This happened.

Don't blame me. I'm just the messenger here.

Posted by: Ace at 03:55 PM | Comments (276)
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The video below the fold is one of Ace's French language practice videos. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:41 PM | Comments (233)
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Yes, yes, yes...they are the Evil Empire. Too much money chasing too few great players. Heavy-handed and superior. And of course they are in New York City. And have ARod. Blah, blah, blah. All of this may be true, but...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:10 PM | Comments (280)
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Well, we are starting to get into the peak period for the Perseid meteor shower. Hopefully, the clouds will clear up enough in my location to take a look. I did learn today though that you can possibly catch some meteors called earthgrazers between 9:30 and 10:30 PM. Here is video of one that occurred last night over New Mexico. Be sure to have your volume up. These earthgrazers make some eerie sounds caused by television signals bouncing of the ionized tail of the meteor. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 06:40 PM | Comments (475)
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OK, so I know that the opinions about Glenn Beck on this blog are decidedly mixed. But even so, here he's mercilessly mocking Keith Olbermann, and it's absolutely brutal. If this were an actual, real-life flogging, Keefums would look like Jim Caviezel in 'The Passion'. Although in Olbermann's case, never was there more of a pompous buffoon who deserved it more.

When I first listened to this, I walked around the house saying "Brr-rrr-rrrrrrrr-eittttbarttt! Tell me about that scoundrel Brr-rrr-rrrrrrrr-eittttbarttt!" over and over again until Mrs. Muse told me to STFU.

And below the fold, Beck's classic post-election gloat-fest from 2010. You can skip the cheesy intro, and pick it up around the 1:25 mark. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:20 AM | Comments (307)
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Via Brian Faughnan....Paging Sarah "Death Panel" Palin. Sarah "Death Panel" Palin to the White Courtesy phone.

Like most such panels, including the Affordable Care Act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, the Oregon Health Evidence Review Commission, or HERC, claims to be merely concerned with what supposedly works and what doesn’t. Their real targets are usually advanced, costly treatments. That’s why HERC, for example, proposed in May that Medicaid should not cover “treatment with intent to prolong survival” for cancer patients who likely have fewer than two years left to live. HERC presents an example to show their reasoning for such a decision: “In no instance can it be justified to spend $100,000 in public resources to increase an individual’s expected survival by three months when hundreds of thousands of Oregonians are without any form of health insurance.”

Here's a dirty little secret...I get the politics of why ObamaCare opponents latched on to "Death Panels" but when it comes to Medicaid and Medicare, if you want to restrain costs, rationing is pretty much the only way you can do it. You can talk about efficiency and best practices all you want but the reality is the only way to actually get control of the cost of these programs is to cap the amount you're willing to allocate to them and divide the money up among recipients as best you can. At some point that's going to require cost/benefit analysis on the services provided to people. The biggest driver of costs for Medicare is end of life care.

The cost of end-of-life care is particularly problematic for Medicare. Most people who die in America, no surprise, are elderly Medicare beneficiaries and the program is grappling with its long-term financial viability. Care at the end of life is far more expensive for Medicare than spending on a typical beneficiary. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimate that more than 25 percent of Medicare spending goes towards the five percent of beneficiaries who die each year.

This results in spending for decedents (persons who are in their last year of life) that is six times greater than the cost for a survivor. For example, in 2006 Medicare spent an average of $38,975 per decedent compared to $5,993 for other beneficiaries (survivors), health care researchers Gerald Riley, of the CMS, and James Lubitz, of the Urban Institute, found.

It's ugly but it's math.

To me the problem with ObamaCare is that it ropes almost everyone into this sort of government cost/benefit calculation. Until now, if you wanted a plan that would pay for everything until the minute you died, fine. You paid the premium, you get to pick the product and level of care you want. ObamaCare does away with that by placing exorbitant taxes on those types of plans and by setting up a series of incentives for companies to stop providing insurance to workers and forcing them into the government run exchanges, which then limits your options and subjects you to the government's need to control costs.

Yes, there was an inequality between people who had private insurance and those who relied on government plans. But that's just life. If you provide insurance for yourself, you are free to value how much you will pay for it against the amount of services you will expect in return. That's between you, your insurance company and your health care providers. If you rely on society to provide that to you, you will not have as much control over how much you receive from others. If you rely on others to pay for you, human nature being what it is, most people will decide to spend more of their resources on themselves than on people they don't know.

And spare me the, "I paid for Medicare all my life! It's mine!". It's not true.

That's the true aim of ObamaCare...to remove that "inequity" (unless you're a member of Congress or one of the other privileged classes in our brave new world). Now you selfish bastards can no longer spend your own money on yourself as you see fit. You will be forced to pool your resources so that we all may be equal. Naturally, "equal" will be defined by the experts in DC, who won't be subject to their own brand of "fairness".

Oh, Harry Reid says ObamaCare is just the first step to single payer.

But trying to defund/repeal ObamaCare isn't the hill to fight on or something.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:07 AM | Comments (371)
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24 hour a day for 2 weeks Couple afternoons maybe, a few phone calls and some intensive follow up emails and he's ready to go back to work for the people.

“Upon completion of the treatment program, Mayor Filner is planning to continue therapy sessions on an outpatient basis,” said a statement from the office of attorney, James L. Payne of Los Angeles. “Mayor Filner is taking personal time next week and will be unavailable for comment. At this time, we do not have information as to when he will be available for comment.”

The statement raised some confusion, saying Filner wouldnÂ’t be completing his two-week intensive treatment program until Saturday. Burdick said he had already completed the program, according to news reports.

They say the first step in any recovery is admitting you have a problem.

ICYMI, the Podcast People are a bit frustrated with both the media circling the wagons with this "local story" nonsense and the silence of Republicans who are afraid to take a swing at a hanging curveball. Also Rick Tempest sets the over/under for public accusations of creepery at 26. I'm taking the over.

Babs (ma'am) Boxer has decided it's time to put a little distance between herself and Filner.

As long as it's more than arms length you should be ok Senator.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:39 AM | Comments (144)
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Is this thing on? Open mic AM.
more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:27 AM | Comments (234)
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Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:29 PM | Comments (210)
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This is just kind of funny.

It would be too obvious to kiss directly up to your own boss -- "Gee boss, you sure are smart with all your forward-thinking high-tech know-how!" -- so what you do is you kiss up to a guy who is very similar to your boss, praising the other guy's forward-thinking high-tech know-how, and just hope your boss is smart enough to make the connection and be flattered and invite you to gaze upon his fleet of yachts.

Or, who knows, perhaps Chris Hughes pitched this story himself: "You know who's pretty awesome? Tech billionaires very similar to myself, that's who. We should do a story on that."

And then the writers are all like, "You betcha, Bossman! You the best! Where you get all these great ideas about how awesome you are, huh? We should just call you the Magic Man because that's what you make, magic."

And then all the other writers start going "Mag-ic Man, Mag-ic Man," and then Chris Hughes orders caviar and champers for everyone, and the Festival of Chris may begin.

That's how I imagine it, anyway.

Whatever. Clowns.

Like, you know, if employees voted on the Employee of the Month at Stark Industries, Tony Stark would win every time, right? And not because he's Iron Man.

And some wrap-up stuff: Harry Reid says all we have to do to win on Amnesty is get to conference;

and Republicans, of which I am no longer one, think they might be able to do Amnesty even faster than that.

I think at some point we must conclude as Jan did about Michael Scott: We are all out of carrots, we are all out of sticks. We have done what we could, but this employee simply refuses to perform as is expected of him.

Open Thread. I'm now on what I call "Obama Time." Just relaxation and lawlessness for me.

Oh, we also did podcast.

Oh, and joyous news. Bob Filner was such a quick study at not groping women that he's completed his sexual harassment therapy a week early.

He was so proud of his accomplishment he began asking reporters to "Smell my fingers."

Posted by: Ace at 02:50 PM | Comments (196)
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