Author Archives: Jean-Paul

A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted

Anybody who has participated in the stock market for a reasonable amount of time has made a trade that they kick themselves over.  You buy a stock only to see its value plummet soon after or you sell a stock just before it skyrockets.  Both have certainly happened to me before.  Do you know what hasn’t happened to me before, though?  Buying the wrong stock.

Twitter, a company who has made absolutely no money yet, recently filed for an initial public offering (IPO) of stock.  The IPO will not likely happen until Thanksgiving.  That fact did not stop many an intrepid investor from trying to buy the stock immediately.  So off to their computers they went with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads.  And what do you buy when the company you want to buy doesn’t exist?  Well, Tweeter, of course!

What is Tweeter, you ask?  Tweeter is a company that no longer exists.  It was a higher end audio/visual component sales store that went bankrupt in 2007.  Investors, poured money into the bankrupt stock raising its value over 1400%.  14.4 million shares were traded one day on a stock that normally has under 30,000 shares traded a day.

Those all sound like big numbers, but we’re talking about a stock that was trading at a penny at the start of this.  My guess is only a million dollars or so actually traded hands.  Too bad we can’t see how many people were actually involved in this flub.  My gut tells me that it was just a handful of people.  It was enough for the Security and Exchange Commission to change the ticker symbol of the stock though.

Wow, House Republicans Are Asshats

Say you were in a battle that you knew you couldn’t win given the rules that were in place.  What would you do?  If you answered “Why, change the rules at the last minute, of course!”, you may be a House Republican.

There is (or was) a House rule that says if a House bill is brought up for a vote in the Senate twice and is rejected both times any member of the House may call for a straight vote of the corresponding Senate bill.  That’s a straightforward enough rule.  It keeps things moving and prevents gridlock.  But the modus operandi of House Republicans is gridlock so they can’t have that.  To prevent the possibility of a vote ever coming up for the Senate bill, on September 30th, mere hours before the government shutdown, House Republicans altered that rule.  Instead of allowing any House member to call for a vote, they changed the rule so that only the House Majority Leader can call for a vote.  Who is the House Majority Leader you may ask?  Why Eric Cantor (R-VA), of course.  So there will be no straight vote on the already passed Senate bill to fund the government and the shutdown can last indefinitely.

But yeah, go ahead and blame Democrats for the shutdown.

C’mon, Jon Stewart, Really?

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was on “The Daily Show” on Monday night to talk about black holes or Obamacare, I forget which.  Same difference.  Hey oh!  Normally, I find Jon Stewart to be a fairly informed interviewer, but his discussion with the Secretary seemed more Chris Matthews than Jon Stewart.

He kept trying to get an answer from Sebelius on why they delayed the implementation of the small business requirement for a year but wouldn’t delay the individual requirement.  Even during his Moment of Zen lead in, he was still remarking on how he doesn’t understand it.  In his defense, Sebelius repeatedly answered his question like a politician.  Meaning, there was absolutely no substance to her answers.  It was all fluff.  It is frustrating as hell when politicians do that, but it’s not the first time that’s happened to Jon.  Usually he just says what the politician is really thinking and the politician just smiles noncommittal.  That didn’t happen this time.

There is an obvious reason to me as to why the individual requirement needs to go in right away.  Maybe I’m way off base on this, I don’t know.  The answer to me is pre-existing conditions.  Delaying the individual requirement would not delay the requirement for insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.  Everyone who has been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition is going to flock to the new marketplace.  I’m not sure how many people this is, but judging from the number of people that I know who fall into this segment, it’s pretty large.  If the individual requirement was delayed for a year, most healthy uninsured individuals wouldn’t sign up.  Insurance companies would have to account for that and the premiums would have to go up in response.  This would be a huge blow to Obamacare.

The whole reason why Republicans are so keen on delaying parts of Obamacare is they know this would happen.  They would have some great ammunition for their base to eat up.  “See how expensive Obamacare is!”  Then they can push an agenda of Obamacare repeal for the midterm elections with some excellent talking points.  People are too busy with their lives to recognize the difference between costs for a pool consisting mostly of people with pre-existing conditions and a pool that represents the general population.  They’ll just see the price tag and be all “OMG Obamacare is going to bankrupt us!”.

The small business requirement covers a much smaller potential pool and is more difficult for small businesses to navigate so delaying it is not such a big deal.  Most “small businesses” already offer their employees health insurance.  Remember, we’re talking businesses with over 50 employees here.

Now, I don’t know why Sebelius can’t just say all that.  It is pretty impolitic to say that there are electoral concerns with the potential delay, but she could have easily have done so without mentioning that portion of it.  Regardless, Jon Stewart is a smart, funny man surrounded with a staff of smart, funny people.  He should have been able to figure that out for himself.

I Am A Bitch Ass

I have always strongly suspected such, but it was confirmed to me on the train ride in to work this morning.  I am a bitch ass.

I get on the train this morning and surprise of all surprises, there is a seat available right behind the conductor’s compartment.  None of the standing people seem eager to take it so I swoop in and sit down.  A connecting train comes in and a few more people get on including an older woman who is legally blind.  No one near the doors offers her their seat so I get up and walk over to her and offer her my seat and guide her over.  I am now standing up in that awkward part near the front of the train car where there is a lot of space but not much room to hang on.  There is still space in front of the two seats that face the middle of the car so I grab onto the pole and start reading my book.

Seated in the space right next to the pole is a lanky teenage looking kid with legs spilling out farther into the aisle than is necessary.  It’s not a big deal, though, he has room and I have room.  He leans over and mumbles something to me in a sleepy, half awake voice but I can’t understand what he’s saying.

“Sorry, what?”, I ask him.

“Could you move somewhere else?  There’s room in front of the door.”

I look to the door that people will be entering and leaving from and there is, indeed, some room.  But it’s the door that people use to get on and off, there’s supposed to be room.

He continues mumbling, “I don’t like people standing in front of me.”

I’m sure at this point I had some strange expression on my face; half bemusement, half incredulity.  I’m not sure if the guy is high as a kite or just tired and I don’t think it would be very productive to explain to him the finer points of train etiquette and my philosophy of proper standing arrangements given how full the train is currently and is expected to be.  So instead, I answer, “That’s tough.  Sorry.”, and continue to read my book.

The young man proceeds to mumble stuff under his breath with the only intelligible words being “bitch ass” making the woman sitting next to him more uncomfortable than he’s making me.  He also stretches out his legs making sure that they come in contact with mine.  Being a train riding veteran, bodily contact doesn’t bother me.  I just smile and continue to read, a “bitch ass” softly rising to my ears every once in a while.

The very next stop, one of the sitters gets up and leaves the train.  The woman that is standing in my favorite standing spot tells me that I can have the seat so I sit down.  The young man immediately sprawls his legs into the aisle in front of him making it impossible for anyone to use that space to stand. He looks my way every once in a while with a “bitch ass” on his tongue before pulling his cap over his eyes in an attempt to sleep.

As I exit the train at my stop, I pass the young man and he makes it a point to stare directly at me as I leave the train.  “Bitch ass” greets me as the train doors open.  I meet his eyes and give him my best grimace smile as I walk out the door.

Limiting Principles

This is a repost of something I wrote prior to this blog that a friend recently reminded me of.  This was written in March 2012 when the Supreme Court was deciding on the constitutionality of Obamacare:

There was lots of talk at the Supreme Court today about there needing to be a ‘limiting principle’. Basically, the question is, if the U.S. government can mandate insurance purchases, what’s to prevent them from mandating broccoli purchases?

I don’t get these ‘limiting principle’ arguments at all. Where in the Constitution does it say “You can do x. But not all the time.”? The Constitution IS the limiting principle!. The Enumerated Powers tells us exactly what our Congress can do. As long as the law fits an Enumerated Power and doesn’t violate anything else in the Constitution, it’s fair game.

But, beyond that, there are plenty of limiting principles. The limiting principle is the lack of political will that caused universal healthcare 40+ years to be a reality. The limiting principle is elections that can change laws if they are sufficiently unpopular.

So, yes, Congress can probably mandate that you can buy broccoli under the Commerce Clause. But Congress can also declare war on Canada. Congress can also borrow one trillion dollars. Congress can also print one gazillion dollars. If you think the Enumerated Powers grants Congress too much power, change the Constitution or change your representatives. Because, in this fine Republic, the limiting principle is us.

Movie Review: Gravity

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: Go see this movie.  Go see it now!

There is a theory as to why we haven’t been visited by being from another planet.  It goes something like this: When an intelligent species first makes its way into space, they so pollute their orbit with debris that it ends up making space travel impossible thus dooming them to life on one planet.  Something tells me that the idea for “Gravity” came from that premise.

“Gravity” is an absolute visual and aural feast for the mind.  There are times when so much is happening that you can barely breathe.  The soundtrack is pitch perfect always.  As if seeing someone twirling out of control isn’t panic inducing enough, the music gives it that extra oomph to really get your heart into your throat.  But at the same time, you can not help but be in awe of the majesty of the backdrop they find themselves in.  Fear and awe come together like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

The science in this movie is pretty solid as far as I can tell.  Things move like they should move in microgravity.  I thought that maybe Earth was rotating a bit slowly in some of the backdrops, but it was hard to say for certain given the various angles that were used to terrific effect.  I do wonder if the space suits could have taken some of the abuse they did.  There was also a bit of overuse of the decompressing airlock popping open leaving the astronaut to hang on to the hatch for dear life which I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to do in a space suit.  And I don’t remember for sure, being so much in awe as to what was going on, but I believe the space shuttle post-accident was not spinning nearly as much as it should be.

This is as close to a perfect movie as you can get.  Every little element creates a depth and immersion that you don’t get to see very often on the silver screen.  Even the hour and a half runtime was absolutely perfect.  I would see this movie in the theater again and I don’t say that very often.

 

Adventures In Obamacare

Correction: The small business requirement applies to businesses over 50 full time employees, not 30.  This requirement has been delayed until January 1st, 2015. The 30 is the number of hours an employee has to work to be considered a full time employee.

I am one of the approximately 20% of the population that can take advantage of the new health exchanges that came into being to much fanfare and gnashing of teeth on October 1st.  This is my story.

As an owner of a small business well under the 30 50 employee level which Obamacare mandates companies offer insurance, I purchase health insurance for myself on the open market.  If I so chose, I could continue on my current health plan which I am assuming would equate to a platinum type plan on the health exchange.  But that would be no fun.  I currently pay about $250 a month for a fairly comprehensive $5,000 deductible plan.  Let’s see how the health exchanges stack up.

I live in Illinois.  Our state has decided to allow the federal government to control the health exchange signup procedure for anyone living in Illinois.  This means that I go to www.healthcare.gov to sign up on the exchange.  I attempted to do so on October 1st when the exchanges first opened and was met with a page telling me that the site was really busy and, if I just waited there in the virtual line, they will redirect me to the signup page as soon as possible.  After an indeterminate amount of time, I decided to try again some other time.  News reports were that people were waiting up to 3 hours to get past that screen.  Since I had until January 1st, I decided to let them shake out the bugs and the onrush and try again later.

Today, October 5th, is later.  I was once again met with the virtual please wait here message.  This time, though, I was ushered in to the ‘Create An Account’ page after only a minute or so of playing mindless Flash games.  Creating an account is fairly painless.  The website itself is fairly snazzy.  There are some bugs and I seemed to have to reenter the same information quite a few times, but eventually I was able to create an account and do the usual e-mail verification to get the account activated.

After that, you need to be able to verify your identity.  The website contracts with Experian to verify your identity, but Experian was unable to do so for me.  This is not an unusual occurrence for me.  I blame the hyphen in my name and bad coding.  As an alternative way of verifying my identity, I was able to scan and attach a copy of my driver’s license and let them verify me that way.  Unfortunately, this takes human intervention.  So now I wait.

Without proving that it’s me, I can’t yet choose a health plan.  Given that it’s the weekend, I don’t expect the verification to happen until Monday at the earliest.  I’ll post more about my adventures once I am me.

Now That’s Some High Quality Parody

I present to you OBAMACARE! the text adventure.  A sample:

You are standing in an open field in west of a white apartment complex, with a boarded front door.  There is a small mailbox here.

> e

The door is locked. There is evidently no key.

> kick door

I don’t understand that.

> chicago jackboot thug kick

I don’t understand that.

> black panther power

You don’t understand that.

> power of greyskull

Fine. By the Power of Greyskull you open the door. You are in the kitchen of the white townhouse.  A table seems to have been used recently for the preparation of food.  A passage leads to the west, and a dark staircase can be seen leading upward.  To the east is a small window which is open. On the table is a computer open to Healthcare.gov.

The Porno I Would Make

One of the major train lines into the city was shut down this morning due to a suspicious package being found at one of the stops.  This, of course, got me to thinking about pornography.

If I were to make a porno, it would be called “Suspicious Packages”.  In it, a crack unit of the police force, all female of course, would be called in to investigate suspicious packages throughout the city.  The packages in question would be men just laying around in bus terminals, train stations, and airports.  The women would have to poke and prod them to try to figure out what makes them tick (Which we all know is an impossible task, am I right ladies?).  They would then have to work on “disarming” the men all while engaging in conversations about various feminist issues.  There would also be a guy that the women can’t figure out how to disarm and they would have to call in a specialist which would end up being a gay guy.  Because my pornos would be equal opportunity pornos.  There would be jokes about controlled explosions and premature ejaculation and such as well.  One of the guys would “explode” leading to the hospitalization of some of the ladies and they would have to go to the hospital to be nursed back to health.  Oh, and there just HAS to be a scene with a bomb disposal robot.

A sex-positive, female-positive, funny porno.  This really needs to be made.  Time to start writing a script!