- - - - - - Michael Moore - - - - - -

Yeah, Michael Moore is a professional filmmaker. He makes his living making films. That's what "professional filmmaker" means.

Funny thing is that as the years go by most of Moore's documentaries look better and more prescient. I image the current managers of General Motors wish their predecessors had spent a little less money on giant SUVs and a little more on the internally developing the electric car research that they licensed to Toyota instead.

sPh

- - - - - On the other hand, he managed to make a little movie, do a little activism, and made a metric ton of money off the subject. - - - - - -

Evidence that Al Gore has "made a metric ton of money off the subject [environmental activism]", please?

Apparently, the only people who act on pure motives are Galtian corporate overlords. Hank Reardon and that sort. People who have a sincere concern about the future of the human race on planet Earth are only shills out to 'make a metric ton of money'; not possible for them to mean what they say. Because freedom BENGHAZI!

sPh

= = = You find it easier to ignore the sacrifice of our nation's ambassador in order to = = =

Approximately a dozen people associated with the State Department - sworn officers, US employees, local employees, and their family members - die in the line of duty every year, consistently for the last 30 years. Very tough, but it is part of the job. Ambassadors who deliberately insert themselves in very dangerous situations - such as attempting to broker among factions in a war-torn land - are of course going to have a higher death rate.

BTW, follow up reporting has shown that the US-made hate video did play a role in rioting in Benghazi that day. Not that it mattered to the specific situation once the ambassador made the decisions to try to get personally involved in that specific situation.

sPh

= = = Last I checked, Al Gore wasn't a professor. = = =

Al Gore is relevant to either the issue and/or the OP exactly how?

sPh

At least he didn't include "global cooling" [sic] or "pause" in the screed, so let's count ourselves lucky.

sPh

        - - - - - - - - but never says a word about how many paid for coverage if any have - - - - - - - -

- - - It is fascinating how the hard radical Right obtains talking points from centralized sources and then starts pumping them near simultaneously. Does it not occur to you that doing this is utterly obvious?
sPh - - -

First it was "No one can get on the website!"
Then it was "OK, the site is loading but no one can create an account!"
Then "OK, you can create an account but no one can view the plans!"
Then "OK, you can view the plans but no one can fill out their application!"
Then "OK, you can apply but no one can actually enroll!"
Then "OK, it works now, but no one bothering to do so anymore!"
Then "OK, (a lot of) people are enrolling, but none of the data is being transferred to the insurance companies!"
And now that we've hit over 1.8 million private enrollments, the new attack is:
"FINE, a lot of people have ENROLLED, but how many have actually PAID???"

About 85% - several months in advance of the premium deadline. Sorry. Nice try though.

http://acasignups.net/graph

sPh

Next up: "LIEberal numbers! I have my own numbers right here!! You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to THE math"

A bit of Googling provides detailed data. As of 3/21 - well in advance of 1st premium deadline - 85% were fully paid. Paid in advance. Early. Before the deadline. About 5 million as of 3/21.

http://acasignups.net/14/03/21...

sPh

= = = I guess I missed the memo, but isn't shitting on Obamacare last year's bugaboo? After you guys proclaimed that meeting the enrollment goal was impossible, you looked like complete morons when they exceeded it. Why double down on a losing hand? = = =

Not to mention convincing their followers not to sign up for health insurance under the ACA, then (a) complaining that said people don't have health care (b) standing by while they die due to lack of health care.

sPh

"How many have paid? HOW MANY HAVE PAID"

Under the ACA - as designed by the Republican think tank Heritage Foundation - premiums are paid directly to private insurance companies. Not to HHS or healthcare.gov. The CEOs of all the major health billing firms (aka 'insurance companies') have expressed satisfaction with the new enrollees and their accounts. The vast majority of those enrollees don't have a premium due until July 1st in any case.

"How many have paid? HOW MANY HAVE PAID?".

Just made-up LIEberal lamestream disinformation of course.

sPh

- - - - - And apparently you both missed the memo where those weren't paid subscribers, either, but supposedly the number who applied. - - - - -

Every one of these hard radical Right talking points and phony anecdotes that has been investigated has proven to be false, most of the maliciously so. Every single one. But apparently we are supposed to just blindly swallow the latest from the breitbart propaganda machine ?

sPh

What is it with the hard radical right talking points infesting Slashdot of late? Is this a concerted effort to take over the site?

- - - - - but never says a word about how many paid for coverage if any have - - - - -

It is fascinating how the hard radical Right obtains talking points from centralized sources and then starts pumping them near simultaneously. Does it not occur to you that doing this is utterly obvious?

sPh

= = = This seems like the sort of problem that could be much more logically and less painfully solved by breaking out the (more or less constant, at least within a given size class and geographic area) grid hookup cost and the per-KW/h price for electricity as separate items on the bill. = = =

Problem comes in when an entire region gets three day of hot, cloud-covered, calm weather. Then everyone expect "the grid" to produce the power that the panels and wind turbines aren't. The result where this has happened in the Midwest and Texas regions over the last two years has been spot market power prices going up to $1000/MWh but no power being available.

I personally think the US needs a lot more solar and at least a fair amount more wind, but there are real problems that need to be worked out. And the Chicago School - which doesn't acknowledge the existence of market failure - doesn't have answer for those problems.

sPh

= = =As a free market fan, I absolutely favor privatizing their state -supported industry. Let the entire network be split up into parallel systems, = = =

That is exactly what has been happening to the US provision-of-electricity industry since 1994, with three successive "market reform" acts getting closer and closer to the University of Chicago ideal. The results have been absolutely disastrous for the consumer (both household and any business smaller than an aluminum smelter) and I would argue are driving the US ever-closer to both short-term grid collapse and long-term grid instability. The "answer" to the clearly-observable problems has so far been to impose even more, more extreme, Chicago School "markets" - every one of which gets gamed within 18 months.

Might want to read up a bit on the actuality there sport.

sPh

Western Electric desk phones. Had to buy one on eBay to replace a string of junky modern ones that failed within a year each; the WE phone was manufactured around 1970 per the serial number.

sPh

HP LaserJet II and LaserJet 3 - worked reliably for 20 years and probably quite a few of them still in use.

sPh

Admittedly as noted above no high-tech product can yet match the longevity of a well-built plumbing system - some of them are over 2000 years old and still functioning as designed, while most major cities still depend on water and plumbing infrastructure build 1880-1920.