Category: health

Week of 2026-0104
Sunday 2026 January 4
- Charles Siegel at 3 Quarks Daily: “Roberto Chaves Chavarria, RIP“
- Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns, and Money: “Yankee imperialism and neo-fascist spectacle“
- Steve Vladeck at One First: “Five Questions About the Maduro Arrest Operation“
- Steve Vladeck at One First: “The Supreme Court’s Annie Hall Problem”
- Steve Vladeck at One First: “Progressive Judicial Institutionalism“
- Timothy Snyder at Thinking About…: “Venezuela: The Precedents“
- Aled Maclean-Jones at Works in Progress: “Watch men“
- Phoebe Arslanagic-Little at Works in Progress: “Two is already too many“
Monday 2026 January 5
- Carolyn Y. Johnson at The Washington Post: “Feuding physicists and the bitter battle over the swirls in ‘The Starry Night’“
- Paul Krugman: “The Real Donroe Doctrine“
- Stephen Nessen at Gothamist: “A year later, blowback over NYC’s congestion pricing tolls has died down“
- Samuel Hughes at Works in Progress: “The Great Downzoning“
- Samuel Hughes at Works in Progress: “The beauty of concrete“
Tuesday 2026 January 6
- Malcolm Murray at 3 Quarks Daily: “Varying Degrees of “Future Comfort” in AI predictions“
- Bonnie McCune at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Wages of Aging“
- Anvar Sarygulov & Phoebe Arslanagic-Little at Works in Progress: “Understanding the Baby Boom“
- Robin Grier at Works in Progress: “How Mexico built a state“
Thursday 2026 January 8
- Paul Krugman: “The Looting of US Foreign Policy“
Friday 2026 January 9
- Rachel Robison-Greene at 3 Quarks Daily: “Personhood, Virtual Wantons, and Online Bullshit”
- Josh Marshal at Talking Points Memo: “Abolish ICE? DHS Too. It’s Time“
Saturday 2026 January 10
- Paul Krugman: “Phillips O’Brien on Venezuela and More“
- Paul Krugman: “The Emperor’s New Oil Wealth“
- Phillips P. OBrien at Phillips’s Newsletter: “Can You Do Regime Change Without Changing A Regime?“
- Rebecca Solnit at Meditations in an Emergency: “Notes on Unbearable Stupidity, January 6, 2026 Edition“
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Pardon my coup“
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Support for abolishing ICE hits a a new high“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “The Euphoria Period“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “The Venezuela attack is a constitutional crisis for the United States“
- Lisa Chamberlain at Vital City: “Revealing Hidden Signals in City Hotline Data“
- Wes O’Donnell: “Did Trump Accidently[sic] Reveal a Top Secret US Kill Switch?“
- Margaret Sullivan at American Crisis: “Should the news media ‘love America’? Here’s how.”
- Steve Vladeck at One First: “Who is the Chief Justice’s Audience?“
- Asha Rangappa at Complicity & Courage: “Friday Round Up! 1/9/26: It was a bad shoot“
2026 January 11
16,500 : a “mistake” so egregious as to be a lie

Where did the rabid right get the figure of 16,500 new “IRS agents” that (they claim) will be required to enforce the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act?

They made it up.

Really. It came from nowhere. In fact, the IRS will add few or no agents, and perhaps hardly any staff at all. There’s a really nice dissection of this ludicrous claim over at factcheck.org. Basically, the number was invented based on a bad estimate, inflated through dubious assumptions, and then just hand-waved into fact.

Just remember, the next time someone quotes to you some scary scary provision of the ACA: There’s a non-negligible chance that they are lying or repeating a lie.

2010 March 31
Health care reform passes

So, against all expectation, the Democratic Party managed to hang together and finally pass the comprehensive health care bill.

As a lifelong Democrat, I am flabbergasted. I was certain they’d find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and fumble on the proverbial one-yard line. I’m glad to be disappointed, but this long, ugly process has exposed disturbing trends in this nation. It’s still possible that this will be the high-water mark of a great republic.

Though their target is incorrect, the Tea Partiers ironically have a point: the Republic does face a crisis. It’s not driven by phantasmical jackbooted insurance inspectors breaking into homes and dragging Grandma off to mythical death panels. It stems from the unholy matrimony among a slick ideological establishment; sensationalist, irresponsible, and manipulative 24 hour “news” media; and an angry, incoherent, willfully-ignorant populace. Though these people claim to revere the Founders, they in fact stand opposed to the core of Enlightenment democracy that was bequeathed to us: an informed and educated citizenry engaged in reasoned debate — with passion, to be sure, but never abandoning reason and never so cocksure as to assume that opponents must be enemies.

Considering that the Tea Partiers have labeled rule by majority vote “tyranny”, it’s hard to see how anything resembling the United States of America could survive their rage. Their unifying feature is anger and it will burn everything it can reach. And the Republican Party stands on the sideline and feeds it, a mixture of cynical arsonist and maniacal six-year-old.

How can a deliberative legislature — how can a functioning democracy — endure when one side has abandoned argument and evidence? When one side decides that anything their opponents say must be untrue? If one side locks itself in its own fantasy world and declares invalid any source that might challenge its funhouse-mirror self-reality?

2010 March 22
We Are All Californians Now

This is the day.
This is the moment that some clever historian — not the first to consider this sweep of time, but rather someone turning over the leaves looking for a more subtle causation — will draw a slash on the timeline of history and write: Here began the fall of the American republic.

(more…)

2010 January 23
The Democratic playbook

in convenient cartoon form.

by Tom Toles

I got this via Ezra Klein’s fantastic blog, but apparently it’s by Tom Toles.

2010 January 22
My congressional lobbying

I haven’t really gotten involved in haranguing my elected representatives before, but the possibility of health care reform is so tantalizingly close — and the apparent drift of the Democratic so-called “leadership” is so grindingly predictable and frustrating — that I’ve felt compelled to contact my representative several times. Below the fold is the email I’ve sent.

UPDATE: I claim no particular credit, but according to Talking Points Memo, Rep. Holt has in fact come out in support of (what I feel to be) the correct option, passing the Senate bill. (I am indifferent as to whether it needs to be done straight up or with amendments via reconciliation.)

(more…)

2010 January 21
What the Democrats Should Do Now

Pass health care reform.

Pass the frakking Senate bill as is and have the President sign it before the State of the Union. Heck, have him sign it at the State of the Union. Yes, it will enrage the Republicans but in case you haven’t noticed, the Republicans are already the party of incohate rage. Nothing is going to mollify them. (more…)

2010 January 20
Health Care basics
With the health care bill finally moving forward in both houses of Congress, it’s a good time to take stock, take a breath, and take a look at what’s inside. Below are some links to useful summaries and commentaries.
- Ezra Klein’s excellent list-of-articles called “Health Reform For Beginners“
- Alec McGillis’ “Your Handy Health Care Cheat Sheet“
More as I come across them.
2010 January 7
Me-tooing a clever description

One of the unsung heros of the health care debate is the Congressional Budget Office, an agency that few really understand and fewer appreciate. Ezra Klein has a tidbit on them, including a description so pithy I can’t help but steal it:

If the role of the Federal Reserve is to take away the punchbowl just as the party is getting started, the role of the Congressional Budget Office is to walk around the party telling everyone exactly how drunk they’re getting and reminding them that there will be consequences for their actions tomorrow.

I join with Mr. Klein in wishing all the hardworking government types a happy holiday.

2009 December 29
Week 51 in the Program

Well, I’m closing in on one year in the HMR program and, looking back, I feel pretty satisfied. I hit my nominal target (weight loss of 150 lbs) a couple of weeks back and have managed to keep going a bit, so it wasn’t a fluke. My blood pressure today was 110 over 80, which is much better than when I started (when it was something like 180 over 130).

The next step is the transition into maintenance but I’m holding off on that until after the holidays. It’s going to be hard enough without adding in all the irregularity of the next six weeks.

Since August I’ve been tracking my weight twice a day, when I get up and just before I got to sleep. The first thing that struck me is how irregular this is. Although the morning weight has been mostly consistent, the nightly weight has bounced around. The second thing is, it’s been a good review of linear regression. I can use the daily tracking to predict the weight I get at HMR, to a pretty good extent. This means I can keep track and, after a day when I might tick upward, be sure to even out.

2009 November 24