What to fear next

Now that health care has passed what are we supposed to fear? I'm sure the general icy black hand of socialism is a given, but what specifically? In the run-up it was the grim spectre of death panels. But here we are a few weeks past the bill's passage and both of my grandmothers are still up and kicking. I'm neck deep in grandmothers and it looks like there's nary a government sponsored plan to ice them. We were lied to.

Surely we can't be done with being afraid of health reform, can we? I saw the rage people tried to gin up about the IRS, flying planes into offices and such, but it didn't seem like their crazy heart was in it. There has to be some other nefarious plans hidden within the depths of this health reform bill that was some unconscionable number of pages. Something that can be compared to Nazism. Wait, I have an idea that combines the nascent IRS fear mongering, classic health care panic, and liberal doses of Godwin's Law. Someone get me Newt Gingrich!

GINGRICH: I believe one of the biggest issues in September and October will be 16,000 IRS agents and I suspect every Republican candidate will campaign on a promise to cut off all funding in January for the 16,000 IRS agents. You don’t need a health Gestapo in the United States. And I think the Democrats are going to be faced with a real decision, do they really want to campaign in September, October favoring 16,000 more IRS agents to enforce the health law? And what does it tell you about a health law so complicated that you need 16,000 government policemen? It’s sort of creating a brand new health police.

That's right, in the murky depths of the health care bill, comrade Obama has empowered the IRS to be some sort of health care Gestapo that... polices... your health.... care. Or something. I'm not really following what they'll do, but I'll be damned if it isn't sinister, ominous, and should be accompanied by some sort of Bond-style arch-evil music or perhaps the dulcet tones of Richard Wagner.

You know, I can feel that warm sensation of impotent rage in my gut. This feels good. It had left me these last few weeks and I was considering going to a doctor to see if there was anything I could do to get it fixed, but I was too worried my coverage might be better and my bill might be cheaper so I stayed away.

Sure, raging against the IRS is sort of the hack material someone should get to after his bit on women drivers, gittin' 'er done, and why they should make the entire plane out of the black box, but it just feels right. I think it can get me through the summer and into the election period without making me stop to think about how ridiculous it sounds. Thanks, Newt.

Fare thee well, teabaggers

Ah teabaggers, your time in our political discourse was too short. It seems only yesterday you were getting angry about taxes you didn't understand, then morphed into hating a health care bill you didn't understand, filling your protests with racist signs, misspelled placards, Hitler caricatures, and messages about socialism, the Constitution, the founding fathers, and communism that showed you didn't understand any of those concepts either. Who can forget how you were completely co-opted by the Republican, right wing media, and corporate establishment?

Then there was the whole part where you seemed to embrace every weird birth certificate and ACORN conspiracy that could be conceived and then dragged the Republican party into a frothy rage of hate, obstruction, and insanity that might terminally harm the party. We aren't so miffed about that last one.

And how can we forget the entire industry of scrotal and ball dipping jokes that the unfortunate moniker you chose opened up? Truly it was the golden age of testicle jokes.

But now you're dead, having utterly failed at your mission to stop health care and complain about the tax cuts Obama gave you. You're left to go home, rage about government in private, and reap the benefits of cheaper more accessible health care that you didn't want. Maybe we'll see you co-opted again and used to oppose regulatory reform, climate action, or a jobs bill, but it just won't be the same.

So until some of your loopier members stockpile enough guns to stage another Ruby Ridge or go back to Minnesota's 6th District to run for re-election, we'd just like to salute you. The way you made it seem like the only opposition to health care was lacking sanity and the way you made it so no one who wanted reform had to ever enter into a real health care debate, just rebut crazy shit like death panels, was a tremendous boon to reform.

Farewell and adieu, teabaggers. We'll see you on the rainbow bridge. In memoriam the Daily Show has put up a greatest hits of your exploits and their mocking of your exploits.

Life In Our New Socialist Hell

I suppose I should have been worried when the screaming ghost of Karl Marx screamed across the sky, laughing and on fire. This was just before the health care vote, I noted, should we be worried about what comes after? As we now know the answer was yes.

Soon after the last vote was cast the earth cracked open, flames shot out from below, and all manner of imps and demons began to crawl out of hell to torment and bedevil humanity. We had not heeded the warnings of the GOP, we foolishly wished for better health care, and in getting that better health care we ripped a hole in reality and freed the devil from his underground prison. Now winged serpents patrol the skies, there's an increase in the amount of pale horsemen sightings, gags of imps are ripping into and devouring any human they see, large groups of hell hounds control most major cities, and we all saw what happened to Indianapolis. The screams... I'd say "My God" but it's clear God has abandoned us, no longer choosing to bless our country, it is clear He has moved on to bless another country that has not fallen victim to the ills of socialist health care. He will tell them of His investing secrets and free market ideals and they will prosper.

On the other hand, dependents can now stay on their parents plans until they're 26 and the drug price donut hole for seniors was closed, so that's nice. Well, it would be if there were any seniors still alive. As predicted, the death panels came for the elders at midnight. Oh these were not jackbooted police forces taking everyone over 70 to judges at a tribunal. No, the elderly simply simultaneously dropped dead as the clock changed over from 11:59. In a press statement later released through the now state run news, Emperor Obama noted that nanobots had taken care of our elderly problem and showed a chart listing the savings that were achieved from such a cost effective measure. The death panels were nanobots, Sarah Palin didn't see that coming.

On the bright side, with every old person dead and demons eating those who venture out into the streets of major cities, jobs are plentiful and mandatory. So now I must go before the work whistle blows and afternoon exercises start under the large picture of a smiling Obama that has been placed on the largest wall of the boot factory the government jobs service placed me at. We have to fill an order of 500,000 boots for trade with Venezuela.

As a man shrieks at me over a loudspeaker to make boots faster lest my family be killed for my insufficient commitment to the cause, large wyverns and demons lay waste to our infrastructure, and Father Obama names himself Life Ruler of the Sovereign Socialist States of Obamerica, I ask you: was health care really worth it? It completely ruined this country, just like the Republicans said. OK, they didn't say anything about the shrieking monster that spits acid and tries to mate with all vehicles, but I think they strongly implied that's what would crawl out of hell if we ignored their warnings and broke the seventh seal by refusing to allow insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.

I just thank God the public option was removed from the bill. Who knows what we might have unleashed had that passed.

Lie of the year

As we reach the end of the year, there are many year end lists to get to along with a whole crop of all-decade lists. Debates ensue over which annoying pop song was the song of the year, whether Transformers 2, GI JOE, or 2012 was the movie of the year, and which person in America had the best emotional meltdown over the state of the economy. I think "everyone from Detroit" is the answer to the last one.

But some lists are closer to America's heart than others and such is the case for Politifact's "Lie of the Year". With the health care fight taking center stage, fallout from the bailouts, and the President trying to hide the fact that he was a Kenyan born Muslim socialist, the lie harvest was bountiful. What ended up taking the prize in an overcrowded field was the Sarah Palin classic "Death panels", also known as "The government's gonna murder your grandma."

The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.

Her assertion — that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care — spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals. Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, "Death panels? Really?"

The editors of PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, have chosen it as our inaugural "Lie of the Year."

Some of the runners up were "anything Glenn Beck said",the Orly Taitz "Obama was born in Kenya" birth certificate nonsense, "global warming, evolution, and all non-Bible based sciences", the President Obama "pretending that he wasn't born in Kenya" nonsense, Joe Wilson's "You lie!", "anything Michelle Bachmann said", and Joe Biden opining on aircraft air circulation and Porcine AIDS. It was a crowded field, but I think the right one won. "Everything Glenn Beck said" is just too broad a category. In fact, maybe Glenn needs his own category or immediate entry into the liars Hall of Fame, which I was told was in St. Louis, but I went and not only couldn't I find it, but people there were claiming it didn't even exist. Maybe Glenn can just be dipped in bronze.

All in all, it was a nicely played lie Mrs. Palin. It took the issue of the day and completely distorted it with irrational fear, government backed murder conspiracies, and thoughts of grandmas being shotgunned by civil servants. What's more you got other politicians to spring to action based on this lie and fight over it. All over a tiny portion of the bill that was relatively unimportant. That's how the pros do it, Sarah. I can see why you're the 2012 front-runner.

No, kill grandma

From Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the same conglomeration that brought you the Tea Parties, the Tea Baggers, and other such expressions of "grassroots protests", comes the latest inept salvo in the war against health care: Don't Kill Grandma.com. Their message? Don't kill grandma.....dot com. No, they would instead prefer to kill the health reform bill, which we all know will result in the violent murder of everyone's elderly relatives.

Ok, first off, what is with every right wing group using Monty Python clips now? First Chris Christie did it, now Freedom Works. What is it about left wing absurdist satire that so appeals to the right wing "grassroots" organizer? What I'm saying is: stop tainting the things I like or it's going to get violent in here.

Secondly: how come they're ignoring the wishes of the elderly who want the government to violently and brutally put them down without any remorse, pity, or mercy? What about those of us who would like to see grandma murdered in exchange for cheaper health care? As in every debate, we're cruelly pushed to the sidelines by the decency police.

Sadly, we here at TB Industries lack the means to start up our own fake grassroots protests and are much, much too lazy to try and start a real one. But for any left wing cranks with money (George Soros?) or billionaires with an abiding love for killing the elderly (George Soros?), we'd just like to point out that Kill Grandma.com , Off Gramps For the Greater Good.com, This Is the Way They'd Want to Die.com are all available, as well as their .org and .net equivalents. All I'm saying is post up a couple Python clips, add in a few testimonials of the elderly who want to be shotgunned by Barack Hussein Obama, stage a completely corporate backed protest mach on Washington, and we can finally swing this debate back to where we want it: murdering grandmothers. It's for the greater good.

Hmm, enacting health reform early...sounds like a crazy idea

How fait accompli is some kind of health reform right now? Well, it's basically to the point where everyone glosses over tiny things like the White House opposing the public option in the Senate and Harry Reid having to lead the way on his own and just moves on to a debate about how soon to implement health reform proposals. Because how can you be expected to get re-elected or reap the popularity of health care reform in 2010 if it doesn't kick in until 2013? There's also something about helping people in need and providing much needed relief in what is actually a life or death situation for blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

The most significant changes to the health care system wouldn’t kick in until 2013 – two election cycles away. With Republicans expected to make next year a referendum on health care reform, Democrats are quietly lobbying to push up the effective dates on popular programs, so they'll have something to run on in the congressional midterms.

Democrats are anxious to mix the good with the bad since some of the pain would be phased in early, including more than $100 billion in industry fees that critics say could be passed on to consumers.

“We want to be able, within the cost framework and the implementation framework, to have as much start as early as possible, even though we know all of it can’t,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), a Finance Committee member who is working with other senators on the effort. “And the White House wants to have as much as possible to start.”

Among the proposals: make prescription drug discounts available to seniors as well as start randomly adding poisons into those drugs as part of the "death panel" program, tax credits for small businesses, a high risk pool for filth with pre-existing conditions like rape, low birth-weight, or high birth-weight, and money to hire ILM to do enough CG and special effects work to make it look like the severely underwhelming minor tweaks to our system were a massive overhaul and top to bottom reforming of American health care.

Of course there is opposition to these efforts. Sen John Cornyn (R-TX) argues that this is just a seedy and transparent attempt to get people to see the benefit of the legislation by letting them, you know, enroll in programs and get coverage. Plus there's that unfair election advantage where people might be fit to reward Democrats and punish Republicans just because one made an attempt at reform while the other shrieked about grandma getting ganked. And really that's what this all comes down to: elections. Because isn't that the whole point of doing something like this: so one can get re-elected and look good politically? It's certainly not about providing the best and cheapest plan and reforms to cover the American people, so the process of elimination only really leaves politics.

Important science

I know I am. Hell, it's all I think about. Finally science is getting the fuck onboard.

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.
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The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.
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Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.
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In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".

They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."
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Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisers on controlling the spread of swine flu, said the study did have parallels with some infectious diseases.
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Ferguson continued, "My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days."

All I'm glad to know is that science has finally started to come around to the idea that we need to shitcan cancer research, AIDS research, swine flu nonsense and start focusing on real problems. And finally, governments like the UK and it's scientific advisers are taking it seriously. Now if we just start the process of pre-decapitating corpses, we can make sure that we only have to deal with the newly dead/infected and no ghouls will be climbing up out of their graves to feast on the living. How about putting that in a health care bill, Barry? You want to set up government panels to kill grandma, but yet you don't care enough to behead her so she doesn't rise again and burden society with flesh eating chaos? Whatever.

Fr those who are interested, the study is here, your instruction on how to survive are here and here.

Broken News: Grandmother eager to be put down by Death Panel

ROCHESTER, NY--Lifelong resident Florence Edelburg, 84, has declared her intention to be first in-line when militant Marxist/Islamofascist sleeper cell agent, Barack Hussein Obama, convenes his Death Panels later this year.

"Honestly, I've had a good run. I was married for over 50 years to my late husband, John. I have six wonderful children, 14 beautiful grandchildren and--oh, who the hell am I kidding? If I have to spend one more Thanksgiving staring at my idiot kids and their ingrate cracker spawn, I'm going to put a fucking gun in my mouth."

The widow continued, "I long for the cold embrace of the Grim Reaper. Thank God the Democrats are back in office so I don't have to learn how to tie a noose."

Edelburg, who has seen her health decline in recent years, owing largely to decades of caring for such a large family and helping run her husband's sod farm outside of Adams Basin, has made a holiday habit of threatening to take her own life. Much of this tendency seems to stem from overwhelming disappointment in her progeny, as well as how her life generally turned out.

"Shit, back in '45, I had gams for miles. Wasn't a veteran fresh back from the war who didn't make pecker-first charge at me. If only they'd discovered birth control a decade earlier. I could be living off of Bob Hope's dime, not babysitting these cross-eyed nitwit grandchildren. I can't stand the thought of spending one more minute with my 'loved ones', watching them marry Protestants and ignore my time-worn wisdom, learned from a hard life spent actually working for a Goddamned living. Why didn't they put me in that Florida nursing home I heard so much about?"

Edelburg, a Catholic, first heard of Obama's Death Panels at mass, which she attends each morning "For the free hooch and crackers."

Father Thomas McGrady, of Our Lady of the Bleeding Eyes, has made the Death Panels the focus of his sermons ever since Glenn Beck told him in an e-mail that Jesus despised the competition of public and private health care sectors.

Said Father McGrady, "Scripture tells us to respect all life. Even if that life is an undignified one spent largely soiling oneself and being increasingly ignored by insensitive family members who care only about what effect escalating medical bills will have on their inheritance. I feel it is my duty and the duty of the Church to oppose these efforts at palliative treatment and stop the movement toward the cheaper and more accessible health care I know the Lord Our God hated so dearly."

Edelberg has been heartened by the fact that, according to a flier she received at mass, the post-death process will include "Crushing the bones of the elderly in a wine press and liquefying the corpses so that they can be fed intravenously to the Federal Government's army of secular cyborg babies," noting that being liquefied and used to nourish future generations will "at least allow someone to appreciate one goddamn thing I've done in my cursed fucking life."

As for the interim, Edelburg plans to settle her estate by pitting her six children against one another for a sizable inheritance.

"Lord knows it's the only way I can get some entertainment while I wait for the government to end my sad, depressing, shitshow of an existence. The smart money, pun intended, is on Patrick, my fourth child. He's got some sort of gorilla/retard strength and took to masturbating on small animals at a very young age. Also, he seems impervious to physical pain after all the lashings I gave him during his adolescence."

Florence hopes that, barring further legislative incompetence, the Death Panels will be up and running within the next six months. Otherwise, she fears not only having to endure another Thanksgiving, but an additional Christmas, New Year's, and a dreaded 85th birthday party with her horrid embarrassment of a family.

"I'll do anything to avoid that," she pleaded. "I'm a woman of faith. If the government is going to make me wait that long, I'll just start praying full-time for a stroke, cancer, a random car careering off the street and through the living room, a wayward sparrow flying into my temple, anything..."

Citing the desires of many elderly Americans like Mrs. Edelburg, the White House has vowed it will press forward in its efforts to get the Death Panels up and running by year's end. The White House says it has made a solemn vow to terminate the lives of people like Mrs. Edelman "with extreme prejudice" and remains committed to seeing that goal through to the bitter, bitter end.

Broken News: Rogue doctor declares himself 'one man death panel'

BRADENTON—With the shotgun blasts distantly echoing through the hallways of the Sunny Glades Retirement and Rest Home, local authorities are still trying to come to grips with the carnage inside. With the toll currently at 12 dead and 7 critically injured, area residents are still in a state of shock.

“At approximately 9:17 this morning, Dr. Eric Francis rampaged through this facility wielding a gavel, costume judicial robes, and a sawed off shotgun,” explained Sheriff Dane Collig during this afternoon’s press conference. “Dubbing himself The Adjudicator, Dr. Francis declared himself a ‘one man death panel’, handed out mock prescriptions for ‘lead’, and set about making ‘end of life care decisions’ for any resident he came across in the interest of reducing health care costs and easing society’s burden. After being confronted by a young, physically fit orderly, the doctor dove out a window, fled, and is currently at-large.”

Law enforcement officials are currently at a loss to explain why Francis would begin to take these measures now, seeing as, from what they understood of the current health care debate in Washington, his actions had not yet been made legal by Congress.

“I was under the impression from watching Glenn Beck that the Kenyan was going to make all this legal in a few weeks time,” said Deputy Samuel Weber. “I mean, the guy couldn’t wait until it was OK for doctors and specially authorized elected representatives to kill the elderly in a manner of their own choosing if they did not fit into the grand socialist future that has been envisioned for this country? Now we might have to arrest him. Some people just got no patience.”

Others simply wondered if perhaps Dr. Francis was engaging in the field testing of some of the Department of Health and the Obama Administration’s palliative care concepts in order for them to be able to present more a more concrete cost analysis of the death panels to the Office of Management and Budget. But this rumor was quickly squashed by the White House.

“I would just like to state unequivocally that we did not authorize Dr. Francis to form his own death panel,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, during a briefing session. “I think we’ve been absolutely clear that our death panels would involve a number of doctors sitting on ornately carved wooden thrones, make use of an ominous courtroom setting, involve shimmering black robes, tall opulent hats, and other quasi-religious garb, and generally be conducted in the manner of a futuristic Spanish Inquisition. Or, if you aren’t a history buff: like the ‘Death Eater’ trials in the Harry Potter movies. Plus I would just like to acknowledge the sheer waste in using bullets.”

Gibbs then proceeded to list killing objects that would be authorized because of their reuse and environmentally friendly aspects. These included knives, truncheons carved out of driftwood or reclaimed lumber, a large rock on a pulley or lever system, or simply using the pillow of an indigent or elderly patient and suffocating them with it.

“Clearly we would not authorize the use of bullets when you’d just have to buy more. That just doesn’t make sense when you’re trying to find ways to cuts costs. Hell that’s the whole point of eliminated these drags on society through the death panel system,” an exasperated Gibbs continued. “Plus, we’d like to keep the *ahem* handy work of our death panels out of the public eye. We wouldn’t ever be so gauche as to organize a shotgun rampage. We’d make it look more like we did when our provisional Washington death panel judged and killed Bob Novak. Still, we applaud Dr. Francis’ support.”

But even with the explicit support of the White House, Bradenton police are going to have to expend the effort to eventually bring Dr. Francis in. Some deputies grumbled about Francis’ actions, noting that while he had saved the municipality thousands in health care costs and provided a much needed economic boon, this was offset by the extra costs the country was going to have to pay out in overtime for the police officers.

As for Francis’ whereabouts, the sheriff’s department was unsure, but they know Florida has not seen the last of “the Adjudicator.” They cited a note that the doctor left at the scene that told of Francis’ desire to “bring affordable health care to America, one buckshot blast at a time.”

“God bless the boy for what he’s trying to do,” said Sheriff Collig, a tear glinting in his eye. “I’m gonna regret having to bring him in. If only he had an effective solution for medical malpractice tort reform.”

Death panels

I don't want to alarm anyone, but These Bastards has received video evidence from Glenn Beck himself on Obamacare's death panels, in which the elderly are killed to benefit society as a whole/for shits and giggles. These are the two proposals that the socialists in Congress have devised. The first is a more futuristic take, in which randomly selected participants are thrown into the air and killed in a sparking explosion in front of a chanting crowd and Michael York (or his requisite American equivalent) is tasked to hunt us down with laser guns should we run.

The second is the more classic "death panel" that has been discussed, in which we are allowed to commit a doctor assisted suicide in front of an HD display while pleasant music plays and Charlton Heston and Dick Van Patten grieve over our sacrifice. As yet undecided is if our bodies are then sent to a factory to be processed into a green food cube.

This is the future of health care. Pure laser exploding, Heston saddening socialism. We'll get to vote on the one we prefer in a referendum in December. Hope you're happy liberals.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.14

False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots
The New York Times takes a look at the origins of the 'death panel' lie. Turns out it didn't spring forth from the bubbling foul stench of Satan's black cauldron. It actually came from right wing editorial boards and from long time anti-health reform advocate Betsey McCaughey, a woman who would stab you in the gut with a Bowie knife if she thought it would make a nickel for a corporation. May God reward them with a gift of flaming rocks from the sky.

Six Lobbyists Per Lawmaker Work on Health Overhaul
You know ho many lobbyists there are for each elected representative? Yeah, it is six. How'd you know? You read the headline? Get fucked, smart guy. Still six per lawmaker and over a quarter of a billion spent on lobbying just this year. You do have to marvel at the effort to make sure we all get fucked just as roughly crudely as we all deserve. They aren't even going to leave a buck on the dresser. We're giving them a freebie. Feel good about health care reform yet?

Progress Over Perfection
Paul Begala begins the first of many steps that people are taking to convince everyone that the big shit sandwich that we're all about to bite into is a delicious and nutritious first step. He gives two examples: the severely lacking elements of original Social Security bill and his own failures during President Bubba's attempt to pass health care. Good points to be made, but it still doesn't make me understand why we should all be so excited and thankful that the people we supposedly elected to do this specific thing are so willingly and freely giving up the store for no discernible return.

NASA Wants To Move The Earth
So there are three ways to stop global warming. 1) Curb the burning of fossil fuels and pollutants that are spewed into the atmosphere. 2) Drop a large ice cube in the ocean ala Futurama. 3) Move the earth away from the sun, possibly to a gated community far away from the more ethnic and swarthy looking planets. You'll be happy to know that NASA is making plans to follow idea #3. It involves rockets, comets, and "basic rocket science". Maybe you're overstepping your bounds here, NASA. Want to work on getting back to the moon first?

Opening up the BBC’s natural history archive
The BBC's Natural History Unit, the group that produces pretty much anything worth watching about the planet, is finally moving their copious archives, programs, and video online. Sure it lacks the pizazz of shark themed weeks or documentary gawking at American brood mares and their possum like litters of children, but give the Brits a chance and I'm sure you'll like their stuff.

This is how stupid the health care debate has gotten

No, no, no, the health care debate didn't reach it's nadir when people started yelling about government sponsored grandma killing squads. It officially hit a low point when changes started being made to health care bills because of lies about "death panels" and piles of dead grandmas stacked on street corners like cord wood. That's right, sensible end of life planning, things like living wills and discussions about what you'd like to happen if you slip into a coma, have been dropped because enough liars stoked the fires of hysteria.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said in a statement that the committee “dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”

A Senate Finance Committee aide confirmed that the panel was not discussing end-of-life measures, adding that they were “never a major focus” of the committee’s negotiations.
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In his statement, Mr. Grassley called the House legislation “so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences.”

“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” he continued, adding “Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can’t.”

Oh that's right, it was all a matter of leaving "major areas open to interpretation" and not the fact that your party is comprised of craven liars, Chuck. I mean there's one thing I do know is how easy it is to confuse making a living will with the forced euthanasia of anyone who has crossed the government's new age restrictions. I mean we can't leave it vague, otherwise an elderly man who comes in to discuss what he wants to happen if he should become paralyzed might be blown away by the shotgun blast of a doctor who is convinced he now has the right to kill indiscriminately. Whew! Bullet dodged.

So, what did we learn today kids? That no matter how inane, stupid, dishonest, deranged, crazy, or ridiculous your conspiracy theory is, if it comes in relation to an important legislative debate and the opposition party is dishonest enough to repeat it, then you can get useful provisions stripped out of said legislation. AND THE HOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.13

'Walking Dead' strolls to AMC
Robert Kirkman's zombie comic The Walking Dead. Weekly series on AMC, network of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Written and directed by Frank Darabont. Woo, and might I add, hoo. You're all lucky Blogspot can't audibly transmit the sound of a boner happening, otherwise you'd be hearing it now.

'SPIDER-MAN' A NO-SHOW
Sadly this nation's greatest chance to pay for the privilege of gawking at an absolute trainwreck, a $45 million Spider-Man musical written by U2, has fallen by the wayside as show runners realized the stupidity of their idea and the fact that this show would in no way be profitable. I will say this doesn't bode well for the $50 million dollar musical Sean and I wrote about the Thundercats.

Jim Cramer's Housing Bottom Call Revisited (VIDEO)
Miss that happy feeling you used to get when you got to see Jim Cramer on the TV getting his testicles stolen by John Stewart or generally just apologizing for being an awful financial guru? Don't worry, he's still out there making terrible predictions about the housing market. Go point and laugh, my children.

Death Panels
Joe Klein of Time Magazine takes on the asinine "death panel" nonsense the debate on health care has turned into. He does it by explaining what the provision that Sarah Palin and her inbred ilk are distorting actually says and by providing a personal example of the usefulness of such a program. It of course won't get covered as much as Senator Grassley smearing himself in his own excrement and yelling about how a man from the government buried his grandmother alive to save a nickel for his socialist masters.

Fox News gets okay to misinform public, court ruling
We all knew deep down in our hearts that this was true, but it's nice to finally have the courts officially rule on it. It is in fact perfectly legal to lie and use your airwaves as a promotional vehicle for those lies even as you are touting yourself as a news program or news network. Whew! Fox dodged a bullet there. Can you imagine what that place would be like if Hannity or Beck had to tell the truth? Ah well, consider this a favor from the courts to the Especially Gruesome Suicide Clean-up Division of the NYPD.

Stay classy, Chuck

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) deciding that, hey, what the fuck, it's time to just start fuckin' lying to his constituents.

“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.”

You know what the funny part about all of this is? He's the main senator that Max Baucus is spending all his time with in the Finance Committee, "negotiating" with over the parameters of the health care bill. You know, the "couldn't ask for a better partner" guy. The Republican who's supposedly serious about health care reform. The "gubmint gon' execute granny" guy.

Great negotiating partner, Max.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.11

In healthcare debate, 'reality' is in dispute
The LA Times looks at the extensive lengths supporters have to go to in order to fight opponents who question the very nature of truth and reality on a daily basis. They even had to create a website and videos to assure people that Obama wasn't going to garrote your grandmother at her weekly canasta game. He's much to crafty for that, he'll just order one of the car companies he now owns to give her defective brakes.

Newspaper Ad Revenue to Recover
If by recover you mean "rise slightly". 2.4%! With a chance that by 2014 ad revenue will increase by almost 8%! That's right, the print media barely gets to see its ad revenues rise with inflation and this is being hailed as the end of newspapers' slide. Sorry, it's just a longer than expected death rattle which at the end of you'll have to figure out a better plan than "fire all the experienced people", "curse Craigslist with every breath", and "hire more discredited neoconservative columnists".

How House Bill Runs Over Grandma
Investor's Business Daily, in their quest to discredit themselves as badly on health care as the preceding years have discredited them on investing and business, tries its hand at scaring you about your grandma's impending government sanctioned murder. The best example they have is the case of the UK's NHS and Stephen Hawking, who they claim wouldn't have a chance at survival in England's socialist health care system. This despite the fact that Hawking is English (that robot voice with the American accent does tend to confuse things), has lived with NHS care his entire life, and is, you know, still alive. Nice try though IBD, maybe next time.

‘Worse Than Doing Nothing At All’
Turns out the Justice Department may finally start prosecuting torture. But alas, in true American fashion, will only actually go after the lowest level operative who did it. Apparently they had no superiors who ordered them to do it after it had been made an official tactic by branch heads on the orders of the White House. Funny how that always turns out to be the case. It's always the grunts and only ever the grunts.

The Future Of Sushi: Farms?
Hope you don't like sushi, or really the entire species of bluefin tuna. Because they're pretty much going to be completely extinct in about 3-5 years unless some severely drastic measures are taken. It has something to do with the fact that fisherman overfish the stocks by three times the legal limit while no one does anything about it and that current fishing levels are about 4 times what they would need to be to not make the bluefin go extinct. Ah well, that Charlie Tuna character was kind of an asshole. He deserves this.

Amy's fairground attraction
You see what's happening, gay marriage advocates? You laughed at us for suggesting that gay marriage might lead us down a slippery slope towards marrying a dog, or two dogs, or sentient robots, or three dogs, or a robot dog, but know a British woman is going to marry a roller coaster. A roller coaster that may in fact be dog themed. Is this the perverse future you envisioned? Just keep your damned hands off Space Mountain, that sassy lady is mine.

Today in health care abominations

As we all know, with the pending passage of Obama Care you and all of your weaker loved ones deemed "non-essential" to the new socialist movement will have your houses set ablaze while you're still inside by your local Death Panel Murder Commissioner. But there are other things going on in the health care battle, namely the pharmaceutical industry walking back statements that it turns out were deeply unsettling to people that heard them. Namely the fact that they had cut a deal with the White House so that in return for some ads, they'd only have to make a certain level of cost cuts. Now? Despite everyone involved essentially confirming that fact over a period of days and in several news articles, it turns out that we all accidentally misheard them. It turns out they meant the opposite of what they actually said.

In yet another in a series of evolving statements and backtracks, an official with the country's major pharmaceutical lobby said on Monday that it never struck a "quote, unquote secret deal with the White House" that would have prohibited the government from negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare.

"It was never brought up at the meeting," said Ken Johnson the senior vice president for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, just days after his boss told the New York Times that the White House's commitment to not support price controls was, as far as he was concerned, "a done deal."

Whoops, isn't that always the way? What with newspapers and people believing that your confirmation of secret negotiations were in fact a confirmation of secret negotiations. It's so annoying when that happens.

On the other hand the Senate's #2 fuckup ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin, doesn't want you to concentrate on what industry mega-giant was promised what by the Executive branch. He just wants you to know that President Obama is ready to start rolling up his sleeves and start putting in some long hours...cutting deals and compromising to get something, anything, passed. I know what you're saying, "But hasn't this process been one long, constant compromise where Democrats willingly give up popular and useful ideas that cover people, cut expenses, and save money in return for...nothing?" Yes it has and there's apparently still more to come.

What else is there to deal on? I'm not sure, but I hear it has to do with a large cardboard box with "Health Care" written on the side. We may use this special box as a receptacle for pieces of paper we can send in to the government with diseases we wish we didn't have written on them. If we believe enough in the box, we'll be healed/not bankrupted before we die. But I hear the box thing is still negotiable. It might end up being a manila envelope.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.10

Obama wants to kill your grandma
Salon kindly takes on the five biggest myths going on in the health care "debate" going on right now. And by myths they mean "right wing lies". Among them: Obama murdering your grandmother while he loots your wallet to pay for abortions and the upcoming ban of all private insurance. Now that these have been debunked in one big grouping, in addition to all the other places they've been debunked in smaller chunks, I'm sure they'll never be mentioned again by a disgraced former Speaker of the House or a barely literate former Alaskan Governor.

Welcome to GovernorRod.com Live!
After some asshole judge scuttled his change to speak to the people through the vessel that is I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Rod Blagojevitch had no means to speak to the masses....until now. That's right, he desperately wants you to believe his ouster was controversial and that he's a man of the people fighting for the issues of the people. Provided that the people left and unmarked, non-sequential stack of hundreds behind the refrigerator in the warehouse out back.

Gladney The Uninsured Activist
The Washington Monthly kindly points us to a story of a man named Kenneth Gladney, a right wing health care activist who decided it would be a bright idea to start a fight with members of the SEIU. Now even though video of the "fight" shows you that it's generous to even claim it reached the level of "scuffle", Gladney is now being carted around in a wheelchair as a shining example of the blah blah blah something something boo health care. Of interest is that at his appearance he was soliciting donations...for his own health care. It seems ole Kenny has just been laid off and lost his health insurance. Ah yes, sweet irony, how I missed your gentile kiss. I wonder how much all the medical procedures involved in fixing someone who shot themselves in the foot cost?

Averting the Worst
The Krugbot is willing to say it: we have averted the Second Great Depression. And what saved us in the end? Big Government, with its plan to bend this country over and shove money up its financial institutions until all was well again. The onslaught of a dystopian future and the hobo barter economy that we had all been preparing for is no more. "Utter catastrophe no longer seems likely." *sigh* There's always next time. Don't throw away those tin cans of beans and deluxe bindles yet, there's probably some new financial crisis cresting over the horizon.

Drug Industry to Run Ads Favoring White House Plan
So what did the White House get us all when they told the pharmaceutical companies that they wouldn't have to make any more concessions than $80 billion over 10 years and in return have no government negotiation of drug prices? $150 million in ads supporting health care. Gee....uh...thanks. So much better than cheaper prescription drugs. I can only hope these ads that drug companies are forced to run are as effective as those "Truth" ads that cigarette companies are forced to run.

Stay classy, Sarah

Alaskan quit machine Sarah Palin, doing her best to spread the new lie of choice for health care opponents:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Ah yes, Obama's Death Panel. A quasi-secret mechanism by which a public insurance option triggers a masked panel of black robed inquisitors who decide whether Down's syndrome children, people who believe in God, and the elderly are either cast into the Pit of Carkoon or ground into a paste and combined with a sort of root marm to provide a new form of sustenance for those of us still suffering under the yoke of......Government health care. If Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich say it's so then I guess it's a new incontrovertible fact of human existence.

I don't know Sarah, what would you say about the level of evil in a system that essentially bankrupts anyone who gets sick, leaves tens of millions uncovered, and leaves 20,000 people a year to die because they can't get health care they need? Oh right, keep it as is. What would you say about the level of evil in someone who would viciously concoct a lie about a "death panel" killing the retarded and elderly when confronted with a public insurance option that is overwhelmingly popular with the public? I think it would be something like "Elect me President in 2012." Screeching that Obama is about to murder your baby and then adding in that White House Jews are behind it, I have to say this is exactly what I'd thought you'd be "adding" to the "conversation" when you said you were quitting.