We're living in the Pretending Times.

Nothing this White House says has any correlation with reality. It's as if, at this point, no one expects its statements to correlate with reality, so no one makes an issue about it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:26 PM | Comments (161)
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Univision finishing fourth is a big deal, too.

NBC excuses this by noting their "Big Guns" -- are Revolution and The Voice really "Big Guns?" I guess they are, in relative terms, for NBC -- are on hiatus.

Only two of their shows garnered better than a 2 rating. Remember the pre-cable days of the big three, when top rated shows might have a 30 rating or higher? Those days are definitely gone. That's not NBC's fault, but is a 2 rating now the Mendoza Line between success and failure?

The model for TV now seems to be the model for Obama's political campaign: Microtargeting. Targeting very niche audiences with tiny, shallow appeals, pulling in a couple of hundred thousand people here and there, and pocketing you small wins.

Actually... Allah posted this yesterday and noted there are now three shows about auctioning off the contents of unclaimed storage lockers. And this funny and informative song about this general phenomenon, of 2-3 different "reality" show for each different niche interest.

Because if you watch "Ace of Cakes," why not also "Cake Boss"?

The cheaper something is to make, the more likely it is to be knocked off. This is true everywhere, but being a geek I do know that the Knock Off problem was rampant in comic books -- a cheap form of entertainment to produce. Of course it's rife in TV and in movies, too.

But the reason I mention cheapness is that as it gets easier to produce a TV show -- technologically, good digital cameras can now be had for $1500 or so, and that's new and not used, and everyone now can have their own digitally editing bay for $1500 as well -- and easier to distribute them through cheap methods (now garbage-channel cable, and more and more, the internet), we'll see even more of this sort of very specific niche targeting.

I mean, if you want to do a reality TV show, all you need is a crew of 12 and some cameras and some mics. And of course you have to rent out that one house in LA that all the cheapie-beepie reality shows seem to film at for ten days. Knock off another show, or come up with your own slight variation of a hundred other micro-target shows -- a reality show about baseball card collecting for adults, where each contestant has his own mock baseball card and keeps it in his pocket, until he's evicted, at which point is card is ripped and marked "in poor condition"! -- and you're in the TV business, Jack.

Hell, I might produce a Dungeons & Dragons elimination reality show. What the hell. Why not. Someone would watch it.

Via @ryan_l_lewis

EC's Idea...

1. Put 12 democrats on an island with enough food and water for only 11.

2. Then tell them, one of them is a republican.

3. Take money to bank.

Actually I think this is a great idea, parodying liberals' efforts to sniff out who is One of Us and who is Not One of Us.

Imagine, you have a real Republican but he knows the whole liberal rap. (Most of us do.) You cast your Democrats from places like Utah and Alabama to make them red herrings. (Well, of course you have your NY and Boston and SF liberals too, but you make sure you have a bunch of liberals from Texas and such. Wouldn't want to make it to easy.)

Now you film them doing what they do in real life, attempting to out-liberal each other and to see if anyone disagrees, so that they may be shunned.

Posted by: Ace at 11:37 AM | Comments (672)
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From earlier today on their homepage.

(Follow me on Twitter at the link above)

Coverage like this is why I don't think sequestration will happen. People think it will happen because Congress is so dysfunctional. I think it won't because the one thing Congress is good as is coming up with gimmicks to avoid pain.

Parody [ace]: Ezra Dulis did a parody of that Washington Post photo.

PS, I'm very sorry I keep stompin' the cobs' posts!

Posted by: DrewM at 02:20 PM | Comments (177)
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Richard Shelby announced he'd vote for cloture (which is really the vote to confirm Hagel), on the theory that Hagel is the best we can do.

Which isn't true. In his public utterances he's made it plain he's to the left of Obama (again, as a matter of public statements).

With 60 in, many Republicans will vote for cloture so that the media will say nice things about them, which they won't.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (219)
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They conned him. But he allowed himself to be conned.

Right now, like it or not, the five-term senator is stuck in “get off my lawn” territory, lashing out at his friend-turned-foe Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for defense secretary; incessantly tugging at what McCain is convinced is a coverup of the September attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya; lambasting the president; and railing against indiscriminate defense cuts. If hard-core conservatives feel burned by McCain’s resurgent reform spirit, the media that he once called his “base” have essentially written him off as an angry and sour loser who once went through a maverick phase but has, in the words of “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, gone on a “seven-year quest to negate every good thing he’d ever done.”

“It does hurt,” McCain said softly. “I admit to you that it bothers me from time to time, and I wish that it didn’t. But it does.”

McCain has a hell of an ego on him.

I'm going to speculate here. I don't know this per se, but I do know reporters loved talking to McCain off-the-record. So I have to wonder why they did.

I think the reason the press loved him is that, in addition to his public "Maverick" (liberal-leaning) stances, he was also ready, willing, and eager to run down other Republicans for reporters, off the record, in trash-talk bonding sessions. Now, a guy with an ego will naturally think almost all around him are "idiots" and "cowards" from the jump, but then add to this McCain's playing to the crowd -- how they must have loved his "frank" and "bracing" critiques of Republicans, Republican positions, and Republican voters.

And they did love him... for that, and for their purposes.

But McCain didn't consider that that was a limited love, a love born out of McCain's agreement with reporters that Republicans were Serious You Guys just terrible people, and that when he ran in an election against a viable Democrat two things would happen:

1, McCain would have to stop bashing Republicans so much, given that he was now courting their dollars and support and votes. And thus the media would suddenly find him a bit of a pill.

2, Whereas their previous "love" for McCain came at zero cost, as McCain was firmly lodged in the Senate office and unlikely to be defeated by any Democrat, against a viable Democrat on the national stage the media was going to find The Greatest Love of All, and McCain would end up looking like a cheap one-night stand who never went away and kept annoying trying to attract their attention as they drooled for their Real Mister Right.

Anyone with an ego has to know he has an ego, and watch for the ways the ego may betray him and tell him things that just aren't true. McCain didn't. And I bet he still doesn't really understand how this happened.

* The "Serious You Guys" thing I got from a commenter, forget who.

Posted by: Ace at 10:30 AM | Comments (271)
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Toure, you dolt. I carry a concealed handgun, and I hope like hell I never have to use it.

I also carry a homeowners' insurance policy on my house that I hope to never have to file a claim on.

(h/t @RBPundit)

Posted by: andy at 09:42 AM | Comments (338)
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FoxNews host. They sort of forget to mention he's a longtime Democratic operative, and that he was making the statement in support of Democratic positions (to wit, that women should not have guns to defend themselves).

But it's "FoxNews," you know.

And They're still doing it.

Among those doing this is of course Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed, who earnestly wants to know why you all think his outfit is nothing but liberal political pornography.

Wrong: Marcus says--

I can't wait to see how some of those folks walk back their comments once they discover Bob Beckel is a Democrat.

I don't believe too many people transmitting this are actually ignorant of the facts. They are choosing to lie.

They're employing the tactic of coordinated group lying -- they all know they're being deceptive; they're just thinking that there are some people less politically informed than they are, and if they can all just get on the same page with this lie, it will be accepted by the larger group of less-informed people.

And yeah, Andrew Kaczynski is part of that effort. With a side-order of the typical jumped-up juiced-story liberal-bait hit-whoring.

As Chris Matthews said to him, "Congratulations" for becoming part of MSNBC team.

Posted by: Ace at 08:58 AM | Comments (262)
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It's been brought to my attention I don't blog enough good news.

So here you go.

Kate Upton is a hot Hollywood commodity right now (the model just landed the cover of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition for the second year in a row!), so how did the bombshell spend Valentine's Day?

"On Valentine's Day I had 17 dates - all the [Sports Illustrated] girls!" Kate said of spending the romantic holiday with her fellow models, on Wednesday's Access Hollywood Live. "We were launching [the magazine] in Vegas."

...

"I kissed 17 S.I. girls! I was killing it," she said with a laugh, while pretending to brush dirt off her shoulder, a la Jay-Z. "[It was] every man's dream."

But since it's me there is some bad news...there aren't any photos.

Added: Via Katherine Miller (who you should follow on Twitter for politics, sports and snark)...a look at how a member of the Directors Guild of America filled out his Oscar ballot. Interesting even if you're not into the Oscars as such.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:34 AM | Comments (256)
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Rick Scott rode his opposition to ObamaCare to the governorship of Florida. Yesterday he completed his journey to the dark side and embraced a massive extension of Medicaid via Obamacare.

To be sure, Scott argues that his decision is only temporary and contingent on federal taxpayers picking up the entire cost of the expansion. The way the law was written, the federal government agreed to cover the full cost for the first three years, and gradually raise the state contribution until it reaches 10 percent. Scott has proposed sun-setting the expansion to expire after three years, or earlier if the federal government backed off their commitment to fully fund it.

In practice, however, this sunset idea is incoherent. Scott is up for reelection in 2014, and no matter who is in office, it’s doubtful that after three years of allowing broader Medicaid eligibility, that the state would suddenly kick people off the program or prevent new Floridians from enrolling under eligibility standards that have prevailed for three years. Even Scott seems to acknowledge this by saying, “I want to be clear that we will not simply deny new Medicaid recipients health insurance three years from now.” Realistically, this was Scott’s one and only chance to resist the Medicaid expansion, and he folded.

Florida under Scott was among the first states to sue to overturn ObamaCare. I guess if you can't beat Chief Justice John Roberts and Obama you might as well join them.

Scott's decision has to be passed by the state legislature. But what are the odds of them saying no to "free" federal money, especially when Medicaid helps pay for nursing home costs? There are a few old people in Florida you know.

Scott's one concession seems to be the Medicaid expansion will be administered through a system of private plans he's created. One problem, that plan has been a failure to date.

The privatization expands on a five-county pilot program that has been rife with problems. Critics worry for-profit providers are scrimping on patient care and denying medical services to increase profits. Some doctors have dropped out of the pilot program, complaining of red tape and that the insurers deny the tests and medicine they prescribe. Patients have complained they struggled to get doctor's appointments.

Several health plans also dropped out of the pilot program, saying they couldn't make enough money. Patients complained they were bounced from plan to plan with lapses in care. Nearly half of the 200,000 patients enrolled in the pilot have been dropped from at least one plan, federal health officials noted at one point during negotiations.

Lawmakers say they have fixed the pilot program's shortcomings, with provisions including increased oversight and more stringent penalties, including fining providers up to $500,000 if they drop out. The measures also increase doctors' reimbursement rates and limit malpractice lawsuits for Medicaid patients in hopes of increasing doctor participation in the program.

I'm sorry but a government program that fines people for leaving it because the program cost them money doesn't sound very conservative or free market to me.

Scott just agreed to kill the state of Florida.

Medicaid serves about 3.3 million people in Florida at the moment, so another million people will be roughly a 30 percent increase. 30 percent of current $21 billion annual cost that is “consuming Florida’s budget” is $6.3 billion. When the state ends up covering 10 percent of that, it’ll add up to a cool $630 million – probably more, since these figures are unlikely to hold steady through 2020.

So a system that is a failure in a few county pilot program is now going to expand exponentially and work just as forecast? Sure.

Oh and once we do amnesty and all those newly created legal residents are eligible for full medicaid benefits, what happens to the budget?

And this is from a "conservative" governor.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:45 AM | Comments (319)
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• "This Union Thinks They Can Tell Me What To Do--They Can Go F*ck Themselves
  
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• Why Has There Been No Coverage Of This California Spree Killer?
  
• Copies Of Jesse Jackson Jr. Plea Agreement And Statement Of Offense
  
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• Columbine Survivor Pens Letter To Obama
  
• Don't Leave Ammunition In Your Oven
  
• Debate Co-Chair, "It Was A Mistake To Have Candy Crowley Moderate"
  
• What Pope Benedict Did For The Catholic Church
  
• SCOTUS Will Hear Challenge To Federal Limit On Campaign Contributions
  
• Gallup Poll: Americans Still Back The GWOT
  
• Papiere Gefallen
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:05 AM | Comments (112)
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