The Land Of The ONT, And The Home Of The Brave

Tonight on the ONT, we're going to play the name game! Name other things that the inventor of the Walkie Talkie could name. Like so:

A Smart Military Blog

There's a new Top Gun movie coming out this year, maybe now is the time to review Why the F-14 Tomcat Is Such a Badass Plane. Of course, there were still Five Maneuvers That Were Prohibited In The F-14 Tomcat. Strangely enough, buzzing the tower (or the admiral's daughter) is not on the list. Neither is shooting yourself down.

I understand why the plane was retired. I even understand why they shredded them (although that one hurts my heart), but goddamn, wasn't she just beautiful?

Cool Bro

Palin? Nope, The Name Doesn't Ring A Bell

This Is Weird

One of the best things about the internet is that it gives people the opportunity to do crazy, bizarre things, and sometimes those things turn out to be pretty funny. Like making a list of Wiki Titles Singable to TMNT Themesong. Titles like “legal status of Hawaii” or “Higgins Doctors Office Building”.

Meanwhile, On The Left

2020 Will Be the Year of the Left-Wing Freak-Out. By Derek Hunter. I like him, he used to have a pretty good talk show on WBAL in Baltimore, now he has a pretty good daily podcast if you're into that sort of thing. He's also a friend of Ace, and very, very tall. Seriously, I'm 6', and I had to get out a step ladder when I met him. If he ever gets into a fight with Jesse Kelly, it could flatten Tokyo.

UBC cancels Andy Ngo talk on Antifa violence due to violent threats from Antifa. It's a giant, self-licking ice cream cone at this point. I don't know what's to be done about Antifa, truly I don't. It's a violent terrorist organization that exists beneath the shelter of local political hierarchies. Blood in the streets is the only answer I can come up with, and I don't want that. Maybe we can get MS-13 or the Hell's Angels mad at them. I dunno.

Fatality

Brutal.

It's A Mystery

A Big And Bizarre Drone Mystery Is Unfolding In Rural Colorado

The sparse expanses of Northeast Colorado have become ground zero for a bizarre mystery surrounding sightings of nighttime coordinated flights of groups of drones. From roughly 7 pm to 10 pm every night last week, an estimated 17 drones with six-foot spans have flown "grid patterns" over Phillips County and near its border with neighboring Yuma County, according to Phillips County Sheriff Thomas Elliott. The drones operate at a few hundred feet in the air and were brightly lit with strobing colored and white lights, leaving local residents and those driving through the area baffled.

OK Horde, harebrained speculation time: What do you think this is all about?

This Is Good Stuff

How Four Pages Could Transform Health Care

It's not all the way there yet, absolute price transparency is badly needed, but this would be a big boon for the health consumer. It wouldn't even necessarily drive ACA plans out of business. Because of the perverse incentives in the system, insurance companies that accept high risk clients can actually make more profit than those who traditionally underwrite for risk. (How's that, you ask? Well, Obamacare has something called a MLR - minimum loss ratio. Purportedly designed to “reign in” those “greedy” insurance companies, in actuality it has proven to be a driver of the increase of medical costs. How? It's simple. MLR states that insurance companies MUST spend 80% of their gross revenue paying claims. The other 20% they can keep for costs and profit. It totally eliminates any incentive for the insurance company to try and keep costs down, the higher costs go (the 80%), the higher the 20% the insurance company gets to keep goes. It's easy to see how insurance companies would come to love higher claims costs in this scenario. Now normally, premiums would serve as a check on this inflation – at some point people would just stop paying for policies that are super expensive because they are paying out such high claim rates – but Obamacare relies on transfer payments (subsidies) from the government to cover some or all of the premium costs. Joe Consumer doesn't care, subsidies mean that his premium costs are limited based upon his income. He's going to be paying (making all these numbers up) $200/month for his insurance, it doesn't matter to him if the actual cost of his plan is $500/ month or $1000/month. The insurance company does care, the 20% they get to keep is twice as much in the later scenario, with Uncle Sucker making up the difference. You think the govt cares that it's paying $800/month rather than $300/month? Not bloody likely.)

Tonight's ONT brought to you by English:

posted by WeirdDave at 09:56 PM

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