It's Mel's world. We're just renting space for the next few nights

If you recognize the person pictured on the right and his magnificent hair, you will also recognize him for turning the NFL Draft into the phenomena/feeding frenzy that it has become.

The NFL is sexing up things a bit this year by moving the draft to primetime (though, we're not sure if the 4:30 P.M. start qualifies as primetime for us West Coasters) by broadcasting the first round this evening and subsequent rounds Friday evening and Saturday.

In just a little while we will see the Rams shamed into picking Sam Bradford (QB - Oklahoma) first overall. We say "shamed" because the conventional wisdom is that you don't give first overall money to, say, a interior defensive lineman even if that person is the best player in the draft as is the case this year with Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska. We hate the CW. And because of the CW, the Rams will continue to stink and will reportedly pay Bradford a $50 million signing bonus for the pleasure of discovering how overrated he and his fellow Big 12 quarterbacks are as their stats were grossly inflated because no one in the Big 12 has yet to figure out a way of slowing down the preferred offense in that conference, the spread-option offense.

But anyway, back to Mel Kiper...

For all Mel Kiper Jr.'s visibility, few people are aware of The Kiper Foundation: a unique charitable organization that matches notable first round busts—such as Lawrence Phillips, Tony Mandarich and Akili Smith—with loving homes, where they enjoy regular baths, three square meals a day, and a slightly irregular cream-colored jacket, donated by the Hall of Fame gift shop.

Read the rest of Deadspin's ode to Mel, here.

And just because we can, a brief look back at some classic New York Jets draft moments.



You gotta love how Pete Rozelle does the pregnant pause with a slight smirk just before announcing a name that will illicit a tortured response from the Jet faithful. It's like he's in on the joke.

ObamaCare: Coming attractions

Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs.

After a hearing on the issue, the chairman of the Senate health committee, Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said he intended to move this year on legislation that would “provide an important check on unjustified premiums.”

Mr. Harkin praised a bill introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that would give the secretary of health and human services the power to review premiums and block “any rate increase found to be unreasonable.” Under the bill, the federal government could regulate rates in states where state officials did not have “sufficient authority and capability” to do so.

That's right. The original ObamaCare bill that was sold on the premise that it would hold down premiums neglected to include the very mechanism(s) to hold down those premiums.

Fear not, though... help is on the way. The Secretary of health and human services will play judge, jury and executioner with respect to accepting/rejecting premium increases. Again... picking winners and losers! Corporatism and crony capitalism at its finest.

And dig this:

Reviving the proposal on Tuesday, Mr. Harkin said: “Rate review authority is needed to protect consumers from insurance companies’ jacking up premiums simply because they can. Protections must be in place to ensure that companies do not take advantage of current market conditions before health reform fundamentally changes the way they do business in 2014.”

“Currently,” Mr. Harkin said, “about 22 states in the individual market and 27 states in the small group market do not require a review of premiums before they go into effect — and perhaps even more. This is a gaping hole in our regulatory system, and it is unacceptable.”

Where to begin? First, let's just start with the understanding that Harkin is an economic ignoramous and shameless opportunist of the highest order. Good - got that out of the way.

"...jacking up premiums simply because they can.." We fail to see what is inherently wrong with that. In a free market, that "jacking up" comes with consequences... unless it doesn't. In a free market, the consumer (otherwise known as "the individual") will make the decision on whether or not that "jacking up" is acceptable or not based upon the service he is being provided.

Unfortunately, the healthcare industry is currently operating in a free market gray area where mandates and regulations drive up premiums and stifle competition, thus restricting the ability of the consumer to best respond in his own self-interest.

Under ObamaCare, the mandates and regulations only get worse thus creating the situation where premiums are expected to rise in the next few years as stated at the very top of this article. This is known as "price signaling" where healthcare insurers knowing they will be getting slammed by increased regulatory burdens (such as covering pre-existing conditions) will get out ahead of the curve and start, you know, jacking up premiums to cover those additional future expenditures.

The ObamaCare acolytes know this and are scrambling to prevent the inevitable from happening. What will result though is a tightening of the grip on the health insurance industry to where health insurance providers no longer feel it's profitable (yes, we referenced "profit") to stay in the business any longer thus reducing the competitive market and choices even further.

Sounds like a game plan for driving this bus towards the single payer/public option model, now doesn't it?

Perhaps Harkin and his Capitol Hill kin aren't as clueless as we suspected.

Hooray, regulations?

We don't think it's a stretch to imagine these people back in the 60s and 70s, stinky armpits, matted hair and all, agitating and fomenting on the campus greens across our nation on behalf of free speech and the more libertine and perhaps taboo aspects of society.

Who are these people and if they are the same what the hell happened to them?

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length.

In the current contest, each video must include the slogan “Let your voice be heard,” and it must direct viewers to the government’s regulatory website www.Regulations.gov. The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public’s participation in it.

The EPA is managing the contest, part of the government’s eRulemaking program, on behalf of the entire government.

As explained in the EPA press release announcing the contest, the purpose of the videos will be to remind the public that federal regulation touches “almost every aspect” of their lives and to promote how important those regulations are.

“The contest will highlight the significance of federal regulations and help the public understand the rulemaking process. Federal agencies develop and issue hundreds of rules and regulations every year to implement statutes written by Congress. Almost every aspect of an individual’s life is touched by federal regulations, but many do not understand how rules are made or how they can get involved in the process.”

The videos should be designed to “capture the public imagination” and to “explain” why government regulations are “important to everyone.”

So, that's what happened to them? Now sitting at the levers of power, all that "sticking it to the man" is just a wistful memory, if they happened to believe any of it at all.

But that is the psychology of the liberal-Left. Diversity of thought and action is cool as long as it's conforming to the "correct" standards as defined by...them.

And not even bothering to disguise the Mao/Dear Leader tone of the language bears this out. Because regulations touch "almost every aspect" of everybody's lives there is a oneness and a collective justice to a regulatory regime, thus there is an inherent goodness to regulations. The more the better.


Fortunately, the good people at Americans for Prosperity have made their entry



H/T: Hot Air

So, about that 'critical health priority' setting on your dinner table?...(UPDATED)

(Please scroll to bottom for update. Thanks.)

File this one under: Is there anything in life that these people do not wish to regulate?

The Food and Drug Administration should regulate the amount of salt added to foods to help Americans cut their high sodium intake, which can lead to high blood pressure, kidney failure and strokes, an influential federal panel said on Tuesday.

The Institute of Medicine said this was needed because Americans get most of their salt from processed and restaurant food, and merely telling them to eat less salt has not worked.

Meghan Scott, a spokeswoman for the FDA, which sponsored the IOM report, said the agency has not yet decided whether to regulate salt in U.S. foods. "We are not right now working on regulations," she said, but the agency is considering the panel's recommendations.

(italics, ours)

So when the incessant nagging and caterwauling doesn't work, you break out the big regulatory guns of compulsion.

And dig this Meghan Scott character: she wants us all to believe that they are merely considering regulation after a study they sponsored recommend that they do so. Don't you think that if you commission a study that concludes the FDA should regulate salt, the FDA will most likely regulate salt? Folks, the FDA is going to regulate salt.

"For 40 years we have known about the relationship between sodium and the development of hypertension and other life threatening diseases, but we have had virtually no success in cutting back the salt in our diets," Jane Henney of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio, who chaired the Institute of Medicine panel, said in a statement.

"The best way to accomplish this is to provide companies the level playing field they need so they are able to work across the board to reduce salt in the food supply."

For those of you scoring at home, "Level playing field" is statist lingo for mandatory rules and regulations

"There is now overwhelming evidence that we must treat sodium reduction as a critical public health priority," said Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the Institute of Medicine.

The panel said companies should be allowed to reduce sodium on a step-by-step basis so that they do not lose customers due to sudden changes in flavor, the panel of experts said.

That companies would be graced by this leniency is proof of the ultimate benevolence of this panel. All hail the Institute of Medicine!

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Senator Tom Harkin said on a conference call they would pressure the FDA to regulate salt intake in the U.S. food supply.

"My view of self regulation is that it has not worked in the past," DeLauro said. "We need to move this along."

This quote was given after the article noted that food giants like Pepsico, General Mills, Kraft Foods, and Campbell Soups Inc., all had stated goals to reduce the sodium content in their products across the board.





(UPDATE #1): A funny thing happened on the way to the Institute of Medicine...

High-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, contrary to long-held medical beliefs, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

They reached their conclusion after examining dietary intake among a nationally representative sample of adults in the U.S. The Einstein researchers actually observed a significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with lower sodium diets.

The researchers analyzed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), which was conducted by the federal government among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. These data were then compared against death records that had been collected by the government through the year 2000. The sample of approximately 8,700 represented American adults who were over 30 years of age at the time of the baseline survey (1988-1994) and were not on a special low-salt diet.

After adjusting for known CVD risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes and blood pressure, the one-fourth of the sample who reported consuming the lowest amount of sodium were found to be 80% more likely to die from CVD compared to the one-fourth of the sample consuming the highest level of sodium. The risk for death from any cause appeared 24% greater for those consuming lower salt, but this latter difference was not quite large enough to dismiss the role of chance.

“Our findings suggest that for the general adult population, higher sodium is very unlikely to be independently associated with higher risk of death from CVD or all other causes of death,” says Dr. Hillel W. Cohen, associate professor of epidemiology and population health at Einstein.

(italics, totally ours)

Color us unsurprised. ObamaCare is not about better healthcare and neither is this pending regulation of salt. It's about control. It's about a fundamental distrust of individual freedoms and liberty.

They may try to dress it up in the fineries of doing what's best for the greater good of individuals in society but at the end of the day the compelling logic is that you cannot be trusted to make healthcare decisions or dietary decisions on your own.

Looking at the way Obamacare was fashioned and looking at what is actually in the bill as we have been doing in our Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery and now looking at the statements, motives and facts regarding salt regulation, how can it be anything but?

All the President's people

It's one of our faves, Bertha Lewis of ACORN, giving us all the unvarnished truth.



For a moment there, we weren't sure whether she was talking in the present or future tense.

And "internments"? Exercised at the behest of the great progressive of the 20th century, last we checked.

We sleep better at night knowing that millions upon millions of our tax dollars have been spent to fund the professional existence of Bertha Lewis and her cause.

Like getting slapped upside the head with a ribeye steak, we'd apologize for the blatant red meat nature of this post but for the fact that we think it's important to, from time to time, point out what is considered "mainstream" and totally-not-fringe in some very large socio-political circles.


P.S. "Socialist" has been nearly branded as hate speech when used by conservatives, especially while describing the president's policies. Given that, could Lewis then possibly be a self-hating black?

Stuff you just can't regulate

Boston.com has got some great pictures of the volcano, here.

(please... please click image to enlarge)



And Temple of Mut has some good science stuff on the very un-Earth Day-like behavior of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull, here.

Quote of the day

but I have a question: How come we're supposed to draw (on the basis of no evidence), a connection between conservatism and terrorism, conservative ideology and terrorism? Where is that connection? Yet we are told we must reject, despite tons of evidence, the connection between Islamist ideology and terrorism. So we can't call Islamist fundamentalists "terrorists." We can't even use the word. But we can have ex-presidents and current presidents running around trying to associate conservatives with nonexistent terrorism at peaceful tea parties. Somebody needs to explain this to me.

On a somewhat related note with respect to stereotypes and media templates...



"I'm scared of the President because he is white. What does Keith Olberman have to say about that?"


H/T: NRO and Reason.tv

Freedom, Liberty and the NHS

A WOMAN has been denied an operation on the NHS after paying for a private consultation to deal with her severe back pain.

Jenny Whitehead, a breast cancer survivor, paid £250 for an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon after being told she would have to wait five months to see him on the NHS. He told her he would add her to his NHS waiting list for surgery.

She was barred from the list, however, and sent back to her GP. She must now find at least £10,000 for private surgery, or wait until the autumn for the NHS operation to remove a cyst on her spine.

“When I paid £250 to see the specialist privately I had no idea I would be sacrificing my right to surgery on the NHS. I feel victimised,” she said.

The case will reopen the debate over NHS policy towards patients who pay for some of their care privately. Following a Sunday Times campaign in 2008, the government ordered the NHS to stop withdrawing care from patients who received additional private treatment or drugs. Cancer sufferers were being barred from further NHS treatment after buying potentially life-saving medicines not offered by the health service.

Whitehead’s case, which has shocked her local Labour MP, reveals that patients who go private in despair at long waiting lists still risk jeopardising their NHS treatment. Department of Health officials admit it remains official policy.

Remember, socialized medicine/universal healthcare is not about providing or even obtaining superior medical attention - it's about maintaining the status quo and ensuring everyone is subjected to the same crappy service and care.

What is more chilling than the actual story, though, is the reader comments. Few seemed to be bothered by the insanity of this situation and the consensus was that a tweak here and a tweak there would ultimately solve the problem rather than entertaining the notion of scrapping the system entirely.

In fact, there was incredulity expressed that this woman would have the temerity to "get out of the queue" in order to see after her own health.

It's a crazy notion, we realize, but perhaps we could toss-about the idea that... everyone pays for their own healthcare.

The Brits have their NHS and now that they do have it, they are loathe to reverse course and do anything as radical as privatizing healthcare whereby individuals and individual decisions take precedence over "the system".

The reader comments reflect the deleterious effects of submitting these sort of decisions to an outside authority. Self-interest, the desire to seek the best possible care for one's own health, becomes secondary to a perverse ideal of equality and fairness whereby acting in one's best interest is seen as "selfish" and "gaming the system".

The more we think about it, the more we are convinced of the justice and true fairness of blowing up and completely destroying ObamaCare by any legal means.

You may be breaking the law by reading this

So, this is how it's going to be? This is the extent of the intellectual framework of the pushback against those who would have the gall to exercise their 1st amendment rights to express displeasure with the president's statist agenda.

Joe Klein of Newsweek scribbling down some "research" on a cocktail napkin.

"I did a little bit of research just before this show - it's on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious."

This would be humorous but for the fact that the cocktail napkin strategy is so offensive and what they are accusing others of is so serious in nature.

It's also pathetic and represents the depth to which mainstream journalism in America has descended. A free press which should have an inherent skeptical and adversarial role to the government has switched sides and is now openly hostile towards the country's citizens.

Perhaps these sages of the media can enlighten us to what exactly it is about a $1.4 trillion budget deficit in 2009 and a $1 trillion deficit in 2010 we are supposed to be happy about.

Precisely what is it about the very real possibility of a VAT (value added tax - the pols know damn well they cannot fund the massive explosion of federal government programs without finding new revenue streams) that we should lay ourselves supine in overwhelming gratitude?

It's obvious that Klein and the others cannot quite get it through their skulls that we may be just a tad dissatisfied over a $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package that did nothing of the sort and did not keep unemployment below 8% as promised and was cynically constructed so that the majority of the spending would take place during the year of mid-term elections.

Perhaps Klein and his buds think we should be overjoyed and throw rose pedals at the feet of our congressional overseers who have inserted themselves into our healthcare decisions.

That the intelligentsia of this country disagrees with our pleas for fiscal responsibility and desires for our government to return to some core constitutional competencies is understandable. They're statists. That's just who they are.

That they cannot, however, at least understand the underlying reasons for this anxiety is demonstrable of either a) just how out of touch with the American public they have become or b) they do understand and they are so in-the-tank for the statist agenda they willfully lie in order to provide cover for disastrous domestic policies.

Either way, they have abrogated their duties and responsibilities as journalists.




Remember when dissent was patriotic?

Regrets...?

We've given this some thought and have come to the conclusion that we screwed up at the Tax Day rally at the Midway post office this past Thursday.

As you will recall, there was justifiable angst that lefty agitators would crash the rallies that were going on around the country in an attempt to embarass, discredit or otherwise marginalize the tea party movement, as a whole.

So, what happened at the San Diego rally? This guy...




And why did we screw up? Because we didn't thank the guy. In all seriousness, we should've extended our hand in friendship to this man and thank him for not being flame-thrower by attempting to portray us as truthers, birthers or racists.

As it was, this form of counter-protesting was pretty benign and given the circumstances, pretty amusing.

We regret that his identity was exposed and hope that no one has used this knowledge for ill.

As Leslie has admonished us, to be effective in getting our message out and across, it takes love. Brotherly love dictates that we can disagree without being disagreeable.

Props to every 'partier out there who is making this happen.

How's that working for ya?

Re: ObamaCare.

So, that was it?

That was the liberal-Left's Big Idea?

We have essentially created public utilities out of the health insurance corporations. The federal government and the health insurance industry in a hand-in-glove partnership... picking winners and losers!.

The very corporatism they claim to have despised, they, in the end, clawed, scratched, bribed, swindled, decieved, misled, lied and whored in order to achieve.

As I have said before, if we want an anti-corporate agenda, then let's end the subsidies, bail outs and tax breaks that go to corporations. But that would mean vast simplification of the tax code not seen since Reagan and Rostenkowski worked out a deal. In general, it means we have to renounce government interference in the economy to achieve a true anti-corporate agenda. But politicians of both parties can't resist the temptation. This is where the Tea party comes in, we educate the public on the negative impact and demand a smaller more accountable government. I'm not talking laissez-faire but just minimally intrusive policies.

Will we get any help from our left-leaning Coffee Party friends? One would think that an anti-corporate agenda would be in their wheel house. However, because of the progressive's reflexive instincts towards more government regulation (read: more government intervention into the free market), the result turns out being the government and private industry having that much greater of a vested interest in each other.

The very corporatism they seek to end, is only strengthened by the progressive's statist policies and legislation.

Catch the rest of B-Daddy's take down here.