Racism ended yesterday, and Amazon will drone in your purchases soon. I don’t know how things could get much better. I got nothing, except for Kathleen Geier’s round up of 10 vicious negative reviews. Open thread.
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Jewish Steel
That racism was really starting to give me the pip! I’m glad it’s over
rikyrah
Peggy Noonan Reveals the Republicans’ ObamaCare Alternative: Nothing
By: Sarah Jones
Sunday, December, 1st, 2013, 5:37 pm
I’ve been saying for weeks now that Republicans, so desperate to destroy Obama’s biggest accomplishment that they can’t stop tearing their own ideas apart, are accidentally making a case for single payer.
Peggy Noonan took that to the next level today on ABC’s This Week, as she bypassed single payer to land back at the GOP’s real plan: Do nothing. Repeal or delay and do nothing.
Peggy Noonan said on This Week, “I think the Obamacare problem is two-tier. One is the real problem with the website that has been fascinating and captivating people for two months. Beyond that, there is the deeper problem of America discovering of what is in the program itself, people losing coverage, the doctor situation — you can’t keep them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
Oh, yes, suddenly losing coverage is a bad thing that the GOP cares about! Hop on this bus before it takes off and rolls right over you — and it will. And I guess it shouldn’t be a shock that the only people the GOP cares about are those who already had insurance and now might have to switch their doctors. Oh, the inhumanity… It’s truly pulling at the 47%’s heartstrings. To think a few 5% of the population might have to meet a new doctor — it’s almost like dying from lack of health insurance.
“Et cetera.” This means that there is so much to complain about but Noonan figures you already know what’s wrong with Obamacare. “Et cetera.”
On top of “et cetera”, there’s this thing that hasn’t happened yet but might! Hang on to your outrage, America — “Plus, there’s something new, orphaned policies, in which people go on to the site, think they have registered and find out in January that they haven’t.”
Because of all of that, you might as well not give health insurance to any of the 47 million who don’t have it for a year. Let them die because they might not get insurance in January, “So it’s so problematic that I have said since October, this thing should just be delayed one year.”
Stephanopoulos replied, “And Peggy Noonan, one of the things you do see, even more Republican governs signing up accepting the program especially on Medicaid. We just saw Michigan signing up on top of Ohio and New Jersey, some big states there.”
Noonan goes in for the anti government push, but gets hung up on government programs that she apparently loves more than ObamaCare, “But let me say something so old-fashioned, I always thought one of the central mistakes here was obsessing on the issue of insurance and not obsessing on the issue of health care and making sure everybody who gets into an accident, who has some trouble, who doesn’t have money, can get treated in America.”
Say what? So, Peggy wants people to get treatment without insurance – no matter if they have money or not. Great idea!
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/12/01/peggy-noonan-aca-problematic-expand-medicare.html
NonyNony
I’m assuming that Bezos’s master plan here is for these drones to operate in Canada and/or Europe. There are far – FAR – too many guns in this country to make this viable as anything other than a new vector to steal crap. Add into the mix an unhealthy paranoia about black helicopters and I’d be surprised if this worked, well, anywhere.
But it does fit with Bezos’s overall hatred of relying on government services to make his business model work. The existence of the Post Office is the only thing that makes Amazon’s core business model of being a 21st century Sears catalog work at all. He’s trying to figure out a way around it without employing more people, so I guess he’s trying to shift his reliance on government services away from the Post Office and onto the police forces and the FAA?
rikyrah
David Gregory Hits a New Low By Shilling For Delaying the Individual Mandate
By: Jason Easley
Sunday, December, 1st, 2013, 7:46 pm
David Gregory took Meet The Press to an even lower low by ignoring all reality about the ACA website and shilling for a delay in the individual mandate.
Gregory’s question was absolute B.S. The website is already fixed, but he couldn’t accept that or else it would destroy his whole premise for asking if the individual mandate should be delayed. Why would the individual mandate need to be delayed if the website is working?
David Gregory was twisting himself into knots trying to set up the softball question on the individual mandate question for Republican Rep. Mike Rogers. This is a behavior that has been visible across the media today. ABC News was in denial, and basically accusing the White House of lying about the status of the website. CNN played dumb about the improvements to the website in order to question President Obama’s competence. In general, the media refuses to believe that a website on the Internet is capable of being repaired.
News watchers have come to expect nothing less than disinterested regurgitation of Republican talking points from David Gregory. However, today’s break from reality was big even by his own standards. None of this is ever a surprise, because David Gregory is a man who treats Meet The Press like he would rather be hosting the Today show.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/12/01/david-gregory-hits-shilling-delaying-individual-mandate.html
rikyrah
RNC reflects on ‘ending racism’
12/02/13 09:19 AM
By Steve Benen
For all of its many benefits, Twitter’s brevity can cause trouble for plenty of political voices. Yesterday, for example, the Republican National Committee decided to honor the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ “bold stand,” which seemed like a perfectly nice gesture. The RNC added, however, that Parks played a role “in ending racism.”
Not surprisingly, the message was not well received. Despite what you may have heard from Supreme Court conservatives in the Voting Rights Act case, racism hasn’t ended, it certainly wasn’t vanquished on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rnc-reflects-ending-racism
Patricia Kayden
sparrow
Thank you for that awesome link to Washington Monthly. I’m considering subscribing now, heh.
rikyrah
Dems should not hesitate to further streamline the Senate rulebook
By Ryan Cooper
November 29 at 2:18 pm
With the filibuster gone, progressives have been arguing that the time is ripe for a burst of quick confirmation hearings to fill up empty slots in the executive branch and the federal judiciary. But there are more antiquated Senate traditions standing in the way of that. The latest practice to come into focus now that the filibuster is gone is the “blue slip” rule, which says that when a federal judgeship opens in a particular state, both home state senators have to sign off on the appointment before it can move forward.
Senate Democrats should not hesitate to continue to streamline the Senate’s rulebook if Republicans continue to use procedural tricks to block the nomination process. Republicans will not be so generous when the tables are turned.
This excellent Charlie Savage article gives us the upshot:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/11/29/dems-should-not-hesitate-to-further-streamline-the-senate-rulebook/
Patricia Kayden
@NonyNony: I was wondering what was wrong with delivery by UPS or FedEx too. For some reason, I can picture drones slamming into windows or hitting people in the head. Doesn’t sound like a good idea.
rikyrah
The Morning Plum: Obamacare gets another chance
By Greg Sargent
December 2 at 9:06 am
The Obama administration announced over the weekend that it had met its goals for fixing the problems plaguing the federal website for the “vast majority” of users, claiming the site is functioning more than 90 percent of the time, though many problems (particularly at the back end) remain.
If this bears out, could it shift a political situation that is working heavily against the law and Democrats?
One bright spot: Around 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through the federal website in November, a senior administration official tells me, confirming a figure that was first reported by Bloomberg’s Julianna Goldman. As Goldman notes, this is still far short of the administration’s goal, but it is four times as many as in October, suggesting two things: A steady increase in signups, and a potential sign that “consumers are keeping an open mind” about the law, despite the technical failures.
The news of improvements has not put the slightest dent in the absolute certainty among Republicans that its epic collapse is underway. GOP Rep. Tom Cole flatly predicted that the law’s future would be an “unmitigated disaster for the president,” while Senator Bob Corker suggested the law can’t be fixed.
The truth is that it’s still too early to say whether the fixes will translate into long term success — because what really matters is whether the law works over time, which means enough people successfully enrolling in the right demographic mix for the exchanges to function properly. Most signs suggest demand is there. But as Jonathan Cohn and Brian Beutler detail, the real test will be how the website performs if and when we see enrollment surges this month and before the March 31st deadline, and what the enrollment mix looks like later next year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/12/02/the-morning-plum-obamacare-gets-another-chance/
SiubhanDuinne
That list of negative reviews (with links!) looks wonderful. I’m saving it for a leisurely later when I have time to enjoy getting my hate on.
For those who enjoy this kind of thing and are into (primarily classical) music — lookin at you, efgoldman — this is a must-own book. You can order it through John’s Amazon link and they’ll drone it right to your door.
Belafon
@Patricia Kayden: In rural areas, UPs and FedEx pay the USPS to do their deliveries. Since the a carrier has to go out there anyway, it’s cheaper for the private companies.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Cyber Monday
Amir Khalid
For some reason, whenever I see The Rachel Maddow Show’s trms logo, I think of this.
shelly
Aargh, finally got some relief from ‘Black Friday’ emails stuffing my mail box. Now I’m buried in ‘Cyber Monday.’
Kay
@rikyrah:
She’s probably talking about sliding scale community health centers, because Republicans used to support those. They still do, but just not on national television, only at photo ops in their home districts. Bush I and II liked them, because it’s the compassionate conservative thing.
As usual, though, she doesn’t make any sense, because one can’t “choose” anything in a community health center. You get what you get. Of course, she wouldn’t know that because she wouldn’t be caught dead in a clinic. Too, community health centers aren’t designed for catastrophic illness and hospitalization and special care.
Conservatives like the idea of sending the poors off to the sliding-scale clinic, as an abstract theory but community health centers don’t solve the problem.
I love, love, love when their burning desire to be morally superior to liberals butts up against their ideology. They have to tie themselves into these crazy knots where they’re just babbling.
Ash Can
@NonyNony: In the last thread, commenter BGK said he believed Bezos was just massively trolling Charlie Rose with this “scoop.” Given all the ways a drone delivery system could go wrong, I’m inclined to agree.
Higgs Boson's Mate
I don’t look for drones anytime soon, but we are in Amazon’s test area for Saturday and Sunday delivery. That is a big and welcome change.
handsmile
@SiubhanDuinne:
Though I don’t believe you suffer from the affliction, I think you might enjoy this article, “Why there’s nothing wrong with being bored with opera”:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/01/nothing-wrong-bored-by-opera
Wagner is the object of most of the complaints.
NonyNony
@Ash Can:
That would be hilarious – does Bezos have that kind of a sense of humor?
The major ways that drone delivery can go wrong are all eventually wrapped up in human psychology. The technical hurdles aren’t that steep – you set up a guy with a remote-controlled drone at the distribution center, set him up with directions via GPS, and let him fly a low-speed drone around to make a delivery. Keep your liability insurance up and make sure that your drone pilots are well trained people who could pass a flight exam and you’re all set.
Human psychology says that you’re doing this to save money, though, so the pilots won’t be well trained unless federal regulations require it. And human psychology says that “mugging” a drone and taking the package it’s carrying is not nearly the same level of crime as mugging a human being and taking the package he’s carrying. Plus BLACK HELICOPTERS IN OUR SKIES EQUIPPED WITH CAMERAS.
And of course you don’t do this with autonomous drones – at least not to start with. You possibly could – Google has self-driving cars – but the liability on the insurance would be insane and the community you set it up in would freak out. Assure them that it’s a human pilot using a joystick to fly it and people mentally equate it with “remote controlled toy helicopters delivering packages” and not “sentient drone robots out to conquer humanity one package at a time.”
maya
@Patricia Kayden: ” Peggy needs to retire so she can drink nonstop and worship Ronnie Reagan without interruption. ”
Now that Pope Frankie I is attacking the trickle-down-syndrome soul of St Ronnaldus the Bold you’d think she’d have much more important stomach content to regurgitate.
Ash Can
@NonyNony: There’s the accident factor: What if the thing flies a little too low at the wrong time and gets picked off by a train or a truck or some other high-profile vehicle? Or what if the RC operator misses, or is unaware of, trees or power lines? And then there’s the asshole factor. Like you said above, there are a lot of assholes with guns (“Hey! Watch me hit that drone!”). And imagine flying a drone through a park with assholes tossing footballs or baseballs (“Hey! See if you can pick off that drone!”) or wielding softball bats (“Hey! etc.”) And how many drones would simply be captured by neighborhood kids (overgrown and otherwise) who want to try to rejigger them for their own use?
There’s just too much potential for mischief and mayhem for this to be a viable delivery system, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bright guy such as Bezos knows this, and is just funnin’ us.
maya
@Ash Can: Delivery via high altitude B-52’s would be a much better system, especially when Amazon has carpet sales.
Belafon
If corporations are people, will drones have a second amendment right to protect themselves?
Aji
@Patricia Kayden:
FTFY. She’s never had anything interesting to say about politics. Well, unless you find the fellating of first the rep, and now the corpse, of St. Ronnie “interesting.”
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
It would be absolute child’s play for local, state, or federal law enforcement to copy whatever livery Amazon chose for their delivery drones and use them for covert surveillance, probably of left wing groups…the right wing actual problems are not problems for the 1%, therefore are not going to be snooped on.
As for Molly Ivins and the vile thing that is Camille Paglia, well, Paglia would never have been fit to lick Molly’s sensible shoes. That pretentious broad needs to be kicked to the curb, and often.
Bill E Pilgrim
I propose adding “Now delivering by drone” to the rotating Balloon Juice tag lines.
tBone
I’m starting to worry about what my Amazon Prime membership might be financing. Bezos:
-is immensely wealthy;
-has an incredibly weird laugh;
-looks like a porn version of Dr. Evil; and
-has all of our addresses and wants to start flying drones all over the country.
If he buys a volcano or shows up on the cover of Persian Cat Fancy magazine, it’s time to head for the hills.
Villago Delenda Est
Just a taste, but a delicious one, from Ivin’s takedown of the pretentious git Paglia:
NonyNony
@Ash Can:
This is why you need a well-qualified pilot and keep your liability insurance paid up. Those accidents should be very rare in the overall big pictures, given a decent pilot.
Yeah – this is the bit that makes it unworkable. It’s also the bit that technology junkies forget about when they’re making their utopian plans, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Bezos was underplaying the asshole factor because, well, he’s not that particular kind of asshole and doesn’t realize how much the existence of those kinds of assholes hurts this kind of plan.
I also fail to see how this is going to be cheaper than FedEx, let alone USPS. Thinking about it, Bezos must be sure that he’s losing sales to Target or Best Buy or something for people who can’t wait less than 24 hours for their delivery to come via the local mail service (because they’re within miles OF THE DISTRIBUTION CENTER – they’d get it tomorrow if you put it in the mail today) and are just going to run out and grab it for themselves. But you’d think just buying a few Vespas and paying a few Amazon ™ delivery boys would be cheaper than an RC drone, so I guess I can see why there might be a lean towards punking Charlie Rose rather than it being a serious proposal.
Aji
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, that’s just the light reflecting off those oceans. A mirage, a trick of the eye – and our bankrupt public “discourse” – that appears to turn malignant narcissism into something shiny for the punditocracy to chase.
Villago Delenda Est
@tBone:
Or call in Daniel Craig to deal with him in the appropriate manner.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ash Can:
Yeah, I agree with you that Bezos was trolling the incredibly gullible Charlie Rose, and the whole thing just flew over Rose’s head sorta like a delivery drone would.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ash Can:
Yeah, I agree with you that Bezos was trolling the incredibly gullible Charlie Rose, and the whole thing just flew over Rose’s head sorta like a delivery drone would.
Villago Delenda Est
Sorry about the duplicate comment…my Win 7 installation appears to be corrupted. Well, beyond the norm for Windows installations “as intended”.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Villago Delenda Est: I second the recommendation for Ivin’s piece, it’s become a legend.
I immediately scanned the list to see if Taibbi’s NY Press thing on Friedman’s book was on it, since it’s the single funniest review I’ve ever read. Four years later he reviewed another of Friedman’s books by the way. A snippet:
Ben Cisco
@Patricia Kayden:
Objection: 1) assumes she is not already doing so; 2) I believe she is sufficiently capable of multitasking of doing both of those things and spitting out crap columns on cue.
Villago Delenda Est
I look forward to Nooners joining the fat Nazi in denouncing Francis.
Way to appeal to all those Latino Catholics, guys! Standard Rethuglican procedure!
Ben Cisco
@Bill E Pilgrim: Oh yes.
Oh yes indeed.
Anna in PDX
That list of negative reviews is the best thing I will read all day. I had not read the Ivins Paglia essay before – yay. I am looking forward to reading some of the longer ones tonight when I am not at work.
Southern Beale
I’m calling bullshit on the Amazon drones thing. I won’t believe it until that fucking Balloon Boy hand-delivers my package.
StringOnAStick
As for finding well-trained drone pilots to deliver for Mr. Jeff, perhaps this is a plan for increasing employment amongst returning soldiers/drone pilots? Nah. That would mean this member of the 1% was actually trying to help the people who make this country a safe place for them and their predations, and that’s against the 1% playbook. He’s trolling.
Shakezula
@NonyNony: My first thought when my husband mentioned the drones: Bored kids with shot guns.
My second thought was dogs. I can see a lot of dogs reacting with destructive doggie excitement when a big spinny thing landed in the yard.
Frankensteinbeck
@NonyNony:
Oh, let’s add some more negatives. Since you can only use the drone for the local delivery part, you’re not saving the customer any time that they will notice. The multiple nights of shipping remain. This also can only be a waste of money. A drone can’t carry large amounts of packages and there’s no way it can deliver reliably to address without a human pilot. (Even a fantastic GPS only gets you close and you need absolute reliability.) Going back and forth one or two packages at a time is going to cost more human pay hours and more fuel than a man driving a truck.
I guess it could be trolling. I figured it was another moron executive bragging about his revolutionary ideas with not the slightest understanding that he’s talking out of his ass and it won’t work. It’s the latest synergy.
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
And one must have doubly redundant safeguards to the software to ignore wedding parties.
muddy
@Frankensteinbeck: He was saying in the interview that these would be for a small radius around a distribution center, which are set up where there is a population hub. Of course a lot of these addresses are going to be stacked on top of one another if it is a population hub, so derpity derp how does that work?
As soon as I saw the unit I said it should be from Target, not Amazon, because that’s what the little helicopter will be, a target. Not sure but what I’d be tempted myself.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Did you see the NYT editorial giving DeBlasio advice on how to deal with the teachers unions? I was wondering what you thought about it.
jeffreyw
@maya: I can’t believe no one has patted you on the back for that, yet. It is kinda 1968-ish. Fuckin’ kids these days.
Ahh says fywp
@NonyNony: wait tll he finds out about state mandated police OT rates
Ahh says fywp
@Frankensteinbeck: Elon Musk and the amazssing technicolor pneumatic tube railway.
Ahh says fywp
@handsmile: Wagner just needed an editor. All of 20th century movie music (except the p op kind, but even then, he showed the way eith leitmotivs) owes him an enirmous debt. Not that it is remotely my kind of music.
Italian opera is not boring unless u habe no feelimgs atall. Sor Amgelica? Not boring.
PurpleGirl
@Belafon: They also do that in cities. I’m Queens, NYC. Several times I’ve had FedEx delivered by the Postal Service.
Older
@Belafon: Plus, if they do go out there, they often have to ask the USPS carrier for directions.