And if That Wasn't Enough

NZ Raw Data Shows No Correlation With End Results

I've Said it Before Global Warming is Fake

Climate Data Discarded

Risk, No Longer A Part of Insurance?

SEC. 2701. FAIR INSURANCE COVERAGE.

`(a) In General- With respect to the premium rate charged by a health insurance issuer for health insurance coverage offered in the individual or small group market--

`(1) such rate shall vary with respect to the particular plan or coverage involved only by--

`(A) family structure;

`(B) community rating area;

`(C) the actuarial value of the benefit;

`(D) age, except that such rate shall not vary by more than 2 to 1;

`(E) tobacco use, except that such rate shall not vary by more than 1.5 to 1; and

`(F) adherence to or participation in a reasonably designed program of health promotion and disease prevention, if such a program is offered by the employer that is the sponsor of the coverage involved; and

`(2) such rate shall not vary with respect to the particular plan or coverage involved by health status-related factors, gender, class of business, claims experience, industry, or any other factor not described in paragraph (1), except that group health plans and health insurance issuers offering group health insurance coverage may establish premium discounts or rebates for modifying otherwise applicable copayments or deductibles in return for adherence to or participation in reasonably designed programs of health promotion or disease prevention.

`(b) Community Rating Area- Taking into account the applicable recommendations of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the Secretary shall by regulation establish a minimum size for community rating areas for purposes of this section, which, for areas contained in a Metropolitan Statistical Area, shall not be smaller than such area.

Health Care Insurance

Possibly a misnomer.

3 Elections That Dictate the Next Seven Years

A lot of attention has, for better or worse been focused on three relatively minor off year elections. The Republicans have been banking on reinfoced vigor from sparky new compains in the face of Dem calamity. To some extent they have been vindicated both in the NJ and VA races but then there's the odd results in NY 23.

I say NY 23 is bad for R's everything else is bad for D's and the lot of it is great for all of us.

To start where the choice was a clear up down vote on support for the ruling party there was a resounding GFY. That's good, even if you aren't a big fan of the R's a vote of no confidence is generally a good vote when one group is in charge. It tends to help them realize their jobs are not ordained. Then there's the bizarre set of circumstances RE ny23> I was interested in this race precisely because a candidate was challenging the R base on the grounds that they were not conservative enough. There has been a pretty big scuttlebutt around that the R's lost the white house because they didn't field a candidate who sufficiently energize their conservative (read christian) base. But now we can all be clear, more right wing is not what the party is missing. Both of the gubernatorial candidates that won this week ran not on platforms of right wing religious conservative reform but on platforms of smaller government and lower government spending. The old conservative guard is back. The Goldwater republicans won while the neo-con's signed their own demise. It's a god thing across the board. Eyes open for the next years guys but the wind is blowing and it would rather be free.

Nancy Pelosi Thinks You Are Stupid

Public Option gets a new name? I think Shakespeare even understood this was bullshit.

Health Insurance Profits?

In case you were worried that the evil health insurance companies were running away with all the money.

Fact Check

Ok Last Straw Hippies, The Gloves Come Off

Eat the Dog

This fake global warming bullshit has hit my last fucking nerve now. Telling me how much to wipe was cute but you people want to come after my dogs, I will end you.

Mankiw on The Nobel Prize

Good stuff here

In Response to the High Cost of Health Insurance

House Democrats propose.... A TAX ON HEALTH INSURANCE

Proponents of the insurance tax, which Obama has endorsed, say it would help to lower health care costs by encouraging people to become more cost-conscious health care consumers.

Some of the high-cost plans are so expensive because they come with no co-payments or deductibles, and cover every dollar spent for health care. Not all of them provide such "Cadillac" benefits, however. Some are very expensive because they're sold to companies with older employees, or workers in high-risk occupations.


Only the US Congress could piece together the logic that you could lower costs for consumers by raising prices thus discouraging them from buying something you are trying to make sure they have... Seriously? Seriously.

Congressman1: I just can't figure out where to get the money to provide health insurance for everyone.

Congressman2: Well have you tried taxing the rich?

Congressman1: Of course but we're still coming up way short.

Congressman2: Well what about a tax on health insurance.. that should make health insurance more affordable.

Congressman1: Genius. This is almost as perfect as when you came up with taxing tax refunds as taxable income.

Congressman2: Ah that's nothing, wait till you see my plan for taxing the money left over after paying taxes as taxable income. It's like a bottomless pit of free money.

Global Banking

This is the kind of thing that gets conspiracy theorists going for years. I wonder if the CFR and the Tri-Lateral Commission enjoy this kind of transparency.

In the News

A married man, hosting a party for unattended married men and single younger women, left the party late in the evening with one young woman in his car. They headed towards a local secluded beach he'd known about since his childhood. The man in question was driving on an expired license, had a history of reckless driving and alcohol abuse. He was married to a woman who was, at the time, pregnant with his child. On the way to the secluded beach the man attempted to cross a narrow bridge, his car overturned and fell into the water below. While the young woman lay drowning, trapped in the car, the man escaped. He hiked past nearby houses, past the fire station back to the party. Where everyone involved cleaned up, left the party and went back to their hotel rooms for the night. After returning to his hotel the man went downstairs to complain to hotel staff about a loud party that was bothering him. In the morning he woke as usual, dressed and took the ferry back to the island he had been on the night before. Witnesses say he was in a jovial mood, laughing and enjoying the morning. That is until reports came in that they had found his car, and his victim.

He plead guilty to 'leaving the scene of an accident' and served no sentence at all.

That was July 18, 1969

Lets all take a minute to remember Mary Jo Kopechne today. She would have been 69 just last month.

" Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty? " ~ Senator Ted Kennedy, 1973

It's Just A Computer

I have been a child of the Dos/Windows universe for as long as I can remember. I also dabble from time to time in different Linux OS's. As such I am firmly planted in the camp that Macintosh computers are for the non-technically oriented and the elderly. Also I have never been able to reconcile the fact that the Mac crowd also seemed to generally be the metro-sexual, urban, fake environmentally friendly, smug douche set. That's not to say even the majority of my Mac loving friends would be easily pushed into one of those boxes, but rather that they might live on the fringes of what was a much larger crowd that contained a significant quantity of arrogantly prickish morons. Or perhaps I just wanted the crowd of people who used a different computer than mine to be like that, and have been projecting that image. I doubt it though. We all know at least one guy who shows up at a meeting and spends the first five minutes bragging about his Macbook whatever. And we all know he's an asshole.

So it was with some trepidation that I took possession of my new work computer for my new job. A 1 year old Macbook Pro with a dual core Intel processor, 2 gigs of ram and all the usual trimmings.

First impression.
Using a new hardware configuration and a new OS is always fraught with frustrating experiences. Control doesn't do what it should and there's an entirely unnecessary extra button 'command' that handles some of those functions but not others. Nothing files automatically where I want it to and there seems to be some sort of mysterious method of hiding things from me that I'm working on. Unlike the systems I'm used to Mac seems to love cleaning up after me. And of course that's how I get lost.

All of this is of course the product of a learning curve created by someone's idea of a better syntax and command structure. With time this passes as it has before with new versions of Win, Suse, Ubuntu, etc.

What remains.
The hardware is as you might imagine, top notch. This is perhaps the one thing that might separate Mac from the PC market; you have no choice but to get high end equipment. They simply will not sell you anything cheaper, and they will not attempt to make their product more affordable. It's a nice thing that as a brand you know when you pick one up, the hardware is designed to work. Not so nice when you need something simple and affordable. The OS on the other hand is not in the least impressive to me. That's not to say it's any worse than Win, it's not, really. It's just not the kind of better that justifies the smugness I've seen all these years. The driver libraries are significant and self reliant. I have very little problems adding hardware. Though to be fair I don't really have problems in Windows either. The file system is sufficient and relatively transparent. Once you figure out how Mac thinks, it's a coherent system. I'm enjoying the way that the touch pad allows me to control my desktop with creative multi-finger gestures. On the other hand I have never gotten over the loss of my right click button. The two fingered touch pad work around is atrocious and anyone who says differently is lying. I can't count the number of times I have scrolled down a page and then clicked on an icon or link only to find myself looking at a menu because I still had two fingers on the pad. I want my two buttons back. Fortunately my mouse plugs in just fine and it's right button works like a charm.

In short at this stage of the game what I've discovered is that... It's just a computer. Hype aside, it's no better or worse overall than any of the other systems I'm running. I'll concede I haven't integrated it into my home network yet (beyond internet access) and that may be interesting with the myriad OS jungle I'm already dealing with. But so far, I report nothing interesting at all. Computers, the machine that changed the world, are becoming more and more like furniture; buy the nicest one that matches the painting you like and the check you want to write. It's the person sitting there that makes the difference.

Music Legend Dies

Les Paul, arguably one of the most influential men in the history of the rock and roll guitar has passed away today at the age of 94. Keep on rockin' Les.

Director John Hughes Dies at 59 of Heart Attack

Single Payer Scam?

I'm not usually big on videos like this but there are some interesting parts here. If anyone has links to the full speeches here I'd love to see them.

UPDATE: just the Obama speech without the edited mess.

In Case You Were Wondering

Govt' FAIL

Cash for Clunkers

In Case You Thought I Was Paranoid

Waxman-Markey contains language for the EPA to regulate what it calls REEP (Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance) rules. The EPA alone will be able to determine what necessary retrofitting must be done with business AND single and multiple family homes in order to be environmentally friendly. States would be responsible for figuring out how to implement these new regulations. I'll say it again Congress voted to give regulatory power to the EPA to determine what you must do to make your home environmentally friendly before resale.

The EPA has for years been expanding it's regulatory control over the business world and it would seem has sights set on private property as well. This is an obvious expansion or companion program to those hinted at by the Sec. of Energy last month. If I'm wrong and Steven Chu just coincidentally talked about home improvements and retrofitting as an option for energy reduction a month before the climate change bill went to a vote with increased regulatory powers over homes and businesses then I'm sorry. If that's the case of course then it means that the two departments in the Obama admin. who are talking about climate related energy policy are in fact not talking to each other and are acting unilaterally to develop policy without consultation and frankly that kind of reckless behavior is just as scary as a plot would be.

So home-owners out there get ready for your EPA energy housing audit.

UPDATE: “The Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, shall establish goals, guidelines, practices, and standards for accomplishing the purpose stated in subsection (c) [the retrofits],”

So Chu actually has his hands in it already.

Another Stand For the Family Farm?

Waxman-Makey predictably gives a huge handout to subsidized American corporate corn.