News You Can Use

The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

News You Can Use 
“There Is Still Time to See a Cranberry Bog Outside Union Station”–headline, Washington Post website, Oct. 9

Hey, Kids! What Time Is It?
“After Years of Austerity, It’s Time for Germany to Push Growth in Europe”–headline, Puffington Host, Oct. 10

The Accidental Reconstructionist 
“A Florida TV station reports that people’s credit score’s will ‘have a big impact’ on how much they pay for Obamacare,” reports The Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper:

“As more and for families are looking for insurance options for the new Affordable Care Act, they’re finding out their credit score will have a big impact on how much they pay,” reports an anchor. “A lot of people want to know why credit scores are determining how much they pay.”

“Well, they say it was explained to us like this: It’s like buying a house or a car. Your credit score and other factors can determine your interest rate. In this case, it can determine how much you pay in premiums,” the local reporter explains.

Says one Obamacare navigator: It’s “so that a health insurance provider can make educated decision about who to insure based if somebody is defaulting on all their bills, they may not want to have them in part of their health plan.”

Oops! Turns out the navigator had no idea what she was talking about: ObamaCare premiums are unrelated to credit ratings. Halper has an update with the follow-up report from Orlando’s WKMG, in which the lost navigator is unable to explain where she came up with the idea.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports from Atlantic City, N.J., that “an accident has taken place at an accident reconstruction convention–but not intentionally”:

Russell Strickland of Cincinnati was acting as a radio operator for an experiment to crash two cars at medium speeds in a controlled environment when the accident occurred. Strickland was badly bruised but did not break any bones. He is expected to be released from the hospital Thursday.

Accident reconstructionists were meeting from across the United States and Canada at their annual convention, which this year is being held in Atlantic City.

We had no idea there was such a thing as an accident reconstruction convention. But it’s a heck of a metaphor, isn’t it?