House Trades Freedom for Health Coverage, Senate’s Move

The House passed a trillion dollar bill that will force Americans to buy health insurance, force even small businesses to provide health coverage, and require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.  (The last, as I have previously argued, makes it something other than "insurance.") Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray for WaPo: Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to "answer the call ...

Hasan a Muslim First, American Second?

In hindsight, it appears that Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the mass murderer who killed 14 (one of the soldiers killed, Francheska Velez, was six weeks pregnant) and wounded another 30 at Fort Hood, had long made it known that he sympathized with the enemy. Bloomberg's Justin Blum: Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of a shooting spree that killed ...

Shipping Off

The Atlantic Council is sending a delegation of us out to the USS Eisenhower for the next couple of days. Barring unforeseen access to a computer, the Internet, and free time that means no posting from me until Saturday morning.  My OTB colleagues will, however, be slavishly posting away as usual if not at a slightly higher opstempo.

Republicans Win Big in Local Races

The loss of a Republican seat in NY-23 under highly unusual circumstances notwithstanding, yesterday was a good day for Republicans. After crushing defeats in successive elections, they won back the Virginia governor's office in a blowout and knocked off a billionaire incumbent governor in New Jersey despite having their vote split between two candidates. I would, however, resist the temptation ...

OTB Radio – Tonight at 5:30 Eastern

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will be joined by Zenpundit's Mark Safranksi to talk about the "elections" in Afghanistan, today's off-off-year elections in the USA, and the state of opportunity in America.  We'll also be taking calls at (646) 716-7030. Owing to a high trolls ...

Health Care: Better, Faster, Cheaper!

In a much discussed post, Ezra Klein produced a series of graphs showing that Americans pay more for office visits, scans and imaging, drugs, and other aspects of health care -- often, far more -- than is the case in Canada or Western Europe. There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care ...

American Opportunity Myths

Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins have written a piece for Brookings titled "Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity."  None of it's new to those who've paid much attention to these things in recent years. What's interesting, though, is the seeming contradiction in Myths 1 and 4. 1. Americans enjoy more economic opportunity than people in other countries. Actually, some other advanced ...

Grading Obama’s Foreign Policy

The editors at Foreign Policy magazine used the occasion of the first anniversary of Barack Obama's election as president to ask a "a group of experts" to grade President Obama's foreign policy performance.   I was honored to be among the graders. My B-minus was exactly in line with the consensus:  "Obama scored only an average of a B-: five As, nine ...

Twitter Not Just About Lunch

Norm Geras remains baffled at the Twitter phenomenon.  Responding to a column by Nicholas Lezard, Norm asks: (1) Why would I want to record my daily activities for other people to follow? (2) Why would I want to follow the detailed doings of anyone else over the course of a day, and another day, and another day? You, of course, wouldn't. But that's ...

Lobbying and Sunk Costs

Economist David Zetland explains the political economy of lobbying by auctioning a dollar bill for $3.75. As he explains: This set of incentives ("on the margin") makes it rational to keep raising the stakes given that you have bid because winning always has a higher payoff than losing. The "right strategy" is, of course to not bid at all. (As Joshua, the ...

DVR Saving TV

Television executives have figured out that people watching their shows via TiVo-delay is a good thing. Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching ...

Scozzafava Endorses Democrat Owens

The special election to fill New York's 23rd Congressional District seat vacated by the appointment of Republican John McHugh as Secretary of the Army has taken yet another bizarre twist.  Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend, causing great celebration on the part of Republicans like Michelle Malkin, who termed her "radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava" and ...

Advocate Goes Inside Out

Andrew Sullivan passes along word that The Advocate "one of the oldest titles out there -  will now become a 32-page insert in Out."  Which is apparently published by the same conglomerate. Rather clearly, gay-oriented media are having the same troubles as other titles for the same reasons:  Increased costs, loss of advertising revenues, and competition from the Internet chief among ...

Mathematics of Layla

Bernard Chazelle explains "the technical part" of Eric Clapton's classic "Layla." Played here with an assist from Mark Knopfler, for those in need of a reminder. The intro and chorus follow the progression of "All Along the Watchtower" (i-VII-VI-VII-i, ie here, Dm-C-Bb-C-Dm): one of the most common chord sequences in rock (0:27-1:10). The song is in Dm, but the verse ...

Quitters

In the space of less than 24 hours, three major races have been impacted by candidates deciding to quit. In Afghanistan, challenger Abdullah Abdullah has reportedly decided not to participate in the run-off election with Hamid Karzai for president.  This makes the U.S. attempt to pretend Karzai is a legitimate, democratic leader somewhat more difficult. In the California governor's race, San Francisco ...