So I Hear It's Halloween

Things Unlikely to End Well

Some days you catch the fox, but some days . . . .

Time For a Third Party

According to a new Rasmussen poll:

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American Adults believe the federal government would do a better job than zombies running the country today. But the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most Americans don’t share that view, with just as many (37%) who feel zombies would do a better job running the country and another 26% who can’t decide between the two.

Just in Time

From Boing Boing.  Click to embiggen.

Worst Superhero Ever

Shit Gets Real in Fargo

Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand Forks

D'OH!

It's almost as if there's something about Government per se that makes it virtually impossible to do anything well:

The [New York] state Health Department published the wrong list of sites where New Yorkers can get help signing up for Obamacare — leaving businesses confused about why people keep asking them about health insurance . . . .

Under federal law, the state was supposed to work with agencies to provide a host of healthcare exchange navigators to "provide in-person enrollment assistance to individuals, families, small businesses and their employees who apply for health insurance through the Exchange" starting on Oct. 1, when the program went live.

But in September, when the state published its 228-page list of locations where navigators could be found, along with the days and times they were supposed to be available to the public, they published the wrong one, according to a DOH spokesman.

“That is not the correct list,” said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Health, when DNAinfo New York asked him about the list last week. “That’s something we’re looking into. We can't tell you anything more about this.”

The list — which includes everything from senior centers to bakeries, taxi companies and cupcake shops — was still on the DOH's website Tuesday.

More HERE.

IRS Can't Find its Ass With Both Hands

Also can't find 23% of its "technology assets."  We assume this isn't big stuff -- like mainframe computers -- but instead little stuff -- like desktops, laptops, blackberrys and the like.  We're confident they'll find the stuff.  After all, everyone knows how cranky the Internal Revenue Service gets when it thinks someone is stealing from the Government.

Cathedra Petri

More HERE.

Worst Job in the World? Jay Carney

National Cat Day

Apparently, today is "National Cat Day."  And so the Interwebs, always clogged with cutsie kitties, is today experiencing a positive paroxysm of felid photos.  Some few of us know better, but also know better than to upset a delicate truce.

Nice kitty.  Good kitty.  See?  I have tuna fish.  And the can opener! Good kitty.

Welcome to Gattaca

Not to worry, it's only science fiction. Scientific American, that's science fiction, right?

The patent in question, issued on September 24th, describes a method of “gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations.” 23andMe would first sequence the DNA of a man or woman who wants a baby as well as the DNA of several potential sperm or egg donors. Then, the company would calculate which pairing of hopeful parent and donor would most likely result in a child with various traits.

Illustrations in the patent depict drop down menus with choices like: "I prefer a child with Low Risk of Colorectal Cancer;" "High Probability of Green Eyes;" "100% Likely Sprinter;" and "Longest Expected Life Span" or "Least Expected Life Cost of Health Care."

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world, That has such people in't.

Dianne Feinstein (D - Schleswig-Holstein)

From our You-Can't-Make-This-Stuff-Up Editor comes the news that Dianne Feinstein is appalled to learn that the United States spies on the Government of a foreign country, and demands it be stopped, while she thinks spying on me is a good and wholesome activity.  It's good to have these things cleared up.

Related thought: if the Chancellor of Germany is using a telephone that can be tapped by the NSA, then someone at the Bundesnachrichtendienst should be shot.

Second related thought:  if the Bundesnachrichtendienst isn't spying on the Government of the United States, then . . . you get the idea.

Speaking of J. Edgar Hoover . . .

. . . here's what he might have looked like of he'd instead been President Herbert Hoover.

On Sunday's "Face the Nation," the best and the brightest were interviewing the author of a new book about the Kennedy assassination.  <sigh>  Referencing a memo from the late Director of the FBI, CBS flashed a picture of the President:

I suppose we ought not judge them too harshly.  It's not as if most of their audience knows the difference, much less cares.  What difference does it make?

What a strange, strange Universe . . .

. . . that has in it both Vin Scully and Tim McCarver.

Here's Tim explaining baseball's "obstruction" rule (which is really quite simple) that ended Game 3 of the World Series:

And here's Vin translating during a Dodgers/Rockies game a couple of years ago:

Meet Jeff Zients

"When technology -- and bureaucracy -- go awry in the Obama administration, Jeffrey Zients becomes the president's Mr. Fix It."

[snip]

"Zients was trained at Bain & Co."

You can't make this stuff up.

The Best & Brightest