Expect The Unexpected

David Brooks has an interesting column appraising the implementation of ObamaCare. However, he taxes my impulse control and nearly prompts head-banging and hair-pulling with this:

Everything is turning out to be more complicated than originally envisioned.

Envisioned by whom?!?!? Anyone who has ever renovated a bathroom has had an opportunity to learn that there is no project so simple that it won't be underestimated. One might have hoped that the wizard who removed lots of the asbestos from Altgeld Gardens had learned that, but no.

To continue the gloom:

Then there is the technical cascade. At some point, people are going to sit at computers and enroll. If the data process looks like some 1990s glitchmonster, if information doesn’t flow freely, then the public opinion hit will be catastrophic.

Then there is the cost cascade. Nearly everybody not in the employ of the administration agrees this law does not solve the cost problem, and many of the recent regulatory decisions will send costs higher.

...

Then there is the adverse selection cascade. Under the law, young healthy people subsidize poorer, sicker and older people. But the young may decide en masse that it is completely irrational for them to get health insurance that subsidizes others while they are healthy. They’ll be better off paying the fines, if those are even enforced, and opting out. Without premiums from the young, everybody else’s costs go up even higher.

Then there is the provider concentration cascade. The law further incentivizes a trend under way: the consolidation of hospitals, doctors’ practices and other providers. That also boosts prices.

Obama will be fining healthy young people of favored ethnic or gender status? I can relieve that concern - pigs will fly first. Unless the only non-enrollees are Mitt Romney's sons, it will be waivers all around. Why bother electing patronage politicans unless they deliver the patronage?

Brooks closes with a deplorable false choice:

Regulatory regimes can be simple and dumb or complex and sprawling. When you build complex, it takes a while to work through the consequences.

We have the trifecta of complex, sprawling and dumb.

TO WHICH I SHOULD ADD: Chicago machine politicians, to pick a nearly random example of Big Government types, aspire to create an impenetrably complicated governing structure with themselves as the indispensable intermediaries between their constituents and that indecipherable government.

ObamaCare is simply the Dems attempt to bring that ploy to the national stage. Eager Democrats lok to the day they can double their staffs and provide endless constituent service as broker to Health and Human services.

And what about the notion of a government of laws, not of men? In practice, if the government is allowed to write enough complicated rules we end up with a de facto government of men. Which is great for professional power brokers, if not the rest of us.

Comments

[Threadkiller]

Aldo the Amender Bender:

http://www.ferrerlaw.com/blog/2013/03/aldo-the-drug-sniffing-dog-gets-respect-from-the-us-supreme-court.shtml

[narciso]

This is sort of resembling the first WTC plot, with the codicil of the other plot;

http://riehlworldview.com/2013/04/hmm-azamat-tazhayakov-and-dias-kadyrbayev-owners-of-terrorista-1-bmw-license-plate-with-the-boston-bomber-in-times-sq.html

[jimmyk]

Amazing: They just found landing gear from one of the planes that hit the WTC. Where did they find it? Wedged next to the site of the "ground zero mosque" a few blocks from the WTC.

Typepad won't let me link the article.

[Cecil Turner]

But Aldo didn't alert to drugs for which he was capable of sniffing out. Instead, what the officer found inside the vehicle was some of the stuff used to make meth. This means that Aldo gave a false-positive, and despite that false-positive, the justices ruled there was probable cause for the search.

Bull. The defendant later admitted he'd been cooking meth, which Aldo was trained to detect, and Aldo alerted twice on the driver's door handle. The logical conclusion is not that Aldo rendered a "false positive" but that Wheetly the moron touched the door handle soon after cooking meth.

[Threadkiller]

So, you are sayin a test kit was used on the door handle to remove all doubt?

[Threadkiller]

Dead door handles tell no tales:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1wd1hGPY24

[Janet]

Between the NYT reporting on the Pigford fraud, the story of the illegals getting tax rebates, terrorists getting welfare money, "green" company scams...it should be the end of the immigration bill. Who is verifying all the applications? These are just giant unmanageable fraud schemes.

and then the internet tax story?...really?...they want MORE money? Who can stand to send one more dime to government? I would rather the government say I must give some percentage of my money away...& then I choose who I give it to...than giving THEM any more money.

[Janet]

and maybe we need to HAMMER the self-certification fraud. Make Phony Cherokee Warren the "Chief". That's her damn expertise....have her weigh in on all these programs & who exactly is gonna be verifying the applications of millions of illegals?
Is anyone accountable?
Is anyone fired for the Pigford fraud?
the illegal immigrant tax fraud?
Do the people that lied on the applications get jail time? Is there any repercussions?

Billions wasted in the Pigford fraud...& what? Nothing, that's what. Why write the damn story if nothing happens?

[Janet]

Frau's 9:02 post is something.

[Patriot4Freedom]

pagar - Sorry to hear about the memory issues.

IF you don't mind my asking, did the docs put you on a statin (cholesterol-lowering) Rx after your heart problems?

A *very* common side effect of statins is a marked loss of short-term memory, and a somewhat diminished long term memory. The stronger the statin, the greater the suspected memory impairment. I know from personal experience that the effects can be alarming - I suddenly experienced memory lapses I didn't expect to happen for another 30 years, and they came on almost overnight.

Lowering the dosage has helped me quite a bit. Hope that this is of some benefit to you.

[rse]

http://greenforall.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Staying-Green-and-Growing-Jobs-April-2013.pdf.pdf is a link everyone should look at and download and ponder.

Green has become the cover for the Public Sector oriented/ the lovely tulips need watering at Davis-Bacon Wages welfare state.

An Obamaphone is nothing compared to this leverage.

[narciso]

See if this posts;

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/26/woah-piece-of-a-911-plane-found-in-an-alley-near-ground-zero/

[pagar]

" & who exactly is gonna be verifying the applications of millions of illegals?"

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/04/26/eric-holder-all-7-billion-humans-on-earth-have-a-civil-right-to-us-citizenship/

Hard to believe anyone is looking very hard at them.

[Threadkiller]

Frau's 9:02 and pagar's 8:30 merely describe US "natural born citizens" who, thru no fault of their own, weren't born on US soil.

The good news is that we don't have to rewrite our oppressive Constitution, we only need to redefine its terms.

For the children...

[Clarice]

I saw that, jimmy--it was a startling find. I also read the Ground Zero scamster has picked up several surrounding bldgs--al with no visible means to pay for any of this. I dn't see how he gets away with this.

[pagar]

Patriot4Freedom, thanks for your thoughts.
Yes, I've been on one statin for years. I'm spending time right now going back and looking at listed effects for every prescription I have.

[Cecil Turner]

So, you are sayin a test kit was used on the door handle to remove all doubt?

I'm sayin' that the lawyer's claim of Aldo's "false positive" field work assumes the absence of trace amounts of meth. Considering the components to make such were present, and the defendant admitted to cooking it, the assumption is more than unwarranted; it's most likely false.

I'd also suggest that if you're looking for a poster child for unreasonable search and seizure, one could do better than a guy* who "admitted after proper Miranda warnings that he routinely “cooked” methamphetamine at his house and could not go “more than a few days without using.”

*Errata: above I erroneously identified "Wheetley" as the moron. In fact, Harris is the moron, Wheetley was Aldo's handler.

[narciso]

Heven't these idiots seen Breaking Bad, are they insane, rhetorical questions all.

[Threadkiller]

Yeah, but Ernesto Miranda wasn't so hot a poster child himself.

You do not believe the door handle should have been forensicly tested?

[narciso]

Of course, it hadn't been for the NYPD unit, under assault;

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/04/moroccan-born-naturalized-citizen-and-would-be-synagogue-bomber-gets-five-years-in-prison/

[narciso]

Interesting, that Miranda was subsequently convicted, I remember hearing a portion of the arguments before the Court, the prosecutors were woefully outmatched by defense counsel

[OldTimer]

McCain and his odious gang are as dangerous to our national security and sovereignty as the Jihadi's:

“I would like to pay a special thank you to Randy Johnson, who I believe his reward will be in heaven, not here on Earth, for the great job that he did,” McCain said.

Johnson helped negotiate the agreement between the Chamber and the AFL-CIO on the low-skilled worker visa program.

Read more: http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/296457-mccain-pleads-with-biz-leaders-on-immigration-we-need-your-help-#ixzz2RfnXrC7M

[OldTimer]

Obama’s National-Security Fraud

The administration’s Boston explanations don’t add up.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/346785

[Janet]

I really agree, OldTimer. McCain & Graham are killin' the Republican Party too.

[Cecil Turner]

You do not believe the door handle should have been forensicly tested?

No. Why should it? So we can keep grades on Aldo? He already passed the course.

There are lots better arguments against dogs than a supposed false positive from someone who admitted recent handling of the true positive. There are lots better arguments against the "war on drugs" than saving that loser from himself. I guess I can see why a defense attorney might have his panties in a wad (especially if it were Harris's attorney). I can't see the societal danger or interest in microanalyzing dogs' noses or their performance.

[Threadkiller]

Would you expect a different outcome if Aldo triggered on the door handle and the defendant was not a substance abuser and the vehicle had no traces of drugs or drug making components but an unregistered hand gun was found?

[Cecil Turner]

Would you expect a different outcome if Aldo triggered on the door handle and the defendant was not a substance abuser and the vehicle had no traces of drugs or drug making components but an unregistered hand gun was found?

I'd find it a lot more suspicious, but: no. A qualified drug-sniffing dog alerted. That gives the officer probable cause for the search. No matter what is found, the search is righteous, so the bust is as well.

The purpose of throwing out convictions based on unlawful searches is to deter unlawful searches and force the police to follow procedure. In this case, Wheetley fairly obviously followed procedure. And if the defendant wants to come up with some screwball theory (i.e., "the dog false positived" "he alerted on nothing" "there was nothing he was trained to detect"), and hence the training was faulty, then he can try to prove it. The "he psychically willed the dog to alert" theory is a hard sell.

I don't have a lot of time for Kagan, but it seemed to me the decision was well written and clear. The defendant didn't even try to contest the training, simply arguing that the field results proved Aldo was unqualified. The Court said (paraphrased) that was an improper standard and an unmanageable procedure. They're right on both counts.

[Threadkiller]

Don't get me wrong. I like the direction the lawyer was heading, but I think she missed an opportunity.

If a cop field tests a suspicious whitish yellow rock found on a suspect with his field kit, and it shows positive for an illegal substance, he bags his test kit and it becomes evidence.

The door handle needed to be "bagged" so the defence could have verified its contamination.

The problem with Kagen's opinion is her belief that even if the drugs aren't found, that does not mean they don't exist.

?

[Threadkiller]

Defense...

[Cecil Turner]

The cops don't get probable cause after the event by checking that they actually found something. The probable cause in this case was a properly trained drug dog alerting. Even if he'd just alerted hoping to get his favorite snack, the search would've still been righteous.

The defense wants to verify the contamination on the door handle, go right ahead. Don't look for assistance from the State . . . it's not their job. They bagged the things they arrested Harris for: the meth ingredients.

[Threadkiller]

"Even if he'd just alerted hoping to get his favorite snack, the search would've still been righteous"

Why didn't you say that in the first place?

Wow!

[Threadkiller]

If a drug dog alerts on the door handle of your Ryder rent a truck as you are moving, the cops are righteous to dig through all your possessions.

Never mind what the previous renter of that truck was hauling.

Last question: Cecil, how much more before you accept random drug dog searches on homes?

[Cecil Turner]

Wow!

Sorry, TK, but that's the way it works. A properly trained dog alerts=probable cause. The defense can challenge the "properly trained" part at trial, but not the alert. (They didn't try in this case, which tells you all you need to know about their argument.)

Last question: Cecil, how much more before you accept random drug dog searches on homes?

A much more cogent argument (whether dogs should be used at all). Which thankfully does not rely on the supposedly poor performance of Aldo (which in fact appears to be remarkably good).

[Threadkiller]

Cogent arguments are disfavored.

[Triarenemmelo]

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