Wonkette
Illiterate picture book The POLITICO simply does not care for this newly merged House health care bill that came out yesterday. Its top concern is that it sets the minimum medical-loss ratio too low for consumers, and too high for insurers. Is that what it is? Oh, no, it’s that the bill is a very big block of scary paper.
The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.
[...]
Republicans aide [sic] said a print-out of the bill weighs more than 19 pounds and stands nearly nine inches tall.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry, 34 years old and a few inches taller than 5 feet, said the bill could act as a “booster seat.”
[...]
…. the House will vote on the roughly 400,000-word bill in a week when it takes a congregation a year to read the 80,000-word Torah at a synagogue.
And it smells like farts.
House health bill clocks in at 1,990 pages [big $ale on truck nutz]
In contrast, lacking substance entirely, Politico weighs nothing at all.
I call bullshit. Everybody knows the Jews read slow.
Size queens.
Baby Smith?
Legislation statistics: ur doin it wrong.
Another example of the harassment of Senate pages by ‘Thuglicans.
“Yet the bill fits comfortably up John Boehner’s orange ass”
I’ll wait for the movie - Logan’s Run 2: Revenge of the Sandmen. No escape this time, grampa.
I would guess that most of the words in the bill are actually instructions on how to amend existing laws rather than actual new “law” words. For example, “Section 11025: Amend 26 U.S.C. 234(a)(i)(1)(A) by removing “doctor” and inserting “death panel”.) See, 13 words, but only 2 are actual new “law” words!
“Approximately six-and-1/2 pounds devoted entirely to a graphic description of the mandatory abortions segment.”
Erik Erickson should use it to mail rock salt to fox news.
“…that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.”
Wat? This doesn’t mean anything. The bill is also like 73 football fields long (33 furlongs!).
Politico is less of an illiterate picture book and more of a random fallacy generator. At least illiterate picture books have a chance of reaching a valid conclusion now and again.
Size matters. Just ask any Virginia K-9 officer.
I think they’re just mad that the budget doesn’t have listicles.
That and Rahmzebubb need to be the standard picture for any story about The Politico.
Don’t you worry, Repugnants. Your trusty leaders will do all the reading and clarification for you, just like they did to that thick and incomprehensible Bible.
Judas Peckerwood: Well played, sir or madam as the case may be.
SmutBoffin: You fail at arithmetic, lame-o. (7 football fields if each page is 11″.)
I think the Congressional printing office should publish these statistics every time a bill comes out, just so that the Republicans can’t do it and pretend they actually care about limited government.
Then the Republicans would be limited to leaking out-of-context details about how it lets black lesbians get gay abortions on the
white person’staxpayer’s dime.that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.
That’s quit an interesting metric. So is a higher dollar-to-word ratio better or worse to Politico? Can we get a measurement of the calories and fiber in the bill next, in case we’re hungry and have no money for food?
No snark, just something you can use to rhetorically rip the head off of the next wingnut who brings up the fact that the health care bill “comes out to about $2.24 million per word.”
Number of Words in Iraq War Authorization: 1,894
Cost to Date of Iraq War: $695,834,957,142
Cost Per Word of Iraq War Authorization: $367,389,100.91
SOURCES: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/bliraqreshouse.htm, http://costofwar.com/, user-of-owl’s calculator
Fucking assholes.
Politico neglected to provide the bond weight of the paper. For example, if the draft used 16-lb. bond paper, the bill would weigh less than 24-lb. bond paper. The Republicans might have used 30-lb. bond paper when they printed the bill out, just to exaggerate the size of the bill. Crack journalists like the Politico staff need to investigate that.
I also expect Mike Allen to blow the lid off of the font used in the final draft of the bill. Are they using the liberal Times New Roman? The moderate Verdana? Or the conservative Moran Narrow? Enquiring minds want to know.
POLITICO and its favored politcal party - the Republicans - can, and did, propose a trillion dollar finanical sector bailout on three pages of paper. In their defense, it was single-spaced.
Politico can just wait for the audio book to come out. But who would they get to read it?
I see they have learned content analysis from my college students.
Seriously, did POLITICO always suck this much?
Verily, these legislators should follow Dubya’s lead and have brief plans for everything. His Roadmap to peace between Israel and Palestine was eight pages. His Strategy for Victory in Iraq was less than 30 pages. Hank Paulson’s original TARP plan was three pages long. As a result we’ve got victory in Iraq, peace in Israel and a robust economy. QED.
…it takes a congregation a year to read the 80,000-word Torah at a synagogue.
Of course, 6 months of that year is spent counting money, sooo…
…it takes a congregation a year to read the 80,000-word Torah at a synagogue.
Because, like the rest of the country waiting for republican party, the rest of the synagogue has to suffer while the Rabbi dumbs it down for the lowest common denominator.
That’s a “scooplet” of… something. Yep.
Shhh. The last 1900 pages are blank.
Larry McAwful: Kerners are Go! http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9745.html
bluemoose: No, a few years ago it didn’t exist.
Actually, I kind of agree with the evil ones on this. No bills longer than 10 pages! (and Pages must be at least 18)
the problem child: Blank? oh I get it, to represent GOP’s soul.
did POLITICO always suck this much?
I quickly stopped paying attention to Politico after they started publishing because, yes, they did.
bluemoose: Yes.
@gurukalehuru: *rimshot*
Meh, what does it matter, it could be on it post-it, they wont read it cause it’s crawling with the socialism. God wrote all the laws we need on two pieces of rock with a lightning bolt in the time it took Moses to crap his ephod, brevity people…it’s the soul of wit and wisdom.
Next week: Politico’s two-part vlog essay on why it’s fun for Mike Allen and Roger Simon to stick random oblong objects up Ben Smith’s butt.
Hm. 9 inches, 19 pounds? Sounds an awful lot like Atlas Shrugged.
Bet Patrick McHenry read Sarah Palin’s book cover to cover with his pants around his ankles.
On page 359, it says “RCI will not be covered as a necessary medical expense.” Bad news for those suffering from rectal cranial inversion.
If you can’t come out with a comprehensive, money saving health care reform program in less than 7 syllables, it’s not worth doing.
dijetlo: Actually God wrote them on Golden Tablets, Which were found in Missouri in 1922 by Jebediah Springfield.
Now excuse me, my Magic Underwear are on the clothes line.
gurukalehuru: And legal opinions should fit on one Tweet.
If all the bill detractors were laid end-to-end, it wouldn’t surprise me.
…when it takes a congregation a year to read the 80,000-word Torah at a synagogue.
Actually, at Conservative and Orthodox synagogues they chant/sing the Torah readings. So we can look forward to the House barbershop quartet going a capella on this bad boy.
Politico knows its audience all too well, it seems.
Spoiler: around 1700 pages in, a Death Eater Panel kills Dumbledore.
imissopus: According to South Carolina Republicans, this is how Jews save money.
We need to adhere to the Constitution, people. Literally.
comicbookguy: You mean the part about giving congress free reign to exercise other powers not specifically enumerated etc etc? Yeah, I’m OK with that.
Senators are only supposed to work (”read”) for a few hours on Saturdays.
Um, Representatives. I fail at civics.
Most Republicans are just waiting for the Classic Comic book version, or if that fails the Cliffs Notes.
Since when does a document “clock in” at X pages? Was it caught doing 1990 pages in a 1500-page zone? And what is it about your legislation there, world’s oldest democracy? The Canada Health Act is 16 pages long (and you can divide that in 2 since it’s bilingual!). (Oh, and BTW it starts out with an affirmation of “states’ rights”.) As for riffing on Politico (increasingly!), couldn’t you do satire on health care by, say, making fun of Sarah Palin? (We knew we’d miss the American Idiot…)
Um, jewish guy here…why does it take one year to read the torah? not because it’s long, because we read it TEN MINUTES PER WEEK. fucking idiots.
Republicans can’t read? Maybe they should hire Mexicans to read it to them?