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Judging Bloggers by Their Books
The Top Ten 'Benefits' of Obamacare, Seven of Whic...
Progressives Hate the Bill, Too
Bloated General Hospitals: One Problem Obamacare W...
Anthem Blue Cross: Not So Greedy After All
I Have Resurfaced!
Sorry, But When I Said "Vast" I Really Meant Vast
Sprawling Misconceptions
Cross-posted from @TAC.
Earlier this month, Tyler Cowen posted the ten books that have influenced him the most, and "encourage[d] other bloggers" to do the same. Ross Douthat of the New York Times called Cowen's invitation "irresistible," which, judging by the number of bloggers who responded, it was. The Top Ten Influential Books Game gave bloggers easy material — namely, themselves — for a quick post. It also gave them a chance to prove that they are part of the club (that is, the club of influential bloggers).
Most importantly, Cowen's Influential Books Game gave bloggers an excuse to promote themselves by composing lists designed to excite the maximum of reader admiration. Which is not to say that any lists were insincere: on the contrary, the top bloggers ended up sounding all very smart and thoughtful precisely because they really are just the sort of people whose lives were changed by reading Nietzsche. Still, as vehicles of self-promotion, some lists were better than others. To succeed, an Influential Books List needs to satisfy several competing criteria, namely: erudition (it should show how widely the blogger has read), plausibility (it should not claim that the blogger read Principia Mathematica at age 10), inventiveness (it should be unpredictable), freedom of thought or freedom from dogma (it should not unwittingly depict the blogger as an ideologue) and gumption (it should show that the blogger is unafraid to defend unpopular opinions).
Given these constraints, it is not surprising that bloggers generally agreed on what types of books should be included. I list them below. Who came up with the most impressive list? Let's take a look! The contestants: Bryan Caplan, Matt Continetti, Tyler Cowen, Ross Douthat, Arnold Kling, Will Wilkinson, Matthew Yglesias. The categories, identified by the "signal" each is designed to send:
1. "I admit that I was pretty silly at age 18."
Caplan: Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
Continetti: None
Cowen: None (Cowen cites Ayn Rand but, showing gumption, does not express any adult reservations about her.)
Douthat: G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. "What Ayn Rand is to young libertarians," Douthat writes, "Chesterton is to teenage Catholic conservatives."
Kling: None
Wilkinson: Frank Herbert, Dune; Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Yglesias: Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey. Kingston, Yglesias explains, convinced him not "to be the kind of jerk who thought education was being ruined by PC demands to represent more women and minority writers."
Best choice: Yglesias. Showing both erudition and freedom of thought, Yglesias conquered at age 18 a dogma that is uncritically accepted by seasoned intellectuals. Second prize goes to Douthat, whose early discovery of Chesterton shows erudition.
Worst choice: Continetti. Continetti admits that he grew up reading Ayn Rand and Rush Limbaugh, but still cites big conservative names such as Russell Kirk and Irving Kristol on the sophistic grounds that Rand and Limbaugh are "where you start, not where you end up." Excluding Rand and Limbaugh, even though they influenced you, betrays dogmatism (only Russell Kirk is worth of serious attention!) and lack of gumption. If you like Ayn Rand or Rush Limbaugh, say so!
Ideal Choice: The best youthful obsession I can think of is C.S. Lewis's obsession with the Sagas of Icelanders and other Norse legends. For a libertarian, love of Icelandic sagas has the added benefit of plausibly leading to an interest in stateless societies.
2. "My interests are more diverse than you know!"
Caplan: Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
Continetti: Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance
Cowen: Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
Douthat: Roger Angell, Late Innings
Kling: Bill James, The Baseball Abstract, 1987
Wilkinson: Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Yglesias: Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey (doing double duty here)
Best Choice: Cowen. A prolific writer and academic economist, he's also read all of Proust! Now there's a cosmopolitan. Second prize goes to Douthat and Kling, although they lose points for lack of inventiveness, as it's slightly cliche for writers to love baseball.
Worst Choice: Several bloggers show questionable literary taste, but Caplan shows none at all. Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid appears seemingly at random as the only book on his list (apart from Zarathustra) that isn't ideological or related to economics, and then, as it turns out, only because Reid helped cure Caplan of his Randianism. As Yglesias notes, Caplan's interests are strikingly narrow.
Ideal Choice: Proust is hard to beat, though I think the best choice might be Rabelais. A taste for Rabelais is as plausible as a taste for Proust yet requires even more erudition. Someone like Yglesias could have plausibly cited Borges, another good choice. Many of these bloggers could have done simply by citing a volume of poetry.
3. "I have read deeply enough in the Western Canon to consider the Great Books my friends."
Caplan: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Continetti: Plato, The Republic; Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Cowen: Plato, Dialogues
Douthat: Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
Wilkinson: Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics
Yglesias: Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
Best Choice: Yglesias. Wilkinson also cites the Genealogy of Morals, but in Yglesias's case you can tell that Nietzsche really got him thinking. Wilkinson's choice of the Nicomachean Ethics and Continetti's choice of The Republic lack inventiveness, as they rank too high on the list of best books of all time.
Worst Choice: Douthat. Douthat tries a shortcut by citing Fukuyama as a "gateway drug to Plato and Aristotle, Machiavelli and Nietzsche." If you were truly intoxicated with the Great Books, however, you would not lump them together so blithely. Douthat's choice shows lack of erudition and suggests Great Books curriculum dogmatism. Second worst is Continetti's choice of Adam Smith, which lacks plausibility. Does Continetti really expect us to believe that he has read and pondered the entire Wealth of Nations?
Ideal Choice: Genealogy of Morals is good, but a bit too obvious for a young intellectual. I would go with another difficult but compelling philosopher such as Spinoza or Pascal (with a slight preference for Spinoza, as Jeeves's favorite philosopher).
4. "I am not afraid to defend a book that you may hate."
Caplan: Rand, Rothbard, Mises; Paul Johnson, Modern Times; Murray and Herrnstein, The Bell Curve
Continetti: Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation
Cowen: Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal; Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae
Douthat: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Kling: Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man
Wilkinson: Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged; Murray and Herrnstein, The Bell Curve
Yglesias: None.
Best Choice: Douthat missed a chance to score big here. When a religious conservative praises Brave New World, it's almost certain that he picked up his admiration from biotechnology skeptics such as Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama. If I am right, then Douthat should have showed more gumption by citing the oft denounced Leon Kass.
Worst Choice: Caplan. Caplan, showing dogmatism, lists a panoply of libertarian ideologues whom non-true-believers find tedious.
Ideal Choice: Herbert Spencer might work for a libertarian. Conservatives have no shortage of hated writers, from Joseph de Maistre and George Fitzhugh to Carl Schmitt. I could not find a liberal blogger citing anything very radical. I suppose only moderate progressives such Yglesias and Ezra Klein read Tyler Cowen's blog.
5. "I may have my biases, but I have still learned from the other side."
Caplan: None
Cowen: John Maynard Keynes, General Theory
Douthat: Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites
Kling: None.
Wilkinson: Rawls, A Theory of Justice
Yglesias: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From the Underground
Best Choice: Cowen's choice of Keynes is excellent, but Yglesias truly shines here. By citing Dostoevsky, the religious anti-utopian, Yglesias shrewdly overcomes the problem that conservatives have not produced great works to rival those of Mill, Locke or Rawls. Yglesias acknowleges the aesthetic power of reactionary ideas — which shows freedom of thought — but ultimately dismisses them with the memorable epigram, "sober thinking about big issues is boring." An outstanding performance.
Worst Choice: Douthat's choice of Christopher Lasch shows lack of inventiveness, as Lasch has long been conservatives' favorite leftist. But Continetti and Caplan show no interest in understanding the other side whatsoever. When asked to cite your influences, you should at least try to establish that you've considered other points of view!
Ideal Choice: You can't beat Yglesias's choice here. A liberal would also do well to cite Joseph Schumpeter, the most brilliant conservative of the past century. Conservatives and libertarians could be more inventive than to cite Rawls. Charles Taylor, Foucault, Habermas, Amartya Sen — any of these would be more interesting choices.
6. "I have a well-formed, coherent worldview."
Caplan: Rothbard, Mises, Richard Posner
Continetti: Burke's Reflections; Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind; Irving Kristol, Neoconservatism
Cowen: Hayek, Individualism and the Economic Order
Douthat: Chesterton, Orthodoxy; C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Wilkinson: Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty; Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture
Yglesias: Derek Pargit, Reasons and Persons; Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender and the Family
Best Choice: This is a dangerous category, as being enamored with the canonical writers of your ideology shows lack of freedom of thought. I like Kling here, none of whose choices seems to have been chosen for ideological reasons. Cowen and Yglesias also excel by making clear that the lessons they have learned from various books are narrow, not ultimate.
Worst Choice: Caplan and Continetti again show dogmatism by citing a string of works popular only among like-minded readers.
Ideal Choice: The best strategy is not to cite a famous worldview-forming work at all.
7. "Gosh, I sure was precocious as a kid!"
Caplan: Rothbard
Cowen: Plato's Diaologues
Douthat: James Hibbert, Wolfe at Quebec
Best Choice: Cowen. In Cowen's case, you really can believe that at age 12 he had his nose buried in the Apology of Socrates.
Worst Choice: None is really a bad choice here. Douthat's tale of how he learned so much "historical arcana," however, seems artificial, as it turns out that the book in question did not actually make a deep impression on him.
Ideal Choice: Plato's Dialogues. It's surprising that not more teenagers read Plato, whose dialogues are often very entertaining. Other plausible and erudite choices would be lively classical historians such as Herodotus or Suetonius. For the blogger with a reputation for braininess, Godel, Escher Bach would work nicely.
8. "I've got some serious candlepower up here."
Caplan: Hard to say, since the most difficult works are all in his field
Cowen: Quine, Word and Object
Douthat: None
Kling: Again, it's hard to say, as the most difficult works are all in his field.
Wilkinson: David Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction
Yglesias: Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained; Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Best Choice: Cowen. Though an economist by training, Cowen has still read some rather hefty philosophy. (Yet he somewhat undercuts his victory in this category by drawing a "meta-lesson" from Quine about how to arrive at a deeper understanding than the one you already have. This often means that the reader has not actually understood the book in question.) Yglesias's choices are good, but he loses points for lack of inventiveness by picking the two recent works of analytic philosophy that non-philosophers might have actually read.
Worst Choice: This category isn't really fair to Continetti and Douthat, since they're competing against academic economists and amateur philosophers. Still, apart from Continetti's implausible choice of Adam Smith, neither selected any book that would really strain the old bean.
Ideal Choice: The ideal choice would separate the real brains from the pretenders by revealing that the blogger understands and could independently derive, say, Godel's incompleteness theorem. The ideal blogger would cite Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind, while making clear that he doesn't accept the conclusions.
9. "There's no way the rest of you guys have read anything as obscure as this."
Caplan: None (works in his own field don't count)
Cowen: Susan Love Brown, The Incredible Bread Machine
Wilkinson: None
Yglesias: Thomas Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution
Best Choice: Surprisingly, only Yglesias and Cowen compete in this category, which is ripe for displays of inventiveness. Yglesias cleverly picks a famous author's less famous book. Cowen admits that he picked up libertarianism very early on, but from a surprising source.
Worst Choice: No bad choices here. Continetti, Kling and Wilkinson picked science fiction books, but only the most popular within their genre.
Ideal Choice: So many possibilities! I'm going to go with an actual personal choice, namely, Chateaubriand's Genius of Christianity, a monumental apology for Western civilization that is hard to find in English translation.
10. "I may be highly literate but I'm not a snob."
Caplan: Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Continetti: Harlan Ellison, Deathbird Stories
Cowen: None
Douthat: Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
Kling: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
Wilkinson: Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns
Best Choice: I'm not competent to judge comic books, fantasy or science fiction, so I'll have to call a tie between Continetti, Kling and Wilkinson. Douthat's choice of Tolkien lacks inventiveness. Also, his defense of fantasy goes a bit overboard. Sure, fantasy "re-enchants" the world (read: it's about gods and spirits and stuff) but that's a far cry from saying that it captures "more reality" than the alternatives. At most, it captures a neglected piece of reality. In fact, while it does re-introduce supernatural spirits, fantasy also simplifies natural human spirits, so the results is actually a net loss of enchantment.
Douthat's re-enchantment theory also fails to account for the appeal of its cousin genre, science fiction, which is fantastical but not supernatural. Finally, both genres appeal almost exclusively to geeky males who (as our blogging contestants themselves prove!) normally prefer non-fiction. This suggests that the appeal of fantasy is not in its supernatural elements but its elaborate system-building.
Worst Choice: No bad choices here. Ironically, Cowen, a leading anti-snob, is the least tempted by popular culture!
Ideal Choice: It may not be a perfect choice, but you couldn't go wrong by citing P.G. Wodehouse. An admiration for Wodehouse is highly plausible and also shows erudition, since all voracious readers love him. Surprisingly, no took up the obvious challenge here, namely, to make a plausible defense of an author whom everyone else thinks unworthy of consideration. Douthat, however, gets extra credit for defending Stephen King as a "runner up" influential author.
Overall Winners: Tie between Yglesias and Cowen. (Cowen, however, should be handicapped since he started the "contest" and thus may have designed it so he would win.)
Just so there's no misunderstanding, I should acknowledge that the Top Ten Influential Books Game was not set up as a competition nor was it taken as such (at least not explicitly). In "judging" the winners, I have my tongue in cheek. Still, this exercise confirms some general impressions, in particular that Cowen is a freakishly clever polymath and that, of those who have made blogging their trade, Yglesias has the most depth. The others are all very smart, worth reading, and brilliant in their areas of comfort, but not of the same general caliber.
Posted by Austin Bramwell at 3:00 PM 1 comments
Rasmussen Reports: 55% favor repeal of Obamacare.
Conventional wisdom holds that, now that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 is law, it will be politically, if not mathematically, impossible for Republicans to repeal it. Republicans will need a majority in the House, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and the Presidency—which seems impossible. On top of that, as I write in my previous post, Democrats believe that the law's immediate benefits will outweigh any drawbacks.
But a surprising development over the past few days has been the coalescence in the conservative blogosphere of a movement to repeal Obamacare, and replace it with better reforms. This stance initially elicited resistance from elected Republicans, but is gaining consensus among them as well. For his part, the President says, "Go for it."
But now, there is data that suggests that the "Repeal and Replace" campaign is not as crazy as it sounds. Rasmussen Reports, a prominent Washington polling service, finds that 55% of Americans favor repeal (h/t The Weekly Standard):
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the first two nights after the president signed the bill, shows that 55% favor repealing the legislation. Forty-two percent (42%) oppose repeal. Those figures include 46% who Strongly Favor repeal and 35% who Strongly Oppose it.
In terms of Election 2010, 52% say they'd vote for a candidate who favors repeal over one who does not. Forty-one percent (41%) would cast their vote for someone who opposes repeal.
Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly favor repeal while most Democrats are opposed. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 59% favor repeal, and 35% are against it.
Most senior citizens (59%) also favor repeal. Earlier, voters over 65 had been more opposed to the health care plan than younger adults. Seniors use the health care system more than anyone else.
A number of states are already challenging the constitutionality of that requirement in court, and polling data released earlier shows that 49% of voters nationwide would like their state to sue the federal government over the health care bill.
Rasmussen Reports will track support for the repeal effort on a weekly basis for as long as it remains a significant issue. The next update will be released Monday morning.
Posted by Avik Roy at 7:38 PM 24 comments
Labels: Obamacare, Politics, Repeal
Democrats, such as Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), say they are eager to campaign against Republicans who seek to repeal their health-care legislation. "The Republicans will have to stand up and say we want to repeal those things and I think that will be hard, because people will begin to realize these are commonsense changes," said Durbin.
Indeed, as Grace-Marie Turner mentioned in National Review, Democrats have posted a list of the "Top Ten Immediate Benefits" that they argue that individuals will gain from the legislation.
But there is no such thing as a free lunch, and many of these "benefits" are accompanied by unmentioned costs. If you require that every restaurant serve Kobe beef instead of USDA Choice, diners might see that as a "benefit" — until their waiter gives them the check.
Let's go through the Democrats' top ten, point-by-point:
Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans. This will increase the cost of insurance for everyone else. Net negative.
Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool. High-risk pools are a good way to improve coverage of those with pre-existing conditions, which is why John McCain advocated them in the 2008 Presidential campaign. Unfortunately, the Democratic bill doesn't do enough to make them feasible. Net neutral to positive.
Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans. Insurers shouldn't drop people when they get sick, unless they have an extremely good reason, such as misrepresentation of a pre-existing condition. The onus should be on insurance companies, therefore, to investigate these things up front before taking consumers' money. This mandate will have the side effect of making applications for insurance more onerous. Net positive.
Lower seniors' prescription-drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole. As a flat-out subsidy, yes, this will appear to seniors to be a straightforward benefit. But it is accompanied by a far larger cut: the obliteration of Medicare Advantage. Net negative.
Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage. The tax credits will not be enough to compensate for two things: (1) an Obamacare-driven acceleration in the rise of the cost of health insurance; (2) the employer mandate, which requires that any small business with more than 50 employees provide health insurance to every employee or pay a fine equal to $2,000 multiplied by the entire number of employees in that company. Net negative.
Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans. Yet another mandated "benefit" that will drive up the cost of health insurance. Net negative.
Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26. See #6, though if this provision increases the number of young people with health insurance, it could improve the risk pool and have a salutary effect on insurance costs. Net neutral to positive.
Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing. See #6. Another clumsy mandate that will drive up the cost of insurance. Most plans already encourage prevention — but prevention has no impact on long-term health care costs, since we all have to eventually die of something. Net negative.
Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions. Yeah, except that a new government agency, the Independent Medicare Advisory Board, is now empowered to bar reimbursement for any insurance claims it deems fit. And its decisions, enacted by unelected bureaucrats, can't even be appealed by Congress, let alone consumers. We know from experience that once Medicare stops reimbursing for something, private insurers usually follow. Net negative.
Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs. Once again, this is a mandate that will only drive up insurance costs. If an insurer is required to spend 85 percent (say $850 of every $1,000) of premiums on patient care (hence $150 in "overhead"), but the company needs to spend $200 on administrative costs to ensure that its plans run effectively, they will simply raise premiums by $333 in order to ensure that the percentage of premiums spent on overhead remains the same. Net negative.
So, of the Democrats' top ten "benefits," seven have direct, opposing costs of an even greater magnitude. The remaining three provisions, if we're lucky, might work out. But we haven't even gotten started with all of the other mandates and tax increases in the law for which there are no upsides. The Democrats' list demonstrates that we have a long way to go before our political class understands the very basics of how insurance works.
Posted by Avik Roy at 10:24 AM 13 comments
Labels: Obamacare, Politics
For those who are dismayed by yesterday's outcome, and are thinking about what to do next, read this piece in the Huffington Post. In it, Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher describes 18 myths about the health care bill, from the progressive point of view.
Her criticisms of Obamacare are withering, and are important to understand. Her 18 myths (with detail in the full article) are:
This is a universal health care bill.
Insurance companies hate this bill.
The bill will significantly bring down insurance premiums for most Americans.
The bill will make health care affordable for middle class Americans.
This plan is similar to the Massachusetts plan, which makes health care affordable.
This bill provides health care to 31 million people who are currently uninsured.
You can keep the insurance you have if you like it.
The "excise tax" will encourage employers to reduce the scope of health care benefits, and they will pass the savings on to employees in the form of higher wages.
This bill employs nearly every cost control idea available to bring down costs.
The bill will require big companies like Wal-Mart to provide insurance for their employees.
The bill "bends the cost curve" on health care.
The bill will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.
The bill prohibits dropping people in individual plans from coverage when they get sick.
The bill ensures consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to challenge new insurance plan decisions.
This bill will stop insurance companies from hiking rates 30%-40% per year.
When the bill passes, people will begin receiving benefits under this bill immediately.
The bill creates a pathway for single payer.
The bill will end medical bankruptcy and provide all Americans with peace of mind.
As she summarizes, "Real health care reform is the thing we've fought for from the start. It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps."
Posted by Avik Roy at 2:53 PM 1 comments
Bloated General Hospitals: One Problem Obamacare Would Make Worse
As I recounted in an earlier post, Democrats have attempted to portray health insurers as greedy and cruel as a way of building political support for their health-care legislation. The implication has been that insurers, ever hungrier for profits, have jacked up rates in order to exploit vulnerable Americans.
But Democrats have a strong political incentive to distract the public from one of the real villains of rising health-care costs: bloated general hospitals.
In an excellent article in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Avery Johnson and Suzanne Sataline describe how hospitals have demanded dramatically higher reimbursement rates from insurers — as much as 54 percent — and routinely threaten to cut off patients covered by those insurers if they don't get their way. Because many large hospitals have monopolistic positions within their local areas, they usually do get their way.
Health insurers are fighting demands by hospitals for sharply higher reimbursement rates by threatening to drop the hospitals from their health-plan networks, and blaming them for higher insurance premiums.
"We've never seen the kind of increases we're seeing right now" from hospitals, says Aetna Inc. President Mark Bertolini. Five years ago, a typical rate increase was about 5 percent, but this year Aetna granted 50 "must have" rate increases of more than 20 percent, Mr. Bertolini says.
In a fresh battle, Stellaris Health Network, a four-hospital system in Westchester County, N.Y., just asked a unit of health insurer WellPoint Inc. to increase its payments by 16 percent this year-in part, so that Stellaris could fund a new cancer center, according to the insurer...
Hospitals argue that low Medicare rates and cuts to Medicaid mean that hospitals have to get money from elsewhere, and increasingly that is private insurers. Rising ranks of uninsured Americans have led to more uncompensated care and have swelled the rolls of Medicaid, exacerbating the problem.
But insurers contend that in recent years big hospital systems have been buying up smaller medical centers and using their dominance in a region to demand big rate increases. America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade organization, points to data showing hospital markets are 47 percent more concentrated than they were 13 years ago...
Even tense negotiations usually result in a last-minute accord, but in some cases they fall apart. In 2008, Saint Luke's Health System, based in Kansas City, Mo., with 11 locations in Missouri and Kansas, initially asked UnitedHealth for a 54 percent increase over four years, the insurer said. Last year, the contract ended without an agreement. UnitedHealth lost the hospitals from its network.
While it is true that hospitals are increasingly burdened by underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid, they regularly attempt to get others to bail them out of their own inefficient practices. Hospitals are the largest employers in many congressional districts, and they use their political sway to squash entrepreneurial competitors, such as specialized, physician-owned hospitals.
Indeed, the Senate bill would bar the construction of new physician-owned hospitals and would restrain existing specialty hospitals from expanding. These specialty hospitals, by focusing on a specific disease area such as heart surgery, usually offer better-quality care at lower prices than do their larger counterparts. Those lower prices translate into lower health-care costs, and thereby lower insurance premiums, and thereby broader access to health care.
Instead, by protecting large hospitals from competition and innovation, the Senate bill will increase health-care costs and insurance premiums, and thereby even further squeeze those individuals, families, and employers who struggle to afford health insurance.
Labels: Hospitals, Obamacare
Last month, it came out that Anthem Blue Cross, California's largest for-profit health-insurance company, was planning to raise health-plan premiums this year by as much as 39 percent. The White House seized on the news to pillory health insurers and claim that the need for Obamacare was greater than ever.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was "very disturbed" by the increases, and accused the company of cruelty and greed: "These extraordinary increases are up to 15 times faster than inflation and threaten to make health care unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of Californians, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet in a difficult economy. [Anthem's] strong financial position makes these rate increases even more difficult to understand." Congress called hearings. Even California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a Republican running for governor, decided to launch an investigation.
Today, Anthem's parent, Wellpoint Inc., held a conference call with investors to discuss its 2010 financial outlook. On the call, they said that because of lower revenues and higher expenditures on patient care, and despite lower administrative costs, they would earn 11 percent less in 2010 than in 2009.
To be specific: Wellpoint projected a 3 percent decline in operating revenue; a 0.7 percent increase in the percentage of premiums to be spent on patient care (from 82.6 percent to 83.3 percent); administrative costs of 14.4 percent (down from 15.9 percent in 2009); and profit margins of 4.4 percent (down from 4.8 percent). And their margins are only that good if the proposed rate increases, that have been so ardently criticized, go through.
What Wellpoint's disclosures demonstrate is that the rate increases they are seeking are not a result of ruthlessness, but of rising health-care costs. They must pass the majority of these costs on to policyholders, or the company will lose money. Unfortunately, the biggest cause of rising health-care costs is poorly conceived government policy, a problem that Obamacare will accelerate.
Labels: Insurers, Kathleen Sebelius, Obamacare
Okay, so my last apology was insincere, but I really mean it this time.
So, here is the story of why this blog, after a brief but energetic start, went nowhere.
In April, I took a job as a healthcare equity research analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., where my views on healthcare stocks are available to paying clients of the firm. Given that I was just starting up, I felt it necessary to focus all of my energies on getting up and running at MCH.
Now that I am up and running at work, and now that Obamacare is the law of the land, it is more important than ever that Americans involve themselves in the debate about healthcare policy.
I have been fortunate to find two first-rate platforms for my thoughts on healthcare: National Affairs, where I have published a 6,526-word thought piece on "Health Care and the Profit Motive" in the Spring 2010 issue; and Critical Condition, the healthcare blog of National Review Online. I owe a great debt to Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs; and Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, for what they do to improve my work.
My plan for the foreseeable future is to write long-form articles for journals like National Affairs, supplemented with daily thoughts at National Review Online. I will link to all such entries at this site, so you can track my writings either by visiting here or via my RSS feed and/or Twitter.
I have noticed a few out-of-date links around the site, and I will correct those posthaste. I want to assure my handful of readers that this blog is back.
One housekeeping matter: as I am a registered securities analyst, licensed by the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), I will not be making recommendations to buy or sell securities on this blog, or in any other forum, unless it is expressly provided for in the policies of FINRA and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. My intent is to focus my public writings on the public interest, irrespective of what I think of healthcare stocks. I don't seek any compensation for my policy writings.
Thanks for your patience, and I look forward to your future comments.
Dismissing as "balderdash and poppycock" my claim that "government planning makes sprawl ubiquitous," Randal O'Toole of the libertarian Cato Institute* admonishes me and other sprawl critics to "get their noses out of [James Howard] Kunstler's biased diatribes." My nose now lifted, I cannot see how O'Toole has even rebutted my post, much less exposed it as "balderdash," not to mention "poppycock." O'Toole quotes me as saying that sprawl is "mandated by a vast and seemingly intractable network of government regulations, from zoning laws and building codes to street design regulations." That vast network includes but is not limited to:
Physical destruction of cities through urban renewal projects, public housing and highways;
Massive government spending on highway building;
Subsidizing of new home construction by government-sponsored entities;
Tax law benefits of home ownership;
The interstate highway system;
Minimum parking space requirements;
Traffic engineering and road construction codes that make it unlawful to make pedestrian-friendly streets;
Land use codes, including minimum setbacks;
Minimum lot zoning; and
"Euclidean" zoning that segregates residential, commercial and industrial uses.
(See Michael Lewyn's work, to which O'Toole himself has linked.) In response, O'Toole addresses only one of these policies, namely, Euclidean zoning. Developers, he argues, generally have no trouble getting zones reclassified. Hence, Euclidean zoning operates in practice as a licensing regime rather than a flat prohibition on varying land uses. Licensing regimes, of course, restrict supply by definition. At most, therefore, O'Toole has shown only that Euclidean zoning does not prevent mixed use development as much as commonly supposed.
But so what? Let's concede the Euclidean zoning does not cause sprawl; let's even concede (as seems unlikely) that it has no actual effect on land use whatsoever. Euclidean zoning is still just one set of strands in the vast network of laws mandating sprawl. To produce the opposite of sprawl — that is, the walkable neighborhood — the government needs to let developers do a lot more than just mix uses. Jane Jacobs identified the features of a functioning urban neighborhood fifty years ago: in addition to mixed uses, you need (at a minimum) short blocks, narrow streets, and a facade enclosure creating a legible public space. As an example, here's a on old picture of Crown Street, an undistinguished street in New Haven (taken before New Haven was physically destroyed by I-95 and urban renewal). Many people would pay dearly to live near a street like that today — if it were allowed to be built.
Yet most jurisdictions in the United States make it illegal to build anything like Crown Street. O'Toole cites Houston, which has no formal zoning but is notoriously sprawling, as proof that central planning does not cause sprawl. Houston, however, requires streets to be at least twice as wide as Crown Street, blocks to be many times longer, lots to be several times bigger, and all buildings to provide free parking spaces. Worst of all, Houston requires all buildings to be set back at least 25 feet from the street, thereby making a facade enclosure impossible and all but guaranteeing that Houston will consist of a wasteland of parking lots. Houston is in reality a textbook case of how government mandates sprawl. As I noted a week before O'Toole's reply to my original post, sprawl is legally over-determined. That is, any number of government policies — of which Houston, even without formal zoning, has several — in themselves are enough to produce sprawl.
And O'Toole knows it. He concedes that "Houston regulates such things as setbacks and building heights," yet he somehow thinks it matters that "you can build a 7-Eleven in the middle of single-family homes." Ye gad, nobody wants to live next to an asphalt-girdled 7 Eleven! The only commercial development allowed in Houston is strip mall centers where no pedestrian would ever go. Hence, Houston residents have no choice but to locate as far away from commercial development as they can possibly afford. O'Toole quotes approvingly John Stossel's claim that sprawl opponents want to prevent poor people from having a back yard. That is not actually true, whatever Kunstler might have said, but in any case O'Toole leaves unmentioned that sprawl defenders want to force everyone to have a car (or multiple cars). The expense of keeping a car is an indirect tax that hits the poor the hardest.
Just to be clear, I am not arguing everyone should live in traditional neighborhoods, any more than that everyone should live in sprawling subdivisions. I have no objection to Europeans moving into sprawling areas — provided that their governments are truly giving them the choice (I wouldn't know). Many sprawl critics have environmentalist, aesthetic, or even geo-strategic reasons for opposing sprawl. I oppose it simply because I believe Americans other than SWPLs and the super-rich should have a choice of something else. Free market defenders of sprawl, if Randal O'Toole is any indication, have not shown that they do.
UPDATE: A friend writes: "To any discussion of sprawl and planning in Houston I would add the concept of frontage roads. These are what we would call service roads in and around NY. They were required on all freeway construction with certain recent exceptions (Hardy Toll Road, etc.) The freeway builders in Houston wanted to encourage commercial strip development along the freeways. The inspiration was supposedly the L.I.E in Flushing, Queens. I highly recommend Erik Slotboom's 'Houston Freeways.' http://www.houstonfreeways.com/"
I second the recommendation. Behold the mighty works of the free market! Look on these freeways, Socialists, and despair!
* Ironically, I was first persuaded of the libertarian case against sprawl at a Cato Institute event in the mid-1990s featuring former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist.
James Howard Kunstler doesn't think highly of libertarian newsman John Stossel. Assuming this is what Kunstler is talking about (see No. 2), you can't blame him. Stossel defends suburban sprawl and accuses its opponents — like Kunstler — of forcing lifestyle choices onto others "by limiting where they can build." The fallacy of this view has been pointed out about 100 times. For the 101st time: sprawl — an umbrella term for the pattern of development seen virtually everywhere in the United States — is not caused by the free market. It is, rather, mandated by a vast and seemingly intractable network of government regulations, from zoning laws and building codes to street design regulations. If Stossel wants to expand Americans' lifestyle choices, he should attack the very thing he was defending, namely, suburban sprawl.
It's odd that self-described libertarians such as Stossel are so slow to grasp that government planning makes sprawl ubiquitous. You would think that libertarians would instinctively grasp the deeply statist nature of suburban development. First of all, with a depressingly few exceptions, virtually every town in America looks the same. That is, it has the same landscape of arterial roads, strip malls, and residential subdivisions, accessibly only by car. Surely, given America's celebrated diversity, you would also see a diversity of places. As it turns out, all but a few people live the same suburban lifestyle. Government, as libertarian assumptions would predict, is the culprit.
Second, the few places in America that have a distinctive character are also exceedingly expensive. John Stossel himself admits to living in an apartment and walking to work most days. Now, I don't know where exactly Mr. Stossel lives, but it sounds as if he lives in Manhattan, where residential space costs over $1000 a square foot (that means a two-bedroom apartment where a family of four could fit costs at least $1.5 million). If Mr. Stossel's lifestyle, as he puts it, is less popular than the suburban lifestyle, then why does his cost so much more? He apparently never asks himself the question. Had he done so, he might have discovered that government artificially restricts the supply of Manhattan-like places but artificially increases the supply of sprawl. That's the reason Americans "prefer" to live in the suburbs. They don't have a choice.


text:
Mr. Paul Lloyd Crawford III, age 71 of Lawtey also known as "Cheez"
Mr. Paul "Lloyd" Crawford, III age 71, better known as "Cheez" passed away Thursday, April 9, 2020, at Haven Hospice in Gainesville. He was born February 9, 1949, in Bradford County to Paul L. and Lois Crawford, II. Mr. Crawford was a retired brick mason, builder and farmer. He was a Christian man who loved helping others. He was also called the Face Book King of social media; he always knew what was happening and was great about giving advice. In addition to his parents he was also preceded in death by his grandson Connor Wheeler and a brother Danny L. Crawford. Left behind is his loving and dedicated wife of 52 years Kathy (Howard) Crawford and their two children Kim Crawford and Paul Crawford all of Lawtey; two sisters Peggy Crawford (Tammy) and Mona L. Crawford (Marcus); four brothers Skippy Crawford, Rod A. Crawford (Pamela), John F. Crawford (Tammy) and Charles A. (Son) Crawford all of Lawtey. Also left behind are three grandchildren Taylor, Lil Paul and Hailee all of Lawtey; seven great-grandchildren Kinsley, Carson, Caroline, Kolby, Paislee, Jenavieve and Chaselynn as well as numerous nieces, nephews, cousins and extended family members and friends that will miss him dearly. Special arrangements have been made due to current social restrictions. Please join the family for a unique visitation to be held Tuesday, April 14, 2020, from 11 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at Jones-Gallagher Funeral Home. Guests will remain in their vehicles and drive by the front doors of the funeral home where the family will be gathered outside. This will give you the opportunity to show your support and express sympathies to the family. Graveside services will be private. Arrangements are under the care of JONES-GALLAGHER FUNERAL HOME, 620 E. Nona St. Starke, FL 32091. (904) 964-6200.www.jonesgallagherfh.com.
Mr. Paul "Lloyd" Crawford, III age 71, better known as "Cheez" passed away Thursday, April 9, 2020, at Haven Hospice in Gainesville. He was born February 9, 1949, in Bradford County to Paul L. and Lois Crawford, II.... View Obituary & Service Information
The family of Mr. Paul Lloyd Crawford III, age 71 of Lawtey also known as "Cheez" created this Life Tributes page to make it easy to share your memories.
Mr. Paul "Lloyd" Crawford, III age 71, better known as "Cheez"...
Send flowers to the Crawford family.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
package org.apache.hyracks.storage.am.lsm.btree.tuples;

import org.apache.hyracks.api.dataflow.value.ITypeTraits;
import org.apache.hyracks.storage.am.btree.tuples.BTreeTypeAwareTupleWriter;
import org.apache.hyracks.storage.am.btree.tuples.BTreeTypeAwareTupleWriterFactory;

public class LSMBTreeTupleWriterFactory extends BTreeTypeAwareTupleWriterFactory {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private final int numKeyFields;
    private final boolean isAntimatter;

    public LSMBTreeTupleWriterFactory(ITypeTraits[] typeTraits, int numKeyFields, boolean isAntimatter,
            boolean updateAware) {
        super(typeTraits, updateAware);
        this.numKeyFields = numKeyFields;
        this.isAntimatter = isAntimatter;
    }

    @Override
    public BTreeTypeAwareTupleWriter createTupleWriter() {
        return new LSMBTreeTupleWriter(typeTraits, numKeyFields, isAntimatter, updateAware);
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Nintendo Nintendo Switch Reviews Switch Reviews
[Review] Bee Simulator (Nintendo Switch)
Byjonathanober
Nov 27, 2019 Bee Simulator, Bigben Interactive, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Varsav Game Studios
Developer: VARSAV Game Studios
Publisher: Bigben Interactive
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Version Reviewed: Digital
Category: Adventure, Education, Simulation, Study
No. of Players: 1-2 Player
Release Date: November 12, 2019 (EU & NA)
Bee Simulator by developer VARSAV Game Studios is their first Switch title and released on consoles and Steam this fall. The game has appeared at press events and game conferences over the last year, garnering high praise due to its unique premise where you play as a bee helping their hive to survive and thrive in a new habitat.
You start off Bee Simulator selecting a name for your bee and getting introduced to the queen of the hive and a few other worker bees. After that, there are some basic tutorials teaching you how to fly and navigate around the game world of Central Park in New York City. The main campaign of Bee Simulator has you going through eight main story beats consisting of collecting pollen, discovering certain types of flowers, scouting for a new hive location, preparing for winter, and more.
Early on in the story, the hive will come under attack from people looking to take down the tree where the bees live. Because of the danger of the tree getting chopped down, you need to eventually find a new hive location that drives the story forward. Along the way, you will also fight predator insects, show other bees how to escape the caves under your tree through a bee dance and many more intricate bee specific tasks.
Bee Simulator plays out similarly to a flight simulator in how you navigate. Using the Left Stick you can move your bee forward and backward, the trigger buttons move you vertically up and down. As you collect pollen from flowers you begin to accrue Beetro, which acts as a speed boost (nitro) with the X button. A is your action button, and B declines options. Along with collecting pollen you also can also eat from foods you might find sitting on picnic tables, food stands, and more. Eating food results in gaining more Beetro and maxing out your speed boost, which can be helpful in navigating the park. The Right Stick lets you move the camera which is most helpful in flying through the 3D world of Central Park and seeing rings you need to fly through while racing.
There are several mini-game moments in Bee Simulator that help break up the traditional flying and collecting of pollen. From time to time, you will encounter predator insects which you must fight in a rhythm battle of sorts where pressing the Y and X button acts a shield and fight maneuver blocking incoming attacks and lowering your opponents' health respectfully. The fights can consist of one to three predators like other bees, wasps, and hornets, but aren't particularly difficult or varied affairs.
Races are another mini-game moment you will encounter throughout the main story as well as later in the games postgame free flight section. The races have you flying through green rings, catching air currents, power-ups, and trying to avoid spider webs as you race through the open world, underground, all while trying to catch a speedy bee friend. The races were the hardest part for me though I beat most of them after two or three tries. You could miss a few rings during your race, though if you missed too many you failed and had to restart.
There are a few other mini-games you will find during your campaign along with some side quests that expand the story and world of your hive a little. The main story included a few of each type within the eight chapters and each of them was fun, though slightly repetitive in nature.
CONTENT & FEATURES:
Bee Simulator is primarily a single-player story campaign. There are eight main chapters in the campaign which starts off with a tutorial introduction to the mechanics in the game, such as flying and collecting pollen, using your bee vision (think Batman Arkham Asylum Detective Mode), dancing to communicate with bees, and fighting. The mini-game style pieces make up the whole plot of the game and have your bee character moving from spot to spot in New York City's Central Park.
There are seven main areas in the park in which you will need to navigate such as your hive, the zoo, a carnival, the boathouse, picnic area, and more. You can fast travel to each area without a penalty and moving seamlessly from section to section is also possible as the map is open to you from the start. The story missions will take you to specific locations and markers on your map. Along the path, you will find side quests like the aforementioned bee dances, pollen collection, and races.
Bee Simulator also has a two-player split-screen mode which will allow you and another friend play through and complete the missions together. The added helper bee is a great addition, though my one complaint is that split-screen means less view of the world which really should be viewed in the full-screen size, at least for some of the missions so you can appreciate the open world.
As you play through the game you earn experience knowledge that can be used to unlock 3D character models in the hive library, as well as unlocking different bee species, hats, and Beetro trail colors. The different bee species adds a nice visual change to the game. Having your bee wear a hat or cone on his or her head just seemed silly. The Beetro trail effects reminded me of the splashes of colors and effects when you score a goal in Rocket League.
The sounds of Bee Simulator are a bit hit or miss. The game does have ambient noise that plays in the background like city sounds or gibberish from human NPCs. I found the sounds of people talking to be nonsensical and took me out of the gameplay from time to time. The other bees you will find or enemy insects you will fight are also voice acted. I found some of the character voices to be over the top and out of place while others almost muffled and hard to hear. Luckily you can change the voice acting volume, which I moved to about 50% on the slider. The Background music in Bee Simulator is a mindless loop of music which I quickly muted. I preferred silence or listening to my own music while I buzzed around the city.
VISUALS & PERFORMANCE:
Bee Simulator has some areas of shine and polish and then other sections of the game look downright muddy. The insect characters in your hive or the wasp, hornets, etc. that you come across often look well modeled and true to their real-world counterparts. The environments are mostly dull and lack any polish to them, which is sad since having blocky or low texture backgrounds takes out the realism in which Bee Simulator seems to strive for. The humans walking around Central Park move in a janky unimpressive way and pop-in and out of view as the draw distance suffers.
I never noticed any stuttering in Bee Simulator, but there are plenty of loading screens which you will see often. The load screens do supply the gamer with an interesting fact about bees, though there doesn't seem to be that many since I saw the same loading screens several times during my short playthrough.
Bee Simulator on the Switch seemed to be a unique take on the open-world flight simulation game genre and was one I had looked forward to from the first time I learned of the game. While the story is endearing, its short. The things to do in Bee Simulator lack the hook that I was hoping for.
At the end of the game, the main quest was completed in an evening and the mini-games that I had to play several times over just weren't that appealing. Bee Simulator suffers from a lack of overall visual polish as well, which often time took me out of the realistic visuals of the characters over the bland world.
I wanted to love Bee Simulator. But ultimately, I was let down. Maybe my expectations were set too high as I had been hyped for the game for the year or so prior to playing it as I learned more and more about the progress of the game through press releases and twitter updates.
In the end, the experience is a good one to try though it didn't meet my expectations for thegame. I feel that Bee Simulator just lacks the "umph" that would have made it memorable on Nintendo Switch.
THE VERDICT: 6/10
*A Review key was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review
To check out more reviews by the Miketendo64 Review Team, feel free to click here.
Lady Sugarcube's Gamescapades #5 – Dodging spoilers On Social Media For Sword & Shield Like A Ninjask
[Review] Construction Simulator 2 US – Console Edition (Nintendo Switch)
By jonathanober
Jonathan is a husband to Leigh, father to Morgyn and Bailey, an avid WordPress user, a website designer/developer, Eagles football fan, and a video gamer. Jonathan cut his teeth on the Commodore 64, NES, and Gameboy and hasn't looked back since. Jonathan has owned nearly ever Nintendo system and handheld to date. His favorite series include: Legend of Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong.


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text:
Birthday Wiki
Biography by Moses Published on Jul 8, 2019
Kerber Baby
Angelique Kerber is a German Professional Tennis Player who is a former world no.1 and three Grand slam tournaments. She ascended to the top of the rankings on 12 September 2016, thus becoming the twenty-second and oldest player to achieve the number-one ranking for the first time and the first new number-one player since Victoria Azarenka in 2012.
Angelique Kerber started the defense of her Wimbledon title with a comfortable victory over Tatjana Maria
Kicking off the action on Centre Court on day two, the German eased to a 6-4 6-3 win over her compatriot in front of the watching Duchess of Cambridge in the Royal Box. Despite not winning a tournament since beating Serena Williams in the final at SW19 last year, Kerber has shown some good recent form, including reaching the final in Eastbourne last week.
Professional Tennis Player
WTA player of the year (2016)
3 times Grand Slam Tournament Winner
Early Life of Angelique Kerber
Angelique Kerber was born on January 18, 1988, in Bremen, Germany. She is the daughter of Slawomir Kerber and Beata Kerber with sister Jessica Kerber. She grew up at Kial and started playing tennis at her age three, eventually joining the junior circuit. In 2012, Kerber moved to Puszczykowo, Poland where her maternal grandfather owns an indoor tennis facility. She made inroads at events in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, but did not win a junior title before 2003, at which point she had already turned professional at age 15. Kerber speaks German, Polish and English and holds dual German-Polish citizenship. Kerber clarifies that despite her strong polish connection she considers herself German.
Body Measurement of Angelique Kerber
Angelique Kerber is a very beautiful tennis player with an athletic body build. She stands at a height of 5 feet 8 inches and her balanced weight consists 68 kg. She has medium blonde hair color and light blue eyes. She uses a 34C bra size and 9 (US) size of the shoe. Her body measurement is 36-26-35 inches. Overall, she attracts a lot of people towards her with her charming smile on her face.
Personal/Marital status of Angelique Kerber (married, children, boyfriend)
Angelique Kerber is an unmarried woman and she is still to get married. On November 16, 2017, Angelique Kerber announced via social media that her longtime partnership with Torben Beltz has come to an end. At the moment, it may be safe to assume that Angelique Kerber is single.
Career of Angelique Kerber
Angelique started playing tennis since her age 3 joining the junior circuit.
Kerber made her debut in Grand Slam in 2007
Kerber attained her first Grand Slam victory in 2008 at the Australian Open by beating Maret Ani, before losing to Francesca Schiavone.
She then reached the second round of the Pattaya Women's Open, the third round of the Pacific Life Open and the second round of Sony Ericsson Open.
In 2009, Kerber only won three WTA main-draw matches and reached the second round of the US Open as a qualifier where she lost to María José Martínez Sánchez.
In 2010, Kerber qualified for the Australian Open where she reached her first third round in a Grand Slam by upsetting Olga Govortsova
She played in the Wimbledon Championships, where she made it to the third round after defeating Sania Mirza
Kerber's breakthrough occurred at the 2011 US Open where while ranked world No. 92
Kerber won her first WTA title in 2012
At date, Kerber has won 12 WTA singles title including 3 Grand Slam singles titles at the 2016 Australian Open, 2016 US Open, and 2018 Wimbledon Championships
With the victory over defending champion Serena Williams, Kerber became the world no.1 on 12 September 2016
As the record of 24 June 2019 Kerber is currently ranked world no.5
She holds Silver Medal in Olympic finals in 2016
Net Worth of Angelique Kerber
The 31 years old professional tennis player, Angelique Kerber has an estimated net worth of $15 Million including all of her properties and earnings. In 2017, she was the eighth highest-earning tennis player with a total salary of $12.6 million including $7.6 million in prize money. The remaining, she earned from her endorsement deals with Adidas and Yonex. In early 2015 she became a global ambassador of Stuttgart car manufacturer Porsche. In 2016 she signed a deal with an insurance group Generali. In late 2016, she became the global brand ambassador of beauty for the US cosmetics company. In 2017 she became an ambassador of Australian health snack brand slim secrets. and signed with both the luxury watchmaker Rolex and the software corporation SAP.
French Open 2019
Darcey Silva Actress
Damian Hurley Actor
Sutton Stracke Businesswoman
Billie Eilish Singer
Jim Jordan Politician
Joe Exotic Businessman
Rory John Gates Actor
Madelyn Cline Actress
Jenna Ellis Constitutional Law Attorney
Faye Hadley Automotive Technician
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Okay, well… half a Tesla. ;-) Tesla Motors supplies the battery and drivetrain for this vehicle, Toyota's second generation RAV4 EV.
Hey, but it's shiny! And fast! And it goes much further on a charge than my 2011 Nissan LEAF: folks say they get 120+ miles even at highway speeds. This will be much more convenient since I currently give up half my range in my LEAF whenever I want to make a round trip over the hill from Santa Cruz. And it has a 10 kW charger on board as compared to my old LEAF's 3.3 kW (or 6.6 kW in 2013 or newer LEAFs). Unfortunately Toyota chose not to include support for any DC fast charging.
Or, as another example one month later, to drive the 95 miles to Fairfax at 70-75 mph (two passengers, two bikes and gear on board) and have 25+ miles of margin leftover. Then plug in at a public charge station while out for a mountain bike ride and a meal and be fully charged for the return trip. And using the heater all the way back seemed to only affect the range by about 10% – still plenty of charge leftover after getting home. It's so sweet to be able to easily make a 190 mile day trip without needing to burn any gas! Looking forward to the clearer air as these gradually supplant most of those silly, old-fashioned internal combustion engines!
All this brings the cost down to the mid-30's before taxes – cheap compared to Tesla Model S, but still expensive compared to Nissan LEAF. But when you also take into account that there is no gas to buy or oil changes or regular engine maintenance, any pure EV becomes even more enticing. Driving around without ever needing to burn gas and on power generated or offset by your own solar panels is a lot of fun! Of course, the LEAF has all these EV advantages too and it is both a much more affordable and a more efficient vehicle.
As for the Tesla Model S, it is a beautiful car but it's way too big for my tastes. Ideally, I'd like a reasonably-sized, sport-performance, four door hatchback with AWD (for traveling in the Sierra winter). Something like my old Audi A3, but all electric! (And maybe a little bigger.) The LEAF is a good size and is fun to drive (all electric torque!) but this RAV4 will let me go further (and faster) while I wait for something more ideal. But yes, this does mean I will be selling my cute little red LEAF… awww….
Update: I have the Tesla charging cord now (modified Tesla UMC). Seems well built and it has a hefty, secure-looking wall plug. And I can now gain somewhere around 30 miles of charge back per hour. Woot! Hardly necessary for overnight recharging, but handy when topping off between day trips!
Congrats on your new RAV EV. The Tesla charge kit comes with a J1772 adapter and on the power end you can plug into a NEMA-50 – which can supply up to 240V/40A. I hope the RAV EV inverters can handle that power. It should if it can handle standard 30A J1772.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing. My modified Tesla charge cord will be coming this week and I've got a NEMA 14-50 outlet waiting for it! It should be able to handle it since it has the same Tesla 10kw charger/inverter on board!
Yeah, I'm looking forward to the self-driving tech – even though, as a software engineer, I'm nervous about how much they have to get right!
really great how EVs are now repeating the early history of the PC days . . . back when we had 4~16K we were happy enough, then the 48K-64K machines came out and things were even better!
Reading the wikipedia article on RAV4 EV, I was reminded that Toyota was an early pioneer of EV, but big bad evil Chevron bought their battery maker and then deep-sixed the entire technology!


1.PES Modern College of Pharmacy, Sector No. 21, Yamunanagar, Nigdi, Pune-411044, Maharashtra, India.
The present study was aimed to study the requirements of bioequivalence for registration of pharmaceutical products in various countries. It is essential for pharmaceutical industry to study the guidelines of bioequivalence for respective country where industry would like to apply for ANDA and thus want to enter into generic market. This study gives insight about requirements of bioequivalence with study parameters such as study design, fasting or fed state studies, volunteers recruitment, study dose, sampling points, analytical method validation parameters, moieties to be measured in plasma, pharmacokinetic parameters, criteria for bioequivalence, GCP requirements etc. which are needed for pharmaceutical industry to carry out bioequivalence studies and to file ANDA. Test products for these bioequivalence studies are usually manufactured by a sponsor or manufacturer while reference is provided by the government laboratories of respective countries. Sampling points also varies with respect to the regulatory guidelines of these countries. India follows Indian GCP guidelines, South-Africa MCC GCP guidelines and Australia follows ICH GCP guidelines. Criteria of bioequivalence, for India and South-Africa is 90% CI 80-125% for Cmax, AUCt, AUCo-inf. for Australia 90% CI 80-125% for Cmax, hAUCt, AUCo-inf.


Aloha and Welcome to the 'House of Sweet Dreams.' If you were able to pronounce the name of our vacation rental let us Congratulate you on your first Hawaiian language lesson.
Our quaint and cozy, large, one bedroom, Apartment unit is located half a block from world famous Kailua Beach. Kailua meaning 'two seas' is located on the southeastern shore on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
Imagine starting your day with a complimentary cup of fresh brewed Kona Coffee and a sunrise walk on the three mile stretch of pristine white sand beach. With its gentle trade winds and constant water temperatures ranging from 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit (20-25 degrees Celsius), Kailua Beach is a perfect setting for year round water-sports. Some of the activities you may partake in include: swimming, surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, snorkeling, body surfing, boogie boarding, kayaking, etc.
There are other water activities nearby including: scuba diving, deep sea fishing, glass bottom boat rides, jet skiing, para-sailing, submarine voyage, etc.
Our 'Hawaiiana' decor gives you the true island feeling of 'home away from home.' Palm trees, antique rattan furniture, 'ukulele' paper towel holder, and kitchen 'ukulele' dish towel rack are some of the unique accents of our unit that are found in no other part of the world. Along with the Bamboo towel bars in the bathroom this unit gives you a tropical feeling of truly being in the Pacific.
After a full day of water activities come back, crank up that Air Conditioning unit to prepare your surroundings for some much needed 'snooze' time. Embellish in a hot shower with complimentary 'local' island fragranced shower gels and lotions. It's time to take some 'R&R' (rest and relaxation). ** BAMM ** REVITALIZATION HAS OCCURRED!!!
By this time you have worked up quite an appetite. Kailua town offers quite a variety of restaurants ranging from casual to fine dining. Some of our favorites include: Los Garcias Mexican, Assagio's Italian, Buzz's Steakhouse, Champa Thai, Noboru Japanese, Big City Diner, Cinnamon's family, etc. There are also the regular fast food restaurants available including: McDonald's, Taco Bell, Jack-in-the Box, Papa John's Pizza, etc.
Another alternative might be to put your favorite foods on the Barbecue Gas Grill and dine on the Patio Lanai. However, and yet still another alternative might be to enjoy a full blown 'night on the town.' The Famous 'Waikiki' is a mere 30 minute drive into Honolulu. A more extensive list of restaurants is available and after dinner you may find a wide variety of music for your listening pleasure or visit some of the local nightclubs and enjoy dancing the night away until 4 AM.
You might not be a water enthusiast - there are various other activities to enjoy - including: golf, hiking, art or historic museums, sight seeing, Pearl Harbor Memorial, shopping, bicycling, Sea Life Park, Waikiki Aquarium, live theater, movies, sky diving, glider rides, etc.
Perfect Windward Home - Old Hawaii the Way it was Meant to Be!
Huge, Private Air-Conditioned Villa--Steps from the Beach!!
Affordable Tropical Getaway perfect for families! Minimum 4 nights.
Luxurious Oceanfront home with Sweeping Tropical Views. You can Surf Backyards.


Choose Easy Access Men's Shoe Storage Box (Set of 4) By IRIS USA Inc.
If you would like buy Lani 2 Drawer Nightstand By Langley Street , try to find high quality hardwood joinery. In case a bit is glued together or if perhaps nails and screws are widely used to keep your furniture piece collectively, it will not final extended. It is advisable to spend more money to have a Lani 2 Drawer Nightstand By Langley Street with a bit of excellent hardwood joinery work with it. Actually consider the legs of any Lani 2 Drawer Nightstand By Langley Street you are interested in getting. Individuals thighs will need not only to support weight, they'll be also in contact with your floor coverings. Should they seem like they'll do damage to your floor due to supplies employed (like steel), then you might like to select a various type. When buying Lani 2 Drawer Nightstand By Langley Street for your personal living room area, opt for natural colours. It is possible to affect the shades along with other design in the room by changing features, color and also other points. Consequently, you can easily modify up the look of your living room without having to spend a lot of money.
Bar furniture are not just specific tables intended to be utilized in bars as the name suggests. If you are looking to give your kitchen area, diner of house a company-like look, then you need to buy the best club tables. The dinning furniture are earning a constantly-growing presence in peoples homes because they search for that distinctive company-like existence at home. However, with thousands of bar tables to select, from, obtaining the best offer could be a daunting task for most owners. For those seeking to transform the diner into a vibrant modern club, weve got you covered with the best club furniture on the market presently. This bar desk is a breakfast every day set well suited for houses with small dining spaces. It is a pretty small table that won't consider an excessive amount of space in the dining room. It functions caster tires that allow for simple motion inside the home especially when cleaning. There is also some stools and drop leaf giving you great value for your money. Constructed from the natural Beachwood, this desk is a great buy and comes in the round and sq . shape.
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Usually now utilized in houses having a great room or open up floor plan, they are often big designs that seat plenty of guests. In smaller sized rooms, they works well for seats in an region that has a strange corner or any other room limitation. The ability to combine part models, end models and reclining areas based on room and person choice tends to make this sofa design super flexible. Sofa couches also come in a multitude of styles, from ultra contemporary or extremely luxe, to much more family-pleasant modern styles.
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Although this lying loveseat has a heftier price tag, its traditional design, options for customization and automatic reclining system allow it to be well worth the dough. Its handcrafted wooden body is cushioned with down blend cushions for a softer feel than youd get from higher-denseness foam cushions, and the upholstery will come in a whopping 72 color and fabric combinations. The supply of so many choices causes it to be additional simple to pair this reclining loveseat with different patterns, supplies, accents and decorations designs. In addition, if you have kids or pets (or each!), you have the option to select a more durable, stain-resistant material. 1 customer discussed that the Sunbrella fabric materials has held up nicely towards her children and pets. This reclining loveseat could have a classic, aged-college appear, but its built-in technology is anything but. Not only does it have an automated lying program (that will give you a full recline, together with your footrest totally similar to the seat), but it features a USB interface for implementing or simply getting your apple ipad, apple iphone, Kindle or laptop computer.
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If you are looking for some severe rest, this loveseats strong pillow back again and folded hands will deliverbut at a higher price tag. Every seat cushion consists of 30 individual pocketed coils for spring and assistance, and strength chair foam for an additional layer of plushness and sturdiness. Plus, the foam cushions are capped with super gentle, blended lower feathers. For your extra comfort, you will find three regular positions: seated, a small lie down with an elevated foot rest, along with a full lie down with an elevated foot rest. It does not hurt that this lying loveseat looks lux, either. Its all-leather furniture and decorative toe nail mind trim provide a classic appear that can work with lots of home decorations styles, from traditional to nation to arts and crafts. Plus, leather holds up well towards everyday use, children and dog hair and fingernails. Just be sure you situation the leather each and every six to twelve months.
This set is padded in a push and comfy distinctive cushioned purple velvet. This provides it the incredible comfort that it is cherished for. Again it supports chaise style seats for adequate comfort and ease. Moreover, the nose spring base adds to the comfort and durability. Additionally, the couch has hardwood frames that increase its toughness and sturdiness. The couch has cushions on both the seat and also the back. But still, the sofa can move from a sitting placement to a lying down placement effortlessly. That said, just to replicate, the couch is extremely gentle and gives exceptional comfort.
When the Chesterfield is the graceful man among couches, the Cabriole may be the grandes dame. Noted for its uncovered wooden and elegant thighs, similar to the Louis XV time period, the cabriole also has a distinctive silhouette. It had been additionally a popular shape within the work of furniture producer Thomas Chippendale. Usually, the back is all 1 continuous item with out soft cushions and has an elegant curving line. This specific cabriole edition consists of jewels in the tufts for additional allure. It's a couch style that may be as basic or opulent as you wish. Upholstered having a luxurious materials like velvet yields a much various design feeling than whether it were upholstered in a much more muted, textural natural. The primary feeling of elegance stems from its overall form and lithe thighs which means it'll always lend a processed air to some room.
With almost 100 5-celebrity reviews, this reclining loveseat is recommended for its comfort and ease, sturdiness, appearance and ease of set up. Along with gentle, but supportive cushions, it features a gliding mechanism, so you can place your feet up and rock (although, not at the same time.) Upholstered with extremely-durable bonded leather-based, this lying loveseat will avoid holes, releases and stainswhich is a great factor, since it also features a storage compartment console (where you can conceal your treats, obviously) along with a two-mug holder. Regardless of whether you are settling set for a Netflix excessive or watching football together with your crew, this lying loveseat provides the comfort and durability without emptying your wallet.


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Woman pleads not guilty to killing boyfriend then confessing on Facebook
Nakasia James, left, is suspected of stabbing her boyfriend, Dorian Powell, inside an apartment in San Bernardino.
(San Bernardino Police Department)
By Veronica Rocha ,
Joseph Serna
A San Bernardino woman denied Tuesday that she stabbed her boyfriend to death after an argument and then confessed to the slaying on Facebook.
Nakasia James, 18, pleaded not guilty in San Bernardino County Superior Court to a single count of murder in connection with the Jan. 11 death of Dorian Powell, 21. James' bail was been set at $1 million.
Authorities say that after killing her boyfriend in a heated argument, James logged on to Facebook and told her friends of the incident.
The posting, as published by KTLA-TV, read: "I gt the knife and stabbed him ddnt I would hurt him BT I did he died and I'm on the run…" she reportedly wrote. "Btsorryy lord hopefully u forgive me! And sorry Dorian Powell rip."
The post has since been deleted.
San Bernardino police were alerted to the incident by a 2:30 a.m. 911 call. By the time officers arrived at the scene, a residence in the 2000 block of North Central Avenue, James was gone, according to authorities.
Police later announced that they were looking for James in connection with Powell's death and described the incident as a domestic disturbance. She was arrested Sunday in Hemet.
For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA
Police kill two men in weekend shootings; first fatal LAPD shootings of 2016
A man armed with a gardening tool is fatally shot by police in Northern California, authorities say
2 women killed, others hurt when Greyhound bus overturns on San Jose freeway
Veronica Rocha
Veronica Rocha worked on the Metro desk and at L.A. Now covering breaking news in California. She joined the Los Angeles Times in 2014 and left in 2017.
Joseph Serna is a Metro reporter who has been with the Los Angeles Times since 2012.
Like thousands of Central American parents seeking asylum in the United States, Patricia panicked when, after she and her son crossed the Rio Grande into Texas last year, U.S. border agents took the boy away.
A major Kern County oil spill in environmentally conscious California
After nearly 800,000 gallons of oil and water seeped into a dry creek bed near Bakersfield, the cleanup continues.
Column: Steve Lopez goes to Italy and searches for his Sicilian roots
My quest had something to do with my parents dying in recent years, with memories and regrets, with the meaning of family, and borders and what separates and connects us.
Latest California
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake was reported Tuesday afternoon at 1:11 p.m. near Livermore, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
CHP officer injured on 10 Freeway in San Bernardino
An accident involving a CHP officer has led to a shut down of the 10 Freeway in San Bernardino.
The leader of La Luz del Mundo church remained impassive in a Los Angeles courtroom as a witness for prosecutors described a video that he alleged showed Naason Joaquin Garcia participating in a sexual threesome involving a minor.


text:
Q: Qt Creator создает некорректный слот Подскажите, как решить следующую проблему.
Делаю проект в Qt Creator, кидаю на форму QListWidget, перехожу к слоту itemDoubleClicked, в результате чего Qt генерирует метод, который сразу же считается ошибочным...
Компилятор говорит, что:
ошибка: 'QListWidgetItem' has not been declared
void on_listWidget_itemDoubleClicked(QListWidgetItem *item);
                                      ^

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home > Insights > Blogs > TheSpotlight > Aird & Berlis Trademark Practice and Practitioners Recognized in WTR 1000
Aird & Berlis Trademark Practice and Practitioners Recognized in WTR 1000
Posted inIntellectual Property|Trademarks|TheSpotlight Categories
By: Timothy M. Lowman, R. Grant Cansfield and Ken Clark
Aird & Berlis is proud to be recognized in the 2020 edition of World Trademark Review 1000: The World's Leading Trademark Professionals at both the firm and individual levels.
Timothy Lowman, head of the firm's Intellectual Property Group, and partner Trent Horne are recommended as experts in enforcement and litigation. Fellow IP Group members Grant Cansfield and Ken Clark are noted as a leading individuals in prosecution and strategy.
The firm as a whole and our noted practitioners received the following accolades:
Business law firm Aird & Berlis is a new and exciting addition to the guide this year. With an A-to-Z IP offering, this unit is a go-to for those seeking both Canadian and global IP protection. Heading up the trademark practice is Timothy Lowman, who "has a deep understanding of the law, quickly comprehends the relevant facts and develops efficient, cost-effective strategies which are best suited to each client's objectives. His written and oral advocacy is outstanding." Trent Horne is another seasoned litigator in the ranks and his wide-ranging knowledge covers everything from genetically modified plants to manufacturing equipment. With over 20 years of trial experience, Horne is a trusted adviser for PGA Tour. Chair of the licensing group, Grant Cansfield has a sharp, strategic mind and the commercial nous to manage portfolios for rights holders ranging from large Fortune 500 companies to smaller businesses. Often working in tandem with Cansfield is Ken Clark, whose years of engineering experience enable him to offer unique first-hand insights to patrons. The pair recently teamed up to represent a Canadian wine producer in a professional liability claim concerning trademark rights in China.
About WTR 1000
The WTR 1000 is a research directory which focuses exclusively on trademark practices and practitioners. When identifying the leading firms and individuals, factors such as depth of expertise, market presence and the level of work were all taken into account, alongside positive peer and client feedback
Tim Lowman is known as a client-centric, forward- thinking, detail-oriented and personable lawyer. Clients and colleagues consistently recommend him f...
Timothy M. Lowman
tlowman@airdberlis.com
Grant is focused on determining the most effective solutions to clients' business, licensing and intellectual property issues.
R. Grant Cansfield
gcansfield@airdberlis.com
Ken is driven to help his clients resolve their problems, particularly the ones for which it seems there is no answer.
Ken Clark
Trademarks & Branding
Adoption of Bill 96 – Are Your Trademark Rights Secured?
On May 24, 2022, the National Assembly of Québec adopted Bill 96, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, reforming language laws in the province. Bill 96 will have broad...
Spring Cleaning: Getting your IP House in Order
A considerable portion of many companies' values is tied to its IP assets and goodwill. All organizations should have a good understanding of those assets and ensure that they are being maximized.
IP 101: Understanding the Basics of Intellectual Property
Generally, intellectual property falls into four main categories – patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Being knowledgeable about the different forms of IP can help you understand what c...


text:
#ifndef SegmentedString_h
#define SegmentedString_h

#include "PlatformString.h"
#include <wtf/Deque.h>
#include <wtf/text/TextPosition.h>

namespace WebCore {

class SegmentedString;

class SegmentedSubstring {
public:
    SegmentedSubstring()
        : m_length(0)
        , m_current(0)
        , m_doNotExcludeLineNumbers(true)
    {
    }

    SegmentedSubstring(const String& str)
        : m_length(str.length())
        , m_current(str.isEmpty() ? 0 : str.characters())
        , m_string(str)
        , m_doNotExcludeLineNumbers(true)
    {
    }

    void clear() { m_length = 0; m_current = 0; }

    bool excludeLineNumbers() const { return !m_doNotExcludeLineNumbers; }
    bool doNotExcludeLineNumbers() const { return m_doNotExcludeLineNumbers; }

    void setExcludeLineNumbers() { m_doNotExcludeLineNumbers = false; }

    int numberOfCharactersConsumed() const { return m_string.length() - m_length; }

    void appendTo(String& str) const
    {
        if (m_string.characters() == m_current) {
            if (str.isEmpty())
                str = m_string;
            else
                str.append(m_string);
        } else
            str.append(String(m_current, m_length));
    }

public:
    int m_length;
    const UChar* m_current;

private:
    String m_string;
    bool m_doNotExcludeLineNumbers;
};

class SegmentedString {
public:
    SegmentedString()
        : m_pushedChar1(0)
        , m_pushedChar2(0)
        , m_currentChar(0)
        , m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentString(0)
        , m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentLine(0)
        , m_currentLine(0)
        , m_closed(false)
    {
    }

    SegmentedString(const String& str)
        : m_pushedChar1(0)
        , m_pushedChar2(0)
        , m_currentString(str)
        , m_currentChar(m_currentString.m_current)
        , m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentString(0)
        , m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentLine(0)
        , m_currentLine(0)
        , m_closed(false)
    {
    }

    SegmentedString(const SegmentedString&);

    const SegmentedString& operator=(const SegmentedString&);

    void clear();
    void close();

    void append(const SegmentedString&);
    void prepend(const SegmentedString&);

    bool excludeLineNumbers() const { return m_currentString.excludeLineNumbers(); }
    void setExcludeLineNumbers();

    void push(UChar c)
    {
        if (!m_pushedChar1) {
            m_pushedChar1 = c;
            m_currentChar = m_pushedChar1 ? &m_pushedChar1 : m_currentString.m_current;
        } else {
            ASSERT(!m_pushedChar2);
            m_pushedChar2 = c;
        }
    }

    bool isEmpty() const { return !current(); }
    unsigned length() const;

    bool isClosed() const { return m_closed; }

    enum LookAheadResult {
        DidNotMatch,
        DidMatch,
        NotEnoughCharacters,
    };

    LookAheadResult lookAhead(const String& string) { return lookAheadInline<SegmentedString::equalsLiterally>(string); }
    LookAheadResult lookAheadIgnoringCase(const String& string) { return lookAheadInline<SegmentedString::equalsIgnoringCase>(string); }

    void advance()
    {
        if (!m_pushedChar1 && m_currentString.m_length > 1) {
            --m_currentString.m_length;
            m_currentChar = ++m_currentString.m_current;
            return;
        }
        advanceSlowCase();
    }

    void advanceAndASSERT(UChar expectedCharacter)
    {
        ASSERT_UNUSED(expectedCharacter, *current() == expectedCharacter);
        advance();
    }

    void advanceAndASSERTIgnoringCase(UChar expectedCharacter)
    {
        ASSERT_UNUSED(expectedCharacter, WTF::Unicode::foldCase(*current()) == WTF::Unicode::foldCase(expectedCharacter));
        advance();
    }

    void advancePastNewline(int& lineNumber)
    {
        ASSERT(*current() == '\n');
        if (!m_pushedChar1 && m_currentString.m_length > 1) {
            int newLineFlag = m_currentString.doNotExcludeLineNumbers();
            lineNumber += newLineFlag;
            m_currentLine += newLineFlag;
            if (newLineFlag)
                m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentLine = numberOfCharactersConsumed() + 1;
            --m_currentString.m_length;
            m_currentChar = ++m_currentString.m_current;
            return;
        }
        advanceSlowCase(lineNumber);
    }

    void advancePastNonNewline()
    {
        ASSERT(*current() != '\n');
        if (!m_pushedChar1 && m_currentString.m_length > 1) {
            --m_currentString.m_length;
            m_currentChar = ++m_currentString.m_current;
            return;
        }
        advanceSlowCase();
    }

    void advance(int& lineNumber)
    {
        if (!m_pushedChar1 && m_currentString.m_length > 1) {
            int newLineFlag = (*m_currentString.m_current == '\n') & m_currentString.doNotExcludeLineNumbers();
            lineNumber += newLineFlag;
            m_currentLine += newLineFlag;
            if (newLineFlag)
                m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentLine = numberOfCharactersConsumed() + 1;
            --m_currentString.m_length;
            m_currentChar = ++m_currentString.m_current;
            return;
        }
        advanceSlowCase(lineNumber);
    }

    // Writes the consumed characters into consumedCharacters, which must
    // have space for at least |count| characters.
    void advance(unsigned count, UChar* consumedCharacters);

    bool escaped() const { return m_pushedChar1; }

    int numberOfCharactersConsumed() const
    {
        int numberOfPushedCharacters = 0;
        if (m_pushedChar1) {
            ++numberOfPushedCharacters;
            if (m_pushedChar2)
                ++numberOfPushedCharacters;
        }
        return m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentString + m_currentString.numberOfCharactersConsumed() - numberOfPushedCharacters;
    }

    String toString() const;

    const UChar& operator*() const { return *current(); }
    const UChar* operator->() const { return current(); }

    // The method is moderately slow, comparing to currentLine method.
    WTF::ZeroBasedNumber currentColumn() const;
    WTF::ZeroBasedNumber currentLine() const;
    // Sets value of line/column variables. Column is specified indirectly by a parameter columnAftreProlog
    // which is a value of column that we should get after a prolog (first prologLength characters) has been consumed.
    void setCurrentPosition(WTF::ZeroBasedNumber line, WTF::ZeroBasedNumber columnAftreProlog, int prologLength);

private:
    void append(const SegmentedSubstring&);
    void prepend(const SegmentedSubstring&);

    void advanceSlowCase();
    void advanceSlowCase(int& lineNumber);
    void advanceSubstring();
    const UChar* current() const { return m_currentChar; }

    static bool equalsLiterally(const UChar* str1, const UChar* str2, size_t count) { return !memcmp(str1, str2, count * sizeof(UChar)); }
    static bool equalsIgnoringCase(const UChar* str1, const UChar* str2, size_t count) { return !WTF::Unicode::umemcasecmp(str1, str2, count); }

    template<bool equals(const UChar* str1, const UChar* str2, size_t count)>
    inline LookAheadResult lookAheadInline(const String& string)
    {
        if (!m_pushedChar1 && string.length() <= static_cast<unsigned>(m_currentString.m_length)) {
            if (equals(string.characters(), m_currentString.m_current, string.length()))
                return DidMatch;
            return DidNotMatch;
        }
        return lookAheadSlowCase<equals>(string);
    }

    template<bool equals(const UChar* str1, const UChar* str2, size_t count)>
    LookAheadResult lookAheadSlowCase(const String& string)
    {
        unsigned count = string.length();
        if (count > length())
            return NotEnoughCharacters;
        UChar* consumedCharacters;
        String consumedString = String::createUninitialized(count, consumedCharacters);
        advance(count, consumedCharacters);
        LookAheadResult result = DidNotMatch;
        if (equals(string.characters(), consumedCharacters, count))
            result = DidMatch;
        prepend(SegmentedString(consumedString));
        return result;
    }

    bool isComposite() const { return !m_substrings.isEmpty(); }

    UChar m_pushedChar1;
    UChar m_pushedChar2;
    SegmentedSubstring m_currentString;
    const UChar* m_currentChar;
    int m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentString;
    int m_numberOfCharactersConsumedPriorToCurrentLine;
    int m_currentLine;
    Deque<SegmentedSubstring> m_substrings;
    bool m_closed;
};

}

#endif