Broken News: Obama heralds passing of health care bill: "Look out Chile, we're coming for you"

WASHINGTON DC—After the final reconciliation measures were passed by the House yesterday and signed into law by the President early this morning the health care battle, at long last, seems to be over. The war, however, is just beginning.

At an afternoon press conference, President Obama pledged that these newly passed reforms were just the opening gambit in what he called a full-fledged assault on the United States not having as embarrassing a world health care ranking as it previously had.

“People of America,” the President began. “This is not the end of the road, merely a humble beginning. With the dreams of generations and the hopes of millions behind it, I say this: no longer with American health care languish in the low thirties of World Health Organization rankings, near such counties as Slovenia or Cuba. No, America is on a trajectory that will carry us at least into the low-30s or so. To the nations of the world, to Denmark, to Chile, to Australia I say, we are coming for you and we will not be stopped!”

In closing he added, “I’m serious. We’re fucking gunning for you, Chile! That #33 ranking is ours!”

The short speech confirmed what many had assumed to be one of the larger, unmentioned goals of the health reform movement: negating the “No, try 37th” response from other countries that greeted the American declarations of “US health care, #1 in the world, baby!” often punctuated by a “Yeeeeee haaaaaaaw,” the sounding of an air horn, the pained howling of a basset hound, the waving of a foam “#1” finger, or the throttled revving of the engine of a Harley-Davidson.

Indeed, while evaluating the fiscal impact of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Congressional Budget Office factored in a decrease in the level of shame and self-delusion afflicting one who made the grievously inaccurate, yet unsurprisingly common assertion about about the supremacy of American health care.

As to to why the President has set his sights to squarely on usurping Chile is another question entirely.

“I know people might see Chile’s #33 ranking and ask if that isn’t too low-hanging a fruit and if we shouldn’t place our aims higher,” observed Douglas Elmendorf, head of the CBO. “Actually, strike that. Americans certainly wouldn’t be thinking about fruit; when they think of Chile they think of baby-back ribs or jalapeño poppers or something. Hence, the need for health reform. But still, I think that if this protracted legislative process has taught us anything it’s that the President is extremely pragmatic.”

“Extremely, infuriatingly, maddeningly, counter-productively pragmatic,” Elmendorf grumbled. “Besides, do you think we could honestly make a run at Finland at #31? Scandinavian health care? Uh-uh. Chile is the safe bet.”

Health analysts noted that Chile’s recent propensity for apocalyptic earthquakes and the general US-backed instability of the entirety of Latin America make it a prime target.

“They’re just one more 8.0 away from sliding into the sea,” observed health policy analyst Dana Garrett. “Given these new reforms and a spot of good weather, we ought to be able to crawl up a few spots and wait for Mother Nature to do the rest. If we can trust to the inveterate alcoholism of the Australian people, not to mention their well-known propensity for drag racing through the post-apocalyptic wastes of their homeland, we might have a decent shot at #32.”

Spokesmen for the government note that this should be a happy time for the country.

“Look, soon we’ll be able to hold our heads up with a mild sense of pride in what we begrudgingly allowed our health care system to become,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “Be happy. Not as happy as you would have been had Congress and the President decided that something other than mandatory enrollment in the insurance industry's programs with minor tweaks to the law saying they can’t be as huge a group of bastards anymore, but happy nonetheless.”

Sources within the government say that the President hopes to have usurped Chile’s position by 2015 and have the country ready to make a move on Finland by the end of his second term, provided the insurance and pharmaceutical industries allow further tweaks to the health care system and factoring in a retasking of the CIA’s earthquake causing satellite to Helsinki.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.11

Darfuristan
Remember Darfur? Of course you do. It was a big problem with genocide in.... Africa or someplace, Ryan Gosling wore that Darfur t-shirt, then everything got fixed. Not so much. In a sprawling Rolling Stone article, Ben Wallace-Wells takes a look at how the various international efforts and strategies have created a quagmire situation in Darfur and how the problems going on there are different, yet still as potentially bad as the ones that were occurring six years ago.

Florida Lawmaker Attempts To Deny Tax Credit To Movies Filmed With Gay Characters
That's right, a Florida legislator is trying to deny a tax credit to any film that lenses in Florida with a gay character or otherwise doesn't conform to his standard of returning America's wang and our meth and gator repository back to an imagined Mayberry like existence. Luckily this doesn't pertain to films that hire gays or were written, directed, or starring gays. Otherwise no film would lens in Florida. Sadly this means that Sean and mine's attempt to film and all-gay remake of the Passion of the Christ will have to find another state to film in.

Reconciliation Not Easy to Influence
Whither the scummy lobbyist and industry shill? It seems in all this talk of reconciliation this and "improving health care" that we haven't been considering the feeling of insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. Thankfully Roll Call is there to let us hear their lamentations about how the reconciliation process will largely shut them out of making tweaks and suggestions to any bill. Oh sure, they've cut several pounds of flesh from the bills that were already passed, but how will they be able to survive unless they get a bill that completely caters to their whims? I don't want to live in a country that forces me to contemplate that thought.

Number of millionaires in America increased 16 percent in 2009.
Sure, you don't have a job and you just stole food from your cat, but thankfully our social and financial betters were able to become richer during these hard times. It's nice to know that most of this unpleasantness is being confined to the peasants classes. Rich getting richer? Poor getting poorer? I think we're right on track for a return to serfdom in 2019. That ought to make medieval studies students happy.

That's a hella number: Scientists call for new word to describe 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
,000
We mostly applaud scientists and the pursuit of knowledge around here. But that's mostly because we took them to be serious scholars. Who knew that there were corners of science filled with brew-dog chugging frat bros chest bumping to Limp Bizkit. Why else would they propose that 'hella' join the ranks of giga, mega, and kilo. Sure, 27 zeros would need to be involved before the word hellameter was invoked, but it's the damn principle of the thing. Can't we use something classy, like 'fuckin' or 'shit-ton'?

Chile Earthquake Moved Entire City 10 Feet to the West
Earthquakes: they steal time, mess with our axis, and screw with out precise GPS and longitude/latitude systems. As of now, Concepcion is 10 feet west of where it used to be, Santiago moved 11 inches west, and even Buenos Ares moved an inch. Just imagine in Concepcion, you now have to walk a few steps further to get where you want to go. Also: your entire city was largely destroyed. Talk about piling up inconveniences. This is too much, I think we need to have a talk with the mole people or the CIA earthquake satellite so me can stop this time altering, geography shifting nonsense.

The Chileans broke the planet

Have you ever wished the day was a little shorter? You know, just so there were a few less minutes in your day to sit around without a job or just to make 5 o'clock come around sooner because then it's OK to drink and GODDAMNIT YOU DONT HAVE A PROBLEM, SHELIA!!!

Well then, this whole Chilean earthquake thing must have been a tremendous boon to you and a subject of some personal pride, you monster. You got your wish.

The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.
...
“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).

So not only is the day shorter in an increment that can only be appreciated by hummingbirds and Olympic sprinters, the earth was thrown off it's axis by three whole inches. The three inch axis shift was so violent that a scientist stationed at a scientific outpost was slightly nudged into a co-worker while at the dinner table, throwing the meal into an unpleasant conversation about "personal boundary issues" about certain "creepy, bug-eyed glaciologists" that "had already been warned about the pawing and touching, Roger." Suffice to say, dessert was uncomfortable.

So remember, in order to fully stick it to the man and wring out every benefit you can from a 8.8 magnitude earthquake: start leaving work 1.26 microseconds early. Otherwise the time shift is just going to come out of your sleep and leisure time. And if you want to start knocking off some tenths of a second, you know, real time, then start praying for some really big earthquakes. It's all just a matter of the CIA turning a knob on their earthquake causing satellite.