An incident at the drugstore, and the answer to the Little Sisters issue

Last updated on: January 16, 2016 at 1:30 pm By Jane the Actuary

. . . if the Obama administration truly cared about respecting religious accommodation, that is. Anyway, at the start of the new year, we changed insurance. It’s yet another indicator of the dysfunction of the entire system that every year a different plan comes out having significantly lower premiums, where insurance companies would be better off with building brand loyalty, and, having stability in their customers, investing in health-improvement initiatives even if they only pay off in the long term.... Read more

Can Germany’s Arab immigrants be fixed?

Last updated on: January 15, 2016 at 11:49 am By Jane the Actuary

They’re flawed in all manner of ways. They are, it turns out, rather uneducated, on the whole, with low levels of overall seat time, and, even for those who have completed secondary schooling or more, the quality of the instruction in their home countries is much lower than in Germany. And that’s a problem in a country where there are few jobs for the uneducated and unskilled. (See this article on Politico.) They come from countries with high levels of... Read more

GOP Debate, Jan. 14, 2016

Last updated on: January 14, 2016 at 10:00 pm By Jane the Actuary

Can I watch the debate, blog, and catch up on work at the same time? Let’s see. Your comments welcome in the meantime. Cruz starts with the 10 captured sailors, and the fact that Obama ignored this in the speech, and is ready to release the $100 billion to Iran. “I give you my word if I am electd president. . . any nation that captures our fighting men and women will feel the full force of our fury.” Obama... Read more

Should there be guarantees in pension systems?

Last updated on: January 14, 2016 at 5:43 pm By Jane the Actuary

That’s the title of a Call for Papers sponsored by the Society of Actuaries. Here’s the full description: In the U.S. private employer-based defined benefit pension system, guarantees are implicitly built into the system in that corporations are expected to fund sufficiently to “guarantee” lifetime payment of employees’ benefit payments. In the event that a corporation is unable to meet its funding obligations, there is a government-backed guarantee program, with benefit limits up to a certain amount of income, through... Read more

News from Germany: the kleinen Waffenschein

Last updated on: January 13, 2016 at 5:32 pm By Jane the Actuary

Gemany, as you likely know, has much tighter restrictions on weapons than in the United States. In most cases, guns are only permitted for hunting or shooting sport usage, with limits on the type of guns allowed, and with further requirements such as passing the hunter’s exam or being an active member of a shooting club. Carrying a weapon for self-defense is permitted only for cases of demonstrated need, e.g., private security personnel or individuals under a particular threat. (See... Read more

A few words on Natural Born Citizens

Last updated on: January 15, 2016 at 7:33 am By Jane the Actuary

I’m not a Cruz supporter, but this discussion is getting a bit out of hand. So let’s start with this: The entire conversation around the question of who is, or isn’t, a “natural born citizen” takes it for granted that “natural born” means “born on American soil” — and only by extension and to the extent defined by law “born of American parents elsewhere,” because the latter case is otherwise “unnatural.” But isn’t it the case that the default way of... Read more

Reading the SOTU

Last updated on: January 13, 2016 at 11:07 am By Jane the Actuary

So, look, I didn’t watch the speech last night, nor did I watch the Republican response. I supervised my middle son’s assembly of his science fair board and, just to relax a bit, read a couple chapters of the 5th Harry Potter that my youngest is currently reading. I also haven’t read any of the commentary on the speech, since my morning so far has been spent, well, working, plus prepping a crock pot full of beef stroganoff. (Jewel had... Read more

From the library: Headscarves and Hymens; Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, by Mona Eltahawy

Last updated on: August 9, 2016 at 9:53 am By Jane the Actuary

I picked this up of the New Book shelf yesterday and it’s a short enough book and a compelling enough that I read it quickly enough to summarize it for you now. What Eltahawy has to say is very much connected up with the attacks in Cologne, though the book doesn’t address the question of Arab emigrants to Europe, just the situation in their home countries — the Arab-speaking countries of North Africa and the Middle East, where the sort... Read more

Will Silvesternacht prove to have been a turning point for Germany?

Last updated on: January 10, 2016 at 10:59 am By Jane the Actuary

First, the updates: Despite the seeming impossibility of the task, the Cologne police have had more success in identifying attackers than at least I had expected would be the case. They’ve got a list of 31 suspects so far. Countries of origin, according to Der Spiegel: Algerien (9) Marokko (8) Iran (5) Syrien (4) Deutschland (2) Irak (1) Serbien (1) USA (1) (The U.S.? A true American tourist, or someone with dual citizenship?) It seems to be the case that these... Read more

On Germany: I got nothin’ (well, not much, anyway, in terms of insights)

Last updated on: January 7, 2016 at 10:03 am By Jane the Actuary

Germany has a problem. Turns out, the integration of 1 million + Muslim refugees is not so easy, when their, ahem, culture is different than yours — or, more bluntly, when their culture endorses the mistreatment of women in various ways. And rather than admit this, the German media seemed to have simply decided that if they ignored the assaults on women in Cologne and elsewhere, they could wish them away. Here’s the New York Times, “Reports of Attacks on... Read more