Really?!

Ok, so, there is an excruciating piece in the Atlantic this month. Last month was a great article about a 70+ year Harvard psych study (which I may still write about), but this month is something wholly different. Check it out. I'm going to write about it soon.

Blood in the street? Well, no BBQ for you.

I think it's weird that the only action that the administration has taken against Iran is to rescind its invitation to a July 4th BBQ.

Who would have thought it, Nixon is shockingly disgusting, even now

He did it again. Nixon is still shockingly disgusting. The NYT reports that Nixon believed abortion was necessary in cases of rape and interracial relationships. Yes, that's right RAPE and interracial relationships. These are equivalent in Nixon's eyes. I mean, I knew he was a racist, but damn.

WSJ reports on Iran's use of European Electronic Surveillance

WSJ has an interesting story about how European technology was purchased by the Islamic regime to censor the Internet and spy on computer users. Seems to me that this is why we need robust trade restrictions against regimes like Iran, North Korea, Burma, etc.

Also thought it interesting that the regime implemented the spying and censoring software under the auspices of preventing pornography.

Nate Silver takes on the impact of $ on the public option

Nate Silver posts an interesting piece on the intersection between special interest money and political support for the public option. The conclusion is pretty obvious (more money equals less support) but the graph is cool. Like all these debates, it's interesting to ask, 'what came first, the position or the cash?'

6 Degrees of Wing-Nuttery

Ezra Klein has an interesting take on Steven Hill's proposal for a randomly selected group of California citizens to re-write the state's constitution. Sounds like a good idea unless they all select Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh...

Health-care: Ezra on Stein's Law

Ezra Klein posted an interesting (if a little wonky) piece in the WaPo today about health-care costs and the choices we face as a nation... here is about half of the post, it's good:

The system is currently biased toward the worst form of cost control: rationing by income. Every year, we contain costs by quietly letting 2 million or so more people fall into the ranks of the uninsured. And why not? It does not require an act of Congress. It does not require a war with a powerful interest group. The same cannot be said for cutting provider payments, implementing comparative effectiveness research, founding a public plan or bargaining with pharmaceutical companies. And so the system, which prefers to avoid conflict, prefers letting people lose their coverage to changing how providers practice medicine, because letting people lose their coverage does not require conflict. It's government. As Tom Geoghegan has said, it likes the quiet life.

In a Stein's Law world, we admit that the day of reckoning is imminent. The question is how we'd like it to look. And I'd prefer that the system not be quietly biased toward saving money on the backs of individual people as opposed to providers. Our incentives have gotten a bit insane when you need 60 votes in the Senate to let Medicare bargain down prescription drug prices but no one ever needs to approve a 10 million rise in the ranks of the uninsured. If we agree that hard choices are imminent, we should also be able to agree that there's a utility in setting up incentives for Congress to make them well.

Tiny-Dinos

Don't know why, but I find this supremely disappointing...

Healthcare: Texas Style

Amazing story from New Yorker earlier this month on the incentives behind the rising healthcare costs. Story through the lens of McAllen, TX, a small Texas town that boasts one of the highest healthcare costs in the nation. It's well worth the read.

Fingerprinting at Gamestop

Via David Sirota @Nerdivore: Broward Co., FL (yes, that Broward Co.) is collecting thumb prints of people returning video games. Sounds like a bad joke, sort of creepy. Can't imagine that there is anything nefarious possible, but the idea definitely makes me a little uncomfortable.