25 or so years ago when USWest was breaking up, the new CEO for the telco side of the split put a team of accountants and lawyers to work trying to find a way to break the promises that had been made about health insurance for retirees. I mentioned at the time that if he was successful, some retiree who lost a spouse to cancer because of the lack of insurance would murder the CEO. I wasn't really kidding.
I'll just casually note that this shooting bears at least a passing resemblance to a how-to description given by the assassin in The Eiger Sanction novel.
Have started trying to catch up on the stuff that got put off while my broken ribs healed enough to get around in reasonable comfort.
My sister broke a bone in her foot. Earlier this week the surgeon put in pins and a screw. The next day there were more x-rays to make sure everything was properly aligned. She'll wear a boot for 4-5 weeks to make sure it stays aligned. For my lower ribs, the medical profession sort of waved their hand and said, "Yeah, they'll heal, alignment's not important." Ribs need a union.
With the small problem that Dept of Energy has f*ck-all to do with fracking. Environmental regulations for oil and gas production? EPA, not Energy. Leases of federal land on which to drill? Various parts of Interior, not Energy. Markets and such? FERC, not Energy.
The Department of Energy is nuclear weapons and a whole bunch of R&D (not all energy related). Not to pick on Rick Perry too much, but early on he announced the Dept of Energy would be issuing rules that greatly favored new power plants that were dispatchable and could store six months of fuel on site (ie, coal and nuclear). That lasted about a week until FERC held a press conference to say rules like that were FERC's remit and the Secretary should stick to subjects where he actually had authority.
Energy is a very good example. All of the national labs fall under DOE, doing everything from nuclear weapons to exotic materials science to math. The traditional appointee is a PhD in some hard science with a bunch of experience administering other PhDs. Recall Rick Perry expressing public surprise when he discovered that he would be responsible for development and maintenance of the entire nuclear arsenal. Wright has apparently been in graduate school, but has no graduate degrees. He's going to be responsible for a lot of the early decisions in the $1.5T program to upgrade all of the US nuclear warheads and delivery systems.
Californians have been fleeing to Colorado for longer than that. I first heard the term "California diaspora" from a U of Colorado history professor in 1989.
Jumped up from the couch, tripped, staggered a couple of steps, then hit the ribs square on a wall corner when I fell. The ribs don't hurt too badly, but from time to time most of my "core" muscles spasm at once. Think the world's largest charlie-horse. Those are debilitatingly painful for several seconds until the muscles relax again.
Just an informational note... Like most blog platforms, WordPress's built-in spam filter is a black box. Or special sauce if you prefer that analogy. They think their algorithm is superior and don't want to reveal the inner workings. No way to determine why WP decided the comment was spam.
With a trifecta in DC, it may be time for the governors. Newsom and Inslee look to be preparing to take on the Trump administration. Polis in Colorado has strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers, so also in a position to fight. Shapiro can't attempt the same things because the Republicans retained control of the Pennsylvania state senate. Whitmer in Michigan will have the same problem because Republicans won the house there. Any others come to mind?
When I was a kid a border collie adopted us -- we got home from a weekend at my grandparents and she was sitting on the front porch waiting. No collar, no tags, no one claimed her despite ads in the local paper and radio station. Scary smart dog.
Excellent. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to ask a Musk-admirer of a certain sort, "How do you think he made his billions?"
He paid people with graduate degrees to design stuff. He paid people with regular degrees to figure out how to implement the designs. He paid people with two-year degrees or equivalent to execute those implementation plans. For the most part, he doesn't employee people that don't have some sort of degree.
Here at the north end of the urban corridor, our snowfall for the week totaled "never stuck to the streets or sidewalks." It's warm and sunny this AM, and the last of the snow on the grassy areas is gone, even in the shade.
This is the first presidential election since I had to put my wife in memory care. I'm going to miss cuddling up under a blanket with her and making fun of the talking heads on television.
Another potentially weird thing in NC is the flow of relief funds after Hurricane Helene. The GOP was all in on how terribly FEMA and the SBA were doing, but now hundreds of millions of federal dollars have arrived. Plus Mike Johnson's possible own goal stating that if the agencies ran out of money it was no big deal because there wouldn't be any federal money arriving until after the election any way.
When I worked on the budget staff for the state legislature here, it was disturbing how little the members knew about how the government actually functioned.
The two large political geography stories of the last 30 years are much of the Midwest turning Republican, and the West turning heavily Democratic. And it hasn't been just the coastal states. At this moment, and obviously subject to change today, the eight-state Mountain West has one more Democratic US Senator than the 13-state Midwest.
I'm terrible at national stuff. I'll confine myself to: the 13-state West will be bluer than the pundits are predicting. Harris wins AZ and NV, the AZ and NV Senate seats stay blue, Tester will be closer than people think, all four of the abortion ballot initiatives pass, the total number of (D) Representatives increases by two, and one of the two AZ state legislative chambers flips.
She's the sitting Vice President. There are rules. The only conditions under which Harris's security contingent -- which includes, recall, a military officer carrying her copy of the "nuclear football" -- would have allowed an interview in Rogan's studio would have been unacceptable to Rogan.
There are (or at least were, it's been too long since I kept track of such things professionally) other programs that require states to behave or lose Medicaid funding. TTBOMK, none of those have been challenged in court. OTOH, there's NFIB v. Sebelius where Roberts wrote that Medicaid funding was so large that requiring states to adopt new programs on threat of loss of traditional Medicaid funding was unconstitutional coercion.
That isn’t how you build systems, though. If your failure mode is right there in the design, but it only fails catastrophically when it fails catastrophically, it still fails in exactly the way you designed it (and maybe in a couple ways you didn’t design).
All voting systems have failure modes built in. Eg, in-person voting on election day is subject to weather, work and work-related schedules, and transportation problems. Probably the most common single fix used for all of those collectively -- other than a full vote by mail system -- is the permanent no-excuse mail ballot list.
If you want to argue that coerced voting is the bigger problem, offer some evidence.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “From the New York Post: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot outside Hilton hotel in Midtown in targeted attack: cops”
25 or so years ago when USWest was breaking up, the new CEO for the telco side of the split put a team of accountants and lawyers to work trying to find a way to break the promises that had been made about health insurance for retirees. I mentioned at the time that if he was successful, some retiree who lost a spouse to cancer because of the lack of insurance would murder the CEO. I wasn't really kidding.
I'll just casually note that this shooting bears at least a passing resemblance to a how-to description given by the assassin in The Eiger Sanction novel.
On “Movie of a Man Awakened at Night”
Barely on topic... I am so looking forward to being able to sleep on my left side again.
On “I Told You So”
The biggest difference in the two terms, I suspect, will be the SCOTUS is prepared to make drastic changes to the rules.
On “Weekend Plans Post: On a Plane to Iceland”
Have started trying to catch up on the stuff that got put off while my broken ribs healed enough to get around in reasonable comfort.
My sister broke a bone in her foot. Earlier this week the surgeon put in pins and a screw. The next day there were more x-rays to make sure everything was properly aligned. She'll wear a boot for 4-5 weeks to make sure it stays aligned. For my lower ribs, the medical profession sort of waved their hand and said, "Yeah, they'll heal, alignment's not important." Ribs need a union.
On “How Republicans Can Save Trump’s Presidency”
With the small problem that Dept of Energy has f*ck-all to do with fracking. Environmental regulations for oil and gas production? EPA, not Energy. Leases of federal land on which to drill? Various parts of Interior, not Energy. Markets and such? FERC, not Energy.
The Department of Energy is nuclear weapons and a whole bunch of R&D (not all energy related). Not to pick on Rick Perry too much, but early on he announced the Dept of Energy would be issuing rules that greatly favored new power plants that were dispatchable and could store six months of fuel on site (ie, coal and nuclear). That lasted about a week until FERC held a press conference to say rules like that were FERC's remit and the Secretary should stick to subjects where he actually had authority.
"
Energy is a very good example. All of the national labs fall under DOE, doing everything from nuclear weapons to exotic materials science to math. The traditional appointee is a PhD in some hard science with a bunch of experience administering other PhDs. Recall Rick Perry expressing public surprise when he discovered that he would be responsible for development and maintenance of the entire nuclear arsenal. Wright has apparently been in graduate school, but has no graduate degrees. He's going to be responsible for a lot of the early decisions in the $1.5T program to upgrade all of the US nuclear warheads and delivery systems.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
Symptoms have improved markedly this morning.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Californians have been fleeing to Colorado for longer than that. I first heard the term "California diaspora" from a U of Colorado history professor in 1989.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
Jumped up from the couch, tripped, staggered a couple of steps, then hit the ribs square on a wall corner when I fell. The ribs don't hurt too badly, but from time to time most of my "core" muscles spasm at once. Think the world's largest charlie-horse. Those are debilitatingly painful for several seconds until the muscles relax again.
"
As little as possible. I broke two ribs last Sunday.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Just an informational note... Like most blog platforms, WordPress's built-in spam filter is a black box. Or special sauce if you prefer that analogy. They think their algorithm is superior and don't want to reveal the inner workings. No way to determine why WP decided the comment was spam.
"
With a trifecta in DC, it may be time for the governors. Newsom and Inslee look to be preparing to take on the Trump administration. Polis in Colorado has strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers, so also in a position to fight. Shapiro can't attempt the same things because the Republicans retained control of the Pennsylvania state senate. Whitmer in Michigan will have the same problem because Republicans won the house there. Any others come to mind?
On “Puppy Love in the IG Era: Ten Favorite Dog Breeds”
When I was a kid a border collie adopted us -- we got home from a weekend at my grandparents and she was sitting on the front porch waiting. No collar, no tags, no one claimed her despite ads in the local paper and radio station. Scary smart dog.
On “He Got Away With It”
Excellent. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to ask a Musk-admirer of a certain sort, "How do you think he made his billions?"
He paid people with graduate degrees to design stuff. He paid people with regular degrees to figure out how to implement the designs. He paid people with two-year degrees or equivalent to execute those implementation plans. For the most part, he doesn't employee people that don't have some sort of degree.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Batchin’ It (Again) and It’s Snowing”
Here at the north end of the urban corridor, our snowfall for the week totaled "never stuck to the streets or sidewalks." It's warm and sunny this AM, and the last of the snow on the grassy areas is gone, even in the shade.
On “2024 Election Day Live Stream, Reaction, Open Thread”
This is the first presidential election since I had to put my wife in memory care. I'm going to miss cuddling up under a blanket with her and making fun of the talking heads on television.
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: The Night Before the 2024 Presidential Election”
Another potentially weird thing in NC is the flow of relief funds after Hurricane Helene. The GOP was all in on how terribly FEMA and the SBA were doing, but now hundreds of millions of federal dollars have arrived. Plus Mike Johnson's possible own goal stating that if the agencies ran out of money it was no big deal because there wouldn't be any federal money arriving until after the election any way.
When I worked on the budget staff for the state legislature here, it was disturbing how little the members knew about how the government actually functioned.
"
Two years ago you predicted an enormous GOP wave sweeping the West. That turned out to be the Nevada governor's office.
"
The two large political geography stories of the last 30 years are much of the Midwest turning Republican, and the West turning heavily Democratic. And it hasn't been just the coastal states. At this moment, and obviously subject to change today, the eight-state Mountain West has one more Democratic US Senator than the 13-state Midwest.
"
I'm terrible at national stuff. I'll confine myself to: the 13-state West will be bluer than the pundits are predicting. Harris wins AZ and NV, the AZ and NV Senate seats stay blue, Tester will be closer than people think, all four of the abortion ballot initiatives pass, the total number of (D) Representatives increases by two, and one of the two AZ state legislative chambers flips.
On “Final Thoughts Before November Fifth”
At a less serious level, next weekend's football games will not be wall-to-wall obnoxious political ads.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
She's the sitting Vice President. There are rules. The only conditions under which Harris's security contingent -- which includes, recall, a military officer carrying her copy of the "nuclear football" -- would have allowed an interview in Rogan's studio would have been unacceptable to Rogan.
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
Nit: Medicaid funding.
There are (or at least were, it's been too long since I kept track of such things professionally) other programs that require states to behave or lose Medicaid funding. TTBOMK, none of those have been challenged in court. OTOH, there's NFIB v. Sebelius where Roberts wrote that Medicaid funding was so large that requiring states to adopt new programs on threat of loss of traditional Medicaid funding was unconstitutional coercion.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
Cite? All I can find online is a picture of him sitting in the passenger seat of a spotless white truck. Hardly "working a shift".
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
That isn’t how you build systems, though. If your failure mode is right there in the design, but it only fails catastrophically when it fails catastrophically, it still fails in exactly the way you designed it (and maybe in a couple ways you didn’t design).
All voting systems have failure modes built in. Eg, in-person voting on election day is subject to weather, work and work-related schedules, and transportation problems. Probably the most common single fix used for all of those collectively -- other than a full vote by mail system -- is the permanent no-excuse mail ballot list.
If you want to argue that coerced voting is the bigger problem, offer some evidence.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.