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onestepforward

onestepforward's Journal
onestepforward's Journal
November 17, 2012

Skydiving Cats

*No cats harmed

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/16/insurance-companys-skydiving-cats-cause-alarm/

Some pet-owning web users reacted with shock this week to a Swedish insurance company’s new advertisement featuring cats skydiving, set to the soothing sounds of artist R. Kelly. The uproar was actually enough to get CNN’s attention.

Reached by reporters, the insurance company Folksam assured the network that the cats didn’t really go skydiving.

The company claimed ad was created for a customer named Eve, who insures her cat through Folksam, using green screen technology to digitally place the cats into a video of people doing the real skydiving.

Still, it is pretty cute.





November 16, 2012

Map: Buddhists in America

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/buddha-buzz-buddhist-news-around-world-week-november-12



-snip-

Unsurprisingly, most of the American Buddhist action is concentrated on the coasts, with big numbers in California, Hawaii, and Colorado. But look at some of those orange pockets across the country—in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas! It's hard to tell from this map, but it looks like Kentucky and West Virginia might be the least Buddhist states in the U.S., closely followed by North Dakota. Alaska's lookin' pretty gray out there, too. According to HuffPo's analysis of the survey results, the top ten Buddhist cities are San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Las Vegas (who knew there were Buddhists in Sin City?), Oklahoma City, Denver, and Raleigh (another surprise!). They seemed to have left out any cities in Hawaii, however, for no discernible reason. The least Buddhist city is Birmingham, Alabama.


I thought this was interesting. I wished the map was a little bigger, but you can zoom with your browser
November 16, 2012

Perry says Texas will not set up health-insurance exchange

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Perry-says-Texas-will-not-set-up-health-insurance-4041913.php

A day before a Friday deadline, Gov. Rick Perry announced Texas would not set up a key component of the Affordable Care Act, a health-insurance exchange that would allow individuals and small businesses to find coverage online at the most favorable price.
-snip-

"As long as the federal government has the ability to force unknown mandates and costs upon our citizens, while retaining the sole power in approving what an exchange looks like, the notion of a state exchange is merely an illusion," Perry said in the letter. "It would not be fiscally responsible to put hard-working Texans on the financial hook for an unknown amount of money to operate a system under rules that have not even been written."

Proponents of the exchange contend it will allow the state to significantly reduce the size of its uninsured population, the largest in the United States.
-snip-


This means our exchange will be set up by the federal government.

I expected as much from Gov. DoubleDownOnStupid.

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