Overdosing on Michael Jackson
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James Joyner | Wednesday, July 1, 2009 |
Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Lester:
via Frank Stephenson via Robert Prather
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OTB Latenight - Talking Heads
Live in Rome, 1980, with Adrian Belew on guitar: 14 Reasons List Posts Are Bad
Responding to a Twitter exchange this morning, Jay Canono lists “Fourteen reasons I hate list posts.” Several of his reasons are valid. The genre is popular for understandable reasons and they can in fact (contrary to objection #6) sometimes produce very interesting debates in the comments sections. But the posts themselves are seldom very illuminating. Al Franken Won: Minnesota Supreme Court - Coleman Concedes
In a 5-0 decision, the state’s highest court ordered that Al Franken be declared the winner.
No surprise, really. One would think Norm Coleman about out of options but this thing has managed to go on seemingly forever. I’ve maintained from the beginning of this fiasco that 1) the election was for all intents and purposes a tie and 2) Coleman, who was ahead when the initial counting stopped — and after the initial recount! — and saw some really weird things go against him, had every right to fight this in court but that 3) it has long been apparent that Franken was going to win and all Coleman’s tactics were achieving was denying Minnesotans their just representation in the Senate and therefore 4) he should have quit this farce some time back. It’s time to accept the inevitable and move on. UPDATE: Coleman has conceded. Show comments here » Asked and Answered - Workaday Life Editon
Yes. (Well, actually, you should get some holidays off. And, maybe, get a third week of vacation at some point. But, basically, yeah.) Show comments here »Firefox 3.5 Available
PC World’s Michael Muchmore adds,
A geekier review by UZee at TechnoPath :
I of course downloaded and installed it immediately. Well, actually, I downloaded it from Mozilla’s site, it took forever, and I wound up with a corrupt file. I then downloaded it from CNET (linked above) in seconds and installed without difficulty. A couple of the extensions that I forgot that I had installed are incompatible with the new edition, so it’s probably worth waiting if you use a lot of add-ons. One thing I noticed immediately is a + button next to the rightmost open tab which instantly opens a new, blank page. That’s handy. My workaround had been to open a random new tab from the toolbar. UPDATE: It’s both shrewd and creepy that a certain company that does no evil is filling the ad slots on this page with promotions for its own, competing browser. Show comments here »Health Care, Pooling, and Monopsony
Does this make sense? I don’t think it necessarily does. After all we don’t need a government grocery store, a government video store, or government car dealers (hmmm, scratch that last one), to keep prices reasonable and affordable (and even with cars we still don’t need the government to keep prices reasonable). So why would this government plan be able to offer the same types of coverage at a lower cost? What is the basis for this belief? President Obama mentions lower administrative costs? Is he thinking that the plans in this “health exchange” will be like Medicare? But the question then becomes, why are Medicare’s administrative costs so low? Is it, at least in part, that Medicare doesn’t have to screen out for pre-existing conditions? If that is the case, then the overall costs might actually higher (lower administrative costs, but higher costs in terms of treating people with pre-existing conditions), this would preclude the viability of the public option since as President Obama already notes, the private options are too expensive. An even more expensive public option is not going to be anymore attractive. If the above is true, the only way for the public option to become viable is for it to use taxpayer money—i.e. subsidies. But here we have another problem as seen by the following exchange,
It is quite logical if the public option is subsidized by taxpayer money. In that case, private insurance providers who are seeking to maximize profits will not be able to compete if the public option plan is priced too low due to the subsidies. The only other possible way for the public option to be cheaper and not rely on taxpayer money is if there health care insurance providers have market power and are engaging in some type of price discrimination when it comes to charging firms for employee benefits. However, even here there are possible alternative policies to creating a government run health care plan that would have tremendous pressure to use taxpayer money to fund. For example, if there is market power and price discrimination the solution is to promote more competition not reduce it. To do this would require identifying and removing barriers to entry into geographic regions for the health care insurance market. And it is quite likely that the barriers are a result of state, local and the federal governments. Various regulatory requirements may restrict entry and thereby grant incumbents in the market power to raise prices and restrict output. And we have to keep in mind that there are going to be tremendous pressure on whatever entity is in charge of this new program and politicians as well. Rent seeking is how most people in DC make their living—finding ways to acquire income that they have not earned.
Here is one possibility: the public option has only those with pre-existing conditions or is dominated by such people. After all, suppose we have two plans a public plan and a private plan. If you are healthy then the private plan may look okay. If you have a pre-existing condition you can’t sign up for the private plan unless it wants to go into the public option pool. So private plans might still exist, but “skim the cream” off the public pool options. This might “significantly lower administrative costs” but it will likely result in significantly higher premiums. In this case, the public option pool will provide no discipline for the private market as they really are no longer in competition. Further, the public pool option could end up being very expensive and the pressure to subsidize it will increase even more. I’d argue it would be almost certain that the government would subsidize it with taxpayer dollars. Now, a subsidized public pool very well could look more attractive to people on the private plan. Thus, it is basically a way to backdoor for a single payer system run by the government. And once there are no more private plans, then the government can start reducing the supply of health care. Because once the government is the dominant player, possibly even the only player, it is now a monopsony. And a monopsony can dictate price in the market place. Now that might sound good at first glance, but let us go back to fundamental economics. If you set the price below the market clearing price what happens? Supply is less than demand. You have less of whatever good in question has a monopsony. The reason for this is simple and pretty much inescapable. With the price below the market clearing price firms that would otherwise be earning profits and producing no longer earn a profit and shut down, and firms that are shut down produce nothing. This should not be a shocking result. A market where there are many buyers and sellers is part of the definition of a competitive market. Competitive markets tend to have lower prices and more output than markets with less competition. In the end, I can see all of this reducing the amount of health care people have access too, and maybe that is what needs to happen. However, I think it is dishonest to pretend that people can have more health care and pay less for it and reduce growth rates of costs all at the same time. That is not logical. Photo by Flickr user Brooks Elliot, used under the Creative Commons License. Show comments here »More on the Honduran Crisis
I was able to find the exact text of the plebiscite that Manuel “Mel” Zelaya wanted to proffer to the citizens of Honduras this past Sunday. The text and a photo of the ballot that was to be used can be found here. The odd thing, and a fact that hasn’t made it into a lot of press accounts or snap judgments about the situation, is that the language in question is not about re-election, but rather would have asked whether or not the public wanted to have a referendum in November about whether or not to call a constitutional convention to write a new constitution. As such, it is unclear to me at the moment why the accusation was that Zelaya was seeking immediate re-election, as even if his plebiscite had been approved, I cannot see how it would have led to be him being on the ballot in November (which is when the next presidential term, which starts in January, is set to be filled). I will continue to research that issue. More discussion at the link above. Show comments here »Madoff vs. Murderers
Glenn Reynolds, Esq. (aka, the InstaPundit) answers, “I think it’s because he made powerful people look stupid.” There’s something to that. But “the majority of murderers” kill only one person. Madoff bilked thousands of people out of billions of dollars. At some point, volume makes up for severity. Show comments here »SOFA, So Good
Claiming that American forces have completely left Iraqi cities is a bit of an exaggeration. U. S. forces will remain in the city of Mosul, at least for the time being:
Additionally, American trainers will continue to be embedded with Iraqi units and I suspect they’ll be spotted in Iraqi cities from time to time. Although there may be an increase in violence in Iraq as a consequence of the reduced visibility of American forces, I think that this small move in the direction of complete Iraqi sovereignty is wholly salutary and I’d also hope for a substantial reduction in the forces we have in Iraq by the end of the year. I don’t think I have too many illusions about the situation in Iraq. I think the situation will remain dangerous and fractious for the foreseeable future. I opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and I opposed our withdrawal from Iraq in 2005 or 2006. I think that events have proven me right on both scores. Now I think it’s time for us to start leaving. Show comments here »MPAA Loses Again
That last part is certainly right. With the advent of DVR technology, combined with the ability to watch older shows via Netflix and/or Roku, I spend less time watching television and but see more programming. Indeed, I’m at the point where I find even fast-forwarding through commercials an annoyance. I’m not at all enthusiastic about having the cable companies, who are in bed with the TV networks, in control of my programming and can’t imagine switching to that sort of service. Yes, having a massive on-demand inventory of current shows would be a boon. But my strong guess is that, in short order, they’ll make it difficult or impossible to skip commercials. Show comments here »Taking Ockham’s Razor to Sarah Palin Haters
Yeah, I just wrote that. And put it on the Internet. In seeking to explain why Ken Layne and Andrew Sullivan seem to loathe Sarah Palin and, in particular, make sport of her Down Syndrome suffering infant son, Trig, Stacy puts forth a pop psychology theory in four part harmony involving gay psychology, the fear of spinsterdom, and tips for hunting hillbillies. Taking Ockham’s Razor (or, in the case of certain residents of West Virginia, Ockham’s Toothbrush) to the problem, however, a simpler explanation arises: They do it for the same reason Stacy writes posts like this one. First, regardless of intelligence and education, people have prejudices based on their own experience and tend to judge people who don’t conform to their expectations rather harshly. Sarah Palin does not dress, talk, or act like a governor — much less a vice presidential candidate — is supposed to. Second, saying outrageous things that cultured people aren’t supposed to say out loud is an excellent way of attracting and sustaining attention. Holding forth the view that Sarah Palin chose to carry Trig to term after learning that he had Down Syndrome, just like everyone assumed all along, is not going to get you many clickthroughs. Illustration: Chris Madden Cartoons Correction: An earlier version of the post had Sullivan, Layne, and Ana Marie Cox pushing the Trig Palin birth origin conspiracy story. In fact, Layne merely reprinted a cartoon involving Trig Palin. I don’t think Cox had anything to do with this at all, aside from being the original Wonkette. Caption Contest Winners
The Easy Pieces of Eight Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.
US Hands Baghdad to Iraqis
Given how much of the early years of OTB was devoted to writing about the war in Iraq, it wouldn’t do to fail to mention the fact that we have formally handed over control of Baghdad to the Iraqis, withdrawing our combat troops. It was not at all long ago that the headline currently topping YahooNews, “Iraq takes control of security, US troops withdraw,” seemed a distant dream.  US General Daniel Bolger (L), commander of US forces in Baghdad shakes hands with General Abud Qambar, commander of Baghdad Operation Command, after handing him a symbolic key of the1st Cavalry Division at the old Iraqi Defence Ministry, the last of the 86 positions occupied by the US military in Baghdad since the US-led invasion in 2003, on June 29, 2009. US combat troops will pull out from Iraq's cities and main towns June 30 as the war-torn country takes sole charge of security in a major stepping stone to a complete American withdrawal. AFP PHOTO / ALI AL-SAADI (Photo credit should read ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images.) As to what it all means, Chris Dierkes nails it with a post I’ve republished (with permission) at New Atlantiicst under the title “Iraq Victory Achieved with Handover?” Suffice it to say, this is a “decent outcome” rather than a “victory” and we’ve got many miles to go before we know how it all turned out. Show comments here »Ricci Opens Up Businesses To More Lawsuits?
Via Mark Thompson, Ilya Somin argues that today’s decision in Ricci will potentially open employers up to even more lawsuits alleging race-based discrimination. Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion holds that an employer may not use race-conscious measures to try to avoid “disparate impact” liability under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act unless it “can demonstrate a strong basis in evidence that, had it not taken the action, it would have been liable under the disparate-impact statute.” A disparate impact lawsuit is a case alleging discrimination by the employer on the grounds that its hiring or promotion standards disproportionately disadvantage minority applicants, even if the employer wasn’t deliberately trying to discriminate against them. Not having had an opportunity to read Ricci yet, I won’t evaluate Somin’s argument–I just found it to be an interesting one. Show comments here » |
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