Billionaires for Wealthcare

Billionaires for Wealthcare is a grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, industry lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system.

We are not a political, religious or even particularly well-organized group. We're simple folk, thrilled profiteers pouring out of our corner offices to dance on the grave of "Change."

We'll do whatever it takes to ensure another decade where your pain is our gain. After all, when it comes to healthcare, if we ain't broke, why fix it?

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Five-thirty-eight discusses the crowd estimates at yesterdays the tea party and how the number got so inflated.

But yesterday, someone told a real whopper. ABC News, citing the DC fire department, reported that between 60,000 and 70,000 people had attended the tea party rally at the Capitol. By the time this figure reached Michelle Malkin, however, it had been blown up to 2,000,000. There is a big difference, obviously, between 70,000 and 2,000,000. That's not a twofold or threefold exaggeration -- it's roughly a thirtyfold exaggeration.

The way this false estimate came into being is relatively simple: Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, lied, claiming that ABC News had reported numbers of between 1.0 and 1.5 million when they never did anything of the sort. A few tweets later, the numbers had been exaggerated still further to 2 million. Kibbe wasn't "in error", as Malkin gently puts it. He lied. He did the equivalent of telling people that his penis is 53 inches long.

Malkin, who to her credit later corrected the error, frets that it might be used to by liberals to "discredit the undeniably massive turnout". She's right to be worried -- it absolutely will be used that way. If you don't want to be discredited, then don't, as Kibbe did, tell a ridiculous (and easily disprovable) lie.

Footage from today's Washington tea party

There is nothing like stupid people in large numbers!

Bill (Gates) & Steve (Ballmer)

Mummm, coronary heart disease

Famous Dave's is the Outback of barbeque. Now if you look carefully at the menu, you'll notice their new speciality. Chocolate dipped bacon and bacon and chocolate ice cream. Now I love pork products as much as the next person, but chocolate and bacon!?! Only thing I can think of being worse for you is deep fried butter.

Andy

The little pest has taken over the couch in the family room. He's not quite certain if he should be up there, but makes no attempt to move.

Change that you can believe in

And sometimes its not even gradual. Taken from here.

Do we need a public pet option?

Garrison Keillor makes the argument for some repackaging in the health reform debate.

If you put a pet option in the healthcare reform scheme, Republicans would be in a bind. It's one thing to oppose big government taking over from those little mom-and-pop insurance companies, but do you favor throwing Mr. Mittens out the car window when he gets old and feeble and needs an IV because he can't chew his kibble? You'd have weepy pet parents at town hall meetings waving photographs of kittycats in need of new kidneys, and finally you'd start to see some empathy. People love their animals, and if we could just agree that everybody in America should receive the same level of care enjoyed by an elderly golden retriever, we could be done with this and get ready for the World Series.

Alex The Parrot, smartest parrot ever?

A gift from California

We got a gift from California last night. A beautiful vibrant red sunset. It seems the smoke from the California fires North of Los Angeles has made its way to the front range of Colorado. A friend who used to work for the fire department in California used to say,

if the spring is dry, the fires will be early. And if the spring is wet the fires will be later and worse.

End of summer fires are a fixed reality in Southern California. This year is no exception. And things are not helped by the drought the state is experiencing.