Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

No one could have predicted…

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Not all heroes wear capes.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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Profiting Off Of Pain

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I think most of us can agree that racism is the worst. But profiting off a tragedy in the name of tolerance and justice is another story. Colorlines has come under attack due to their story questioning some of the practices of FKH8. The company, which is for-profit, released a video that has gone viral that essentially was an advertisement for the company’s T-shirt emblazoned with “Racism is not over. But I’m over racism.”:

The video features a group of unnamed black kids, purportedly from Ferguson, reciting parts of a script that’s clearly been written by adults. A script that will make you think race is solely a black and white issue, by the way. Even if the children are from Ferguson, it’s unclear if or how they’ve been compensated. [See above statement #1—Ed] Either way, the idea that these kids are from Ferguson is paraded for consumption.

After being repeatedly attacked by FKH8 who demanded an apology, as well as calling the website homophobic and race baiters, Colorlines then clarified the article with editor notes like the one above. The site then came further under attack by others who feel that they threw Aura Bogado, the write of the piece, under the bus in their mea culpa. But the fact remains, even if FKH8 does donate $5 of every T-shirt to a charity, they’re still profiting off of sadness.

Team Blackness also discussed Condoleeza Rice as the next NFL commisioner, that Kanye West actually does care about disabled people, and school districts receiving free military gear from the Pentagon.

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Profiting Off Of Pain

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This post is in: 

I think most of us can agree that racism is the worst. But profiting off a tragedy in the name of tolerance and justice is another story. Colorlines has come under attack due to their story questioning some of the practices of FKH8. The company, which is for-profit, released a video that has gone viral that essentially was an advertisement for the company’s T-shirt emblazoned with “Racism is not over. But I’m over racism.”:

The video features a group of unnamed black kids, purportedly from Ferguson, reciting parts of a script that’s clearly been written by adults. A script that will make you think race is solely a black and white issue, by the way. Even if the children are from Ferguson, it’s unclear if or how they’ve been compensated. [See above statement #1—Ed] Either way, the idea that these kids are from Ferguson is paraded for consumption.

After being repeatedly attacked by FKH8 who demanded an apology, as well as calling the website homophobic and race baiters, Colorlines then clarified the article with editor notes like the one above. The site then came further under attack by others who feel that they threw Aura Bogado, the write of the piece, under the bus in their mea culpa. But the fact remains, even if FKH8 does donate $5 of every T-shirt to a charity, they’re still profiting off of sadness.

Team Blackness also discussed Condoleeza Rice as the next NFL commisioner, that Kanye West actually does care about disabled people, and school districts receiving free military gear from the Pentagon.

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Everybody Live for the Music Go-Round

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teen-use
There was a bit of discussion of teenage drug use in my post on Boyhood a couple of days ago, so I thought this story and graph about the kids in America was interesting. Kids just aren’t drinking as much as they used to, and pot use over the last decade is flat-ish or down a little, depending on which dates you want to compare.

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Pioneering bonuses and integration

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One of the big system reforms embedded within PPACA is a move towards payments for quality instead of quantity.  The Medicare payment structure is changing at the pilot project level.  The formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are designed to shift some of the risk of high cost care away from the government and other payers and towards the providers.  The ACOs are structured so that providers are responsible for population health management and if their patients cost less, they keep a good chunk of the incremental savings over expected expenditures.  If they cost significantly more than just random noise or case mix would suggest, the providers are on the hook for the overruns. 

Medicare’s ACOs are starting out small, but they seem to be working. 

The Washington Post is reporting that the Pioneer ACO program (Pioneer is the more ambitious program) is seeing good results:

The second, smaller group of 23 ACOs are in the Pioneer ACO Model. They have more experience, and the financial incentives are larger. Out of this group, 11 earned bonuses, Medicare announced. Three other ACOs in this Pioneer ACO Model lost money, and three more took advantage of a Medicare option that allows them to delay evaluation until after they have three years of experience.

Roughly half of the ACOs are saving significant money, a quarter are either losing money or seeking safe harbor, and a quarter are bouncing along within the margin of error. 

This is a major win, especially since research has shown that the business process changes that produce big cost savings for ACO like organizations take some time.  The Pioneer ACOs have been in operation for two years.  Business process changes usually take eighteen to twenty four months to propogate through the organization.  My bet is that next year’s results from this cohort of Pioneer ACOs will be even better. 

As the ACO model spreads throughout healthcare, structural changes will need to be made. 

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Some Amazing News

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Shawn’s blood sugar two hours after dinner last night was 92.

And that was even with a dinner of left over turkey, stuffing, gravy, veggies, etc. We’re very excited to say the least.

BTW- I usually make turkey and wild rice soup with carrots, peas, spinach, celery, and onions, but am going to substitute barley this time around. That should be better for him than rice, correct?

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That Certainly Didn’t Take Long

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The old FITD technique applied to getting our war on:

President Obama’s top military adviser said Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States forces in ground operations against Islamic extremists in Iraq if airstrikes proved insufficient, opening the door to a riskier, more expansive American combat role than the president has publicly outlined.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while he was confident that an American-led coalition would defeat the Islamic State, he would not foreclose the possibility of asking Mr. Obama to send American troops to fight the militants on the ground — something Mr. Obama has ruled out.

“My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true,” General Dempsey said. “But if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the United States, then I, of course, would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground forces.”

With the top brass at the Pentagon, there will ALWAYS be a reason for ground troops. Add in a vague current mission description, a populace scared shitless to the point that newspapers in WV are seriously posting stories about an ISIS threat close by, a couple more beheadings, a warmongering media establishment, scared politicians who don’t want to seem weak on national security in an election year, and by golly the next thing you know we’ll be fully deployed in the Middle East again. When the Pentagon was told about air strikes only, what they heard was “let me just put the tip in.”

The only thing holding them back will be President Obama, who no matter what he does will get murdered in the media. If there is so much as ONE American military casualty in the next few months, we’ll be hearing about Obama rejecting his General’s advice for the next thirty years. It will be like Benghazi, Carter giving away the Panama Canal, and Jimmy Carter and Desert One on steroids for the rest of our lifetimes.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

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We started off the day with a fierce storm: steady downpour, lightning, thunder — the works. Sounds like it’s beginning to taper off now.

Looks like the Minnesota Vikings suits have realized that lashing four-year-old children bloody doesn’t play any better than knocking women out cold on an elevator: Adrian Peterson has been barred from team activities.

President Obama is here in Florida to get a briefing on the plan to defeat ISIS. My guess is CentCom won’t follow Chelsea Manning’s advice, but perhaps they should.

Open thread.

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