2016 archive
Only In It for the Money 0
Wendell Potter doesn’t try to hide his disgust at Aetna’s antics.
If that means making it more difficult for low- and middle-income Americans to get the medical care they need, so be it. “Too bad, so sad,” to use a phrase one of my former colleagues used to say when people complained about the way health insurers routinely screw their customers.
(snip)
In fact, it is Aetna’s government business (Medicare and Medicaid–ed.) that is the only segment that is growing. Aetna and most of the other for-profit insurers have been losing private-paying customers on a regular basis for some time. But not to worry. As long as Uncle Sam has the Medicare and Medicaid faucets wide open and flowing straight into the insurers’ bank accounts, they couldn’t care less.
Read the rest.
You Too Can Be on Television! 0
At Science 2.0, Edzard Ernst explains how to become a charlatan.
No Place To Hide 0
If you use Windows, you should read what the Electronic Freedom Foundation has to say about Windows 10 and privacy (more accurately, perhaps, Windows 10 or privacy). Here’s a tidbit:
(snip)
Microsoft has tried to explain this lack of choice by saying that Windows Update won’t function properly on copies of the operating system with telemetry reporting turned to its lowest level. In other words, Microsoft is claiming that giving ordinary users more privacy by letting them turn telemetry reporting down to its lowest level would risk their security since they would no longer get security updates1. (Notably, this is not something many articles about Windows 10 have touched on.)
But this is a false choice that is entirely of Microsoft’s own creation.
Follow the link for the complete article. Click the EFF link on the sidebar to learn more about the EFF.
“Paranoia Strikes Deep” 0
Shorter Lewis Beale (something I’ve said myself on several occasions): Richard Hofstadter was right.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is a family value.
Lebron-Rivera says his wife had his gun when he got out of the shower, and he did not recall inserting a magazine before they started playing with it. Officers found Rodriguez dead at the scene.
The Reno Speech 0
Here is Hillary Clinton’s Reno speech in which she sliced and diced Donald Trump. You can read a transcript at TPM.
Via Delaware Liberal.
There Are None So Blind as Those Who Will Not Look 0
Jodi Melamed writes in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel specifically about recent events in Milwaukee, but her column speak of any U. S. jurisdiction. A nugget:
Why is it so hard for white Milwaukeeans (and white people in general) to recognize segregation, mass incarceration, failing schools and joblessness as the inevitable outcome of our decisions? How can we fail to see that such “problems” will inevitably come to pass when we remove ourselves and our tax dollars to white enclaves, decide to foster a prison industry rather than demand government responsibility for job creation, and stop caring about “other” people’s children?
Picklegate 0
This one’s a dilly. Jimmy Kimmel slices to the root clausens. You might say he knows the sour, as he’s climbed the Mt. Olive. His response is vlassic.
Watch him gherkin Alex Jones around.
Elsewhere, Bob and Chez earn their bread and butter.
Video via Raw Story.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Play with politeness.
A 6-year-old child is expected to recover after accidentally shooting himself Thursday morning.
The child was playing with a firearm in a Lawrence residence in the 500 block of Wisconsin Street, when the weapon discharged, shooting him in the foot at 7:45 a.m.
The gunnularity continues to draw nigh: Yet another gun “discharges” itself all on its ownsome . . . .
Rebranding. It’s a Thing. 0
There is nothing new or even alternative about the “alt-right.”
It’s the same old right, only with new sheets.