Republican voters mostly aren't against it for reasons other than the fact that it was championed by the black Muslim guy from Kenya. They don't like the as-yet-unenforced mandate, and they don't like it for all of the reasons that few people actually like our health care system - at best it's needlessly a pain in the ass, at worst, well, you know the worst. A lot of them are pissed off because they think the blahs got the secret welfare ACA (Medicaid) while they got Obamacare (the exchanges), even though a big reason (not the only one!) a lot of them didn't get Medicaid was they yelled and screamed for their states to "reject Obamacare" and, thanks to Roberts, what they could reject was the Medicaid expansion.
Hospitals hate the idea of repeal. Insurance companies mostly don't like it. For people with employer insurance, people who got Medicaid, and people who can kinda sorta afford the individual plans, it's mostly better (and since the mandate isn't even enforced, it's basically better for anyone who chooses to buy it).
Ultimately any "Republican healthcare plan" is basically Obamacare, but shittier. Even my glibertarian college facebook friend who HATES OBAMACARE earnestly described what the health care system should be, and it really was Obamacare without the mandate, to the letter.
The sociopaths in Congress wants to take away Medicaid, make it less affordable and with fewer benefits (at worst, completely fake insurance, at best something slightly better than that). Remove revenue from insurance companies and hospitals, including forcing them to eat more emergency room bills. Oh, and people don't get needed care and go bankrupt and die.
The leading liberal think tank has decided to make another stab at bipartisan fixes to Obamacare because I guess whatever was in the water that made Obama think elected Republicans were interested in such a thing is still in the water in DC. I'm not sure why "here's a really complicated plan that people won't like much more than the status quo and has no chance of passing" is better than "here's a really simply-sounding (nothing is simple, of course, but the bureaucracies should handle the bureaucracy, not us) idea that would be popular and better and universal and has no chance of passing right now" but centrists gotta centrist I guess.
Friday, June 30, 2017
And 500 Other Things
Self-driving cars fans live in environments which have basically been built for cars and not in somewhat older areas where car-centric environments were retrofitted slowly over time. Roundabouts are hard, but so are hundreds of other non-standardized things.
This is correct, though I think it also misses the point. While there will be uses for this technology, they'll be so limited as to be almost pointless. Great, self-driving shuttle buses in Disney World to get people from the parking lot to the park gate. I mean, cool, I guess, but...
"Roundabouts are considered to be very challenging for automated vehicle technology," says Helen Kourous, a Ford engineer. "They are very unstructured. No two are alike. You can find many different configurations. Human drivers can sometimes get confused in them," she says.
In geofenced areas, such as the parking lot at Walt Disney World, a gated community, or a college campus, Level 5 self-driving vehicles make perfect sense, and they will work. I can see Level 3 vehicles in a few years where vehicles can drive themselves on highways but must hand off to the human driver if they can't figure out a situation. And that's about really all we can expect in the next 25 years.
This is correct, though I think it also misses the point. While there will be uses for this technology, they'll be so limited as to be almost pointless. Great, self-driving shuttle buses in Disney World to get people from the parking lot to the park gate. I mean, cool, I guess, but...
Everyone With A Name Match Will Be A Vote Fraudster
Kobach knows this game with databases. You program them to make soft matches - similar names, party affiliation - and then accuse everyone of having a match of having voted twice. Of course this almost never ever ever ever happens and certainly doesn't happen enough to swing elections, but gotta lock up potential Dem voters any way you can.
Voter suppression has been his career for years. What a calling. He should be in jail.
A letter from Kris Kobach, the vice chairman of a White House commission looking into voter fraud and other irregularities, is drawing fire from some state election officials. The letter, sent Wednesday to all 50 states, requests that all publicly available voter roll data be sent to the White House by July 14, five days before the panel's first meeting.
Voter suppression has been his career for years. What a calling. He should be in jail.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Good Timing On Your Bret Stephens Hire, New York Times
No one weather event doesn't mean anything about climate overall, but...
A city in southwest Iran posted the country’s hottest temperature ever recorded Thursday afternoon, and may have tied the world record for the most extreme high temperature.Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to “53.7°C” (128.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Kapikian said the temperature is a “new absolute national record of reliable Iranian heat” and that it was the hottest temperature ever recorded in June over mainland Asia.
This Is Republicans
As Pareene says, Trump the person is not normal, but the Trump presidency basically is just a Republican presidency, with some extra crazy tweeting.
Guilty
Well my local DA just copped a guilty plea.
He ran courting the young progressive vote, people who assumed the younger black guy had to be better than the older white woman who seemed to like nothing more than trying to get capital convictions. He didn't promise to be a perfect progressive DA, but he did promise to be better in ways that mattered, promises he mostly didn't keep.
And then there was the corruption.
He ran courting the young progressive vote, people who assumed the younger black guy had to be better than the older white woman who seemed to like nothing more than trying to get capital convictions. He didn't promise to be a perfect progressive DA, but he did promise to be better in ways that mattered, promises he mostly didn't keep.
And then there was the corruption.
More thread
Only have my phone to post with but the lesson of the day is words speak louder than actions.
Guns Kill People
Also, sadly, very stupid people kill people, but it's a lot harder to do without the guns.
Gun nuts always respond to this kind of thing (and almost every "accidental" type shooting) with a No True Responsible Gun Owner fallacy. Responsible Gun Owners don't do this stuff! They lock their guns! They know gun safety!
We don't require gun owners to be responsible gun owners.
A Minnesota woman has been charged over the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, in what authorities say was a social media stunt gone wrong.
Monalisa Perez, 19, was booked into county jail after shooting at Pedro Ruiz as he held a book to his chest, believing it would stop the bullet.
Gun nuts always respond to this kind of thing (and almost every "accidental" type shooting) with a No True Responsible Gun Owner fallacy. Responsible Gun Owners don't do this stuff! They lock their guns! They know gun safety!
We don't require gun owners to be responsible gun owners.
Trumpkins
I get how this dynamic unfolds in a typical workplace (or family). The boss (father) is an asshole, a tyrant, everyone jockeys to curry favor and avoid the wrath of daddy, selling out each other if necessary, complaining to friends over drinks.
But this show is on teevee all day every day. Also, too, it matters? Like, the world can end kind of matters. I'm not asking anybody for extreme nobility, and certainly not this crowd, but it should be rather obvious that mere self-preservation, merely keeping Daddy from lashing out at you at the dinner table, is just not important. And you can just fucking quit.
But this show is on teevee all day every day. Also, too, it matters? Like, the world can end kind of matters. I'm not asking anybody for extreme nobility, and certainly not this crowd, but it should be rather obvious that mere self-preservation, merely keeping Daddy from lashing out at you at the dinner table, is just not important. And you can just fucking quit.
Veteran Washington reporters tell me that they have never observed this kind of anxiety, regret, and sense of imminent personal doom among White House staffers—not to this degree, anyway. These troubled aides seem to think that they can help their own standing by turning on those around them—and that by retailing information anonymously they will be able to live with themselves after serving a President who has proved so disconnected from the truth and reality.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Life Is A Neverending Customer Service Hold Session
Cost and accessibility are big issues with health care, of course, but I think what even the Good Guys miss is that life shouldn't be a neverending accounting nightmare.
And the crap of modern life never ends.
So I put $2,600 in the account and ADP sent me a debit card. I started using it at the doctor's office, at the pharmacy, at the physical therapist. (I threw out my back this spring, which is a reason I've been a little crankier than usual.)
Then, after a few months, I got a letter in the mail from ADP saying it needed my receipts. Receipts? I thought ADP got those straight from the providers. It seems it does get them from CVS, but not from the medical providers. I was supposed to be uploading those receipts through a website. Instead, I threw them away.
If I had to upload the receipts, then what was the point of the debit card? If the system requires that much paperwork, I might as well be submitting claim forms and getting checks in the mail.
Anyway, now I have to call those providers' offices and get duplicate receipts and upload them and allow seven to 10 days for processing. Until I do that, I have been cut off from access to the money in the account — my own money — that got in the account only because Congress chose to offer a tax preference that I could get only by using such an account.
Who wants to deal with this crap?
Nobody wants to deal with this crap, that's who
And the crap of modern life never ends.
Things That Don't Matter
If New York City - and perhaps the country following - goes into a recession it'll be because the powers that be - mostly Cuomo, but not just - didn't realize that quality of life for the great mass of people who depend on the subway matter a lot more than new convention center infrastructure or expensive bridge replacements for bridges that should never have been built in the first place.
5.6 million people ride the subway every day. You don't have to have The Math to understand that Uber ain't gonna replace that, even if people can afford to take it.
Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded, is a joke, until it isn't.
5.6 million people ride the subway every day. You don't have to have The Math to understand that Uber ain't gonna replace that, even if people can afford to take it.
Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded, is a joke, until it isn't.
About That Border With the EU
I read this last year and while a lot of it should be obvious to anyone who has thought a few minutes about this stuff, it's obvious the Brexiteers have not thought a few minutes about this stuff, or really anything at all because, politics aside, they are all ridiculously incompetent idiots.
Click here to read the whole thread, as we say...
1. My thoughts as a Northern Irish person on how NO LEAVERS REALISED that Brexit will likely precipitate utter carnage in NI and, thusly, UK
— Shocko (@shockproofbeats) June 27, 2016
Click here to read the whole thread, as we say...
Just How Does That Happen
It isn't just the money that matters, it's how does a PR operation manage to insert someone into the public debate like this?
As for the money...Well, we all gotta eat, but some of us try to eat without making others eat shit. Though as I grow old and cynical I start to think my biggest mistake was not joining Team Evil early in life. The snacks are much better.
As for the money...Well, we all gotta eat, but some of us try to eat without making others eat shit. Though as I grow old and cynical I start to think my biggest mistake was not joining Team Evil early in life. The snacks are much better.
Strong and Stable
Brexit negotiations are going to be such a disaster.
They all think they can have all the 'good things' and none of the 'bad things' though they don't all agree on which is which and also fail to realize that the EU does not give a fuck.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s office tried to downplay a row between her most senior officials over whether Britain should have a transition period as it leaves the European Union, as tensions over Brexit policy emerged.
Brexit Secretary David Davis accused Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond of taking inconsistent positions on whether the U.K. should seek a bridging deal, which could mean remaining in the customs union for years after Britain’s due to quit.
Euroskeptic Davis insisted the U.K. was likely to quit the customs union on the first day of Brexit in March 2019. But speaking in Germany on Monday, Hammond restated his view that a lengthier transition period would be required to help businesses avoid a cliff-edge shift in their trading arrangements.
They all think they can have all the 'good things' and none of the 'bad things' though they don't all agree on which is which and also fail to realize that the EU does not give a fuck.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Anyone Have Audiobook Recommendations?
Because I am behind on everything I only realized not all that long ago that you can download audiobooks from your (my) local library to your pocket computer device for free. They're good for certain activities (cooking, walking sometimes, running sometimes), and certainly if I drove more often I would listen to them a lot more, but I do find it hard to find ones that, well, I can pay attention to. I'm not sure I can describe the ones that seem to fit for me. First person narration is out, I think. Also I have to like the book! But some books/readers I just can't manage to pay attention to at all even if I'd probably like the book if I actually read it...any help?
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