Remember Senator Rick Santorum? This darling of the right lost his re-election bid in 2006 and has spent the last few years cruising the conservative talk show circuit while steadfastly refusing to Google himself. He’s now gotten it into his head that he might like to run for president and he recently made a visit to Iowa to test the waters. In an interview with The Des Moines Register, he explained that his opposition to health care reform is the guiding force steering his political ambitions. Santorum has a young daughter with a disability and he also discussed how “socialized medicine” is a threat to kids like her:

“I look at how society with socialized medicine treats children like  Bella, and children like Bella don’t survive,” Santorum told The Des Moines Register on Monday, the first leg of a three-day swing through Iowa. “Children like Bella are not given the treatment that other children are given.”

Santorum said the new health care law, championed by President Barack Obama, will mean disabled people are denied care more often, and repealing it is the best way to address mounting national debt.

It goes on:

In the Register interview, Santorum spoke at length about his belief  that care will be reduced for disabled children: “In socialized medicine countries, where is what Obamacare is and leads us, children with these types of disabilities simply are not given the access to care. Care is rationed, and it’s rationed by government agencies who decide which lives are valuable and should be cared for. … They just simply refuse care. It’s just too expensive. These children are not a good investment of critical taxpayer resources.”

So we have another Republican saddling up his white horse in a noble quest to save us unsuspecting gimps from the evils of socialism. Cynical fearmongering has become such a predictable feature of Republican politicking, but I still get annoyed when noxiously self-righteous pricks like Santorum try to portray their opposition to health care reform as a selfless effort to protect people with disabilities. I’m willing to bet a hundred bucks that Santorum also loves the Ryan plan to slash Medicaid, which really would jeopardize the well-being of millions of people with disabilities. Perhaps he can explain his opposition to socialized medicine to a roomful of middle-class families who rely on Medicaid to care for their kids with disabilities. Perhaps he can explain to them how private insurers stand ready to provide for their children’s significant needs at a fair and reasonable price without any pesky government oversight.

I’ll almost feel sorry for Mitt Romney when he has to start formally debating Santorum and his goofy, crazed ilk. Almost.

I’m uploading a few gigs of music to my Amazon Cloud Drive as I write this. When Amazon first unveiled its remote storage and streaming service, I didn’t think I’d have much use for it. Then I realized it might be nice to have access to some of my music collection from my work computer. Because sometimes writing a policy bulletin demands the accompaniment of Gorillaz. Apple will likely unveil a similar service in the near future and the competition should result in cheap, plentiful storage for anyone who wants it. Cloud computing boosters love to proclaim that soon nobody will need anything more than a few gigs of local storage because inexpensive wireless broadband will let us access our data from any device. Perhaps, but I’m not quite ready to give up my capacious local storage. Servers crash with disturbing frequency and I’m not ready to entrust my choice collection of, uh, stuff to some faceless corporation.

The Star Tribune appears to be on something of a disability kick lately. Here’s an article by local TV critic Neal Justin on the increased visibility of people with disabilities in reality series. The current season of The Amazing Race features a deaf man and another man with Asperger’s Syndrome while American Idol includes a man with Tourette’s.  I’ve noticed this trend also and it’s encouraging to see reality series including people with disabilities in a way that scripted television never has. Of course, most reality TV contestants also tend to be quite attractive, but we can’t expect TV producers to completely give up their old ways. Baby steps, etc. Still, I’m hopeful that somebody at MTV will watch my audition video. I could teach those Real World snots a thing or two.

A few thoughts after watching the first episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones:

• It was faithful to the book without being slavish or plodding. The openings scenes set near the towering Wall were brilliantly executed, establishing the same tone of foreboding that permeates the book. The rest of the episode mirrored the brisk pace of the book’s opening chapters. I’m curious about to see how the series will adapt a plot that sprouts a lot more branches as the story progresses.
• Peter Dinklage (as the lecherous and height-challenged Tyrion) and Emilia Clarke (as the exiled princess Daenerys) are the most compelling presences in the first episode, particularly Clarke. She brings a devastating pathos to her performance, making us both pity and admire a young woman who is forced into a terrifying situation. And I’m eager to see more of Tyrion.
• The sets and costumes are stunning, as do the few examples of CGI scattered throughout the episode. This is the kind of television that simply demands to be watched more than once to admire the little flourishes on the suits of armor or the soaring buttresses of Winterfell.
• Middle Earth looks like a Bible camp compared to the land of Westeros, a fact that HBO is only too happy to illustrate for us. This series is probably going to annoy the puritans who can’t countenance even a hint of sex in their sword-and-sorcery epics.
• The episode ended on a perfect cliffhanger that should keep the uninitiated interested enough to tune in next week.
• It would be a shame if we don’t get a second season. This is great stuff.

I was otherwise engaged for most of the evening, so not much time for blogging. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.