Modest proposal - IT amendment to the Constitution

- Congress shall make no law larger than 100 pages of Letter paper, 10 point font minimum (no more 2000 pages that no one can read or understand)
- Every line or paragraph (whichever is smaller) of every law shall bear a name of one or more congresscritters who is responsible for its introductions. No exceptions allowed (no more anonymous windfall in "consultations")
- Supreme Court shall have the power to strike down parts of laws as irrelevant to the law's titular purpose (no more labor regulations changes in war financing bills)

Killing off the insurers, my way

This article by Megan McArdle finally prompted me to post my views on fixing our medical insurance infrastructure.

The first thought I've had for a while. The second thought I picked up today, after a conversation with a proponent of the existing reform.

I like Megan's idea of "insurer of last resort" - that is the right thing to do because no matter what, we're not willing to let people simply die. In addition to that:

- prohibit any kind of price differentiation by medical providers. The doctor must set the price for a procedure, and take the same price from all comers (obviously, different doctors will have different prices - no restriction there). We may permit an exception in the form of free treatment. Any attempt by any corporation or organization to get a better price should be punished by stiff fines to both the provider and the corporation. In particular, the government should be prohibited from seeking better prices, even for Medicaid/Medicare.

- The insurers must lose the right to dump people at will. As long as you're paying the premium, you must be able to keep the policy. This applies to COBRA in the first place, but also to all other ways that people get insurance.

These changes will break the monopoly power of insurance companies and will make them more like real insurers rather than employers of doctors.

Bumping into people in London

I am on a business trip to London this week. The city seems to be smallish for its population size - it feels like a circular Manhattan. May be I am just being grumpy - Brooklyn is nothing like Manhattan either, and yet it's New York.

I've noticed that I bump into people a lot. I could not figure it out, until it hit me - they drive on the "wrong" side, and they walk that way to. When I want to let someone pass, I sidestep to the right, and Londoners expect me to go left.

Climtegate: one man, one vote, one time

The title of this post is a well known election rule for the Left. You keep on demanding the democracy until you get the right vote - and then the democracy is declared anti-social, bourgeois or some such. Whether the vote is real as in Germany and Venezuela, or by armed revolt as in Russia does not matter. The "masses" are permitted to speak once, to name their new and permanent rulers.

The 21st century, however, brought a new twist. We now see the science, rather than the excited masses, holding the useless ballot, with the inimitable expression on their faces. You see, the scientific consensus in 1990s and the beginning of 0s was that the earth is warming up. However, further development - both the data from subsequent years and the details on how that consensus was arrived at - changed the mind of a lot of scientists. Too bad it does not matter! Our socially-conscious overlords got the vote they needed, and they are perfectly ready to disregard, discard and punish any new votes that disagree with it. The People (or the Science) has spoken! And now both should shut up and do what they are told.

Whether or not this will work out in the end - the way it did in Soviet Union for a while - remains to be seen. But I do take pleasure in recognizing the familiar phenomenon. It's really fun to see the 99.2% votes cast for the Candidates from the Indivisible Block Of Communists and Non-Party Voters. Again.

Sherlock Holmes the movie

On the recommendation of Eric Raymond, I went to see the movie. I do have the entire Canon with all the footnotes - a huge volume from Costco that I've read a few times, not counting the Russian translations before that, plus watching the Russian version of the movie (I still think that one is one of the best versions!) So I am not a total stranger to Holmes. I have to agree that the way Holmes' work looks to the bystanders in the new movie is about right. A lot of snooping about in unsavory places, some fights, avoiding being killed - and complete understanding of everything he sees. The Holmes' study is right too - I wish the Turkish slipper was there! However, I'd give the movie a B- at best. The reason for that is the case Holmes is investigating. Holmes' cases are, almost without exception, very simple. The culprit simply goes about doing his thing - murdering, poisoning, burgling. The complexity is always more apparent than real, and Holmes' magic is to see through it, to the simple explanation. There are exceptions, such as The Speckled Band or The Man with the Twisted Lip, but that's rare. And none of them are exceptional to the degree shown in the movie.

What really gets me is the complete absence of any mentions of another detective - much more suited to the case in the movie. A detective who solved such cases by the dozen. I refer to Father Brown, of course. He deals with "mystic" crimes all the time, and his complete lack of faith in magic (rather, his negative faith - he is perfectly convinced it does not exist) is the linchpin on which the cases revolve. Holmes' cases are very different from this. I wish the director would take an actual case from the Canon and showed it the way he showed his invented one. That would be a real gem...

Some commentaries on Climategate

No, not my commentaries. Those are found in the answers to Derek Lowe's Climategate and Scientific Conduct


They may be just plants, but if they aren't, they are extremely revealing.

David P on December 1, 2009 11:24 AM writes...

I hate the fact that the way of doing science is undermined by this scandal.
I had (have still even) hopes that climate change would be the thing that got developed countries to be less wasteful, which seems to me to be a good thing regardless of the effect on the planet.

"Who cares if the science is right or wrong - I just need a club to bash the fat capitalists with"

17. rob on December 1, 2009 11:10 AM writes...

Derek says the results of climate science have to be very good and very convincing if we're going to believe them.

I agree.

So where are the safety data showing that pumping gigatons of CO2 into the air is an ok thing to do? Where are the coal companies' data and models? The oil companies'?

And can we please plow through the last N years of internal emails from these companies as well? Or those from the lobbies they fund?

Why don't you hold polluting companies to a standard that even remotely approaches the one you hold climate scientists to? Or even the one that-- you say-- pharma companies routinely meet. After all, as you rightly say, the stakes are enormous.

How do you justify using different standards for different institutions?

In other words, to disprove a theory, you have to come up with an alternative theory that is just as well researched. Wrong! To disprove a theory all you need is to demonstrate that it does not fit the data. There is no law that one model has to be replaced by another - we're just as likely to have no model at all! The predictions of AGW do not fit the data without "massaging". Throw it out and start looking again. In the meantime, go back to business as usual - you have no scientific basis to change anything.

History's judgement of Bush

As we stand on the edge of changing this great country for ever, on the precipice of falling back into the Old World from which we have risen so magnificently - I can't help but thinking of the man who made it all possible.

I am thinking of you, Mr. Bush 48. You probably hope that history will remember you for free Iraq. Your opponents hope that you will be judged on Katrina and Patriot Act. But I think the real thing remembered after 100 years about you will be Obama.

You see, Mr. Bush - it's your heavy hand and dumb mistakes in execution allowed our nation to elect someone so personally vacuous and ideologically socialist as Obama. Your presidency's main result was the feeling of anger against you that allowed the election of the man responsible for all the disasters we see now.

I hope you're happy with your legacy, Mr. Bush. Stimulus, Climate Bill, Social Medicine. All this became possible because of you.