BREAKING: Virginia judge throws out health-care mandates as unconstitutional
December 13, 2010 No CommentMSNBC and Fox News are reporting that U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson has ruled unconstitutional the portion of the new federal health-care reform law requiring individuals to purchase health insurance. Here’s a preview of the case. As it notes: But the decision will not have any immediate effect. The individual mandate portion of the law does not begin until 2014, and any decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. More details as they arrive. UPDATE: Kevin Sack at the New York Times reports: A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and insuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below. Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff’s request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law. But the ruling is likely to create confusion among the public and further destabilize political support for legislation that is under fierce attack from Republicans in Congress and in many statehouses. In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Va., Judge Hudson wrote that the law’s central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law’s mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions. The judge wrote that his survey of case law “yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, not withstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme.”
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Images: NASA, public domain. Warming World NASA has just published two world maps showing temperature anomalies in the decades starting in 1970 and 2000. Looking at those maps, it’s pretty obvious that the planet is warming, especially closer to the poles. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Photo: US Coast Guard There were 25 billion 140-character tweets sent out in 2010, and more of them were concerned with the BP Gulf Spill than any other topic. Twitter has just released its list of the top 10 tweets for 2010, and it’s a pretty interesting blend of pop culture phenomena, world events, and debuting gadgetry. And seeing as how Twitter has grown to be pretty international in its reach and user base, I was a tad surprised to see that the BP spill took the top slot. Here’s how
Continue reading …Fraunhofer IIS uses Awiloc indoor positioning magic to guide museum patrons
December 13, 2010 No Comment
If you’ve been to a museum in the past year and change, chances are you’ve been coerced into ponying up an extra five bones for some sort of handheld apparatus. Supposedly, these things accompany patrons and enhance the experience, but more often than not, you’re stuck with a grimy audio device that tells you little more than you brother Bob, who is undoubtedly tagging along behind and educating everyone in a 50 foot radius. Folks who choose to spend their time waltzing through the Museum of Industrial Culture in Nuremberg, however, have it better. The Fraunhofer IIS has developed a new technology for WLAN-based positioning, and unlike conventional GPS approaches, Awiloc actually works indoors. As the story goes, visitors to the museum can grab a handheld that follows their movement and then shows them what they’re facing (or aren’t facing, for that matter) in detail. Of course, they could also use the tracking data to see which exhibits were drawing the most attention if they were smart, but how exactly would the privacy advocate in you feel about that? Continue reading Fraunhofer IIS uses Awiloc indoor positioning magic to guide museum patrons Fraunhofer IIS uses Awiloc indoor positioning magic to guide museum patrons originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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A 12-year-old girl who had been missing for a week was found unharmed Friday after she and the man accused in her abduction were recognized in a store in San Francisco. Now officials are working to return the girl to her father. (Dec. 13)
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Police in San Pedro, California say a suspected drunk driver somehow got his car stuck between two houses. Video shows the car suspended about five feet off the ground. (Dec. 13)
Continue reading …World’s Greenest Nation? Vatican City Has Most Solar Power Installed Per Capita
December 13, 2010 No Comment
photo: Matthew McDermott Let’s leave differences about the Roman Catholic Church’s metaphysical teachings and some of their social stances aside for the moment, and recognize that
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Click here to view this media Week after week we have our media pushing the idea that right wing ideology is somehow “centrist” with Bill Kristol’s hackery here on Fox News Sunday just being another recent example. Even though Kristol admits that every one of the policies he’s praising President Obama for embracing are all Republican ideas, he paints it as being a pivot to the center. Sorry Bill, but it’s a hard turn to the right in the under the guise of “compromise”. WALLACE: The subtext in all this Bill is after his midterm shellacking, the president moved to the center and won reelection. Is that what Obama began to do this week, making his deal with Republicans to pivot to the center and how do you think that will work for him? KRISTOL: Yes. That’s exactly what he did. We predicted this I think right at the Sunday, right after this show everyone was like oh, he’s such an ideologue, he’ll never move to the center, he can’t do what Clinton did. Remember that debate that took place a couple of weeks after this election? Could Obama pull a Clinton? Obama’s literally pulled a Clinton… he’s standing there with Bill Clinton and they’re accepting… Barack Obama and Bill Clinton stood up there and defended the Bush tax rates and the Republican estate tax proposal. Now just think about that for a moment. They weren’t defending the Clinton tax rate. They weren’t defending the Obama tax… LIASSON: They were defending the payroll tax cut and… KRISTOL: They were defending the payroll tax cut which is something Republicans have liked for a long time. Anyway, I’m saying this is from a policy point of view, this is a big move to the center by President Obama, following incidentally on his symbolic little freeze for government workers pay which is something Republicans have been for. The South Korean free trade agreement, something Republicans have been for. He’s going to stay in the surge in Afghanistan. Remember that December review where Obama was going to begin pulling out. No way, no how. David Petraeus is in charge of Aghanistan. So the president has pivoted to the center which is good for the country. It’s good for conservatives. I do think it helps his reelection prospects some because being you know, moderate conservative… WILLIAMS: That’s what I was saying… KRISTOL: There’s still enough things he’s on the left on that I think Republicans will be fine.
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The third installment in the ‘Narnia’ film franchise sails to No. 1 at the weekend box office, beating out Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in ‘The Tourist.’ (Dec. 13)
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