… with apologies to those readers who’ve been in 2016 for the last many hours.
The year just ending had plenty challenges, and some most excellent bright spots also. Here’s hoping 2016 is more fun and less horrible for everyone, and that we all meet this time next year to celebrate the new incoming Democratic President’s immanent arrival…
(Courtesy commentor Trollhattan)
redshirt
Merry New Year!
Satby
Happy New Year and best wishes for a wonderful 2016 to you all. Love you all, too!
PurpleGirl
K. Happy New Year. It’s 11:55 by my computer’s clock. Waiting on NY1’s broadcast of the ball drop.
Love the pictures of the fireworks in Hobart. Spectacular.
SiubhanDuinne
I suspect you mean “imminent.” But, depending on the awesomeness of the newly-elected Democrat, “immanent” might work as well :-)
/still a pedant
The very happiest of New Years to you, AL, your fellow front-pagers, and Juicers everywhere!!
JPL
I’m watching for the egg to crack on the google doodle..
Odd bird but it definitely didn’t disappoint
mdblanche
Should auld acquaintance be forgot…
CaseyL
@JPL: it did! It hatched!… not quite sure what the hatchling is supposed to be. A dragon, or possibly an alligator… definitely not a bird.
Ohio Mom
@JPL: there are at least three different versions of the egg cracking.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@JPL: There are at least 3 hatchling(s) variations.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Ohio Mom: Jinx.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The turtles are cute.. Maybe it’s the year of the turtles..
mike in dc
Happy Presidential Election Year, Everyone!
Ohio Mom
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Great minds…
JordanRules
Happy NY everyone!!!! Little under 2 hours until it’s official here in AZ.
mdblanche
@JPL: It’s the year of the turtles all the way down.
redshirt
@mike in dc: Only 11 more months!……. sigh….
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@JPL: It’s turtles all the way down!.
Cheers,
Scott.
SIA
Bonne annee all! Last year of President Barack Hussein Obama’s phenomenal presidency. It’ll never be the same. I started reading BJ in 2007. Heady days.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mdblanche: Jinx!
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
PurpleGirl
Finally looked at the Google doodle. It is cute. I like their animations.
NY1 is just panning the crowd now, with some shots from a building top. Ghod, Times Square and Broadway is just packed. Now for all those people to leave and get home…. hoo boy, I’m happy to be home and not worrying about getting home.
FlyingToaster
Well, WarriorGirl insisted upon watching the TV shows (“I’m gonna Dance!”), and is now crying in despair.
It was all talking, no music. Sad, horrible, boring talking. Bleccch.
Now she knows; and will stop asking to stay up until midnight.
JPL
Happy New Year and good night.
SIA
My poor terrier mix HATES firecrackers and they’ve been going on for hours. At least he has his thunder jacket.
redshirt
@SIA: That makes me sad. A year from now and some change, Barack Hussein Obama will no longer be President of the USA.
What an amazing accomplishment. We really did it.
JCJ
@JPL:
I was, like you, waiting for the egg to hatch on the google doodle. I liked how it had different results when I checked – an alligator, then turtles, then a duck! Now I can sleep. That was too much excitement for me for one night!
ThresherK (GPad)
Best to all for the night. Had to wake up someone for the countdown who had fallen asleep a bit after 11pm sitting up on the couch.
PurpleGirl
@FlyingToaster: I’m sorry Warrior Girl was disappointed. Warrior Girl should have been in NYC, or at least someplace that gets NY1. A few minutes before the ball drop the station announcers stop talking and go to Times Square alone and focus on the ball drop.
ETA: And the Empire State Building its own light show with changing colors on the top floors and the spire. Neat.
SIA
@redshirt: it makes me sad too. It was the first time I ever worked on a campaign. He is extraordinary. Wish he’d declare martial law and set himself up as prez for life like some of the wingnuts predicted.
Royston Vasey
Happy New Year from New Zealand. Though it’s almost done for the day (being 6:26pm)
RV in NZ
Major Major Major Major
My New Years’ Special Spoiler is up for my fish story, shameless plug :D
I’ll try to take photos of the fireworks in Puerto Vallarta in… 26 minutes, and post ’em if they’re good
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: P’shaw, he’s already deported or else I would :)
Mnemosyne
G finally didn’t have to work on New Year’s Eve (what with being laid off and all) but we couldn’t think of anything to do other than our tradition of eating pizza and watching “CQ.” Still barely 9:30 here on the Left Coast.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Lots of reasons why I like NY1 and the way they do things. ABC should have changed the format of their New Year’s Eve show a long time ago. Dick Clark was irrelevant for a long time.
NotMax
Thick sirloin steak along with leftover red wine sauce from the Xmas dinner. Buubly in the freezer.
Neighbors have a tent set up in their yard, along with about 45 chairs. Only 7:40, so still (relatively) quite.
KS in MA
Happy New Year, everyone!
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: How can one have leftover red wine sauce? Isn’t that the purpose of the baguette?
Major Major Major Major
Yeah, I’m resolving to wing it and see what happens
dogwood
@redshirt:
Politics aside, it’s always hard for me to imagine a new president. It usually takes me a few months to transition from viewing the new one as candidate, to seeing him (or maybe her) as the actual president.
realbtl
Happy New Year all. I just got back from 1st Night Kalispell. Good food, great music and rather warm – 17 – for NW MT. No wind so all was good.
Mnemosyne
“Drunk History” marathon. Apparently the show’s producers beat me to the idea of casting Olivia Spencer as Harriet Tubman. (You haven’t missed it, it’s the episode that’s on next.)
Omnes Omnibus
Happy New Year from my part of the the world to all you shitheels, bastards, assholes, and completely decent people. You can choose.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Serendipity.
Xmas meal lasted all the way through Tuesday dinner. Made a vatful of the sauce, planning to freeze some.
max
@efgoldman: I don’t know whether it was stupid, sad, or humorous that ABC kept promoting it as “Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve.”
I mean, poor old Dick had an aging picture in his attic, I’m sure, but he’s long since shuffled off….
Obvs, it should be Zombie Dick Clark’s New Years Rotten Eve.
max
[‘It’s always Halloween when ol’ Dick’s around now!’]
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Sounds dubious. I demand samples on dry ice sent to me. Or recipes.
benw
Happy new year, everyone! May you all live long, and prosper.
F
“I can play amateur politics at home with my 9-year-old, I don’t need to do it at the professional level.”
Ben Carson’s ex-campaign manager.
Redshift
Happy New Year! May it be better in every way, and especially in electoral outcomes.
SarahT
@SIA: yeah you right, & thanks for reminding us
FlyingToaster
@max:
That would have been an improvement.
I was hoping some music channel would have, oh, music, with a 5 minute break for the ball drop.
And WTF is having Sinatra sing NYNY instead of everybody singing Auld Lang Syne (out of tune, not knowing the words, and drunk)?
Truly, abysmally pitiful.
SarahT
@redshirt: Yes we did. Damn.
GregB
Happy New Year all.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlyingToaster: No respect for tradition.
SarahT
@F: for reals ? Hahahahaha
FlyingToaster
@PurpleGirl: 8-year-olds from greater Boston are NOT going to Times Square for NYE. She can wait until grad school for that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@redshirt:
He better be, his term doesn’t end until Jan. 20, 2017.
Major Major Major Major
@FlyingToaster: I do prefer The Parting Glass
FlyingToaster
@Omnes Omnibus:
Tradition!
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That translates as a year and some days, yes? Thus accurate, also yes?
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: The Parting Glass would work, as well, but probably too many people know it now.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlyingToaster: This, I have in my life. A person who loves this movie because of her past. It passes me by, but, for her, I am trying.
fuckwit
And the arrival of a DEMOCRATIC majority in the Senate and a DEMOCRATIC majority in the House, the return of Speaker Pelosi, and at last having a competent government.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: A year from now would be December 31, 2016.
ETA: Point taken.
Omnes Omnibus
The Parting Glass.
Major Major Major Major
@FlyingToaster: The Clancy Brothers were way better before they sold out :(
mclaren
While Mayhew churns out feel-good bullshit designed to convince the gullible dupes in the Balloon-Juice commentariat that all is for the best in the best of all possible American health care worlds, the reality is of course drastically different.
Here are my favorite health care stories from 2015:
“Fifty hospitals in the United States are charging uninsured consumers more than 10 times the actual cost of patient care, according to research published Monday,” The Washington Post, 8 June 2015.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: This is my favorite Pogues cover (Dirty Old Town by The Mountain Goats)
mclaren
And here are some more of my favorite health care stories of 2015:
“She has health insurance, but can’t pay her medical bills. She’s not alone,” scpr.org, 8 April 2015.
“Why Most Americans Do Not Understand Their Medical Bills,” cheatsheet.com, 8 July 2015
“Texans Charged More Than 650% The Going Rate Of Medicare For ER Services: New Study Reveals Out-of-Network Charges In Texas for Life Threatening Emergencies Among The Highest In The Nation,” Texas Association of health Plans, 7 October 2015.
“‘America’s Bitter Pill’ Makes Case For Why Health Care Law ‘Won’t Work’,” NPR radio report, 5 January 2015.
“Even insured consumers get hit with surprisingly large medical bills,” CNN Money, 19 February 2015.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: “Plus change” usually means at bit more. In this context, a few more days.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren:
If that’s all you’ve gotten out of Richard’s posts, you’ve either not read them, or failed to understand them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: I amended my motion(see, ETA).
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: “Dirty Old Town” wasn’t a Pogues original. It is by Ewan MacColl. His daughter, Kirsty, recorded a couple of songs with the Pogues including the sublime Fairytale of New York.
mclaren
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Of course — I’m stupid or ignorant or unable to read. And the Washington Post and the Boston Globe and NPR and The New York Times are all just making shit up. Mayhew is right that the ACA is working beautifully and medical costs are dropping, while all the major news outlets are lying, all the medical experts are getting it wrong, and all the health care newsletters are reporting complete nonsense.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the gullible ignorant dupes Mayhew has been scamming — Bill in Glendale. Thank you for showing us all the stunning level of self-delusion and ignorance in which liberals who cheer about the current state of America’s medical-industrial complex live.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Cheers.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: Touche. Didn’t know that. Thanks!
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren: I think you just proved my point, Happy New Year.
ETA: I should note that my preferred health care system would be single payer.
Amir Khalid
@mclaren:
May the new year bring you many opportunities to scold people from the left and piss in their cornflakes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: You are a remarkably nice person.
SarahT
@mclaren: Please eat shit. “Obamacare” saved my life, and the lives of 3 friends who were also refused insurance due to “pre-existing conditions” (ie, pregnancy. Just, wow). So sorry that we didn’t just go die quietly while waiting for single payer in the USA. Oh yeah – happy fuckin’ new year to you and your purity pony.
mtraven
This is the Shane McGowan song (post-Pogues) for the New Year.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: You were playing on my ice. Outside of professional knowledge, this is my wheelhouse.
mclaren
And here are yet more of my favorite article about U.S. health care in 2015…articles Richard Mayhew will never mention, and does not want you to see:
“Stunning” Rise in Death Rate, Pain Levels for Middle-Aged, Less Educated Whites, 3 November 2015.
“The Scourge of Managerialism” – Generic Management, the Manager’s Coup D’Etat, Mission-Hostile Management Rolled Up, as Described by Some Men from Down Under, 29 October 2015.
“Dilemma over deductibles: Costs crippling middle class — Rather Than Pay So Much Out-Of-Pocket, Many Skip Checkups, Scrimp On Care,” USA Today, 1 January 2015.
“Many people with health coverage can’t afford to use it,” Newscut.com, 22 September 2015.
“Lifesavers or kickbacks? Critics say patient-assistance programs help keep drug prices high,” Modern Healthcare site, 7 March 2015.
“Beware of Drive By Doctoring Fraud,” Consumers Digest, March 2015.
As one of the above articles remarks about the greedy corrupt CEO of a medical devicemaker forced to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements for selling grossly defective equipment, Richard Mayhew’s
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I meant it when I said thanks :)
If life isn’t for learning I don’t know what it’s for, other than the Vonnegut quote, approximating “to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is”
JordanRules
@SarahT: Thank you and I’m so happy you are here, alive to share your stories. Real world represent!
chopper
happy new year, you ornery-ass motherfuckers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: You are welcome.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
I find the company intellectually stimulating.
mclaren
@SarahT:
I’m glad the ACA saved your life and the lives of your friends. Wouldn’t it be great if more people could use the insurance they get through the ACA because they wouldn’t lose their life savings due to sky-high deductibles and co-pays?
By all means scream and howl at me for criticizing America’s broken for-profit medical-industrial complex. When the limitlessly increasing premiums you’re forced to pay for your shitty for-profit health insurance under the ACA become too high for you to afford, don’t come whining to me…you’ve already told me and everyone else who is critical of that grotesque scam to “please eat shit.”
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: No one here has ever claimed that our health care is perfect. RM has only offered people technical insight into how our system currently works. If that I beyond your understanding, it is on you.
Mnemosyne
@SarahT:
mclaren has many interesting opinions about how all cancer patients should roll over and die rather than undergo treatment, including my 51-year-old brother who died of lung cancer this summer. So, yes, mclaren can go fuck himself with a rusty pitchfork.
SarahT
@JordanRules: Right back atcha, honey ! And a happy, HEALTHY 2016 to all intelligent, sensible, compassionate, and truly human beings on this site & around the world. And thank you, john cole + infinity, for making this place !
Suzanne
Happy New Year, or happy 12:24 AM, from the Nation’s Litterbox.
Spawn the Elder is having a friend sleep over, so Mr. Suzanne and I are watching “The Man in the High Castle”. I enjoy this far more than being around drunks.
My resolution for this year is to go paperless! My printer was broken, so we bought one with a document scanner. So let’s see how this goes.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: Get a big shredder.
SarahT
@mclaren: don’t you get it ? Without insurance we WOULD have lost everything, including our LIVES ! GAH – done with your trolling. Piss up a rope.
Omnes Omnibus
@SarahT: STOP GETTING IN THE WAY OF THE REVOLUTION. WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT YOU, WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE?
/mclaren
Major Major Major Major
out b4 flame war night guys
SarahT
@Mnemosyne: Thank you ! And I stupidly (ok, drunkenly) replied, despite it all, duh. New Year’s resolution : Do NOT waste time responding to morons on my fave blog. Happy 2016 to you !
Omnes Omnibus
@SarahT: Sleep well.
Suzanne
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’ve got one. I am going to work on it this weekend. I hate paper! I hate clutter! Aaaahhhhhhh.
@SarahT: Don’t get too upset. Maclaren occasionally says something helpful and interesting, but she buries it under heaps of histrionics and condescension and generalized douchieness. And I am a mega-douche, and she makes me look like a sweet pea in comparison.
SarahT
@Mnemosyne: Meant to add that I’m so sorry about your brother. Losing a brother sucks – I know. Here’s to better days.
SarahT
@Omnes Omnibus: hahahahaha !
SarahT
@Suzanne: aw, I bet you are a sweet pea – definitely a smart pea…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: I hope your trash collection is more shredder friendly than here, we have to put it in paper bags. We don’t get paper bags at the market anymore.
Suzanne
@BillinGlendaleCA: We have to plastic-bag them, I think. We can’t put them in the commingled recycling.
PurpleGirl
@FlyingToaster: I didn’t mean WarriorGirl should come to NY for the ball drop but find a place where you get NewYork1 — the Time Warner news channel — and watch it on NY1. Their tradition, such as it is, is to have the announcers stop talking several minutes before the ball drop and after it. (Ihad turned off the computer and then come back online.)
BillinGlendaleCA
Happy New Year from the left coast!
Anoniminous
Happy New Year everyone.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Plastic bags illegal here, but even before that happened the markets still kept a stock of paper bags for those who requested them.
NotMax
Geeze Louise, sounds like downtown Falluja outside.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Plastic are illegal here as well, but you have to pay 10 cents for any bag you don’t bring.
Ruckus
@SarahT:
Special!
Rusty chainsaws for sale!
Custom built guillotines!
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I can recall once that mclaren said something useful. Once. And trying to find that one bit of something is like looking in acre of manure and seeing what looks like the virgin mary. Very, very rare and even then it still stinks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: So true, Happy New Year bud.
ruemara
Y’all. Happy New Year people..
dogwood
Feliz ano nuevo! We need to attract more Latinos to this blog.
NotMax
@dogwood
Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!
dogwood
@NotMax:
Mahalo
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
And a happy Hogswatch to us all.
Origuy
с новым годыи to you all.
NotMax
Midnight. Can actually hear things falling onto the metal roof from the fireworks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I’m kinda surprised about the lack of fireworks here this year.
ETA: This makes Nikki a happy dog.
ETA2: Happy New Year, NotMax!
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Swear that after aerials were outlawed here that the amount being set off has at least quintupled.
VFX Lurker
@SarahT:
I am sincerely happy than the Affordable Care Act saved your life and those of your friends.
Me, I’m a cancer survivor. No chemo required, fully covered by my parents’ insurance, and asymptomatic for years. Despite my good health since the cancer, I received my first rejection letter for private individual coverage in 2006. Another insurer accepted my application, but charged me three times what a normal person would have been charged. I accepted their offer, because I did not want to be uninsured. I received two more rejection letters from two other insurers in 2007 and 2010.
In 2010, I formed a general partnership with my own spouse to apply for guaranteed-issue group coverage. If either of us had died, the survivor would have lost coverage.
I am grateful for the Affordable Care Act. I have a Canadian spouse, and he does prefer the health care system in Canada. However, neither of us want to move to Canada solely for health coverage reasons. Our best career opportunities and our home are here in Los Angeles. The Affordable Care Act means we get to live where we want.
The Affordable Care Act even offers a “Waiver for State Innovation,” allowing states to implement single-payer in 2017. Vermont killed its single-payer plan for 2017, but there’s 49 other states who might try single-payer. You’d think someone on this thread would appreciate that, but I get the impression that this person is more interested in trolling than actually implementing single-payer.
I’m going to see if I can get Troll-B-Gone working again. Wishing everyone a great 2016!
Zinsky
Happy New Year everyone! Let’s work hard this year to elect Democrats, send Donald Trump into retirement and make America less stupid!
debbie
@FlyingToaster:
Almost made me miss Dick Clark.
debbie
@FlyingToaster:
Despite myself, I love that movie!