Zeta Woof

We knew it would.

To monitor compliance with these rules, the IRS and HHS are now building the largest personal information database the government has ever attempted. Known as the Federal Data Services Hub, the project is taking the IRS's own records (for income and employment status) and centralizing them with information from Social Security (identity), Homeland Security (citizenship), Justice (criminal history), HHS (enrollment in entitlement programs and certain medical claims data) and state governments (residency).

The data hub will be used as the verification system for ObamaCare's complex subsidy formula. All insurers, self-insured businesses and government health programs must submit reports to the IRS about the individuals they cover, which the IRS will cross-check against tax returns.

Good luck in advance to anyone who gets caught in this system's gears, assuming it even works. Centralizing so much personal information in one place is another invitation for the IRS wigglers in some regional office—or maybe higher up—to make political decisions about enforcement.

What wild-eyed right-wing group is suggesting all this?

The Wall Street Journal.

My mother-in-law Carolyn celebrated her ninetieth birthday this weekend with a big party on Saturday and a family get-together on Sunday. Here she stands surrounded by all her children and most of her grand-children and great-grand-children.

We went by the old railroad bridge just as the sun went down.

The light was perfect, but all I had was my phone — oh well.

I was doing some work in the garden yesterday afternoon that involveed two shovels, a sledgehammer, and a twenty pound, six foot long, steel pry bar. Really stupid work obviously.

At one point I pulled the top of the pry bar toward me really hard and the bottom slipped and I cracked myself smartly on the forehead. With a twenty pound steel bar.

I first thought:

That really sounded bad.

Then I thought:

I'm sure glad I'm still alive.

And finally:

Am I bleeding?

As it turned out I wasn't, and after twenty-four hours the swelling went down. But it made me stop and think. What if, instead of the test pattern, it was:


What then?

In 1877 four hundred Chinamen dug a 26½ mile long ditch to bring water from the Little Applegate River to the Sterling Mine. We hiked about three miles along that ditch today.

At one point, just to save time, they dug a 100-foot tunnel through a ridge. Naturally, we had to crawl through it.

A few bits of bright news that got drowned out by the stupid news about the stupid Chechens in the stupid city of Boston.

On Monday morning Lisa Fabrizio penned a brief but brilliant screed which deserves more attention than it got.

Tuesday The New York Sun explained why the phrase "value of gold" sounds like the screech of chalk on a blackboard.

On Thursday Brigid, perhaps inspired by some pictures in the Daily Mail, wrote about crosswind landings, and Murphy's Law, inspired by another Brighid, went shopping for a DC-3.

And on Friday Greg called my attention to the good blogger Borepatch who noted the final toast of Doolittle's four surviving Raiders. Go watch the trailer.

And forget the stupid news.

If you don't get audited now and then you're not really trying.

Boris Johnson taunts the taunters.

Ding dong, the Soviet Union is dead!
Ding dong, communism is dead! ...

Ding dong! Old Labour’s dead! The Labour Party has given up its ridiculous belief in the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange — the slogan that used to be printed on the back of every party membership card. Ding dong, Clause Four is dead as a dodo.

But I tell you what, my little Left-wing friends, and all you who think it amusing to break out the champagne at the death of an 87-year-old woman. There is one thing that is alive and well — and that is Thatcherism.

Read it all.

More from Alina Ibragimova. Nikolay Roslavets: Violin Concertos.

I already have most of the well-known concertos: a half dozen Sibeliuses, three or four Beethovens, Mendelssohns, Tchaikovsky, etc....

From now on I will be going further and further afield. Roslavets I hadn't heard of before now, and I was prepared to be underwhelmed. But the third movement of the 1st, I sat up and listened.... This is good. Real good.

This is just plain weird.

Indian textile manufacturer Alok Industries is planning to open its first textile mill in the U.S., in an effort to save money on energy costs, a company executive said....

The mill, which would spin U.S.-grown cotton into yarn or thread, would be a major shift in the textile industry. For years the U.S. has shipped its cotton to mills overseas for processing, and then imported the finished products. Mr. Agarwaal said Alok's mill would spin the U.S. cotton and export the yarn to weaving and sewing factories in Latin America.

He said Alok chose the U.S. for its access to cotton....

But more than that:

"Energy is driving [the decision]," he said.

So let me see if I got this right. We have cheap energy and raw materials and cheap (robot) labor but we still need sweatshops but Indian sweatshops are too expensive so hello, Mañuel Labor!