So all you have to do is get a utility canceled? That will seem pretty cheap compared to out-year penalties. After all, you can always reinstate with a deposit.
I wonder if that’s a changeable HHS rule, or in the law itself?
No, Veronique
The moon is not Antarctica.
Many of the “rocks have rights” crowd would like it to be, though. One of the problems with the Outer Space Treaty was that it was modeled on the Antarctic Treaty.
[Update a few minutes later]
Oh, Paul, please:
With launch costs of thousands of dollars per pound (and unlikely to come down significantly for the foreseeable future)
They are likely to come down to hundreds, or tens of dollars per pound within a decade, now that we have some actual competition and innovation happening in the industry.
Chris Christie Versus The Tea Party
Who’s better at getting Republicans elected?
Christie would be a disastrous nominee.
John Kerry’s Dream World
Triumphantly riding into the Middle East on a unicorn.
It’s frightening to contemplate how close this guy came to being president.
On the other hand, it would have been a Carteresque single term, and we’d have probably been spared Barack Obama.
Peak Office
Has America hit it? It’s probably the most likely trend to reduce traffic congestion in LA.
So Much For Trending Stories
In a sensible world, Randall Munroe would have just put a lot of “journalists” out of a job.
Obama And Gettysburg
Not all that stunning, really, to close observers. I assume he calculates that he’s already gotten as much political mileage as he needs, or is likely to get, from his faux association with Lincoln.
President Scam Artist
If Barack Obama were in the private sector, he’d be prosecuted for fraud:
Justice Department guidelines, set forth in the U.S. Attorneys Manual, recommend prosecution for fraud in situations involving “any scheme which in its nature is directed to defrauding a class of persons, or the general public, with a substantial pattern of conduct.” So, for example, if a schemer were intentionally to deceive all Americans, or a class of Americans (e.g., people who had health insurance purchased on the individual market), by repeating numerous times — over the airwaves, in mailings, and in electronic announcements — an assertion the schemer knew to be false and misleading, that would constitute an actionable fraud — particularly if the statements induced the victims to take action to their detriment, or lulled the victims into a false sense of security.
For a fraud prosecution to be valid, the fraudulent scheme need not have been successful. Nor is there any requirement that the schemer enrich himself personally. The prosecution must simply prove that some harm to the victim was contemplated by the schemer. If the victim actually was harmed, that is usually the best evidence that harm was what the schemer intended.
Of course, there’s nothing new about that. Social Security has been a Ponzi scheme since its inception.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I would note that there is only one constitutional remedy to a president who engages in criminal activity. The Republicans should at least contemplate it as a potential campaign issue next fall, as the president’s poll numbers continue to tank.
The Loudness Wars
Are they finally over, thanks to Apple?
I noted in an email to someone the other day that, just as young people have no concept of what quality phone service sounds like, many of them have never heard good music, either, due to the overcompression and crummmy digitalization over the past few decades. I hope that the article is right, and that we can get back to a good listening experience soon.
Obama’s Republic Of Lies
Some depressing thoughts on the state of the nation from Roger Kimball.