Election

Who will *profit* from a government shutdown? Who will be hurt?

Who do Republicans represent? Ask the Koch brothers. Remember this come election time.

House votes to avoid shutdown, delay Obamacare | ABQJournal Online

House GOP rank and file that includes numerous tea party allies would soon have to choose between triggering the first partial shutdown in nearly two decades — or coming away empty-handed from their latest confrontation with Obama.

Undeterred, House Republicans pressed ahead with their latest attempt to squeeze a concession from the White House in exchange for letting the government open for business normally on Tuesday. “Obamacare is based on a limitless government, bureaucratic arrogance and a disregard of a will of the people,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. [mjh: I can think of nothing more arrogant and disregarding of the will of the People than the Republicans.] …

For a moment at least, the revised House proposal papered over a simmering dispute between Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the leadership, and tea party conservatives who have been more militant about abolishing the health law that all Republican lawmakers oppose.

It was unclear whether members of the rank and file had consulted with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has become the face of the “Defund Obamacare” campaign that tea party organizations are promoting and using as a fundraising tool.

House votes to avoid shutdown, delay Obamacare | ABQJournal Online

Our own Winthrop Quigley does his usual thorough and balanced job regarding Obamacare. (The Republicans will rue the day the named the ACA that. Imagine if Social Security were called RooseveltCare, Medacaid as JohnsonCare or both as DemocratCare 1 and 2.)

Obamacare starting Oct. 1, changing U.S. health insurance | ABQJournal Online

    By Winthrop Quigley / Journal Staff Writer | 10 hours ago

    Copyright © 2013 Albuquerque Journal

    History will be made Tuesday.

    On that day will begin the major push to implement the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – a federal program designed to assure that, in 2014, nearly everyone will have a way to pay for health care and that no one can be denied coverage. Not since Medicare was enacted in 1965 has a government social program been designed to touch so many lives

    Obamacare starting Oct. 1, changing U.S. health insurance | ABQJournal Online

    Highlights you might need to know | ABQJournal Online

    By Winthrop Quigley / Journal Staff Writer | 10 hours ago

    Copyright © 2013 Albuquerque Journal

    A number of significant Affordable Care Act provisions take effect Tuesday; others start in a few months.

    Here are some of the things the average citizen needs to know.

    Highlights you might need to know | ABQJournal Online

    Election

    jfleck cogently asks, “who represents Al-Qaeda” in these metaphors

    Well said and heartfelt.

    Annals of fucked up metaphors | jfleck at inkstain

    As a group of U.S. politicians prepared to vote on a measure intended to delay implementation of a federal effort to extend health care to uninsured Americans, one of them, a Republican Texas congressman named John Culberson, was quoted thus:

    “I said, like 9/11, ‘let’s roll!’”

    It is a reference to the words attributed to Todd Beamer, a passenger on the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, as a group of passengers tried to overpower the hijackers and prevent the use of the aircraft in a suicide attack.

    In discussing U.S. health care policy in a column back in 2009, I employed a different use of the 9/11 metaphor in an effort to help readers make sense of the 18,000 people who, according to an Institute of Medicine study, die each year in the United States because of a lack of health insurance:

    I’ve struggled with ways of getting across 18,000 preventable deaths per year. It is a 9/11 attack every two months, year in and year out.

    I’ve often found it useful to push metaphors to the breaking point. Thinking through their failure mode provides useful information. So I’d invite you, in considering Culberson’s words and mine, to think about who represents Al-Qaeda here – the people attempting to extend health care coverage to the uninsured, or the people attempting to stop them.

    Or maybe we should all just stop with the 9/11 references.

    Annals of fucked up metaphors | jfleck at inkstain

    The Atheist's Pulpit

    Hasta la vista, buitres

    This afternoon, over the field in which we play volleyball, about a dozen vultures drifted south on their way to Mexico for the winter. They didn’t kettle, just soared and waved goodbye. They’ll return in March. About an hour later, I saw one straggler blown sideways on the edge of one hell of a rainstorm. I’ve never before seen a rainbow inside a rainstorm, so sodden it might drown. ¡Feliz equinoccio!

    abqjournal

    Misleading Caption #abqjournal

    I was struck by this caption to a photo in an article in the Journal:

    25 years and Tara is still missing | ABQJournal Online

    Tara Calico, who has been missing for 25 years, is pictured here about one year before her disappearance on a vacation with her mother, Patty, in the mountains of Mexico.

    25 years and Tara is still missing | ABQJournal Online

    Do you think Tara disappeared in the mountains of Mexico on vacation with her mother?

    She is pictured on vacation with her mother in the mountains of Mexico about one year before her disappearance from New Mexico. [/nit]

    The Atheist's Pulpit

    Batman and Abed

    At sunset, I was walking Luke east along Sunningdale when I heard a ruckus ahead at the cross-street (Monroe). Suddenly, a kid about 10 raced around the corner running in my direction. He was dressed as Batman (the Dark Knight, not Adam West’s). I thought of Abed, from Community, who was Batman in at least one episode. Soon behind Batman ran in hot pursuit an older boy with a long black wig on. As Batman passed me, he roared at me. I walked on, watching for evidence of bullying but otherwise letting the boys be. More boys rounded the corner on bikes and skateboards, stragglers rather than pursuers, several with cellphones recording the event. (On YouTube, the part of the seemingly clueless old man is played by Mark Hinton.) 

    As I turned that same corner, the whole pack turned back and swept down toward the end of a culdesac, where a party appeared to be in progress. I left it all behind. A couple of blocks later, Big Wig and Batman rode past me on a bicycle built for two, an absurd postscript. The only thing I heard was the young Dark Knight saying “that’s not how it works.” They turned at the end of the block and passed me again.

    All amusing enough until more than an hour later I happened to turn the TV on and happened to flip the channel exactly in time to see Abed as Batman, rescuing Pierce and Jeff from the collapsing furniture fort in the study room. You don’t have to know any of these characters to imagine my amazement with the synchronicity.

    Uncategorized

    ‘Epic Pale Whale Fail’: Oswalt’s Contribution To ‘Moby Dick’ : NPR–you must hear this

    I laughed throughout this hilarious interview, but then, I’ve never read Moby Dick. Fantastic zingers aimed at Americans in general and bloggers, along with the main topic. My highest recommendation.

    ‘Epic Pale Whale Fail’: Oswalt’s Contribution To ‘Moby Dick’

    September 21, 2013 3:00 PM

    Listen to the Story

    All Things Considered

    9 min 50 sec

    Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt appeared at three Los Angeles library branches Saturday to read aloud from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and discuss its complexities with audience members. Host Arun Rath talks to Oswalt about his obsession with the white whale.

    ‘Epic Pale Whale Fail’: Oswalt’s Contribution To ‘Moby Dick’ : NPR

    "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams