December 6, 2012

Breaking: King County (Washington State) Issues First Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples

Source: Seattle Times

December 5, 2012 at 8:25 PM

King County issues first marriage licenses to same-sex couples

Posted by Brian M. Rosenthal

UPDATE: 12:03 a.m. | After decades of waiting to be legally married — married, not domestically partnered — Jane Abbott Lighty and Pete-e Petersen of West Seattle saw their marriage license signed by King County Executive Dow Constantine at 12:02 am.
The signing was preceded by a loud countdown to midnight and cheers.

UPDATE: 12:02 a.m. | Historic moment: King County has begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

UPDATE: 11:44 p.m. | One of the most prominent members of Washington state’s gay community called Wednesday night an “amazing piece of history.”
“This is one of those rare moments where we’re actually watching history happen,” said State Senate Majority Leader Ed Murray, D-Seattle.

Read more: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2012/12/same-sex-couples-line-up-in-downtown-seattle-to-get-marriage-licenses/

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Jeri Andrews, left, and Amy Andrews of Seattle wait in line outside the King County Recorder’s Office for a marriage license. They had a wedding ceremony this summer, and Amy decided to wear her veil. (BETTINA HANSEN / Seattle Times)

December 5, 2012

Study: Health Reform Saved Consumers $1.5 Billion in 2011

Source: Raw Story / Commonwealth Fund

President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) saved American consumers $1.5 billion on out-of-pocket health insurance premium costs in 2011, a study published Wednesday (PDF) claimed. Despite this, benefits of the law were not applied equally across all health insurance markets, leading the study’s authors to propose that stronger rules are needed.

Most of the savings cited by the report comes from the ACA’s requirement that medical loss ratios (MLR) stay at 80 percent, meaning 80 percent of all premium payments must be spent on actual health care. The goal of the requirement was to get premium costs down, but many of the law’s critics warned that it may not have that effect.

As 2011 was the first full year with the MLR rule in effect, health care advocacy group Commonwealth Fund looked at the annual financial reports of more than 2,000 insurance companies across the country, including a large proportion of organizations selling to policies to individual consumers. The study discovered that the MLR regulation forced insurers to pay $1.1 billion in rebates to their customers in 2011, while reducing their administrative costs by about $350 million to get profits within the approved range.

The biggest consumer benefits were seen in the individual market, where companies cut their overhead costs by about $66 per member, for a total of about $560 million in savings. An additional $394 million was sent back to customers who the law says overpaid on their premiums. Only one state, Rhode Island, saw an increase in administrative costs, while 39 states saw insurance companies slimming down and becoming more efficient in order to retain as much of their profits as possible.


Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/05/study-health-reform-saved-consumers-1-5-billion-in-2011

December 3, 2012

Carbon Pollution Up to 2 Million Pounds a Second

Source: Associated Press

Dec. 2, 2012 4:10 PM ET

Carbon pollution up to 2 million pounds a second

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The amount of heat-trapping pollution the world spewed rose again last year by 3 percent. So scientists say it's now unlikely that global warming can be limited to a couple of degrees, which is an international goal.

The overwhelming majority of the increase was from China, the world's biggest carbon dioxide polluter. Of the planet's top 10 polluters, the United States and Germany were the only countries that reduced their carbon dioxide emissions.

Last year, all the world's nations combined pumped nearly 38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, according to new international calculations on global emissions published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. That's about a billion tons more than the previous year.

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Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in Canada who was not part of the study, said: "We are losing control of our ability to get a handle on the global warming problem."

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The latest pollution numbers, calculated by the Global Carbon Project, a joint venture of the Energy Department and the Norwegian Research Council, show that worldwide carbon dioxide levels are 54 percent higher than the 1990 baseline.

The 2011 figures for the biggest polluters:
1. China, up 10 percent to 10 billion tons.
2. United States, down 2 percent to 5.9 billion tons
3. India

Read more: http://hosted2.ap.org/AZMES/a87e093298b44f1f90ce5c51351f7c69/Article_2012-12-02-Carbon%20Pollution/id-2b96650bffbc43968754dafd5f403ea7

December 2, 2012

I'm in audience watching Michael Nesmith play live w/ the remaining Monkees...

This is way f'ing cool.

Second to last show of tour.