I'm buying a new car.  Today I wanted to order replacement license plates so I could retire 12-year old, beat-up ones when I take delivery.  Massachusetts offers them at a fairly modest $10 per plate.  They also offer ordering by phone.  So I called to place an order.  The automated system told me the wait time would be over an hour and offered a ( Read more... )

Today we have yet another politician proposing a law which would try to legislate "good" behavior by U.S. citizens, criminalize personal choices, and have a disporporationate impact on the poor, minorties, and the disabled.  Only this time, it's President Obama who is "floating" the idea.

I refer to the suggestion President Obama made in Cleveland ( Read more... )

UAQ, of course, stands for Unasked Questions.  No one asked me, but I have read the now infamous letter and am prepared to answer them anyway ( Read more... )

The MBTA shut down all trains at 7pm yesterday.  There were no trains today and only a limited bus schedule.  For tomorrow, here's a rundown of what the MBTA is currently saying:

• 70% of the regularly scheduled trips on the commuter Rail
• Fewer cars and less frequent service on the Blue and Green lines
• "Limited" Service on the Red and Orange lines

Users ( Read more... )

I just getting over a week-long cold, which, combined with two news stories, got me thinking about the Affordable Care Act, aka the ACA or Obamacare.  And about pizza, of course.
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During an interview with Marcia Kramer of the New York Daily News, Sol Wachtler, the former New York State chief judge, once said words to the effect of “district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that ‘by and large’ they could get them to ‘indict a ham sandwich.’”  The quote entered popular culture via Tom Wolfe’s book The ( Read more... )

In the last couple of week, you may have seen several stories about how the U.S. debt crisis is “over.”  Political flack Ambrose Evans-Pritchard even wrote a column in the Daily Telegraph entitled “America has conquered its debt crisis with incredible speed.”  Too bad it hasn’t.
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First, a few ground rules. If your mind is already made up and doesn’t want to get confused, please don’t respond. I don’t care if you deny the basic science of the effects of CO2, expect a dues ex machina to fix it for mankind, or want to fine and jail people who disagree with a “set of facts that the majority of scientists clearly agree on.” ( Read more... )

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Today the Congressional Budget Office issued its report on the budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024. Two of the sections dealt with the affordable health care act (ACA, aka Obamacare).

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