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Find me a single "external scientist" who investigated the literature, and found a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement of AGW. Just one.

fine

This happened once before with another corrupt scientist - Ancel Keys. His notorious "7 countries study" asserted a link between dietary fat intake and heart disease. As it turned out, his results were only caused by deleting data to "hide the decline" as it were. His ruthless pursuit of power led him to positions at the heart of government that led eventually to our dietary advice for lower-fat, and higher carbohydrate intake. He demanded that we act because the "science suggested" that there was a link between heart disease and dietary fat intake. In fact, he was wrong, and sent our country on an over 40 year path of increasing obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other chronic diseases.

Are you the one of the Taubes followers? It seems that crackpot science follows the same rules as conspiracy theories. (yes, fat was probably overblown, but the science self-corrected)

*EXACTLY THIS*. We've proven there is no such thing as "scientific consensus" on AGW (nor is science driven by consensus). So *of course* we're going to indict them when they try to form a "consistent message" when the *FACTS* contradict that message!

So 97% of climate scientists agreeing isn't consensus, though just in case someone doesn't buy that you'll say science isn't driven by consensus, presumably because that would provide a falsifiable hypothesis you would fail.

Quote a *SINGLE* one. Find me a single AGW paper that says "if we observe this, that, or the other, AGW is false, and if we *fail* to observe this, that, or the other, we must logically conclude AGW is true".

Just for fun, you'll note that I made my hypotheses falsifiable - "there is no AGW paper with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement of AGW" is falsified by a *single* observation of an AGW paper with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement of AGW. Find just *one*, and I'll admit I'm wrong :) Of course, since this is a simple hypothesis, you can logically see how if you can't even find *one*, then it's very likely that my hypothesis is true - the logical case for AGW would of course have to be more complex in order to show that the lacking observations couldn't also happen with natural climate change.

Here's a bunch. In specific "Satellite measurements of outgoing longwave radiation". CO2 trapping more heat in the atmosphere means that there will be less radiation emitted from the atmosphere in the related wavelength. That's a falsifiable hypothesis and it's a hypothesis they tested by looking at the thermal radiation.

Well, I think this guy qualifies as a "legitimate climate skeptic" -- at least, he used to. Then he dug into the data and learned that the AGW assertions match the data. When his understanding of the facts changed, he adjusted his opinion.

Richard Muller: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07...

So, if you looked at the right time, you'd have seen one. I imagine there is a lesson in that, somewhere.

The Lavabit case kind of makes cooperating with the government a no-brainer from a business perspective. If you try and defend the privacy of your users you'll just have a judge basically say "fuck you, I'm the law" and you either capitulate or get slapped with contempt of court which means your ass is in jail until you decide to do what the judge says. Either you cooperate or your out of business and in jail which is sad really because even though the FBI was pursuing Snowden and wound up on Lavabit's doorstep which then eliminated the whole service for everybody via judicial action. Not saying that Snowden peed in the pool but the American Justice System was the culprit here and they're they ones that peed all over our Privacy rights in this case. The only way this will be solved is if there's a constitutional amendment reaffirming the 4th and 5th amendments along with your right to Privacy. I don't expect to see that in my lifetime because we have too many big players who want to intrude on your privacy. From Google to Facebook to License Plate Scanning companies, they are making money off of your actions and they'll be the first whiney bitches in front of congress any time there's any kind of legislation pending that could disturb their revenue stream. Wake up America, time to take your country back! Wait, nobody? Meh. Fuck it then.

the possibility that neocotinoids are the main cause of colony collapse has been all over the news in the past two years, outside of north america.

even the new york times picked up on this - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03...

the harvard research in question has been mentioned, off an on, over the past six months, to a year at perhaps most.

politely - are you sure of what you are claiming?

Under-paid?

Average teacher salaries. California had the nation's highest average salary in 2002-03, at $55,693. States joining California in the top tier were Michigan, at $54,020; Connecticut, at $53,962; New Jersey, at $53,872; and the District of Columbia, at $53,194.

Source: http://www.educationworld.net/salaries_us.html

Being one of the highest paid, it's kind of strange that Mark identified New Jersey as the school system in need of help. From all appearances the US is saddled on the high-end of average yet performance is far from. It's a real pain when there's actual metrics to by which to measure these crap arguments. Funny how the teacher unions are so against them. I'd accept your "the system" argument if and only if you included the union to which these teacher belong.

Don't you Foxbots have anything better to say than AAAAALLLLL GOOOOORRRRRE!?

It was not Fox, but Al Gore himself, who made Al Gore the face of the global movement for control masquerading as a virtuous fight against Global Warming, nay, Climate Change, no, what's the term du jour, — Climate Disruption yeah, that is it.

That said, the designation is serving Mr. Gore pretty well — he is already 50 times richer, then he was during Vice-Presidency — so I don't know, what you are complaining about.

Don't you Foxbots have anything better to say than AAAAALLLLL GOOOOORRRRRE!?

It was not Fox, but Al Gore himself, who made Al Gore the face of the global movement for control masquerading as a virtuous fight against Global Warming, nay, Climate Change, no, what's the term du jour, — Climate Disruption yeah, that is it.

That said, the designation is serving Mr. Gore pretty well — he is already 50 times richer, then he was during Vice-Presidency — so I don't know, what you are complaining about.

Seriously, A+. People act as if non-internet voting isn't already plagued with huge problems, many of which a secure net voting system can eliminate. I mean, come on, in the last presidential election Chechnya had 99.59% turnout with 99.82% voting for the "Butcher of Grozny", with one precinct in Grozny with turnout over 107%. Think that's legit? Vote corruption in places like Russia is often done at the precinct/district level, levels which are entirely eliminated by net voting. You also reduce the threat of violence by not having to show up in person.

Nothing is perfect. But a lot of the stuff against net voting seems to me knee-jerk and based on implementations with half-arsed security audits or no security audit at all, with a complete ignoring of how easy conventional elections often are to manipulate.

I think part of the problem is that some of us still remember the two German Killers who tried to get Wikipedia to remove the entries listing them and the crimes they committed as part of a "right to be forgotten." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html?_r=0

Thankfully, it looks like Wikipedia is still listing the names. If this "right to be forgotten" is upheld, how long until it is used to erase past misdeeds from online sources? What is the limit to the power to erase bad things about you online? If I harass someone and that person makes a post about it, can I sue them to erase the post over my "right to be forgotten"? Does this extend to companies? Can a corporation sue to remove all mentions of an industrial accident because they settled in the courts over it and thus are demanding that it "be forgotten"?

The department’s plan is to take the uranium made at Indian Point, now stored in 403 stainless steel tubes at a plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and bury the containers at a low-level waste dump that consists of trenches that are up to 40 feet deep at the Nevada National Security Site, where nuclear weapons were tested until 1992. Workers will dig narrow “slit trenches” at the bottom of the standard ones, descending another 8 to 10 feet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09... So yeah, looks like they actually are trying to do this again.

Here you go:

Clear weather flooding in Miami, FL.

Sea level has risen about 8 inches since 1900.

Wow, really? A couple hundred deaths a year from toddlers alone? Please cite a source for that, other than your ass.

Unfortunately, the NRA has made a mission out of suppressing demographic research on gun violence. Because, you know, freedom.

However, there is a good deal of evidence that the rate is significantly underreported.

Wow, really? A couple hundred deaths a year from toddlers alone? Please cite a source for that, other than your ass.

Unfortunately, the NRA has made a mission out of suppressing demographic research on gun violence. Because, you know, freedom.

However, there is a good deal of evidence that the rate is significantly underreported.

Yes, there was a super majority. It wasn't as effective as thought because Democrats kept electing Kennedy and Byrd in honor of their efforts to murder Blacks and women throughout their lives.

The Democrats’ 134-Day Supermajority

Democrats Had a Filibuster-Proof Senate Majority for 72 Days During President Obama’s First Term

A fleeting, illusory supermajority

Democrats' Senate Supermajority Not as Strong as Advertised

What’s So Super About a Supermajority?

111th United States Congress

It's pretty common knowledge. It was $4.69 at the end of 2011. [1] And it was $5.54 in the middle of 2013. [2] And this is ONLY for ESPN proper. Additional properties all have their own price (ESPN2 is another $0.70, for instance). By forcing cable companies to gouge all their customers, ESPN is able to pay $2 billion a year just for Monday night football. As cable subscriptions shrink, that model will become much more difficult. 1 - http://www.sportsgrid.com/medi... 2 - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08...

In the US, the number is closer to 1:27, since only 3.8% of the population identify as LGBT. Other research on the topic indicates that social pressure may be pushing that number down, but that even if everyone who was LGBT identified as LGBT, the number would still only be around 5% of the US' population.

For some perspective on whether or not 3.8-5% gets considered to be an anomaly, I have Morton's toe, which occurs in about 10% of the population, yet it's still considered an anomaly. If an uncontroversial variation of the human human toe with 2-3x more occurrences than the thing you're asking about is still considered an anomaly, then it seems to me that you've already answered your own question.

Mind you, I'm not prescribing that it should be called that. I'm merely describing that, given the numbers and other occurrences against which we might compare it, it seems like it would fall in line with being called as such. Take it with some salt.

I started reading but soon moved on to just skimming the article.

So did I, but I didn't find the 1 fact that would be most relevant to this conversation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/officials-say-us-may-never-know-extent-of-snowdens-leaks.html

Officials said Mr. Snowden, who had an intimate understanding of the N.S.A.â(TM)s computer architecture, would have known that the Hawaii facility was behind other agency outposts in installing monitoring software.

According to a former government official who spoke recently with Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the N.S.A. director, the general said that at the time Mr. Snowden was downloading the documents, the spy agency was several months away from having systems in place to catch the activity.

The Hawaii network that Snowden was assigned to had not yet had its security upgraded as part of the fallout from Manning's massive leak.
Most, if not all, of the security measures mentioned in this book summary had already been implemented elsewhere and Snowden intentionally picked Hawaii because of this.

I hope the book goes into more detail, since it has been reported that the Snowden leaks have forced the NSA to consider further security measures beyond what they were already putting into place because of Manning.

I'll see your reference and raise you one:

http://www.spiegel.de/internat... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...

So what's your point? Both situations are possible. And unlikely. Oh and for the love of god, please strip out the "m." in your website reference.

You missed the part where the House Republicans voted to end net neutrality years ago, only to be stopped by the Senate Democrats.

You also missed the part where Obama implemented a limited net neutrality via executive order, only to have that struck down by the courts, following a lawsuit by Verizon.

You also missed the part where Republicans cheered the court's ruling, declaring that net neutrality is "socialism".

Look here, or just google "obama net neutrality court" for a dozen other sources.

Here's the lede, in case you're too lazy to click:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down regulations that require Internet providers to treat all traffic the same, dealing a potentially fatal blow to President Obama’s push for “net neutrality.”

Opponents of the rules, led by plaintiff Verizon, hailed the decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals as a victory over government meddling in the marketplace.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), one of the biggest opponents of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules in Congress, applauded the court for striking down “socialistic regulations.”

Do you get it yet? The Democrats have been fighting for years to try to keep net neutrality around. The Republicans have fought to destroy it. The Republicans won, because the courts were on their side. And now you blame ...the Democrats.

This is why things will never get better. This is why you will lose everything, bit by bit. Because you don't pay attention, and you lash out at the same people who tried to fight for you. Really, you deserve to lose.

Obama and putin are buddy buddy

Some times I wish this were true, but it is not. I think, Obama is genuinely and sincerely appalled by Putin's aggression against Ukraine and other countries. He is just caught completely by surprise — Obama is a master of class warfare rhetoric, which helps him domestically, but he is learning foreign relations as well as simple history of the world on the job.

This is not me — a racist RethugliKKKan saying it — sympathetic newspapers in 2008 agreed, that it is Joe Biden, who brings foreign policy heft to the ticket:

Mr. Biden is among the best-informed lawmakers on international affairs, a gap in Mr. Obama’s résumé.

I'd say, things could've been a lot worse under an Administration, where a jovial lunatic is the primary fount of foreign policy expertise. Or, maybe, they are just as bad as they could get...

Whereas Putin is an expert, Obama is a neophite — an out-of-his-league amateur. While Putin can order his army into Ukraine at any moment — they already have "PEACEKEERS" painted on their helmets and vehicles — Obama can't even muster enough determination to send body-armor to Ukrainian military.

Maybe partly because as soon as money is bought into the equation, people become less moral.

'The scientists behind the work at the Scripps Research Institute have already formed a company to try to use the technique to develop new antibiotics, vaccines and other products.'

Step 1: Use public funds to do innovative research into expanding the genetic code in microbes.

Step 2: Patent everything to make sure no one else can build on your discoveries.

Step 3: Create a company that promises all the keywords for a biotech e.g. antibiotics, vaccines, etc.

Step 4: Get bought out

Step 5: ? Profit was Step 4.

Remember when science was about discovery and standing on the shoulders of giants?

I was being facetious.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/09/business/energy-environment/pipeline-spills.html

Many birds fly 18 hours straight. Some species longer.

Cornell has some information you may want to read, as do some other sources. Birds fly before sunrise and after sunset, even in complete darkness. Some species fly right through the night during migration.

Yeah, when was the last time they took up a case about quartering troops in people's houses or made damn sure that suits at common law for $20 would be tried by juries? Oh, wait, you probably mean the second amendment. The one that already has the NRA standing up for it with twice the total budget of the ACLU. But if it makes you feel better, the ACLU has actually defended gun owners before: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04...

No, solar panels do NOT "need to be replaced in 10-12 years".

http://energyinformative.org/lifespan-solar-panels/ "The majority of manufacturers offer the 25-year standard solar panel warranty, which means that power output should not be less than 80% of rated power after 25 years." Even the ones that drop the most, efficiency wise, are still at 80% or better after 11 years.

Warranties from some Chinese firms are now 10-12 years. Found a relevant article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...

"Executives at companies that inspect Chinese factories on behalf of developers and financiers said that over the last 18 months they have found that even the most reputable companies are substituting cheaper, untested materials."

"“There are a lot of shortcuts being taken, and unfortunately it’s by some of the more reputable companies and there’s also been lot of new companies starting up in recent years without the same standards we’ve had at Suntech,” said Stuart Wenham, the chief technology officer of Suntech, which is based in Jiangsu Province in eastern China."

"“If the materials aren’t good or haven’t been thoroughly tested, they won’t stick together and the solar module will eventually fall apart in the field,” he said."

Today, the NY Times had a map of the U.S. And it compared 1910-1960 temperatures to 1991-2012. And exclaimed how much hotter the U.S. was.

A few things to note:

1. The traditional south around the gulf was actually cooler.

2. 1901-1960 is a mere 60years. 1991-2012 approx. 20 years. That is an extremely small section of climate, and I would argue far too small to have ANY statistical relevance.

3. Why were the years selected? Why not 1901-1955, and 1960-2010. How does 2001-2012 compare?

4. Most of the temperature increases are 1 degree. A few spots 2 degrees. Obersvations:

> the northeast is a bit warmer, but the southern gulf area is cooler. So it appears there has been some shift in circulation.
> many of the areas that have seen the most warming highly populated areas: Southern California (LA/SD), Northeast corridor (NJ/NYC/CT/RI/Boston/Portland). Alberquerque, NM....lit up in red. Granted NOT all that is lit up red corresponds to population centers but a lot sure does. Oh, and that Montana, Minnesota, etc corridor that is red at the top. Well look at a population map of Canada and you will see that nearly 90% of Canada's population lives just north of the U.S. border. So I wager that represents Canada's population growth. Yes, there are some weird anomalies in Nevada, Utah and Colorado that do not correspond well to populations. But they in fact do...if you understand that entire region is the river basin that feeds the southwest. And that California's immense consumption of water has significantly reduced the water present in those regions.

If anything, this map represents to me a clear demonstration of the heat island affect of urban areas. Something most global warming alarmists glaringly deny, but which many others have put forth evidence to substantiate. (Oh, I should point to the fact that they only deny it when it regards the U.S., they're more than willing to accept said postulation when it relates to cutting down South American rainforests. Which should be stopped. We should be using bamboo, hemp and other fast growing weeds and grasses for consumables.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...

Oh forget it, you are being intentionally obtuse. You don't WANT to understand you are wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2...

2005 is the peak, it starts going down late 2005 as the recession that hits the US starts in 2006-2007, but has been a slowdown in Europe.

It's so convenient to argue against yourself isn't it? No need to ask him what he actually thinks (his email address is readily available) or read any of his many essays. You might be particularly interested in a list of surveillance examples found in proprietary software including one pertinant description for a program you just mentioned—"Angry Birds spies for companies, and the NSA takes advantage to spy through it too.".

A lot, and I do mean a lot of the international difficulties people have with vaccination programs is their frequent use as a cover for intelligence operations.

There is no such thing as "Pro Russian Militants" or pro-Russian anything.

You are full of yourself if you think that at very least one third (namely, the southseast) of Ukraine are not pro-Russian. Why don't you educate yourself before posting? For example read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...

Russia is a corrupt cleptocracy run by criminals.

Completely baseless statement. Putin was the strongest, most organized and honest leader Russia had in about a century. He is the one who was cleaning up the Russian government from the criminals that took over in the 90s.

The Ukraine is being annexed on the behalf of a handful of Putin's ultra-rich backers that sit to make untold billions off of the natural resources they can exploit there. (Or ship through there via a pipeline)

Another completely baseless statement. Ukraine is a lot poorer than Russia. If anything, Russia has to subsidize Crimea and other annexed regions big time. There is no money to be made in Ukraine.

As for pipelines, Russia is already building an pipeline on the bed of Baltic to completely bypass these unstable Russophobic regions, like West Ukraine and Poland, to reach Germany directly. Once this pipeline is completed, all others become worthless.

Fortunately Russia is effectively a failed state.

Another baseless garbage statement. A failed state does not launch astronauts into space, field aircraft carriers, conduct Olympic games, or build oil platforms in the arctic.

So corrupt and screwed up that less than a month's worth of economic sanctions are making their house of cards criminal-run economy crater.

Those sanctions are toothless and have nothing to do with the real economy. Let me remind you that when the 2008 Georgian War started, the Russian stocks lost more than half of their value (a lot more than right now) immediate. Yet, they recovered in less than a year. The decisions of nervous western investors are pretty much meaningless. In less than a year, they will be begging to be allowed back into Russian stocks and businesses. Right now Russians are not going to cry a river over losing 1% of economic growth. The slowdown is temorary but annexing Crimea is forever. Big net gain for Russians.

Putin is also a bit of a coward. He'll give up in a few more months when his buddies who are no longer making money hand over fist start thinking about replacing him.

Another stupid and baseless statement. I follow Russian politics and I haven't seen any of key figures of Russian politics replaced within something like 7-8 years. It's exactly the same people running the show. It's actually getting boring IMO.

As a result, on 9-11 (2001) it was Bill Clinton's appointee George Tenet (Democrat) serrving as CIA director and NOT some Republican Bush appointee.

That may explain why the CIA attempted to warn the White House multiple times. What explains the White House ignoring the warnings? "Oh, it can't be true, Tenet is a Dem!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html

There was an article from 2010 that talked about the theoretical limit to laser beam energy. From the article:

"At high laser intensities interaction of the created electron and positron with the laser field can lead to production of multiple new particles and thus to formation of an avalanche-like electromagnetic cascade"

Here's the link to the article in question: http://physicsbuzz.physicscent...

That article was ultimately using this article as a source.

The New York Times made a Rock-Paper-Scissors Flash-based bot a few years back. It's essentially exactly what the summary is talking about, since it learns your patterns and will in short order begin winning against you far more than merely 1-in-3 times. Alternatively, if you play the Veteran version of the bot, it has knowledge of all of the patterns from anyone who has ever played it, and it starts off beating you right from the start. If you could smuggle that into the casino, I'd be willing to bet that you could increase your winnings rather significantly

The NY Times has a summary of the 6 patents involved.

They are:

1. Click on an underlined phone number to dial the number
2. Search your phone for stuff
3. Do two tasks at one time
4. Slide to unlock
5. Compress data to minimize transmission time
6. Put your photos into one location

Which of those 6 patents covers a non-obvious idea?

Wolf-PAC has been working at the state level for quite some time now to convice the states to have an Article V convention to amend the constitution. A former SCOTUS member John Paul Stevens has even gone on record saying an amendment is the only real way to fix the problem. Vermont's house is voting on it today (it already passed the Senate).

But Senate supporters of the measure said they would apply whatever pressures they can muster on the House and called on constituents to write and call their representatives. "The House better understand the power of an idea whose time has come," said Senator Joseph R. Biden, the Delaware Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee.

surely you see the difference between a vote on the assault weapons ban and a vote to "ban guns". methinks you're being dishonest.

Actually: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09...

I suspect that all it will take is some paparazzi crashing their drone into some famous persons house (you know, someone whos opinion the government actually cares about) and they'll link that story to story to the one above and "I could have been killed!" yada yada and drones will be banned for civilian use to protect our movie stars. You know it's only a matter of time.

I dunno, given that the average American houshold is only slightly above Greece, maxed out US credit card info may not be particularly valuable: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04...

That's why the HFTs installed their own dedicated fiber-optic lines between key exchanges that were "straighter" than the public network to shave a few milliseconds off the roundtrip time at the cost of $100's of millions. Why do you think they did that? So they could improve their WoW latency?

That was only one of the techniques they used to manipulate the market. NY Times has a nice article about the book that brought this to peoples' attention.

Except that you have no control over whether that book will remain on your Kindle. You just have to have faith that your books won't be revoked for $SomeRandomReason.

Famous example: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...
More recent example: http://digitaljournal.com/arti...

What is this "copier/xerox/scanner" you speak of?

Just thought I'd leave this here for some laughs. :-)

Note that one key element of cost of any service is population density, not population.

So what's the excuse for high prices and slow speeds in places such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, etc? Those would certainly qualify as population dense.

The fact of the matter is the FCC, just like Congress and local governments, has been bribed to allow near monopolies to exist rather than enforcing existing laws regarding competition. As a result the U.S. continues to fall further and further behind the rest of the industrialized world in broadband penetration, speed and obviously, price.

Currently we are ranked lower than places in the former Soviet Union for both speed and price, and well behind places such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. You can keep using the excuse of population density and large land area, but the reality of the situation is we have only 3 (maybe 4) providers in this country who have tacitly agreed not to compete with each other, the end result being what we have now: low speeds for high prices.

Link one for reference

Link two for reference

Link three for reference

Note that all of the above links are from November-December of 2013, less than six months ago so the information is up to date.

Distributed solar panels, installed at a taxpayer-funded discount and all the electricity they generate being sold back to the utilities at above-market rates are not the answer.

Neither is putting tiny solar panels on telephone poles...

We stop eating meat, people breed until the damage is equivalent to what we're doing now.

Ah, westerner pretending the problem is poor people having babies, when you have to get 30 people from developing nations to match your narcissism.

The conservative vision is to keep around the useful people and make sure they're doing well.

The rest nature will sort out.

Social Darwinism isn't going to make conservatives appear less sociopathic, you know. Also nevermind that you define "useful" as in "how much money my daddy made."

it's well established that Germany is covering over 25% of their energy demands with wind & solar. They're planning to nearly double this within 10 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04...

The census is changing the way they are measuring the numbers, so we won't know after they release their report, either.

Well .. People who are being honest, and aren't complete idiots, will be able to tell success stories.

People who have rates that tripled were the ones with such shit plans that insurance wouldn't cover anything.

I was in a car accident before the ACA took effect. I had "good" insurance through my employer. My insurance wouldn't cover the surgery necessary to do pesky things like to let me walk normally again. Most of my prescriptions weren't covered, and those that were, were about 10% less than the cash price.

Then they laid me off. A good part of that was that I was no longer pleasant at work (I was, and am, in a lot of pain). Another part was, my walking speed dropped to about 0.3mph at best. Ya, I bothered to measure it.

Because I was laid off, I couldn't afford $1,200/mo that COBRA offered (the cost of that plan, without the employer paying anything).

When open enrollment started, I enrolled. I was still unemployed, with no income. I was having a hard time finding a job, since it was difficult to walk or drive far. They put me in the Medicaid plan. Communication from Medicaid was non-existent, and the site only said that they would contact me.

I finally got a job, with some people I had worked with before, and now had an income. I went back to the site, and modified my application with my new income numbers. I spent several hours going through the plans, and picked one that was a bit expensive, but covered just about everything. This new plan that covers fuck-all everything, and has a relatively small yearly out of pocket max, cost about $400. That's only a little more than what I was paying for my employer provided insurance. It did take about a week for the insurance company to contact me for my initial payment, and another week for me to get my card. I guess I could complain about that, but considering we're dealing with both the government *and* insurance companies, a couple weeks turnaround from no insurance to having the card in my hand, is pretty damned good.

About the time I got the insurance card I paid for, I got a letter and card from Medicaid. I called them and told them to cancel me, since I no longer needed the free insurance.

I called the doctor, and made another appointment with them. They checked everything out, and surgery is covered. Surgery is scheduled for a few weeks from now.

While I was there, he refilled my pain meds. When I went to the pharmacy, they came up as $100. I hadn't given them the new insurance cards yet, so they redid it. $4/ea.

This last month has been great. I'm getting surgery that I couldn't have with my pre-ACA insurance. My insurance bill is 1/3 of what it was. My meds are effectively free. After I recover from surgery, I'll (hopefully) be pain free. The accident wasn't "bad", but it messed up my back pretty badly. It *might* take 6 surgeries or so. If they all happen within the year, my max out of pocket will be about $4,500. Considering each surgery will cost tens of thousands of dollars, I'm very very pleased.

My only complaint would be that the whole medical industry is still raping us. Medical costs in the US far exceed what they are in other countries. There's no reason an IV bag of saline solution should cost over $1,000, when it takes less than a minute to set up, and the supplies cost less than $5 to manufacture.

Being transported from the accident I mentioned to the hospital cost almost $1,000. It was less than a mile, and all they did was put on a cervical collar, tied me to the backboard, and drove me there. I won't even go into the other insane expenses I've incurred from then until now.

Hardly..

Finding the applicants is not the problem, as you can see by looking at the number of applicants for the very few seats.

Unless totally unqualified people were applying .. but that still begrudges the question: why aren't these Nawth Ca''lina universities teaching what the students want?

Oh .. yeah .. sorry, I forgot. All that money going for Black Studies.

http://espn.go.com/college-spo...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01...