I joke about reboot because this is very much a prequel, apparently taking place soon after Jack Ryan was recruited by the CIA.

But... okay, in Hunt for Red October, he was plainly in the field for the first time. I think they stressed that a lot. I think he might have specifically said he'd never killed anyone before.

But now he's a Married James Bond from the jump, and you know, murderin' people left and right.

Eh. I guess no one cares about that. I'm a geek and I barely care. But I guess that's the problem: I'm not sure how much actual demand there is for a Jack Ryan Reboot.

I tuned out after Patriot Games and then Clear and Present Danger. On the podcast, they were saying Cardinal of the Kremlin was good, but my God! how I hate those dreary espionage stories set in cold gray Moscow. Russia House? How about you change that to Rome House and then we'll talk.

And yes I know this is a lot of espionage stories.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:24 PM | Comments (304)
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Not just that, but emails concerning deeply private health matters may, per the warning, become placed in the public record!

Posted by: Ace at 01:05 PM | Comments (260)
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Mm-hm.

Incidentally, this is the JournOList line of the day, being eagerly pushed by Original JournOListers Dave Wiegel and Ezra Klein, and then parroted by duller-witted puppets such as Luke Russert and Krystal Ball -- that the reason the press did not ask about ObamaCare is because the GOP extremists shut the government down and thus drove ObamaCare from the headlines.

They [the GOP] kind of did it to themselves,” MSNBC host Krystal Ball opined. “I think they [the Press] would be happy to focus on Obamacare if there wasn’t a shutdown and looming default.

Yes, that's my read on it too, "Krystal Ball." That the press would love to hit Obama for his incompetence. But they can't, poor dears, because GOP extremists have stopped them from asking such questions.

Brit Hume knocked down Dave Wiegel on Twitter over this stupid JournOList meme -- noting that the press corps had in fact had time to ask about trade with China and Citizens United (or an upcoming case which would follow in the Citizens United jurisprudence).

So the press was indeed able to ask about things besides default (something Obama covered himself, unasked, for 25 minutes).

They chose not to include ObamaCare on that list of Other Things We Should Ask About.

Oh: And Andrea Mitchell is a sour-crotched partisan hack.

But you knew that.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (341)
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The only slightly challenging question came from Mark Knoller, who wanted to know why Obama didn't just pass the funding bills already passed by the House. I say "slightly" challenging because this is such an obvious question and it has a scripted response -- there is no challenge in it unless follow-up questions are permitted and assertions made challenged.

One last point: The press obviously understands how weak and incapable Obama is, because they shield him so very much. They obviously do not trust him to handle even a mildly challenging question.

If they thought he was as smart and prepared as they claim he is, they would have no problem asking him tough questions. They'd expect him to smash the question, like a good volleyballer turning an attempted spike into his own spike.

They are clearly terrified of what errors he will make, what stuttering incompetence he will demonstrate, if they don't just put the big ball on the batting tee for their Man Child Philosopher King.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (349)
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Accountability is for mortals.

Obamacare, recall, was sold with a specific set of political promises: The new regime, advocates insisted, would reduce the deficit, cover the needy, and reduce total health spending — all while lowering the premiums of those who were already insured. Back in 2007, when Obama was running for the Democratic nomination, he introduced what was then an embryonic proposal with the quixotic assurance that, “if you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums.” Then he adumbrated what would happen to the “amount of money” that Americans would “spend on premiums.” “That will be less,” Obama told anybody who would listen.

In case you’re wondering, that’s “less” in the classical sense of the word, as opposed to in the sense of “more,” or “well, that depends on who you are.” Likewise, just so we’re painfully clear: When the president said that he was talking about people who “already have health insurance,” he meant that he was talking about people who already had health insurance. This is not a matter of opinion or a subjective piece of literary criticism. It is a fact. In plain language that he intended listeners to take at face value, Obama established a hypothesis — one that can be easily tested. He must be held to it.

As a candidate, Obama also made this promise: “I will sign a universal health-care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.” Again, this is not a “right-wing talking point,” nor is it a slur cooked up by an intransigent conservative movement intent upon destroying the president at all costs. It is a verbatim pledge that the candidate made to the American people on camera over and over and over and over again — so often, in fact, that the New York Times ran an entire feature on the “audacious promise” that was submitted in “speech after speech.”

After he was elected president, Obama continued to make definite commitments. On June 15, 2009, in the midst of the legislative fight, the president told the American Medical Association’s annual meeting: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

...

To recap, then: Before, during, and after passage, Americans were promised that Obamacare was going to lower premiums for “everyone” (the goal of merely maintaining premiums being too modest); it was not going to interfere with anybody’s health care or health insurance if they already had it; and it was not going change anybody’s patient-doctor relationship. The message was unmistakable: All the government wanted to do was extend health insurance to people who didn’t have it. This wouldn’t affect you. No need to worry. Period. Move along.

He then turns to the Left's recalibration of promises --- suddenly Ezra Klein, for example, is saying of course some people will pay much more for health insurance. Duh!

Old Claim from the Left: The Right's claim that there is cost-shifting and mandated cross-subsidization in this bill, to impose a not-so-hidden tax on many in order to afford a subsidy to others, is crazy! We'll all pay lower premiums!

New Claim from Left: Of course there is cost-shifting and mandated cross-subsidization in this bill; how else could we have hidden a tax in order to afford a subsidy to others? It's brilliant. Some of us will pay more so that a few of us will pay less. This is precisely how it was always supposed to work.

A Future Claim from the Left: I'm not sure how that happened. I thought I was in control and then all of a sudden I was getting whipped around by the hose like a fireman at a oil refinery blaze. But when you think about it, wasn't this just the way I had always told you it would go? In a way?

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (273)
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Obama called Boehner this morning to tell him he wasn't negotiating.

That's actually not a new thing -- he's been calling him for two weeks to tell him "I'm not negotiating or even talking with you."

Which is such a passive-aggressive Teenage Girl move I'm completely unsurprised.

Anyway, check Hot Air for the news which I've completely ignored so far today.

Live stream of the stupidity here at FoxNews.

Supposedly he'll take questions for once in a million years.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (649)
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As regards Non-Political Threads, I'm going to try something new.

First, anytime someone posts a Non-Political Thread, and there is no politically-oriented post which has been posted recently (say, within the past hour), I'll ask the person posting the Non-Political Thread to also post an Open Thread just below. Just a blank thread, basically, which says "take all political comments or off-topic comments here."

Second, I'm going to ask people to respect the topic of a Non-Political Thread and not go off-topic simply because it's now (for the moment) the top post on the site.

The reasons for this are simple: While any week will have 100 political threads, there is only one Gaming Thread per week, one Book thread per week, one or maybe two of CAC's astronomy threads per week, and so on.

Using such threads to talk about the Hot Political Topics is understandable, given that people rush to the Top Thread looking for the "active conversation" thread. But this results in people not really being able to have a conversation about much besides politics. You can't really have much of a conversation about, say, some cooking technique CBD is discussing if there are two or three stray cooking comments among the first hundred comments, with the bulk of them about the shutdown.

That's why I'm asking for cobs and guest-bloggers to simultaneously post an Open Thread just beneath their actual thread. This will serve to give people a place to discuss politics -- which I know is the reason most people come to the site -- which is also a clearly designated "active conversation" thread, while leaving the Non-Political Thread alone, so that people can actually get that critical mass of comments necessary to have any kind of interesting discussion about the topic at hand.

So, three requests: First that cobs and Guest Bloggers post an empty Open Thread, to serve as a new "active conversation" thread for political talk;

that they end begin their post by noting an Open Thread is now directly below the current Top Thread, and that all off-topic comment should be directed there (Update: Include the directive at the beginning of the post, because someone not interested in the topic is not going to read anything in the post, but will just jump to the comments),

and that commenters respect this, and understand that some people, while of course interested in the Shutdown and all the rest, may sometimes want to take advantage of a thread dedicated to their niche interest, just to talk about the actual niche subject itself without the comments immediately being swamped by the general political discussion of the day.

I think this solution will both give people who want to talk just politics the Top Thread they want (even though it will be in the second position, not the first) and will also allow Non-Political Threads to serve the purpose for which they're intended, which is letting commenters drop politics for a while and discuss something which, while not political, still interests them as people.

Thanks for understanding.

I will bump this thread to both Saturday and Sunday so that people understand the basic idea.

By the way, as an example of this idea (let's see if it works), 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: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (550)
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"Gestapo" is their word, not mine.

Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.

The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

...

The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get back in, saying they couldn’t “recreate.” The tour guide, who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group into the park, argued that the seniors weren’t “recreating,” just taking photos.

“She responded and said, ‘Sir, you are recreating,’ and her tone became very aggressive,” Vaillancourt said.

The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park’s premier lodge located adjacent to the park’s most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site — barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door.

...

The bus trip made headlines in Livingston, where the local newspaper Livingston Enterprise interviewed the tour guide, Gordon Hodgson, who accused the park service of “Gestapo tactics.”

“The national parks belong to the people,” he told the Enterprise. “This isn’t right.”

Via Breitbart.

Note that they were not permitted "to recreate." To be physically present, yes. But to recreate? No.

There is no difference between the two things as far as cost in money to the government.

The only difference is that the government and its petty minions wishes to actively harm and harass its citizens.

There must be a purge of the Park service when this is all done. Fire most of them, reduce it to a skeleton force. They're bad apples. They seem to imagine they own the national legacy, and can shut it down in service of the Party of Government.

There must be a price paid for such a fascist notion.

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (487)
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Day 8.

NYTimes reports that the faulty Obamacare websites were designed by contractors, who the White House has declined to identify. That's right, proles, you have no right to know just which donors' sons got paid outrageous sums of taxpayer money to half-ass the exchange software and which other donors' sons are now getting paid outrageous sums of taxpayer money to fix the half-assed work that should have been done correctly in the first place.

USAToday's editorial compares Bush 43's rollout of the online Medicare plan finder to Obamacare's online exchanges debut: "the difference between competence and incompetence."

Politico notes that the Democrats are showing a bit of daylight between the White House and the Senate on the budget & debt ceiling. Quite simply, Obama is telegraphing that he's ready to negotiate. Senate Democrats think that's a terrible idea because, dontcha know, they've got other things to do: "What does short-term buy us? That buys us Thanksgiving in Washington."

Speaking of turkeys . . . VP Biden, who brokered the deal that got us the sequester cuts in 2011 and fended off the fiscal cliff at the start of this year, has been banned from dealing by Sen. Reid. "None of the deals Biden has struck have aged well from the perspective of the Democratic Caucus."

[ RSS]

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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (285)
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• When Wealth Disappears
  
• Veterans Arrested For Not Leaving War Memorial
  
• Sebelius Doesn't Know How Many People Have Signed Up For Obamacare
  
• Sebelius Also Clueless About Part-Time Work Changes To Avoid Obamacare
  
• China's Starting To Worry About America's Financial Stability
  
• Cooke: Obamacare Snake Oil
  
• Man Fined For Jogging In National Park
  
• Due To Faulty Exchanges, Some Americans Won't Get Healthcare After They've Signed Up
  
• Sowell: Inarticulate Republicans
  
• Taranto: The New Face Of Prejudice
  
• Conservatives Wary Of A Deal
  
• VDH: Obama As Chaos
  
• CNN Doesn't Know Hong Kong Is In Asia
  
• Young Chinese Don't Want To Work In Factories
  
• American Alliances Strengthening In The Pacific
  
• Covered California, Obamacare And Reality Collide
  
• Don't Put Your Dick In A Toaster
  
• Obama Starting To Scare Monger On Social Security
  
• Why Couldn't I Get A Teacher Like This?
  
• Maryland Has Enrolled 326 People In Obamacare
  
• Smartphones With Curved Display Set To Be Released Next Month
  
• More American Civil Disobedience At Gettysburg
  
• Nuclear Fusion Has Broken Even For The First Time Ever
  
• Hilarious In Show TV Ad Screw Up
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:30 AM | Comments (750)
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