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Comment Re:Just in time for another record cold winter (Score 4, Insightful) 200

Again, it the trends, not individual weather on any specific year that matters

Except that after every single warm snap or hurricane the same people who were smugly reminding us that "weather is not climate" are busy pointing to the event as "evidence" of AGW, which it is not. Distributions are evidence, events are not, because the science shows that the AGW/no-AGW distributions substantially overlap in our current situation, particularly with regard to extreme weather events.

So only a person who does not understand science and statistics would ever suggest that any single event or small handful of events is worth mentioning as evidence either way. And yet Warmists are always out in force after any given extremum telling us it "proves" AGW.

Don't get me wrong: AGW is real, although there are some pretty well-proven techniques for reducing it (notably carbon taxes, which also have the benefit of reducing corporate and income taxes, so you'd have to be some anti-capitalist nut-job to oppose them). But anyone who ever opens their mouth to point at a single event as if it was somehow worth the bother of discussing is an anti-science wing-nut, and adds only heat, not light, to the discussion.

Comment "Stakeholders" (Score 4, Interesting) 132

Who are the stakeholders? Well, let's see:

  • Telcos
  • "Big Data" Internet companies
  • the FCC
  • the Public

Only one of these "stakeholders" have opinions that actually matter, and that stakeholder sent "a groundswell of 3 million citizen comments, most of them, presumably, against the FCC's approach" [and in support of regulating ISPs as Common Carriers].

I think we're done here.

Comment Re:Please describe exactly (Score 1) 392

In your foaming response, please describe _exactly_ what you find so objectionable about the Affordable Care Act.... If you have corporate health insurance, describe exactly how the ACA affected your coverage.

My problem with the ACA is that it failed to end employer-provided health insurance, which serves to do exactly nothing except make it harder to change jobs.

My health insurance is paid 100% by my employer. My wife's insurance is paid 50% by my employer. However, as I understand it, because my employer offers health insurance for my wife, she's not eligible for the subsidized rate she would otherwise get for an exchange-based plan. I'm reasonably certain that the 50% of the premiums we pay is more than a subsidized ACA plan would cost, but less than an unsubsidized one would cost, so we're forced to overpay for the "privilege" of having a "choice."

What the ACA should have done is let employers wishing to offer health benefits pay into a FSA or HSA-like account, which the employee could use to pay the premium of the insurance plan of his choosing.

Comment Re:House Committee on Oversight and Government Ref (Score 1) 392

Someone who can blame Obamacare on Republicans is someone who can blame anything on them.

First of all, Obamacare is the Republicans' fault. You can tell because A) they liked it when it was called Romneycare, and B) it's a shit solution (compared to "single payor" where said payor is either the government (i.e., a socialist solution) or the individual patient (i.e., a libertarian solution)) that only serves to entrench and enrich the middlemen. The Democrats would have designed a much more socialist program had they not been trying to appease the Republicans.

Second, your claim is a fallacy. There is absolutely no reason why, just because Obamacare is legitimately the Republicans' fault, that any of the other stupid shit Obama and/or the Democrats have done could be also. For example, here's a partial list of things for which the Republicans can not be blamed:

  • Treasonous NSA totalitarianism after 2009 (just because Congress passed a bill that purports to authorize and fund it, doesn't mean Obama, as Commander-in-Chief, actually has to do it. He could have unilaterally ended it 5 seconds after being inaugurated but didn't, and that's entirely on him.)
  • Parallel construction after 2009 (a concept entirely made up by the executive branch, as far as I know)
  • Benghazi and most other foreign-policy screwups since 2009
  • IRS scandal
  • the Obamacare website (note: distinct from Obamacare itself)
  • etc.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 185

On return home, she found a "letter held" notification and contacted the post office who could not advise who the sender was.

Did she try reading the letter to see what it was about? I find it hard to believe that a letter could constitute "legal notice" unless it included a sentence explaining what it was supposed to be giving notice of (e.g. "hey, your insurance is being cancelled!") and the contact info of the insurer....

Comment Re: What? (Score 1) 185

Sometimes, the police have a service whereby if you tell them you're out of town, they'll pay more attention to signs of burglary when patrolling past your house and/or check it more often. (You can also tell them what behavior to expect, e.g., lights on timers or cars in the driveway so they can more easily tell if anything is wrong.)

Comment Re:Best of Dirt (Score 1) 36

How can everything be without purpose, and yet be capable of generating purpose? I'm perpetually challenged, trying to remember that I am the unreasonable one in this conversation.

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