Motley Moose – Archive

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From Breaking News at NY Times:

President Obama declared Monday that “nobody is madder than me” about the failures of the government’s health care Web site, but said the technical problems do not indicate a broader failure of the Affordable Care Act.

“We did not wage this long and contentious battle just around a Web site. That’s not what this was about,” Mr. Obama told supporters during 25-minute remarks in the Rose Garden.

That the president even had to say this tells us more about the laziness of the main stream media than it does about the technical shortcomings of a web site.

The Department of Health and Human Services accepts blame for the glitchiness of the web site and is beefing up their technical staff to address it head on:

Over the past two and a half weeks, millions of Americans visited HealthCare.gov to look at their new health care options under the Affordable Care Act. In that time, nearly half a million applications for coverage have been submitted from across the nation. This tremendous interest – with over 19 million unique visits to date to HealthCare.gov- confirms that the American people are looking for quality, affordable health coverage, and want to find it online.

Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been frustrating for many Americans. Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging in to the site, while others have received confusing error messages, or had to wait for slow page loads or forms that failed to respond in a timely fashion. The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people. We are committed to doing better. […]

To ensure that we make swift progress, and that the consumer experience continues to improve, our team has called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are encountering.

Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov. We’re also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them. We are also defining new test processes to prevent new issues from cropping up as we improve the overall service and deploying fixes to the site during off-peak hours on a regular basis.

Translation: “We know we had problems, we worked to fix them, and we are going to apply more fixes going forward.”

Facebook was down for a short while this morning, which makes it a complete and utter failure.

But thank goodness Twitter was up:

stages of gop obamcare grief:

1. obamacare is unconstitutional

2. … is legal but bad

3. … is killing liberty

4. … is too hard to get

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 20, 2013

You know how long you'd wait to get online to buy affordable health care under the GOP plan? A lifetime (which would be rather short).

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) October 18, 2013

Interrogatories

Married or former marrieds among you: What kind of wedding did you have? Big or small? Religious or civil? Who did the planning?

It’s Reptile Awareness Day. What reptiles do you need to be aware of (the Lizard People, maybe?), and are you afraid of them?

Are you currently boycotting anything? What?

Do you drink tea at all? What kinds? What’s your favorite?

The Twitter Emitter

The argument within the GOP is that one faction is crazy and the other isn't crazy enough.

— Barracks O'Bama (@P0TUS) October 20, 2013

My favorite Bible story is when Jesus tells GOPs to ignore all his teachings abt helping the poor when in a voting booth.

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) October 20, 2013

If Banksy's art increases property values is it really considered vandalism?

— Political Line (@PoliticaILine) October 20, 2013

"Tea Party: Only people who believe exactly what we believe deserve to be called real Americans" http://t.co/SP0zWNpFYk

— GottaLaff (@GottaLaff) October 20, 2013

My sources say Apple's big announcement this year is that they're getting out of the tablet and phone game to focus on cat toys.

— Crutnacker (@Crutnacker) October 20, 2013

Before Obamacare, insurance companies only cancelled your policy for a really good reason — like you got cancer, or something.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) October 20, 2013

Instead of deporting income generating undocumented immigrants, we should have deported Ted Cruz- AND SAVED $24 BILLION DOLLARS

— Lalo Alcaraz (@laloalcaraz) October 20, 2013

I am enjoying the Republican Hunger Games.

— Joshua Malina (@JoshMalina) October 20, 2013

Civil war erupts in GOP between those who want to carry a Confederate flag and those who want to carry a Confederate flag in each hand

— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) October 20, 2013

  Good morning Motley Meese! Hope your weekend was lovely.

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”. For example …..

YUK for today – after having moved just over a month ago, I needed to find a new gym: and with the local YMCA within a five-minute walk, it was a natural choice. And their membership application did indeed include a “How did you hear about us?” question …..  but it did not include the “Other” box on the Facebook meme below … which the two women at the registration desk had not seen, and laughingly asked if they could keep the copy I made (which I readily agreed to).

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

I just came home from AIDS Walk Austin & it was fantastic. I got to meet Cleve Jones, the man who started the Quilt – what an inspiration! And I wore a crown – people who raised over $1,000 were given crowns. There aren’t many of us who have done the Walk all 26 years, but 2 of us carried the Walk banner in the last 2 blocks. Come below the fold to see pictures.

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama said that now that the Federal government is reopened and the threat of default is lifted from the economy, there are three places Washington can take action to serve the American people. First, it’s time for a balanced, responsible approach to the budget that grows the economy and shrinks our long term deficits. Second, we must fix our broken immigration system. And finally, Congress should pass a farm bill to give rural communities the opportunity to grow. The President said it’s time to put aside politics and work on behalf of the American people and the country we love.

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!