Individual mandate and religious challenges

I have been insanely interested in the mandate for health insurance and how religious institutions, non-profits, for-profits, and everyone in between have been reacting to it. Since a friend and I have discussed this issue before and she brought up the issue of those entities who provide employees with health insurance through self-insured plans, I found today's ruling to be quite awesome. An Indiana federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to a for-profit company with Catholic owners who claimed their religious freedoms were being infringed upon by the Affordable Care Act. The court quoted heavily from the O'Brien case, a similar case where the Missouri federal district court came to the same conclusion. Per O'Brien, 

"RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] is a shield, not a sword. It protects individuals from substantial burdens on religious exercise that occur when the government coerces action one's religion forbids, or forbids action one's religion requires; it is not a means to force one's religious practices upon others. RFRA does not protect against the slight burden on religious exercise that arises when one's money circuitously flows to support the conduct of other free-exercise-wielding individuals who hold religious beliefs that differ from one's own..."

What this says to me, is the court is going to weigh the rights of the employees when determining these types of cases. (Well, these specific types of cases anyway.)

Just the disconnect is astounding

So good from Samantha Bee. I don't know how these people reconcile the idea that personal liberty is the bedrock of our society, and then turn around and say...

• Except for two dudes getting married
• Except for teaching people to think critically on science and religion
• Except for people making their own reproductive decisions
• Except for allowing a woman to make her own medical choices
• Except for poor people's right to vote
• Except for brown people's freedom to drive where they live
• Except for religions other than christianity

Sure, one can make a list for democrats: seatbelt & helmet laws, healthcare, sin taxes, soda bans, gambling, all with a big dose of inconsistency.

I think the fundamental disconnect here is that when you live in a free society, you have to put up with others doing things that you do not approve of. This includes things that are against your value system or moral code or religious beliefs. So you must compromise a right; OK, but for fucks sake do it to benefit the larger society. This is not socialism, it's just how we decide that we all drive on the right side of the road, how much rat feces is allowed in cereal, and to support basic research.

Anyway, the comedy is what's important. Watch the comedy.

What's that Ben Franklin quote?

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

I've been scanning the headlines about the shooting at the theatre in Aurora, CO, today and was horrified* when I came across this lady's quote:

“Americans have yet to understand the threats to their safety, and regard security as an intrusion into their privacy,” says Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy, a New York-based research group.

“In Israel,” she says via e-mail, “well-trained security personnel monitor the entrance to every public building, even supermarkets, and public awareness has stopped many terror attacks and saved many lives.”

Here's my response to that:

1. I understand the threats and accept that those threats are part of the risk associated with living in a free country.
2. Security measures are an intrusion into my privacy. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires that any warrant has to come from a judge and be supported by probable cause. It's part of due process. We should tread lightly when stomping all over the Constitution under the guise of making us "safer".
3. If I wanted to live in Israel, where every public entrance is monitored, I would move there. 
4. You can obtain public awareness without monitoring the movements of every person entering a public building.†
5. But most importantly, you cannot prevent every tragedy. I do not blame the theatre for this act of violence. I do not blame the crowd for not noticing there was a person wanting to do harm. I do not blame Hollywood for making a Batman film. It was awful. It happened. There will be future tragedies. We must not let our fear override our common sense.

*I was more horrified about the shooting.

†How many well-trained personnel would it take to monitor every public building in the United States?

Away games, too?

Why, yes, I am a bit of a grump (a.k.a. bitchy, disgruntled, annoyed, pissed off) when you come home from your day of skiing to tell me you're going back out to watch the away game at a bar. I knew I'd probably be watching Hen for the majority (if not all) of the home games but I was not anticipating you'd go out for away games, too. So, yeah, I'll be glad when ski season is over. Six days providing full-time care is too many for this mama.

Sometimes I can't let things go

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about airport scanners. If I understand her position, she isn't really bothered by the scanners and doesn't have issues that would prevent her from using them. I do have a problem with the scanners. Yes, the amount of radiation is reportedly an extremely small, insignificant amount. It's less than you get from the actual flight. And unless you're traveling all the time, it would probably never amount to anything. BUT. (Because you know there had to be one.) But that's not the only argument against them. (I'll get to these in a second.) Here's what I read:

Rez agrees the odds of getting cancer from the scanners may be low. But he calculates it's about the same as the chance of being on a plane blown up by terrorists. And he says that makes mass scanning not worth the effort.

The government says independent testing proved the airport scanners are safe. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory did independent tests — but only to determine how much radiation the devices emit, not to examine safety, said Helen Worth, a lab spokeswoman.

The amount of radiation the devices emit in a lab setting versus real-world use may be different, and a group of scientists from the University of California at San Francisco argues that tougher safety testing is needed.

The four scientists expressed their concerns in an April 6 letter to Holdren, the White House adviser. It took him six months to respond.

Though the scanner images do not reveal what's beneath the skin's surface, the radiation they emit could potentially affect breast tissue, sex organs and eyes, said David Agard, an imaging expert at the University of California at San Francisco.

The response "is just a regurgitation of what the industry people have been saying," said John Sedat, a UCSF professor emeritus in biochemistry and biophysics.

He faulted the government for not doing safety testing in animals to see if the scanners caused any worrisome biochemical changes. Kassiday said the university scientists have not justified why that kind of testing on such low-dose devices would be necessary. --excerpt from Star Tribune

My takeaways from the above is that testing was done but it wasn't necessarily the right kind of testing. I have seen a lot of statements that say things like: "As long as they are operating as designed, the amount should be..." Is there some expectation they won't operate as designed? How much radiation are you hit with if it isn't operating correctly? What does all of that radiation directed at your skin do? If the likelihood of getting cancer is the same as getting blown up, why have the machine?

The scanners ability to detect and thereby thwart a planned attack is unproven. (I realize it can't be proved until it is used but at $150K+ per machine we should ask ourselves if we are getting a good return on our investment or if there is a better way to use that money to make us more secure.) One criticism is that the machines are unable to detect "low-density materials such as powders, liquids, thin pieces of plastic or anything that resembles skin. Nor can they detect any explosives concealed internally." We should remember that the Christmas bomber's attempt failed because of vigilant passengers who intervened, and a faulty trigger, not because security found anything on his person. In one of the Time articles I perused, a man mentioned prisons. Prisons have some of the most secure procedures in place. And yet contraband is still smuggled in. For traveling, we put up these theatre-security obstacles and eventually a focused and motivated terrorist is going to find a way around them. What works? Apparently the system used at Israeli airports. (I don't know enough about this to comment on it but I will be reading up on it for a follow-up post later. It does sound as if they use intelligence mixed with a bit of racial profiling.)

The fourth amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I do not give up these rights merely because I choose to fly, regardless of what tragic events have occurred. I definitely take issue with the fact that politicians and other elites (Lawdy, lawd, I hate to use that word), are able to bypass the enhanced screening techniques. (Remember the last time we heard about "enhanced" things by the government? Yeah, it was with torture.) There is no reason to suspect me of being a terrorist so why should I be subjected to either a potentially hazardous scan or a pat-down that reaches the level of sexual harassment. If a warrant has not been issued because there is no probable cause, I should not be searched.

What's lacking in all of this is common sense. We do not empower our airport security folks to make reasonable decisions so they have to process the 87-year old blind invalid as if she is a threat and have her remove her shoes and her coat and her wallet and confiscate her nail clippers and her bottled water and ...

Argh. It's late and my head is spinning.

Paying their share

David Tepper - $4 billion ($4,000,000,000.00)

John Paulson - $2.3 billion ($2,300,000,000.00)

Kenneth Griffin - $900 million ($900,000,000.00)

Following math uses Tepper's income:

$600,000,000 tax - 15% (the above folks are currently paying)

$1,400,000,000 tax - 35% (at rate I pay)

$800,000,000 - net loss to country

Projected health care costs = (approx.) $1 trillion over next ten years

Find 100 of these gentlemen currently taking advantage of the 15% tax rate, get them to pay the 35% rate the rest of the "rich" folks pay, and you have health care paid for for THE NEXT DECADE.*

*I realize, of course, that this math is a bit fuzzy, but as Darr commented after making the calculations "things don't really work out that way in real life but it just goes to show the awesome power of some people's wealth."

Public Service Announcement

From Sussex Safer Roads

Coffee making in the nude

You should be able to walk around your house naked making your coffee like this guy without being charged with a crime. If someone happens to walk by outside, look in and see you naked, well that's just a bonus for them. They can continue to walk along and stop staring if it is bothersome to them or they can stand out there throwing dollar bills into the yard and hollering words of encouragement. What they should not be able to do is call the police and pretend they've been traumatized by the sight of a naked body. There is lewd and lascivious behavior and there is 'I'm walking around MY HOME naked' behavior. The two should not be confused. The police claim the guy was arrested because the officers believed he "wanted to be seen naked by the public". Give me a frickin' break.

My math and the F-22 Raptor fighter jets

The economy sucks. So I can understand our knee-jerk reaction at the prospect of losing more jobs. Do whatever must be done to save the jobs. But wtf, America? It is estimated to cost AT LEAST $140 million to make these jets. Thousands of jobs would be lost if we were to cut these jets from the Defense's budget. The Air Force is currently asking the administration to sign off on the production of 60 more planes over the next three years. 

60 x $140,000,000 = $8,400,000,000

That's a whole lot of money.

Let's look at the potential job losses. The reports I found said cutting funding for these planes would cost "thousands of jobs" (not hundreds of thousands or millions - still a pretty varied field, there's a huge difference between 1,000 and 90,000).

So, for the sake of this post, we'll crunch a variety of numbers to see how much it'll cost us to keep those jobs building planes Obama referred to as "Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use" in his most recent address. 

To keep 1000 jobs building 60 planes at a minimum estimated cost of $8,400,000,000 = $8,400,000.

To keep 10,000 jobs = $840,000.

To keep 90,000 jobs = $93,333.

My point? My point is this - many apologies to my dear husband who was forced to listen to my tirade in the car on the way to work this morning - why not take a miniscule teeny tiny portion of that money and give it to the people who would have otherwise been employed had we gone forward with the building of those jets? You could give folks options. They could get generous severance packages or we could offer them scholarships to attend trade school or college or even money to help families relocate in the event their skill set could be utilized on some other governmental project (e.g., green energy projects like the one (I believe) California just signed up to do). That makes a helluva lot more sense than creating jets we don't need. Nobody likes the idea of handing over taxpayer money to folks without getting some immediate return on investment. But it seems worse to give tremendous sums of taxpayer money to hire companies to produce items we don't need.