A.M. Links: Obamacare Enrollment Passes 6 Million, Russia Condemns U.N. Crimea Resolution, Possible MH370 Debris Spotted

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  • President Obama announced yesterday that more than 6 million people have signed up for health coverage through the Obamacare exchanges ahead of the March 31 deadline. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said a year ago that having 7 million people enrolled is what "success looks like."
  • A New Zealand military plane has spotted possible debris from MH370.
  • Russia has condemned a United Nations resolution declaring the March 16 referendum in Crimea invalid.
  • NSA cheerleader and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) won't seek re-election in November.
  • Legislation allowing gay couples in England and Wales to get married will go into effect tomorrow. Polling shows that 20 percent of British adults say that they would turn down an invitation to a same-sex wedding.
  • Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says that the lane closure scandal that has hit his administration will not affect whether or not he decides to run for president in 2016.

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Matthew Feeney is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

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  1. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said a year ago that having 7 million people enrolled is what “success looks like.”

    Mission accomplished.

    1. UnCivilServant

      “If they all by some miracle are real and have paid their premiums, we will have just as many insured after the law as we did before. Success!”

    2. gaijin

      6 million, 7 million…whatever it takes.

      1. Drake

        Signed up, enrolled, whatever.

        I have some really cool stuff in my Amazon cart, someday I might pay for some of it.

      2. Rabban

        You know who else got 6 million?

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      What percentage is Medicaid?

      1. NoVAHockey

        i don’t know, but i’m willing to be more than 60%

    4. Mission accomplished.

      BOOOSSHH!

    5. Juice

      So what the hell happened to 50 MILLION uninsured?

      1. Restoras

        Could that have been…a lie to manufacture faux emotion and outrage? Nah, couldn’t be.

      2. Jordan

        Their numbers went up, since Obama would rather people have no insurance than insurance he doesn’t like.

      3. kmc212

        I thought it was 35 million uninsured? Maybe 50 million includes non-citizens?

        1. WTF

          The number I recall them kicking around was 40-45 million. Which was obviously bullshit, but anyone who pointed out it was bullshit was mocked and derided for wanting poor people to die in the streets.

  2. Polling shows that 20 percent of British adults say that they would turn down an invitation to a same-sex wedding.

    The pressure to make the gift fabulous would be just too overwhelming.

    1. Tonio

      Now, Fist, the article says “same-sex” not “gay” (male). Won’t somebody think about the lesbians?

      1. gaijin

        Won’t somebody think about the lesbians?

        I will!

      2. well I can’t afford Timberlands either.

        1. just buy them two of these

      3. Auric Demonocles

        You have to turn down those invitations because you can’t go to a wedding on one day’s notice.

      4. Well, I’m even (sadly) further removed from that world than from the gays, so they’d be getting cash. Good old utilitarian cash.

    2. Agile Cyborg

      In a split-second I would turn down an invitation to a same-sex wedding… I would also turn down an invitation to my best friend’s wedding.

      I find weddings baseball bat-to-the-face boring.

      1. KDN

        Weddings are boring. Receptions are fun.

        1. Agile Cyborg

          I just have my own receptions.

          1. KDN

            You get drunk in a suit, eat filet mignon, and dance to bad music on your own? That actually sounds like a great idea.

  3. Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says that the lane closure scandal that has hit his administration will not affect whether or not he decides to run for president in 2016.

    So he’s either delusional or a liar. Good to know.

    1. UnCivilServant

      He’s an ambulatory adipose tumor from the jersey wastes, being both delusional and a liar isn’t that far fetched.

      1. Drake

        Still by far the best Governor we’ve had in the 20 years I’ve lived here. (Very low bar)

        1. gaijin

          so by best you mean least awful?

          1. Pfffft. Here in IL we measure our Governor performance by years in the Federal Pen. 4 out of the last 7 hit the Federal Tennis and Track Walking Prison baby!

            1. gaijin

              What do you think about Bruce Rauner? Reformer or sociopath?

              1. db

                Well, politicians regularly exhibit sociopathic.tendencies, so.why not.both?

              2. sociopath.

              3. gimmeasammich

                Definitely sociopath. He is buddy-buddy with The Rahmfather and helped him make his millions. I am under the belief that Rauner is a Madigan shill to get Quinncome-tax out of power, since the two don’t get along.

    2. Zakalwe

      Vietnam had nothing to do with LBJ not running for reelection, it was the polls, you moron.

      1. go back on your meds, Mary.

        1. Tonio

          Oh, c’mon, NLK, that was funny.

          1. eh? I missed a joke somewheres.

            1. RBS

              Insert insult from sarcasmic

              1. ha ha. Thank you RBS.

            2. I took it as a riff on Shriek’s latest O-Care slurping.

            3. Zeb

              And I’m pretty sure Zakalwe has been an occasional commenter for a while with no signs of being Mary.

              1. I have a private reason to believe he is.

                1. Tonio

                  Everybody hates a tease, NLK.

              2. Corning

                We need a rating system to determine how much one believes a particular commenter is Mary.

                For Example:

                Epi 53.1% chance he is Mary

                John 3.28% chance he is Mary

                Warty 0% chance he is Mary

          2. Tonio

            I interpreted Z’s post as a parody of somebody dumb enough to believe that presidential approval ratings as measured by polls are completely unrelated to approval of the policies of that president.

    3. Night Elf Mohawk

      The “scandal” probably shouldn’t make a difference. If he can look at how it was handled and not have that be a factor, he’s just stupid enough to make a run.

      1. Drake

        I hope he does run (and loses). At least that will make him veto all the gun legislation hitting his desk.

    4. DontShootMe

      So he’s either delusional or a liar a politician. Good to know.

      FTFY

    5. Why can’t he be both?

  4. Rufus J. Firefly

    Hello.

    http://putlocker.bz/watch-muha…..ocker.html

    If you love sports and politics set aside 98 minutes to watch ‘Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight.’

    1. Mongo

      I thought Ali’s greatest fight was when he and Rocky Marciano acted out the match as determined by a computer!

      That was one of the coolest things I ever saw in boxing….

      1. Rufus J. Firefly

        Where did you see that?

        Musta been epic.

        1. Mongo

          I saw it online.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XKcGRREcaM

          Incredibly, it was scripted for all outcomes with both fighters willingly accepting the outcome.

          It was shown nationally in movie theaters to wildly cheering audiences.

    2. Elspeth Flashman

      Instead watch the documentary on the fight in Zaire. I think it was called “When they were giants.”

      1. When They Were Kings
        http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118147/

        1. Elspeth Flashman

          Thanks for the assistance LH.

      2. Rufus J. Firefly

        Saw that when it came out.

        Why not watch both?

  5. Bee Tagger

    Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says that the lane closure scandal that has hit his administration will not affect whether or not he decides to run for president in 2016

    Though it may affect whether or not the citizenry decides to make him president in 2016.

  6. You damn libertarians never saw this coming…

    Russian Navy Now Has Control over Crimea’s Elite Dolphin Unit

    Russia is taking control of everything in Crimea, and that includes an elite combat unit serving in the Ukrainian Navy made up entirely of? dolphins. Yes, an elite unit of dolphin soldiers in Ukraine has been repurposed and will now serve in the Russian Navy instead. Because as we all know, dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures in the known universe…

    1. UnCivilServant

      Traitorous cetaceans!

    2. gaijin

      dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures in the known universe

      Oh yeah? Well if they’re so smart how come they don’t work for the Obama Administration?

      1. UnCivilServant

        They didn’t want to work for the less intelligent species, which was too concerned with terrestrial rather than marine maters.

        1. Elspeth Flashman

          Top. Dolphins.
          Sounds pretty cool, eh?

          1. Pope Jimbo

            I was going to castigate you for leaving out the dolphins who enjoy being bottoms, but it looks like they are pretty much a top’s top.

            http://deepseanews.com/2013/02…..re-aholes/

    3. I think we saw this yesterday in one of the links posts, or maybe in the Wednesday PM Links.

      1. UnCivilServant

        PM Links don’t count.

        1. Rufus J. Firefly

          They so do!

          Guelphs!

          Ghibellines!

          Taste great!

          Less filling!

          Gentleman, choose your side!

          !

          1. Rufus J. Firefly

            gentlemen.

      2. So yes, we did see this coming this morning. :-p

      3. PM Links? What are those?

        1. sarcasmic

          I think it’s something Reason posts while people drive home from work.

          1. It’s something they post because they feel pity for people out in California who aren’t up at the reasonable hour of 9AM ET.

            1. UnCivilServant

              Assumes facts not in evidence (that the reason staff are capable of pity).

            2. Auric Demonocles

              4:30 PM isn’t exactly out of the realm of the normal internet usage time.

              1. but that’s my “drive home and beat rush hour traffic” time.

    4. Night Elf Mohawk

      Because as we all know, dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures in the known universe…

      Well, they’re the second most intelligent creatures on earth, anyway. After mice.

      1. +42

      2. Rufus J. Firefly

        I forget where I saw or heard it but after being asked if dolphins are smarter than humans a dolphin expert (whatever they’re called Dophperts?) said, ‘well, they’ve figured out to decode our words and we haven’t figured out theirs.”

        Yeah well, we have nets!

        1. UnCivilServant

          I’d chalk that up to “We figured out how to train them to obey our commands without the benefit of a common tongue.”

      3. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Where’s my towel?

    5. Rasilio

      eh, I’ll worry about it when they are genetically engineered to have opposable thumbs, then we’re screwed

    6. Auric Demonocles

      I was close, though I didn’t think the Russians would get any dolphins. Those are Allied units. The Russians were supposed to get the giant squids.

      1. UnCivilServant

        But, if you capture an allied naval yard with engineers (or a construction yard to buld it) you can get Dolphins. The Russians just did an engineer rush on the crimean bases.

    7. Cdr Lytton

      Last message sent to Ukrainian Navy Command was SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH.

    8. jesse.in.mb

      No, but we posted about it yesterday.

    9. Don Mynack

      The Ukrainians are really putting out the effort in surrendering everything they possibly can as fast as they can. They remind me of John Candy and the boys surrendering to the Czechs in Stripes. Do they even have weapons?

  7. NSA cheerleader and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) won’t seek re-election in November.

    He wants to devote less time spying on his family.

    1. Tonio

      Wait, he’s a cheerleader, too? Is that a paid position or does he just do it for the outfit and the other perks?

    2. gaijin

      NSA cheerleader

      Does he wear short shorts or mini skirts while shaking his pom-poms?

      1. Tonio

        Hah!

        1. gaijin

          sick minds think alike!

    3. Jerryskids

      NSA cheerleader and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) won’t seek re-election in November.

      I’m trying to figure out what we call the exact opposite of ‘your morning nutpunch’.

  8. Christfags…

    Just 53 percent of ND Obamacare sign-ups have paid first month’s premium

    According to numbers released by the Obama administration, just 5,238 people have selected plans through the federal insurance exchange as of March 1. That’s the second smallest number among the states, ahead of only Hawaii.

    But according to numbers presented by North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm to the state Legislature’s interim Health Care Reform Review Committee, only 2,770 policies have been put into force as of March 5, meaning the insured has enrolled and paid the first month’s premium.

    That’s just more than 53 percent of the federal number, leaving 47 percent of those who have selected policies without effectuated coverage.

    1. UnCivilServant

      Are those the same 47% who don’t pay taxes?

      1. gaijin

        +1 penaltax

        1. + 8%

        2. Marshall Gill

          Look, if you don’t have health insurance it only makes sense that you are levied the “Individual Shared Responsibility Payment”. Yes, that is really what it is called.

          1. Rhywun

            Yes, that is really what it is called.

            Do your part, citizen!

  9. Kevin Williamson: Rand Paul, Nick Gillespie, and Hope and Change

    Some people have high hopes for electoral politics. My own view, set forth in the book that Nick graciously helped me to promote, is that we are much more likely to see government reform as a result of economic crisis than as a result of voters and their representatives suddenly getting religion about things like total fiscal overhang. During my more cynical moments, which tend to coincide with the times when I am not asleep, I am inclined to believe that while I would like to see more men like Rand Paul in political office, I am not entirely sure that it will make any significant difference in the long term. The unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare alone, and the economic distortions caused by Americans’ erroneous assumptions about future entitlement benefits, are going to do more than enough damage to offset by a factor of 1,000 whatever good a President Rand Paul might plausibly achieve. If the electorate really did share Rand Paul’s views, we wouldn’t be in that particular mess in the first place.

    1. gaijin

      more likely to see government reform as a result of economic crisis than as a result of voters

      All true. When the crisis comes it will require men willing to do whatever it takes to lead us to the promised land. Strong men. Rough men. Men willing to propose honorable compromise. Men who can put an end to the horror. Men among us like Lord Humungus.

      1. Hillary's Clitdong

        What we’ll actually get is a Wartycratic system of government where all crimes are punished with anal rape.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Well, if we keep the 3 felonies a day approach to innumerable laws, it looks like I should invest in KY and Vaseline stock under this new system you are proposing.

        2. A Wartycratic system is classicly defined by its use of anal rape for both punishment and reward.

      2. I was thinking of sending in an application for “henchman”. He posted for a few “minions” back afew months ago, but the henchman spot looks like you get better masks and more edged weapons.

        1. db

          “Brock Samson: Killer of men. Killer of henchmen.”

      3. Rhywun

        Strong men. Rough men.

        Go on…

      4. I offer V8 engines and a society where alternative lifestyles are permitted.

    2. KDN

      the economic distortions caused by Americans’ erroneous assumptions about future entitlement benefits

      I wonder if that may be shaking out on its own. I don’t know a single person under 35 that expects a proper payout from social security. They’re either saving for retirement under the assumption they’ll get nothing or working under the assumption that they’ll die before retirement age anyway.

    3. Jerryskids

      The problem with the ship of state sailing headlong onto the rocks of reality is that you only have a few people who can see what’s about to happen. Most of the electorate is listening to those who are telling them that the rocks aren’t really there and that even if they were, leaning on the rudder just a little to the left or right or hoisting or slacking the sails just a touch is all it will take to avoid them. Or, who knows?, sailing into rocks may be a good thing!

      Those people know the truth even as they lie to their constituents about how rosy the future looks and they are going to enjoy the hell out of the ride as long as they can. But they are going to make sure they abandon ship well ahead of the crash, leaving it in the hands of people like Rand Paul. All the low-information voters are going to know is that they were cruising right along on a very enjoyable ride when somehow those whackos got control of the ship and ‘WHAM!’, right into the rocks she went. Who do you think they are going to blame for the catastrophe?

      At that point, they are going to start looking for The Man on the White Horse. And when you try telling them that man is not your friend, who the hell is going to listen to you when you just crashed their party boat?

  10. Rufus J. Firefly

    Probably the most comprehensive analysis of Berkshire shares out there.

    http://seekingalpha.com/articl…..look?ifp=0

    Personally, even if Buffet conveys his strategies and trains his team, once he’s gone it remains to be seen how the company rolls on. Glad to see I’m not the only one that takes EBITDA with a grain of meh. His insurance division looks interesting.

    1. I have dealt with Resolute Management before – Warren’s Boys and Girls are the living embodiment of a leftwing stereotype of insurance people – delay, underpay, stall, obfuscate and deny.

      Some of the companies affected by this have started to go ahead and sue AIG and CNA, the folks that sold their asbestos books to Warren for run off.

      But Saint Warren is to be revered and imitated.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Saint Warren would saute his grandchildren and eat them given the chance. He’s a barracuda who looks like a nice old grandpa.

        And he’s a crony capitalist who thrives on artificially created markets.

        1. Mike M.

          And the JournoList worships him because he figured out that all it takes to win them over is to support democrats and spout the class warfare rhetoric that they can’t get enough of. It’s kind of pathetic how easily they can be duped.

          1. Restoras

            When you have given up thinking critically, using reason and logic, and being skeptical, yeah it’s easy to be duped. Kinda like every other group of people the unquestioningly adhere to any religion ever made up.

  11. Legal Debate on Using Boastful Rap Lyrics as a Smoking Gun

    No suspects. No sign of the gun used to shoot the men. No witnesses to the shooting outside a house where officers found Mr. Horton sprawled next to a trash can and Mr. Dean on the front porch.

    But in 2011, the case was reassigned to a detective who later came across what he considered a compelling piece of evidence: a YouTube video of Antwain Steward, a local rapper with the stage name Twain Gotti, performing his song “Ride Out.”

    “But nobody saw when I [expletive] smoked him,” Mr. Steward sang on the video. “Roped him, sharpened up the shank, then I poked him, 357 Smith & Wesson beam scoped him.”

    1. Night Elf Mohawk

      If the lyrics contain info unknown to the general public that is specific to the crime, it seems reasonable. If it is just generic bullshit, not so much.

    2. Acosmist

      100% relevant evidence, no possible debate about that. The only debate would be about its prejudicial effect.

  12. Poll: Obama health law fails to gain support

    Public support for President Barack Obama’s health care law is languishing at its lowest level since passage of the landmark legislation four years ago, according to a new poll.

    The Associated Press-GfK survey finds that 26 percent of Americans support the Affordable Care Act. Yet even fewer ? 13 percent ? think it will be completely repealed. A narrow majority expects the law to be further implemented with minor changes, or as passed.

    1. someone gets it:

      Larry Carroll, 64, a church deacon from Cameron, W.Va., says he would like to see major changes ? but he doesn’t have high hopes.

      “I think it’s much too big a thing for the country to be taking on,” said Cameron, who’s strongly opposed to the overhaul.

      “I don’t see repeal,” he added. “The federal bureaucracy simply seems to be too strong. The federal bureaucracy is like an anaconda.”

      1. CampingInYourPark

        Larry Carroll, 64, a church deacon from Cameron, W.Va.

        What’s the relevance of being a church deacon? It’s not a paid position.
        Oh wait, he must be irrational because SOCONZZZZZZZ

        1. WV church deacon = 100% close minded.

          1. I would guess 8%

          2. Marshall Gill

            Because the shrieking imbecile knows every single WV church deacon.

            100% close minded

            Talk about projection!

          3. WTF

            CHRISTFAGS!!11!!!BUSHPIGS!!11!!!!

          4. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Internet troll – 99% narcissist, 8% asshole

            1. Cdr Lytton

              And 94% pure.

      2. Bones

        My federal bureaucracy don’t want none unless you got buns hon.

        1. gaijin

          Even white boys got to shout

    2. Sliger illustrates the prevailing national mood. Although a Democrat, she’s strongly opposed to Obama’s signature legislation. But she thinks “Obamacare” is here to stay.

      Butthurt progressives:

      BUT WE WANTED SINGLE PAYER!

    3. widget

      How do you support something you don’t understand?

      I support electro quantum dynamics!

      1. gimmeasammich

        *Looking down from atop a high horse*

        You don’t understand electro quantum dynamics? What a sad, pathetic life you must live.

        *Chortles to himself as he rides away*

    4. Rufus J. Firefly

      That’s a lotta smilin’ idiots.

  13. Humans will be kept between life and death in the first suspended animation trials

    At a hospital in Pittsburgh, surgeons are now allowed to place patients into a state of suspended animation. If a patient arrives with a traumatic injury, and attempts to restart their heart have failed ? if they’re on the doorstep of death ? they will have their blood replaced with a cold saline solution, which stops almost all cellular activity. At this point, the patient is clinically dead ? but if the doctors can fix the injury within a few hours, they can be returned to life from suspended animation by replacing the saline with blood.

    Or at least, that’s the theory. The technique of suspended animation (or “emergency preservation and resuscitation” as non-sci-fi doctors prefer to call it) was first trialed on pigs in 2002.

    Millions of years from now, fresh victims for Warty can be resuscitated from his private reserve of corpsicles.

    1. UnCivilServant

      WOOT!

      How long until that ‘few hours’ can get extended further? Would saline and cold work together well? I want answers scientists! Freeze some more pigs! (either swine or LEO, I don’t care which)

      1. gaijin

        I want answers scientists!

        I don’t understand why this is so hard…they should just copy the designs for the suspended animation pods that they used in Planet of the Apes.

      2. Evan from Evansville

        This comes dangerously close to the plot of Demolition Man.

        Not sure if don’t want, or exceptionally want.

        1. gimmeasammich

          +1 Simon Phoenix

    2. db

      I pos5ed that yesterday.

      /whine

      1. I merely resuscitated it.

        1. Elspeth Flashman

          Or maybe you reanimated it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOcRIHiRtc

        2. db

          Without consent!

          1. There I was, walking innocently down the road, when I stumbled across this strange capsule about the size of a man. The outside metal was covered in grime, but once cleaned, I saw it was an ancient post, waiting to be reborn into the world. With a trembling hand, I activated the start-up sequence and the rest is history.

            1. Jerryskids

              Meanwhile, somewhere in Argentina, a spidery old man in a tattered black uniform strokes a sarcophagus whispering, “Soon, Mein Fuhrer, soon.”

              1. Jerryskids

                Plot twist: The year is 2027, the spidery old man is Bill Clinton, and that ain’t Adolf in the box.

    3. gimmeasammich

      “KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

  14. Scientists: Government agencies use the peer review process to squash dissent
    …”After 1970, politicians substantially expanded academic sectors,” write 30 scientists, including Nobel laureates Dudley Herschbach of Harvard University and Sir Richard Roberts of New England Biolabs.

    “Peer review’s uses allowed the rise of priorities, impact etc, and is now virtually unavoidable. Applicants’ proposals must convince their peers that they serve national policies and are the best possible uses of resources,” the scientists continued in their letter to the editor in the UK Guardian newspaper. “Success rates are about 25%, and strict rules govern resubmissions. Rejected proposals are usually lost. Industry too has lost its taste for the unpredictable.”

    Complaints that the scientific establishment is preventing dissenting voices from getting funding or published has been a major controversy among climate science. Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has argued that “global warming alarmism” has been damaged the integrity of science.

    “Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly,” Lindzen wrote. “It has also been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions.”…

    1. Government-funded science says we need more government? Color me shocked!

      1. Rufus J. Firefly

        Which shade?

        1. UnCivilServant

          Electric blue.

          1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgfR3AKCAQI

            bonus Aussie power mullet.

          2. Restoras

            With Boogaloo?

            1. +II

  15. Sacred and Profane
    …Mainstream American society finds it easiest to be tolerant when the outsider chooses to minimize the differences that separate him from the majority. The country club opens its doors to Jews. The university welcomes African-Americans. Heterosexuals extend the privilege of marriage to the gay community. Whenever these liberal feats are accomplished, we congratulate ourselves. But it is not exactly a major moral accomplishment for Waspy golfers to accept Jews who have decided that they, too, wish to play golf. It is a much harder form of tolerance to accept an outsider group that chooses to maximize its differences from the broader culture. And the lesson of Clive Doyle’s memoir?and the battle of Mount Carmel?is that Americans aren’t very good at respecting the freedom of others to be so obnoxiously different. Many Mormons, incidentally, would say the same thing. When the Mormons settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, local public opinion turned against them. Joseph Smith was charged with perjury and adultery, then arrested for inciting a riot. While he was in custody awaiting trial, in 1844, an armed mob stormed the prison and shot him dead…

  16. Canadians wasted over $1 billion just waiting for health care
    Patients in Canada’s single-payer health care system spent $1.1 billion of their time waiting for health care in 2013, according to a study from a free-market Canadian think tank.

    The Fraser Institute’s health care experts determined that the cost of waiting for care averaged $1,202 per person of the 928,120 Canadians who had to wait for treatment last year. The median wait time to see a health care provider in Canada is 9.6 weeks, up from 9.3 weeks in 2012. The queue for health care services in the single-payer nation has been lengthening since 2009.

    With that amount of time, it’s not surprising that many of Canada’s better-off citizens have historically frequented private American health care systems for surgical procedures and and services as commonplace as MRIs, which are notoriously difficult to access up north, as opposed to waiting for months to move up in the Canadian queue….

    1. A tax on time is the worst tax of them all. You can theoretically make more morginal dollars; you can’t make more marginal time.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Braaaaaazzzzzilllll…….

    2. Rufus J. Firefly

      Fraser is just about the only think tank in the land that actually at least tries to examine national health care. But because it’s a right-wing organization it gets attacked more for that and less for the content. Which to me, is helpful. If we don’t know the problems how can we fix it?

      1. Why do you want a more American-style health-care system? What sort of a monster are you?

      2. gaijin

        I can solve this problem. Lower the assumptions about the value of one’s time and the cost of waiting is lowered. This is the strongest case yet for reducing the minimum wage to $0!

    3. Restoras

      But do 8% just love it?

  17. Charges: Woman tried to set ex’s house on fire with bacon

    “I asked to come in and observed a wood stove left open with a fire burning inside and hot coals on the floor around the stove,” the officer wrote, noting that he also found a cookie sheet loaded with a pound of bacon sitting on top of the kitchen stove.

    “I observed the burner to be on the setting ‘High’ and the bacon to be severely burned and smoking badly,” the officer wrote.

    The officer stopped the spread of the fire and arrested Crispi, who had a blood-alcohol content of 0.346, the charges state. Due to her impaired state, she was taken to the hospital for a medical clearance before being booked into jail.

    1. UnCivilServant

      At that drunk, she might have just been trying to make breakfast.

    2. So it was Crispi bacon?

      1. db

        You’re such a ham.

    3. Corning

      the bacon to be severely burned and smoking badly

      this is all about a Crazy drunk lady and her crappy Ex and his house…

      Won’t anyone think about the bacon!!

  18. Like the “Right” is winning prizes:

    Why Can’t the Left Govern?
    The Left can win elections. Why can’t it run a government?

    One organization specialist calls this phenomenon “social deadlock.” ObamaCare is social deadlock. But the American left keeps doing it. This isn’t the 1930s, and smart people on the left might come to grips with the fact that the one-grand-scheme-fits-all compulsion is out of sync with the individualization that technology lets people design into their lives today.

    Rather than resolve the complexities of public policy in the world we inhabit, the left’s default is to simply acquire power, then cram down what they want to do with one-party votes or by fiat, figuring they can muddle through the wreckage later. Thus the ObamaCare mandates. Thus candidate de Blasio’s determination, cheered on by the city’s left-wing establishment, to jam all its kids through an antique public-school system. The ObamaCare mandates are a mess, and the war on charter schools is an embarrassment.

    Making the unworkable work by executive decree or court-ordered obedience is one way to rule, and maybe they like it that way. But it isn’t governing.

    1. That’s why they’re on board w/ the NSA despite claims they’re “civil libertarians” – all govt power is good, because they might need it to do good someday.

    2. Rufus J. Firefly

      Maybe it’s the same reason why lefties can’t be second basemen or are inherently clumsy.

      FUN FYI FACT: I’m left-handed.

      1. UnCivilServant

        Such sinister information Rufus. Here I thought you were a good guy.

        1. **** you! 😉

      2. I always knew you were sinister!

        1. Rufus J. Firefly

          Bunch of racists.

          1. Rufus J. Firefly

            Headcount.

            How many lefties here!

            Defend the race!

            1. gaijin

              Your offhand remark stirs such anger

            2. Rhywun

              *sheepishly raises (left) hand*

            3. Protagoronus

              Lefty for writing/mouse/painting/eating etc.
              Righty for sports. Never decided if it was just easier for people to teach me that when I was little. Played a pretty good lefty game of golf once when someone let me borrow clubs.

              1. Evan from Evansville

                I am decidedly left handed and right armed.

                Left: Writing, eating, teeth brushing, grocery-carrying, drinking/smoking, pool-playin’, arrow-shootin’, gun-totin’, and masturbatin’.

                Right: Punching, drumming, throwing, hitting, hockey-stick-swingin’, heavy-liftin’.

                My handwriting is horrid. I was never meant to be a lefty methinks.

                1. Evan from Evansville

                  Oooh I forgot the weirdest bit. I can’t play either but I’ve tried–I naturally want to play bass righty (right-fingered) but want to play guitar lefty. I chop that up to the vigorous up/downstrokes my left hand has become accustomed to.

                2. KDN

                  hockey-stick-swingin

                  I’ve always believed that you should play hockey opposite-handed for better stick control. It does seem to take something off your shot, though. If you tend to favor the right for other sports and write lefty I would think you get the best of both world.

            4. My father, mother, and brother are all left handed with brown hair. I’m a right handed blond (with daywalker ginger beard)

            5. Apple

              I’m not a lefty but my wife and son are. Had I known, I never would have married her and risked diluting my pure right blood for future generations. She was sneaky, always writing on the computer instead of with a pen. Curiously never playing baseball or guitar around me.

            6. B.P.

              Aye sir.

            7. jesse.in.mb

              Lefty here.

            8. Cdr Lytton

              Another victim here of the handist society we live in, the only last acceptable -ism.

              I do throw and shoot right.

            9. bigac

              I’m a lefty. We’re far more discriminated against than any other victim group out there. Yet, somehow, I manage to persevere. Time for some special government love…

            10. Azathoth!!

              There was a theory I read about a few years back that suggested that left handed people were a part of a pair of mirror twins that had resorbed the right handed twin.

              I liked that idea.

            11. Azathoth!!

              There was a theory I read about a few years back that suggested that left handed people were a part of a pair of mirror twins that had resorbed the right handed twin.

              I liked that idea.

    3. Bam!

      Rather than resolve the complexities of public policy in the world we inhabit, the left’s default is to simply acquire power, then cram down what they want to do with one-party votes or by fiat, figuring they can muddle through the wreckage later.

      Hate to pull a BOOOSH but that is literally what happened after 9-11: Massive policy changes through executive action. Torture, surveillance, everything.

      1. Whahappan?

        Not really. PATRIOT act, Iraq AUMF, etc. all had strong bipartisan support, and of course were legislation, not executive orders. Not defending Bush’s policies, but most were done through normal gov’t processes.

        1. Bam!

          I said torture and surveillance, neither of which were covered under PATRIOT act or Iraq AUMF.

          Of course, if Bush had gone to Congress, he’d have gotten bipartisan support on both of those — but he didn’t, he did it through executive action.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    I have some really cool stuff in my Amazon cart, someday I might pay for some of it.

    I have a Thompson on my wish list; I’m more likely to buy that than to go on healthcare.gov.

    1. Restoras

      M-1 Garand for me, as soon as my divorce is done.

      1. John

        If I die without having owned an M1 and a 1911, my life will not be complete.

      2. Jerryskids

        Ya know, if you get the gun first…..

        Just sayin’.

  20. Obamacare: Taxpayers in the Hole for $1.5 Trillion

    All of that doesn’t begin to address the supposedly “fierce urgency of now” that demanded a top-down, command-economy government program to deal with the estimated 40 million Americans without insurance who should have flooded the system looking for coverage.

    If this system works as well as the Obama administration insists, where are all of the uninsured? Why haven’t we seen massive numbers of enrollments from the beginning if that was such a crisis as to require the kind of intervention Democrats imposed, at an estimated cost of $1.5 trillion dollars over the next ten years?

    That is the real joke, and it’s on us. Don’t expect us to laugh about it. Instead, we should double our efforts to jettison the jokers who are responsible for it.

  21. Naked man on tricycle arrested in Lakewood apartment complex, cops say

    A naked man riding a tricycle was arrested and charged with being under the influence of cocaine Tuesday evening, police said.

    Jermaine Jones, a 31-year-old from Trenton, was found naked under a stairwell, chewing glass and cigarette tobacco, said Sgt. Greg Staffordsmith of the Lakewood police.

    Police received a call about the man on the tricycle riding throughout the Crossroads Apartments complex at 6:30 p.m., said Staffordsmith.

    All part of the SugarFree follies.

    1. “chewing glass and cigarette tobacco”

      Hardcore.

    2. SugarFree

      The weak-minded should stay away from my work.

    3. Rhywun

      under the influence of cocaine

      Bullshit propaganda for the next edition of the “Drug Free NJ!” poster to appear on PATH trains – “Cocaine makes you chew glass!!1!1!”.

  22. I’m guessing the Eagles are somehow responsible.

    Wisconsin woman attacks DJ during 30th birthday party over his song selection

    “Partygoers were able to pull her away from the DJ’s table after the equipment was damaged, but she broke free and rushed the DJ, punching and scratching him on the face,” DeSpain said.

    The woman fled with her uncut birthday cake before police arrived.

    “What had been a very happy birthday ended on a really bad note,” DeSpain said. The woman will likely face charges if police are able to locate her.

    1. Is it a violation of the NAP for the DJ to keep playing songs the honoree at the party specifically doesn’t want played?

      1. Restoras

        You seem to be suggestion there is some sort of invisible boundary line around an indivdual that no one is allowed to cross without permission…

    2. Jose Chung

      It was around the 9th chorus of Me So Horny that the guest of honor started to feel her sanity begin to crack…

    3. Elspeth Flashman

      You know who else attempted to have a happy birthday that ended on a really bad note?

      1. William Shakespeare?

    4. WTF

      The woman will likely face charges if police are able to locate her.

      “If”? No one knows whose party it was?

    5. jesse.in.mb

      uncut birthday cake

      Your thoughts on this, Nicole?

    6. Jerryskids

      I was going to guess Queen. Fat Bottomed Girls.

      That would explain the uncut cake – one cake, one serving.

  23. gaijin

    So what’s with the prosecution of Democrats by the FBI (e.g., Leland Yee for gun running, Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon for bribery)? Is this good government rooting out corruption? Or prelude to a focus on Repubs later this year (a la Ted Stevens now-discredited FBI charges) in a cynical attempt to swing votes?

    1. UnCivilServant

      Internal power struggle between party members.

    2. Independent US Attorneys are to be credited.

      I know how the Bush administration handled that problem – they fired a bunch of them.

      The final straw was when Duke Cunningham was indicted.

      1. WTF

        BUSHPIGS!!111!!!CHRISTFAGS!!11!!!!

    3. John

      Good question. I am frankly surprised to see this. It makes me feel a bit better about the country. At least t he FBI hasn’t been totally turned into a political weapon for the Democrats.

      1. Elspeth Flashman

        Unlike the IRS, you mean.

  24. Hypocrisy Hypocrisy
    An indictment of the Democrats’ big-government agenda

    The progressive state, on the other hand, is a state infused with moral purpose. If politics is to be a jihad, then the state must be invested with extraordinary power to achieve its moral mission. There is no way to invest the state with extraordinary power without also investing those powers in the men who hold its offices and staff its bureaucracies, which hold ever more nearly absolute power over our property and our lives. (And given that the Obama administration has made a policy of assassinating U.S. citizens without legal process, we might as well call that power “absolute.”) But if those elective offices and regulatory fortresses are to be staffed with men who are corrupt and corruptible, then the progressive vision of the morality-infused state must falter.

    And they ? we ? are all corruptible.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      I went on wiki to search out the number of politicians convicted of a crime.

      Since 2000, the Democrats lead 101-59.

      1. C’mon, Cook County, IL alone has had that many TEAM BLUE criminals racked up.

    2. John

      It is just a smaller version of the Communist view of the state. Communist societies always fail because they are never able to change human nature and produce the new socialist man who works for the collective good rather than himself.

      Progs have the same problem only they limit themselves to the government rather than society at large. For the Prog government to work, there has to be what amounts to a class of socialist men who work for the government in a completely selfless and incorruptible manner. If you don’t have that, big prog government just turns into a giant corrupt machine benefiting the connected. And as you and everyone on this board knows, socialist man isn’t walking through that door.

      In the end, Progs think of themselves as incorruptible top men capable of running government in a way that no one else in history ever has. Of course they are nothing of the sort and their programs are always disasters.

      1. BigT

        Hobbes vs Rousseau

        Is man perfectible?

        We all know the answer.

        1. John

          And of course Hayak showed us that central planning would fail even if man was perfectible. Even if you create your class of Progressive supermen, you still can’t get over the information problems Hayek describes.

  25. Anti-Anxiety Drugs Tied to Higher Mortality

    The lead author, Dr. Scott Weich, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Warwick, said that while he and his colleagues were careful to account for as many potential risks as possible, they were not able to control for the severity of the illnesses suffered by the study participants.

    Still, he said, the research “adds to an accumulating body of evidence that these drugs are dangerous.” He added: “I prescribe these drugs, and they are difficult to come off. The less time you spend on them the better.”

    1. Notorious G.K.C.

      On the plus side, the people taking these drugs aren’t worrying about the side effects.

      1. gaijin

        ^lol

  26. A New Zealand military plane has spotted possible debris from MH370.

    It will not be long before sightings of debris from MH370 become almost as numerous and common as sightings of the King.

    Russia has condemned a United Nations resolution declaring the March 16 referendum in Crimea invalid.

    All referendums should be conducted under the watchful eye of an American invading army for them to be considered legitimate, because better dead than red, and those are Ruskies after all – yuck!

    Polling shows that 20 percent of British adults say that they would turn down an invitation to a same-sex wedding.

    Only because the typical Briton already attends like 3 weddings in his or her lifetime on average… their own weddings! After a while, it becomes tiresome.

    Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says that the lane closure scandal that has hit his administration will not affect whether or not he decides to run for president in 2016.

    Of course not! That is silly! Anybody can decide to run for president! Are you kidding me? No! What the lane closure scandal will affect is whether people will vote for him or not! That’s all!

    1. It will not be long before sightings of debris from MH370 become almost as numerous and common as sightings of the King Sugarfreed links.

      Fixed it for you.

  27. Reverse mortgages, how do they work?

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/…..50883.html

    Now many like Ms. Santos are discovering that reverse mortgages can also come up with a harsh sting for their heirs.

    It’s like an inheritance tax for house-poor people. Suck it, next-of-kin.

    1. John

      It isn’t that. It is just someone spending down their estate. Basically you are betting the mortgage provider you will live longer than the actuarial tables say you will. It is a way of selling your house and still getting what amounts to a life estate on it. Normally when you sell your house you have to move out of it. A reverse mortgage allows you to remain in your house because you are making a bet with the mortgage company that you will live longer than they think you will.

      That is really all it is. If the heir are in anyway surprised by the results, it is because they are stupid. And indeed, their parent needed money or they wouldn’t have had to do it. So, the estate was going to get spent down one way or another.

      1. Agreed, when you parse it I chose a poor simile.

        What Ms. Santos did not know at first was that surviving family members were supposed to be offered the choice to settle the reverse mortgage for a percentage of the full amount. In her case, that lesser amount offered to heirs is 95 percent of the home’s current value, or about $237,000, according to one estimate. Any shortfall if the home sells for less than the debt is covered by a federal insurance fund, which all reverse mortgage borrowers are required to pay into each month.

        Of course.

        1. John

          Oh my God. You shouldn’t need “insurance’ on a reverse mortgage. You do enough of them so that the actuarial tables work out. Assuming the tables are correct, and insurance companies do them for a living so they always are, you are guaranteed to make money. Sure, you might lose money on the guy who lives to be a hundred and never leaves his house. But you will make it up elsewhere because the actuarial table always works out in the aggregate.

          At first blush, it would seem the federal insurance fund is a benefit for the mortgage providers. Really it is a benefit for the old people. The subsidized insurance alleviates the need for the companies to price for individual risk. This allows them to sell universally cheap mortgages, which benefits the old people getting them really more than the company.

      2. widget

        Short John (he’s a lawyer): You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

        1. widget

          I don’t mean to mock you, John. (I’m an engineer). I make a middle-class living, in part, by offering wording arguments to the affect of “You can’t cool the kitchen by opening the refrigerator door.”

          1. John

            I don’t take it as mocking at all. You sum it up well.

            1. Something is off here. What bank would rather go through foreclosure than take 95% of the mortgage price? Foreclosure is an expensive, slow pain in the ass.

              1. oops, it’s 95% of the FMV (as determined by the lender). Still that makes no sense.

              2. John

                it depends. If you always settle, people see you as an easy mark and start offering less and less. If you always foreclose for anything less than 100%, the people will come up with the 100% if there is any way to do it.

      3. I hate to be unsympathetic, but why not just let them foreclose?

        1. John

          Reverse mortgages are a good thing. It is a way for people to be able to make good use of their home equity. If you are an old person and don’t have a lot of income but own this valuable house, it makes sense to turn the house into income in an arrangement that allows you to still live in the house.

          Of course, the price of that is you might end up selling your house really cheap and screwing your heirs. But so what? Life is about choices.

      4. Elspeth Flashman

        The older relative could always deed the house to the younger, saving a life estate for himself, and having the younger pay for the value of the house (if possible) instead.

        1. John

          You could. But it would be difficult for most people to either have the money to buy it outright or make mortgage payments on a home they neither live in nor rent out.

          1. Elspeth Flashman

            True. But it is still a possibility.

    2. Rufus J. Firefly

      The Fonz…lied?

      1. hheyyyyyy

    3. PRX

      I get to spend my equity instead of my heirs? and it delivers a harsh sting to my heirs which may include the government because of Obamacare? what’s the downside?

  28. Auric Demonocles

    Alt-text on that picture is what success looks like.

  29. Notorious G.K.C.

    Woman judges join the War on Women!

    “On March 27, 2014, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld the new Texas abortion law which requires doctors have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of their clinic and restricts the use of abortion-inducing drugs. A three-judge panel ruled the law, known as House Bill 2, was constitutional and does not violate the rights of women seeking abortions in Texas….

    “…the *all-female panel* ruled if the law did impose a burden, the “burden does not fall on the vast majority of Texas women seeking abortions.”” [emphasis added]

    http://inforney.com/texas/item…..of-appeals

    1. John

      Don’t you have to be a pretty shitty doctor not to have hospital admitting privileges?

      1. Don’t you have to be a pretty shitty doctor not to have hospital admitting privileges?

        No. Generally hospitals require you to admit a certain number of patients to the hospital every year.

        Abortions being an outpatient procedure – and a doc who exclusively does abortions is unlikely to be sending anyone to a hospital, ever.

        It’s the same bullshit as gun storage requirements; to make it impossible for someone to do abortions without breaking the law.

        1. John

          Okay. Then it probably should have been overturned. I don’t agree with abortion. But the law is what it is. The horseshit of states using rediculous conditions to effectively ban things they don’t like but are prevented from banning has got to stop.

          Conservatives might want to take their heads out of their ass and realize what they can do to abortion, Progs can do on guns and a lot of other things.

          Of course, the same is true for Progs. So, I suppose I should look at this as Progs getting a taste of the bullshit they have been pulling on guns for years now.

          1. Notorious G.K.C.

            The courts allow states only a limited power to regulate abortion, therefore…they shouldn’t exercise even tgat limited power, lest progressives ban guns?

            you know what else has “got to stop”? Legal abortion.

            1. John

              You miss my point. If you are going to say abortion is not a constitutional right, fine. The courts haven’t said that. Right now it is a constitutional right. As long as it is such, allowing states to regulate to death is setting the precedent that states can regulate any other right to death. That is a very bad thing.

              The correct position is that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right but if it is, the states can’t burden it anymore than they can burden any other right.

              1. Notorious G.K.C.

                The courts can’t rewrite the law. If they do, they’re lawless. I think, for example, that the 14th Amendment made govt-mandated racial segregation of businesses unconstitutional. The fact that they said it was constitutional in 1896 means nothing. The Court changed its mind due to an incremental NAACP legal campaign, which is what the prolifers are trying to do.

          2. Of course, the same is true for Progs. So, I suppose I should look at this as Progs getting a taste of the bullshit they have been pulling on guns for years now.

            Oh most definitely. Personally think this law was actually inspired by watching how the progs operate.

        2. Loki

          a doc who exclusively does abortions is unlikely to be sending anyone to a hospital, ever.

          Uhh, seems pretty easy to get around to me: abortion docs can start doing things other than abortions. IOW, become “real” doctors instead of glorified vacuum technicians. Problem solved.

          1. Loki

            To be clear, my previous comment should not be taken as a defense or critique on the TX law. I live in CO, so I couldn’t give half a shit about what TX does. Just pointing out that “abortion docs” could do other things in addition to abortion. Things that would get them admitting priveledges at a nearby hospital.

            1. Zeb

              Why should they? It’s still a bad regulation for the reason John points out. It’s sole intention is to make it more difficult to provide a legal service.

              1. Re: Zeb,

                It’s sole intention is to make it more difficult to provide a legal service.

                So was nullifying fugitive slave laws – it impeded the supply of a ‘legal service.’

                1. Notorious G.K.C.

                  Ding ding ding!

        3. Re: tarran,

          It’s the same bullshit as gun storage requirements; to make it impossible for someone to do abortions without breaking the law.

          The big difference is that possessing a gun harms no one. Abortion is the murder of a human being.

          I see this not as a case of encroachment on civil liberties but quite the contrary; I see it more akin to the nullification of things like fugitive slave laws or the Mann act.

          1. Zeb

            I think that’s called begging the question.

            And the slavery comparison is not very good. Ending government support of slavery and making it illegal effectively ended it. Banning or making abortion more difficult to do legally will not get rid of abortion. People have been deliberately terminating pregnancies forever.

            1. Re: Zeb,

              I think that’s called begging the question.

              What are you calling “begging the question”? Which statement?

              And the slavery comparison is not very good. Ending government support of slavery and making it illegal effectively ended it. Banning or making abortion more difficult to do legally will not get rid of abortion.

              Well, you don’t know if that will be the case, first. You’re speculating. Second, making slavery illegal did not really end slavery per s?, it just made it much harder to have slaves (people still enslave other people in America, only very rarely) just like making abortion illegal will make it much harder to have a non-therapeutic abortion.

              However, I am not making a case to make abortion illegal but to point out that the comparison between imposing burdens on gun-ownership and imposing burdens on abortion are NOT the same thing, since gun-ownership harms NO one whereas abortion IS murder.

    2. widget

      If the law says you will not throw a baseball within 200 feet of a red traffic light the law should be upheld because it does not place a significant burden on baseball pitchers. The sense of having such a law in the first place escapes modern jurisprudence.

      1. Jerryskids

        And I think that’s a good thing. The remedy for bad laws is getting rid of bad laws and bad lawmakers, not getting a judge to decide bad laws should be nullified. Do you really want an unelected, unaccountable, lifetime-tenured judge deciding which laws are good or bad and therefre enforceable or not? That’s not the rule of law.

        (Although that does seem to be more and more what we’re getting – you don’t change the letter of the law, you just ‘re-interpret’ it to mean what you want it to mean.)

  30. We Represent The Lollipop Guild: EPA ‘Scientists’ Peer-Review Each Other’s Works, Completely In Violation Of Established EPA Guidelines (Which Are Meaningless Anyway Because Climate Changey And Polar Caps And Shit)

    Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith wrote to the EPA last week detailing his concerns that the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) Ozone Review Panel suffers from conflicts of interest and lacks impartiality.

    The ozone panel is tasked with reviewing EPA documents related to clean air regulations and is intended “to have complete independence” from the agency, according to Smith ? who chairs the House Science Committee. Smith wrote that the panel suffers from “panelists reviewing their own work; a lack of turnover among CASAC Ozone Review Panel members; and, existing financial relationships between Panelists and the Agency.”

    Let’s just cut out the middle man – my paper is peer-reviewed! By ME!

    1. People misusing government power? Quelle surprise!

      1. Rufus J. Firefly

        Speak white, Ted.

    2. db

      If The Science Is Settled, why are we still paying climate researchers to do anything?

    3. John

      If we had an honest media, someone would do an expose on the sham that was the CFC ozone scare. Basically, CFCs were fabulous chemicals that never wore out and thus quickly stopped making the few multinational chemical corporations who made them any money. The corporations developed replacements that were more expensive and less effective. How is one to sell a worse product that replaces a better one that never wears out?

      Simple, you latch onto some unproven science that says the first product is destroying the ozone layer, buy off the environmental movement to give you cover and get the first product banned internationally.

      There still is no proof that CFCs destroyed the ozone and even if they did, the CFCs remained in the ozone layer would have effectively acted as ozone. The “holes in ozone” were naturally occurring phenomenon.

      1. I’m thinking that the destruction caused by having the government fund the bulk of scientific research – something that only started after World War II – is going to affect humanity for generations to come.

        1. John

          The global ban of CFCs was the worst example of crony capitalism I have ever seen. There are only a handful of companies that made CFCs. They were all enormous multinationals like Dow and BASF. They were able to use their influence to get a safe and effective product banned. Our car air conditioners are less effective and less efficient than they were 30 years ago. The replacement R134a coolant sucks compared to the old R12. The cars that are built to use R134a have to have much bigger evaporators and condensers to supply the same amount of AC.

          1. you know what pisses me off? I was raised to think that using hot water was wasteful, so I never washed my clothes in hot water thanks to my worthless public school cramming greenie crap down my throat. do you know how amazing hot water is? It’s a fucking shame we give up the trappings of civilization for bullshit reasons.

            1. John

              Don’t get me started on clothes washing. The government mandated new washers be “more efficient” a few years ago. What that means is that new washers don’t use as much water, which is another way of saying “they don’t work as well”.

              Thanks to the environmental cult, we now buy appliances that work worse than the ones that came before. To the extent that there are issues with fresh water in the world, it is not because of people washing their clothes. But environmentalists are just puritanical fanatics who hate themselves and the human race in general. So, they are happy to use “saving water” as an excuse to get at what they view as the real sin, people actually being happy and consuming things.

              1. WTF

                “Saving water” – Only liberals would worry about running out of something that literally falls from the sky.

                1. Zeb

                  something that literally falls from the sky.

                  A lot more in some places than in others. There are legitimate worries about water resources in some places. Those problems could be pretty thoroughly solved by a free market in water, but it is still a legitimate concern. But it is a very localized issue. Water is scarce in the desert south-west. It is not at my house where it sometimes comes out of the top of my well.

              2. Zeb

                The national regulations of water use are fucking stupid. Water is very much a local resource. My leaving a faucet running all day is not going to contribute water shortages in the west in any way. But I still have to buy low flow faucets and toilets.

                There are real problems of water scarcity in some places, but that could be dealt with by market pricing of water. People in Arizona would stop watering their lawns pretty fast if they had to pay full price for their water supply.

                1. John

                  Exactly Zeb. We grossly under price water in places where it is in short supply. That is why we have water shortages.

            2. Scruffy Nerfherder

              As someone who is 6’3″ with orangutan arms, hot water for clothes washing is a bad idea.

              1. yeah clothes shrink a little but come on man, there’s literally no other way to get whites white again. we’re walking around with dingy clothes and we don’t have to be. It;s fucking ridiculous.

                1. Scruffy Nerfherder

                  I sterilize my whites with massive amounts of Clorox. The fumes alone kill the mold in the basement.

                2. whites white again

                  omg – so racist.

            3. Zeb

              I was raised to think that using hot water was wasteful.

              It wastes money. I’d rather have more money than whiter sheets.

            4. Corning

              I was raised to think that using hot water was wasteful, so I never washed my clothes in hot water

              I don’t know about wasteful.

              But hot water can shorten the life of most cotton cloths.

              I never use Hot Water on my Levis…i also air dry them.

              Underwear and socks should probably be in hot water. Potential fungus infection is not worth saving the life of something that is fairly cheap anyway.

          2. Ken Shultz

            Oh, I’ve seen worse examples of crony capitalism. And I appreciate that the link between chlorine and ozone depletion wasn’t exactly like a smoking gun, but claiming there was a direct relationship between them wasn’t exactly unreasonable.

            Lots of processes are “natural”, but that doesn’t mean what we’re doing doesn’t exacerbate them. The sea urchin infestation that all but wiped out the kelp forests off the coast of California worked by way of a natural processes, too. But all but wiping out the sea otters that fed on the urchins had something to do with that natural process, too.

            1. John

              It was unreasonable Ken. The science wasn’t there. They have never found any actual CFCs in the ozone. The theory is the CFCs, since they are incredible stable compounds, stay in the atmosphere forever once they are released. That part is true. The second part is that they eventually float up to the ozone layer and react with the ozone destroying it.

              That part is complete speculation. No one has ever actually observed any CFCs in the ozone. Moreover, CFCs would have the same effect as the ozone it replaced.

              Here we are 30 years into the CFC ban and there still is a yearly hole in the ozone over Antarctica. There has never been any proof CFCs were a threat. It was all speculation.

              1. Ken Shultz

                Where are you getting this information from, John?

                Chlorine does deplete ozone. My understanding is that the hole that develops in the Spring is a reaction with chlorine acting as a catalyst. I’ve never seen this disputed.

                Tracing the exact chlorine molecule that’s depleting ozone directly to a can of Right Guard hasn’t been done yet, conclusively, but the size of the ozone hole having a direct relationship with the amount of CFCs released has been observed–both on the uptick and on the downside.

                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O….._depletion

                Just because we don’t like what the watermelon enviro-socialists want to do about global warming doesn’t mean we have to project the AGW denialism model onto everything else we see. Listening to some people, you’d think there was no such thing as harmful pollution–that’s it’s all just a vast left-wing conspiracy by unions and science cronies to help themselves to more of our future paychecks.

                But if those a-hole groups are using legitimate environmental issues to line their pockets and make America more socialist, then the solution isn’t to deny the existence of real environmental problems. The solution is to claim those problems as our own and offer real capitalist solutions–rather than socialist ones.

                1. Ken Shultz

                  “But if those a-hole groups are using legitimate environmental issues to line their pockets and make America more socialist, then the solution isn’t to deny the existence of real environmental problems.”

                  In fact, denying the existence of problems that turn out to be quite real undermines our credibility.

                2. John

                  Ken,

                  There are still holes in the ozone, despite a drastic reduction in the production and releases of CFCs. There isn’t a linear relationship you describe. The wikipedia page you link to admits as much.

                  No one is really sure what causes the holes. There are other sources of chlorine that seem to cause it. CFCs were not the culprate.

              2. BigT

                John, don’t step out of your field or you step in it.

                The chemistry behind the breakdown of CFC’s and their impact on ozone is well-known. In the upper atmosphere the C-Cl bonds are broken by UV radiation and form radicals that break down ozone. The Cl atoms can destroy many ozone molecule through a radical chain process.

                The build-up of CFC’s in the atmosphere peaked in about 2000, so these are just now starting to decline. The effect of that decline will not be certain for a few decades yet.

                Like any experiment on the entire globe there is no reference case where one did nothing. But in this case there are plenty of alternatives to CFC’s so there is almost no real cost to society to replace them. I know several people who made their careers developing replacements.

                1. John

                  In this case Big T, all of the alternatives were more expensive and made the chemical industry a fortune.

                  And yes, I know the chemical process. It is just that we don’t know that that process actually occurred. CFCs peaked in 2000, yet, we still have just as many and in fact more “ozone holes” as we did before. That would argue that something else is going on.

                  1. BigT

                    all of the alternatives were more expensive and made the chemical industry a fortune

                    Are you anti-capitalist? Is profit a bad thing?

                    For many applications ammonia can be used, although it has its own problems (odor, health issues) that people don’t like.

                    The longest day of the year is June 22. But the hottest day is some time in late July. There is a lag between the cause (sun) and the effect (heat). Same with the ozone hole. The peak CFC was about 2000 (or some have put this about 2005), so it will take a while for the effect to be seen clearly.

                    1. John

                      Big T,

                      I am not anti capitalist. I am just saying that just like money taints a lot of the AGW research, the same can be true here.

                      And there is nothing to say that CFCs act like sunlight and heat. We are talking about concentrations here. If the concentration is lower, the depletion of the ozone should be lower. Maybe not in a completely linear way. But somewhat lower. It has been going down for 13 years now.

                      Time will tell. But you watch, it will 2030 or 50 and someone will realize that CFCs were not the cause.

                    2. kbolino

                      Are you anti-capitalist? Is profit a bad thing?

                      It is when it comes not from the mutual consent of buyer and seller but from the coercion of one party by another, in this case the government.

                      There is a difference between profiting and profiteering.

                  2. Ken Shultz

                    To my ear, this sounds like someone saying that just because taking inventory shows that we lose a bunch of merchandise every year, we shouldn’t bother investing in a security system–until we actually prove that shoplifters exist and that we have them in our store.

                    There’s an open question as to whether the solution is more expensive than it should be or whether there’s a bigger imposition on our freedom than there should be, but we can have those conversations without denying the existence of shoplifters, can’t we?

                    1. John

                      Ken that is a terrible example. What is happening is your merchandise is disappearing but you don’t know if it is theft or mice or something else you haven’t figured out. Spending a fortune on a security system in that situation, doesn’t make a lot of sense does it?

        2. db

          Dwight Eisenhower warned us.

          1. Ken Shultz

            About the spray-on deodorant-industrial complex?

            1. db

              Huh? No, about the science-government complex. Everyone remembers the part of his farewell speech where he warns of the military-industrial complex, but conveniently ignores.or.forgets his warning against government/political capture of scientific institutions through public.funding of research.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    the destruction caused by having the government fund the bulk of scientific research – something that only started after World War II –

    If the government doesn’t do it, who will?

    Evil profiteers and idle-rich dilettantes, that’s who.

    Won’t somebody think of the adjunct professors?

    1. Don Mynack

      You are saying the government didn’t invent airplanes, the telephone, radio, the automobile, the locomotive…

      That’s just crazy talk.

      1. Corning

        You forgot the telegraph.

        Which is basically the Internet using humans for routers and switches.

        Thank god the government invented the time machine so they could go back and invent that for us.

  32. SugarFree

    FEMA Flood Map fixing

    The NBC investigation published in February shows that 533 properties in Alaska, Hawaii, and across coastal areas of the continental United States were removed from high-risk flood zones under questionable circumstances, including these luxury beachfront condominiums in hurricane-prone Alabama.

    On a single day -? Oct. 25, 2012, as agency officials were closely monitoring Hurricane Sandy as it barreled toward the Atlantic Coast ? FEMA remapped more than a mile of the oceanfront in Gulf Shores [Alabama], including condos on the spot where a Holiday Inn and a McDonald’s were destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The document that made that change, issued by a FEMA manager, redrew the lines to exclude 25 condo buildings from the highest-risk flood zone, and was one of just 533 cases found nationwide by NBC News.

    FEMA’s flood maps are crucial for property owners and insurance companies alike, as they assess the risk for flooding at a particular location in the United States based on information such as proximity to a body of water, elevation, and climatological risk for hazards like hurricanes or major river flooding. Flood insurance premiums are heavily dependent on a property’s FEMA-analyzed flood risk, with the highest-risk properties costing the most to insure per year.

    1. John

      The idea of the government providing that sort of information sounds great right up until someone bribes or uses their political influence to change the thing to their benefit.

      There is a term in the law called “occupying the field”. It doesn’t directly apply here but it is analogous. When the feds pass a huge enough law on something, the states are prohibited from regulating that area because the feds are said to have occupied the field.

      The same thing is happening here by default. Since the Feds are making the maps, the private sector relies on it and doesn’t make their own maps. So when the feds turn out to be corrupt or screw it up, everyone gets screwed since there is no private sector redundancy.

    2. Ken Shultz

      Just for the record, FEMA maps are often inaccurate the other way, too…

      I had a project where about a third of the parcel was in a “flood way”, according to the FEMA map. This is distinct from a “flood plain” in that you can’t bring in dirt to lift yourself out of a flood way–because doing so would change the current and, thus, the location of a flood event; i.e., you’d be making the flood happen in a different place than it should under the food map.

      Thing is? The Army Corp had come in and built a flood channel directly adjacent to the property (and the flood way) some 15 years previously–for the express purpose of getting rid of the flood way. However, the Army Corps doesn’t generally communicate such things to FEMA, so the effects of the that OLD flood channel never showed up on FEMA’s flood maps.

      They were charging all those businesses and homeowners for all those years for being in a flood plain (and keeping them from building in a flood way)–that didn’t actually exist!

      So, anyway, those “errors” go both ways.

      Incidentally, FEMA seems to farm their flood plain updates to outside private contractors. If there was some funny business going on, they might use it as an argument for more funding so they can do everything in-house.

      1. UnCivilServant

        I contend that FEMA need not keep track of this nor charge anyone anything. If someone wishes to sell flood insurance, let them track where the danger zones are. Especially since FEMA doesn’t do any of the prevention or mitigation work on the infrastructure that controls the water.

  33. Loki

    Polling shows that 20 percent of British adults say that they would turn down an invitation to a same-sex wedding.

    Must be American ex-pats. As everyone knows, it’s only us Americans who are homophobic bigots. Not Europeans and British people. Afterall, they’re all progressive and shit over there.

    1. John

      Really who cares? I bet the percentage of people who would turn down an invitation to a Brony convention is even higher. So what? The point is for people to live in peace, not get everyone to accept everyone else.

      1. Loki

        The point is for people to live in peace, not get everyone to accept everyone else.

        Not for progs though. For them it isn’t really about tolerance or live and let live, it really is all about forcing everyone to accept everyone else. Mere tolerance isn’t enough, they must correct incorrect thought patterns and beliefs. For your own “well-being,” of course.

  34. Last night I watched The Last Picture Show (1971) for the first time – it is disjointed and messy, but one of the better American films I’ve ever seen. The acting is great, giving some real depth to the characters. The cinematography – shot in B&W – reminds me of French New Wave cinema, but there is a distinct American flavor with the Texas lonely town backdrop. Still mentally processing it – finding some minor flaws here ‘n’ there – but very impressed.

    1. John

      It is a really good movie. American movies really did peak in the late 60s to mid 70s. Hollywood made more great movies in 1971 than it has in the entire 21st Century so far.

    2. sarcasmic

      I recorded Clockwork Orange, also from 1971, and have been trying to watch it just so I can understand the pop culture references. But dang, I can’t watch more than a segment or two at a time. That’s a rough movie.

      1. WTF

        Put off by a bit of the old ultraviolence, eh?

      2. John

        Yeah. I watched it in high school. It was sort of a big thing to watch because it was so violent and pornographic.

        I understand why people see it as great art. And God knows it has influenced the culture. I have never watched it again. It is just not a pleasant or enjoyable movie to watch.

        It is like Schnindler’s list. I saw it once at the theater but have never and probably never will watch it again.

        1. widget

          Has anyone watch “Dances with Wolves” more than once? The cinematography involved in the buffalo stampede is wonderful. Such is so with approach to the concentration camp in “Schindler’s List”. How many times have you watched “Sofie’s Choice”? The horror, I get it.

          The war movie that endures is “The Sound of Music”.

          1. John

            There are a lot of war movies that endure. I have watched The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heroes, The Longest Day and a few other war movies dozens of times.

            The one well regarded war movie I have only rewatched once and don’t plan to see again is Saving Private Ryan. That movie is just wildly overrated. The Normandy beach scene is amazing film making, though not as realistic and people claim. The rest of it though just isn’t that good or that realistic and is frankly ridiculous and contrived in a lot of parts.

            1. sarcasmic

              Band of Brothers was very good.

              1. John

                It was. Much better than SPR. But Band of Brothers was based on an actual story. The fact that it was a true story and a good number of viewers had read the book, kept the shmaltz factor down. SPR didn’t have the restriction. So you ended up with completely unrealistic and stupid scenes like the German prisoner scene inserted to artificially create some kind of “oh my God war is horrible” dilemma in the audience.

                1. sarcasmic

                  At the time SPR was groundbreaking. You’ve to admit that.

                  Looking back on it it’s got plenty of flaws, but when it came out it was one of a kind.

                  1. sarcasmic

                    You’ve *got*

              2. Re: sarcasmic,

                Band of Brothers was very good.

                Not as good as The Pacific. The Pacific is a masterpiece. It is a TRUE war movie/series; pulls NO punches when portraying the sheer horror and excitement of war, in all its brutality, its sheer waste.

                But I did like BOB MUCH more than SPR. SPR is only good the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes. The rest is just Combat! without Vic Morrow.

                1. sarcasmic

                  Not as good as The Pacific

                  I looked it up on imdb and it was made by the same people who did BOB. Thanks, I’ll have to check it out.

            2. Like if the Germans are at a higher elevation, then why are the tracers of the MGs running parallel to the ground?

              1. John

                I need to sit down some day and right a long rant about all of the problems with SPR. Here is one of my bigger gripes.

                The entire “take the German bunker” scene shows the Tom Hanks character to be a dangerously incompetent officer whose men probably would have killed. There is no explanation provided for why there is this German bunker out alone with no other units around. So, it wouldn’t have happened. And even if it did, the team had a mission that didn’t involve taking out the bunker and would have just bipassed it. And if they had taken it out, they would not have just charged a machine gun over open ground. Lastly, they would have just shot the German when they took the bunker, even if he had raised his hands. That is how it actually works. You shoot the enemy before you have time to dick around and determine if he has surrendered or not. What you don’t do is let the guy surrender and then debate whether to shoot him. When they attacked that bunker they would have known whether they intended to take any prisoners and acted accordingly, no questions asked or issues raised.

                1. Restoras

                  In my opinion that scene was designed to show Captain Miller as human and capable of making a costly mistake, and from that point break the character down from ‘hero’ to ‘normal, everyday guy’ that I think Speilberg was trying to weave through the movie.

                  There is litte doubt in my mind that, in an actual comabt situation, the Capt. Miller character would bypass the bunker – isn’t Mission First a standard military doctrine? Further, the frontal assault was idiotic and unrealistic and again designed to make him appear human. Any junior officer in a Ranger unit would know not to do that.

                  1. John

                    Yes Restorus

                    The reason for the scene is to make all of the points you list. That is why I consider the movie to be contrived and unrealistic. There are all kinds of completely stupid and contrived scenes in that movie put in to make this or that point or to show this or that aspect of a character. I hate that. I think that is bad art. A better made movie would have made those same points in less obvious and contrived ways.

                    1. sarcasmic

                      John, I think you’re missing the point. You can’t see the forest because there are all those stupid trees in the way. SPR, despite all its faults, paved the way for a new style of war movies. For that it deserves some respect.

                    2. John

                      Really sarcasmic?

                      What new style of war movies. They have been increasingly realistic war movies since the 1960s. All SPR did was bring better technology and some very skillful filmmaking to it.

                      I don’t see it as being that ground breaking. For all of its vaunted “realism”, there are scenes in the 1930s version of All Quiet on the Western Front that are just a powerful to watch and really much more realistic.

                      Hell, I would take the fire fight scenes in Full Metal Jacket over the ones in SPR any day. I am just not seeing what is significant about the movie.

                    3. sarcasmic

                      The fact that it has been mimicked as much as it has should speak for itself.

                    4. Restoras

                      I’d love to see a really good remake of Midway. One of my favorites.

      3. I enjoyed CO when I was younger, now I’m repulsed by the violence – I suppose that was the actual intent of the movie. Like you, I can watch it in bits, but not the whole thing.

      4. SugarFree

        The best way to watch it is with the words of RC Dean in your mind: You aren’t free unless you are free to be wrong.

        And, of course, “Hard cases make bad laws.”

      5. lap83

        Clockwork Orange is rough to watch, but the use of music is brilliant.

    3. grrizzly

      I love this movie too. Perhaps, I should watch it again some day.

    4. Restoras

      I’m still binge watching Archer. Halfway through Season 3.

  35. Sevo

    Yes, the voters in SF really are dumb enough to elect Pelosi:

    “Calif. state Sen. Yee’s Sunset District neighbors shocked by case”
    […]
    “It’s like, who can you trust?” said Christopher Mei, 62.”
    http://www.sfgate.com/politics…..355787.php

    Uh, Obo? Pelosi?

    1. John

      He was from Chinatown. My guess is there is a lot of mindless ethnic solidarity going on there. Yee was one of them, he couldn’t be corrupt.

    2. db

      Fuck, people, by now you should know that politicians, all of them, need to be watched with a careful eye. “Trust” is a thing for friends and family, and colleagues who have demonstrated trustworthiness, not elected or appointed officials.

      You don’t ever “trust” a politician any more than you would “trust” someone who is selling something to you. The blind faith some people have in “public servants” is amazing, and tragic.

    3. Loki

      Forget it Sevo, it’s Chinatown.

      1. Sevo

        The dude abides.

  36. kmc212

    When is Reason going to publish anything on the NLRB’s decision to allow Northwestern college football players to unionize?

    http://online.wsj.com/news/art…..54652.html

    1. Mickey Rat

      From what I’ve heard, the ruling only applies to private schools. State run institutions would be exempt, which are most of Division I schools and almost all of the powerhouses.

      1. BigT

        USC, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Duke would beg to differ.

        1. Mickey Rat

          I did not say none, and two of those are only powerhouses in basketball.

          1. kmc212

            Whatever the NLRB decides, the state labor boards follow. So state schools will also need to honor student-athletes unionizing. It’s a big mess.

    2. BigT

      Can you imagine the first time some guy gets his tax bill – income $65k, taxes: $15k. Where will he get the $$$? Will this drive all poor people out of college sports?

      It would be great if no college gave athletic scholarships. Then we would truly have scholar-athletes. But only the Ivy League follows this (among the large schools).

      1. John

        That is the thing Big T. If they are employees, then their scholarship and room and board and all of that in kind payment is their salary and is thus taxable.

        If were Northwestern, I would just print up trial W2s estimating value of in kind payments that each player received in salary. Considering that Northwestern tuition alone is close to 50K, I bet the players will decide unionizing isn’t such a good idea.

        1. KDN

          Yep. I wonder if the Steelworkers warned them of that when they assisted on the bid. I’d also like to know if they’ll be able to take out Stafford loans to cover their tax bills.

    3. Restoras

      Check out this article – it’s an interesting persepctive.
      http://www.mindingthecampus.co…..ge_at.html

      My understanding is the decision came from a regional NLRB office. Expect it to be appealed to the national NLRB. What recourse would the schools have after that – can they sue/appeal through the courts?

  37. Warty

    College football is totally not a fraud and never has been

    On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. ‘Let me have those front seats’ said the driver. She didn’t get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. “I’m going to have you arrested,” said the driver. “You may do that,” Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them “why do you all push us around?” The police officer replied and said “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.

    1. John

      To be fair Warty, I bet you there are journalists working at major media outlets who are just as profoundly ignorant as this guy.

      Honestly Warty, that reads better than a typical Sad Beard column. This kid may have a future writing as Slate.

    2. Loki

      Gee, you mean people who are only admitted to college to bolster the prestige of their football teams might not be the brightest bulbs on the tree, and that an institution (college football) that brings in millions of dollars a year for universities may be prone to corruption? I’m shocked… shocked I tell you!

      1. John

        If the music program let in the next Glen Gould but the guy couldn’t write a complete sentence, would it matter?

        1. Loki

          Probably not, I just think it’s hilarious that we’re supposed to believe these guys are “student-athletes.” No, they’re not, They’re just athletes.

          1. John

            For the most part yes. Some of them are smart and get degrees. But a lot of them don’t.

        2. lap83

          I’m not a liberal so I don’t use the term exploitation lightly, but college sports come pretty close. If you work anywhere else on campus, you get paid. I think it’s fair to ask why. I blame the cartel that is allowed to endure.

  38. B.P.

    On the war movie discussion (Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, et. al.), I saw the German production Generation War at the theaters last week.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1883092/?ref_=nv_sr_1

    I’m a WWII nut and enjoyed the hell out of it. It was pilloried by some critics for going easy on the Germans for their complicity in atrocities, as well as some unrealistic plot twists, and it’s a little soap opera-ish, but I found it to be great watch. It was released as two separate movies in the theaters.

  39. kmc212

    Whatever the NLRB decides, the state labor boards follow. So state schools will also need to honor student-athletes unionizing. It’s a big mess.

  40. 6 million, 7 million

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