Happy Monday.

President Obama is scheduled to give a speech in the Rose Garden at 11:25 this morning addressing Obamacare's rollout failure, probably because Democrats are shitting themselves over it. He will surround himself with people who have possibly applied or even possibly enrolled, though not anyone who has paid their first premium yet. Expect a blame game.

In preparation -- you may consider it a prebuttal -- read Megan McArdle on four things that people are getting wrong about the Obamacare rollout. These are pretty foundational things. Let's see if the President just glosses over them.

Virginia AG and Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli gave the GOP weekly address over the weekend, which was also on Obamacare rollout failure. "President ObamaÂ’s ideas are deeply flawed and the implementation of this law has been a national embarrassment."

David Freddoso has more on the distinction between Obamacare exchange enrollees and Medicaid enrollees, which too many news outlets are conflating. Freddoso, by the way, should be a daily must-read. His stuff is always timely, well-written, and insightful. Add his Conservative Intelligence Briefing to your list.

Contractors have weeks of work to do on Obamacare exchange websites. Can you believe it, that's the rosy estimate. "One specialist said as many as 5 million lines of software code may need to be rewritten before the website runs."

Much of this was discussed on this week's podcast, which can be got just below.

[ RSS]

[iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (276)
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I ask this for several reasons.

First, it gives cobloggers a chance to quickly read the post and make sure there's nothing too objectionable about it. There's a lot less drama when some point is handled behind the scenes, rather than a post being posted, then taken down.

Oh, and on that: If you yourself wonder if something is too edgy or otherwise objectionable, ask a cob (or me) to read it over. As long as it's in draft it can be edited into something less likely to cause headaches.

Second, and more importantly, it's crucial for scheduling reasons. Sometimes there will be a big batch of posts coming in at the same time-- say four posts in twenty minutes. If they're all just published at once, the earlier posts -- posted just ten or twenty minutes earlier -- will be stomped and buried, and never read.

Also, those posts, spaced out rationally 45 minutes to an hour apart could cover four hours of the day, whereas if they just all come down in a big rush, they wind up covering just an hour.

Content may be light this week so it's especially important to keep things spaced apart. It does no one any good to have five posts go up between 1pm and 2pm, and then nothing at all between 2pm and 5pm.

If you have something time-sensitive, which you think should have priority, either because it's breaking news or because it's an article that you found that few others do, please alert one of the cobloggers about that, or perhaps save your draft with a capitalized TIME SENSITIVE in the headline, so that anyone perusing the drafted post list will take note of it.

Thanks for posting, and thanks for sticking to the Save to Draft, not Save to Publish rule. The cobloggers will be working extra hard (for free) while I'm on vacation, and this was their top request. They have two big problems: When there's not enough content, and when there's far too much. Saving to Draft, and allowing the cobs to pop out the posts as needed, spaced out nice and evenly, solves both problems.

Posted by: Ace at 05:13 PM | Comments (211)
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If you want to jawbone about politics, rather than football, this is the place to do it.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:10 PM | Comments (65)
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Also, elbows.

For non-elbow related discussions, try this thread here.

Update: Senior Citizen Tour Group To MetLife Stadium Beats Giants 34-6

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:13 PM | Comments (151)
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Dear ONT,

By the time you read this I will already be out of the country and on my way to Germany. I will try and keep up the ONTs but I will be on the move with spotty internet connectivity so no guarantees.

Once my friend and I are able to make contact with the underground we will follow their instructions and start on the rat line. If all goes as planned, we will make our way into the Principality of Lichtenstein and seek asylum there. Or at least T-shirts if we are unable to swing the ‘political expediteÂ’ fees. Oh and the east wind is rising  - I repeat the east wind is rising.

Coraje my friends!

Maetenloch

And in keeping with the traditions of a smart military blog, tonight will be a movie night with a feature presentation of the 1981 German epic of submarine warfare, Das Boot.

It’s a classic movie that’s long but worth the investment of watching. The book the movie is based on by Lothar-Günther Buchheim is a good read as well. And it fills in a lot of the details and motivations of the crew such as why the Captain was so disdainful of the ardent Nazi lieutenant as well as the significance of some of the events shown in the movie. It also makes clear that while the Captain and Chief Engineer were referred to as the ‘old men’ by the crew, in real life they were all of 30 and 27 years old.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:46 PM | Comments (444)
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Chances are high at least half of Ace's readership went back to the cheerleader or whiskey thread after reading that headline. Fair enough. I have those days (which sometimes extend into weeks and months). Perhaps it's the serenity of sitting at my desk overlooking the trees that are just starting to turn with their full set of leaves but I'm having an explicable moment of optimism. It's a rare moment and since Ace graciously gave me keys, in his absence I thought thought I'd share my thoughts as to what we're doing wrong and how we can turn it around. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:59 PM | Comments (332)
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[We Politely Request That All Off-Topic or Political Comments Be Directed to the Thread Directly Below This One, Which Will Serve Officially as the Current "Active Conversation" Thread for All Discussions Not Related To This Topic.

-- Sincerely, the Fascist MGMT]

Posted by: CAC at 02:37 PM | Comments (66)
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Since the astronomy thread is up, here's a 1000% cosmos-free one. more...

Posted by: CAC at 02:34 PM | Comments (104)
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Get yer politicking on or what ever else here

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 11:40 AM | Comments (67)
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...And anything else you maniacs want to discuss.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:30 AM | Comments (16)
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