stillhidden:

him-e:

Bill’s first love declaration to Sookie: ”Sookie, I cannot and I will not lose you. For all the ways I have dismayed, offended or failed you, I swear I will atone. But I’m not sorry. I refuse to apologize for what you have awaken in me. You are my miracle,…

stillhidden:

exitpursuedbyasloth:

Same room, same wallpaper, same coffee table, same piano, same open doors to the same craft room with the same table covered in the same blue tablecloth, same wingback chair in the back, same hoof lamp on the same mirrored bureau, all positioned around the same Sookie, with the same hairstyle, same headband, same blue-flowered halter, sitting in the same position on the same green couch with the same red pillow, with the same predator in a rumpled ill-fitting shirt sitting across from her, in the same beige chair, in front of the same table lamp, the same floor lamp, the same end tables, the same curtains, giving the same ‘Aren’t I just so harmless? I’m just trying to help.’ Smirk, all shot with nearly identical camera angles (just adjusted slightly for adult Sookie’s height).

Great observation. And keeping the tags, because the tags are gold! :)

brilliant!

Feminist author Naomi Wolf was arrested in New York outside an event that was awarding Gov. Andrew Cuomo. According to The Guardian’s account of the incident, there was around 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters who were gathered outside Skylight Studios to demonstrate against Cuomo’s opposition to a millionaires tax while he was inside being honored by the Huffington Post with a “Game Changer of the Year Award.” The police were apparently trying to keep the sidewalks clear. Read more.

Plus-size model Katie Halchishick in O Magazine, measuring the gap between healthy beauty and the toxic ideal

Major health insurance companies seeking steep premium increases in New York have submitted memos to state officials to justify the higher rates. Now they are fighting to keep the memos from the public, saying they include trade secrets that competitors could use against them.

“How these companies are setting these rates is vital for the public to know, and should not be treated like a state secret,” Benjamin M. Lawsky, the state superintendent of financial services, said on Tuesday. “Transparency will promote healthy competition and enable the public to rigorously comment on proposed rates, two goals that all of us should favor.”

Mr. Lawsky, whose new agency oversees the state insurance division, has ordered that the memos be made public. His decision, which will go into effect by the end of November unless the companies obtain a court injunction, ends a longstanding policy that exempted the insurance companies from public access under a “trade secret” exception.

The decision followed a battle by a consumer advocacy coalition, Health Care for All New York, which had first sought information for a policyholder in Queens who faced a 76 percent increase in his family’s Emblem Health premium. (The fee was later raised by 270 percent.)

Last year, the then-State Insurance Department gained new power to reject rate increases proposed for about three million residents covered by individual and small-group policies. It has since been flooded with consumer protests over proposed premium increases, many of them double-digit percentages. The department does not control rates for customers in large-group plans.

In a typical message, an unemployed 61-year-old, informed that Aetna wanted to raise her $1,932 monthly premium as much as 19.7 percent, wrote: “I worry every day how I will keep a roof over my head in the future. My teeth are all broken and I cannot afford to get them fixed because all my $$ is going to Aetna. So actually you could say that I am neglecting my health in order to be able to pay for my insurance.”

Aetna, like other carriers, has said premium increases are driven by the actual cost of health care. But consumer advocates dispute such assertions, while complaining that it is hard to challenge the increases without access to the company filings.

The New York Times, “In Seeking Rate Increases In New York, Health Insurers Fight to Keep Secrets.”

LOL, insurance companies.  If you want to be fucking assholes, it’s okay to show us how you do it!  What are you ashamed of?

And conservatives — how do y’all go about defending bullshit like this?  Just wondering, because you seem to be against any government regulations that would keep outrageous behavior — like unwarranted double-digit percentage premium increases — from happening.