A New Super Bullet for Liberals to Inveigh Against

A New Bullet Has Been Invented. This is What it Looks Like.

Not satisfied with the destructive power of hollow-point bullets or large-caliber guns? G2 Research has you covered with the new "Radically Invasive Projectile" (R.I.P., clever) an exploding bullet they say can "take the civilian and law enforcement markets by storm, and truly become the last round you’ll ever need."

The bullet is manufactured with bullet points containing trocar angles (edges with three angles reaching one point) to penetrate flesh more easily. It acts like a full metal jacket bullet when penetrating solid objects like "sheet rock, plywood, sheet metal or glass and still performs its original intent. The bullet shreds through solid objects and only then, expands its energy."

The result? Gun owners say that the expanding bullets prevent over-penetration (shooting through a target, or, say, the walls of your house) and make sure the bullets don't ricochet. But the new R.I.P. rounds are also sure to cause horrific wounds in their target.

And here they are in action:



It does look a little nasty, but is it worse than what happens with ordinary hollow points?



Eh, I wouldn't want to get hit by either one.  Isn't deadliness a desirable property in bullets?  It's easy to make them less deadly; just make them lighter and slower.

But according to Americans Against the Tea Party's Richard Rowe, himself a weapons enthuisiast, the new bullet bears an unmistakeable resemblance to a tool of war banned by the Hague Convention (Hague IV 1907, Article 23E): Flechette rounds.

Well, yes, and hollow points are also banned in war.  We accept things in personal protection that we don't allow in war.  I don't know that it makes much sense, but that's the way it is.

Midnite Music - 'Baby, Baby'

Beth Hart does Aretha Franklin.



Wombat-socho has the great collection for the week, "Rule 5 Sunday: All Hail The Superb Owl!" up at The Other McCain.

Will the Bay Freeze Over?

With a new blast of Arctic air approaching, this is not a trivial question:

Chesapeake Bay Mainstem could freeze

At the Chesapeake Bay, temperatures have dropped below freezing and ice is beginning to form.

That means the Chesapeake Bay Mainstem may freeze for the first time in more than 20 years, according to a tweet Friday morning from Steve Vilnit, director of fisheries marketing for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Although the water is around the freezing point of 32 degrees now, salt water freezes at lower temperatures, according to Mark Trice, program manager for water quality programs at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. But these could come next week.

"Looking at what the forecasts are with very low temperatures headed into next week, I would expect that we would see some surface ice around the Bay Bridge," he said. "How thick I can't say, but it's not something that's that unusual. We saw similar conditions back in 2004 and also some ice cover back in 2011."

The freeze will seem mild in comparison to the last event of this kind, though.

"I don't think this is going to be as bad as the biggest freeze that we had in our generation, which was back in 1976-1977 when we had ice covers that ranged from the Susquehanna River all the way down to the Pawtuxet River," he said.

I presume they're talking about the upper Bay, near Annapolis, and that he meant the Patuxent River (there is a Pawtuxet River, but it's in Rhode Island).

Since I have lived in Maryland (I came in 1985), I have never seen the Bay freeze across, but I have seen the Patuxent River near Solomons freeze across, and I have seen the Bay here at Long Beach freeze out about a quarter mile from shore.  I was surprised the last blast of arctic air did not produce more ice on the shore line, but perhaps the wind kept it too well mixed.  The water is very cold now. While I haven't used a thermometer to test it, it is clear the Bay is down near the freezing mark; the tide covers  ice frozen to the beach now without melting much of it.

I guess we'll find out in a few days.

Obamacare Schadenfreude - It's Back!

After yesterdays short hiatus:

Young People’s Health-Plan Options Are Fine, as Long as You Ignore the Deductibles!

. . .Sure, procrastination is a reason young people haven’t signed up for Obamacare, but I doubt it’s the primary reason.

The administration insists most uninsured young people will be able to buy plans for less than $50 per month.

Sounds great, right? The GAO offered statistics that show the catch. A non-smoking woman, age 30, buying the plan with the lowest possible premium in the state of Virginia would pay $564 per year, or $47 per month. Affordable! . . . Until you realize the deductible is $7,500. That’s how much she has to pay out of pocket before her insurance pays anything. Maybe in a terrible year, full of ailments, she’ll hit it in autumn.

And that’s a bargain compared to some other states. In Vermont, a 30-year-old non-smoking woman can find a plan with a monthly premium of just $56 per month! Except that the deductible is $100,000, according to the GAO report. Sure, you can get a plan with a $3,500 deductible . . . for $292 per month.

While I'm a proponent of no frill, low cost, high deductible policies for young people, these are so high as to be out of the reach of most young people.  We were willing to pay for such a policy on our kids for sometime after they finished school.  But that was because we expected to pay the deductible if a serious problem happened, because we didn't expect them to have the cash on hand to cover it.  But a $100k?  Why bother?  And why are they so high?  It's the mandates for pre-existing conditions, routine treatments, and the age differentials that are a feature of Obamacare.  Didn't you read it, before you passed it?

How Americans can kill Obamacare, legalize pot:

...there seem to be more uninsured than there were before Obama took office, leaving Jonah Goldberg to ask, "So what was the point of Obamacare again?"
If the program fails, it won't be because Republicans stopped it, despite all the House votes and defunding efforts. It will be because millions of Americans' passive resistance brought it to its knees. Irish Democracy, indeed.

Meanwhile, on the marijuana front, the people of states like Colorado are engaging in an odd, 21st century variety of nullification. Unlike the 19th century John Calhoun version, state laws legalizing marijuana don't purport to neutralize the still-extant federal laws banning cannabis. But the state, and millions of Coloradans, are simply ignoring the federal law and, in essence, daring the feds to do something about it.

State laws, of course, can't neutralize federal law, as the Constitution's Supremacy Clause makes clear. But, bloated as it is, the federal law enforcement apparatus isn't up to the task of prosecuting all the marijuana users in Colorado. And if it tried, it would have to bring them to trial before juries in Colorado, who would probably acquit most of them. There would also be massive political backlash, amplified in the coming 2014 and 2016 elections because Colorado is a swing state. And in response to Colorado's example, other states look likely to follow suit, making the feds' problem much bigger.

So, despite all the federal laws on the books, Colorado has de facto nullified them, and started a process that may very well snowball, all without directly attacking the federal laws, or the federal government, at all. Meanwhile, millions of Americans may be in the process of effectively killing Obamacare simply by staying home.

Yes, but the administration is more sincere about its war on healthcare than it is about its war on drugs.

Drew M at Ace's warns the GOP against providing an alternative healthcare plan, because it can only split and diminish the coalition against Obamacare:

GOP Senators: We're Kind Of Tired Of All The Focus On ObamaCare So Let's Give The Media And The Democrats Something To Attack Us On

Here's what's wrong with this approach without knowing a damn thing about it (beyond the fact that Orin Hatch is involved).

Right now the focus is on ObamaCare and undoing the harm it's doing to individuals and the country as a whole. At this moment people identify as "ObamaCare opponents" and see other opponents as allies in the fight. This is the maximum number of people you will ever have united against ObamaCare. Once you start saying "not only are we against ObamaCare, we are for A, B and C" you start to fracture the anti-ObamaCare coalition and weaken it. You are taking a binary choice..supporters here, opoenents there and making it supporters vs. people who like the Senate GOP plan vs. people who don't like ObamaCare or the Senate GOP plan.

And once some GOP Senators release a plan, that makes it more likely that the House will release a plan so you will further fracture the unity of ObamaCare opponents. And best of all you'll fracture the GOP unity (such as it is).

Right now the media and Democrats have limited choices in covering ObamaCare...ignore it, pretend it isn't as bad as people know it is or complain that the GOP doesn't have a plan. Now the GOP will give them a new and exciting set of options...attacking the GOP plan (while pointing out how in some narrow areas ObamaCare might be better) and the differences in opinion among Republicans about what to do next. Which option do you think the media and Democrats will pick?

Republicans still hang on to this quaint idea that voters are moved by policy positions and white papers. Worst of all they think the media will accurately and fairly cover their policy positions and white papers. Neither is true.

I'm still thinking about this one.  The final point has a certain ring to it; no matter what is proposed, the media will portray it as the worst thing since the "Black Death". Kill it clean and start over.

Stephen Hawking: Black Hole Denier

For decades now, it seems, the science has been settled. Out in space, scientists believed, were giant stars and perhaps even whole galactic centers that have collapsed in objects called black holes, because their gravity was too strong for even light to escape from.  They even had a saying "Black holes have no hair" to express how any information about the material that is lost to the black hole is thought to be lost to the universe.

Now an upstart physicist name Stephan Hawking claims that black holes may not be so black after all:

Stephen Hawking has produced a "mind-bending" new theory that argues black holes do not actually exist - at least not in the way we currently perceive them.

Instead, in his paper, Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes, Hawking proposes that black holes can exist without 'event horizons', the invisible cover believed to surround every black hole.

During a previous lecture, 'Into the Black Hole', Hawkins described an event horizon as the boundary of a black hole, "where gravity is just strong enough to drag light back, and prevent it escaping."

What, you mean scientists are allowed to change their minds when a more attractive theorem is formulated? If only I'd known.

But now, Hawking is proposing 'apparent horizons' could exist instead, which would only hold light and information temporarily before releasing them back into space in 'garbled form', Nature has reported.

The internationally-renowned theoretical physicist suggests that quantum mechanics and general relativity remain intact, but black holes do not have an event horizon to catch fire.

Where there's fire, there CO2 production; could this be the cause of universal warming?

Don Page, a physicist and expert on black holes at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada told Nature that "the picture Hawking gives sounds pretty reasonable".

Which translates roughly as "I can't really follow his math, but it makes it easier for me to rationalize"

Noting that Hawking is confined to a wheel chair, a supporter of Wendy Davis asked:

“I’m really wondering how this is going to work out since he’s in a wheelchair"

while others were overheard wondering whether he really was confined to a wheelchair, or if he was trying to gain sympathy for his theory by faking it.

Midnite Music - 'Across the Great Divide'

Wombat-socho has the great collection for the week, "Rule 5 Sunday: All Hail The Superb Owl!" up at The Other McCain.

Ghost Ship with Cannibal Rats! - Maybe...

A Frosty Walk at the Beach

We took advantage of today's balmy weather to get out and see what the last few days of deep freeze had wrought at the beach.  The jetty and the shore were rimed with ice, but because of a good low tide, we were able to get down and walk on ice free beach.  It was sunny and bright when we arrived, but by the time we finished, clouds had covered most of the sky.

There clearly has been some freezing of the bay water; the ice line along the shore is full of small boulder sized flat chunks of ice that were once floating ice that have been piled up on top of each other by the tide.  Subsequent high tides have sculpted and undercut the ice, making it hard, slick, and pretty treacherous to walk on.  We did manage to find 15 small shark's teeth today, but at this rate, January will be a bit of a bust for fossils.

A somewhat rare visitor to the beach, a Kildeer (Charadrius vociferus).  Bigger and more colorful than the Semipalmated Sandpipers that are here much of the time in winter, this one was also more skittish, and didn't given me many opportunities to get a decent picture.

Georgia liked this frozen knob on top of a log sticking out of the beach.

A particularly ornate ice sculpture in the line of ice piled up on shore.

There was a big raft of Buffleheads in the harbor, along with a few mallards

The harbor itself is pretty heavily frozen, once you get a little ways back in from the bay.  I was surprised that the Bay itself didn't have any floating ice near shore.  It seems to me in years past when we've have cold snaps like this one (and we have), that there was more ice near shore.

A Day Without Obamacare Schadenfreude Is Like . . .

. . .a day without frost.  Not only did I have a day when no articles on the perils of Obamacare darkened my digital door, but the weather here finally crept above freezing for the first time in several days.

So what does it mean, not the thaw, but the lack of Obamacare Schadenfreude?  Of course it means that all of Obamacare's problems have been solved, the great masses of uninsured are finally insured, enrollment has surpassed expectations, and everybody who was force out of a policy by Obamacare has re-enrolled with a better policy, with a lower premium and deductible than they had before.

Just kiddin'.

Frog Prince Dumps First Frogette

Julie Gayet

For the last week or so, we've been following the trials and tribulations of the socialist French President (and Co-Prince of Andorra) François Hollande and his mistress of a decade, journalist Valérie Trierweiler after he was discovered to be swimming in a new pond, with Julie Gayet, a 41 year year old soft core porn actress (NSFW link). Though, by French standards, she's pretty much just an ordinary skinny actress. She'll never hold a candle to Carla Bruni.

Because France has an official role for the "First Lady", including a staff and budget, this left Val (can I call her Val to avoid having to copy and paste "é" over and over?) somewhat uncertain over her status. It probably didn't help her case when she trashed the Palace Elysée like a drunken rock star and broke a million dollar vase. Who has a million dollar vase? The socialist President of France (and Co-Prince of Andorra) , that's who.

Now we hear that Preznit (and Co-Prince) Hollande has made the determination that Val will no longer serve as the First Frogette:

Frank and Val

Valérie Trierweiler loses First Lady status as President Hollande confirms separation

President François Hollande tonight announced his separation from the First Lady Valérie Trierweiler in a curt personal statement.

In a telephone call to the French news agency, Mr Hollande, said: “I am letting it be known that I have put an end to the life I shared with Valérie Trierweiler.

Determined not to dignify her own her own dismissal, Val refused to go through the appropriate motions.

”Ms Trierweiler, 48, refused to add her own name to the declaration, to make it clear that the decision to sever their unmarried partnership was Mr Hollande’s alone.

We are not being informed at this time as to whether Hollande will elevate Julie, or perhaps some other cutie to the post, or simply do without a "First Lady", although early signs were not promising:

Elysée Palace sources have indicated in recent days that he has no intention at this stage of making the actress Julie Gayet his official partner and First Lady. He plans, the sources say, to live in the Elysée alone.

I think the Palace needs a woman's breakage touch, don't you?

Wombat-socho has the great collection for the week, "Rule 5 Sunday: All Hail The Superb Owl!" up at The Other McCain.

Sweet 16 and Never Been Kissed

Your Morning Japanese Weirdness.

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is a humanoid persona voiced by a singing synthesizer application developed byCrypton Future Media. She uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3 singing synthesizing technologies. She also uses Crypton Future Media's Piapro Studio, a singing synthesizer VSTi Plugin. She was the second Vocaloid sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine, and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine. Her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress, Saki Fujita. Hatsune Miku has performed at her concerts onstage as an animated projection. Hatsune Miku is portrayed to be a 16-year-old girl with long turquoise pigtails.

The name of the character comes from merging the Japanese words for first (初 hatsu), sound (音 ne) and future (Miku (ミク) sounds like a nanori reading of future, 未来, normally read as "mirai"), referring to her position as the first of Crypton's "Character Vocal Series". According to Crypton, her name is meant to signify the "first sound from the future".

Now be nice boys, she may look 16 but she's only 6.

Wombat-socho has the great collection for the week, "Rule 5 Sunday: All Hail The Superb Owl!" up at The Other McCain.

See Alice?

Swiped from Theos.

Senator Seeks Further IRS Abuses

Schumer Calls for Using IRS to Curtail Tea Party Activities

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) proposed using the Internal Revenue Service to curtail Tea Party group funding during a speech on how to “exploit” and “weaken” the movement at the Center for American Progress on Thursday.

Arguing that Tea Party groups have a financial advantage after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, Schumer said the Obama administration should bypass Congress and institute new campaign finance rules through the IRS.

“It is clear that we will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies—we must redouble those efforts immediately,” Schumer said.

In other words, if you can't win fair, cheat.

A Light Flurry of Obamacare Schedenfreude

Temperatures have risen to a balmy 25 F here today, with 25-30 mph winds, and cloudy skies.  The radar shows a band of blue (snow) rapidly approaching from the north.  It should be here any minute.  I don't expect much out of it, just a little flurry or two.  Obamacare Schadenfreude is similarly disappointing this morning, with only a couple of issue making themselves apparent since the last installment.

The first, of course, has to be the unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to prevent the Obama administration from forcing the "Little Sisters of the Poor" to bow down and honor the "contraceptive mandate", by signing a release that that would then force insurers to cover their workers with contraception (now there's an image).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday that, while litigation continues, an order of Roman Catholic nuns need not comply with a part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring employers to provide insurance that covers contraception.

In the latest skirmish over religious objections to providing government-mandated contraception, the four-sentence court order was a partial victory for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Baltimore-based order of nuns that runs nursing homes, and Illinois-based Christian Brothers Services, which manages healthcare plans for Catholic groups.

The unusually worded order by the court did impose a requirement on the groups before they can claim the exemption. First, they must send written notification to the Department of Health and Human Services saying they object to the contraception mandate.

The court's decision means that, as long as the groups send the letters, they are effectively exempt while litigation continues in lower courts, putting off for now any conclusive decision on this latest legal test of Obamacare, as the president's 2010 Affordable Care Act has become known.

Gabriel Malor at Ace's explains why this is a victory for the nuns, and not for the administration, as is being touted by certain lefties:

No, The Little Sisters Order Is Not "Really a Defeat" For Them

. . .First, the coverage the Little Sisters object to is not triggered by giving HHS notification, as contemplated by the Supreme Court order. Rather, it is triggered "[i]f a third party administrator receives a copy of the self-certification," i.e., the accommodation form that organizations objecting to the contraception mandate have to fill out. You can check me on this,if you like (PDF). The Supreme Court order specifically says that the Little Sisters notification to HHS does not have to use the accommodation form or provide it to their third-party administrator. Thus, providing an alternative notification to HHS does not trigger the objectionable contraceptive coverage.

Also, contrary to Hasen, the insurance companies aren't even in this. The Little Sisters use a self-insured health plan, which has a third-party administrator, again as specifically stated in the Supreme Court order, not an insured group health plan. The different types of plans have different requirements.

The final word in this fight over religious liberty versus the power of the Federal Government to force people to accept it mandates has not yet been said, but it's not looking good for the administration.

New data for the Obamacare enrollments in California suggests that it is not even keeping up with the number of people whose plans were canceled due to Obamacare:

California: Another state ObamaCare success story that wasn’t

On the West Coast, we have more of those reluctantly released enrollment numbers for Obamacare. The Weekly Standard‘s John McCormack weighed the numbers and found them wanting despite WonkBlog’s assertion that this constitutes success. The short story is 900,000 lost insurance because of Obamacare’s new regulations and 500,000 have signed up via the exchange. About 300,000 of those who’ve signed up would have been those who were previously insured and now eligible for subsidies, which makes the best-case scenario number for newly insured in the giant state of California…about 200,000.

Thus a point linking the two stories, the nuns victory, and the California enrollment blues are the attempts by the left, the administration, and the media (but I repeat) to sell whatever happens as a success for Obamacare.

To paraphrase a famous and honorable character, “You keep using that word, success. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

And, yes, it's snowing, again.

Rule 5 Saturday - Klondike Girls

No, not real girls from the Klondike, although that might be interesting too. Rather, the girls from the Discovery Channel TV movie Klondike, which played three nights for a total of somewhat over six hours this week.  This Rule 5 post is for the two women with prominent role in this monster.

The first is Abbie Cornish, an Aussie actress, 31 years old, and a natural blonde, who played the brunette Belinda Mulrooney, the Dawson City hotel and real estate mogul (the only more or less honest one) and main squeeze of the protagonist, Bill Haskell, played by Richard Madden.

Abbie has a pretty good resume for a young actress, including the award winning Somersault (2004)  and Candy (2006) (NSFW links).

Every good oater (or is this an husky?), needs a hooker with a heart of gold.  Conor Leslie (yep, her name is backwards) played that role in the character of Sabine, fresh to the Yukon territories, and looking to get rich and ends up taking care of the local saint as he dies. At 23 her resume is not as long, but has played in Chained (2012),Campus Life (2013) and Dirty Beautiful (2013).

Visually, the movie was very nice, with stunning scenery and wildlife shots.  I enjoyed the actors, but I thought the plot was a little, no, a lot strained.

The bad guys were too bad (not even a shade of gray) and the good guys too tormented by thoughts and conscience.  In the course of one gold mining season (6 months tops?), the town of Dawson goes from a mud pit to a real town.  Now, I know those things sprouted fast (and often died fast) but this seemed to push the boundaries.  The most amusing catch was when Belinda, suddenly realizing she needs to rescue Bill, runs outside of her hotel to find a dog team and sled conveniently parked (in the mud) like a car share.

Walarmists Get the Bill for Their Rescue

Federal Government to seek full cost recovery for Antarctic expedition rescue

Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt yesterday said costs, estimated at about $2.4 million, would be sought from the insurer of the operators of the vessel.

The MV Akademik Shokalskiy, chartered by the University of NSW-associated Australasian Antarctic Expedition to retrace the steps of explorer Sir Douglas Mawson, became stuck in thick sea ice on Christmas Eve.

The 52 passengers were rescued by the Aurora Australis on January 2. Mr Hunt said the Commonwealth would seek compensation for the recovery effort. “We will be seeking full cost recovery through insurers for the up to $2.4 million costs incurred by the Australian government,” he said.

“We have a duty to protect life at sea and we do that willingly.

“However, what we see here is that there are some questions as to whether or not the ship was detained by the action of those on board within an area the captain had identified as potentially being subject to being frozen in.

“I think we have a duty on behalf of taxpayers to seek full cost recovery.”

By Federal Government, this article means the Australian Federal Government, not the U.S. government. I doubt the U.S. government would go after a scientific expedition that got into trouble, even if the did commit some acts of stupidity.  I believe that the U.S. does permit the Coasties to go after fools that they are forced to rescue after acts of gross negligence.

And the organizers of this expedition clearly did commit acts of stupidity, allowing "scientists"/tourists to go sight seeing while the Captain of the ship was calling for the return of all the passengers because of the ice.  Given that they only got "stuck" in the ice a few miles from relatively open water, that might have lost them enough time to make the difference.

Or maybe, this is just being done under the ordinary International agreements which recognize the Law of Salvage:

Historically, salvage is a right in law, when a person, acting as a volunteer (that is, without any pre-existing contractual or other legal duty so to act) preserves or contributes so to preserving at sea any vessel, cargo, freight, or other recognized subject of salvage from danger. This is the typical case of salvage and is distinct from Prize law, which is the rescuing of property from the enemy at a time of war, for which a reward is made by the Court of Admiralty sitting as a Prize Court.

The law seeks to do what is fair to both the property owners and the salvors. The right to salvage may not necessarily arise out of an actual contract but is a legal liability arising out of the fact that property has been recovered. The property owner who had benefit of the salvor's efforts must make remuneration, regardless of whether he had formed a contract or not. The assumption here is that when faced with the loss of his vessel and cargo, a reasonable prudent owner would have accepted salvage terms offered, even if time did not permit such negotiations.

Looks appropriate to me, but the bill would go the Russians who would, in turn, go to the walarmists.

Kansas Sperm Donor Held Responsible for Lesbian Love Child

Judge rules Kan. sperm donor owes child support

A man who provided sperm to a lesbian couple in response to an online ad is the father of a child born to one of the women and must pay child support, a Kansas judge ruled Wednesday.

Topeka resident William Marotta had argued that he had waived his parental rights and didn't intend to be a father. Shawnee County District Court

Judge Mary Mattivi rejected that claim, saying the parties didn't involve a licensed physician in the artificial insemination process and thus Marotta didn't qualify as a sperm donor, The Topeka Capital-Journal(http://bit.ly/LHwLyW) reported...

The Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have Marotta declared the father of a child born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009. The state was seeking to have Marotta declared the child's father so he can be held responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance the state provided, as well as future child support.

Marotta opposed that action, saying he had contacted Schreiner and her partner at the time, Angela Bauer, in response to an ad they placed on Craigslist seeking a sperm donor. He said he signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities.

Attorneys for the state contended the contract was moot because the parties didn't follow a 1994 Kansas law requiring a licensed physician to perform the artificial insemination when donors were involved.

Essentially, two lesbians in love decided to have a baby.  Not being able to do it without the patriarchy being involved, they contracted with the poor sucker Marotta for a few femtograms of the appropriate self powered DNA.  After having fallen back out of love, one lesbian went her merry way, and the other stayed the custodial parent, and as single mothers are prone to do, fell into poverty and sought government support.  The government in it's infinite wisdom, (and with a woman judge) decided that it was all the guy's fault for trusting the lesbians.  Let that be a lesson.

Sadly, I think you can read the law in such a way as this is a correct decision, but it seems odd that it depends on whose hand held the turkey baster, not the result.  With so much of our judicial system seeming to go in the direction of "doing what feels right" and not what's written, it's tough luck for this guy to be held to the letter of the law.

At least Wendy Davis paid child support when she abandoned her kids for the life of law and politics.

IRS: Second Verse, A Little Louder, A Little Bit Worse

IRS going after conservatives in Hollywood now?

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A conservative group applies for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status with the IRS in full compliance of the law, but gets jerked around for a couple of years in a process that should just take a few months. The IRS tax-exempt unit then starts demanding private information that isn’t germane to the application, but which worries members about just why the IRS would want this kind of information about opponents to the current administration.

According to the Obama administration, this is old news from 2010-12, and the targeting of political opponents by the IRS stopped long ago. According to the New York Times, it’s just moved out west — and now targets the few conservatives in the entertainment industry (viaTwitchy):

A collection of perhaps 1,500 right-leaning players in the entertainment industry, Friends of Abe keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist, albeit on the other side of the partisan spectrum.
Now the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the group’s activities in connection with its application for tax-exempt status. Last week, federal tax authorities presented the group with a 10-point request for detailed information about its meetings with politicians like Paul D. Ryan, Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain, among other matters, according to people briefed on the inquiry. …

Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

Hollywood, of course, is one of those "special" places where you can discriminate against people based on their opinions, and, unlike a few well known conservatives, a lesser light would probably face real employment discrimination if his or her opposition to the liberal shibboleths were discovered.  Of course, we know that Obama's IRS would never release the membership list or private tax information, they way they did with other conservative groups.

In related news, Maetenloch at Ace's sees a pattern of attempted silencing of the opposition in several recent acts by the Administration:

Coincidence: Hollywood's only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny
Another Coincidence: James O'Keefe Group Being Audited by NY. Again.
Yet Another Coincidence: Dinesh D'Souza Indicted For Election Fraud
Still Another Coincidence: IRS Proposes New 501(c)(4) Rules That Just Happen to Cover Most Tea Party Groups
Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin's 'John Doe' Subpoenas

Secret investigations targeted coincidently at most prominent conservative groups in WI who can only now legally talk about their harassment. If you want to see what American fascism would look like, well this is it.

French First Lady Freaks Over Infidelity

The Penguin François Hollande

About a week ago, we saw how the unmarried socialist President of France François Hollande had been found to be philandering by his mistress of a decade Valérie Trierweiler.  Not such a big deal if you're unmarried, right, except that in France, First Lady is a quasi-official position with a budget and staff, leaving her a bit ambivalent about her position.

Now we get news that she (allegedly) threw a hissy fit in the Elysée Palace, trashed the joint, and broke some valuable art.

Smashes Up $3 Million of National Treasures at Élysée Palace

France’s first lady went on a “rampage,” smashing more than $3 million worth of national treasures at the Élysée Palace, when she learned President François Hollande was sneaking out for trysts with his secret lover, it was reported Thursday.

In her tantrum at the French president’s office, Valérie Trierweiler destroyed a Sèvres vase that belonged to Louis XVI, according to Closer magazine, which first reported his affair with actress Julie Gayet.

The French government office responsible for presidential furniture “categorically denied” the report.

Valerie Trierweiler

And we know that government officials who categorically deny things are always being straight with us, don't we?  Don't we, Mr. Clapper.

Meanwhile, French media offered conflicting accounts Thursday of whether Trierweiler, 48, had agreed to break it off with Hollande, 59.

Trierweiler’s lawyer told Le Figaro newspaper that the two are studying a “clarification” of their relationship.

“It’s very difficult for Valerie Trierweiler to remain calm under this media and political pressure.”

But Trierweiler has told friends she hasn’t given up and expects to be on Holland’s arm when he makes a state visit to the White House next month, Closer said.

Julie Gayet

It's amusing how people who get into power, however tangentially, somehow grow to think that they're entitled to it.

“Despite the ordeal of being cheated on, Valérie Trierweiler is ready to forgive the man who has shared her life for 10 years,” the mag said.

“Although her friends may describe her as hotheaded, she is also very single-minded,” it added. “She believes she has given up everything for François Hollande.”

Since the night of the reported “rampage,” Trierweiler has spent eight days in a Paris hospital recovering from “extreme exhaustion” and is now holed up at the luxurious La Lanterne presidential palace. She is “under the control” of Hollande’s administration at La Lanterne, Closer said.

"Under the control" of the government.  That sounds ominous.  Oh well, he's a socialist, so I presume she is to.  How does it feel to be property of the state, Val?

Meanwhile, Gayet, 41, had a private party with friends and relatives to celebrate her affair with Hollande being made public, Closer said.

She had kept a low profile after the scandal broke but on Tuesday stepped out with a couple of friends and was photographed walking on a Paris street. She has denied reports she is four months’ pregnant with Hollande’s child.

In his only comments on the scandal, the never-married Hollande vowed last week to choose between Gayet and Trierweiler before he was to arrive in DC Feb. 9.

But seriously, girls and boy, at this point France is nearly an Islamic republic, you might as well just go ahead and legalize polygamy (or at least polygyny).  When Henry VIII was having trouble with the church over divorce, he just made a new religion to make it legitimate.  See, a precedent!



Wombat-Socho has the mother of all Rule 5 links up at The Other McCain "Rule 5 Monday."

Obamacare Schadenfreude - Still Running Cold

We woke up early this morning to go out to eat, and the thermometer was reading 6.3 degrees F.  Here, 3 hours later it's all the way up to 13 unlucky degrees. Yeesh; could we have a little of that global warming here, please?

The Minnesotan Great White Snow Shark

Speaking of cold weather, Minnesota has joined Maryland and Oregon in competition for the worst Obamacare website:

An independent consultant has issued a damning report of the state’s troubled online insurance marketplace.

MNsure’s management structure is “non-existent” according to Optum, a subsidiary of Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group, which recently performed a week-long analysis of the more than $100 million website.

MNsure executives have been making decisions in a “crisis mode,” the report states.
MNsure’s board members called for the end-to-end review after the website continued to experience major technological issues three months after it launched.

The report found the agency’s ambitious enrollment goals will suffer as a result.
“While MNsure will fall short of achieving its original enrollment goals and consumer satisfaction levels, continuous improvements can be made in both the short-term and long-term,” the report states.

Those problems, however, won’t be fixed quickly and the state should consider scrapping the system altogether and starting over, the report said.

Just like a well greased machine, with the grease frozen solid.

But as a Maryland patriot, I must insist, we're number 1!

Moody's has begun downgrading insurance companies because Obamacare has destabilized their markets

Moody’s Investor Service has changed its outlook for the U.S. health care insurance sector from stable to negative, citing Obamacare’s rollout and the uncertainty it brings.

The private credit rating agency said potential fallout from the Affordable Care Act’s implementation — including changes to the individual market and the impact of the law’s “employer mandate” on commercial group plans in January 2015 — presents the greatest challenge to health insurers’ credit profile. Lower reimbursement rates among Medicare Advantage plans also are creating financial pressure, it said.

“While all of these issues had been on our radar screen as we approached 2014, a new development and a key factor for the change in outlook is the unstable and evolving regulatory environment under which the sector is operating,” Moody’s said. “Notably, new regulations and presidential announcements over the last several months with respect to the ACA have imposed operational changes well after product and pricing decisions had been finalized.”

Perhaps a phone call from "Kneebreaker Geithner" could fix that.

California too, seems to be having some issues even once people got past the website.  People who thought they had insurance, even those who have paid (on time!) were having problems getting service:

After months of anxious anticipation, insurance policies purchased under Obamacare finally went into effect on January 1. We’ve been told the new regime would be Heaven on Earth, but some Californians are finding that things aren’t quite so peachy. As Twitchy reported, Anthem Blue Cross (the largest insurer in California’s Obamacare exchange) has been inundated with complaints from enrollees (or those trying to enroll) who can’t get through to customer service staff. That was two weeks ago. Judging by the tweets we’ve been seeing the past few days (see below), not much has changed.

Maybe they subbed it out to the Calf. DMV.

Is it any wonder that young people, who are accustomed to websites that work, customer service, and some value for their dollar are staying away in droves?

"I'd rather save the money for beer"

Staying uninsured cheaper than Obamacare for young

As Obamacare struggles to appeal to the young and the uninsured, a new study has concluded that the health care law is a bad deal for 86 percent of this demographic.

The free-market American Action Forum (AAF) found that in Obamacare’s first year, 6 out of 7 uninsured young adults will pay less if they go without health insurance than if they enroll in Obamacare. As Obamacare’s individual mandate tax penalty rises drastically over the next several years, the proportion will only slightly decrease to 71 percent in 2015 and 62 percent in 2014.

Analyzing data collected from a 2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component — a large-scale, nationally-representative, household survey collected by one of the Department of Health and Human Services’ own agencies — AAF discovered that paying out-of-pocket for health care will overwhelmingly cost “young invincibles” less overall.

Time to be fair here; being insured should always cost more on average than staying uninsured, with the difference being the cost of administering the program, and profits.  The point of insurance is to lower the risk of a big event causing you major economic loss.  You pay a little more to be assured you won't get wiped out in the event of a singular event.

However, under Obamacare, with mandated coverage of things many don't need (prescription birth control for men), routine care, no allowance for preconditions, and, probably worst of all, a mandate that the old can pay no more than three times what the young pay, the prices for the young irresponsibles invincibles are high enough, and the probability of a serious health emergency low enough that it is a pretty safe bet to skip it and keep the savings.

Young Irresponsibles Invinvibles

Germane to that issue is Megan McArdle's question: Where Have All the Uninsured Gone?

... the Congressional Budget Office projected that the exchanges would sign up 7 million people in the first year, roughly 2 million of them transitioning from other insurance plans and 5 million of them previously uninsured. If the Journal’s numbers are right, then by the end of December, the exchanges had signed up at least 1.45 million previously insured folks out of the 2 million who were projected to enroll by the end of May -- roughly 75 percent of the projected total. But at most, they’ve signed up 15 percent of the uninsured that they were expecting to enroll. You’d expect the early numbers to be somewhat weighted toward the previously insured, who probably want to maintain continuous coverage. Still, this is a fairly wild skew, and it leaves us with a burning question: Where are the uninsured? Did hardly any of them want coverage beginning Jan. 1?
...
That leaves us with two possibilities: First, would-be applicants may simply be waiting until March. They’ve gone without insurance a long time; why not wait a few more months and save on premiums?
The second possibility is more troubling: There may be something seriously wrong with our understanding of who the uninsured are, and what they are willing and able to buy in the way of insurance. I don’t know exactly what the fault may be in our understanding. But if the numbers stay this low, I’d say we need to reassess the state of our knowledge about the uninsured -- and the vast program we created to cover them.

I'm going with number 2.  I suspect many of the "young irresponsible invincible" uninsured have simply weighed the options, and decided that there is not enough benefit for the added costs.  Many more of the poor simply have poor skills at navigating bureaucracies, and having a set of new shiny websites that don't work well have discouraged those who tried, and it will take considerable wrangling to pull them into the system.

Charles Krauthammer claims that: "The Purpose of O'care Was to Destroy the Relationship Between the Employer & Employee"



I think he's giving them too much credit for thinking about the details of healthcare; as I said yesterday, I think that they're goal was to destroy the American healthcare system so that they could preside over the smoking ruins.  Which they will offer to rebuild in an image they like for a hefty fee in taxes (i.e., single payer).

However, the link between employment and healthcare in the US is an outgrowth of a war time FDR wage control policy which allowed employers to "reward" workers with health insurance when they could not raise wages.  There are man good things about having health insurance tied to jobs, (like it can be afforded), but there are many negative consequences as well.

Health care costs are largely hidden from the consumers, causing inefficient consumption, people can become "job locked" into jobs because they may lose eligibility if they quit or change employment. So, I think there is lots of room for healthcare reforms that do move in the direction of divorcing health care from employment, but Obamacare wasn't the right route.