A VERY RIPPETOE CHRISTMAS: So in response to yesterday’s post about the popularity of Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength, David Kirkham writes:

I bought a case of Rippetoe’s book Starting Strength and give them away to my friends. I really think his strength training saved my life when I had a heart attack. I have no detectable damage. Highly recommended.

Well, I dunno about heart attacks, but it couldn’t hurt.

POTEMKIN VILLAGES ALL THE WAY DOWN: ‘Fake’ sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela memorial provokes anger.

MORE BAD POLLING NEWS: Reason/Rupe Poll: Americans Want to Go Back to Previous Health Care System, Disagree With President Obama on Size and Power of Government.

Plus: WSJ: Poll: Health Law Hurts President Politically; Disapproval Rate Obama’s Job Performance Rises to All-Time High of 54%, Even as Americans Upbeat on Economy. “The federal health-care law is becoming a heavier political burden for President Barack Obama and his party, despite increased confidence in the economy and the public’s own generally upbeat sense of well-being, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests.”

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 216.

DAN MITCHELL: Ryan-Murray Budget Deal Replaces Real Spending Restraint of Sequester with Budget Gimmicks and Back-Door Tax Hikes. To be fair, the Dems wanted to gin up a government shutdown to distract from the ObamaCare debacle, and this prevents that. And the GOP can always push for spending cuts at the next debt-limit vote, in a context that’s politically much safer.

I PREFER MY “PEELING AN ONION OF FAIL” METAPHOR, BUT “FAIL FRACTAL” HAS A NICE RING TO IT, TOO: ACA Fail Fractal: The Deeper You Get, The More Dysfunction You See.

Higher deductibles can, in certain contexts, be useful for introducing some price sensitivity into the system. But that depends on how people go about dealing with them. There are two deep-rooted problems with what remains in many ways an excellent health care system overall: it is too expensive, and not enough people have enough access to it. The cheaper health care becomes, the easier it is to expand access. In a cheaper system, fewer people need subsidies and the subsidies they do need are smaller. Without fixing costs, on the other hand, more and more people, not to mention the government, struggle to pay for our system, and the resources for expanding access shrink as the cost of do so grows.

Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act puts most of its effort on the wrong end of the problem: access rather than price. That’s one reason the rollout has been going so poorly and in some respects will get worse. Because not much effort was put into cost control, many insurers have taken the one easy step available to them to limit rate shock: restricting provider networks. As a result, people are unexpectedly losing access to doctors they have seen for years.

Unexpectedly!

COMING NEXT, CLAUDE RAINS ORDERS AN INVESTIGATION INTO GAMBLING AT MONSIEUR RICK’S: Hilarious: Clueless Sebelius Demands Investigation Into Screwed-Up ObamaCare Website.

WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE WITH THIS KIND OF ONE-SIDED PRO-GOVERNMENT COVERAGE? MSNBC? China state media under fire for arguing benefits of smog. No, because other state media are actually criticizing them: “While both pieces have since been deleted from their websites, Chinese newspapers lost little time in denouncing their point of view, in an unusual case of state media criticizing other state media, showing the scale of the anger.”

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ELECTRIC SLIDE: President’s approval rating plummets to 38 per cent overall, just 34 per cent on health care and 40 per cent on Iran.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: ABA Proposes Annual Audits of Law School Placement Data.

JAMES TARANTO: Those Unattainable Invincibles: MoveOn.org worries about adverse selection.

On Friday we analyzed a fatuous article in which the Washington Post’s Ryan Cooper tried to reassure his left-liberal readers that they needn’t worry about the next phase of the ObamaCare disaster–that is, the third phase, known as “adverse selection.” Adverse selection will occur when young, healthy adults fail to purchase insurance at inflated prices, which ObamaCare needs them to do to sustain the artificially low premiums of the middle-aged and those with pre-existing conditions.

Well, you’ll never guess who’s terrified of adverse selection. “Only 29% of uninsured young people now say they plan to sign up for Obamacare,” warns an email we received today from one Mark Crain:

This could become a gigantic problem, because the only way we can afford to cover all the people with pre-existing conditions is if younger, healthier people enroll as well. If only sick people sign up, our entire health insurance system falls apart.

And who is this Mark Crain? He’s with MoveOn.org, that chronic affliction on the American body politic since 1998. Laughably, Crain blames adverse selection on “one-sided press coverage.”

Well, he’s kinda right — if it weren’t for one-sided press coverage, ObamaCare never would have passed. Heck, Obama never would have been elected.

YEAH, WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING? Byron York: Euphoria of Obamacare becomes nightmare of higher premiums and deductibles.

From a distance of three and a half years, the events of March 23, 2010, the day President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, seem like something from another world.

On that day, the Democrats who gathered in the East Room of the White House for the signing ceremony could barely contain their joy. They cheered, they laughed, they shouted, they pumped their fists, they wouldn’t sit down. They chanted “Fired up — ready to go!” as they had at Obama campaign rallies. When the president recognized Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House, the chant turned to “Nancy! Nancy! Nancy!”. . . .

After an effusive introduction from Vice President Biden, Obama turned almost immediately to the task ahead. “It will take four years to implement fully many of these reforms,” he said, “because we need to implement them responsibly. We need to get this right.”

At the time, no one had any idea just how ill-prepared Obama and his administration were to actually do the job they set for themselves. Three years later, approaching an Oct. 1, 2013, deadline for the establishment of the Obamacare exchanges, the administration was still scrambling to finish even the most basic tasks. What followed was disaster.

But on signing day 2010, it was all cheering. As the audience applauded, Obama promised the new law would “lower costs for families and for businesses.” He cited the case of Natoma Canfield, an Ohio woman whose story he often told during the health care fight. Canfield, divorced and 50 years old, had had cancer but was still able to find what she called “costly, but affordable” coverage on the individual market. Then her insurance company abruptly raised her premium.

“Natoma had to give up her health coverage after her rates were jacked up by more than 40 percent,” Obama said.

Now, because of Obamacare, millions of Americans in the individual market, most of whom have not had a major health crisis, are facing abrupt increases of more than 40 percent in their health insurance premiums. On top of that, they are finding deductibles rising far beyond those that troubled Canfield. (In a 2009 letter to the president, Canfield complained of having a $2,500 deductible; on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that under Obamacare “the average individual deductible for what is called a bronze plan on the exchange — the lowest-priced coverage — is $5,081 a year.”)

Even the president’s personal observations on signing day were not what they appeared. “I’m signing this reform bill into law on behalf of my mother,” Obama told the audience, “who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days.” Obama often cited his mother’s story, suggesting that she had to fight to have her treatment covered. But a year after the signing ceremony, a 2011 biography of Stanley Ann Dunham revealed she had health coverage that covered the costs of her cancer treatment. Her argument was over a disability policy, which she wanted to pay her living — not medical — expenses. Obama never said that.

It’s lies and incompetence all the way down.

ROLL CALL: Cantor’s Pediatric Research Bill Has Democrats Fuming.

While the House ties up some legislative loose ends this week before adjourning for the year, there is one suspension bill the public — and House Republicans — might be surprised to find many Democrats opposing: a measure aimed at boosting pediatric medical research at the National Institutes of Health.

The “Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act,” named after a 10-year-old girl who died in October following an 11-month battle with an inoperable brain tumor, would end $12.5 million in funding for party nominating conventions and authorize the money for pediatric research grants instead. It’s the latest iteration of a proposal House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., unveiled in April and is sponsored by Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss.

“They’re politicizing the death of a child by naming the bill after her,” a Democratic leadership aide told CQ Roll Call on Tuesday. “That’s pretty disingenuous and callous to use a tragedy like hers to advance something partisan.”

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Yeah, the Democrats in Congress would never stoop to something like that . . . .

MALKIN TAKES THE BOEING — AGAIN: Salem Communications to acquire Twitchy. Meanwhile, I just keep plodding along, unbought.

SHOCKER: Possible Hate Crime Hoax in NY Daily News? Victim makes suspicious claim of being beaten by gang of Hasidic Jews.

A RESURGENCE OF “LIBERATION THEOLOGY?” Long march through the institutions continues.

GONZALO LIRA: Why Are You Speculating Instead Of Investing? “These people chasing returns aren’t greedy or evil. But they realize that, as they grow older, they won’t be able to count on Social Security to get them through their old age. They’ll need a nest egg that will produce enough income to get them through the thirty years after the end of their working life.” The system as currently run is designed to encourage you to do this, by punishing people for traditionally prudent saving.

A RIPPETOE CHRISTMAS: Reader Stephen Staff writes:

Glenn – was at the gym this morning and observed someone doing a barbell squat with perfect form. A quick question confirmed what I had suspected – Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength strikes again! It’s not the first time I’ve asked the question after observing someone with great form (which is all too often NOT the case) and heard them sing Rippetoe’s praises. I thought it might be a great idea to remind readers that the book would make a great Christmas gift to anyone who is a lifter – novice or pro. Might come in handy for those New Year’s resolutions as well! Thanks.

Good suggestion!

IN BRITAIN, AN IMMIGRATION GAP BETWEEN POLITICIANS AND VOTERS: Ed Miliband accused of contempt for voters after his polling guru said their anti-immigration views made him ‘depressed.’ Well, the whole point of Britain’s immigration policy over the past couple of decades was to replace the existing voters with newer, more tractable ones. . . .

HMM: Budget Deal Is Sealed. “Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced a budget deal Tuesday evening that would call for about $1 trillion in federal spending in 2014 while replacing some sequestration cuts. The deal replaces $63 billion in sequester cuts over two years and trims an additional $23 billion in long-term deficits. The agreement falls far short of the grand budget bargain Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President Obama once envisioned. But if passed, it will bring a measure of fiscal peace to the capital for the first time since Republicans took control of the House in 2010.”

I dunno. It may be more politically advantageous than another shutdown, but I think the sequester was doing a better job of restraining spending.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: All My Exes Live in Texts: Why the Social Media Generation Never Really Breaks Up. “There’s the ex who ‘likes’ everything you post. The ex who appears in automated birthday reminders. The ex who appears in your OkCupid matches. The ex whose musical taste you heed on Spotify. The ex whose new girlfriend sent a friend request. . . . There was also a time, I am told, when staying in touch was difficult. Exes were characters from a foreclosed past, symbols from former and forgone lives. Now they are part of the permanent present.” Well, I dunno. I always tended to stay in touch with ex-girlfriends. Helen and I probably would never have dated if it weren’t for one of them who put us together.

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REMEMBER, THE REASON THERE ARE SO FEW MALE TEACHERS IS THAT PEOPLE THINK OF MEN AS PREDATORS: Former Hillsborough teacher sentenced to 38 years for sex with student.

Calling her “a parent’s worst nightmare,” a judge sentenced former Hillsborough County schoolteacher Ethel Anderson to 38 years in prison Monday for performing oral sex and other lewd acts on a 12-year-old boy she tutored on weekends.

Circuit Judge Chet Tharpe’s severe punishment of Anderson seemed designed to send a message in a county that has attracted disproportionate attention for sex scandals involving female educators. The most notorious of them, Debra Lafave, managed to avoid incarceration completely after pleading guilty to sex with a 14-year-old boy.

“There are those that believe that nothing’s wrong if the defendant is a woman and the victim is a male,” Tharpe said Monday. “This court does not recognize gender. If it’s proven, as an adult, that you had sex with a child, you can expect to go to prison.”

Read the whole thing.