1
"If you are in the Health Insurance business, well you just made out like a bandit"
Probably not, because they will have to start taking in all the currently-uninsured, including those with pre-existing conditions, and they can't charge those people higher premiums.
Posted by: RickC at Thu Jun 28 17:55:02 2012 (WQ6Vb)
2
Regarding the insurance business, I think long-term they're dead. I currently employ two people; I do not provide health care insurance. When I am forced to, I will take the cheapest option possible...which I understand to be the government option. An acquaintance who does provide health insurance claims he will switch to the government option, as his research shows it will be cheaper overall. And that's probably correct initially, after all, we will ALL be paying for the premiums. Of course, when it's all said and done and everyone is one the government insurance dole, the cost will be astronomical.
Posted by: Ben at Thu Jun 28 19:19:23 2012 (eC5M6)
3
I've heard the "Marbury" theory too, that by making this NOT a Commerce Clause case, it sets the stage for further rollbacks of the Commerce Clause abuse we've lived with, and that may have been why Roberts went to the pro side, so he could write the opinion.
Posted by: Mauser at Fri Jun 29 04:46:07 2012 (cZPoz)
4
I'm not sure I buy the Marbury analogy. This decision just seems blinkered. As odious as I find the lefts commerce clause argument, the tax thing seems even more of a stretch. I'm not sure that this will have ANY effect on lefty jurisprudence, since it often seems that they tend to ignore the parts of the constitution they don't like anyway.
Ace links to representatives of both sides of this discussion here.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 1 14:58:04 2012 (EJaOX)
I think I figured out what happened. Randy Barnett made a wish on a
cursed monkey’s paw that his commerce clause argument would be accepted.
It explains everything, no?
Quick! Someone check to see if Randy Barnett is now a magical girl!
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 1 15:16:41 2012 (EJaOX)
In Norfolk. Temp is 90ish. Sky is green. It is lightly...sleeting(!?)....Sideways.
UPDATE: Pixy has upgraded mee&u to allow post from mobile browsers! Heretofore, onl the post title field was accessible. There is NO html it seems, so no hyperlinks or images for now, but I'm posting this from my Blackberry!
Way to go Pixy!
ALSO: storm seems to be petering out. Some minor wind damage and flooding. Temps dropped to 70s.
It isn't that powerful. Storm surge is just a couple of feet.
What's more interesting is that it's going to sit there and suck up water from the Gulf, and deposit it all over Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama for days. There's going to be a lot of flooding.
Fortunately, although he is bedridden, his prognosis seems decent. He's blogged about it for one thing, which is certainly hopeful. Still, a stroke is a terrifying thing indeed.
1
Apparently the models are still all over the place. Last time I looked, one was predicting landfall at Houston and one was predicting it would go over north Florida and out to sea, and the others were all over the place in between.
1
I think it's rather nice that Kyubey has become a meme, especially since it's an in-joke. People who don't know about him will assume he's a cute animal.
Oy Vey
Today I went to my Literature professor and asked him for a replacement syllabus. He gave me a lecture on the importance of attendance (I'd missed class yesterday due to fallout from my grandmothers death). His response to my reason was not one of excessive empathy. In any event he handed me the syllabus, I stormed out of class and went to lunch.
After lunch I grabbed my binder out of the car , went to the library to study, pulled out the "syllabus"and noted that it was, in fact, tomorrows test.
OHfercryinoutloud...
SO....I went to the lit department found his office and he wasn't in (Natch).
I spoke to the secretary who kind of freaked out and did NOT want to talk to me. I was walking around with a loose test.
I ended up shoving it under his door and I e-mailed him explaining the situation.
As of now there has been no reply.
UPDATE: I did not get called before the honor council and did not get expelled. All is now well.
1
I wonder if there's enough time left to wrap up all the dangling plot lines: What is her mom doing now? Who tried to kill/kidnap Marika in the first episode? Who is backing the pirate hunting ship? Who is Iron Beard? What really happened to her father? What are Kane and Misa hiding? Will Marika and Chiaki ever show their true feelings for each other? (OK, probably not, but I can dream...)
Posted by: Siergen at Thu Jun 14 20:06:46 2012 (PuIGa)
I dunno WHAT happened in Ace's comments, but it was bad. Ace seems pretty convinced that it was not Mobeys this time. He's shut down his comments at least temporarily.
He also has a long and thoughtful post on maturity, propriety and becoming that which one opposes. Read the whole thing.
Ace has been telling people for quite a while that he didn't want anyone posting death threats or any other kinds of threats targeting that guy who has been suing everyone.
I suspect that some people were getting off on deliberately flaunting that rule. It's entirely possible they were false-flag.
Lucille Myatt Talton 1919 - 2012
She was born near Raleigh North Carolina to a fairly well to do dairy farmer. Despite this, and to the astonishment of
all, she married one of the field hands...a scrappy but utterly
impoverished young man from the streets of Newport News who had moved
south in search of work. She followed him to the coast where he built
houses and rented them. She bore him a son, then saw him off to war and
waited 4 years until he returned in traction. She nursed him back to
health, bore him another son, stood by and supported him as he built a
business from nothing, built a boat, and became one of the most sought
after charter boat captains on the Crystal Coast. A decade ago she
buried him, and tonight, just after dinner she joined him.
Despite her age, it was a bit of a shock. She had actually been improving by leaps and bounds over the last few
months and had regained the ability to walk. Nevertheless, my
grandmother, who was born in an utterly different world, passed
quite suddenly this evening a little after 6.
The things she'd seen, the change she'd experienced...it truly boggles the
mind.
She was born before women could vote.
For a
third of her life there was a polio season. For the first decade of her
life there was no electricity in her house. She saw the great
depression, a world war the cold war, Jim Crow, integration, all six
moon landings, and the Berlin Wall go up and come down. She saw the
introduction of radio, then television and then the internet. She saw
all the other
things that transpired over nearly a century.
Now, in the blink of an eye, all that perspective has left us.
BATTLESHIP
After the success of the Transformers and Twister franchises, Hasbro and Universal looked around for some other Hasbro property to monetize. They inexplicably skipped over the cubist masterpiece that could have been Connect 4 The Motion Picture and went with Battleship.
Although the concept is dubious in the extreme, this film is surprisingly entertaining. Imagine what would happen if Irwin Allen and Ishiro Honda had collaborated and had Jerry Bruckheimers special effects staff. THIS! Seriously, it's a late '50s Toho epic with a disaster movies plot structure.
Taylor Kitsch and Japanese A-Lister Tadanobu Asano are the defacto leads playing two naval officers trying to deal with the alien threat. The film puts both the USN and JMSDF in a really good light. Though they get cut to pieces the survivors use their wits and behave in a fairly intelligent manner. My one complaint was Kitsch's character, who was such a screw up at the beginning that it beggers belief he would have made it that far. On the other hand his getting it together is handled pretty well.
The films effects are pretty good , either a lot more practical effects were used than is the norm or the CGI has gotten a lot better. There are surprises, a couple of obligatory "OH NO WAY!"moments and some unlikely coincidences but amazingly, no glaring plot holes.
This film is by no means art, but is rather better than most. I quite enjoyed it.
Recall Election Chat over at Legal InsurrectionProfessor Jacobson is was hosting a civil live-chat on the Wisconsin recall election here. UPDATE: It's over.
For those not interested in such matters, here is squid on toast.
In other, less contentious news, Media Blasters is indeed releasing Squid Girl 2.
1
I was in Wisconsin on "Recall Day", and if you go by just the signage, Walker was responsible for everything up to and including the impending supernova of Retulob VIII. I didn't see one single pro-Walker sign anywhere between Duckford and La Crosse. Again, based solely on the balance of signage, Satan had a higher approval rating.
I immediately assumed that Walker would win.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Wed Jun 6 17:22:04 2012 (V/OLv)
I watched two more episodes of Mysterious Girlfriend X.
Good grief this is an odd show.
It's wacky.
It's quirky.
It's gross.
Then this happens...
More importantly, a bit after that happens Urabe makes a pronouncement...
Which, in the context of the episode is really disturbing.
Possibilities:
1: SHE'S AN ALIEN
2: Souvlaki keeps a log of these things and she secretly read it.
3: She's a witch.
4: Souvlaki will soon discover that his quiet high-school life is shattered when Urabe reveals that he has been chosen to pilot a GIANT ROBOT.
Three episodes in, laughs are still outnumbering gag reflexes, but WTFs are catching up to both. I am now quite thoroughly intrigued.
UPDATE: Mauser is doing an in-depth play-by-play and discussion for each episode of this madness. The first installment is here. (spoiler alert)
Note that I will not be participating in The National Day of Blogger Silence as I think it is a singularly dumb idea. (..and no one would notice if I had another of my many days without content.)
So..What is German for "Long Lance"?"Sea Hake Mod4"apparently.*
... At a test-firing in March 2012, the heavyweight torpedo SeaHake mod4
ER (Extended Range) achieved a range of over 140 kilometres.
Note that 140 clicks = 86.92 statute miles
Well...That's alarming.
This thing has the range of some of the early Harpoon ASuW missiles.
Torpedoes are much slower of course and there are issues with IFF and
targeting moving targets over the horizon. However, modern torpedoes are FAR more lethal than guns or missiles and
they are fiendishly difficult to intercept.
While it might take an hour
to reach its target area a salvo of these things could generate an
awfully large area of surprise 'torpedo water'....but unlike say the Battle of Tassafaronga, the torpedo water would be full of homing weapons. Yikes!
This massively complicates the defense of our warships.
On the bright side, this looks like a viable excuse for...TORPEDO Pr0n!
*This story comes to us via CDR Salamander, where there is an extensive discussion of the implications in the comments.
In all three of those videos, the torpedo goes off directly beneath the ship and breaks the keel. It's spooky to see them hinging up and down at the detonation point, isn't it?
Of course, with its back broken the ship is doomed. Nothing can save it. Modern torpedoes are scary.
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!