Did Dark Matter Do In the Dinosaurs?

An interesting new theory on the demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous.

Every so often, the fossil record shows, ecological disasters wipe large numbers of species off the face of Earth. These mass extinctions occur roughly every 26 million to 30 million years—about the same interval at which our solar system passes through the plane of the Milky Way. Putting two and two together, some researchers have proposed that clouds of dust and gas in the galactic plane might disrupt the orbits of far-flung comets and trigger planet-smacking collisions. A new study suggests an additional culprit may lie behind those times of woe: dark matter.

Dark matter is a theory that there is some form of mass forming matter in the universe which interacts poorly with normal matter except through gravitation. It is essentially a way to balance the books between the mass needed to make galaxies behave the way they do, and the mass of visible stars (and associated star systems). At this point we know almost nothing about the properties of "dark matter" except that if it exists it must not interact with the matter we know and love very well, and there must be a lot of it associated with galaxies.

Some of Earth’s past mass extinctions have been caused by the impacts of extraterrestrial objects, such as the asteroid that struck near Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and wiped out the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. Others have occurred during extended periods of geological disruption that include region-smothering volcanic eruptions. Both kinds of catastrophes seem to occur on a cycle of about 30 million years, notes Michael Rampino, a geoscientist at New York University in New York City. “It’s always been a mystery as to how extraterrestrial impacts could cause these long-lived geological effects,” he says. But invisible dark matter, he proposes, could trigger both extraterrestrial impacts and geological upheavals in one fell swoop.

 OK, we're listening.

Scientists still don’t know what dark matter is, but its gravitational pull on other objects in space shows that there’s a lot of it out there. Researchers estimate that in the plane of the galaxy, each square light-year contains about one solar mass of dark matter. Like the clouds of dust and gas that astronomers can see, clouds of dark matter may be perturbing the orbits of distant comets, causing them to fall into the inner solar system where they can strike Earth.

But those clouds could directly affect Earth as well, Rampino says. As the solar system passes through this purported haze of particles clogging the galactic plane, some get trapped by Earth’s gravity, Rampino suggests. These particles orbit Earth’s core and eventually fall to the center of the planet, where they interact with normal matter or one another, releasing energy that gets transformed into heat.

Which is a great  story theory which presumes that dark matter can interact with normal matter well enough to create heat. But since we don't know anything about it, that's just a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess).

In the time it takes for the solar system to cross the galactic plane, interactions with dark matter could raise the temperature of Earth’s core by hundreds of degrees Celsius, Rampino reported online this week in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Then, over millions of years, that heat could be carried to Earth’s surface via massive plumes of hot buoyant rock that, in turn, create volcanic hot spots or slowly rip apart continents—possibly altering global climate or making huge swaths of the planet so inhospitable that millions of species perish.

The added volcanism could be the origin of the Deccan Traps, an enormous volcanic out burst which also occurred around the time of the Cretaceous extinction, which has been considered as a potential source of environmental stress that ended the dinosaur domination.

The idea that dark matter might cause both extraterrestrial impacts and geological upheavals “is intriguing,” says Dennis Kent, a geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. “One of those sources of environmental disruption might be tolerable,” he notes, but together they might pack a one-two punch that is too much for many ecosystems to bear. Indeed, he adds, some rather large impacts that weren’t accompanied by widespread geological devastation—such as an object that slammed into what is now the Chesapeake Bay nearly 35 million years ago, leaving a now-buried crater—don’t seem to have caused significant ecological damage.

I'll go with "intriguing" too. Until we know a lot more about dark matter, this is really just a just-so story. Like the cave-girls.

Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Post-CPAC/Blogbash Edition" post ready at The Other McCain.

More Dam News

There are a couple of articles on the Conowingo Dam issue that's been plaguing the Bay for, literally, as long as I've been here:

Capacity report holds no surprises for Conowingo Dam

A study released by the U.S. Geological Survey echoes much of what has already been found of the Susquehanna River and its relationship to the Chesapeake Bay.

The 28-page report authored by Michael Langland shows the storage capacity for sediment behind the Conowingo Dam has reached its saturation point.

“The Conowingo Reservoir is at — or very near — filled to capacity,” Langland said Thursday.

As dire as it sounds, Langland said the situation is not an emergency.

“It doesn’t mean that the dam is filled to the top,” he said. “It means the capacity to trap is nearly extinguished.”

A study released in November by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded that, while there is an enormous sediment build-up, it is the content carried by the sediment that is the greater threat to the health of the bay.

Langland said the USGS report “is an expression of the (Corps of Engineers) report.” He added no decisions are made in either document.

“That has to be debated and decided by the people with the purse strings,” Langland said.

Watching this develop has been like watching the Titanic approach the iceberg, only slower. When I arrived in Maryland in 1985, it was commonly acknowledged that the pool behind Conowingo Dam was filling, and it was only a matter of time before it lost it's ability to retain sediments. In fact, I think they said 20 years. So the time is here, and nothing has been done.

So what to do? I know! Let's order another study! That'll put it off another couple of years.

UM scientists launch new Conowingo pollution study

Expected to take two years, the new study announced this week by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science comes on the heels of a joint federal and state assessment that the sediment buildup behind the dam is playing a relatively small but still significant role in degrading the upper bay.

That review, which took three years, concluded that dredging enough silt from behind the dam to restore its pollution-trapping capacity would cost up to $3 billion, and would provide only modest and temporary help.

A coalition of mostly rural counties, though, has argued that dredging would do more to help the bay than other costly and unpopular cleanup measures communities are being required to carry out, such as curbing storm-water runoff and dealing with pollution from household septic systems.

Here's my take on this mess. Conowingo Dam has been providing an accidental service to the Chesapeake Bay since it erected in the 1920, stopping sediment from the Susquehanna from entering the Bay.

Dredging behind the dam is expensive, approximately $3 billion (with a "b"), and the costs are likely to be borne by the states and feds.  The other way to get the amount of nutrient reduction from the Chesapeake Bay required to make the "Bay Diet" restrictions is to force the farmers to make expensive changes in how and when they fertilize.

So, given that you have the power to decide who has to pay, do you pay it yourself, or make the other guy (agriculture) ante up? The question practically answers itself.

In the grand scheme of the "Bay Diet" $3 billion is relatively small; the government share of the Bay Diet is expected to be $25 billion, and rising in accordance to Cheops' Law.

Obamacare Schadenfreude for Babies

Obamacare is for the kids, right? Not so fast.

ObamaCare exchange not allowing addition of newborns to policies

With all of the new bad news coming out this week from ObamaCare, here’s another horror story about the Healthcare.gov exchange from Utah that exemplifies the incompetence of government bureaucracy. One basic and nearly ubuquitous feature of health care — and indeed of family life — is the birth of children. Health insurance plans have made it simple to add children to family plans for decades, allowing new moms and dads to have the costs of childbirth covered ex post facto, as long as the covered individual notified the insurer within a set period of time, usually 30 days. Now, however, the federal exchange requires an extra step that turns the process into a needless catch-22 — and leaves families exposed to devastating financial damage.

Maggie and John, Shawnsi and Robin each got paired with their own health insurance company thanks to the act and now, naturally, they want to add their children to their policies.
Federal law does not allow their insurance companies to add the kids directly. Each mother must go back to the healthcare marketplace to add their child.
All three families attempted to add their newborns within the 30-day window of the child being born, as is required, but each was denied.
“The marketplace said it was required we had to go through CHIP,” Maggie said.
CHIP stands for the Children’s Health Insurance Policy. It is a program offered by the state of Utah to help insure kids whose parents can’t afford it. But each of these families do fine for themselves financially so they don’t qualify for CHIP.

CHIP (actually, the P stands for Program) is the federal-state welfare program that insures the children of low-income Americans. Why do new parents have to apply to CHIP at all, if they know they can’t qualify — and if they already have family health insurance? Why bother with this extra bureaucracy if parents clearly make too much money to enter the program, and don’t want to apply anyway? Presumably, this is an attempt at saving money in the exchanges, although certainly not for families, who may have to pay up to 5% of their income for coverage. (The ObamaCare exchange coverage is capped at 9.5% of income for family plans.) HHS is filtering additions of newborns specifically to keep them from enrolling in exchange plans if possible:
. . .
After KUTV began making calls, the three families in this story mysteriously had the obstacles removed for their coverage. It’s not what you know in government-run bureaucracies, but who you know … and who you embarrass. That’s one great reason among many to get government out of the business of running marketplaces rather than just regulating them.

Separation of Church and State? Not when it come to the church of Obamacare: HHS Pushes Church Talking Points, Bulletins to Promote Obamacare

In an effort to sign up as many consumers as possible for insurance under the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare), the Obama administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to partner with churches and other faith-based groups, even publishing sample church bulletin inserts, flyers, and scripts for announcements, as well as "talking points." These materials are part of the "Second Sunday & Faith Weekend of Action Toolkit," which is available on the website of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

From the beginning, HHS has sought to develop partnerships with faith-based organizations to promote the Obamacare. This "toolkit" has been available since 2013. However, the details of these partnerships have largely escaped the attention of the national media. The Second Sunday & Faith Weekend of Action program encourages churches to use the second Sunday of each month during open enrollment to hold informational meetings and sign-up events. The sample bulletin insert appears as follows:

Because it was so well planned: Obamacare deadline extended a week for some. Do you qualify?

The Obamacare deadline for 2015 has been extended to Sunday, Feb. 22, for people who say they attempted to sign up but were delayed by busy call centers and technical issues. In some cases, Obamacare signup delays also were brought on by winter storms.

If you started, but never finished, enrolling for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act before the Feb. 15 deadline, you’ve got another week to wrap things up.
The deadline for so-called Obamacare in 2015 has been extended to Sunday, Feb. 22, for people who say they attempted to get signed up but were slowed down by busy call centers or technical issues on HealthCare.gov.

“We know many of you worked hard to enroll in a plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace,” read an announcement Tuesday on the federalDepartment of Health and Human Services website. “Despite your best efforts, you may not have been able to complete your application and select a plan.”

Gum Will Be on Democrats' Shoe if Court Upends Health Law

So whom will the public blame if the court knocks out subsidies on the federal exchange? As this past election made clear, the public associates the ACA with the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. They know it passed without a single Republican vote and blame Democrats for its deficiencies. The ACA has been enduringly unpopular from its passage in 2010 to the present. The Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll reports that over the past four years, 42 percent is the highest favorability rate the act has received. Unfavorable opinions have been consistently higher.

Many Americans are still seething over the loss of insurance plans they liked and could afford. Everyone remembers the chaotic rollout of the healthcare.gov website and many report continued problems signing up. They know that the drafting of the law was sloppy and that it was passed in a rush, skirting normal congressional procedures.

While most Americans may not understand the legal subtleties, they realize that Obamacare only survived the earlier Supreme Court challenge to the individual mandate because Chief Justice John Roberts was willing to manipulate the statutory language in order to save it. They will not be surprised or disappointed if this time the court refuses to rewrite the seemingly clear statutory language limiting subsidies to exchanges created by states and not exchanges created by the federal government.

Remarkably, the Obama administration has refused to discuss contingency plans and Democratic senators have said they don’t believe Democrats need to prepare for a potential adverse decision. Any administration regulatory fix will be limited by the language of the court’s decision, and it is unlikely the subsidy issue could be corrected without legislative action. Congress could amend the ACA to allow subsidies on federal exchanges, but Republicans who have spent the last five years opposing the ACA won’t let that happen. State governments could act to establish exchanges, but they have already shown they are unwilling (red states) or unable (Oregon, a blue state, ditched its malfunctioning exchange and went federal) to do so. It is not easy to set up an exchange, and an ACA provision providing money to do so has expired.

Democrats seem content to sit on their hands in the belief that the public will blame Republicans for challenging the ACA and for not having an alternative. But contrary to the Democrats’ narrative, Republicans have proposed ACA replacements which were dead on arrival in the previous Democratic-controlled Senate.

An optimistic point of view. Unfortunately it doesn't take into account the almost total domination of the MSM by liberals, who will solidly spin this as a Republican problem.

Because Nothing Says "Party!" Like a Good Roll in the Mud

Bloco da Lama (“Mud Block”)

On a carnival´s Saturday, 15 years ago, some friends played with mud in in the mangrove of “Praia do Jabaquara” (“Jabaquara´s Beach”) when they realized that they were unrecognizable. They went out in the city´s Historic Center streets like that, causing a great impact.

This was the rising of one of Brazilian carnival´s most bizarre blocks: The Mud Block. On the following year, a larger group gathered and left in a block on a carnival´s Saturday, representing a prehistoric tribe: muddy from head to toes, covered in rags, carrying skulls, lianas and bones and yelling uga, uga, rá, rá! Because it has grown so much in 15 years, the organizers and Paraty´s Tourism Secretary have been making campaignes with the participants, through local media and informative leaflets, about the importance of not smudge walls, cars or people that are passing by the streets, and, by that, honoring the name of the block and helping to preserve the tradition.

Every year, newspapers, magazines and TV shows surrender to the creativity of this block and dedicate stories to it. The Mud Block makes its route through “Praia do Jabaquara” (“Jabaquara´s Beach”) and, some years, the block is authorized to enter the Historic Center.

When there´s not even one negative spirit wandering around Paraty´s Carnival, the block says goodbye with a bath in the river or in the sea, leaving a message of peace so the city carnival can be as it has always been: a party of joy.

Now this is a tradition we can bring to America in the name of diversity. I even know a few good places around the state of Maryland where you can find some nice, black stinky mud to roll in.

Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Post-CPAC/Blogbash Edition" post ready at The Other McCain.

Let's Go Surfing Now, Everybody's Learning How

Even the dolphins.

A New Bully on the Block

Georgia gets a lot of pleasure out of feeding the birds. We have a "squirrel proof" feeder hanging off the back deck filled with a mixture of Safflower and Sunflower seed all the time, and it is visited by a steady stream of Carolina Wrens, Chickadees, Finches, Titmice, Cardinals, with occasional Nuthatches, Woodpeckers and even a couple of Mourning Doves, which are just a bit heavy for the feeder.

It also really does keeps the squirrels frustrated, as long as you hang it out of reach. Other birds, including Bluebirds and Blue Jays visit a water dish we try to keep thawed. A dollop of freeze dried meal worms daily is set out to attract Bluebirds, who never actually get any because the wrens and squirrels gobble them too rapidly.  We've tried deterring the squirrels by soaking the meal worms in hot pepper sauce. It helped for a few days, but now the squirrels come by in sombreros.

We were in Wallyworld a couple days ago looking at bird food, and Georgia decided to buy some peanut butter suet in an attempt to broaden the mix of visiting birds. The first morning, it started to look promising, as the Blue Jays found it, and started steadily chiseling off chunks, However, shortly this guy showed up, and the scene changed dramatically:

Yes, this Mockingbird loves the peanut butter suet, and declared the whole back porch to be his exclusive property, sitting on the deck or in the apple tree overlooking the deck, and systematically chasing off any birds trying to feed on the feeder, drinking water, taking meal worms or eating the suet. Even though he doesn't seem to care about the seed in the feeder, or the meal worms.

I don't think we'll be buying anymore peanut suet after he and the squirrels finish off this block.

Ice and Snow at the Beach 2/22/15

We got a break in the freezing weather with the passage of a rain storm last night and this morning. This afternoon when the clouds cleared we headed off to the beach. The rain had not completely destroyed the ice and snow yet, and with another cold shot due tomorrow, it's likely to rebuild.

 It was a pretty low tide, and there was a fair amount of beach exposed. We found a few teeth, 15 to be exact, though none worthy of the "top shelf."

There was a large raft of ducks hanging just south of the the harbor. They didn't look or behave like Buffies or Old Squaws, our most common winter ducks.

 And the zoom lens shows them to be a mixture of Canvasbacks and Ruddy Ducks. The Ruddies are in the foreground and the Canvasbacks are together behind them.

 The break in the weather had quite a few people out

Just another interesting ridge of ice pushed up by the waves and tides.

Let Them Eat Cake . . .

Taxes so high she can't afford more clothes

. . . As long as they pay taxes. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee calls for taxing dessert, ‘electronic tracking’ of time spent watching TV. Oh, and they would also like to use the power to tax to make vegans of us all:

The federal committee responsible for nutrition guidelines is calling for the adoption of “plant-based” diets, taxes on dessert, trained obesity “interventionists” at worksites, and electronic monitoring of how long Americans sit in front of the television.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released its far-reaching 571-page report of recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Thursday, which detailed its plans to “transform the food system.”

The report is open for public comment for 45 days, and will be used as the basis by the government agencies to develop the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The guidelines are used as the basis for government food assistance programs, nutrition education efforts, and for making “decisions about national health objectives.”

You'd think after their recent turn around on the topic of cholesterol, they would be a little slower to make recommendations. But then, why would they have jobs.

It's my belief that the governments prior policies and propaganda on cholesterol, meat, salt, and dietary fat have been an enormous mistake, one which has been responsible for the blossoming rate of obesity in the United States, as food producers have struggled to make desirable food without fat which carries most of the taste, and replaced it with carbohydrates and sugar:



Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Post-CPAC/Blogbash Edition" post ready at The Other McCain.

I Wouldn't Touch This With a 10 ft Pole

GoPro captures pole vaulting with Allison Stokke



More women's pole vault. No point in carrying any more weight than necessary.



Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Post-CPAC/Blogbash Edition" post ready at The Other McCain.

If You Only Read One Thing About Rudy Giuliani . . .

saying that he thinks President Obama doesn't love America, read Ace's Rudy Is Right. I was trying to compose something in my mind, but then I read this. As usual, he said it better, and quicker (and without as many parenthetical clauses).

. . .No he's right.

The progressives have a lot of problems with America. That is the entire point of their politics: They don't like what America is, and wish to change it.

This is what it means to be "progressive" -- you want to move away from what actually exists.

Conservatives, by and large, defend the current order, because they like it, and do not wish to "fundamentally transform" America.

This is what it means to be "conservative" -- one conserves, or keeps, what already exists.

Progressives play this game where they launch nothing but nasty Marxist Critiques upon America, agitating for the country to remake itself entirely, but want to claim simultaneously:We love America as much as anybody.

Oh you most certainly do not! Definitionally, you do not: One who "loves" with a long list of caveats and criticisms does not love as much as someone who loves completely (or with a much shorter list of caveats and criticisms).

Furthermore, progressives take patriotism itself to be a the sanctimony of the unsophisticated. Or, as Oscar Wilde called it, "the virtue of the vicious."

Progressives, when they're speaking honestly (that is, when they're not speaking in front of TV cameras), love to lampoon their fellow countrymen's unsophisticated, stupid, and obese love of country.

They have in fact defined themselves as being Those who are too smart to buy into this "patriotism" nonsense. . .

Just one more thing, for the liberals in high dudgeon over Rudy's comments, a reminder:



Oh, the irony, it burns!

But What About Furries?

Maximum Acronym

After years of struggle, the Rainbow Alphabet — LGBT — has been extended to maximum inclusivity at Wesleyan University:

Open House is a safe space for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderf–k, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism (LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM) communities and for people of sexually or gender dissident communities. The goals of Open House include generating interest in a celebration of queer life from the social to the political to the academic. Open House works to create a Wesleyan community that appreciates the variety and vivacity of gender, sex and sexuality.

(Hat-tip: Ryan Anderson on Twitter.) Thus do we continue the descent down the slippery slope that William F. Buckley Jr. first noted in 1951’sGod and Man at Yale. In case anyone has forgotten, Buckley’s main point was that Yale had been founded as an explicitly Christian institution and yet, by the middle of the 20th century, harbored many faculty who expounded explicitly anti-Christian doctrines. This lapse into religious heterodoxy, Buckley noted, was accompanied by a tendency to accept or promote philosophical collectivism and hostility toward capitalism. Here we are now, six decades later and Wesleyan University (deriving its name from a famous Christian evangelist) is promoting the very utmost in sexual perversity in all its “variety and vivacity.”

Speaking of variety and vivacity, how can you leave this girl out of your alphabet soup?

And let's not get started with the Bronies.



So how about LGBTTQQFAGPBDSMFB for greater inclusivity?

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Post-CPAC/Blogbash Edition" post ready at The Other McCain.

Obamacare Schadenfreude Waiting for the Warmth

How about a little more Obamacare Schadenfreude as we wait for the weather to arrive?  Today our "cold-snap" is supposed to be interrupted by a storm that will bring snow, and then snush (some form of frozen precipitation other than snow) and finally warming up to a cold rain. According to weather radar it should be snowing, but it ain't yet showing. Oh goody!

HHS Messed Up 800,000 Obamacare Tax Forms

About 800,000 people received tax forms with incorrect information about their Obamacare coverage, officials from the Health and Human Services Department said Friday.

The errors occurred on a new form that helps Obamacare enrollees figure out whether they qualify for a subsidy that would pay all or part of their premiums, and how big that subsidy should be. Information used to calculate those subsidies was wrong on about 20 percent of tax forms, HHS officials said. The errors would cause some taxpayers to claim too large a subsidy and others to claim less than they’re actually eligible for.

Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is already notifying taxpayers of the mistake and will be sending out revised forms. The “vast majority” of Obamacare enrollees haven’t filed their taxes yet, and can simply use the new, corrected information when they do, Slavitt said. But, of the 800,000 people who received inaccurate forms, about 50,000 have already filed their taxes, Slavitt said.

The IRS is figuring out how to handle those returns. Obamacare’s subsidies are tied to the cost of “benchmark” plan in each region. But these 800,000 tax forms list the wrong premium for those plans. Slavitt said HHS is still investigating how the error occurred.

This is what happens when you write a positively Byzantine law, invent regulations to implement it that ignore the way the law was written, and enforced at the whim of the executive. Why would you expect all the gears to mesh?

But there's always another good excuse for a delay in enforcement

In the latest in a long string of delays in enforcing the rules under the health care overhaul, the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that they will wait until summer to start enforcing financial penalties on small businesses that provide so-called Health Reimbursement Arrangements to their employees.

Under HRAs, employers provide spending accounts that their workers can use to cover a portion of the cost of buying individual health plans. The arrangements, which give employers a tax-free means to help pay for their workers’ health costs, do not comply with insurance standards in the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, according to Treasury guidance issued in the fall of 2013. Consequently, employers who elect to continue offering HRAs could be fined as much as $100 per day per employee.

In a public notice, IRS and Treasury officials announced that those penalties (in the form of excise taxes) will not be levied against noncompliant small businesses until July, giving many employers a little extra time to adjust to the new rules.

“The Departments understand that some employers that had been offering health coverage through an employer payment plan may need additional time to obtain group health coverage or adopt a suitable alternative,” the notice reads. Officials also hinted at the fact that the new online health insurance exchanges set up under the law, which were meant to give small businesses more choices and more affordable health insurance options, haven’t quite delivered.

Fired Director of Minnesota exchange happy to help, for a price:

MNsure’s former executive director, April Todd-Malmlov, resigned under pressure — not just because the website melted down, but because, for part of it, she was on a week-long vacation in the Caribbean.

James Nobles, the state’s legislative auditor, spent a year figuring out what went wrong, and he says Todd-Malmlov refused to cooperate.
“She would participate and respond if we paid her,” Nobles said.
Audit documents obtained by WCCO-TV show the auditor tried for months to interview Todd-Malmlov, finally issuing a subpoena to testify on Oct. 4.

Minnesota law does require the state to pick up expenses for non-government employees when cooperating with a probe, but that usually means travel and boarding expenses — not consultation fees and attorney costs. After making $136,000 a year in salary to deliver a complete failure — and then to take a paid vacation while her system floundered — one might think that Todd-Malmlov might have felt as though Minnesota taxpayers had been fleeced enough. Obviously not.

Rule 5 Saturday - Christy Turlington

This week's Rule 5 special is following the theme of older models, with Christy Turlington.

Christy Turlington was born on January 2, 1969 in Walnut Creek, California, the middle of three daughters born to Dwain Turlington, a pilot for Pan American World Airways, and María Elizabeth (née Parker Infante), a flight attendant from Cojutepeque, El Salvador.

Turlington began modeling after school from age 14 to 16 . . . After turning 18, she moved to New York City to model full-time, and later graduated from high school. She went back to school in 1994 and graduated cum laude in 1999 from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study of New York University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. 

She has appeared on over 500 magazine covers and has been featured in several professional photobooks, including Peter Lindbergh's 10 Women, the cover of Arthur Elgort's Model Manual, Herb Ritts Man/Woman, and Karl Lagerfeld's Off the Record. In 1993 she posed nude for PETA's anti-fur campaign.

With or without fur?

. . .In 2008, casting agent James Scully said in regards to Turlington:
“ The greatest model of all time! You could combine every model to this day into one person, and they wouldn't come close (sorry, girls). Probably the biggest crush I've ever had on a girl. It would be a dream to have the opportunity of working with her on a show again before I retire, but that seems about as likely as winning the lottery.

A supermodel with few or adequately suppressed body image issues, there is a wealth of NSFW material (here, here, here and here).

In the 178th issue of his blogging magazine GOODSTUFF is featuring the super waist of Betty Brosmer, as well as 50 Shades of Gray. Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-Sochi has the main Rule 5 post "Rule 5 Monday: Winter Pinups" up at The Other McCain. Also linked at Proof Positive in this week's "Best of the Web."

Dogs More Complicated Than Scientists Thought

Canine Minds Far More Complex Than Originally Thought

Researchers at Yale are using cognitive interactive studies to learn more about how dogs’ minds work. Laurie Santos, director of the Yale Canine Cognition Center, explains that hundreds of volunteer dogs are used as subjects of puppet shows and a series of other cognitive tests.

“Dogs are just fascinating,” Santos said. “We love them, they live in our homes. Anyone who hangs out with a dog is kind of wondering, ‘what are they thinking, do they love me’.”

In the puppet show exam, the dogs are shown one scene, where a rat puppet assists a hedgehog puppet up a hill. In a different scene, the rat puppet knocks the hedgehog puppet down.

“Similar studies have been done with human infants, and what we find is that infants don’t like the guy who was mean,” Santos said. “So, we’re doing the same thing with dogs to try and see if dogs morally evaluate, the way humans do.”

By the end of the puppet show test, the dogs did indeed appear to be weary of the rat puppet.

The interesting thing is that dogs make any sense out of the puppet show at all. However, once they make that bridge, the idea that they would prefer the "friendly" rat only makes sense, As a pack animal, they are sensitive to relations between pack members.

WAPO Admits Misleading Public on Ebola

Remember how the Washington Post and a host of media outlets rushed to assure us that Ebola could not be transmitted by air, so we shouldn't be worried about Ebola patients riding public transit, etc? Well, not so fast: Limited airborne transmission of Ebola is ‘very likely,’ new analysis says

A team of prominent researchers suggested Thursday that limited airborne transmission of the Ebola virus is "very likely," a hypothesis that could reignite the debate that started last fall after one of the scientists offered the same opinion.

"It is very likely that at least some degree of Ebola virus transmission currently occurs via infectious aerosols generated from the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory tract, or medical procedures, although this has been difficult to definitively demonstrate or rule out, since those exposed to infectious aerosols also are most likely to be in close proximity to, and in direct contact with, an infected case," the scientists wrote. Their peer-reviewed analysis was published in mBio, a journal of the American Society of Microbiology.

The paper's lead author, Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, touched off a small furor and was condemned by some experts last Sept. 11 when he raised the same possibility in an op-ed piece in the New York Times as concern over the spread of the deadly disease was increasing rapidly.

We know that Ebola is not a terribly contagious disease, with an r-nought of 2, meaning each patient infects 2 new patients in an unprotected population, compared with an r-nought of over 14 for measles (get your kids vaccinated, you idiots). So under the worst of conditions, an Ebola outbreak is barely rumbling along.

Given that the majority of Ebola cases are caused by contact by bodily fluids, there simply isn't that much numerical room for airborne transmission. However, when steps are taken to control contact with bodily fluids, airborne transmission will be a more important, if not dominant mode of infection.

You might also remember that Politifact named George Will's assertion that airborne transmission just might be possible as the "Lie of the Year" for 2014. As HotAir noted: PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year of 2014 falls apart only two months later

In October, the columnist George Will directly contradicted the president and a variety of federal health officials when he insisted that the African hemorrhagic fever Ebola could spread via fluids expectorated as a result of a cough or a sneeze. The president’s honor had been called into question, an offense that Rudy Giuliani recently discovered the press simply cannot countenance. Even despite the fact that a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poster backed up Will’s warning, PolitiFact dubbed his and other alleged exaggerations of the threat posed by Ebola as their LOTY.

The medical literature says sneezing and coughing are not part of the disease’s typical symptoms, and experts we reached drew a bright line between what might happen in a hospital isolation ward and a person with early symptoms of Ebola before he or she is admitted.
There is no evidence that Ebola has been transmitted in the general public through coughing or sneezing.
Will took a medical commentary out of context. We rate the claim False.

“PolitiFact has determined that is a sweeter objective to score political points against Republicans than to hold Obama responsible for the collapse of his principle mandate as president – to extricate America from Middle Eastern wars,”

Fact checkers have become a joke.  As I heard yesterday in another context, every movement becomes a business, and eventually a scam. The speed of progression with "fact checking" has been startlingly quick.

Maryland Island Cut Off by Icy Chesapeake

Maryland refuses to assist iced-in Tangier Island

Tangier Island is iced in and the state of Maryland apparently isn't of a mind to assist when the federal government can't.

Accomack County Administrator Steve Miner reported to the Board of Supervisors on the situation, resulting from days of below-freezing temperatures.

A Coast Guard cutter was supposed to have gone to break the ice and bring supplies to the island community, located about 12 miles from the mainland in the Chesapeake Bay.

But the boat motor broke down, "so another one is going to have to be brought from Baltimore," Miner said. Apparently it also had a problem, delaying the operation.

"Now they're on their way" and should have arrived by Wednesday night, Miner said.
Miner spoke earlier in the day with Tangier Town Manager Renee Tyler. "It's all under control. ... As far as I know, there have not been many problems," he said.

The Board of Supervisors approved, 8-0, a motion by Supervisor Wanda Thornton, seconded by Robert Crockett, to send a letter to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources protesting the department's decision not to allow one of its boats to conduct the operation in place of the disabled Coast Guard vessel.

"I'm a little bit surprised DNR would not send a boat," Crockett said. "This was an emergency situation," Thornton said.

"It's very odd — the boat's sitting right over there in Crisfield," Miner said, adding, "It certainly bears looking into."

Tangier Island is in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay, so it's not really Maryland's business to keep the water roads open. But the islanders are closely tied to Crissfield, MD for commerce, so it would seem a neighborly thing to do.

It strikes me as odd that the State of Maryland isn't trying a little harder to bring relief to the island that has some 700 people on it. If a section of Baltimore, or heaven forfend, Montgomery County with that many people was cut off by from the rest of the state by a road collapse or flood, I suspect they would have a greater sense of urgency.

However, my intuition would also suggest that the denizens of Tangier Island are also more likely to be self-reliant than the Baltimorons and Monkey County folk.

-1.9!

According to the deck thermometer. This is getting ridiculous. Where's my warming?

Him Tarzan, Her Jane

and a Bollywood take:



Wombat-Sochi has the main Rule 5 post "Rule 5 Monday: Winter Pinups" up at The Other McCain.

More Tarzan and Janes. . .

Honey Badger vs. Avalanche

The Avalanche wins every time:



Good thing he had friends there to run away and come dig him out.

An impressive avalanche triggered by a controlled detonation:

The South Will Rise Again!

Abandon ship: Southern Tier New York looks to defect to Pennsylvania over fracking ban

Despite the fact that it rests upon a wealth of resources, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sticking by his pledge to ban the practice of the hydraulic fracturing of shale to extract natural gas (fracking) in the Empire State. He flipped on his opposition to the practice while seeking reelection after facing significant resistance from his environmentalist left flank.
. . .
Of course it doesn’t make sense if you’re viewing environmentalist opposition to fracking through a dispassionate and empirical lens. The left’s antipathy toward this technological innovation that promises to finally free America from reliance on hostile foreign oil producers (alongside horizontal drilling) is an expression of fealty to a faith-based conviction.

But not only is New York’s opposition to fracking not based in an objective assessment of its environmental impacts, it is also economically hazardous and a nightmare for the state’s badly neglected upstate residents. Well, between the fracking ban, high property taxes, and general meddling from Albany, New York’s Southern Tier has had enough. According to a report, those cities along the Pennsylvania border are investigating the prospects for seceding from New York and joining the Keystone State. (Hat tip to The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe)

“The Southern Tier is desolate,” said Conklin, New York supervisor to a reporter with WBNG. “We have no jobs and no income. The richest resource we have is in the ground.”

There are 15 towns interested in the secession, according to the Towns Association. These towns are in Broome, Delaware, Tioga and Sullivan counties. The association declined to name the towns without their permission and also declined to comment on specifics at this time. As of now, research is ongoing. The group will be updating Action News with all of their findings in the coming weeks.
The association said it’s comparing taxes and the cost of doing business in the two states. It says the facts show there is a huge difference between the two.
Also being considered are things like workers comp, surcharges, unemployment and health insurance. The association’s understanding is that the secession would have to be approved by the New York State Legislature, the Pennsylvania State Legislature and the U. S. government.

So, is this even possible? We’ve come a long way from the Michigan-Ohio war, and it’s doubtful that there will be an armed engagement between New York and Pennsylvania over Binghamton, but that does not necessarily mean that New York will be eager to cede part of its tax base to Pennsylvania.

Parts of various states are always threatening to secede, and rarely do the plans go anywhere. For example, Northern California and Southern Oregon would like to secede  and form a rural state, Maryland's Eastern Shore and West have also talked secession. In every case I can think of, it is the rural portion of the state, where a majority of the land, and a minority of the people feel unrepresented by the urban politicians from the metropolitan centers that govern the state. And they have a point.

I doubt they will succeed, but it's well worth making the point.

Oregon Temptress Tries to Go Dark

Gov. Kitzhaber and First Babe Cylvia Hayes

Former Oregon First Lady won’t release her emails

Even though John Kitzhaber has resigned as Governor of Oregon, we were assured that when all the investigating came to a close he and his fiance (and former First Lady) Cylvia Hayes would be vindicated. A good first step in clearing the air regarding all of these distasteful allegations would obviously be to get all the records out in public so we can sort things out. So, how about it, Cylvia? Let’s see all of your emails related to your various business dealings.

What’s that? You want us to take a flying leap off a cliff?

Former Oregon first lady Cylvia Hayes declared Wednesday that she will go to court to block a state order requiring her to turn over emails related to her public service.
Portland attorney Whitney Boise, representing Hayes, notified The Oregonian/OregonLive and the state Justice Department of her intent to sue in Marion County Circuit Court.
Hayes is under an order issued last week by Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum to turn over to The Oregonian/OregonLive emails dating back three years pertaining to state business. Rosenblum concluded that Hayes was subject to the state public records law.
The records could shed light on allegations she used her position as an unpaid adviser to then-Gov. John Kitzhaber for personal benefit. Hayes doesn’t have a state email account.

I’m not sure who is advising the former Governor and his girlfriend, assuming they are getting any professional advice at all. If you’re facing serious charges which could wind up seeing Ms. Hayes in the slammer, but you honestly feel that nothing inappropriate took place, the first thing you do is show how open and transparent you plan to be. Suing to prevent anyone from reading your official correspondence is sort of the opposite of that, madam.

Go away, nothing to see here, nothing to hide in this scandal linking the Governor of Oregon to the great green donor, Tom Steyer.

A little refresher on this scandal, courtesy of Willamette Week:

From 2011 to 2013, Hayes collected more than $220,000 from private consulting contracts she landed while working as an adviser to Kitzhaber. Her dealings have sparked state and federal criminal investigations (“First Lady Inc.”, WW, Oct. 8, 2014).

But before Kitzhaber’s resignation and the investigations, Hayes had even grander plans for herself—in terms of influence and money—for the governor’s final term in office.
Newly obtained emails reveal Hayes told Kitzhaber in late 2013 that she wanted to further leverage her access to his office into “lucrative work,” including an official state position, paid speaking appearances and book contracts.

The first lady proposed her expansive plans to Kitzhaber, even as the governor’s staff searched for ways to narrow Hayes’ official role and make sure she wasn’t violating state ethics laws.

Hayes’ big plans and the staff’s concerns are contained in emails that are among thousands of communications Kitzhaber’s office sought on Feb. 5 to have destroyed. (See here for an analysis of this action.) Neither Kitzhaber nor Hayes agreed to be interviewed for this story.

The emails obtained by WW provide an extraordinary window into Kitzhaber’s administration and the complexities Hayes’ ambitions presented.

The emails show that Kitzhaber’s staff was especially alarmed by Hayes’ role in the governor’s office after she signed at least $85,000 worth of private consulting contracts with three nonprofit advocacy groups in 2013.

The contracts prompted Kitzhaber’s then-chief of staff Curtis Robinhold in July and August of that year to get Hayes to sign conflict-of-interest forms that required her to abide by state ethics laws.

Those guidelines would have forced Hayes to change some of the ways she conducted her private business, including prohibiting her from using the title “first lady” when doing private work, and from holding client meetings at Mahonia Hall, the governor’s mansion.

Wombat-Sochi has the main Rule 5 post "Rule 5 Monday: Winter Pinups" up at The Other McCain.

I Heartily Concur

By way of The Other McCain, advice to would be graduate students from Walter Russell Meade

Walter Russell Mead:

Lots of tenured professors want to believe that all is well in a university system that works pretty well for them. But as it exists now, the Ph.D. system in this country urgently needs to be pruned back — especially in the social sciences and the humanities. . . .
Tenure track jobs are getting harder, not easier to find. . . .
For millennials, some important advice: If you can’t get into a top Ph.D. program, you should seriously rethink your life plan. Getting a subprime Ph.D. is one of the surest ways to accumulate debt and unhappiness, leaving you bitter and poor. The top schools will probably be fine, but the Grim Reaper is headed toward some second- and third-tier Ph.D. programs near you, and he’s moving faster than you think.

Read the whole thing.

He goes on to suggest a STEM degree rather than Humanities, because of the the greater demand and practicality of the degrees. Up to a point, this is true, but there are STEM fields which have the same problems. Many students go into biology out of fear of the math involved in the more physical sciences.

If that is your position, either buckle up and learn the math (I did, and it only hurt a little). Many fields in biology are absolutely saturated, and the grad schools are pumping out students like there's a bottomless pit to put them in.  There isn't. Back when I was taking interns, I was astonished at the high quality graduates who were having trouble finding position.

The best power a student has in grad school is choice; you can choose which school to go to, if they'll have you, you can choose the major professor if he/she/it will have you. If you can't get a good one of either, go home and rethink the plan.

Study Denies Smog-Asthma Link

Upending EPA’s science on pollution and asthma

For years, environmentalists and regulators have cited childhood asthma as an excuse for ever-stricter pollution rules. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for instance, uses asthma as a pretext for nearly every “clean air” regulation issued since the 1970s.

But what if the assumed link between air pollution and childhood asthma doesn’t actually exist?

New research questions the long-held wisdom on asthma and air pollution, casting doubt over the scientific basis for EPA’s expansive regulatory agenda.

The new peer-reviewed paper, authored by a team of prominent researchers led by Dr. Corrine Keet of John’s Hopkins Children’s Center, studied over 23,000 U.S. children and found no statistically significant difference in asthma rates between those who live in inner-city neighborhoods (and are thus subject to higher pollution levels) and those who do not (once controlling for other factors). Instead, researchers concluded that poverty was a greater predictor for higher asthma rates than outdoor air pollution.

I grew up with asthma in Los Angeles back in the 50, when it's smog problem was at it's worst, and this corresponds to my experience. I didn't get asthma attacks from being outdoors; I got asthma from indoors, despite my mother's best efforts to keep the house spotless. It turned out, in hindsight, I had a "house dust" allergy, which is really an allergy to the feces of dust mites that live in bedding. Nice, I know, but there it is. A series of shots to desensitize me helped quite a bit,  I think.

The study still points to air pollution as a cause for asthma, only it’s indoor air pollution—think second hand smoke, rodents, mold, etc.—that may be the main culprit.

It’s a radical finding. The study upends more than half a century of research that assumed outdoor air pollution in cities was to blame for higher asthma rates—a hypothesis repeatedly used by EPA regulators to justify the agency’s regulations.

The study couldn’t come at a worse time for the agency. EPA is preparing to tighten national standards for ground-level ozone (the main ingredient in smog) by as much as 20 percent. To justify the move, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy argued she was “following science” to “protect those most at-risk—our children, our elderly, and people already suffering from lung diseases like asthma.”

But it’s hard to see how lowering the current ozone limit either “follows the science” or “protects those most at-risk” for asthma.

It's not really about science, it's about power.

Rather than accept Dr. Adams’ conclusions, the EPA performed an unpublished “reanalysis” of his data and decided that there was a statistically significant difference in lung function at 60 ppb after all. Dr. Adam’s response: “EPA has misinterpreted the statistics contained in my published, peer-reviewed paper.”

This is not to say I support smog.  However, as efforts to eliminate pollution of any kind reaches completion, the costs rise exponentially and the value dwindles to nothing. We have to find the "sweet spot" where costs are balanced by benefits.

Hat tip to Don Surber, by way of Ace's ONT.

Someone Has to Do It

I guess . . . Girl crushes watermelons with her thighs.



Wombat-Sochi has the main Rule 5 post "Rule 5 Monday: Winter Pinups" up at The Other McCain.

Now, you might think one woman doing this on YouTube would be enough. However, you'd be wrong:

Midnite Music - "Going Down to the River"

Wombat-Sochi has the main Rule 5 post "Rule 5 Monday: Winter Pinups" up at The Other McCain.

Jill Johnson:

Baby It's Cold Outside

Our cold snap continues; the weather today is bright and sunny and freezing; now at 3 PM, about the warmest time of the day, the deck thermometer reads 30.1 F.  Under the relentless assault of the cold, the Chesapeake Bay is starting to freeze:

But don't just take NOAA's word for it. While I haven't been down with my camera, some of our neighbors have, and here is a view from our cliffs.

Thanks to Dan for posting this on Facebook. Looks more like Alaska than Maryland. It's the furthest out I remember it freezing in my 30 years in the area.

The Harbor is totally iced in, with thick ice, and Walleye Pete's boat is stuck fast in its slip.  No fishing for a few days anyway:

Obamacare Schadenfreude for 2/18/15

It just keeps coming.

From Moe Lane by way of Insty: Somebody is not happy

Sorry, honey. He lied to you and now you’re stuck holding the bag. Some men are like that, you know.

Another satisfied customer: How One Nebraska Woman Lost Her Health Insurance Three Times Under Obamacare

Dec. 26, 2014, was strike three for Pamela Weldin.

The day after Christmas, Weldin, of Minatare, Neb., had logged on to Facebook to find a message from a friend of hers. Included in the note was a link to anarticle from the Omaha World-Herald announcing that CoOportunity Health, a nonprofit health insurance company offering plans in Nebraska and Iowa, had been taken over by state regulators.

The insurer, one of 23 Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or co-ops, started with the backing of the federal government and received $145 million in loans from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But, CoOportunity’s expenses and medical claims would far exceed its revenue for 2014.
. . .
In the months leading up to the Affordable Care Act’s implementation on Oct. 1, 2013, millions of Americans began receiving notices from their health insurance companies informing them their policies had been cancelled.

Weldin was one of them.

The Nebraska woman, who was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome 15 years ago, had purchased catastrophic coverage through Humana after moving from San Diego, Calif., which she kept until 2013—right before Obamacare’s implementation.
. . .
Weldin’s insurance with CoOportunity went into effect Jan. 1, 2014, and she had the insurance for most of that year.

Like some consumers, Weldin had issues with the coverage she received through the law. Her original doctor, located seven hours away in Colorado, was no longer in network, and Weldin’s plan included services she would never need. At 58 years old, the former dental hygienist had a difficult time understanding why she would need maternity coverage, but it was included in her plan.

Her new platinum plan included a $2,500 deductible, and Weldin qualified for the tax credits touted by the administration.

Then, in November 2014, CoOportunity notified Weldin that they would no longer be offering platinum plans.

Megan McArdle explains the libertarian opposition to Obamacare: A Few More Arguments Against Obamacare

But society has generally settled on some rough intuitive rules, which I'll try to make explicit:

1. We don't force people to do things in order to produce positive externalities. My neighbors probably got some modest enhancement in their property values when we replaced our horrid old falling-apart chain-link fence with nice new wrought iron. It's possible that society would be better off if everyone had to replace their fences with wrought iron. But we cannot mandate everything that produces a positive externality. . .

2. Basic rights can't be violated because they upset someone else.There's a lot of speech out there that causes far more harm than it generates in open public discourse. You still have the right to say it. Promiscuous sexual activity spreads diseases, some of which are very hard to treat. The public health police still can't stop you from getting your groove on . . .

3. You can't have created the situation that you are now trying to fix. Say I have a farm in the middle of nowhere. You come out and build a bunch of new McMansions with granite countertops and recessed lighting and all the modern conveniences. Suddenly, the pungent smell of cow manure is a negative externality for all the folks in the development, who complain to their local government. Most of us would not say that you have the right to force me to stop farming because it's ruining the ambience of the development that you decided to build.

So now let's talk about the individual mandate, which fails on at least two of three points. Start with No. 3: Many of the complaints about externalities rely on a massive amount of public spending on health care or laws such as the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (which forces emergency rooms to treat people even if they can't pay). It's extremely dangerous to allow the government to say, "Well, we passed this law, and as a result you're costing people a bunch of money, so we're now entitled to pass this other law to dictate your behavior." It's far too easy to build a pyramid of laws that entitle the government to do anything at all, because earlier laws have made your various liberties rather costly.

It also fails on No. 1: We are not trying to stop people from doing something that harms others so much as to force them to do something that would make others better off by enabling them to buy cheaper health insurance. (It's irrelevant to this point whether you think I would also be better off, because Professor Frakt asked specifically about externalities.) I am in general extremely skeptical of those sorts of arguments for anything short of World War II.

I also think it fails on No. 2, by the way; I think people have a right to determine where their own money goes and what products they spend it on -- even if that means they can choose to forgo a very beneficial product that would make everyone better off. Now, I do not think this right is entirely unlimited -- parents can be forced to support their children, for example, and I think that's entirely just.

And that's just the short version.

The Washington Post has a sob story about a poor woman, a "5th generation Republican" who would potentially loose out if Supreme Court decides against Obamacare in King versus Burwell:

Now that she has coverage, she doesn’t want to lose it. “I can still feed my kids and put gas in my car,” she said. “I’m not trying to go to Cancun or carry a Michael Kors bag. I drive a 2009 Mazda, and I’m just trying to make it in my little apartment and not be on government assistance.”

Meredith is one of about 6 million people whose subsidized insurance hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court takes up a case that poses the most serious challenge to the Affordable Care Act since the court found the law constitutional more than two years ago.

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline notes:  TALK ABOUT WORKING THE REFS. . .

Like any other federal income redistribution scheme, though, the Obamacare subsidies can only be maintained if Congress provided for them. Whether Congress did so is the question before the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell.

It’s worth noting, however, that a decision by the Court that Congress didn’t authorize subsidies except in state exchanges wouldn’t preclude subsidies for people like Ms. Meredith. States like Texas that decided not to establish exchanges in the belief that, per the Obama administration’s rulings, lower-income residents would get subsidies via the federal exchange, would revisit the matter knowing now that only by establishing exchanges will these subsidies continue.

This is precisely the condition under which Obamacare’s architects intended states to make their decision, as is clear from both the statutory language and the comments of Jonathan Gruber. Subsidies were limited to state exchanges as a means of inducing states to establish them.

Thus, if the Supreme Court rules against the administration, states like Texas still will be able to maintain the subsidies of people like Erin Meredith by establishing exchanges (the effective date of the ruling could be pushed back to allow time for this). Whether the subsidies are maintained will depend on whether the state favors this redistribution of income.

But take heart. Although Obamacare will probably cost the United States some considerable number of doctors who will drop out due to lower reimbursements, and the added aggravations, Obama wants more IRS agents, in part to administer Obamacare: Obama wants massive spending, staffing increases for IRS in 2016 budget

Thousands of new Internal Revenue Service employees will not be shouldering the regulatory burden Obamacare rules have heaped onto the tax agency, despite IRS claims that it needed massive additional funding to hire such support staff.

Only 483 of the 9,245 new hires President Obama is seeking for the IRS in his 2016 budget proposal would be assigned to work on Obamacare programs, according to a budget summary published by the federal tax agency.

As the agency tasked with enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate provision, the IRS must for the first time this year assess a fine against people who were eligible for the government-funded health insurance but declined to enroll.
. . .
Some of the new hires not hired directly for Obamacare-related work would be doing chores indirectly related to the health care program. For example, nearly 3,000 new employees would handle problems and questions from taxpayers — many of which will arise from confusing Obamacare rules.