Friday, November 01, 2013

Charles Krauthammer on Our Prevaricator-In-Chief

Beyond mendacity, there is liberal paternalism, of which these forced cancellations are a classic case. We canceled your plan, explained presidential spokesman Jay Carney, because it was substandard. We have a better idea.

Translation: Sure, you freely chose the policy, paid for the policy, renewed the policy, liked the policy. But you’re too primitive to know what you need. We do. Your policy is hereby canceled.

Because what you really need is what our experts have determined must be in every plan. So a couple in their 60s must buy maternity care. A teetotaler must buy substance abuse treatment. And a healthy 28-year-old with perfectly appropriate catastrophic insurance must pay for bells and whistles for which he has no use.
All Hail Emperor Stompy Foot the First.

Or else.

The face he stomps is yours. And Yours. And Yours.

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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Washington Post Fact Checker: Obama Lied

The law did allow “grandfathered” plans — for people who had obtained their insurance before the law was signed on March 23, 2010 — to escape this requirement and some other aspects of the law. But the regulations written by HHS while implementing the law set some tough guidelines, so that if an insurance company makes changes to a plan’s benefits or how much members pay through premiums, co-pays or deductibles, then a person’s plan likely loses that status.
No surprise:
...the net effect is that over time, the plans would no longer meet the many tests for staying grandfathered. Already, the percentage of people who get coverage from their job via a grandfathered plan has dropped from 56 percent in 2011 to 36 percent in 2013.

In the individual insurance market, few plans were expected to meet the “grandfathered” requirements, which is why many people are now receiving notices that their old plan is terminated and they need to sign up for different coverage. Again, this should be no surprise.
"few plans were expected to meet the “grandfathered” requirements". Fancy that.

Emperor Stompy Foot lied, insurance died.

Ask even the Washington Post.

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William Blake: "The Liar" aka An Ode Upon President Stompy Foot

“The Liar” by William Blake.

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Shall they dangle in the night?

When I asked of your career
Why did you have to kick my rear
With that stinking lie of thine
Proclaiming that you owned a mine?

When you asked to borrow my stallion
To visit a nearby-moored galleon
How could I ever know that you
Intended only to turn him into glue?

What red devil of mendacity
Grips your soul with such tenacity?
Will one you cruelly shower with lies
Put a pistol ball between your eyes?

What infernal serpent
Has lent you his forked tongue?
From what pit of foul deceit
Are all these whoppers sprung?

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Do they dangle in the night?

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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Reason Insurance Polices Are Getting Cancelled


President Stompy Foot explains the reason health care policies got nixed:
'Fact-checkers and journalists have ruled that Obama wasn't being truthful when he claimed that people who liked their insurance could keep it. Obama during a speech in Boston sought to cast the issue Wednesday as trying to weed out "bad apple insurers" who don't provide enough coverage.

"One of the things health reform was designed to do was to help not only the uninsured but also the under-insured," Obama said. "And there are a number of Americans, fewer than 5 percent of Americans, who've got cut-rate plans that don't offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident.
"Remember, before the Affordable Care Act, these bad apple insurers had free rein every single year to limit the care that you received or used minor pre-existing conditions to jack up your premiums or bill you into bankruptcy."'
Bad apples like Kaiser and Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

President Stompy Foot knows best. President Stompy Foot has spoken.

All who disbelieve President Stompy Foot are racists.

And that is the way it is in the land of the free.

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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the Benghazi Massacre

Amazing for a Dem shill. He's finally doing his job.

More here:
Columnist Charles Krauthammer: “I think there is a bigger story here, here’s the one that will in time come out,” Krauthammer said. ”The biggest scandal of all, the biggest question is: What was the president doing in those eight hours?”

“He had a routine meeting at five o’clock. He never after, during the eight hours when our guys have their lives in danger, he never called the Secretary of Defense, he never calls the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he never calls the CIA Director,” Krauthammer continued. “Who does he call? About five hours in he calls the Secretary of State. And after the phone call she releases a statement essentially about the video and how we denounce any intolerance. It looks as if the only phone call was to construct a cover story at a time when the last two Americans who died were still alive and fighting for their lives.
Apparently it is all about the narrative, especially just before the election.

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An Old Geezer's Thoughts On Preparing For Emergencies

This, with the scores of comments in response, is one of the more thoughtful I have seen.

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Monday, October 28, 2013

Stompy Foot Lied, Insurance Died

Enroll Alaska, an organization that was specifically created to aid Alaskans in enrolling for Obamacare, has thrown in the towel, at least for the time being.
As the Peninsula Clarion reports, Enroll Alaska has been able to enroll a grand total of only three people since the launch of the health-insurance marketplaces on October 1.
In other news, 1,500,000 people who liked their old insurance, have had those policies made illegal by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, et al.

Further:
NBC News
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent....

“the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”
President Stompy Foot lied, insurance died.

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60 Minutes on Benghazi



I suppose diplomatic staff aren't allowed to possess personal weapons.

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ObamaCare Supporter:

Sunday, October 27, 2013

"American Blackout"

“American Blackout” draws on previous events and expert opinions to paint a rather bleak picture, its creators say.
Yes and No. 'Blackout' posits a fairly unlikely worst case scenario of national electric grid collapse caused by a cyber attack by an unnamed entity, writes the Christian Science Monitor's Anna Mulrine.

Given that scenario, I think that it does not come near to depicting the die off created by ten day's lack of potable water.

Ten days without functioning water extraction, purification, and delivery systems would cause an apocalyptic die off. Period.

Given that depicting such a die off would have ended the show less than half way through it's two hours, I think the movie was excellent. It showed a lot of likely scenarios for a variety of people caught in many, mostly utterly unprepared, situations. All did what they could to survive.

I think the show depicts far more people surviving than would be the case in an admittedly unlikely scenario. The apocalyptic prepper family depicted still had a perfectly reasonable situation to deal with which might well have eliminated them, but they were shown as both the best prepared and the most likely to survive. I think many others would not have made it, especially children and babies. The psychological downside of showing them as best prepared lies in their being hyper-prepared. Viewers could well come away with the belief that such a level of prepping is necessary to get through a major disaster, when no such thing is probably needed. Having water, canned goods and a means to cook is plenty for nearly all minor disasters: telling the audience that they need underground bunkers with outdoor surveillance systems, multiple giant propane tanks, and several years of food just discourages people from making preparations for short term problems which could save their lives. That's TV.

Overall, it was a fine attempt at showing a worst case scenario, which by it's nature as worst case is unlikely. Maybe it will even encourage a small number of people to buy flashlights and an extra flat of bottled water.

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"American Blackout"

National Geographic's new TV show "American Blackout" debuts tonight. As the blurb says "American Blackout imagines the story of a national power failure in the United States caused by a cyberattack —told in real time, over 10 days, by those who kept filming on cameras and phones." I shall make an effort to stay up late and watch it, but in the meantime I checked out the website. NG invited readers to answer a few questions, including "How would you prepare in order to survive a long-term blackout?"

One response to which I in turn tried to respond (until I found out how much personal information I was required to give them) was this:
If the lights really went out one of these days, I would start with getting a light source of course, and maybe food that doesn't need to be microwaved or cooked at all . But let's be realistic , I think Human beings can survive just fine , it's not an apocalypse to lose electricy everyone , we would be o.k. But still, when you think hard about it, we dont have as much to lose as we think if there were a blackout . we would have our daily sunlight we could still work and we could still live a peaceful life , people get worried because technology has affected so much of their life , but in the long term it's no big deal...
Talk about someone who does not get the concept of 'long-term', "national' and 'blackout'.

My intended reply:
Actually, we have a lot to lose: Water. If the power fails regionally, much less nationally, IF your water company has back up generators to run the purification equipment and pumps, they will run out of fuel in probably a couple or three days. Three days after that people start dying in very large numbers.

The chance of a long-lasting regional or national collapse of the electrical system is fairly slight, but the consequences would be apocalyptic, especially for those states like Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and southern California which rely on water from far away. Especially so if the blackout occurred during summer.

People with the ability to get to fresh water sources like rivers, streams, and lakes likely would, then they would have to stay there, drinking unfiltered water ever more polluted with their own feces.

Collapse of the electrical grid means collapse of our ability to purify and distribute water. That would indeed be apocalyptic, and very quickly so.

And where would you get a light source and food which doesn't need to be cooked, after the event? 300,000,000 people would be suddenly in the same market.
The info notice from National Geographic (for which I thank them):
National Geographic Society will receive the following info: your public profile, friend list, email address, birthday, hometown, interests, current city, personal description and likes.

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Definitions

Concentration: an increasing of strength (as of a solute or a gas in a mixture) or a purifying by partial or total removal of diluents, solvents, admixed gases, extraneous material, or waste (as by evaporation or diffusion)

Infusion: a drink made by allowing something (such as tea) to stay in a liquid (such as hot water).

Solution: an act or the process by which a solid, liquid, or gaseous substance is homogeneously mixed with a liquid or sometimes a gas or solid—called also dissolution, a homogeneous mixture formed by this process

Tincture: a medicine that is made of a drug mixed with alcohol..

Decoction: the act or process of boiling usually in water so as to extract the flavor or active principle, an extract or liquid preparation obtained by decocting, a liquid preparation made by boiling a medicinal plant with water.

So, while tea is an infusion, what is coffee? Seems to me that coffee made in a French press is also an infusion, while boiling grounds in a pot makes a decoction. What about percolated coffee?

All of the above are from Merriam-Webster.com.

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