The author use small "i' imperialist - yes, the USSR was imperialist Russia in many senses. No, it was not Imperialist Russia..

Exactly. If you don't qualify for subsidies, then there IS NO CHEAPER MAGIC SOLUTION than those that the regulated insurance companies in the state advertise. They don't have the option of having secret cheaper-than-the-exchange plans. So if you call a hotline and complain that your new insurance plan is too expensive, their ONLY OPTION is to try to find a way to qualify you for a plan that somebody else is forced to help you buy. Otherwise, the price is what the price is.

For which they had no choice. They are required by law to suddenly provide a range of coverage that was not previously built into their pricing. If you were suddenly told that you had to provide a bunch of new services or else, would you just eat the loss, or raise your prices in order to maintain your business? Insurance companies work on smaller margins than companies in many, many other industries. Remove that margin, and they are out of business. Now, that may be what the ACA backers secretly want, but in the meantime, you raise your prices to deal with the fact that your government has just substantially raised your costs.

They've always been government controlled. Every state in the union has an insurance regulating body to which those companies must turn for approval in order to change rates. And each of those scenarios plays out in something of a vacuum, because laws prevent insurance companies from providing services across state lines. The government has been entirely in control of this stuff for decades (as if you didn't know that!).

No, it's known as state regulation. The companies who have a very innovative way to deliver the same (government approved) class of services with less overhead MAY be able to offer a lower price if they can survive doing so. But there's generally very, very little latitude in the cost/price recipe before the insurer is on intolerably thin ice.

                            - Setec. - What?

                            Setec Astronomy.

                            I just love it when a man says that to me.

                            Setec doesn't mean anything.

                            Excuse me.

                            Carl... ...can you get me some cable and that l/O interface, please?

                            "Monterey's coast."

                            Does "Monterey's coast" mean anything to you guys?

                            - No. - No.

                            Here, help me with this.

                            Carl, get the diagnostics.

                            How about "my Socrates note"?

                            No.

                            - No, I don't... - No. No.

                            Got it. Move to another one.

                            Give me another one.

                            Stay in that quadrant.

                            It's kind of the same thing. Try another quadrant.

                            Mother, what was that? Go back one.

                            All right.

                            Holy cow.

                            What the hell is this?

                            "Too many secrets."

...but there's still the problem of releasing the "secret" to your hidden-in-plain-sight key later.

Having published the photo steganographically is one thing. Telling people to get the key out of your lolcat photo after you're dead is another.

Thanks. Neat.

Up next, Hong Kong :)

Did I miss the great 2-D printing lock-down that happened in 2014 where they all have a ton of restrictions and don't take generic ink?

Yes, but what will they deliver it in?

Post to USENET, it'll still be on servers everywhere for another decade.

The trick is releasing the decryption key upon your death.

Leela: It's called Soylent Cola."
Fry: "So, how does it taste?"
Leela: "It varies from person to person."

Fish, and plankton. And sea greens, and protein from the sea. It's all here, ready. Fresh as harvest day. Fish and sea greens, plankton and protein from the sea. And then it stopped coming. And they came instead. So I store them here. I'm ready. And you're ready. It's my job. To freeze you. Protein, plankton...

You forgot young earth creationists, probably the most popular conspiracy theory around. Evolution, geology, paleoclimatology, dendrochronology, astronomy, radiocarbon dating, fossil record and probably a dozen other sciences I forget all a hoax. A false flag operation by either god himself as a test of faith or the devil playing tricks, you don't have to go to the 1% nutters - who mostly lack sanity - to find total rejection of evidence, science and logic.

Nah, now that we've listened in on your phone calls, we'll begin our process of Parallel Construction.

Thanks for making the calls though :)

Also, they lack $100 wooden screws to hold the card in for hi-fi magnetic resonance.

What's amazing to me is that you believe an indoor breeze can fly a flag.

While they certainly have more in common than say "New Mexico" and "Mexico," the existence of "China" in both of their names doesn't make them the same thing.

I'm fairly certain the people of Taiwan consider Taiwan a different place than China -- enough so that they have the whole Taiwan name and all.