Texas has the federal government to fall back on in case of, for example, natural disaster. The federal government doesn't have such a safety net; it must self-insure. On top of that, the federal government has to be prepared for contingencies such as war that do not really apply at the state level.

The period of time, one year, is arbitrary. Requiring a balanced yearly federal budget would be like requiring a balanced personal budget every two week pay period, even though my biggest expenses occur monthly.

What we really need is some way to balance the federal budget over a much longer period of time, a decade or two perhaps, spanning a full boom/bust cycle. This is, of course, much easier said than done.

Or you can press Ctrl+Shift+Del. One of the options (which should already be checked if you used it last time) is to clear the cache. A three-key combination and a button click and you're done, with no plugins needed.

No subsidy. Household of 1, 32 years old, income high enough that there is no subsidy (put 100k or whatever). A silver plan is estimated at $272/month.

Data points for comparison (non-smoker, no pre-existing conditions):
* 2005: Employer health plan similar to a silver plan. Monthly premium was $330/month of which the employer paid 75%. (Compare $231/month from the calculator for a 25 year old.)
* 2007: Unemployed. The cheapest individual plan I could find was $500/month, similar to a silver plan; COBRA let me keep the $330/month plan but I had to pay 100% of the premium. $150/month state-subsidized option would have been available but only after I depleted my assets. (Compare $241/month from the calculator for a 27 year old.)
* 2010: Employer health plan similar to a gold plan. Monthly premium was about $600/month of which the employer paid 75%. (Calculator doesn't give numbers for a gold plan.)
* 2012: Employer high deductible health plan similar to a silver plan, with the employer paying 100% of both premium and deductible used. Monthly premium was $350/month, and will remain unchanged through 2014. (Compare $272/month from the calculator for a 32 year old.)

Now, I live in New York rather than California, so I wouldn't have the rates given by California's calculator. Instead it looks like the cheapest silver plan where I live will be $300/month.

And the amount California's insurance cost calculator shows me is $80/month cheaper than what my employer currently pays for me, and over $200/month cheaper than the cheapest plan I could find as an individual when I was unemployed over 5 years ago.

How is the government subsidizing coverage for its employees any different from private sector employers paying some or all of their employees' premiums as a job benefit?

They could simply ask--yes or no--on the tax return, then require people who are audited to bring paperwork backing it up (just like any other claim on a tax return).

How would property be divided up at the year-end "divorce" of college roommates, especially if they end up not getting along? That alone might be messy enough to discourage such sham marriages, I think.

I can't think of the last time I've heard of a Justice saying that he personally detests the ruling but 'this is what the law says'

Roberts on the constitutionality of the ACA, perhaps?

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

This reads to me as "I don't like it, but my hands are tied". Why mention the wisdom or fairness of the law, rather than stopping at "it is not our role to forbid it", if he thought the law was wise and fair?

The people I've talked to generally prefer "black". The key is to use it as an adjective rather than as a noun: "black" describes them, but doesn't define them. "Black people": good. "Blacks": not so good (though better than some of the alternatives).
I imagine I'd feel the same about being defined rather than described by any of my physical traits.

And this is the kind of thing an introductory philosophy of science course would cover. What are the fundamental (and typically unstated) assumptions we make about the universe in order for science to be useful, and what would the implications be if any of these assumptions were false? What are the limitations of measurement? What kind of questions can and can't be answered scientifically? What is the relationship between math and science?

Add in some formal logic and basic statistics, and students will have a better understanding of the levels of certainty in science and how to identify the assumptions to be reexamined when experimental results differ from the expectations that follow from those assumptions.

Indeed. Consider the false confession of John Mark Karr in the JonBenet Ramsey case:

"Some false confessors have a pathological need for attention," Saul Kassin, PhD, a distinguished professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and professor at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., says to explain confessions like Karr's.

"That is what everyone is speculating in the Karr case," he says. "The pathology is such that that need predominates. And everything else fades into the background." Even the risk of prison or death.

While it's certainly not the most likely scenario, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Snowden craved attention and so claimed responsibility for something he didn't do. I can't think of an easier way to gain instant fame/notoriety of this magnitude.

Maybe he was considering leaking information, got beaten to the punch, but decided he wanted to be the one in the history books anyway.

Maybe he's sacrificing his own freedom to protect a friend who would have more to lose if revealed as the actual source of the leak.

Or maybe the simplest explanation is the correct one, and Snowden's confession is true. But we need supporting evidence before we can make this conclusion, and that's why it may be premature to call him a criminal. (To my knowledge it's not illegal to make a false confession to the public rather than the police.)

After a couple of years we just decided having her lie in bed staring at the ceiling every night was silly.

In fact, it's not just silly but counterproductive. Proper sleep hygiene includes getting out of bed if unable to fall asleep in a reasonable length of time. Otherwise it can make insomnia worse.

Estás Segura?

Not necessarily. One account could have been written from a reference frame moving relative to Adam and Eve.

Something tells me it would be far better on your wrist and your pinky if you just moved your entire hand the little extra distance and used one of your other fingers instead of stretching with that pinky.

I agree with this. I've never been able to curl my pinkies without also curling my ring finger, and it hasn't hurt my career as a developer in the least. I just learned to hit a few of the keys with my ring finger instead of my pinky, with small hand movements as needed.

Keys I hit with my left ring finger instead of my left pinky: ` 1 tab
Keys I hit with my right ring finger instead of my right pinky: 0 - = backspace [ ] ; /
(Hitting semicolon with my ring finger and then enter with my pinky turned out to be quite convenient in many common programming languages, where lines tend to end with semicolons.)
I use the left shift key exclusively, and when holding it down, my left ring finger takes over the Q A Z keys.

Despite these changes, I type slightly faster than most of my peers, and unless typing continuously for an extended period of time (which is very rare when programming) I never feel any kind of fatigue in my hands.