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Results Are In, Beetchez

Wait, what the what?  Looks like I was wrong, but it's worth considering why I was wrong.  I was right that every member of the court who voted against the individual mandate also ordered the entire law thrown out, which makes zero sense to anyone who wasn't interested in protecting insurance companies over maintaining the integrity of the legal system. 

I'm wondering if such naked disgregard for not just precedent but also process was too much for Roberts.  Declaring the mandate unconstitutional was from what I can gather utterly ridiculous (James Fallows recently asked 21 constitutional scholars about this; 19 affirmed its constitutionality, which still seems low, but they're the ones who know what they're doing).  Claiming the law could not exist with the mandate removed is simple bullshit.  Alito (a hack), Thomas (a corrupt hack) and Scalia (a corrupt hack who hates you for not being as smart as he is) along with Kennedy (a weathervane placed in a windy corner to allow him to cower even as he spins) may finally have gone too far in embarrassing the court for even so callous a Chief Justice as Roberts to tolerate.  After all, he's the only person voting here that has something to consider other than his own reputation.

In a parallel universe, Scalia's Angels voted only to strike down the mandate, and Roberts happily piled on. It's not often I say this, but thank the gods for Republican arrogance.

Last Gang In Town (Part 1)

And it's brawn against brain
And it's knife against chain
But it's all young blood
Flowing down the drain

OK, so there wasn't actually a chain in the television adaptation of Game of Thrones ( a shame, though hardly an inexplicable one).  Otherwise, though, that quote works pretty well as an encapsulation of a great deal of the second season, which closed three weeks ago with an extended episode.  But how well did "Valar Morghulis" cap the last year's action, and how well do episodes 11 through 20 measure up to A Clash Of Kings?  I warn you, this post got so big I had to split it into two. Hey, if it's good enough for Martin...

(What is below may never spoil!  Unless you read it, obviously.)

Targetted Screwing

Since we'll almost certainly know on Thursday what the Fates have decreed [1] for the Affordable Care Act, I suppose I should make a prediction as to what will happen.  Will the Supreme Court allow the individual mandate to stand, on the flimsy pretext that it was designed specifically to fit within the Constitution using language universally believed to fit within the constitution, and which would its critics agree would lie within the constitution if the name given to the penalty for non-compliance was different?  Will they tear down the mandate because nothing seems more sensible in the 21st Century than tearing down landmark legislation based on existing precedent the Court is pretending doesn't exist anymore?  Or will they go one step further and kick the entire Act out on the street, because you can't make it work without the mandate in any case?

Let's remember what the individual mandate does: it forces all citizens to purchase health insurance, to make sure no-one waits until they fall sick before doing so.  Remove the mandate, and insurance companies still have to cover anyone who asks them to (one of the major plus points of the law), even if the person asking has just suffered a heart attack and finds themselves needing a triple coronary bypass.  Needless to say, this is not the preferred option of the aforementioned companies.

With that in mind, let's review the options:

1. The notoriously business-friendly partisans who declared the 2000 election for the Republican candidate can keep insurance companies and Democrats happy;
2. The notoriously business-friendly partisans who declared the 2000 election for the Republican candidate can simultaneously fuck over insurance companies and Democrats;
3. The notoriously business-friendly partisans who declared the 2000 election for the Republican candidate can keep insurance companies happy whilst fucking over Democrats.

This does not strike me as difficult to call.

[1] My apologies to the Fates for the comparison; they might be uncaring, distant beings with no interest or investment in the consequences of their actions, but at least none of them are joyously ignorant fuckers like Antonin Scalia who, it's been well noted, has recently released a book calling his fellow SC judges hacks for not interpreting the constitution the exact way he thinks it should, and in the same book announces he's changed his mind entirely on an interpretation he's insisted was correct right up until it would force him to accept the ACA. Also, he thinks state law should always trump federal law, so long as he thinks the federal law in question is rubbish.

Like I said; joyously ignorant fucker.

The Indolently Strolling Dead

This is probably a stupid thing to post just hours before the newest episode airs, since for all I know we're about to land in the middle of a zombie killfest.  But sweet nukekubi of Ryukyu, this is some slow shit we got going on here.

Friday 40K: Crotch-Rockets Galore

Today my Ravenwing gets some more reinforcements in the shape of two new bikes.  These join another bike I haven't been able to use for years since the ludicrously draconian Dark Angels Codex demanded every infantry squad size was a multiple of five and every bike squad be a multiple of three.

Perhaps there'll be some more Dark Angels reinforcements headed this way soon, if the scuttlebutt about the boxed set for Sixth Edition proves true, though at 2200 points, it's probably time for me to move onto something else in any case.

In other news, my Space Hulk genestealers finally reveal they have feet:

and the Talisman alchemist steps out in a rather unfortunate white with brown undergarment number.

First Class Outsourcing

King Kong became enraged upon learning his birthday trainset
lacked the bendy pieces necessary to complete a circuit.

If you're a fan of pre 1980's horror (i.e. back when sequelitis was a growing concern, rather than a seemingly incurable cancer), and you've never stumbled across the Classic Horror Campaign, you might find it of interest.  I certainly did, which is how I ended up writing a review for them.

Go read the link for the full article, but in short: Horror Express remains one of my favourite Hammer films of all time, despite it not actually being Hammer at all.  "Monsters? We're British, man!"