Where Are My Keys?

Great piece by Olbermann..

Yes, you read that correctly.

While my disdain for Olbermann's bloviating style and general blowhardiness is well known around these parts, it's tough to disagree with him on this:

 

The NFL knew concussions were an issue, they downplayed them, and now they are being forced to pay up.  I fear that this "win" by the players is simply the beginning of the end-once you open up the wallet, and admit culpability (to any degree), others will line up and try to feed at the trough.

Olbermann does a nice job taking a reporter to task for writing a pretty shitty column.

Well done, Keith.

Remember how MMGW was going to cause more hurricanes?

What does it then mean when there were no Atlantic hurricanes by August for the first time in 11 years?

August is about to end without an Atlantic hurricane for the first time since 2002, calling into question predictions of a more active storm season than normal.

Six tropical systems have formed in the Atlantic since the season began June 1 and none of them has grown to hurricane strength with winds of at least 74 miles (120 kilometers) per hour. Accumulated cyclone energy in the Atlantic, a measure of tropical power, is about 30 percent of where it normally would be, said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of Colorado State University’s seasonal hurricane forecasts.

“At this point, I doubt that a super-active hurricane season will happen,” Klotzbach said in an e-mail yesterday.

...

Seasonal predictions were for an above-normal season. The 30-year average is for 12 storms with winds of at least 39 miles per hour, the threshold at which they are named. Nineteen such systems formed in each of the last three years.

Colorado State, which pioneered seasonal forecasts, retreated slightly on its outlook in an early August update, calling for 18 named storms. Eight should be hurricanes and three of them major hurricanes, a reduction of one at each level, the researchers said.

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration also kept its call for an above-average season in an Aug. 8 outlook for 13 to 19 named storms, six to nine hurricanes and three to five major systems.

“If you don’t get your first hurricane by or before August, it’s extremely difficult to get those high storm counts, especially for hurricanes and major hurricanes,” said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. “Amazing we’re on the 90th day of the hurricane season and no hurricanes yet.”

Settled science.

That's just going too far..

I'm guessing that when you decide to become a cop, you do it knowing that people are going to spit at you, and maybe even call you names.  This is just going too far:

Nava, 33, was discovered stumbling down a Spartanburg road, where she was “nearly hit several times” as she weaved in and out of traffic. After being handcuffed, Nava, pictured at right, struggled with deputies as they attempted to stuff her into a squad car.

According to a Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office report, Nava screamed and shouted obscenities and she continued to resist getting into the cruiser. After spitting at Deputy Michael Walsh, Nava allegedly made matters even worse. 

“Fuck you, Justin Bieber,” she bellowed at the cop.

Walsh, surely offended by the comparison, retrieved a “spit hood” and placed it over Nava’s head (she was then transported to the county jail). Bond has not been set for Nava, who was charged with disorderly conduct and throwing bodily fluids.

For those readers wondering if the officer in question resembles Bieber, here's a statement from his department:

...a sheriff’s spokesperson noted that Walsh “does not bear any physical resemblance" to the 19-year-old Bieber, adding that Nava’s comparison was likely “just another indicator of how intoxicated” she was.

Call me "Bieber", and you might get the Taser..

3,287 days..

  

That's how much time has passed since the fetching Mrs. P and I said "I do" in beautiful Crested Butte, CO.

She is as gorgeous now as she was 9 years ago, when we got married in a small ceremony, witnessed by friends and family.

I love her more and more each day, and am so blessed to have her as my partner on this journey.

Thank you baby, for 9 wonderful years..

Act like you've been there...

Dude is poised to win the Ironman 70.3 race in Brazil, decides to slow to a walk near the finish, and almost blows the victory.  Kudos to the guy who wound up in second.  He initially sees a chance to win, sprints, and then slows up when he realizes the guy in front of him is being a douche, and allows him to win:

 

Classy move by the guy who came in second.  The guy who won?  Do your celebrating after you cross the finish line next time..

Why I love the internet, part 34,998,553..

 

Electioneering at its finest..

I'm sure the Left would have had no problem with taxpayer money going towards cash prizes to promote the US going into Iraq, right?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will award $30,000 in taxpayer-funded cash prizes for a video contest designed to promote Obamacare among young people, according to an HHS spokesperson.

...

HHS and Young Invincibles are allowing individuals to create videos in three different categories.

“The ‘You Are Not Invincible’ theme lets you to show off your creative and wacky side. Videos should be a short skit that shows a time when a young person would need health insurance. Accidents happen. Just ask Scarlet,” says the Young Invincibles website under a short video of a female falling off of a table.

“I can only hope she had health insurance after this infamous wipeout. Entrants are encouraged to go big but stay safe!”

The next theme is “perform a song” about “health insurance or even create the next viral parody.”

The website provides the infamous Will Ferrell Saturday Night Live cowbell skit as an example to follow.

Animation is the third category.

“If you have serious computer animation skills, you could create an engaging, informative video about critical facts of Obamacare,” says the Young Invincibles website.

The deadline for submissions is September 23, 2013. The health insurance marketplace exchanges are set to open nationally on Oct 1. The public will be able to vote for their favorite videos between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15.

The Toddfather riding off in the sunset..

We have certainly enjoyed watching Todd Helton play here in the Mile High City, and Coors Field won't be the same once he hangs up his eye black.  I don't think he makes it into the Hall of Fame-he's got the stigma of playing his entire career here in the thin air, and while he's always been in the conversation of great hitters of his era, he's never had one of "those" seasons that made folks outside of our Market sit up and take notice.  He's done some remarkable things, but hasn't done them with enough fanfare to launch him to the next level:

Craig Wright, a statistician, author and Bill James disciple who ranks players according to a measure called Win Shares Above Replacement Level, ranks Helton as the 27th-best first baseman of all time. He regards Fred McGriff, Will Clark, Norm Cash, Carlos Delgado and John Olerud as more worthy Hall of Fame candidates who will most likely never get to Cooperstown.

"Helton has had a fine career and been a great ballplayer, but clearly not great enough for the Hall of Fame unless the voters are snowed by the impact of his home park," Wright said in an email to ESPN.com.

Still, if you judge a man by the company he keeps, Helton resides on a higher plane. In 2000, he joined Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Greenberg as the only players in history to record at least 200 hits, 40 home runs, 100 runs, 100 RBIs, 100 extra-base hits and 100 walks in a season. Over the past 50 seasons, only Wade Boggs, Rod Carew and Tony Gwynnreached 2,000 hits in fewer at-bats than Helton required. And the list goes on.

We'll savor the rest of his at-bats this season, keep our fingers crossed for hit number 2500, and hope that Colorado fans get one more season with #17 on first base.

My favorite image of Todd is one of him completeing the play at first to put the Rockies into the World Series:

Can't get much better than that for the face of your franchise..

"No one who favors it, wants to be bound by it"..

Steyn is spot on here:

On Wednesday, the Nevada AFL-CIO passed a resolution declaring that “the unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week.” That’s quite an accomplishment for a “health” “care” “reform” law. But the poor old union heavies who so supported Obamacare are now reduced to bleating that they should be entitled to the same opt-outs secured by big business and congressional staffers. It’s a very strange law whose only defining characteristic is that no one who favors it wants to be bound by it.

Meanwhile, on the very same day as the AFL-CIO was predicting the death of the 40-hour week, the University of Virginia announced plans to boot working spouses off its health plan beginning January 1 because the Affordable Care Act has made it unaffordable: It’s projected to add $7.3 million dollars to the university’s bill in 2014 alone.

...

But it also has a broader destabilizing effect: As I noted a couple of weeks ago, at the low end, about 40 percent of Americans now do minimal-skilled service jobs — the ones that, in the wake of Obamacare, are becoming neither full-time nor part-time but kinda-sorta two-thirds-time in order not to impose health-insurance obligations on the employer. In the middle, a similar number of Americans are diverted into those paper-shuffling jobs that do provide health benefits — say, in the “human resources” department of the bureaucracy; the kind of job in which you pass the time calling someone in Idaho to say you need them to fill in a W-9 before you can send them a 1099, or vice versa. And, at the top end, privileged Americans spend six-figure sums acquiring college degrees that admit them to an homogenized elite that tells itself Obamacare makes perfect sense for everyone except them.

Read the whole thing.

Kinda feels like it was designed to fail, doesn't it?

Things aren't happening the way we were told they would:

Even a well-designed law can have unintended effects that worsen the problems it was meant to solve—and a slipshod law like Obamacare threatens to cause serious damage. UPS, for instance, has decided to stop offering insurance to employee spouses who can get insurance from their own employer. The company cites the new costs imposed by Obamacare, including:

-Coverage for dependent children up to age; regardless of whether they are enrolled in school, are married, or (beginning 2014) have coverage available from their own employer;

-Removal of lifetime and annual benefit limits;

-Fees for comparative effectiveness research; and

-Fees to help fund the public exchanges.

UVA officials announced a similar policy yesterday, also referencing the costs Obamacare will add to the university’s health care budget.

This may not seem like a big deal—either way, the spouses will be insured—but it points to some potential problems. For now, UPS and other companies are continuing to cover unemployed spouses, but given their anxiety about steep costs in the era of Obamacare, they could concievably soon decide to exclude them.

This could put more pressure on the exchanges, ramping up the number of older people receiving subsidized plans in the individual market. But what the exchanges need to work is more “young invincibles”, not more middle-aged spouses kicked off employee plans. And here the incentives seem to be working the opposite way. Wonkblog reports that 7.8 million young adults gained insurance in the last three years because of Obamacare’s provision allowing them to stay on their parents’ plan until they’re 26. In other words, as Obamacare’s costs force the exchanges’ pool to age, another provision removes more young people from the individual market by letting them stay on their parents’ insurance.

The only way Obamacare can sustain itself is if healthy young folks (who won't use the benefits) sign up in large numbers.

They aren't. 

Instead, more middle-aged, likely-to-use-benefits folks are being dumped into the exchanges (off their current plans), which will cause an even bigger strain on the system, causing a more rapid implosion of costs.

Social Security was initially designed to work, by having a large pool of contributors paying for a smaller pool of users.  Obamacare was supposed to work in the same fashion.  We are already seeing signs it isn't.

It's too bad the Left rammed this through Congress without reading the bill, or discussing different scenarios of what might happen.  It's also too bad that the American voters were warned of this by the Right, but chose to ignore those warnings.

Now we all pay the price.