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Regarding the need for actuaries, sure, there are certain high risk areas, and it would be logical for those people choosing to live there to pay more in taxes to accomodate the neccessary public services. But for the other 95% of us, the chances of our house burning down is about equal.

I can't comment on proportion or risk spread in house fires, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say your 95% figure sounds entirely fictional. I will say that medical costs and risks are pretty predictable for a similar proportion in the general population, though. If you control for income, inherited diseases, uncontrollable environmental conditions (contaminated drinking water, living near superfund sites, etc.), and normally high end-of-life expenses, you should have a pretty normal distribution of medical expenditures in society. People who are involved in catastrophic accidents will have higher expenditures than the more fortunate among us, but overall the average person is moderately healthy when they have access to routine care.

If it were economical to privatize fire & police services, I would support it. I just have yet to see a business model where several fire/police departments can compete against each other and offer the same level of EMERGENCY service.

Usually the business model is "Company signs an exclusive monopoly contract to provide fire services for _____ County. ____ re-hires existing firefighters at reduced pay, reduces training programs, and citizens eventually discover that the contract wasn't written the way they thought it was." Government programs aren't inherently less efficient than private industry, and they certainly are sometimes better bang for the buck than private for-profit industry.

I think you are really stretching here. You seriously think lifestyle, eating habits, and exercise significantly affects the probability that your house burns down? Housing location? Maybe, but not for the majority of us.

Stretching? What percent of house fires are caused by cooking accidents? Overloaded or poorly maintained electrical systems? Smokers who fall asleep with the cigarette in their hand? People who light candles and leave them unattended? What about old space heaters? The majority of house fires are preventable. We've launched a lot of public education programs over the years, but we say "even if you're responsible for the fire, it's good public policy for the government to go and put it out." Fact: the majority of home fires in the US are preventable.

Yes, the [municipal] government-run firecare program doesn't reimburse you for your lost goods, but a national health care program wouldn't reimburse you for your lost wages or time, either.

Regarding the factors not in our control, they are pretty much taken care of already. DNA testing is not (currently) being used to determine your insurance eligibility.

DNA testing isn't currently being used, but family history of illness and conditions is. So is such an exhaustive list of pre-existing conditions that it's essentially impossible to get insurance without declaring one. If you were ever diagnosed with a genetic disorder, or diagnosed with a disease later, you will forever have that held against you in the insurance system. Likewise for things you never were diagnosed with but "should have known".

If you are in a car accident, you will be treated in the emergency room. If you are the victim of a crime, you will also be treated.

Car accident, yes, but if the other party is un/underinsured and can not afford your care, and your insurance doesn't cover you, you will probably end up bankrupt.

Victims of crime, however, are given no special exemption from these enormous bills. I submit to you Heather Sherba, the LA Fitness shooting survivor who was desperately stru

The city has been trying for years to get the universities and hospitals to pay something, ANYTHING to help the city with its budget situation. [...] What the mayor is doing, is trying to pressure the universities to come to the negotiating table to help support the city in its time of financial need

Ah yes, those pressing financial needs, like paying $250,000 for 250 trash cans with mayor Ravenstahl's name on them.

Those freeloading universities should be ashamed of themselves. If 5000-student CMU had any decency, they would increase students' tuition by $50 per person, to pay for those trash cans. It's downright unconscionable to think that they might choose not to do that.

occupy lots of space and valuable real estate

You know, you're talking Pittsburgh here - if the universities were to close tomorrow, property values would drop like a rock. Pittsburgh is second only after the places hit by hurricane Katrina in terms of population decline - and it's continued since that article was written in 2007. Pittsburgh - it IS the pits - armpits that is.

The worst part? It's not salvageable. Puts it right at the top, along with Detroit, as one of the 50 cities most likely to disappear over the next 2 decades.

As a CMU student (sort of), this doesn't surprise me, and I invite Luke Ravenstahl to kiss my poor ass. Considering this guy prioritizes money in the most bogo-riffic ways (e.g. spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on fancy trash cans sporting his name) it seems clear he is not and has not been fit to run the city.

Pittsburgh's new economy is fueled by the universities*. Everybody knows this. Taxing the students---those people least able to pay---is akin to cannibalism.

Of course, what will happen is students will just borrow a bit more and stack on a little more debt. So maybe Luke's idea is to get students to hedge their futures on his present financial problems.

* And the Steelers

It was discussed here, but the first link I found was http://kdka.com/politics/republican.it.guru.2.893852.html .

There's even more profit in REPLACING the now 'breached' current presidential helicopter fleet over these blueprints.
Don't even think that this has primary IT implications.
This is more about giving the polititians cover to continue the cost overruns.

Lockheed-Martin signed a contract four years ago to build 28 new helicopters for $6.1 billion. Numerous Pentagon-mandated changes have ballooned the price tag to $11.2 billion - meaning each of the new choppers would cost $400 million, or as much as Air Force One.

Marine One Upgrade Plan Stirs Debate

A helicopter (one) that costs as much as (one) Boeing 747!

Wow...

I wish it caused people like that to lose sleep at night. The really sick thing is that it is unlikely that it causes the people who push these cases to lose any sleep.

Guess they didn't like my submission of this story, so here's the original news story and one from Faux News.
Similar incidents in Ohio and Indiana.

The tips include warnings not to use your phone on a bus, so as not to passively expose others. I'll take that as text book FUD. In the video footage that accompanies the news piece here, when asked why there's a lack of evidence to support such advice the answer is that "you [don't] want to have enough sick or dead people, before you take action, to prevent harm...". Apparently, there's not enough data about cell phones leading to death simply because we don't want people to die. The current evidence infers that we should have minimal concerns for this issue. Does that make this public health warning unethical, or just proactively cautious? A brief review of the clinical research is here. I personally think this is worth losing his position over. In my view panic-inducing pseudo-concern ends up with a backlash against science. We should trust our MDs to advise us for our health, and this is not currently a health issue. If the research changes that in a decade, we can talk about it then.

Local TV news coverage from April 4.

Includes video feed.

It's also the only source I've seen that mentions that 34 other calls were logged that night.

Black market money exchange thrives in Zimbabwe, where soda costs $40 at official rate

Just happened to be a fark link today, but it's relevent in this post. Zimbabwe might have pegged their money at $250 ZD to $1 USD, but due to economic realities it's closer to $20k to $1 on the black market.

Just because something's illegal doesn't mean that it doesn't have value. Indeed, in the case of drugs, it frequently increases their value.

You could make a good case for the companies that sell WoW gold to pay the normal taxes of a commercial organisation, however i strongly suspect most of them are outside US jurisdiction.

And there's the rub. Americans play WoW for entertainment, not profit. Even those that sell probably don't make enough to cover their expenses(Key, subscription, ISP fees) and make even minimum wage.

His password would turn out like this.

You live west of the Mississippi, don't you?