Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

We Don’t Need No Steenking Details — Part II

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5 years to develop Exchange website and 2 years of testing?

Say what?

“They had the architecture. They had the pieces,” software engineering manager Liz Arden said. “With any kind of competent team, this is a one-year project with the testing integrated in the development.”

“The White House said that it would fix the insurance marketplace by Nov. 30, raising the question of how people whose current policies do not comply with the law will get new coverage in time,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Uh huh.

That’s the same White House that said, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” That’s the same White House that, with rose [garden] colored glasses just days before HealthCare.gov went live, pitched how much we would love it,

The bad news? The Administration will eventually bow to pressure to extend the deadline leaving all of us *with* private insurance out in the cold. See, the policy I have (and the policy you have) is no longer available December 31.

I am one of the millions with individual or small group policies who lose our insurance on December 31. That would be the insurance policy Mr. Obama promised we could keep.

What am I supposed to do when the law says I have to buy a policy and there is no policy to buy because the federal government (we’re here to help) pulled a FEMA on us.

Oh.

FEMA.

Now I understand.

Never mind.

I'm from the Government
 

Keeping Our Promises

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“Dear Valued Customer:

“Your health care coverage with Blue Cross/Blue Shield ends December 31, 2013. Please make other arrangements.”

The new Blue Cross BlueOptions Everyday Health 1431 plan has about twice the deductible, out of pocket max, and copays as the plan I have now. My current Blue Cross plan costs $431/month. ACA forced Blue Cross to drop that plan in favor of one that will cost at least $1,039.87/month.

Yep. Keeping our promises to the American people.

Or not.

Update: Brian Williams had this to say about that on NBC Nightly News.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Drive, He Said (Part II)

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North Roosevelt Boulevard in Key Weird got a new traffic pattern last week, four days earlier than planned.

North Roosevelt BoulevardThe $41.5 million reconstruction of the 2.9 mile city street is a little more than halfway complete after 15 months of work and business owners continue to lose customers — meaning money. They’ve been pushing the Florida Department of Transportation to end to the work early. Based on FLDOT reports, the project is 66.3% complete after 544 days of construction that started on April 23 and is expected to culminate in September.

2014.

When 2014 rolls around, the 2.9-mile street will have a magnificent new seawall with a 20-foot-wide, landscaped promenade, alongside four lanes of traffic plus a center turn lane, and a six-foot sidewalk.

I’ve (tried to) drive North Roosevelt during this shutdown. A “difficult traffic mess” is an understatement. Reopening parts of the unfinished street should help businesses attract the customers who have avoided them for the last two years. And Fantasy Fest started Saturday.

The plans look good but I have a fundamental distrust of Florida’s road constructors.

This North Roosevelt tie up follows the almost-seven-year boondoggle on the 18-mile stretch, three years to lay sewers and repave Overseas Highway through Marathon, and more. The 18-mile stretch, that important artery that connects the Keys with the United States, was redesigned for safety. Particularly during hurricane evacuations. That’s probably why it gets closed pretty much every time there’s a fender bender. And Route 1 through Marathon is yet another choke point, right in the middle of the Keys. At least when they finished that project, there were still two lanes going each direction. And no traffic circles.

Y’all think we should throw the bums out of Washington. All of them. I agree but I reckon it’d be better to start with the DOT and work our way up.

 

The New Godwin

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Wikipedia tells us:

Godwin’s law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies is an assertion made by Mike Godwin in 1990 that has become an Internet adage. It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion — regardless of topic or scope — someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions, the law is now often applied to any threaded online discussion, such as forums, chat rooms and blog comment threads, and has been invoked for the inappropriate use of Nazi analogies in articles or speeches. The law is sometimes invoked, as a rule, to mark the end of a discussion when a Nazi analogy is made, with the writer who made the analogy being considered to have lost the argument.

In 2012, “Godwin’s Law” became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

So there I was, dreaming about moving to Copenhagen with a hot chick, when someone interrupted my fantasy to talk about ObamaCare. As an expert on the subject, I weighed in with a carefully thought out and crafted argument.

“ObamaCare sucks,” I wrote. I backed that up with facts and figures drawn from the NYTimes, the Washington Post, and Reuters as well as my own calculations.

“Oh, no it doesn’t,” my opponents responded. They backed up their rejoinder with arguments about Bush, regurgitated Senate press releases, hype, and personal attacks.

I fear I called them on the inconsistency.

“I don’t understand why the Republicans hate it,” Ashley Proctor wondered. She’s a social engineer in Madison, Wisconsin.

“It’s simple,” Jon Friar said. He has a PhD in Economics and works in a think tank. “They hate it because a BLACK DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL got it passed.

“It’s true,” he continued. “Google “N*gger President” and see how many hits you get.”

About half of all Americans hate it because a BLACK DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL got it passed?

Horse puckey.

I took Mr. Friar up on his suggestion. Darned few hits. There were about 30,700 results in 0.36 seconds for his phrase, a few less or about 26,400 results in 0.29 seconds for the phrase with the “i” in it. I figured that wasn’t enough, so I removed the quotes. At least that turned up about 3,070,000 results in 0.31 seconds for both words no matter where they appear in the piece. Three million. Not too shabby, right Mr. Friar?

Two observations are worth noting:
1. Many of those searches turned up posters blaming conservatives (and teens) for using the N word, not posts calling Mr. Obama one; and
2. A search on just President Obama got about 1,730,000,000 results. One point seven billion.

It seems the Googlers looking for straight news about Mr. Obama outnumber the racists at least 500:1.

With a hat tip to Mike Godwin, As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of blaming opposition to Obama on his race approaches 1.

I have casually observed that the race card is never played before three strong, data-driven arguments refute a liberal position and that it rarely takes more than seven.

The race card is as offensive as the Hitler card. In fact, I see the race card as the new Hitler card, played by the “yeah, well, he said” side about they time they realize they’re losing the data-driven discussions of current Administration policies.

Doesn’t anyone else find it disquieting that the very same people who demand we rename the Washington Redskins for the “obvious racial bias” in the team name keep reminding us that Mr. Obama is a black democratic liberal?

Democrats then: “the cost of insurance will go down by $2,500 per family per year.”
Democrats now: “It’s OK if premiums double for average people.”

And

Democrats now: “Americans are behind us!”
A Quinnipiac poll released October 1 showed that voters oppose Obamacare 47-45%. [Worth noting in the poll is that, while almost half of American voters oppose Obamacare, a lot more are opposed Congress’ antics cutting off funding for it or shutting down government. This is a debacle no one can win, least of all the American public.]