wall of 6-10 conservative Democrats who were committed to preserving insurance industry profits, and nothing Harry Reid did could change their minds.

Where is Obama on all this? Supposedly supporting the triggered option. Frankly, Obama never pushed very hard for the public option and I get the feeling that he is just in favor of whatever he can get through the Senate and call mildly successful.

Filled with crushing hopeless despair? Don't give up yet. The bill still has to be voted on (it will pass, don't worry). After that, it goes into conference with the much much stronger House bill. Hopefully there we can undo most of this damage and give Obama something strong to sign. But honestly? Things aren't looking good.


EDIT: It looks like some very good stuff made it into the bill, including an amendment that requires that Insurance companies spend 90% of the premiums we pay on actually providing us services. Also, the Medicare buy-in is a very significant first step. It can be expanded in the future to provide single-payer. Very much how Civil Unions in this state have been a slow and steady expansion towards gay marriage. We started with a really crappy civil unions law and have been pushing forward towards the full deal.

You remember my younger self, right? It's been a while. The younger self comics aren't around much because they're so uh, different. They're odd, I write them as I go.

I spent two days working on a comic that I ended up not liking. Maybe I will fix it later and post it sometime, it happens! Expect another update soon. But for now, not wanting to wait any more days to update, I just made a comic about frustration. Poor little self, I don't always treat her well! And I felt so bad about the broken telescope, I kept it until I was in university.

I still like advent calendars, though.