For the sake of accountability

Since I believe in accountability and I thought I would follow up with a prediction I made earlier on this blog. Yesterday, Mike Huckabee announced that he would not be running for president. Thus, he destroyed my earlier prediction that Mike Huckabee would be the 2012 Republican nominee for president. Oh well, can't call 'em all.

Even Fox News is Slamming the Supreme Court Decision

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/01/21/ellen-ratner-supreme-court-mccain-feingold-campaign/?test=latestnews

This is a very good sign: even Fox News has an editorial up harshly criticizing the appalling Supreme Court Decision today.

The decision was 5-4, with the conservative wing entirely in the majority opinion. Anthony Kennedy, the semi-swing vote, obviously went with the majority on this one. The liberal wing was entirely in the dissent. A 90-page dissent was written by 89 year old Justice John Paul Stevens.

To have FoxNews opposing this decision as a sign of a deteriorating democracy is perhaps a ray of hope that it can be reversed.

Supreme Court sends us back to early 1900s

The Supreme Court made an absolutely abhorrent decision today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/opinion/22fri1.html?hpw

This is brutal. Personally, I think that corporations should not be allowed to contribute at all to political campaigns. I think contributions should be limited to a representative's direct constitiuents alone. So if you're running from the 5th district, you should only be allowed to take limited donations from people residing and voting in the 5th district. No one from the 6th district or anywhere else should be allowed to donate to your campaign. And certainly, no corporation should be allowed to donate. Corporations already have more than enough power over the political process.

Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, asked that as a nation we dedicate ourselves, so "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This decision is certainly going in the wrong direction.

Is Health Care Reform the new Iraq War?

Is Health Care Reform the new Iraq War?

Nate Silver has a really insightful post up about how lies impact public opinion on public policy.

"Learning from Europe"

I agree with Krugman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html

Test Graders Stink

A very good piece about the high subjectivity of open-ended test grading, how we need to better standardize the graders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28farley.html?_r=1

I can hardly express how much I disliked the state writing tests. Maybe if I had learned to write good, I could express it better.

Obama's Health Insurance Reform Speech

My gut reactions to the speech:

Overall, I thought it was pretty good. He touched on a lot of issues, cleared up some lies being spread, and made efforts to reach out to Republicans, like including McCain's campaign idea into the legislation and trying to bring tort reform into the legislation. I suppose the one thing that really turned me off was this:

"Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last."

This comment just sounds really arrogant and in particular aggravated me. Regardless of what happens this year, we'll still need health care reform in the future. It's inevitable. Whatever changes they may make now, our health care system will still be imperfect, and everyone knows it. It might be better, but there will still be plenty of room for improvement. I sure hope he's not the last president to take on health care reform. And then he repeated this exact comment in an email to supports just minutes after the speech. Ay ay ay.

That said, overall, I think he did a very good job of trying to address as many concerns as possible and citing examples of Republicans being involved in the reform process. I'll be reading more and more post-speech analysis as it becomes available and further digesting it in the coming days.

I followed the fivethirtyeight.com live blog of the speech and enjoyed it. I really agree with Nate Silver's point about the advantage of a congressional address:

The images of Republicans clapping alongside Democrats when Obama mentions something like pre-existing conditions is the upside to doing this from the floor of the Congress, rather than another venue like the Oval Office. Note, though, that many Republicans didn't stand up and clap when Obama said "no one should go broke because they get sick."

Anyway, my favorite solution so far to the health insurance crisis is from one of the professors at UNC, Jonathan Oberlander. He wrote about an "all-payer" system in a great article in the New England Journal of Medicine on September 2. By far, it seems the most effective at actually cutting costs, and seems more politically feasible than most other drastic measures.

Linky linky

Here is a Cleveland newcrew reacting to LeBron's crucial game winner in Game 2. You watch this and feel so bad for Cleveland fans. It's like they are expecting to be cursed forever and never win anything. They totally gave up and were looking to next year...already! via Bill Simmons

Check out the Study Ball and Chain:

http://trueslant.com/jeffhoard/2009/05/20/finally-now-your-kids-can-study-like-criminals/

Good reads

A couple of intersting piecse of writing:

Annals of Innovation: Malcolm Gladwell writes about how David defeats Goliath, in basketball and in life. Very fascinating. Maybe I need to rethink my approach to life.

Vauban, a car free suburb of Freiburg, makes the NY Times. I've been to Vauban when I was studying in Freiburg, though it wasn't finished yet at the time. This article is mostly of interest to me since I've been there, but I also like the bike-focused culture. Freiburg is notably for it's incredible bike-friendly community. 

I couldn't believe Detroit traded away Chauncey Billups for Iverson earlier this seaon. Now Denver is crushing teams. The more I learn about Chauncey Billups, the more I like him. Great piece on ESPN's Outside the Lines. 

Interesting note: Rick Pitino comes up in two of the above pieces. Completely unplanned.