Premiums

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Raising our premiums was not something we wanted to do,” Angela F. Braly, president of WellPoint (parent company of Blue Cross Blue Shield), said. “But we believe this was the most prudent choice, given the rising cost of care and the problems caused by many younger and healthier policyholders dropping or reducing their coverage during tough economic times. By law, premiums must be reasonable in relationship to benefits provided, which means they need to reflect the known and anticipated costs they will cover.”

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I love the way the frame it as if they’re just barely staying afloat. I’m guessing they also didn’t “want” to make close to $4 billion last year on the backs of these higher premiums.

Canada

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I guess this would make up for loosing at your own national sport.

Snow Day

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While pretty, this little bit of white stuff (calling it snow is a bit much) has effectively brought the office to a standstill. Fleeee! Your car will not be able to handle the .5 inches of slush on the road!

Winter

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I’d like to think, if I ever get the chance to winter over in New Mexico, that I’d have time to try and build something as cool/insane as this.

Global Warming

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From the science-may-be-slightly-more-complex-than-making-a-sandwich-that’s-why-we-have-scientists department:

Most don’t see a contradiction between a warming world and lots of snow. That includes Kevin Trenberth, a prominent climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

“The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago means there’s about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s,” he says.

Warmer water means more water vapor rises up into the air, and what goes up must come down.

“So one of the consequences of a warming ocean near a coastline like the East Coast and Washington, D.C., for instance, is that you can get dumped on with more snow partly as a consequence of global warming,” he says.

So global warming or no, please stop saying that the billions of tons of CO2 our civilization has pumped into the atmosphere is having no consequences just because it’s snowing. Your ignorance is making my head hurt.

Defeat the World

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The Colbert Olympic poster, and all it’s awesome truthiness. Isn’t that how we all feel, really?

Car Wash

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It’s just above freezing outside, with that awesome mix of rain, sleet and the occasional lonely, half-drowned flake of snow. I find myself (post an undisclosed number of vodka martinis), at 10:30 at night, at the car wash.

The birds of downtown either ate something that didn’t agree with them, or quite litterally saw something that scared the crap out of them. Maybe Sarah Palin’s in town (wait this isn’t real america, she wouldn’t come here, would she?), who knows. Regardless, it looks like the zoo’s worth of avian life has had their way with my poor Subaru, and despite the late hour, the inclimate conditons, this will not wait till tomorrow, when it going to be sunny and a normal, sane person would go tend to the chore at hand. This affrontery towards my my vehicle’s honor shell not stand.

It then occurs to me that i could quite possibly have an unhealthy relationship with my car.

Gibbs

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Say what you want, Dana Perino would’ve never pulled off something as badass as this.

Kids…

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In a letter to the White House on Monday, the top two House Republicans, Representatives John A. Boehner of Ohio and Eric Cantor of Virginia, said members of their party would be “reluctant to participate” in the meeting with Mr. Obama if the bills passed by the House and the Senate were the starting point. The American people have “soundly rejected” those bills, they said.

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Really it’s getting to the point where the Republicans sound less like a political party comprising half of the government (for better or worse… you know my take), and more like a two-year-old who refuses to clean up his room.

Also for my part, I don’t recall “soundly rejecting” anything. I know I live in Texas guys, but really I don’t want to be part of your hateful little club. Next time say something along the lines of  the the “The American people, the ones who didn’t loose their jobs last year in the recession and already have decent insurance have soundly rejected the idea of universal health-care (along with other principles of common decency) for their fellow Americans,” it captures your demographic a little better.