Arrr!

I'm not sure what this says about me...

And I'm really not sure what my finding it reasonably accurate saysabout me either...

You are The Quartermaster

You, me hearty, are a man or woman of action! And what action it is! Gruesome,
awful, delightful action. You mete out punishment to friend and foe alike
– well, mostly to foe, because your burning inner rage isn’t
likely to draw you a whole lot of the former. Still, though you may be
what today is called “high maintenance” and in the past was
called “bat-shit crazy,” the crew likes to have you around
because in a pinch your maniacal combat prowess may be the only thing
that saves them from Jack Ketch. When not in a pinch, the rest of the
crew will goad you into berserker mode because it’s just kind of
fun to watch. So you provide a double service – doling out discipline
AND entertainment.

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

US Health care stuff

Since I have a hard time posting comments on the economist site (too much hostfile ad blocking methinks)...

On the other hand it seems to be working now that I've switched from firefox to chrome. Odd...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-cn-canada-medicare-for-all,0,3246185.story Just joining in the speculation about which Chicago Tribune article JBP might have been referring to. and to add my own two cents, it seems to me that one of the major things that contributes to the greater success of the US in achieving positive outcomes in some (often expensive to treat) conditions is that, unlike some other countries (ie Canada) it's very easy to pay more for better treatment (assuming you have the resources). In other countries (ie Canada again) it's very very hard to spend more to get more even if you want to because there is a political value in Canada for avoiding a two-tiered system. Which is fine, even though occasionally this does leave Canadians shopping for expensive treatments in the US. Since the US doesn't have any problem with a tiered system and no one is proposing to limit the amount of extra insurance or personal expenditure (at least to my knowledge) available, I can't really understand the opposition to making the downside risks less.

Ummmmm

So yeah... This looks a little scary.

Promotions

And once again the Scifi anthology that I was reading last month comes to the rescue with some interesting comentary on the news of the day. In this case results of avoiding mertit based promtion. The post is discussion public school teachers in the US, while The Highest Treason by Randall Garrett supposes a world so egalatarian that humans are unable to repulse an alien threat.

But otherwise they're exactly the same.

Awesome indeed

I honestly didn't know what to think when I followed the link from a post titled "From the Department of Awesomeness" I expected to be disapointed... but I never ever expected that a wedding entrance could be awesome. It was.

Big vs Small government

Just read the post linked to in the title and it struck me as an acute trouble with the hardline ideology of small govenenment. There needs to be some ideological slack where the private market is unable to do what needs doing, there are just some things that the profit incentive is simple ilsuited to deal with.

An alternative is always something along the lines of issuing income guarantees at birth and accepting that much of society will spend their lives anethetized in front of the TV, but then that's a little big government too.

Something to read

So I just found this site: Readthestimulus.org [via Democracy in America] I haven't explored much yet.. but it seems like an interesting concept.