Hurricane Odds Makers On Strike

The Klotzbach-Gray team of Colorado State fortune tellers and weather bookies has issued its hurricane forecast for 2010. "For the first time, the CSU team is issuing a range for the number of forecast storms instead of a specific number. This is more in line with the forecasts that the National Hurricane Center issues."

Bottom line: even they don't believe in their "new early December forecast scheme." "We issue these forecasts to pander to satisfy the curiosity of the general public and to bring attention to our department's need for more insurance corporation donations the hurricane problem. "

If you want to waste your time and read the whole thing, click here.

Senate and Sensibility

The U.S. Senate is completely dysfunctional. Only Jon Stewart can make sense of it.

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Like Medicare? Not for You, Then

Medicare for All (55 and over)!?

Senate Democrats are discussing the idea of expanding Medicare by lowering the age at which the elderly could enter the government-run insurance program, Democratic sources on the Hill tell the Huffington Post.

The proposal would lower the age of eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 55, though an age limit of 60 has also been suggested. Crucial details -- such as the timing of the implementation of such a reform -- were not provided due to the sensitivity and ongoing nature of the deliberations. A high-ranking Democratic source off the Hill confirmed that such discussions are taking place.

Of course, as Atrios implies, this is just a strategy to shut up the "DF hippies" who think senators and congressman ought to go through life without scamming money from the drug manufacturers and health insurers. How naive that is!

So, Digby's amended statement makes sense to us. Medicare for all 55 and over --

is a terrible idea that only a centrist, moderate, corporate lackey, right wing teabagging villager could love and I will fight it with my last breath! Betrayal!

Lowering it year by year until it reaches everyone would be even worse. The reason, of course, is that if we said we liked it, Blue Dog Crooks like Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and that thorough-going idiot, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, would jerk it away immediately.

Aetna Doesn't Want You Anymore

Via Daily Kos and Suburban Guerrilla:

Aetna is already planning to kick off over 600,000 Americans who're unprofitable since they get sick and require that claims get paid, right before the health "insurance reform" plan would take effect.
* * *
If you're an Aetna customer, be careful with which claims you submit as that could raise a red flag in their investigative teams. They'll deny your claims, raise your premiums, drop your policy based on some claim of fraud, and give you the ol' administrative runaround in order to discourage you from staying on with Aetna.

As Slinkerwink says, this is why we need a true, effective public option in any health reform bill.

Be sure to kick a Blue Dog for ruining the public option. With Democrats like Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who needs Republicans?

We Have a Winner!

Famed Colorado State hurricane forecasters Dr. William Gray and Philip J. Klotzbach consider themselves "successful" in the 2009 Annual Tropical Weather Forecast Derby. They're winners!

This is very good news. By the standards they use, we must have won the Florida Lottery.

Gray and Klotzbach's first forecast for the just-ended hurricane season, issued a year ago this week, only missed the mark by 57 percent ( 4 hurricanes too many). They also cleaned up on the undercard with Named Storms (35 percent wrong)... Named Storm Days (61 percent wrong)... Hurricane Days (62 percent wrong)... Major Hurricanes (33 percent wrong)... and Major Hurricane Days (53 percent wrong).

With a record like that, it's a wonder Gray and Klotzbach didn't lose the shirt they take turns wearing by investing in General Motors, C.I.T., Chrysler, and General Growth Properties. (Oops! Maybe they did!)

In case anyone's wondering, Dr. William Gray generously shares all the credit for the team's performance this year with his understudy: "Phil is now devoting much more time to the improvement of these forecasts than I am," he writes modestly. "I am now giving more of my efforts to the global warming issue."

We know how that's going. Another "winner"!

Investment Advice

Via TPM:

[T]he next time you see CNBC star-struck by the glamorous lifestyle of some high-living master of the universe, it might be worth taking a close look at his company's finances. Because the nation's most prominent business network probably didn't.

No, no! The next time you see CNBC featuring "some high-living master of the universe," sell his company short -- and then call the cops.

Thanks for Stopping By

The First Thanksgiving Reenacted

Pensacola Prediction

So, it seems Pensacola city voters have approved a new municipal charter authorizing a "strong mayor" system. Now, let's see if they have the brains to elect one who's intelligent and honest.

Don't count on it. We fervently wish them well, but we've seen this movie before. Voters who find themselves incapable of electing a city council majority with brains and integrity are unlikely to smarten-up and suddenly elect anything better as mayor.

Save this prediction on the front of your refrigerator: Sooner or later -- probably sooner -- a "strong mayor" elected by the people of Pensacola will be indicted on corruption charges. And, he'll go to jail, just as so many county commissioners have in the past.

Unless, that is, his criminal defense lawyer succeeds in empaneling a jury made up of the same kind of dummies that voted for him.

Rolltide Symphony in J Minor

We have a good friend who can be seen all over Pensacola this time of year, embarrassing herself by waving crimson flags and shouting, "Rolltide, Rolltide." Check out any sports bar that may be showing Alabama football. You'll be forgiven if you mistake her for a crazy tea bagger.

The other day, she sent us a film clip, seen below. Either she was trying to convey her condolences or she was rubbing salt in our wounds. Alabama is still in the hunt for a national college football championship while the Iowa Hawkeyes aren't.

It's as if our friend were saying, "Sure, Alabama is No. 1. But Iowa can do something, too. Looky here, the Hawkeyes are a winner in farm machinery music!"

If she were sneering as she said it, then she was rubbing in the salt. The film our friend sent purports to show an --

incredible machine ... built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machine's components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa , yes farm equipment.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

The problem is, the entire story -- and the machine -- is a hoax.

• There is no "Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory" at the University of Iowa.
  
• There is no "Sharon Wick School of Engineering."
  
• There is no "Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall" in Iowa City, or anywhere else for that matter.
  
• John Deere Co. has nothing to do with any of them.
  
• The machine is not on its way to the Smithsonian Museum.
  
• The reason is, as the Smithsonian patiently explains,"The Institution cannot accept a donation of something that doesn't exist."

As it happens, there is a Bancroft, Iowa (pop. 808). In case you're wondering, it's just twelve miles due west of Titonka (pop. 574). Even people in Iowa don't know these towns exist.

As for the University of Alabama, we'll put the U. of I's Bill LaRue Jones up against Alabama's Nick Saban any ol' time.

Charlie Crist's Options

The Republican Governor of Florida is in deep political trouble. He's the latest target of the tea bagger crazies. Or, as the Urban Dictionary now has it, he's being scozzafavaed.

According to recent polling, right-winger Mario Rubio is on track to defeat Charlie Crist in next year's Republican primary for the U.S. Senate nomination. The really bad news for Crist is, "The crazier the Republican, the better Rubio does." And, Florida has a lot of crazy Republicans.

Steve Benen surveys Crist's options:

• Crist can try to out-crazy Rubio, but that would put him somewhere to right of Attila the Hun.
• Once he loses the primary, he could do a Lieberman and run as an Independent, possibly tying the major party candidates.
• He could change parties and become a Democrat, in which case poll data analysis show he probably would win.

Adam Smith, the fortuitously-named political reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, has an even more outlandish suggestion: Crist could discover some lofty principle he actually believes in. Then, he'd stand for something other than his own political advancement.

Novel idea, eh?

The Wait of Evidence in Pensacola

A man with a criminal record who is a serial liar is arrested for a bar heist that went so bad a patron was shot and killed. The man then tells Escambia County sheriff's deputies the trigger man actually was a black man with the supposed nickname "Black By Day." He claims he doesn't know his supposed accomplice's real name.

So, Escambia County deputies arrest a black man, now known to be entirely innocent of any crime --

on the word of Brandon Davis, 20, who admitted robbing the bar in the 3900 block of Fairfiield Drive on Oct. 23. Davis also told officers that Gilchrist was with him and fired the fatal shot that knocked Jared Ortiz, 25, from a bar stool.

The innocent man arrested happens to have a similar-sounding nickname, "Day Day." That's the only so-called evidence linking him to the crime. A bar full of employees and patrons, and no one else could corroborate the innocent black man's involvement. Yet, he is charged with murder and sits in jail awaiting trial. In the meantime, what does the sheriff's investigators do? Nothing. Nothing!

Why? Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ted Roy explains: "I don't know if you watch a lot of TV, but in real life, other evidence does come forward all the time."

Arrest first, wait for the evidence to walk in your door later? Wasn't there a revolution fought over that kind of conduct?

The only evidence that finally came forward? The original crook recanted his "his allegation that Gilchrist was involved... ." There being no other evidence against him, Gilcrist was finally released.

Think about that for a moment. The cops rely on one man's word and arrest someone, then sit around wolfing down donuts and waiting while drawing their salaries as 'homicide detectives.' But for the rare happenstance that the crook finally 'fessed up, an innocent man almost assuredly would have been tried, convicted, and executed in Florida.

We don't watch much TV, so we can't be sure what Sgt. Ted Roy is referring to. Does he mean to imply that in Pensacola, the sheriff's deputies don't look for fingerprints from the gun or gunpowder residue on the suspect? They can't bother to interview victims in the bar?

Now, in all fairness the PNJ may not have the whole story. After all, the absence of evidence in itself is evidence. And, it may be the product of some kind of investigation, even if after-the-fact. Nor are we persuaded by some of the boo-birds who infect the PNJ message boards that this is all the fault of the current sheriff. After all, he inherited a deputy force that doubtless has some lousy, hard-to-fire detectives along with some good ones.

But, doesn't the law require probable cause before arrest? Or, in Escambia County is it the case that to know his race is to know enough?

Beach Life List

Today's edition of the Pensacola Newsletter editorializes by asking the question, How different should beach life be? Curiously, the editorial wimps out on offering an answer.

What the newspaper is talking about is the latest scam by real estate gamblers to try to recoup their underwater investments: McMansion "houses" built in single-family residential neighborhoods to function like party hotels so they can host raucous beach bashes 24/7. Today, it's large wedding parties. Tomorrow, the editorial points out it could be "weekend flea markets," dining for the masses al fresca, or porch concerts by electrified rock bands.

That's not helpful. It just gives the speculators more ideas. To sentient human beings, suggesting that Pensacola Beach might become home to trashy flea markets and ear-splitting rock concerts sounds like a nightmare. To the repulsive mercenaries trying to game the zoning laws, the newspaper's short list of horribles will sound like great ideas.

Using Too Much Health Insurance

If those pesky blogs would just stop reporting on lazy, good-for- nothing people like this kid who want to use too much health insurance, Blue Cross could make more money. It's a "non-profit," after all.

The latest House Republican Plan would fix all this by making it possible for health insurance companies just like this one to sell their crappy policies everywhere across state lines without worrying over whether some states have more consumer-friendly laws.

Obama in China

James Fallows translates for us.