Krugman Will Believe Anything That Makes Health Care Reform Look Good

This is pretty funny, if mining the Trustees report on Medicare for big laughs is your cup of tea.

Economist and cheerleader Paul Krugman is ever so excited about the projected cost savings in the new report:

In other words, the Medicare actuaries believe that the cost-saving provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference to the long-run budget outlook. Yes, it’s just a projection, and debatable like all projections. And it’s still not enough. But anyone who both claims to be worried about the long-run deficit and was opposed to health reform has some explaining to do. 

Opponents of ObamaCare have some explaining to do?  All they need to do is cite the actuary's opinion, found at the end of the Trustees report.  The comedy gold (my emphasis):

...the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range (because of the strong likelihood that the statutory reductions in price updates for most categories of Medicare provider services will not be viable).

To rephrase slightly the Excited Prof, in other words the Medicare actuaries don't believe that the cost-saving provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference to the long-run budget outlook. 

The actuary presents a much less encouraging but more realistic alternative scenario:

Those "huge" savings don't look so huge anymore.  Ahh, well.

And here is the conclusion of the alternative scenario analysis, for those whose hearts are still fluttering at the huge cost savings attributable to Obama's hard-won reform (my emphasis):

The immediate physician fee reductions required under current law are clearly unworkable and are almost certain to be overridden by Congress. The productivity adjustments will affect other Medicare price levels much more gradually, but there is a strong likelihood that, without very substantial and transformational changes in health care practices, payment rates would become inadequate in the long range. As a result, the projections shown in the 2010 Trustees Report for current law should not be interpreted as our best expectation of actual Medicare financial operations in the future but rather as illustrations of the very favorable impact of permanently slower growth in health care costs, if such slower growth can be achieved. The illustrative alternative projections presented here help to quantify and underscore the likely understatement of the current-law projections shown in the 2010 Trustees Report.

In other words, the actuaries ran the numbers on the Team Obama dream, then ran numbers that are a bit more reality-based.

I KID YOU NOT:  We have yet to see Paul Krugman update or modify his post to note that it is perpendicular to reality.  However, he did have time to post this tutorial a day later:

How To Read A CBO Report

One thing that has been overwhelmingly obvious in the discussion of Paul Ryan’s roadmap is that lots of people who should know better — including, alas, reporters at the Washington Post — don’t know how to read a CBO report. They think you can just skim it and get the gist; and people like Mr. Ryan have taken advantage of that misconception.

What you need to realize is that the CBO is the servant of members of Congress, which means that if a Congressman asks it to analyze a plan under certain assumptions, it will do just that — no matter how unrealistic the assumptions may be. CBO will tell you what’s going on, but it will do so deadpan, doing nothing in terms of emphasis or placement to highlight the funny business.

So how do you spot that funny business? One way is to go through the whole thing with a fine-toothed comb...

Thanks for the tips!  I guess that guidance does not apply to the Medicare Trustees report.  But here is an extended snippet from the section titled "Statement of Actuarial Opinion", which (I'm just thinking out loud here) is the sort of thing one might take a moment to read before assuring the world that "the Medicare actuaries believe that the cost-saving provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference to the long-run budget outlook".

Further, while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook, there is a strong likelihood that certain of these changes will not be viable in the long range. Specifically, the annual price updates for most categories of non-physician health services will be adjusted downward each year by the growth in economy-wide productivity. The best available evidence indicates that most health care providers cannot improve their productivity to this degree—or even approach such a level—as a result of the labor-intensive nature of these services.

Without major changes in health care delivery systems, the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. By the end of the long-range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicaid prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees, and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result. Overriding the productivity adjustments, as Congress has done repeatedly in the case of physician payment rates, would lead to far higher costs for Medicare in the long range than those projected under current law.

For these reasons, the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range (because of the strong likelihood that the statutory reductions in price updates for most categories of Medicare provider services will not be viable). I encourage readers to review the “illustrative alternative” projections that are based on more sustainable assumptions for physician and other Medicare price updates. These projections are available at http://www.cms.gov/ActuarialStudies/Downloads/2010TRAlternativeScenario.pdf.

For heaven's sake - the chief actuary pleaded with readers to ignore the phony numbers based on the statutes and look at realistic projections, but Krugman, the Sherlock Holmes of CBO reports, couldn't figure it out.

LEST YOU DOUBT:  The WaPo was able to crack the Medicare code:

The Medicare program's chief actuary was far more skeptical, contending that the report's predictions "do not represent a reasonable expectation" of its finances. In a two-page letter accompanying the trustees' report, Richard S. Foster, a non-partisan official who has been the Health and Human Services Department's top financial expert on Medicare for 15 years, said he doubted that health-care providers will become as efficient as the new law envisions. As a result, he said, the program is unlikely to slow payments for treating patients as much as the law anticipates and, as a result, will be unable to save as much money.

And the AP:

In what amounted to a dissenting opinion, top Medicare actuary Richard Foster warned that the report's financial projections "do not represent a reasonable expectation" for the hospital fund for America's elderly.

Comments

[matt]

excuse me, but there are @ 8,900,000 dirty old men looking for their Viagra prescriptions and 2,356,000 people looking for their mobility walkers and 13,786,595 persons looking for their sciatica nerve stimulation devices that are going to blow this budget to hell any way you look at it.

[Pofarmer]

Funny thing is, the main folks against Prop C in MO. They were saying they have much to lose if people aren't forced into buying coverage. It looks to me like they have lot's more to lose with the coverage that is going to be forced on them.

[Buford Gooch]

All "savings" in this monstrosity are bunk. Costs will go up at a staggering rate if this thing isn't killed, and services will necessarily go down.

[narciso the harpoon]

Krugman keeps getting tricked by the fake trading desk,

[matt]

I think I just made a leftist acquaintance's head explode with my comments on Krugman's latest idiocy. It makes my heart smile.

The CDC is doing its best to limit the exposure to the virus to Middle of Manhattan and Greenwich Village. The left's latest target is Paul Ryan. I don't know the details of his thought, but i do know that uncertainty, idiocy, and incompetence depress economic growth.

Your serve, Kruggy...

[Melinda Romanoff]

typhuspad is hungry this AM.

[Melinda Romanoff]

This is up first at Memeorandom. Helmets, people.

[Captain Hate]

But anyone who both claims to be worried about the long-run deficit and was opposed to health reform has some explaining to do.

What an arrogant imbecile, hectoring others who've had significantly better track records than he to put it in terms that Paulie the dunce can understand. MIT must be so proud.

[narciso the harpoon]

You're saying it's going to be like that border post on Planet P

[Rick Ballard]

CH,

There is no one else whom I would prefer more as a shining beacon of the creme de la merde of the Ivy League academic political class. I have my fingers crossed that BOzo will bring him on board to replace Romer. Watching progs double down on stupidity is always a delight.

[narciso the harpoon]

All the weirdness as Dave Barry put it, seems to start in south florida;
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100806/ap_on_re_us/us_al_qaida_attack_leader

[Old Lurker]

Always impressed with the collected wisdom at JOM, and how we each take our turn providing same...I wanted to acknowledge CC's brilliance in her 10:47 last night when she observed: "You sad, pathetic, little blowhard..."

Now you must admit, so much truth is rarely uttered in so few words.

[Old Lurker]

Mel, thanks for your shout out last night regarding the latest from Fannie...

And eat your heart out...it was a Sconset Cafe night following G&T's (too many judging by my sluggishness this morning) on the Bluff. As to the market's blue berry muffins, Mrs. L allowed my usual indulgence the first few days, but now I have been placed in rationed mode along with the big cookies and carrot cake. Oh. And the Cape Cod chips.

[Neo]

What does it tell you when Christina Romer, chairwoman of Pres. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, resigns. Rumours are that she didn't have a "direct line" into the President. Guess she isn't a part of the "Harvard Mafia," being from William and Mary & MIT.

[Captain Hate]

**FLEDGLING REPORT**

I figured that I'd seen the last of them and the weather took a turn for the better last evening, so I was in the back yard reading and listening to music (Mulligan Meets Monk, for Mel's benefit) when after a while I heard the familiar double-cheep sound. I walked over to where it seemed to be coming from and there was the little guy, still downy but having slightly more the shape of a regular bird, flitting confidently from branch to branch. Once I sighted him/her I didn't want to scare it so I sat back down and after a while it was gone. I kept looking for it again but never heard it and the only things I saw were the overly ubiquitous sparrows. I don't know that I'll see them again as fledglings because there was no sign of the parents and I'm sure as they grow they'll travel pretty far to find a source of abundent food. Right now the only thing I can hear are the screams of nest-robbing bluejays.

[Rick Ballard]

OT,

Daddy,

You were asking about reasons for increased loads in your freight sector - this piece offers some backup for my observation concerning holding cash rather than inventory. It's part of tuning the supply chain to the "new normal".

[narciso the harpoon]

Krugman, calling Ryan, the "Flim Flam man" it's a wonder his keyboard doesn't explode

[narciso the harpoon]

"For reasons passing understanding' well the same reason people gawk at accidents, I caught
a bit of Maddow, seems contagious I know, and
she was gallivanting on the case of General
Lavelle, and how the new Nixon tapes exonerated him, on the secret bombings in Cambodia, She didn't get the notion, that it was the left's kneejerk attack on the war, that had made him so radioactive, or maybe
she did I'm not a road scholar

[Acai Complete]

How about instead of making health care mandatory and run through the federal government. How about we look at the 10th Amendment "Powers reserved to the States" and let each individual state decide.
Acai Complete

[narciso the harpoon]

so they found a way for Weigel to get back into the Post, via Slate, repeating his mix
of truth, and lies, on a 1/1 ration

[centralcal]

Thanks, O.L. Glad to contribute in any way I can ::lewdly grinning:: h/t DoT

[Captain Hate]

O/T Is there a demonstrably bigger asshole in the world, other than on MSNBC, Shep Smith and David Letterman, than Bill O'Reilly?

[anduril]

Good article: A Hiroshima Apology?
Japan's continued focus on remembering the bomb has been an understandable sore point for its Asian neighbors, who suffered greatly at its hands.

For the first time since the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan 65 years ago, today the U.S. ambassador to Japan will attend the official commemoration ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The U.S. ambassador has always declined the annual invitation, but this year is different. President Barack Obama decided to acknowledge the event with the presence of a high-level dignitary. As State Department spokesman Philip Crowley explained, Ambassador John Roos will be there "to express respect for all the victims of World War II."

Gene Tibbets—the son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima—called the Obama administration's decision "an unsaid apology." Whether or not that's the case, by saying "all the victims" Mr. Crowley raises the specter of moral equivalence, a problem that's grown worse over the years when it comes to judging right and wrong during World War II and throughout history.

...

Since 1945, Japan's narrative has centered almost exclusively on the atomic blasts and its role as victim—with short shrift given to the Japanese invasions of China, Manchuria, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indochina, Burma, New Guinea and, of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese children have learned little about the Rape of Nanking or the fact that as many as 17 million Asians died at the hands of the Japanese in World War II—many in the most brutal ways imaginable.

There is also the inconvenient truth that Japan started the war in the first place. There would have been no war in the Pacific between 1937 and 1945 had Japan stayed home.

Focusing on the atomic bombs paints the Japanese as victims, like other participants in World War II. They were not. The Japanese, like their German allies, were bent on global conquest and the destruction of other people who did not fit their bizarre racial theories. Japan's continued focus on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been an understandable sore point for its Asian neighbors, who suffered greatly at its hands.

[anduril]

Obama">http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/06/obama_and_the_neo-cons_the_odd_alliance_106649.html">Obama & the Neocons: the Odd Alliance

It has become the odd alliance. Neoconservatives are not merely invested in Obama's war. They are loosely invested in Obama's presidency. The weaker the presidential bully pulpit, the weaker this president's ability to wage a war without popular support.

After all, the public is no longer clearly behind this war. The majority of Americans favor a timetable to remove troops from Afghanistan. Only 36 percent of Americans approve of Obama's management of the war. That marks a dozen-point dropoff since February, according to Gallup.

Obama must look rightward to retain any semblance of popular support for the war. A plurality of Democrats, 41 percent, want troops home immediately. By contrast, about six in 10 Republicans and 56 percent of conservatives favor no timetable for withdrawal, according to Rasmussen polling of likely voters.

To neocon thinker Max Boot (like many neocons, he disfavors the designation), the neoconservative position is actually the broad GOP position. "There is an agreement between Obama and conservatives and Republicans on Afghanistan," Boot wrote in an email exchange. "I haven't seen many people," among conservatives that is, "rallying to Ron Paul or Michael Steele."

On the surface, that's true. Only seven House Republican lawmakers voted for a bill restricting funding last month, compared to 93 Democrats. But Republican voters are not as unanimously behind this war as their representatives. In September, as Boot and others signed their names to the presidential letter, conservative and Republican opposition to a timetable was about 10 points higher.

It was Steele's incident, in fact, that revealed the growing fissures among conservatives toward nation-building and Afghanistan. Steele caused a stir for questioning the land war in Afghanistan as well as Obama's leadership. Steele was defended by conservative figures from George Will to Ann Coulter to Pat Buchanan. Neoconservatives these are not.

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

Thanks for that Rick,

Can't get thru the WSJ firewall barrier just now but will try later when I wake up.

Anecdotal FWIW, but we are really booming lately. Just in from an extra (unscheduled) Trans-Pacific flight, with a full load, and my last 12 days over there every leg has been jam-packed. Rumors are that we're trying to scarf up an additional 30 to 40 used Boeing 777's for Freight mod from a well known International Carrier, and rumor control is that we're looking at hiring 400 guys sometime around Christmas or early next year, all of which should be taken with big grains of salt, but nevertheless is unexpectedly good news from where I sit. Will see.

[centralcal]

Captain: thinking . . . thinking . . .

On the tube? Or here?

[PD]

I believe everything that Paul Krugman, former Enron advisor, has to say.

[Captain Hate]

cc, I think it's best to confine it to the tube.

[narciso the harpoon]

Lol, cc, honestly how many logical fallacies can they throw in one essay. Then again he has written for Politico, where he praised
the genius of Obama's foreign policy, Obama
shows he doesn't care about Afghanistan, if
you couldn't figure that from the MacChrystal
fracas, which feels eerily like the Lavelle
incident I related earlier. If the left turn against the good war, and the right find their
support spurned, well of course there will be
slippage

[Melinda Romanoff]

OL-

If this were a phone, I would introduce you to my little friend, Mr. Click. (And promptly hangs up, an old trading floor game. The opposite of "phone artillery".)

[Ranger]

One can only hope that Romer is mad enough at being forced to speak against her own scholarship to justify the porkulus bill that she will unload on these idiots once she is out. A two day resignation would seem to signify she is upset about something.

[daddy the wanna' be heretic]

Since TM's spanking Krugman again, let me post this link to Fred Douglas at American Thinker, who did a really masterful job of arse-kicking TM's favorite whipping boy a few days back.

">http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/paul_krugman_gives_up_1.html"> Paul Krugman Gives Up

And Captain,

Having just spent 2 weeks in hotel rooms with CNN's Anderson Cooper, I think he's right up there in the running with truly World Class anus's. (Or is it ani?)

Latin grammar guys---little help.

[anduril]

Been wondering about that Israeli helicopter crash in Romania? Well, that's part of something very big.

From Global Research: Europe And Beyond: U.S. Consolidates Global Missile Shield

by Rick Rozoff

First and last paragraphs (and two in between) of a long but very interesting article:

On September 17, 2009 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President Barack Obama separately announced plans to shift the emphasis of the global American interceptor missile - so-called missile shield or anti-ballistic missile defense - project from the previous George W. Bush administration's plans to a more mobile, flexible and geographically broader system. [1]

...

By absorbing most all of Eastern Europe into NATO, the U.S. has also provided its Israeli ally access to air bases and training sites of strategic significance for future attacks on neighboring Middle East nations. On July 29 Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i stated, "We fly in Romania so we can act deep inside neighboring Arab states." [22]

The more extended and flexible, the "stronger, smarter and swifter" U.S. missile strategy, then, pursues a trajectory from the Baltic Sea, with Standard Missile-3-equipped Aegis warships also available for service in the Norwegian and Barents Seas, to Southeastern Europe into the South Caucasus, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, covering Russia's western and southern flanks and encroaching upon Iran.

...

For all the talk of protecting the U.S. Mainland from alleged Iranian and North Korean missile threats - accusations that are in the first case absurd and in the second highly improbable - at the end of the day Washington and its military allies around the world are well on the way to encircling Russia, China and Iran with an insurmountable barrier of interceptor missile deployments in conjunction with the militarization of space and the Prompt Global Strike program. Neither those three nations nor any other outside the rapidly expanding U.S. global military nexus will be permitted to retain effective deterrence or retaliation capabilities.

Read the whole thing for lots more details.

[PDinDetroit]

Please consider what you post here on JOM so that it follows the Fair Use Excerpt Rules. See LUN for a write-up.

[Captain Hate]

Ranger, you'd think that some of these ex-acolytes would be concerned with regaining their lost credibility at some point; although a lot depends on how much Al Capone Rahm has on them,

daddy, AC qualifies as does Larry King in the Lifetime Suppository category,

[narciso the harpoon]

Is there something about male Dalton schools grads that makes them insufferable, Yglesias,
Cooper (Vanderbilt), Schlosser, et al.

[anduril]

That depends on how far you want to go in introducing Latin grammar into English. Few people nowadays would recognize any but the nominative forms of Latin nouns--if even that--unless they occurred in some stock (usually legal) phrase, e.g., sine die. Here, technically, anus is being used with a preposition, cum = with. So the Latin form would be anis (only English pronouns have separate oblique forms, not nouns, so there's no English equivalent). But no one will understand that, so you should stick with either real English (assholes) or an Anglicized form like anuses which, incorrect as it may be, will be understood. It's a compromise, but the goal is comprehension.

Over to you narciso.

[Pagar]

More Missile Info. AP says it is not looking good for us.

[Ignatz]

--Having just spent 2 weeks in hotel rooms with CNN's Anderson Cooper...--

Don't you think you ought to rephrase that, laddy? :)

[PDinDetroit]

Quite easy to recognize anduril = a-hole from your avatar.

[Captain Hate]

anduril, Japan is remarkably tone-deaf in their presentation of themselves as victims of WW2 where they were unquestionably the aggressors. Would they really like an open discussion with their Asian neighbors of who did what to whom? The country did well to refuse to be a party to that obfuscation, about which the jugeared dunce gets it exactly wrong,

[Ignatz]

Thanks for that link Pagar. I have feared for quite some time technology would eventually do to the carrier what the carrier did to the battleship. That day may not be here yet but I think it's coming.
BTW never, ever waste more than a second or two in the comments at yahoo; the name is quite fitting.

[anduril]

Cap'n, the point of the article is that the Obama administration, not surprisingly, may be about to--at least implicitly--anoint Japan as a "victim nation." That will undoubtedly upset many Asians, not least, China. As well it should. There's no question in my mind that the incredible brutality and mass killing of civilians was official policy and that the war effort was overwhelmingly supported by the Japanese populace. I see our use of nuclear weapons as justified.

[Extraneus]

anii, I'd say.

[anduril]

Pagar, every weapons system is eventually countered, to some degree. I'm guessing that the Chinese will need a fair number of years to come up with an effective counter to this one (unless a Democratic administration gifts them the technology through a campaign contributing corporation):
Hypersonic Cruise Missile: America's New Global Strike Weapon
The mission: Attack anywhere in the world in less than an hour. But is the Pentagon's bold program a critical new weapon for hitting elusive targets, or a good way to set off a nuclear war?

[Captain Hate]

Yes, I read the dead tree version of it this morning and agree that was the thrust of it.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Yes but Tom you omitted the money quote from that same actuarial opinion: the steps toward cost-savings in ObamaCare are the best move forward in a very long time:

"Although the current-law projections are poor indicators of the likely future financial status of Medicare, they serve the useful purpose of illustrating the exceptional improvement that would result if viable means can be found to permanently slow the growth in health care expenditures. The Affordable Care Act establishes a broad program of research into innovative new delivery and payment models in an effort to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care for Medicare—and, by extension, for the nation as a whole. As the Trustees note, the projections in this year‟s annual report provide an unequivocal incentive to vigorously pursue the development of effective and sustainable new approaches, with the potential to make quality health care much more affordable."

[narciso the harpoon]

Yes the comments on Al Shukrijumah are even more inane, in the linked piece

[Rick Ballard]

"they serve the useful purpose of illustrating the exceptional improvement that would result if viable means can be found to permanently slow the growth in health care expenditures"

Getting Granny in for her Death Panel appointment ASAP ought to do the trick. There's just no sense in letting her poison the atmosphere with all that CO2 any longer.

[narciso the harpoon]

Yes they are called death panels and Berwick will administer them,

[anduril]

Extraneus, that would only be the case if there were an -i- in the root, as in filius, filii (son), and the plural dative/ablative after a preposition is filiis. In this case there is no -i- in the root, thus the dictionary form is: anus, -i = anus, ani (anis).

[Captain Hate]

if viable means can be found to permanently slow the growth in health care expenditures

I've heard that alchemists are getting real close to being able to turn lead to gold,

[anduril]

Our economy is in good hands with Romer gone:

[narciso the harpoon]

Well, Capt, it's a toss up between whether they are using dowsing or reading of entrails
for economic prognosis

[cathyf]

I'll repeat what I posted the other night...

The pre-existing condition exclusions force people to buy health insurance before they get sick. Without the exclusions, there must be some other mechanism(s) to force people to buy their insurance before and between illnesses. Without something that actually works as a substitute, outlawing pre-existing condition exclusions is precisely equivalent to outlawing health insurance. The individual mandate is not the problem. It is either the solution (highly unlikely) or it is completely ineffective and irrelevant (and health insurance is illegal.)

Here's what's going to happen:

1) In a bi-partisan smooch-fest, republicans and democrats will repeal everything in the HCR bill EXCEPT for the outlawing of pre-existing condition exclusions. Or the republicans will do it themselves after they take Congress in January. Or the courts will strike down the individual mandate -- which looks like a joke anyway so it doesn't matter. In other words, health insurance will still be illegal.

2) Once people don't face pre-existing condition concerns, and with the individual mandate either a joke or repealed or struck down by the courts, people will stop buying insurance.

3) The federal government will "bail out" the "insurance" programs by some massive influx of taxpayer money to make up for the premiums that nobody is paying.

There you have it. National Health Care. Treatments and other services all funded completely via tax money. Administered by big fat happy corrupt government contractors formerly known as insurance companies. WE ALREADY HAVE IT. THE LAW AGAINST PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS IS ALREADY PASSED. HEALTH INSURANCE IS ALREADY ILLEGAL.

Once we have nationalized health care, we no longer have any market mechanism for forcing the beneficiaries of new treatments and technologies to pay for them, so there will be drastically reduced new medical innovation -- basically what that teeny tiny percent of fabulously rich people in the world can support, which is nothing like what the vast American middle class and their insurance premiums could have paid for. Vastly less than what American middle class insurance premiums have already paid for.

The only real question is when we get rid of all of those scientists and engineers doing medical research and replace them with political science and *---* studies majors writing documents justifying euthanasia, and actually administering euthanasia, do we actually spend more or less money? Looks to me like Richard S. Foster's call is "more".

[Captain Hate]

LUN for more examples of refusing to enforce the law. I'm sure the troof to pauer MFM will be all over this shortly. Wait. What?

[Extraneus]

Great link to Fred Douglas's AT piece, daddy.

[narciso the harpoon]

That's why the bill has to be 'nuked from orbit only way to be sure' and then salt the earth,

[Danube of Thought]

Minus 12 at Raz today.

Hit, please give us a word count on that asshole. Could be a world indoor record this a.m.

[Danube of Thought]

July u/e steady at 9.5%.

[Chubby]

not to mention Japanese prison camps were horror camps ...

if the idiots who oppose Gitmo apologize to the Japanese, it is just one more item on a very long list of hypocrisies

[narciso the harpoon]

Dan McLaughlin has a very good analysis, on the illogic in Walker's decision, in the LUN

[hit and run]

Word Count as of 10:55 am:

TM: 944

Commenters
anduril: 1,431 (33%)
All others: 2,914 (67%)

[narciso the harpoon]

So that makes the CNN to our Fox

[Porchlight]

OT,

Just got news that Obama is speaking on the UT campus on Monday at 2 pm. It's at the gym which is kitty corner from my building. So, one block away. I don't imagine I'll ever be closer to the guy than that if I can help it.

Gee, can't he fill Darrell K Royal Stadium? It's only another block from there.

All the lefties here will be so thrilled. I think I may have to find a reason to leave early that day and prepare for this lovely event.

[anduril]

hit, is that a record? however, in the interests of fair play, shouldn't you be deducting copied words from all posters? I don't want to take credit for anything I haven't truly earned. I've got my sights on this guy, All others. I'm determined to overtake him/her, but only with quality stuff. Maybe I need to start drawing on Linux stuff again.

Hey, I got my OpenSuse 11.3 DVDs today.

[Danube of Thought]

Waddaya know? Arabs think Obama sucks even more than Americans do.

[narciso the harpoon]

THey really need to go back to TimeSelect, I know it doesn't pay, but it keeps the idiocy from reaching critical mass

[hit and run]

hit, is that a record? however, in the interests of fair play, shouldn't you be deducting copied words from all posters?

I don't know if it's a record,I'll have to contact Guinness. Or drink some.

As far as deducting copied words,the ruling from the Committee on Word Count Accuracy is,no.

But speaking of "in the interest of fair play",I should note that the word count includes the text:

Posted by: [name] | August 06, 2010 at [Time]

Those who post many short comments are proportionally over-represented in the word count,as opposed to those who post fewer comments with many more words.

A comment with a single word,for example,counts as 11 words in the word count (a word is defined as any text with a space before and/or after it.

[TheVIMH: So by not putting spaces after your commas,you're gaming the system on your own behalf,no?]
Fair point,actually.

[rse]

Po-

Maybe he's there to talk about why they filed an amicus brief to support UT's use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions. I think the 5th is about to hear arguments.

Back on topic. The American Health Lawyers put out a daily update of healthcare news stories from the MSM. It's so frightening how they quote the AP, the Post, or NBC as if their coverage is definitive.

They have yet to point out the double counting or the Medicare actuary refusing to sign on to the Trustee's report.

Today they came up with the news flash that insurers are concerned that parents will no longer purchase health insurance for their children until they get sick and that this will upset the business model.

No kidding.

[Ignatz]

I note Krugman, Orszag and Ezra Klein are all making a point of attacking Paul Ryan's roadmap. I guess we can conclude they're quite afraid of it.
And as an aside I suggest TM retitle this thread to "Krugman Will SAY Anything That Makes Healthcare Reorm Look Good".
That he believes the bilge water he pumps is assuming a fact not in evidence.

[hit and run]

A comment with a single word,for example,counts as 11 words in the word count (a word is defined as any text with a space before and/or after it.

Clarification: That's true for a commenter with a single-word name.

narciso the harpoon,for example,would have two extra words in every comment he posts in the word count.

The Committee for Word Count Accuracy acknowledges the imperfect nature of the word count,and has promised to devote 100% of its funding to correct any problems.

[anduril]

First we had this:

America Is at Risk of Boiling Over
And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off.

All things considered, I think I hope so.

Posted by:

---------------------------------------

I recommend this column from Noonan.

Posted by: Danube of Thought | August 05, 2010 at 10:19 PM

Now we have this:

Now this is interesting:

Arab World Down on Obama, Up on Iran's Nukes

The Brookings Institution is releasing a new survey of Arab public opinion today. Some of the findings (pdf):

Early in the Obama Administration, in April and May 2009, 51% of the respondents in the six countries expressed optimism about American policy in the Middle East. In the 2010 poll, only 16% were hopeful, while a majority - 63% - was discouraged.

On Iran's potential nuclear weapons status, results show another dramatic shift in public opinion. While the results vary from country to country, the weighted average across the six countries is telling: in 2009, only 29% of those polled said that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons would be "positive" for the Middle East; in 2010, 57% of those polled indicate that such an outcome would be "positive" for the Middle East.

That's a pretty large swing on the Iran nuke question. Could it be that as more and more Arab leaders come out publicly against Iran's nuclear program, more of their citizens start to support it?

Posted by: anduril | August 05, 2010 at 04:38 PM

-----------------------------------------------

Waddaya know? Arabs think Obama sucks even more than Americans do.

Posted by: Danube of Thought | August 06, 2010 at 11:12 AM

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

And then we have cathyf doing reposts of her own material...let's see, how to describe that?

[anduril]

I say, drink it!

[Janet]

Obama is speaking on the UT campus

Porchlight, you should go! You can ask him the name of his girlfriend at Columbia!
From Dreams...-
"She was white. She had dark hair, and specks of green in her eyes." and "The house was very old, her grandfather's house," Obama writes of his girlfriend's country home. "He had inherited it from his grandfather."

[Jim Ryan]

When I plow through the verbiage fields, the only indication of this is the shields' rumbling for a while. Then, the silence returns, the dials having registered nothing at all.

[Danube of Thought]

That kind of thing will happen when no one reads your posts. (I read this one because I saw my illustrious name in pretty bold type and could not resist. It looks great that way!)

[narciso the harpoon]

Think of it, as the Thallosian buzz, with the killfile, Jim

[narciso the harpoon]

To up the ante, a little:

Judge Walker conceded the obvious: "The evidence at trial shows that marriage in the United States traditionally has not been open to same-sex couples." (p.112). He nonetheless insisted that Prop 8 infringed the "fundamental right to marry," (p. 117) claiming that "Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as 'the right to same-sex marriage' would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy - namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages." (p. 114). This is classic question-begging, as the entire point of Prop 8 is to define what is and is not marriage, and he's just admitted that same-sex relationships have traditionally not been defined as marriage

[rse]

OT-

Is anyone else looking forward to Stanley Kurtz's Radical-in-Chief in October?

LUN for more previews.

I have a great deal of respect for his work in education.

"Obama's deceptive handling of his past undermines democracy".

Looks like it comes out about 2 weeks before the election.

[Janet]

Or maybe Obama is going to UT to help himself understand why UT is getting rid of the KKK member's name on a building while he just eulogized and praised another former member of the KKK???

[peter]

How can I make focaccia on my charcoal grill without burning the bottom?

(cooking threads always seem to scare away the trolls and windbags)

[cathyf]

Today they came up with the news flash that insurers are concerned that parents will no longer purchase health insurance for their children until they get sick and that this will upset the business model.

Don't expect the "insurers" to say this very often or very loudly. Now that insurance is illegal, the companies that used to sell insurance and pay health bills as agents of their policyholders need to stay quiet and suck up to their new masters in their new role, which is only to pay bills as agents of the politicians.

[Jim Ryan]

Narc, I will always think of it as the Narcisolator!

In the news:
With the district in a financial crisis and hundreds of its members facing layoffs, the Milwaukee teachers union is taking a peculiar stand: fighting to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.

"A teacher teaches several hours a day for a lot of the year. You'd think he'd be able to get some $%@*#. The American taxpayer owes him that. It's a health issue. If I can't %$#@, I'm not healthy," union member and English teacher Jeff Smith commented.

But lawyers for the school board say the drugs ... are used primarily for recreational sex...

Okay, so I added some oniony stuff to it.

[Tom Bowler]

I wonder if we could start a movement to get Proposition Cs on ballots across the nation for the November mid-terms. It would be a helpful reminder to voters as they decide who ought to go to congress.

[Pagar]

rse,Can't wait to read Radical-in Chief.

[Porchlight]

while he just eulogized and praised another former member of the KKK???

Wouldn't it be great if he got a question like that? Of course he would never allow such a question.

I can't bring myself to go. I can't even listen to tiny snippets of the guy on the radio.

[narciso the harpoon]

"It's dead Jim" with regards to the Narcisolator for me, here's some stuff I haven't eaten in a while, I guess we'd have to put in that ephemeral cookbook that never
get written

[Captain Hate]

I don't blame you Porch; I can't stand to see or hear him on television or radio so in person can only be worse since you don't have immediate recourse to an "OFF" switch.

[Danube of Thought]

This new bailout? It's to help troubled states who would otherwise have to lay off teachers, firemen and cops, right?

Has anyone seen, anywhere, any curiosity about why those are the very first areas where these irresponsible states have to make cuts? I think it's more of the usual bullshit, and I sure hope somebody brings it up in the House. But I'm not optimistic.

[Extraneus]

Certain commenters just a bore?
Slogging past them such a chore?
Can't read their dreck without a yawn?
And maybe you just want 'em gone?

narciso-lator
narciso-lator
narciso-lator
narciso-LA-TOR

Find a voice that just offends?
Or blows so hard the thread descends
A troll whose pale is oft beyond
And maybe you just want 'em gone?

narciso-lator
narciso-lator
narciso-lator
narciso-LA-TOR

[narciso the harpoon]

Beck was on that Yesterday, pointing out how
there's still something north of 400 billion
in the stimulus funds, how they won't touch
the opera house, or the arts center, in many
city budgets, Monty Python doesn't even qualify as documentary anymore, much less
satire

[Chubby]

note they are all union bailouts

there's a lesson in Governor Christie vs the teachers union

[Porchlight]

Has anyone seen, anywhere, any curiosity about why those are the very first areas where these irresponsible states have to make cuts?

Liberals never question this ancient gambit. Just like when the public school asks for $50 from every student every year for school supplies, they just accept it and never ask to see a budget. Then they put that bumpersticker on their car about bake sales and the Pentagon, you know the one.

[narciso the harpoon]

Biden is down here almost every month, he probably doesn't know why he's here yet more cops, more schoolteachers, have been dismissed, despite the stimulus which was supposed to forestall this

[Captain Hate]

Has anyone seen, anywhere, any curiosity about why those are the very first areas where these irresponsible states have to make cuts?

Only in places like the Weekly Standard where they've preaching to the congregation. It's certainly getting noticed by individuals I interact with including a significant number of libs.

[Ignatz]

--This new bailout? It's to help troubled states who would otherwise have to lay off teachers, firemen and cops, right?--

California:
Worst off of any of the states, right? In a crisis, right? Made draconian cuts last year, right?
After those supposedly horrendous cuts endured by the public sector in CA, we had MORE state employees on the payroll at the end of 2009 than we did at the end of 2008.
They make me sick.

[Danube of Thought]

If we don't get something close to a revolution this November, we never will.

[Chubby]

Ignatz: ((After those supposedly horrendous cuts endured by the public sector in CA, we had MORE state employees on the payroll at the end of 2009 than we did at the end of 2008.))

plus the private sector employees who are paying for it all earn on average less than public sector employees and have far fewer benefits and pensions

I think some bluffs need to be called

[Captain Hate]

LUN for the best bit of NFL news this side of Roger Goodell and Brett Favre's lifeless bodies found, preferably in a passionate embrace.