"Not my brother"

"Congratulations" to new Alabama Governor Robert Bentley for making one of the dumbest statements any newly inaugurated official can make. Unfortunately, my guess is that his core constituency is eating this up with a vengeance.

Capricon 31: 'tis passing strange...

No, I'm not slagging the progeny of Capricious the Goat (after all, I work for Cap in the anime room, and have done so for years) in order to start a massive, roiling flame war; far from it. What concerns me at this point is that Cap 31 begins in some 22 days and a whole load of information (ranging from the room party list to the anime and film schedules to programming) aren't up on the web site or in the forums. Nothing much seems to be shaking at their blog (other than a notice concerning extension of the room rate) or their main F***book page, either. This seems more than a trifle late: IIRC, most of this material was up a month - or even earlier - before the beginning of the con in prior years.  

So wha' hoppen?

I'm not running around like my hair's on fire - yet - simply due to the fact that the con is still over three weeks away. Therefore, there's no need to panic.  Really. Get back to me in another two weeks, though. Everybody can panic if nothing's up by then.

What the CBO really says about the repeal effort

Before you end up having to sift through the tons of bullsh*t that's been spewed about the CBO's take on what should be retitled the "Political Grandstanding and Useless Political Theater Act", feel free to read the actual CBO report here; two particularly interesting sections from the report are reproduced below minus any commentary on my part.

As a result of changes in direct spending and revenues, CBO expects that enacting H.R. 2 would probably increase federal budget deficits over the 2012–2019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion (on the basis of the original estimate), plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. Adding two more years (through 2021) brings the projected increase in deficits to something in the vicinity of $230 billion, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes.

Those projections do not include any potential savings in discretionary spending, which is governed by annual appropriation acts. By CBO’s estimates, repeal of the health care legislation would probably reduce the appropriations needed by the Internal Revenue Service by between $5 billion and $10 billion over 10 years. Similar savings would accrue to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Under H.R. 2, about 32 million fewer nonelderly people would have health insurance in 2019, leaving a total of about 54 million nonelderly people uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, compared with a projected share of 94 percent under current law (and 83 percent currently).

O, the snark, it buuuuuurns!

The 50 Most Loathsome Americans of 2010 via the Buffalo Beast.

Discuss. Or vomit. Your choice.