Enoch

One of the most consistent things throughout human history has been that the majority of people at any given point in time in any given society think that the world is on the road to hell, and that things were much more pure, virtuous, righteous, etc., a few generations ago. I do think that the world is in for a tough decade, economically speaking. But the U.S. is better equipped to deal with it than most of the rest of the world.

Only 15000 more pages of excrement to go! More entertaining are the accounts of how bat**** insane Rand was. Whatever you think of her philosophy, the story of her life and the little cult she founded is really quite interesting.

Avatar VI: The Na'vi-Ending Story

Um, no. The ones most in need of this bill probably do not make enough to pay Federal taxes. Not really. The biggest beneficiaries from a financial point of view are probably self-employed people and small businesses, who both currently face very high premiums if they want to provide health insurance for their themselves and/or their employees. The Medicaid expansion does help poorer people, but the truly indigent were already covered under existing Medicaid thresholds. The biggest increase in coverage resulting from this Bill will be among the so-called 'working poor'-- people with jobs that don't provide health insurance, that pay enough that they don't qualify for Medicaid under current thresholds, but that don't pay enough that they can afford to purchase coverage as an individual. These people may be largely excluded from federal income taxes (via the EITC), but they still pay federal payroll taxes, including the one that funds Medicaid.

Might & Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven It really has more in common with modern MMOs than it does with modern single-player CRPGS. The core appeal is in the character progression (XP, loot, gold, stat boosts) and in exploration (with a few pretty good puzzles thrown in), rather than in story, character, or gameworld originality. (The intro FMV is hilariously cheezy.) But the character progression is satisfying, with a very strong skill system providing customization beyond the initial class choice, and the exploration is consistently rewarding-- there are cool things to find in the out-of-the-way locations, and the un-scaled opponents of widely varying difficulty (character levels range into the 100s) make for some risk and some satisfying "return when you're stronger" moments of ass-kickery. The earlier M&M games 'hid the ball' a bit, with regard to the Big Secret underlying each gameworld. (The secret is ) But M&M 6 is more straightforward-- you know that there are who have invaded, and you know that your party is working to eventually defeat them. Of course, the .

Yeah, the next time I feel like throwing $10-$20 at Steam or GoG for some retro-gaming, I'm going to go for that multi-pack of old Lucasarts adventure games. For some reason I never played them back when they were new (although I did play several of their Sierra-made rivals). Other cheap old games I have downloaded at some point in the last couple years: Deus Ex, The Longest Journey, the Might & Magic I-VI multi-pack (that one was based on nostalgia rather than covering something I had missed-- M&M I was actually my first CRPG). I'm re-playing M&M 6 now.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that this legislation would involve the government in purchasing medical care. It relaxes the standards for people to qualify for Medicaid somewhat, and sets up exchanges that people can use to pool risk and negotiate with private insurers to cover all of them, but doesn't actually set up new programs for federal purchasing of medical care and services.

Actually, a lot of people who are unable to afford healthcare have been getting taxpayer-supported insurance for a long time. It's called Medicaid. (Also SCHIP, although that's only for children.) I'd argue that the healthcare providers are where reforms are needed to keep costs low, moreso than insurers. The real problem is that they can get away with charging $80,000 to fix a broken leg. It's a politically unappealing option, because everybody hates insurance companies, but they tend to like their own doctors, etc. IMO, you'll know that costs are being properly addressed when the AMA, Hospitals, device manufacturers, drugs manufacturers, heathcare-based litigators, and the like start screaming boody murder.

Can you explain this a bit more in detail? Can this bill really force people to get a private medical insurance? And, not being American myself, I have no idea of the extent to which the Supreme Court allows its rulings to be influenced by (partisan) politics and public opinion. If it's not mostly unaffected by that, what's the point of having such an organ to begin with, and by extension, a Constitution? The legislation is modeled in part on state-level policies (as in Massachusetts) that mandate health insurance coverage. The idea being that there is a pretty thoroughly documented market failure in health insurance markets: People know better than their insurers whether they are likely to need lots of medical coverage, but they still can't predict their future demand perfectly. Those who expect high medical bills will choose policies with good coverage, while other choose cheaper options. This selection process forces the insurers to raise premiums for this good policies (because it ends up with more costs than expected), which forces more and more less-medically-needy customers into cheap insurance. The cheap insurance policy has little incentive to improve its coverage and quality, will continue to cut coverage because it doesn't want to be undercut as the 'cheap option' by competitors, which would lead to it drawing an increasing share of sick people. The eventual "spreading equilibrium" in an unregulated market has the people expecting to be healthy opting out entirely, and the price of health insurance being prohibitively high, and only purchased by those people who expect to be sick enough to justify the cost. Setting a defined minimum policy and preventing people from opting out makes the equilibrium more stable and makes coverage more affordable for everyone else. As to whether Congress can permissibly do this, it remains to be seen. The bill recites that it does this under Congress' power to "regulate interstate commerce," but it is doing so in a way that is somewhat unprecedented, and over the last 25 years the Court has upheld a few challenges to statutes on the grounds that they were beyond the scope of the commece power. Officially, there is no feedback from public opinion to the Court, except that the Justices are originally appointed and confirmed (for life terms) by the political branches of government. But the Court can be subject to other political influence (its budget, its composition, and many aspects of its jurisdiction are set by statute rather than in the Constitution), and, most importantly, it doesn't actually have the authority to enforce its decisions itself. So all of the Justices are at least a little bit aware of the Court's institutional legitimacy. And that legitimacy comes largely from the perception that it is fair and not overtly political. This does influence outcomes. For example, starting with Brown v. Bd. of Education, the Court's internal leadership insisted that all desegregation decisions would be unanimous, because any dissention among the Justices could be read as an excuse for unwilling states to disregard the opinion. This tradition held throughout the civil rights cases the Court heard in the 50s and 60s. As a counter example, the Court outlawed prayer in public schools back in 1963. This was widely ignored for a long time (an informal poll of my Con Law classmates in 2003 revealed that a substantial majority of the students who had attended public school had seen some official school prayer). It reached the legally correct decision, but it didn't actually change much and it made a huge swath of the American public very angry at the Court. Some Justices try to avoid that kind of result. Aside: Some of the anger among the President's political opponents went a little too far. I want to , but there's nothing funny about what's going to happen to that guy.

What we need is you Brits to reform your defamation laws. If the British courts can punish the publisher of anything controversial that happens to wash up on their shores, speech rights around the world are chilled.

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I think that Social Security was effectuated via the taxing power. Legally, it's not a regulation of interstate commerce-- it's an income tax under the 16th Amendment coupled with an expenditure under the General Welfare clause.

I'm lukewarm on how the bill turned out, but it looks to me like it should lead to a situation that is better than the status quo. My biggest concern is that the U.S. is spending 16% of its GDP on healthcare expenses. Societies gain in wealth and influence by devoting their resources to the endeavors that offer the best real return on investment. Most healthcare expenses are analogous to overhead cost in this-- a certain level is necessary to keep everything else moving, but beyond a certain point they're wasteful. The bill doesn't do much about costs, but it does do something (mostly in providing a path to preventative care for the currently-uninsured who depend on expensive ER services), and the status quo is unsustainable. And extending health insurance to more of the population is, I think, a moral good. The legal challenges will be interesting. My bet is that the SCOTUS, as currently composed, won't think that the 'individual mandate' provision is within Congress' power. The Commerce Clause has never been used to mandate that individuals purchase a good or service before. Anthony Kennedy is generally the 'swing vote' on the politically sensitive cases. He has a pretty conservative record on Commerce Clause cases, although he also has a history of reading into public opinion and holding back from issuing decisions that would make the Court a bigger political target than it already is. The political fallout will be interesting, too. Everybody is talking about how the Dems are going to get hammered in the midterms. That is likely, but the longer-term outlook might well favor them. The GOP has bet very very heavily against this. It is only of middling popularity now, but that's largely the nature of legislation that promises a major overhaul. (I recall a line from Macchiavelli on this-- something about having the steadfast opposition of those who profited from the old rules, while only having lukewarm support from those who would profit from the new rules.) Republicans are quick to talk about repeal, but it's not going to happen while Obama holds the veto pen. And, by the time 2012 rolls around, if the sky hasn't fallen in like the GOP has promised us, and if the new law generally works as promised and people discover that they like many aspects of it, the record of Republican opposition could cripple the party for a long time. It's one thing to lose the rhetorical war of talking points-- it's another thing entirely to have one's over-the-top talking points proven wrong by actual evidence.

Eating the ice cubes left that my gin & tonic left behind.

Grilled bratwurst, on a bun with some Polish mustard and sauteed onions, with a side of steamed green beans. Washed down with a Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA.

Filled out my 2009 tax forms today. Should've done it months ago-- if my calculations are correct, we're due a significant return. Our withholding hasn't really changed since '08, but we bought the house in November of that year, and the various tax preferences favoring home-ownership made a big difference. (From a policy point of view, I think they're a bad idea, but they sure are nice when they're aimed at me!)

That assumes that the financial cost of one's gaming habit is more significant than the time commitment cost. On scaling, I think that developers need to ensure that their games offer a satisfying level of challenge to the player throughout his/her experience with the game. In a CRPG with some 'open world' qualities (e.g., anything that allows the player to take on obstacles in the order of their chosing, or to accumulate xp/loot/whatever with optional sidequests), scaling is one tool that they can use to do so, and if used well it can improve the users' experience.

Nice. Spend the summer driving around, trespassing, seducing lonely housewives...

Ah, yes, "Hardening." Taking one throw-away conversation choice and, without any warning to the player, making it govern that character's entire future.

Any DA:O ending that doesn't include Alistair drinking himself into an early grave in obscurity is simply unacceptable. It's more satisfying to make him King by persuading him to marry Anora, keeping Loghain alive and make Loghain the hero after doing the dark ritual. Isn't it impossible to both keep Loghain alive and make Al king?

Sample PhD proposition* (.pdf) * Not Really.

That's what I was going to suggest. I don't know where in Aussieland Gorth lives, but surely there are some varieties of native bush/shrub/tree/cactus that can thrive without much more than some pruning now and again?

At least the latter option usually comes up as a reasonable obstacle in moving towards some quest/plot/story goal. Ideally, either the combat should be tactically varied and fun enough that the repeated enemies aren't as onerous as you make it sound, or both options should be avoided.

Yeah, everything I said about the Council applies to Udina, too. Lame, cliched character design-- heap on the stereotypes people associate with "politician" and "bureaucrat," then make him behave like a petulant teenager just to be sure. They did everything short of tattoo "You're supposed to hate this guy" across his forehead. I picked him for the Council seat just because the game seemed to want me not to.

Any DA:O ending that doesn't include Alistair drinking himself into an early grave in obscurity is simply unacceptable.

Whaa?? So all the decisions made by my dead PC are ignored and reset to default in the expansion? Can anybody confirm this?