 13, 2017 Gibson, J.) (Mem. Op.), the court granted a Plaintiff’s Motion to Preclude the defense from presenting expert opinions and calculations based upon the Affordable Care Act with respect to the Plaintiff’s alleged damages for future life care cost.
The Plaintiffs, relying upon several decisions from the state and federal courts, asserted that evidence of coverage under the Affordable Care Act is barred by the collateral source rule.
The defense argued that the collateral source rule is inapplicable to the Affordable Care Act and that the decision cited by the Plaintiff was not binding upon this court. The Welker court noted that while, to date, Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not weighed on this particular issues, several other courts upheld that calculations related to the Affordable Care Act are barred by the collateral source rule under Pennsylvania law. The Welker court cited with a “see” signal the cases of Bernheisel v. Mikaya, No. 3:13-cv-01496, 216 W.L. 4211897 (M.D. Pa. 2016); Cordes v. United States, No. 2:13-cv-547, 215 W.L. 10986360 (W.D. Pa. 2015); Deeds v. Univ. of Pennsylvania Medical Center, 110 A.3d 1009, 1013, reargument denied (2015) appeal dismissed sub. nom. Deeds ex rel. Renzulli v. University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, 128 A.3d 764 (Pa. Super. 2015).
While the Welker court agreed that none of these cases were binding upon it, nor was the issue discussed in any great detail in any of those opinions, the Welker court still found the decision to be instructive and was not persuaded that these decisions were wrongly decided.
I send thanks to Attorney Scott Cooper of the Harrisburg office of Schmidt Kramer for sending this case to my attention.
 Did you know that?
Two days later Marvel Comics announces that in their latest series Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, outs himself as a sleeper agent of Hydra, a longtime proxy for the Nazi regime in the series. My first thought was, “Undo that! Rewrite that! Take that down! How dare they…right before Memorial Day!” I am a critic and, by nature, a bit of a hypocrite.
I’ve since repented of this visceral reaction. Marvel is well within their rights to do whatever they please with their characters, and I don’t have to spend any money on it (and won’t). This won’t change my opinion that this was a huge mistake, a slap in the emotional face, and a negative mark for Marvel which I thought, up to this point, had something really unique and singular going.
Let’s backtrack. First appearing in 1941 for obvious reasons, Captain America was both a morale booster during World War II and a response to the future DC Comics’ Superman. Superman embodied the all-American character: an immigrant by birth, he adopted the colors and the national spirit of his new home. Captain America was different in that he was the blue-eyed American boy, thin and weak but filled with national pride and responsibility. Steve Rogers gave himself over to the scientists to attempt to create a better being, someone who would rise to be a protector of the American way. In this you have the classic sacrifice narrative which, clearly, was meant to parallel the sacrifice of soldiers giving up their home existences, probably their well-being both mentally and physically, and possibly their very lives.
Cap was the constant, trustworthy, vigilant. If we rank the eras of our likes by our comic book stand-ins, Spider Man starts as the hero we are, the nerdy kid with something better inside. Captain America is the person we become when that inside ideal comes out.
Marvel’s had tremendous relatively recent success with adapting the Steve Rogers Captain America to the screen, and I think a lot of that comes from that desire on the part of the public — during unstable and uncertain times — to have a steady, unwavering hero that still embodies that America, an America that today feels so distant and mythological (and may be more fantasy that we know, with the past not burdened or exposed by the 24 hour news-cycle reminding us of every sin).
I wouldn’t call myself a hyper-patriotic guy.  And I do have lines that I draw mentally between our freedoms and simple decorum and respect. For instance, I understand the anger and concept behind someone burning the American flag, but I don’t condone it. The flag is not a religious object, but to me if you are protesting for the betterment of the nation, you wouldn’t burn the object that would be your standard if things were how you wanted them to be. At the same time, I get equally incensed when some yahoo flaps his American flag in the wind behind his 4X4 spewmobile, ripping it to shreds as he goes muddin’; or when someone thinks it is really cool to make a t-shirt and shorts combo out of the flag because it shows the French that we may be tourists, but we’re American tourists, dammit.
I see no differentiation of disrespect between burning a flag or making Dazzy Duks out of them, running The Stars and Stripes up Bunghole Avenue.  The character of Captain America wears a version of the American flag too. I get it.) We don’t have many icons we can say still have untarnished meaning behind them. Some will argue that the flag is well beyond tarnished. But then, that’s our fault for not living up to the benchmarks we initially set for ourselves, isn’t it?
Perhaps lifting a comic character to such unsustainable heights is a problem. A creation of men, in part to inspire but also to make money (I’m not that naive to think it was all patriotic magnanimity), Steve Rogers doesn’t actually exist, much like Peter Pan or Winnie The Pooh. Why I should get worked up over this comic book character assassination is beyond me. Even so, I’ve compartmentalized this as just an irrational attachment to fiction, and still it bothers me.
My original premise stands. As an American, I condone the speech of those that I do not agree with, or the ideas that I outright despise, because I don’t believe in trouncing on the hard-fought rights and freedoms that were gained in blood. Even thought I initially thought, “Marvel has to retract this!”, the fact is that they don’t and shouldn’t and — for me — this is a test. If I actually believe half of what I say I believe, I can’t turn around and demand this comic book company undo something just because I don’t like what they said. Real Americans respect the rights of others to say things we don’t agree with or like, and the thought of Steve Rogers, Captain America, being evil is that very test: do I just wear this like a fashion statement or do I respect it and honor what it represents?
That said, Captain America is kinda dead to me.
P.S.  Word to your mother.
I very seldom use windows but today tried to use adb and it's odd. When typing 'adb shell' I get adb shell as normal, 'adb devices' shows nothing. It is obviously connected if I can run shell commands in the shell. I can also push files to the device and run logcat. Shell commands from terminal don't work, or not all of them anyway, I tried setting device owner with 'adb shell dpm' commands and they disappear with the enter key. Settings commands don't work either. I'm using windows 10 pro from a usb drive and installed adb minimal with 15 sec installer.
usb debugging was enabled, I could open shell and navigate inside. Like I had said, I could run logcat, debugging was enabled. It was just a lot of commands didn't work, no errors or exceptions thrown, more like enter deleted the command. Several times with different commands the terminal or cmd prompt would force close, not minimize but close like it never existed.
Are you using the full fledged ADB kit or just the minimal fastboot and adb install?
It's just minimal but was never a problem before. It's been a few months since I plugged windows in to use any android tools, but everything used to work. I have a SigmaKey and Miracle Box that I own which aren't compatible with Linux, they're barely win10 compatible, win 7 was recommended when I bought Sigma bout 18 months ago. 7 should have been close to EOL then if not already past it. Anyway, everything used to work, adb and fastboot from platform tools not so much now. adb and fastboot from Sigma and Miracle work with same device I was having problems with. I updated all that asked or insisted with no improvement. I guess next time I need it I will reinstall it and see what happens. I fixed the device by other means and the drive with windows is in a drawer, or may be under a table. > Railway Bridge - Warsaw, Poland
Built in the 1930’s, the railway bridge in Warsaw, located just meters from the National Stadium, was illuminated for the 2012 European Championship. To communicate national pride and highlight the unique structure, 320 Traxon Graze XB-9 RGB fixtures were installed along the entire length of the bridge. The compact yet powerful Graze XB combines high-intensity LEDs, multiple customization options, and a bright light output. Controlled via a Butler XT with internal real-time and astronomical clock, the solution can be programmed to trigger specific lighting scenarios based on specific