The Atheist Communist Caliphate Made Flesh, Spread the Clusterfuck Around Thread

[Tank]

Another good one:

"All of the legal defense funds out there-- they're looking for people with court of appeals experience. Because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law. [Laughs] I know. I know. [Laughter] I'm not promoting it, I'm not advocating it, I'm...y'know."

Source: https://childedlaw.org/webcast/?match=Sonia+Sotomayor (43-minute mark)

As politically incorrect as that statement might be to say out loud, it is pretty much 100% correct.  The court of appeals rules on the legality of thousands of cases every year (as opposed to the less than 100 usually seen by the Supreme Court), thereby essentially either codifying, clarifying or destroying thousands of laws in the process.  The laws of this country are almost exclusively under the control of the court of appeals. 

The only real response to this quote should be "no shit." 

Somewhat relatedly... What a fucking clueless asshole.

(Fair warning: internets inside baseball ahead.)

[Tank]

If you're a simple caveman like me and don't understand why healthcare has gotten so goddamn expensive to the point that it'll cripple our economy in a few years, this is a good start:

Somewhere in the United States at this moment, a patient with chest pain, or a tumor, or a cough is seeing a doctor. And the damning question we have to ask is whether the doctor is set up to meet the needs of the patient, first and foremost, or to maximize revenue.

There is no insurance system that will make the two aims match perfectly. But having a system that does so much to misalign them has proved disastrous. As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay them as individuals, rather than as members of a team working together for their patients.

Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coördination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later?

When it comes to making care better and cheaper, changing who pays the doctor will make no more difference than changing who pays the electrician. The lesson of the high-quality, low-cost communities is that someone has to be accountable for the totality of care.

I finally read this whole article.

It's worth your time.

The upshot seems to be a suggestion by Gawande that lower costs and better patient care are not in fact diametrically opposed, but rather go hand in hand, regardless of who's ultimately footing the bill.

[RV]

Another deadly terrorist returns to the battlefield:

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Boumediene said the interrogators at Gitmo never once asked him about this alleged plot, which he denied playing any part it.

"I'm a normal man," said Boumediene, who at the time of his arrest worked for the Red Crescent, providing help to orphans and others in need. "I'm not a terrorist."

He was arrested by Bosnian police in October 2001 and charged with conspiring to blow up the U.S. and British Embassies. He called the charges false and ludicrous.

"They search my car, my office, nothing. Cell phone, nothing. Nothing. Nothing," he said.

The charges were dropped, and the Bosnian courts ordered him and five others freed. But under pressure from the Bush administration, the Bosnian government handed him over to the U.S. military.

Boumediene said he understands, to a degree, how the attacks of Sept. 11 prompted strong reactions from the U.S. government.

"The first month, okay, no problem, the building, the 11 of September, the people, they are scared, but not 7 years. They can know whose innocent, who's not innocent, who's terrorist, who's not terrorist," he said.

"I give you 2 years, no problem, but not 7 years."

[MikeC]

Well i am just glad we passed the stimulus package so unemployment would top off at 8% and not hit 9.4%......oh wait....

[Slaky]

Well I'm glad if you're glad, big guy.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Fascinating stuff from MSNBC:

Obama: We are the only state with a negative tax rate, where we don't have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that.

Olbermann: And it went up higher since you've been the senator and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check.

Obama: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived.
-------------
I made a few mistakes in the transcription.  Where it says "senator" read "governor."  Where it says "Olbermann" read "Hannity."  Where it says "MSNBC" read "Fox."  And where it says "Obama" read "Palin."

Nice to see Sarah is the Redistributor-in-Chief of her socialist state.

[Philberto]

Well i am just glad we passed the stimulus package so unemployment would top off at 8% and not hit 9.4%......oh wait....

I ain't gonna pay a dime in income taxes this year thanks to that dude.. Actually, the government's going to pay me. This is a good year. I just wish I could tell my company to stop withholding from my checks.

[Quality Start Machine]

Well i am just glad we passed the stimulus package so unemployment would top off at 8% and not hit 9.4%......oh wait....

Did it ever occur to you that your graph illustrates just how fucked up the previous Administration left the country, that even more drastic measures need to be taken to try and reverse the damage?


...oh, wait...

[Gil Gunderson]

Fascinating stuff from MSNBC:

Obama: We are the only state with a negative tax rate, where we don't have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that.

Olbermann: And it went up higher since you've been the senator and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check.

Obama: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived.
-------------
I made a few mistakes in the transcription.  Where it says "senator" read "governor."  Where it says "Olbermann" read "Hannity."  Where it says "MSNBC" read "Fox."  And where it says "Obama" read "Palin."

Nice to see Sarah is the Redistributor-in-Chief of her socialist state.

I could not care less about Sarah Palin.

[Quality Start Machine]

Fascinating stuff from MSNBC:

Obama: We are the only state with a negative tax rate, where we don't have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that.

Olbermann: And it went up higher since you've been the senator and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check.

Obama: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived.
-------------
I made a few mistakes in the transcription.  Where it says "senator" read "governor."  Where it says "Olbermann" read "Hannity."  Where it says "MSNBC" read "Fox."  And where it says "Obama" read "Palin."

Nice to see Sarah is the Redistributor-in-Chief of her socialist state.

I could not care less about Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin is effective as in indicator only...if she gets the nomination in 2012, it means either the GOP has thrown in the towel, or they haven't learned a damn thing.

[Gil Gunderson]

Fascinating stuff from MSNBC:

Obama: We are the only state with a negative tax rate, where we don't have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that.

Olbermann: And it went up higher since you've been the senator and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check.

Obama: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived.
-------------
I made a few mistakes in the transcription.  Where it says "senator" read "governor."  Where it says "Olbermann" read "Hannity."  Where it says "MSNBC" read "Fox."  And where it says "Obama" read "Palin."

Nice to see Sarah is the Redistributor-in-Chief of her socialist state.

I could not care less about Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin is effective as in indicator only...if she gets the nomination in 2012, it means either the GOP has thrown in the towel, or they haven't learned a damn thing.

Let her get it in 2012 and lose.  I want a clean slate for the GOP in 2016 when my guy JON HUNTSMAN wins the White House.

PS - Have I said too much about my man-crush on Hunstman, which, by the way, he's totally cool with?

[Eli]

Did it ever occur to you that your graph illustrates just how fucked up the previous Administration left the country, that even more drastic measures need to be taken to try and reverse the damage?

I saw your post, then saw MikeC was online.  I became hopeful that maybe he'd reply to your post, so I did a quick check of how he responded:



Perfect.

[MAD]

Did it ever occur to you that your graph illustrates just how fucked up the previous Administration left the country, that even more drastic measures need to be taken to try and reverse the damage?

I saw your post, then saw MikeC was online.  I became hopeful that maybe he'd reply to your post, so I did a quick check of how he responded:



Perfect.

Perhaps he came to copy Fork's words, then ran off to Malkin's blog and pasted them into a search engine.

[Kermit, B.]

Did it ever occur to you that your graph illustrates just how fucked up the previous Administration left the country, that even more drastic measures need to be taken to try and reverse the damage?

I saw your post, then saw MikeC was online.  I became hopeful that maybe he'd reply to your post, so I did a quick check of how he responded:



Perfect.

Posting in the Rock Band thread.  That is SO me.

[Gil Gunderson]

Did it ever occur to you that your graph illustrates just how fucked up the previous Administration left the country, that even more drastic measures need to be taken to try and reverse the damage?

I saw your post, then saw MikeC was online.  I became hopeful that maybe he'd reply to your post, so I did a quick check of how he responded:



Perfect.

Posting in the Rock Band thread.  That is SO me.

NHERD!!