…squirrels are not really a recommended pet:
At least, it’s one of the reasons why.
Another Obamacare surprise coming…
…unless, of course, Obama decides to change the rules in midstream.
The deadline for coverage is March 31, which means that if a person doesn’t have Obamacare-compliant health insurance after that, he/she is liable for a penalty. We’ve had that drummed into our heads.
But what has not gotten nearly enough publicity is that, if a person (ineligible for employment-based insurance) without individual insurance doesn’t get it by that deadline, he/she is out of luck for this year. No insurance policy (other than temporary catastrophic ones, a very special—and temporary—market) can be purchased on the individual market after that until next November 15, and if you buy one then it won’t start till January 1, 2015.
That’s how they’re dealing with the need to cover pre-existing conditions. The penalty was supposed to force people to buy insurance or pay it, but the penalty was set so low that it really doesn’t offer enough incentive. What most people are unaware of is that if they don’t get insurance by March 31 and then they have a need for coverage at some point during the rest of 2014, the answer is “Tough; you should have thought of that before.”
It’s ironic, isn’t it? And I’m not just talking about buying on the exchanges, I’m talking about the entire individual insurance market, the one Obamacare was supposedly going to fix. According to the insurance agents I’ve asked, even off the exchanges, paying full freight, and without a pre-existing condition, you can no longer buy an ordinary individual health insurance outside of those periods.
Here more:
Before Democrats “fixed” the health insurance marketplace, people buying their own coverage in the individual market could do so any time of the year. In addition, if a person had purchased coverage but decided he or she didn’t like dealing with that insurer or the network of doctors, or whatever, that individual could cancel the policy and buy a different one””again, any time during the year.
Well, you can kiss that economic freedom goodbye, thanks to Obamacare…
Look for news stories in April about Americans who want to get coverage””maybe they just got a raise or extra work and feel like they have enough extra money to pay the premiums””but can’t because Obamacare slammed that door shut.
If there are enough of those stories Obama will surely extend the deadline…
To be sure, the law does allow for health insurance changes in certain circumstances, such as moving to another state, a job change, getting married, etc. But for the uninsured who failed to get coverage and for those dissatisfied with what they have, their economic freedom has been taken away.
That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Taking away economic freedom.
Here are more facts about how open enrollment works, and what life-changing circumstances would allow you to apply at other times of year.
Israel tightens security in wake of Flight 370 disappearance
It makes sense for Israel to be cautious:
With no trace of Beijing-bound flight MH370 after nine days, one of several theories that has emerged is that the plane was hijacked to Iran, where it could be turned into a massive and devastating weapon…
“My guess is based upon the stolen passports, and I believe Iran was involved [in the disappearance of the plane],” Issac Yeffet, formerly a global security expert for Israel’s national airline El Al told today’s Times of Israel. “They hijacked the aircraft and they landed it in a place that nobody can see or find it.”
As the search continued to widen fruitlessly, Israeli security officials and aviation authorities, who have long feared a 9/11-style attack, conducted a security assessment and rapidly implemented a series of security measures. The only one reported publicly is that Israeli air traffic controllers will demand that incoming aircraft identify themselves earlier than has so far been the case, sources told FoxNews.
The Israelis are smart. I hope they’re smart enough.
This is what our partner in negotiations, Iran, has been broadcasting recently:
In a recent video simulation broadcast by Iranian state TV after the initial agreement with the international community on a reduction in Iran’s nuclear capability was signed, the Azrieli Towers were shown being blown up by Iranian missiles.
The Israeli media has speculated that if Iran played a part in the disappearance of the plane, it is all but certain the regime would not have been directly involved. It would likely instead act through a third party, using one of the many international terror organizations Iran sponsors and maintaining plausible deniability. Tehran would not want to jeopardize the easing of international sanctions and other gains made recently at the Geneva negotiations with the US and the P5+1.
No, Iran certainly wouldn’t want to jeopardize its new standing in the international community.
Mind-blowing: gravity waves
I’m not going to tackle this one, because Ace has done a better job than I would have.
I think. I’m not sure, because I really don’t understand it, and neither (he says) does he.
Or most people on earth, for that matter. But if it’s true, we all were part of it.
(And I finally get a chance to use that “the universe” part of the category “getting philosophical: life, love, the universe.”)
Russian markets…
…say, “Sanctions? Schmanctions.”
They’re kvelling, not kvetching.
ADDENDUM: And openly mocking:
Russia’s deputy prime minister laughed off President Obama’s sanction against him today asking “Comrade @BarackObama” if “some prankster” came up with the list.
The Obama administration hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions today as punishment for Russia’s support of Crimea’s referendum. Among them: aides to President Vladimir Putin, a top government official, senior lawmakers, Crimean officials, the ousted president of Ukraine, and a Ukrainian politician and businessman allegedly tied to violence against protesters in Kiev.
It remains to be seen whether the sanctions will dissuade Russia from annexing Crimea, but one an early clue that they will not be effective came just hours later when President Putin signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state, perhaps an early step towards annexation.
Obama inspires neither fear nor respect. That is a dangerous situation.
Another possible scenario for Flight 370: remember the Uyghurs?
Seems to me that this previous incident is not getting as much press as it should.
It was an organized and quite recent (June 2012) attempt by Uyghurs—the Muslim separatist group in western China—to hijack a Chinese plane. And it was a very serious attempt (and note the crutch, the m.o. for carrying a weapon in the film “The Day of the Jackal”):
A Tianjin Airlines Embraer ERJ-190 jet was leaving on its daily route from Hotan Airport to éœré¼mqi Diwopu International Airport at 12:25 pm (0425 Greenwich Mean Time) with 92 passengers and nine crew. The suspected hijackers, six Uyghur men aged 20”“36 from the city of Kashgar, boarded the aircraft without notice. Surveillance video showed the suspects feigning disability to bypass airport security; one suspect hid his aluminum pipe weapon inside his crutch. The hijackers donned staff uniforms and split into two parties of three in the front and back of the plane. One of the suspects said they aimed to fly the aircraft out of the country to wage holy war; China has previously raised concerns that Uyghur militants are linking up to their Islamist counterparts in Pakistan.
…The three hijackers in front were attempting to break down the door to the cockpit, according to the China Daily, injuring a flight attendant who resisted them. Witnesses note that the attackers were armed with the sharp ends of a disassembled aluminum crutch. Simultaneously, the three men in the back brandished metal bars and explosives, beating seated passengers while announcing “whoever stands up will die”.
Upon hearing this declaration of intent, Fu Huacheng, a passenger and the minister of education for Lop County, recalled running out of his seat and shouting in Uyghur to his fellow passengers: “Come on! Let’s stand up and fight them.” Up to six mostly Uyghur plainclothes police responded to Fu’s call; microbloggers confirmed witnessing plainclothes policemen removing homemade explosives from the suspects. A group of passengers, led by a local doctor, escorted the elderly and children away from the violence. Some passengers successfully activated the mid-air anti-hijacking contingency plan, which involves pushing a trolley in front of the cockpit door. A passenger interviewed by the Associated Press confirmed that passengers used their belts to restrain the attackers; witnesses to the hijacking posted bloody pictures of the arrests on Sina Weibo.
Bloody indeed: “Two hijackers died from injuries from the fight on board.”
It strikes me that terrorists often learn from their previous errors, and tweak their approach until it works (for example, the second attack on the WTC compared to the first). I realize that authorities are convinced that one of the regular pilots was involved in flying Flight 370 to whatever fate awaited it. But is not also possible that the pilot[s] might have been under the control of armed men who told him that, if he cooperated and did what they wanted, he’d be able to land the plane safely in an old-fashioned hijacking situation?
Republicans trying to unite behind an alternative health insurance reform bill
I’ll believe this when I see it.
But that’s what they need to do.
Obamacare thinks the young…
…are also stupid. But this Millennial says they’re not, and that’s why they’re not signing up for Obamacare in the requisite numbers. He especially points out how downright offensive and insulting the Obamacare ads pitched at the young have been.
Everyone noticed that right from the start. It’s especially puzzling because one thing you can say about Obama is that, in the past, he hired PR people who were geniuses at reaching the young. The young voted for him in droves and are actually responsible for the fact that he’s president. And although many on the right were puzzled by the appeal of ad campaigns such as the Julia one and the Lena Dunham one, the Obama team was pitch-perfect about this demographic and what would appeal to it. His team also managed to use the internet to carefully and precisely focus on their young targets with all sorts of appeals almost perfectly crafted to get them in exactly the right spot.
So what went wrong with the Obamacare messaging? Perhaps the problem was that what they were trying to sell wasn’t so much a dream of dependency or sexiness (the Julia and Lena ads) that would have no cost but only benefit, but a much more muddled message that involved the young person actually paying money, and in fact more money than before. Part of it may be just as simple as that.
But the rest was just a flat-footedness that even us fuddy-duddy conservatives could tell was off-key. What happened? I assume the same people who did Obama’s campaign were not in charge of publicity for Obamacare. But who were the folks doing Obamacare ads—Republican moles? Could Republicans be that savvy?
Crimea “votes” to secede from Ukraine
Fireworks exploded and Russian flags fluttered above jubilant crowds Sunday after residents in Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. The United States and Europe condemned the ballot as illegal and destabilizing and were expected to slap sanctions against Russia for it.
Ukraine’s new government in Kiev called the referendum a “circus” directed at gunpoint by Moscow ”” referring to the thousands of Russian troops now in the strategic Black Sea peninsula after seizing it two weeks ago.
But after the polls closed late Sunday, crowds of ethnic Russians in the regional Crimean capital of Simferopol erupted with jubilant chants in the main square, overjoyed at the prospect of once again becoming part of Russia.
The Crimea referendum offered voters the choice of seeking annexation by Russia or remaining in Ukraine with greater autonomy. After 50 percent of the ballots were counted, Mikhail Malishev, head of the referendum committee, said more than 95 percent of voters had approved splitting off and joining Russia.
I have no doubt some people in Crimea are overjoyed. Maybe more than half. But 95%? No fair vote is 95%. And there’s no reason to think this was a fair vote:
Ethnic Ukrainians interviewed outside the Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral of Vladimir and Olga said they refused to take part in the referendum, calling it an illegal charade stage-managed by Moscow. Some said they were scared of the potential for widespread harassment.
There was never any question the vote would be for secession; no other result would have been allowed.
As for what the US, NATO, and Europe will do, I predict sanctions that will have little effect. And the eastern Ukraine, which is similar in Russian-leaning tendencies to Crimea, may be chomping at the bit to follow Crimea. It’s western Ukraine that wants greater ties to the west.
Oh, and by the way, let’s look at a little history in the area:
Crimea may have a majority Russian population today, but it hasn’t always been that way.
The peninsula’s dark history of ethnic cleansing is visible in the following chart from Reuters.
The chart shows a collapse in the population of native Crimean Tatars from 34.1% in 1897 to zero in 1959, marking brutal harassment leading up to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s forcible deportation of the entire population in 1944, with nearly half dying in the process. It took decades for the population to climb back to 12% by 2001.
While the population of Ukrainians and especially Russians rose, the percentage of the population falling into an unlisted category also fell from more than 20% in 1921 to around 5% in 1959. This was a consequence of the deportation of Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and other groups.
Here’s the chart:
Stalin paved the way.
Maureen Dowd…
…probably should not venture into the world of Yiddish.
Oy, vey! It will only give her tsuris instead of nachas.
Note to MoDo: not all “kve” words are alike.
The Flight 370 plot thickens
And it will get a lot thicker before this is through.
Captain Zaharie is now stepping to the forefront of authorities’ suspicions:
Captian Shah [Zaharie] was an ”˜obsessive’ supporter of Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood 53-year-old Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years.
Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges.
Police sources have confirmed that Shah was a vocal political activist ”“ and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset. It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777-200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew.
Ibrahim (also known as Anwar) seems like a relative good guy here, at least as best I can tell (and I can’t tell much, I freely admit). That certainly doesn’t mean all his supporters are.
This might explain the relative closed-mouthedness of the Malaysian government about the plane’s course and fate. However, if it was a political protest, it’s an extraordinarily extreme one for a pilot of all those years with a good record. And wouldn’t you think we’d have heard something from him by now about it? Protests only work if people know what’s being protested.
Of course, if Zaharie and the passengers are dead, we wouldn’t be hearing from him, except indirectly.
It was also announced that the plane may have sent a last ping while on the ground, and that Zaharie and his wife are either separated or divorced. And then there’s this: Zaharie or the co-pilot (or someone acting as pilot) seems to have spoken to ground control after one of the systems was turned off, and reported nothing awry.
I am relatively certain that there’s a lot more that authorities know that they’re not announcing.
[NOTE: Malaysian names turn out to be confusing, even to the newspapers. Sometimes people are referred to by one name, sometimes by another.
Here’s information about Ibrahim’s sodomy trials. This is a long-running tale in Malaysia, which sounds like quite a country—twenty-year imprisonment possible even for consensual sodomy, and a person can be convicted of sexual crimes on the testimony of one man or two woman. Sharia law.]
How many bassets does it take…
…to screw in a lightbulb?
No, I mean—to get cozy?