Jets and the Dolphins.

Lauraw and I both picked NY, which means of course she's right and I am wrong.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:18 PM | Comments (142)
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In a speech to Parliament, Israel's PM says not just no but hell no.

Netanyahu's fiery rhetoric — and his decision to open the high-profile speech with remarks on the report — reflected the deep distress felt among Israeli leaders after a U.N. commission accused Israel of intentionally harming civilians when it launched a massive attack in Gaza to stop years of rocket fire.

"This distorted report, written by this distorted committee, undermines Israel's right to defend itself. This report encourages terrorism and threatens peace," Netanyahu said in his address at the opening of parliament's winter session. "Israel will not take risks for peace if it can't defend itself."

The U.N. report in question makes all the same claims we heard ad nauseam, Israel used "disproportionate force, deliberately targeting civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and using people as human shields (really?)." It also accused Hamas of "deliberately targeting civilians and trying to spread terror through its rocket attacks, parking in the white zone without a permit, and turning in library books late".

Remember prior to Israel engaging militarily to defend themselves, rocket and mortar attacks were launched as many at 200 times a day. On civilians. After Israel asserted its right to defend itself, the count dropped to 20 per day.

Critics love the "disproportionate force" argument, because they believe "unfairness" is an argument, but what they really mean by it is any force that actually works is too much.

I do not think Benjamin Netanyahu agrees with the "just shut up and take it" sentiment.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:54 PM | Comments (151)
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Yeah, I know, it's really just part of the sale proceedings, intended to separate claims from the earlier Tribune bankruptcy filing.

Heck, they're not even the first MLB team to be bought out of bankruptcy (Orioles, and a Seattle team that became the Brewers).

So even in bankruptcy, the best the Cubs can manage is third place.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:23 AM | Comments (380)
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The thing about health care reform is a lot of people like the concept, in theory. Once you start discussing specifics people and groups who agreed on the general idea are suddenly at each other's throats.

To date, the White House and congressional leaders have kept insurers on board or at least at the proverbial table. After studying the Baucus plan, they just jumped off the bandwagon.

After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

..."The report makes clear that several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system," Karen Ignagni, AHIP's president and chief executive, wrote to board members Sunday. "Between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system."

Naturally the White House is saying that this is a political move by an industry they are trying to reform. That's fair to a point, health insurers are obviously an interested party but if they were on board with ObamaCare you can bet the White House would be singing their praises.

Basically insurers are saying you can't increase coverage and eliminate limits on pre-existing conditions unless you force young, healthy people into the system. The industry wants to see a stronger personal mandate and higher fines (taxes) on people who don't buy a policy than in the current Senate Finance bill.

Adding more high cost people to the rolls and not forcing enough healthy or low cost people means someone has to pay the difference...people who already have coverage.

Linda Douglas can complain about the insurance industry's motivations but that's also Obama's logic for creating his health exchanges. Add that bit of obvious economics to all the fees and taxes hidden in the Baucus bill and yeah, it's going to add costs. That's before all the pretend Medicare cuts fail to materialize as well.

The White House will be happy to have a chance to attack the insurance industry full on (not that they haven't been attacking them to some degree) but any fracture in the coalition supporting reform is a good thing. ObamaCare, whatever final form it takes, will not be killed by a magic bullet but by a thousand cuts.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:43 AM | Comments (146)
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What. A. Stud.

Police arrested a Bountiful man early Friday for allegedly groping a nurse who was helping a woman who was in labor with his baby at an Ogden hospital.

Adam Jay Manning, 30, brought a pregnant woman in labor to McKay-Dee Hospital around 3 a.m. Friday, said Ogden police Lt. Loring Draper. When a nurse came to assist the couple, Manning looked the nurse "up and down" and made an observation about her appearance, Draper said.

"He makes a comment about how cute she looks," Draper said.

He goes on to make some smoov moves on the nurse but only gets arrested for his trouble. Romance is dead, dear darling hearts. Damn shame.

Take it away, Mr. Anka.

Thanks so much to skinbad.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:22 AM | Comments (119)
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Sure they're way behind MSNBC in being the anti-Fox News but it's not for lack of trying.

After giving the White House Communications Director 9 minutes to whine about Fox News (she said they were an arm of the Republican Party), CNN ran a promo for Anderson Cooper's show.

What were they promoting? His on the scene coverage of breaking news? His ability to get the most important news makers of the day on the show? No. CNN, that bastion of journalism, was proudly boasting they are where idiot liberals go to get their talking points.

The new promo, by contrast, consists of a woman's voice, pitching Cooper's show as, essentially, a liberal alternative to Fox News: "I'm a lifelong Democrat," she says, "and that's why I watch Anderson Cooper." Hmmm. The voice goes on to say that Cooper is the person she can turn to hold "right wing" conservatives accountable.

Yes, thank God someone is holding the 'right wing' accountable. I mean what with us controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, we right wingers really need to be kept in check.

Oh wait.

Maybe CNN and MSNBC would have better luck in the ratings if they actually tried to be journalists and not a Praetorian Guard for Obama.

Update: CNN says it was a mistake in the audio.

The Time blogger who posted on it makes it sound like it's his fault. I heard the same spot during the Howard Kurtz show and had the same reaction. I tried to find the promo online yesterday but couldn't so I didn't post anything. I don't know if my TV isn't stereo or not (I'm pretty sure it is) but this is CNN's problem, not the people who heard it.

The 'correct' spot is below the fold. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:34 AM | Comments (103)
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I am posting this Daily Mail article for the sheer awesomeness of the headline.

It has everything you morons like: violence, lesbians, and kitteh's.

You can thank me for all the lolz later.

"One gay man, two lesbians, a three legged cat and a poison curry plot."

Posted by: Jack M. at 05:29 AM | Comments (93)
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Welcome to Sunday all. Saturday if you're off on Monday or funemployed.

The 101 Hottest Slave Princess Leia Photos
Always a classic. And it's hard to believe that it's been 26 years since Leia first donned her slave outfit. Should be SFW - check gallery first. [Note: some people are reporting virus warnings from this site while others say it's okay. So be cautious.]

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:10 PM | Comments (763)
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Ranting before a group of news executives in Bejing Murdoch accused Google and other news aggregators of stealing his content. Their crime? Sending users to his sites via hyperlinks where they are exposed to all those lovely revenue generating ads.

In Murdoch's world making him money = stealing.

The funny thing is that, as Newsweek points out, Google makes it possible to prevent their bots from indexing his sites. So why doesn't News Corp (and AP et. al.)implement that fix? My guess, because someone who actually understands the internet know that referrals from aggregators increase revenues but they want a convient excuse to implement a pay for content model.

Posted by: Open Blog at 03:23 PM | Comments (190)
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Thanks to the LA Times' Daily Mirror blog here is the Los Angeles Times front page from October 2, 1939. What we know as WWII had just broken out a month before, Poland had been overrun, and the rest of Europe was in the Phoney War hoping that a peace settlement could be negotiated.

It's always interesting to look at old papers to see what everyone worried about at the time. Of course we have the advantage now of knowing how things turned out and what was really important. But just remember that people weren't really any stupider back then than now. Most of our headlines are just noise too and we're likely missing out on important trends that will be obvious to those reading them in 2040.

[click on the image to see the full-sized version]

Posted by: Open Blog at 12:19 PM | Comments (252)
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