Then: All you need to know is there are 1,990 pages,” griped House Minority Leader John Boehner about the House bill. “It is longer than War and Peace and not near as funny,” said Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)
Now: “And we talk about 2,074 pages, which seem like a lot, and it would be for a normal bill that you could debate in a limited period of time, which is what we’re being asked to do. But 2,074 pages isn’t nearly enough to cover health care for America. So why is it only 2,074 pages?” Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Day: December 10, 2009
It has never been serviced or cleaned other than blowing out the dust with a service station hose. … I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not published. Including all drafts and correspondence I would put this at about five million words over a period of 50 years.
Cormac McCarthy, on the Olivetti Lettera 32 he purchased at a pawn shop for $50 in 1963, which sold at auction for $254,500. Yes, he’s got another one.
(via Daring Fireball)
How it passes
“This is so freakin’ obnoxious I can hardly stand it. We are about to get a turd of a “reform” package, potentially worse than the status quo. We have the insurance industry declaring victory, Republicans cackling with glee, and the administration is using that piece of shit to raise money? Obama spent all year enabling Max Baucus and Olympia Snowe, and he thinks we’re supposed to get excited about whatever end result we’re about to get, so much so that we’re going to fork over money? Well, it might work with some of you guys, but I’m certainly not biting. In fact, this is insulting, betraying a lack of understanding of just how pissed the base is at this so-called reform. The administration may be happy to declare victory with a mandate that enriches insurance companies, yet creates little incentive to control costs or change the very business practices that have screwed so many people. But I’ll pass.”
— Daily Kos founder Markos: Idiocy
This kind of idiocy is precisely how the bill is going to pass (this post has more context). Rest assured that without suitably believable whinging on the part of Kos and MoveOn (and etc…), the Liebermans of the world won’t for a second believe they have accomplished their goal of pissing off those same groups (and thus feeling confident that they have found the center-right path that is, of course, preferable to them regardless of (often in spite of) the resultant policy). So, 40 million new insurees can thank Markos. People over 55 able to buy into Medicare, and the ultimate expansion of that option (and all that that will mean) can also thank Markos. That we’ll be spared the ridiculous, non-functional nubbin of a public option that remained in the previous iteration of the bill: thank Markos.
Thanks, Markos.
NYT: American households collectively consumed 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. That’s 34 Gb per individual. A day. Whoa. Don’t worry, AT&T, this sort of thing doesn’t affect you at all. You’ll be long gone before then.
Also: consider the proportion of that “Recorded Music” slice. Think about all the swirl around the RIAA and etc. Then look at the “TV” slice and contemplate the utter foolishness of those running commercial visual media (and especially: cable companies) in this country. Then, perhaps, buy a nice cave somewheres and go live in it.
Lemkin 