From Fareed Zakaria:
The era of crises could end, but only when this group of conservatives makes its peace with today’s America. They are misty-eyed in their devotion to a distant republic of myth and memory yet passionate in their dislike of the messy, multiracial, quasi-capitalist democracy that has been around for half a century — a fifth of our country’s history. At some point, will they come to recognize that you cannot love America in theory and hate it in fact?
The following is an excerpt from a conversation between Washington Post reporter Jonathan Capehart and Belmont, NC resident David Jackson:
Capehart: [Y]ou — and correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve been listening to you these last few minutes — you don’t think President Obama loves this country?
Jackson: Not at all. Not one bit, not one breath that comes out of his body.
Capehart: So why would he run for president of a country that he doesn’t love?
Jackson: Because he wanted to change it.
Capehart: And change into what?
I haven’t written much about the government shutdown debacle of the past 2+ weeks, partly because of the Thumper Rule (“If you can’t say something nice…” Not that I ever really follow that rule.) I am still gathering my thoughts about the almost-literally-last-minute deal that seems to have kicked the can down the road a bit.
Paul Waldman at The American Prospect has a quick guide to the deal that outlines the various points and offers “an easy-to-digest set of opinions you can adopt as your own.” This should appeal to conservatives who believe that liberals are incapable of independent thought. (If that last sentence describes you, please keep reading, just in case I decide to put some erotic pictures of guns at the end of this post.) Here are his points with the conclusions. Read the whole article for his full analysis: Continue reading
A man who believes he has been condemned to the dreaded “friend zone” seeks the aid of a higher power, of sorts, in “Gather Your Bones” by Jenn Reese (h/t PZ Myers).
The story comes from Daily Science Fiction, a website that apparently delivers exactly what it’s name says, which is awesome.
I should probably also mention, for any denser reader(s), that the concept of the “friend zone” is bullshit.
Albinism can be pretty cute, such as with this koala:
And this wallaby:
(Who is a bit shy):
And this porcupine:
– Proving that there can be too much of a good thing, a man in Sweden was knocked unconscious when a cart loaded with bacon fell on him. In all, the man was hit with 500 to 600 kilos (that’s about 1,102 to 1,323 pounds, for those who don’t use the metric system or regularly handle drugs) of bacon. I will admit it: that is too much bacon.
– A man in San Antonio allegedly faked his own kidnapping so that he could go “party with friends.” His wife contacted police the night of Tuesday, October 8 to report that two masked men came into their home and took her husband at gunpoint. After a helicopter joined about a dozen deputies in the search, he showed back up at his house. He has been charged with filing a false police report, which is a fun twist since it was his wife who actually made the report, albeit innocently.
Photo credit: earl53 from morguefile.com.
The punk penguin (punkguin?):
The punk kingfisher:
The improbably green parrot:
9_-pair.jpg)
Is there any scenario in which ducklings are not cute? Continue reading
Via karmajello.com
A 20-foot boat filled with 80 pounds of weed capsized at a popular nude beach/surf spot in Santa Cruz, California. Nobody was hurt, because it was totally awesome. The only danger was everyone catching good vibes.
Reports do not indicate whether or not a Doritos truck jackknifed near the beach, spilling its contents, but that would have likely been very convenient.
– I am also inclined to let this headline speak for itself: “Punk Band Shoots Porn Film on Front Lawn of Westboro Baptist Church.” The band, Get Shot!, claims to be “”the first band ever to start a porn site.” Here’s the NSFW link to said site, if you are so inclined, although as of about 9:45 CDT today, the URL leads to a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” message. This may be due to Healthcare.gov-caliber levels of traffic, a takedown demand from the WBC, or some other sinister plot. (The video is mirrored on XVideos, if you simply must watch it. I warned you, though.) It also led to this amusing exchange:
@Fredphelps316 Someone from your church's IP address spent 41 minutes looking at our website. That's longer than the video on your lawn!!!
— GET SHOT GIRLS! (@GETSHOTGIRLS) October 3, 2013
Followed by this response:
@GETSHOTGIRLS what the hell is an IP address?
— Fred Phelps (@Fredphelps316) October 3, 2013
The inventory of Creative Commons images in a search for “Heritage Foundation” is rather small, so this is a picture of a jaguar named Khan from the Wildlife Heritage Foundation. How do you not include a picture of a Jaguar named Khan?
The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that has been on the front lines of recent opposition to the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a “Obamacare”). It has not always been so opposed to aspects of the law like the individual insurance mandate, as it rather strongly supported such an idea way back in 1989. As it turns out, its support for various parts of the ACA was in evidence much more recently.
The “universal health care” that many Republicans have recently touted is formally known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986. In short, EMTALA states that hospitals accepting payment from federal programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, cannot deny treatment to a person due to inability to pay or insufficient insurance coverage, if that person is experiencing an acute medical emergency. The government does not directly cover the costs of care required by EMTALA, meaning that the costs either get unloaded as tax write-offs for bad debt, or they are covered by higher hospital costs charged to other patients and private insurers. EMTALA had the best of intentions, but it has had the effect of shifting the costs onto other private actors, not the public. Although the Tea Party has tried, no one has ever seriously argued in recent years that people should not have access to acute care because of a lack of ability to pay. It’s a fundamental human decency thing, at least in my opinion.
The Heritage Foundation generally agreed with these sentiments, i.e. that EMTALA had good intentions but caused many problems, as recently as 2007, and their analysis and recommendations included features now found in the Affordable Care—sorry, Obamacare that they so vehemently oppose all of a sudden. Back in July 2007, John S. O’Shea, M.D., a Health Policy Fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy Studies, wrote the following:
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is another example of federal legislation that hurts the very people that it was meant to protect: low-income patients in need of emergency medical services. Enacted in 1986, the law is a congressional response to well-publicized cases in which patients were refused immediate medical treatment based on their inability to pay. Continue reading
![By Thierry Geoffroy (Thierry Geoffroy) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Emergency_room-300x209.jpg "By Thierry Geoffroy (Thierry Geoffroy) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
The individual insurance mandate originated as a conservative, free-market alternative to the single-payer system, with the significant support of the Heritage Foundation, and it was one of the signature achievements of Romney’s term as MA governor. It acknowledges that health insurance should principally be an individual and family responsibility, not something employers should be required to provide en masse, and it takes into account the fact that a person who declines to obtain health insurance becomes a drain on society when they become sick or injured. Republicans, and conservatives in general, were mostly on board with it until the instant that President Obama supported it.
So please, spare us the “forced upon people” *%#@*!#. People who refuse to obtain health insurance because of liberty, if they are otherwise able to do so, ought to agree in advance to decline all health care that they do not pay for out-of-pocket. Otherwise, they are the drain on society, because many hospital emergency rooms cannot turn them away for inability to pay for services. This means that, if you are in a traumatic accident, have no health insurance, and don’t have enough cash on hand to pay for the emergency room, you agree in advance that you’re probably going to die and the taxpayers are not going to help you. You should probably wear a wristband or something so people will know that you do’t want to participate in the social contract.
Here’s the thing, though. If a person refuses to obtain insurance because they think that the individual mandate infringes upon their freedom to do…..whatever it is they think is being infringed, I would still support them receiving medical care in the emergency room regardless of their ability to pay. I would support this because I am not a monster. I just wish that those people would have the courage of their convictions and agree to risk dying rather than accept the government-mandated healthcare that is (to them) such obvious tyranny.
Photo credit: By Thierry Geoffroy (Thierry Geoffroy) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
