21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Welcome To The New World Of Dating.
Archive for 2014
May 22, 2014
WEAKENING EARTHQUAKE WAVES with lessons from optics.
IPAD CASE/KEYBOARD REVIEW: The Logitech UltraThin. “The key size and spacing feels close to what you’d find on the Macbook Air keyboard.”
READER BOOK PLUG: From Kirsten Mortensen, Dark Chemistry.
COULD ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENTS doom biomedical research?
AMAZON’S PRIME STREAMING VIDEO now includes HBO. “This collection of iconic HBO series includes all seasons of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood, epic miniseries including Band of Brothers and The Pacific, and select seasons of current HBO hits such as True Blood and Boardwalk Empire.” But no Girls. Which might be a selling point for some.
TEN THINGS YOU MUST KNOW about detailing your car. Or you can go with #11: Have the dealer do it when you take it in for service.
NO. NEXT QUESTION? Do Chimps Have Human Rights?
IN THE MAIL: From Jason L. Riley, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.
Plus, today only at Amazon: Klipsch SW-350 8-Inch 350 Watt Subwoofer, $179.99 (55% off).
And, also today only: 75% off Versace Watches.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 378.
IF THEY’RE COVERING IT UP, IT’S NOT BECAUSE THE NEWS IS GOOD. Where Did the Obamacare Data Go?
The most transparent administration in history has reportedly decided to discontinue the monthly Affordable Care Act enrollment reports now that open enrollment is closed. And why shouldn’t it? you ask. After all, open enrollment is, well, closed.
But while the official open enrollment period is closed, that doesn’t mean that activity on the health-insurance exchanges has shut down. People who have experienced a “qualifying life event” — getting a job, having a baby or moving to another state, among others — are still eligible to enroll in an exchange policy.
Meanwhile, other people will be exiting the system — they will get a job that has benefits, marry someone with benefits, or just stop making their payments and go without insurance. The Barack Obama administration should by now be getting fairly accurate estimates of how many of the 8 million enrollees they reported are actually in the system. It is disappointing in the extreme that they would stop reporting these figures just as more accurate data is becoming available.
Moreover, it’s hard to understand why it would stop reporting. Pulling together a report takes work, of course. But it’s not like it needs to do extensive research in order to gather much of this data; it needs to know the numbers in order to run the system.
Politics take precedence over policy, or competence. Every time.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Bid to ‘Control a Contagion’ of Commencement Protests. Don’t negotiate with terrorists. Expel and prosecute those who violate others’ rights. Problem solved. It’s a small number of narcissists who are ruining things for everyone else, but they’re doing it because it’s consequence-free. Meanwhile, I’m reminded of this post from a while back, quoting Richard Fernandez: “It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.”
AT AMAZON, Father’s Day Deals in Electronics. Shop and save!
Plus, 25% or more off in Outdoor Clothing. Summer is coming!
INSTAVISION: I talk with Austin Bay: Is Obama’s Weak Foreign Policy Encouraging Russian & Chinese Aggression? Plus, what comes next.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rich college presidents linked to poorer teachers, students. “Millions of college students are concerned about the burdensome student debts that could set them behind financially for decades to come. Instead of looking at this situation to fate, people need to look at the way the university system is set up. The most glaring problem would be the increasing pay of administrators. This is the reason that all of the college students are in so much debt.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Scandal of College Presidential Pay.
The recent revelations about the Department of Veterans Affairs point to serious problems. But the root of the scandal is not what self-serving bureaucrats failed to do or tried to cover up; it is a federal budget that prevents us from meeting even the national needs on which our polarized political parties can agree.
Whatever the disagreements about the long wars of the past decades, Democrats and Republicans agree that we must fully honor the debt we have incurred to the tiny fraction of the population that does the fighting for the rest of us. Yes, the budget for the VA has risen sharply since 2002. But the number of returning veterans has risen even faster. Many live with grievous wounds from which they would have succumbed in previous conflicts. Many others struggle with the multiple effects of repeated deployments. Aging Vietnam-era patients require more care, and new responsibilities such as coping with Agent Orange add to the VA’s burden.
In 2002, reports the Financial Times, 46.5 million veterans made outpatient visits to VA facilities. In 2012, the number of such visits had risen to 83.6 million. Between late 2010 and the summer of 2013, average waiting times for veterans’ claims soared from 100 days to 375 days.
So, basically, we’re running out of other people’s money. I’ve heard that can happen.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Poll: 47% of Unemployed Have ‘Completely Given Up’ Looking for a Job. That 47% number keeps coming up. . . .
TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: 318,000 Federal Workers Owe $3.3 Billion in Back Taxes (Delinquency Rate Is 33% Higher Among VA Employees).
KA-CHING: After Fed, Bernanke Offers His Wisdom, for a Big Fee. “During his eight years as steward of the world’s largest economy, Mr. Bernanke’s salary was about $200,000 a year. Now he makes that in just a few hours speaking to bankers, hedge fund billionaires and leaders of industry. This year alone, he is poised to make millions of dollars from speaking engagements.”
Another argument for my revolving-door surtax.
POWER PLAY PUSHBACK: Tax preparers balk at IRS education standards.
ED DRISCOLL INTERVIEWS MARK STEYN, about Steyn’s new book, The Passing Parade. Including: “How England’s decline in the 1970s was a preview of America in the Obama years.”