Cap And Trade

It should be a death penalty crime for a member of Congress to vote for a law that they have not read. Such behavior threatens the very foundations of society.

AP Panders To Iran

This may not come as a surprise to those who follow the Associated Press. This morning I read this article, and I was appalled.

It takes the government's official vote tally at face value. No reasonable observer does; there are massive statistical irregularities, such as every city and region voting in the exact same proportion. Leaked numbers claim that the government's proclaimed winner actually placed fourth.

It uses the terms "dispersed" and "crackdown" to describe the government attacking thousands of demonstrators with axes. Axes! More here and here.

(In response, the White House withdrew its invitation to Iranian diplomats to the July 4th cookout.)

The AP exists to accurately report news. It's not doing a good job.

Health Care Price Discrimination

A law should be passed that does two things:

1. Prohibit the government from setting prices of medical procedures and care, as it does now
   
2. Prohibit medical providers (doctors, hospitals and so on) from charging different amounts to different customers for the same procedure, as they do now
   

This law would have both positive and negative effects. Positive:

• Prices would more accurately reflect true costs
• Uninsured people would not pay artificially inflated prices
• It would be easier for everybody to shop around to find the best prices . . .
• . . . which would drive prices down
• Providers would not need to turn away Medicare and Medicaid patients in order to stay in business
  

Negative:

• Insurance companies would not be able to negotiate for group discounts (which aren't really discounts; the "normal" price the uninsured (don't) pay is increased and the "discount" is the previous "normal")
• The constitutional basis for regulating prices federally is shaky (I realize that Congress disagrees)
• Medicare and Medicaid would need new methods to determine what procedures to pay for
  

Have I missed any?

Health Care Problems

Health care is an area where the title of this blog is especially true. It would be nice if there were a simple solution that would make everybody, or at least me, happy. There are a plethora of proposed solutions, but none of them are simple, and all that I have seen or heard of have significant flaws.

When approaching a controversial topic involving government action, it is best to start by identifying the high level problems that we would like "reform" to address. Here's a partial list:

• I can't afford advanced procedures
• my ordinary health maintenance costs are increasing
• there's a growing shortage of doctors and nurses
• it's annoying and sometimes difficult to find in-network health care providers
• it's annoying and sometimes difficult to deal with paperwork

All we have to do to fix all those problems is adopt my ideology!

Just kidding. It's not that simple.

Apologizing for Slavery

The United States Senate recently apologized for slavery. Specifically, for allowing the institution of slavery to exist in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

In my opinion, the U.S. Civil War made apology unnecessary. Hundreds of thousands of people died to free the slaves. (Some say that the Civil War was not about slavery, but it was: the South seceded to preserve the institution of slavery.)

People alive today who fault the current United States for slavery that was ended almost 150 years ago will never be satisfied; apologizing to them is futile.

Slavery still exists in the world today. Rather than focusing on wrongs performed by people who have been dead for generations we should focus on wrongs being committed this very minute.

Thoughts On Brett Favre

Yesterday Brett Favre spoke with the media, saying that he wants to play football for the Minnesota Vikings if his arm heals.

I think it's great that he loves his career so much. It would be wonderful if we all loved our jobs more than we loved the adulation of millions of fans.

Favre's situation provides a great teaching moment about why it is unwise to idolize athletes. No matter how well he can throw, he's still a regular guy just like everyone else, and he occasionally makes bad life decisions just like you or me. It's fine to be a fan of an athlete, but don't think that someone's ability on the field gives them any insight about how to behave off the field.

It would have been nicer if the Jets had traded him to the Vikings, because then the Packers would have gotten some good draft picks out of the deal.

I don't think he's going to perform as well as he wants to.

No matter what happens, he's got to retire for good some day, and when he does he's going to have to figure out what to do.

Enforcing Morality

How can a moral person oppose laws that enforce moral behavior?

First, one only gets moral credit for doing something optional. If someone forces me to obey then I'm not obeying out of my own free will. You don't get points for doing the right thing unless you could have done something else.

Second, people often disagree about what is and is not moral. If I endorse government enforcement of morality, I risk being forced to behave according to someone else's (wrong) moral beliefs. If you want to be free to do what you believe is moral, then you are better off not giving the government permission to regulate that thing.

Third, there is no compelling reason to legislate morality in general. There are specific areas that can be legitimately regulated in order to allow society to function, but they are a subset of what is moral, not the other way around.

Fourth, in order to successfully enforce moral behavior a government needs to possess the apparatus and powers of a police state. Once the mechanisms of a police state exist, they will inevitably be used against innocent people.

People are Jerks on Highways

Some tips to keep the road rage out of your next road trip:

If someone is overtaking you, do not change lanes to block them from passing, even if it means that you have to decelerate to avoid a slow car in front of you.

Do not tailgate motorcyclists.

If someone in the slow lane passes you, it is not they who are at fault.

Pass police officers at your own risk, even if you're sure you're not doing anything wrong.

Allow people to merge in front of you.

In stop and go traffic, drive slower than the car in front of you.

To save gas, coast uphill and accelerate lightly downhill.

After changing lanes, drive faster than the cars behind you.

If someone begins to pass you and then matches your speed, blocking other cars from passing, accelerate or decelerate to clear the blockage.

In a strange city, let cars with local plates be the fastest ones around.

When you're in the front of a line of cars waiting to pass a slow car, speed up for the duration of the passing maneuver.

Driving is not for proving your fitness to reproduce, it's one of those liberal pansy games where the goal is for everyone to win.

Vampire Evolution

Popular fiction typically gives vampires superhuman strength, reflexes, hearing and so on. For such abilities to evolve naturally would require an environment that made them necessary to survive, which isn't the world as we know it. Human hands + human brains are demonstrably sufficient to dominate our ecosystem.

Twilight

This week I watched the movie Twilight on DVD, and it was OK. I used to like vampire-themed stories a lot, and this one didn't disappoint, even though it took a fairly superficial look at what life is like for a superhuman centenarian trapped in the body of a 17-year-old.

I didn't like the performance of the lead actress, Kristen Stewart. I'd previously seen her in In The Land Of Women, where she also played a clueless, spoiled teenager. Hopefully she is not the kind of person who only knows how to play one character. If "Uh!" was actually in the script then the writers deserve some of the blame.

I remain unconvinced that it's ok for an adult to masquerade as a teenager and seduce innocent young girls (though if Edward's moral code formed circa World War 1 Bella can probably teach him a thing or two.)

The "Wise Indian" parts were stupid. The Indians know that the Cullens are vampires but don't seem to be impressed by the miniscule death toll. The books tell us that some of the Indians are werewolves; do vampires and werewolves naturally dislike each other? The movie doesn't say.

The next vampire flick in my netflix queue is Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Can an Underworld movie without guns succeed? We shall see!