Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Those 7M “Sign Ups”

41 Comments

Why yesterday’s champagne-cork popping in the Rose Garden was meaningless propaganda.

[Update a few minutes later]

Want medical insurance? Get in line:

The first thing we thought of when we saw the pictures was the photos we’ve recently seen on Twitter of Venezuelans waiting in bread lines. Waiting in line to purchase necessities is a characteristic not of a prosperous free society but of command economies under repressive regimes. Closer to home, one doubts even the Transportation Security Administration would be so tone-deaf as to advertise long airport lines as an indication it’s doing a great job.

So what in the world could the White House have been thinking? Here’s a guess: They look at the ObamaCare lines and think not of communist subjects queuing up for bread or toilet paper, or Americans for driver’s licenses, but something more like the lines of consumers eager to be the first to get the new iPhone or the latest Harry Potter book. Affluent people often wait in line for things about which they have a particular enthusiasm–or for special experiences, like an amusement park ride, concert or meal at a favorite restaurant.

One obvious difference is that whereas the iPhone and Harry Potter queuers are eager to get the new thing first, the ObamaCare ones are presumably anxious not to miss the deadline (even if it’s not rigorously enforced). ObamaCare lines might have been impressive if they’d begun to form in the last days of September. At the end of open enrollment, the White House boast is akin to the IRS’s citing a “surge” in filing of tax returns two weeks from now as evidence that the income tax system is popular and well designed.

Command economies under repressive regimes seems to be the goal.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Torture

26 Comments

Whether you agree that it is morally acceptable or not, the argument against it that it doesn’t work is and always has been insane. And it now turns out that the CIA lied about its efficacy in getting bin Laden.

[Update a while later]

OK, I misread (or rather, didn’t read) the article, just going by a glance at the headline. Nonetheless, it’s still nuts to think that torture never provides actionable information.

Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, Weird

My New Healthcare Plan

70 Comments

Well, I finally broke down and went to the web site last night, before midnight.

After all the horror stories I’d been hearing, I was shocked to get in immediately. It was surprisingly easy to navigate, just like Amazon or Kayak, just like the president promised. All the options were laid out clearly, and the prices were surprisingly affordable, even for the Gold Plan. I signed up, and I finally have the insurance I’ve been waiting for all these years, good in every state, and it allows me to keep all my doctors. It includes free fitted condoms, and I can finally get that hysterectomy I’ve been putting off all these years.

I was wrong, Mr. President, and you were right. I’m sorry I so foolishly listened to ignorant criticism of this wonderful new law these past four years, and so harshly and falsely criticized it myself. I don’t know what I can do to make amends, but I know that from here on out, I will be a Democrat right up until that day that the death panel makes what I’m sure will be the right decision for me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you Mr. President.

[Update a few minutes later]

I’m a little shocked to hear that some people think I would make jokes about something as serious as health care.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Bush Versus Clinton

17 Comments

Are we really doomed to that in 2016?

More thoughts from Mark Steyn:

Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton now and forever, at least until George P Bush marries Chelsea Clinton and the two ruling houses are consolidated into one House of Bush-Clinton-Rodham-Coburg-Gotha. I’ve nothing against Jeb Bush. I happen to disagree with him on “immigration reform”, but he was a competent executive of Florida and he’s a thoughtful and (on his game) gifted speaker. But there are over 300 million people in this country, and, granted that 57 per cent or whatever it’s up to by now are fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community, what is it about the Bush family that makes them so indispensable to the Republic as to supply three presidential candidates within a quarter-century? Say what you like about actual monarchy but at least you get a non-heriditary political class: this may seem incredible to Americans but neither Canada’s Stephen Harper, Australia’s Tony Abbott, New Zealand’s John Key nor Britain’s David Cameron is the previous Prime Minister’s brother or wife.

So who are these “influential Republicans” working to draft Jeb?

Many if not most of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s major donors are reaching out to Bush and his confidants with phone calls, e-mails and invitations to meet, according to interviews with 30 senior Republicans. One bundler estimated that the “vast majority” of Romney’s top 100 donors would back Bush in a competitive nomination fight.

“He’s the most desired candidate out there,” said another bundler, Brian Ballard, who sat on the national finance committees for Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008. “Everybody that I know is excited about it.”

The guys who picked last season’s loser are already excited about next season’s loser. How exciting is that?

Sigh.

Business, General Science, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Cosmos

10 Comments

Chad Orzell has some problems with the reboot. So do I and while it’s not his main concern, he puts his finger on it:

The bit where he called out young-Earth creationism for the impoverished scale of its vision was cute, too, though I’m not sure it was all that necessary or useful (in that the people who believe that won’t be watching, and wouldn’t be convinced), but then the show has clearly established a pattern of throwing red meat to the anti-religious from time to time.

Yes, if by “from time to time” he means every episode so far. I’m not traditionally religious, but I find it gratuitous and off putting. The writers and Tyson seem to get some sort of righteous satisfaction from putting a rhetorical thumb in the eyes of believers. It does not advance science, or their own secular religious cause.