Tangotiger Blog

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Fact-checking Rob Ford

As if the corruption in Montreal's City Hall wasn't enough, now Toronto has to deal with it.  Unlike the unsexiness of Montreal's issues, Rob Ford is a ready-made TV-star? that somehow the late-night comedians have not even needed to exagerrate.  Incredibly, they've been pretty restrained.  The Star examines his rants.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

BatKid

?Wonderful story.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Healthcare Congress FAIL: proposes replacing Section 1251 with the almost identical Section 1251

Here's the current law.?

Here's the new bill.

All they did was change dates.  The still-existing problem?  Both still say the same thing, that the insured people are not required to give up their insurance plans.  But, that's not the issue!

The issue is that the insurance companies are removing the plans from being offered.  So, the insured aren't required to giving up their plans.  There simply is no plan that will exist.  And why are the insurance companies not offering their existing plans?  Because they believe those plans: (a) fall under the purview of Obamacare, and (b) are not compliant with Obamacare.

In order to have teeth, the "grandfathered" provision should say something like:

Nothing in this act will apply to any healthplans that are currently in force, as these plans will be "grandfathered".  Grandfathered status will be lost upon any changes to the benefits, provisions, or conditions of the plan, including coinsurance, copay, deductibles, limits, other than the amount of premium charged.  (In plain english: insurance companies can increase premiums on you, but they can't add or remove anything else at all.)

The insured must be notified that this grandfathered plan will receive no protection from the Affordable Care Act, by especially noting that pre-existing conditions are not covered, and that the insurer can kick off the insured for any reason whatsoever.

And the insured will not have the opportunity to get into a new plan until the next enrollment period, which is Oct 1, of each year. 

So, Congress, if  you want to do something, do that.  Otherwise, all you are doing is... nothing at all.  Or, the usual.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Chris Christie is eating his cake

Boy, did he dodge a bullet here.  After constantly saying that the people of NJ should have a referendum on the gay-marriage "issue", and rejecting the idea that the legislature or courts should decide the matter (i.e., he doesn't think it's a civil rights issue), he has conceded that the NJ Supreme Court would eventually rule against him anyway.  So, rather than take the big L, and have the Supreme Court set the precedent, he drops his appeal.  And he says he will simply enforce the law, meaning he will now fight FOR gay-marriage (or at least won't fight against it).  He can now appeal to all sides!

Christie pretty much epitomizes how the political process should work.  Love him or hate him, at least you know where you stand with the guy.

Next up: Christie losing the medicinal marijuana "issue".

I put issue in quotes because these aren't issues, but just manufactured events? constructed as issues.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Zero-tolerance v Common-sense

?Story.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Alice Munro

Great seeing a Canadian so well-celebrated!?

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Today in the world

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Profits v Royalties

There's a fascinating case involving Princeton University, patents, and profits/royalties, and the implication to its tax-exempt organization.  Here's one tidbit:

He said Princeton misled the municipal tax assessor on a form called the “Initial Statement of Organization Claiming Property Tax Exemption.” It directs an organization to name individuals receiving profit or, if none, to “state none.”

Over several years, Princeton never stated “none.” It replied, “Only the officers & employees of the corporation receive normal compensation for their services. The trustees do not receive any compensation.”

“They’ve deliberately avoided acknowledging that they give profits to faculty,” he said. “They simply omitted the information and came up with an answer that avoids the question. It’s not only bad faith but it’s a form of deception.”

...

Payments to inventors, he said, are not profits. Rather, he said they are recognition that faculty members have property rights to inventions that they lose because, under the Bayh-Dole Act, they must assign them to the university.

“The royalty-sharing program is not a sharing of profits; it’s simply recognition in the form of just compensation for ownership interests that the faculty inventor would otherwise have,” said Lynott, of McCarter & English LLP.

?

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Dave Chappelle

They announced last Friday night that the incomparable Dave Chappelle would be performing in Montreal's Just For Laughs festival, with tickets going on sale Saturday noon.  One hour after tickets became available, they announced a second show because the first one sold out.  And then two more shows after that.? All told, Wed-Sat, July 24-27. One of his most memorable skits of his is when he is the blind leader of the KKK, unbeknownst to himself that he is in fact black. 

Monday, July 15, 2013

When the bully is bullied

Non-sports post.

Some bullies are pretty devious, be it teenagers in school, or the spouse in domestic abuse cases, or anything else related like your typical street brawl.  They do enough to push your buttons, even crossing the line, enough to instigate the victim into crossing the line back.  And once the victim crosses that line back (that means going beyond just defending themselves), the original bully can claim being a victim, and thus fight back under the guise of a victim. 

And the American Legal (not Justice) System seems to operate under the premise that the original victim is afforded victim protection as long as they don't cross the line back.

***

This is the Zimmerman-Martin incident in a nutshell.  Zimmerman stalked Martin, or otherwise pursued him, a standard bully tactic.  You can even argue that it didn't rise to the level of crossing that line.  (That is, had Martin been carrying a weapon, and he killed Zimmerman because Martin felt threatened, Martin would likely have been convicted.  Crazy right?)  So, the bully did enough to make the victim feel threatened, but not rise to that level of grave danger where Martin can pull out his gun (had he had one).  Martin though could justify punching Zimmerman, enough to stop the pursuit.

Now, what if Martin is aware of the gun in the holster?  Now Martin himself may have felt grave danger.  He's being pursued, he might have seen the holster.  Now Martin is the one in self-defense, and he has the right to do anything he can to stop Zimmerman, meaning knocking him unconscious or worse, until the grave danger he perceived is gone.

But what rights does Zimmerman have?  Can he claim self-defense, if Martin can be proven to claim it first?  That is, when does Zimmerman have a right to back down, and how does he have to show it?  Or is it simply that from the perception of each of the men, it can be reasonable shown that each could independently claim self-defense, and so, if either killed the other, it's self-defense?

That I think is what the prosecutor's had to show: that Martin acted in self-defense, and throughout the exchange, whatever Martin did was justified for self-defense, because Martin perceived that grave danger.  And if Martin did not get Justice, it's because the prosecutor wasn't able to prove that Martin was the victim throughout the exchange.  The prosecutor allowed the jury enough doubt to think that Zimmerman became the victim at some point.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Gender discrimination

Non-sports post.  Iowa Supreme Court has decided to revisit this case that they ruled on six months ago:

Framing the issue for the Iowa Supreme Court, Justice Edward M. Mansfield wrote: "The question we must answer is ... whether an employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction."

Answering the question, he continued: "The issue before us is not whether a jury could find that Dr. Knight treated Nelson badly. We are asked to decide only if a genuine fact issue exists as to whether Dr. Knight engaged in unlawful gender discrimination when he fired Nelson at the request of his wife. For the reasons previously discussed, we believe this conduct did not amount to unlawful discrimination, and therefore we affirm the judgment of the district court."

So, he didn't fire her for being an irresistible woman, but rather for being an irresistible person (who happens to be a woman).

This would be similar to those hate-crime laws, that come with it extra penalties.  So, targetting a gay person would only be considered to rise to the level of a hate-crime (as opposed to just a standard crime) if the motivation for the crime is because the person was gay.  So, say you have someone who beats up a gay person, but you can't show motivation that it was because he was gay.  Not a hate-crime (just a regular crime).  But, say that he happens to assault ten different people over ten months, and they all happen to be gay.  But, in each isolated case, you can't show that the motivation was because the person was gay.  Together though, you likely would be able to prove hate-crime, by applying Bayes.

The dentist's motivation to fire the woman is not because she is a woman, but because she is an irresistible person.  Except the only people he finds irresistible are women.  If you asked this dentist to name all the persons in the world that he finds so irresistible that it's a threat to his marriage (which also makes the enormous leap that these persons would return his overtures), they'd all be women. 

Seems like gender discrimination to me.

?

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

RIP DOMA,  you won’t be missed

Non-sports post.

The story.

When comparing to Canada, the one thing that is interesting is how much faster things get done there on social issues.  In 2003, Ontario became the first province to recognize marriage as gender-neutral.  Then after that, every few months, province by province would be conquered.  With most provinces having already weighed in, Canada made it federal law just two years later in 2005.

USA is quite different, with a much more polarizing on the issue among the States.?  In any case, Canada shows what the future will be for USA on this issue, so to continue to fight against it is to be ridiculously stubborn.  The thing that threatens the institution of marriage is not the same-gender marriages that will make up some 5% of all marriages, but the 50% divorces of current opposite-gender marriages.

"Of course I support same-sex marriage.  Why should straight people be the only ones who are miserable?" -- Howard Stern, circa 2000

Rules are for losers?

It took a while, but apparently, Texas is still based on the rule of law.?

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Activist Judges?

Non-sports post.

What is an activist judge?  If let's say 99 out of 100 senators reauthorizes a bill for a ten year period, but the Supreme Court suggests that they all did it out of political gamesmanship, is that the judges being "activists", or is that the judges being arbiters?  Is the Supreme Court in the position to decide what 99 out of 100 senators does as being gamesmanship and not honesty?

And what if instead 70 out of 100 senators reauthorizes a bill?  In that case, what does it mean?  Does this give more or less support for the bill? 

In related news: the Supreme Court announces that racial-bias is no longer a concern, and that the current law that virtually all senators agreed to? can no longer hold.  Basically, they want a law with less teeth, and... uh, they want the 99 senators to agree to a bill with less teeth?

In that case, why not simply have the Supreme Court write the law that they will uphold, since they just announced that the senate system is too broken to do otherwise.

***

Alright, that was my first take, without much thought.  Give me the other side.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Chris Christie: policitian v non-politcian

Non-sports post.?

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Immigration bill

Finally.  Something.

Up until now, Congress's Power of the Purse only gave the government enough tax dollars to deport less than 5%? of the undocumented persons living in USA.  While you have plenty of people who want more enforcement, those same people also don't want to give tax dollars for that enforcement.  That means that 95% of undocumented can't get deported, and therefore, the government has to apply prosecutorial discretion (i.e., go after those who pose a threat).

Among the 12 million or so undocumented are those who arrived in this country as children (under the guardianship of their parents or other legal guardian), and are therefore not responsible for their actions.  Whether they arrived legally and overstayed, or arrived illegally, they are still considered undocumented.  The DREAM act was supposed to resolve their fate, which should have been an easy bill to pass.  It wasn't then, but it seems to be now.  Nothing changed, other than politics.

They are proposing a 6yr visa that can be renewed (once?).  This is a non-immigrant visa, in the same class as HB-1 (3yr, renewable once) and TN (1yr, renewable indefinitely, NAFTA only).  This is how a majority of law-abiding foreigners work in this country.  Great, and this should get alot of people out of the underground.  How many?  I have no idea.

The non-immigrant visa then allows you to apply to be Legal Permanent Resident (i.e., Green Card).  When I applied for my GC, it took nearly 4 years to be approved.  And I was fast-tracked!  The proposed bill would have it that they couldn't get their GC until 10 years have elapsed (from the time the get their non-immigrant visa... I think that's the time frame).  Given that it took me 4 years, and I suspect most take 6-7 years, the 10 year time frame seems reasonable enough, for those who are undocumented right now. 

Furthermore, they are insisting that they go to the "back of the line" behind those already in the GC process.  But, really, that's irrelevant, since it shouldn't take current non-immigrants 10 years to get the GC.  But, it sounds nice, so whatever.

After that, it's three years to citizenship, which is weird, since it's five years for me.  I guess they figured since they made them wait so long in other areas, that they could relax the condition here.  It's also not a big deal anyway, since the majority of green card holders don't become citizens.  Why is that?  Well, citizenship does give you the right to vote.  But, it also requires you to pay taxes if ever you decide to no longer live in the USA.  (USA taxes its citizens, unlike the rest of the world that taxes its residents.) 

Anyway, the path to citizenship is not a big deal to undocumented people, and it's a big deal to opponents of immigration.  What the undocumented people really want is a visa that allows them to work for a period of years, and after that, they need a path to Green Card.  Those are the two big things, and that's what they are getting.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Steubenville II

Girl commits suicide, after alleging sexual assault.  One in USA, and another in Canada.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Four-year old shoots and kills six-year old, with unsecured, loaded rifle

My dog will eat anything he can get his paws on, or teeth in.  In our house, we are all trained to make sure that any plate we leave, is on the far side of the counter, where he can't reach it.  We don't leave food on the table, and simply always bring it to the sink, if we don't have time to secure in the dishwasher.  We have a buddy system, so that if one leaves the dinner table, another will watch over that plate.  We don't leave the door under the sink open, lest he go after the garbage.  When we breadcrumbs for the birds, it's on a platform four to six feet high, impossible for our dog to get.  And all that thinking, planning, and effort is for non-lethal food for a dog.

Given what we go through for our dog, I can't imagine the precautions we would take to ensure that a rifle not be accessible, nor easily discharged.  I'd probably have those double-locks that require two people ten feet apart to simulateously turn in opposite directions (ala T2).  And I wouldn't have the rifle loaded with bullets, ready to go.

So, how unserious do people continue to take gun ownership in this day and age? 

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

FOMC Statements: Then and Now

Just fantastic.  This site is my goto site for market activity analysis.  And Matthew shows exactly why.  He went through the last Fed statement, and the current Fed statement, and looks like he just put it in Word with Tracking, to highlight what was added and what was removed.  It's brilliant in its simplicity and clarity.

Indeed, you can practically see the committee using their last statement as the basis, and then going through each line, and asking "so, should we be a bit more bullish or bearish here?", and making slight modifications as they agree.?