Apropos Of This Or That

First, Happy New Year to all. I began the morning with a bit of a brain teaser which I thought I would share. It's a simple game of Name That Author:

"“Sometime after March 31 — probably not very far after — I would expect the administration to announce that after careful thought, it has decided not to enforce the individual mandate for 2014. As we’ve already seen, the individual mandate is very politically vulnerable. And I suspect we’re not done with the emergency fixes.”

I'll put the link in down in this post but my question is this - am I alone in guessing correctly who wrote that, or are people finding it easy? Critical additional context - it was cited and linked by the InstaPundit.

I ask partly just because, and partly because from time to time the question of whether Bill Ayers wrote, or played a hand in writing, Obama's first book comes up in conversation. My uneducated hunch is that if I can successfully identify the author of a passage such as that above then hi-tech stylometry programs might shed light on the Ayers question (Watts Up With That used JGAAP for a similar exercise). There is a possible New Year's resolution!

Well. Spoiler alert - the author of the opening passage is here. Did you guess?

FWIW: I am sure I am not alone in being able to identify certain regular JOM commenters within the first half-sentence. But I still find it surprising.

Comments

[lyle]

Megan "I voted for Obama twice" McArdle.

[Captain Hate]

All of Obamacare is unlikely ever to be repealed: I can’t see anyone rolling back the rule letting parents keep their kids on their insurance until the age of 26, for example.

If I were President I'd make damn sure that this part of the law was vaporized. Treating adults as children; what could go wrong with that?

[rich@gmu]

I was stumped. Glad she is finally coming around though. Will she pen a breathless column at that time when the First Crease makes that bold policy move?

[centralcal]

I never would have guessed correctly, since I don't read or follow Ms. McArdle and only see snippets of her writing that others link from time to time.

As to recognizing commenters here in the first half sentence or so, well duh! Of course, certain typos and JOM wiki-dictionary-words can be a great help there, too. :)

[Captain Hate]

Will a brave reporter ever ask Gaylord Focker if he read any of the 404Care bill he signed into law?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

I would have guessed RickB, JimmyK, ThomasC, OL... or even myself. Lots of JOM commenters have made that point; the point s self-evident to anyone who isn't a statist (my word for the day) or Obummer personality cultist. I do read Megan McArdle. she seems to be a bright well meaning wonkette. But shes not a serious or even intellectually honest woman. She hangs with the DC JournoListers, and they treat her like the middle school "Kool Kids" that allow the marginal kid to sit at their lunchroom table-- when the marginal kid steps out of line the the Kool Kids slap them around back into their place. The DC Journolisters do the same to Megan. She'll backtrack from this post and say how glorious it is to have the black guy as POTUS.

[daddy]

Click here to see an excellent bit of photoshopping of this image:

[dbp]

I guessed Megan M. but I had already read her piece so it was probably more a case of memory than of pattern recognition...

[Jane]

So Obama will create complete chaos by waiting six months to do what Ted Cruz tried to get him to do in November - because he's a complete narcissistic ass.

Sounds just about right.

(I too can identify many JOM commenters in first sentence. And I still practice that skill constantly for some odd reason.)

[Jane]

That's funny Daddy. Yesterday I saw it with AL Gore painted on the side. How delightful.

[Danube on iPad]

I can spot Rick and Narc right away, and frequently Matt. Also CH when he dips into his glossary.

[JIB]

Before I get tot he name, I can spot matt, NK, daddy, DuDa, BuBu, TK, DoT, Janet, maryrose, Cathyf, Hit and most times Ex, pagar and Dave (inMa).

Of course, at night = GUS:)

Clarice, is easy, only because of the typos.

Narciso is what they call a no brainer.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Megan McArdle-- did her post conflate Medicare for Medicaid? here reference to Medicare cuts made no sense.. ObummerCare already cuts Medicare increases.

Another thing-- unless I missed it, Megan fails to comment on the huge shitstorm that will hit ObummerCare in 2014-- tens of millions thrown off of employer group plans, or big increases in their copays and deductibles. That will really put the boot into ObummerCare politically, and I think Obummer will refuse to back down on that. He'll make the 'moderate Dems' die on that hill.

[doris kearnes goodwin]

wait, there's software that identifies if you wrote something?

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

After five plus years here I can pretty much tell the regulars somewhat easily, give or take a comment. Although he gets criticized by others for engaging the Bard of Pitzer, DoT's responses are models of brief and terse dismissals.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

!!:55-- Heh, HEH!

[MarkO]

Are we supposed to read the comments?

[DebinNC]

Also CH when he dips into his glossary.

Speaking of which, who is Gaylord Focker? TIA

[cause/effect]

Heh.

"The holidays are a great time in politics. Every year it's the same: the minute the last bits of wrapping paper have been cleared away, and Grandpa has passed his last puff of holiday gas, you can always retreat to the inside pages of the news section and find some embarrassing/despicable PR fiasco that some politician somewhere has just tried to sneak past vacationing America.

This year was no different. In a fitting homage to past holiday-season embarrassments like the Iran-Contra pardons or Bill Clinton's signing of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, the Republican Party last week quietly declared war on itself, in the process essentially confessing to a generation of failed governance and dumbed-down politics.

The news came in the Wall Street Journal, where the Chamber of Commerce disclosed that it will be teaming up with Republican establishment leaders to spend $50 million in an effort to stem the tide of “fools” who have overwhelmed Republican ballots in recent seasons. Check out the language Chamber strategist Scott Reed used in announcing the new campaign:

Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates… That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.

The blunt choice of words is no accident. All year long, as they’ve crept closer and closer to having to face the reality of a Ted Cruz presidential candidacy in 2016 (with Cruz maybe picking recently-redeemed Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson as his more moderate running mate?), the Beltway’s Republican kingmakers have drifted into ever more alarmist language about the need to change course."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/on-christmas-republicans-quietly-declare-war-on-themselves-20131230#ixzz2p4cfdpjA
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[Man Tran on iPhone]

daddy,

Jonesy was your (ex) Beav driving predecessor on the Anchorage team. BTW he now has a fresh pair of eyes so he doesn't have to fake the eye chart. He's also recovering from an ankle repair like DoT so skiing is out this year.

[narciso]

I shall resolve to be more cryptic in the new year, Bret Stephens delivers a very good slattering of what passes for economic logic in this administration,

I don't see how it works without the IM, I don't see how it works with it, either.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

"I don't see how it works without the IM, I don't see how it works with it, either." Narciso @ 12:08.

That is a comprehensive policy analysis of ObummerCare right there. Course, we know that the Dems never intended for ObummerCare to 'work'.

[Trevor Saccucci]

McArdle (and, incidentally, Tom Friedman) have long reminded me of Goofus MacDuff from the novel M*A*S*H - a doctor capable of makling a thorough and brilliant analysis of a difficult patient's symptoms, and recommending precisely the wrong course of treatment in conclusion. Megan got it right on the individual mandate - for now - but you can find plenty of good politico-economic analyses on the web - here, for instance - without the intellectual vapidity underlying even her most sensible articles.

[narciso]

That was a great curveball you through a Kirkpatrick, btw, MarkO.

[Ignatz]

--I shall resolve to be more cryptic in the new year.--

Heh.
Bring it on. :)

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

Gaylord Focker is the JEF. I believe a moronette, who is also a published author, was the originator of that moniker's application.

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

Can you imagine the malpractice insurance premiums if Flathead was an MD?

[Carol Herman]

Billions were spent. Figure out whose pocket got the most of this loot?

Who lost? The States. 50 of them had their own insurance departments. What will they investigate now?

Why did Congress do this? For the same reason they did TSA. Lots of people (who are incompetent) get hired. Get uniforms. And, wear vinyl gloves. A market with lots of hires. So you don't see the holes in the economy. And, the advancements of stupid.

[rich@gmu]

>>>I shall resolve to be more cryptic in the new year<<<

ha. goals are good. mine are more parochial.

Trevor-

>>>Megan got it right on the individual mandate - for now - but you can find plenty of good politico-economic analyses on the web - here, for instance - without the intellectual vapidity underlying even her most sensible articles.<<<

Never have understood her popularity. Noonan without the clever phrasing.

[daddy]

If that Icebound ship sinks in the rapidly warming Antarctic, I've got a solution:

Alaska's IceBreaking Ferryboat!

An unwanted, $80 million ice-breaking ferry owned by an Alaska borough has only one bid to buy it, and it's for $751,000...The borough has no suitable docks or a workable business plan to operate the vessel as a ferry between Anchorage and Port MacKenzie in the Mat-Su...so the Borough Assembly has directed employees...to shed it.

Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.

[Thomas Collins]

Happy New Year to all my friends here!

My resolution is to somehow arrange to party with one of Beast of England's former girlfriends (don't worry; my wife won't mind as long as I provide her with a complete post-party report)!

[Carol Herman]

Obama wanted to see inflation. Americans, instead, have tightened their belts. So the democraps thought of this insurance racket as a way of creating inflation. Why? Because people still get sick.

Now, let's take Medicaid as it is under this new law. Yes. Medicaid is supposed to be free care for poor people. But Obamacare added a quirk. When a Medicaid patient dies, his estate can be obliterated by the government. He has a house? It goes to pay the medical bills that got racked up. Ditto a car. Ditto a "below the radar" horizon where the government can't collect estate taxes.

Many such surprises are in store. Nothing is free. And, the low payments to doctors for care also means they're not going to accommodate these patients while they are alive.

Lawyers haven't been touched. Doctors will still need to spend lots of money on insurance coverage. And, lawsuits will still be solved by throwing money at the claimants. It's like a lottery ticket.

While plenty of Americans will learn to fly to Mexico for care, where the staffs speak English.

[matt]

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Ha!

[Extraneus]

Who can take these swooning Obama voters seriously?

[Sandy TuzeDaze]

Never have understood her popularity. Noonan without the clever phrasing.

Neither are as smart as they think they are.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Sandy@12:39-- True. But Peggy is particularly guilty of that.

[Extraneus]

There they are again, Noonan and McArdle. Front row seats!

[cause/effect]

Oh, yes. The malpractice ins premium boogeyman...heh. It's an outrage that they pay 20-30 basis points of their income toward protections against their systemic incompetence.

"According to the Medical Economics 2012 Exclusive Malpractice Survey, mean annual premiums for family/general physicians in 2011 were $11,900 versus $12,100 in 2010, a 1.6% decrease. For internal medicine doctors, the median (midpoint) annual premium was $12,900 compared with $13,100 in 2010, a 1.5% drop. In 2009, median premiums for family and internal medicine practitioners were $12,600 and $14,100, respectively.

- See more at: http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/modernmedicine/modern-medicine-feature-articles/malpractice-premiums-continue#sthash.gYM94cNj.dpuf

[Extraneus]

Isn't that Althouse, too?

[narciso]

So a bit of context, tone is important;

http://therightscoop.com/manufacturing-outrage-phil-robertson-under-attack-again-for-something-he-said-in-2009/

as opposed with Harris Perry, Bashir, et al, in no
instance do they make any sense.

[Extraneus]

And Brooksie in the polka dots!

[narciso]

Don't forget Kathleen Parker, I try to, but she keeps popping up in the fishwrap,

[matt]

narciso, please don't become more cryptic whatever you do. Babelfish does not have the bandwidth.

[Trevor Saccucci]

Rich - That comparison to Noonan is so very apt. Noonan never was a heavy-hitter as a writer - even at her best, reading her felt like enjoying a good dinner at a decent chain steak restaurant - but when she fell for the pants crease and became a double-X-chromosome David Brooks, her style just couldn't make the substance (or should I write "substance"?) she was serving up palatable. But even before Megan libertaraian arguments for Obama's suitability for the Presidency, I found her analyses, while replete with facts and figures, somehow lacking in intellectual depth, and in a way I can't quite put my finger on.

[bgates]

I can’t see anyone rolling back the rule letting parents keep their kids on their insurance

A law which forces companies to offer certain products is described here as allowing customers to purchase those products.

Is McCardle still calling herself a libertarian?

[Account Deleted]

Rich,

Do you find her slack sophistry any sillier than the other juiceboxers? I couldn't identify her "style" for a million dollars due to my complete lack of interest in anything she might regurgitate. She may be intelligent but she lacks the ability to free herself from the Pitzer Pignorance conditioning endured as she parroted her way to her moron's credential.

Should she ever show glimmerings of understanding similar to those exhibited by Judith Curry in this post on the application of Hayek's principles to climate science, I might read it. Pending notification of that achievement, she will remain alongside Klein, Iglesias, Brooks, Friedman, et al ad nauseum in my Don't Bother pile.

[cause/effect]

It looks as though the marketplace took care of the OVERWHELMING NEED FOR TORT REFORM...

[JIB]

The ex-Pitzer Putz using selective C&P (natch).

A good friend left their Ob/Gyn practice for just Gyn. Why?

Obstetrics/gynecology: $43,400
Surgery: $30,000
Plastic surgery: $27,700
Urology: $23,500

Those premiums were, for her, 40% of her net income. Just saying.

[centralcal]

Warning to daddy and (A)B - please watch out for Hawaii sinkholes. (But, don't anybody warn Mo and Bo).

[MarkO]

narc,

Thank you. He's lying, of course.

[narciso]

True, but no one called him out, on that point,
till now;

Minitrue, it's an aspiration with these people'

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/12/31/White-House-Advisor-Denies-7-Million-Enrollment-Goal-ObamaCare-Number

[narciso]

So they say there are 50 million, the projections show they would leave out 17 million, so they settle for 7 million, but that goal is too ambitious for them.

[bgates]

I wonder how these sancrosanct Pajama Boy Policies are going to work. Are they part of the "community rating" business, where it's not legal to charge more for the person with 3 adult children on the plan than for the person whose kids are gainfully employed and insured? If the kids are part of the growing ranks of the part-time benefit-free workforce, will their income reduce the family's subsidy?

[cause/effect]

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/812451

"Collective rates for obstetrician-gynecologists, internists, and general surgeons fell on average for the sixth straight year in 2013, according to an annual premium survey released this week by Medical Liability Monitor (MLM).

The decrease is only 1.9%, a tad more than the 1.7% decline in 2012. However, one group views the ongoing premium shrinkage as more evidence that organized medicine's push for tough medical-liability tort reform, such as limits to noneconomic damages, is much ado about very little.

"It makes sense that premiums are going down because malpractice litigation is going down," said Taylor Lincoln, a research director for the consumer watchdog Public Citizen, in an interview with Medscape Medical News. Lincoln's organization announced in August that the number of malpractice payments on behalf of physicians as reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank fell for the ninth consecutive year in 2012.

Public Citizen maintains that malpractice litigation CANNOT be blamed for runaway healthcare costs."

[narciso]

Sometimes the best material, can be poorly adapted, there was a piece in the Atlantic, about how hard it has been to bring Elmore Leonard to the big or small screen, in part because the producers can't get the tone right, Justified,
and Get Shorty, are cited as the exception, whereas the followup to the latter, the Big Bounce and several others,

[Extraneus]

Passengers, crew stuck on ship trapped in Antarctic ice ring in 2014

The ship has two weeks’ worth of fresh food, but Peacock said drinks are becoming sparse, with "just enough alcohol left” to ring in 2014.

...

All 52 passengers will be evacuated, but the crew on the Akademik Shokalskiy will stay behind with the ship and wait for the ice to break up naturally, expedition spokesman Alvin Stone said.

Should happen by tonight according to Algore.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

bgates@1:05-- fear not, the 'community rating' and ExchangeCare rates generally will be gamed by Sebelius for the most effective political crony result.

[narciso]

are regarded as collosal failures, much as with Dana's cut and pastes. 'drinking heavily' should have been their first tack.

[AliceH]

McCardle saves her trenchant analysis skills for discussions with her self-described wonk friends. You find her writing to be lacking depth, but that's only because she is targeting an audience of lesser intellectual heft; one that is not so rational or sophisticated. Not that her audience is stupid - oh no. That description is reserved for those who don't even read her column.

She explains it all here

[Little Mike]

This blog is dull, boring, very trite, tedious, moronic, very monotonous, dreary, weird and very creep, as are you assholes who post here.

When Dianne and Brian used to post here (presumably before they became bored with you losers) at least this blog was lively, funny and refreshing

[matt]

The problem I see is that the pack ice has hemmed the ship in and conditions are poor. One article mentioned rain and another mentioned that the ice is thicker than 7'.

The rain is going to cement in the ice and when the temperature drops at night the ice will thicken more.

Depending on currents and weather, they could be there a while.

[narciso]

The farm bill was foolishness, but this was utter lunacy, the way she elides the deliberate fraud underlying this whole effort is really extraordinary.

[Beasts of England]

@Thomas Collins: Now that's funny! Of course, I'll need a release form from Mrs. Collins, as well. ;)

[narciso]

It took Graham Yost, for the best adaptation;

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/7763/elmore_leonard_s_writing_was_so_cinematic_why_are_adaptations_of_his_work_so_bad#.UsMON_RDs0I

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

AliceH/Narciso-- that 10/30/13 McArdle post really summarizes my opinion of her, thanks for linking it Alice. McArdle is definitely bright and analytic enough to have known EXACTLY what ObummerCare would do, and how that made Obummer a flat out lia. But, in predicting what ObummerCare would do, she excuses all the flat out deliberate lies her JournoList juice box pals and Obummer told to get the disgusting thing passed, by equating them to 'conservative half trues'. Bullshit... as Narciso says, equating the Farm Bill or Medicare D to Obummercare is itself a lie. McArdle is a hostage to the juice boxers... she sees the truth (both policy and politics), she's not allowed to tell it.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

ThomasC--I am frankly jealous of Mrs C's... ahem... expansive views of marital obligations. Congrats.

[henry]

NK, don't be jealous just because TC doesn't have to assemble any Ikea stuff.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

No Ikea for ThomasC... that we know of. My 20yo daughter just gets more and more ambitious and egocentric. She is applying as a Student van driver on the runs between Fordham Bronx and Lincoln Center in MIDTOWN manhattan. Aside from the fact that she would need to sit on a Telephone book (still exist?) to see over the 12 passenger Van dash, I took her out for her first driving session, and she was the worst driver I ever saw. Van driver? In Midtown manhattan? Now she has 2 galpals visting her the first week she's in her apartment. A fancy pants boarding school chum, and a Bejing PRC Princess who goes to college in North carolina (school?) but she met in St Andrews Scotland. That girl will need a lift to/from JFK airport. NOT ME!!! With this tight social schedule, I am slotted in to assemble furniture saturday afternoon-- and she asks if can I be sure to finish by 700, because they are having a dinner party. BANG.... ZOOM!

[Thomas Collins]

Not that expansive, NK. If I don't stay within budget, I'm toast even if it's just playing the slots at Foxwoods with my male cronies.

BOE, given your descriptions of your exes, I would think you'd want a release from ME for whatever injuries I sustained during the "proceedings"! It doesn't sound as if your exes would follow Roger Goodell's limited contact rules! :-))

[boatbuilder]

"The decrease is only 1.9%, a tad more than the 1.7% decline in 2012. However, one group views the ongoing premium shrinkage as more evidence that organized medicine's push for tough medical-liability tort reform, such as limits to noneconomic damages, is much ado about very little.

"It makes sense that premiums are going down because malpractice litigation is going down," said Taylor Lincoln, a research director for the consumer watchdog Public Citizen,..."

Fox Butterfield, is that you?

[Ignatz]

From the sounds of BoE's exes they'd be expecting Mrs. Collins to join the party, not just sign off on it.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

ThomasC@2:02-- :-)) it was THAT kind of expansive I was noting. Wow.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

JOM is about to lose its PG-13 rating.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

but while we are on the subject... how expansive are Mrs. C's views?

[Jane]

Tomorrow about 377 million people will have standing to sue Obamacare.

Perhaps we should get together and file the class action suit.

[Beasts of England]

Well, TC, considering that I've broken a toe and a bone in my left foot in the last two year's activities, it is certainly not a limited contact 'sport'.

[rich@gmu]

>>>JOM is about to lose its PG-13 rating.<<<

Maybe we can trim a bit back to still get that R.

[Beasts of England]

You've nailed it, Ig. No pun intended.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

BOE is taking this thread straight to NC-17.

[boatbuilder]

The reason the rule requiring insurers to cover children (!?) on their parents policies until they are 26 is not going away is because the insurers want it, for the same reason that Obamacare wants and needs the young invincibles. And the insurers have the benefit of being able to charge the premiums to the parents (or their employers) rather than trying to cajole or coerce it from the uncooperative youths.

[AliceH]

--377 million people--

Guessing that is a typo. If not, who are the 63 million non-Citizens that have standing (curr USA pop ~314 million)?

[boatbuilder]

Never mind--I see that things have headed in another direction...

[Account Deleted]

boatbuilder,

If the kid is a mushroom still "growing" in the parents basement, the parents receive a bump in the income level required to achieve Parasite First Class status and will receive a subsidy which much more than pays for young Shitake's premium. I agree with you regarding the primary rationale for trying to capture more unwilling Invincibles but the move was also designed to diminish the premium increase sting at the $63-$75K income level.

[rich@gmu]

@Trevor Saccucci:: >>>But even before Megan libertaraian arguments for Obama's suitability for the Presidency, I found her analyses, while replete with facts and figures, somehow lacking in intellectual depth, and in a way I can't quite put my finger on.<<<

I suppose it is she seems to "get" conventional wisdom as if it were some great insight. But as with you, I can't quite put my finger on it.

@Rick Ballard::>>>Do you find her slack sophistry any sillier than the other juiceboxers?<<<

Yeah, she's in Expertopia and we're just waiting for her to reveal to us what 'they' talk about on high (kinda like that douchebag and prisoner Kevin Trudeau). I'll put her in the Don't Bother pile to save myself the trouble.

AliceH thanks for the link. I wonder where the media was when the bill was being passed.

Happy New Year's everyone. I want to thank Tom for providing this forum and for everyone here.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Yep.. that is part of the constant gaming with ExchangeCare rates/subsidies and 'community rating' that has and will continue to go on. That are making it up as they go along.

[rich@gmu]

>>>Never mind--I see that things have headed in another direction...

Posted by: boatbuilder<<<

and it is only 1443...but it is martini hour somewhere.

[rich@gmu]

NK(withnewsoftware)-

or she sees the truth but doesn't like where it leads. sort of like the problem with moneyball progressivism.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

I frankly don't care, I just don't take her seriously, because she doesn't herself seriously.

[Thomas Collins]

Well, NK, I haven't totally tested the limits, but she doesn't appear disturbed that on my next trip to NYC, I am staying at what is apparently a place teeming with a younger party crowd (Pod 39).

But truth to tell, I am not staying there for the nighlife, I am staying there because it is a low price hotel for Manhattan (apparently the rooms are really small).

[Account Deleted]

Rich,

I'd go with reality rather than truth. She was indoctrinated in the use of static modeling and is as lost as the Fed when dynamic forces take the "accepted wisdom" (model output) and twist it like a pretzel.

[Jane]

Alice,

I was clearly projecting!

[Thomas Collins]

Jane, ObamaCare would be brought down if the tort bar could successfully convince state courts to entertain undercare claims (although even if a state court were so inclined to entertain an undercare claim, I'm sure a strong federal preemption argument could be raised). Undercare claims, however, would ultimately be a burden on any health system.

[Ignatz]

Megan McArdle is like the respectable girl in high school who knows the bad boys are gonna treat her like dirt but dates them anyway.
After every bad date she straightens her hair, smooths her skirt and promises herself she'll never do that again and the next weekend she's right back in the rear seat with the same smooth talking jerk.

[rich@gmu]

good point Rick. She wrote her mea culpa on the Gosnell trial so maybe she'll write one up on this ocare fiasco too.

TC-

don't party too hard.

[Thomas Collins]

Well, rich@gmu, tonight my wife has arranged a quiet dinner with another Baby Boomer couple. So BOE's exes are going to have to cool their heels, whips and chains until sometime in 2014!

[jimmyk]

The reason the rule requiring insurers to cover children (!?) on their parents policies until they are 26 is not going away is because the insurers want it

If that's all that survives of Barrycare I'll be content. But why would you need the rule if insurers want it? Are parents required to include their "children"?

[rich@gmu]

@Thomas Collins...I was going to think of something clever [right here] but nope...Happy New Year's to you and your family.

[Old Lurker]

Rich, if you reply to TC, you must use the words "whips" "chains" "TC's wife" all in the same sentence. Bonus points if you stay friends with him.

[Account Deleted]

TC,

Be sure and raise a toast this evening to the Ship of Fools which has already set the tone for 2014 SkyDragon hunting.

Progressive scientistic modeling sure is entertaining.

[Thomas Collins]

Well, OL, because I started this thread on the road to perdition, I can hardly chastise my friends here for riding along. However, whether it is whips, chains, scotch, wine, food, or whatever my friends are doing tonight, stay safe on the road and save the raucous activities for when you don't have to drive anymore! And remember, noone is a coward for taking a cab or a limo, and a DUI does not make one a hero! Happy New Year!