A little motivation.

I was sitting at the table, eating dinner with my daughter and I glanced at the sports section, which was bemoaning the loss of the Bears' inspirational middle linebacker, Brian Urlacher:

And I looked a little closer at his wristband, to see what they write on there. Little did I know, he had a little extra motivation for himself:

It's not quite Billy Ripken, but it'll do.

Cui bono?

I don't know if anyone else heard this NPR story, but I found it rather wrong-headed.

What is the public option? So far as I can tell, it's a government-run insurance program that will, through competition with private plans, provide a minimum level of insurance to all comers.

Frankly put, do doctors care where their money comes from? If they are rational actors, the answer is no. As long as someone else is paying the bill (and not looking at it), why should they? So why should we care about the opinions of physicians on whether or not health insurance companies need competition?

My fundamental theory about the 2009 version of health care reform is "who's taking one for the team?" Here's my list, in order of likelihood: insurers, pharmaceutical companies and actual health care providers. Anyone disagree?

Crazy, boring NFL predictions

1. The Colts? 9-7 and do not win the AFC South.
2. The Patriots do not go to the Superbowl.
3. The Vikings? Do not make the playoffs.

Clearly, I'm nuts.

Communism!

Claims of communism go way back....

Obama Education Watch: making the right people unhappy

Obama and Arne Duncan continue to push the idea of merit pay, much to the consternation of progressive policy magazines.

"One of the major developments in education policy this year has been the Obama administration's continued, focused attention on the issue of merit pay, despite a lack of strong evidence linking such programs to increased student achievement."

Awesome.

Yes, Mr President...

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Jane's Law wins again

One of my favorite libertarian writers is Megan McArdle, who coined Jane's Law in 2003:

"Jane's Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane."

This came to mind for two recent reasons:

- This NYT article notes many of the serious conservative policy types whose objections to the Democrat congressional plans have been drowned out by the Beck/Palinites. Sigh.

- The recent GOP hubbub over Obama's speech to children is more than a little bit overheated. I imagine that by making their objections known now, they may have forced the President's speech to be even more carefully devoid of political content.

As a conservative, I am happily pessimistic about the chances of the Republican party in the near-future (next 7 years or so.) As Clemenza would have said, "These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood."

How Conservatives Are Created...

No, I am not talking about the unborn child in this picture. I am talking about anyone who sees this picture. It's hard to support universal healthcare with this image in mind. Doesn't she know that the overhead powerlines are a much greater concern than jackhammers?

Ted Kennedy's desire for national health care

From Sen. Ted Kennedy's keynote 1980 convention speech:

"Finally, we cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must -- We must not surrender -- We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.

The President, the Vice President, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot. We do not get a bill even if we ask for it, and when do you think was the last time a member of Congress asked for a bill from the Federal Government? And I say again, as I have before, if health insurance is good enough for the President, the Vice President, the Congress of the United States, then it's good enough for you and every family in America."

Interesting how similar issues affect us now. Interesting also that here, Kennedy comes right out and says what today's Democrats are unwilling to.

When everyone gets a chance they should watch this outstanding Bill Moyers Journal on healthcare. A very good journal which gives many reasons why our health care is the best in certain areas, and substandard in others. It is based off the book Money-Driven medicine and details the growth of the medical industry and how this leads to higher costs.

It's about me not you...

Randall Terry hijacked the last eight weeks of Notre Dame's academic year last semester and now is aiming at town halls and the healthcare discussion.

Not every problem has a great solution.

Looking at the posts/comments on this blog is fantastic, I always get a real visceral response.

So, I'm going to throw this out there......

Is it possible that there is no way to fix the escalating cost of health care?

I believe you get what you pay for, plain and simple. Health care is expensive. That's probably not going to change. You may squeak out some 10% efficiency here and there.You may eek out some cost savings from reducing administrative costs, but in general health care is expensive. There is a whole lot of investment and research tied into everything. Who would guess that the people who invested in and did the research would like to earn money for there effort?

So the question is pretty simple. Do we want health care to be more affordable? And if so what is the cost of more affordable health care?

I hate to say it, but most likely if you have cheaper insurance your end of life care will be given at a cheaper cost. If you pay less for something you will probably get less...

Let's scrap health care reform. Let's just get insurance companies to provide the service they claim. We need to reform insurance companies, not health care. The US has the best health care in the world, and by the way it's expensive.

He was TOLD this so it's not his fault if it's wrong...

GRASSLEY: In countries that have government-run health care, just to give you an example, I’ve been told that the brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy has — because he’s 77 years old — would not be treated the way it’s treated in the United States. In other words, he would not get the care he gets here because of his age. In other words, they’d say ‘well he doesn’t have long to live even if he lived another four to five years.’ They’d say ‘well, we gotta spend money on people who can contribute more to economy.’ It’s a little like people saying when somebody gets to be 85 their life is worth less than when they were 35 and you pull the tubes on them.

"Well, I'm sorry to say that's the most ludicrous thing that I've heard," Ara Darzi, a surgeon and former minister of health of GREAT BRITAIN.

To be fair, the second half of audio Grassley says a lot of good things and I am sure Grassley will post a correction in his biannual newsletter.

Because this blog's too quiet

The many health care reform plans in Congress are catching a lot of flak. Unsurprisingly, the media has focused on some of the more rabid and ridiculous claims from the conservative entertainment industrial complex.

I think the President and his supporters are being a little bit naive about the "death panels" claim, when the President himself was talking about the difficulties in having Medicare pay for end-of-life care:

THE PRESIDENT: Now, I actually think that the tougher issue around medical care — it’s a related one — is what you do around things like end-of-life care —

NYT: Yes, where it’s $20,000 for an extra week of life.

THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. And I just recently went through this. I mean, I’ve told this story, maybe not publicly, but when my grandmother got very ill during the campaign, she got cancer; it was determined to be terminal. And about two or three weeks after her diagnosis she fell, broke her hip. It was determined that she might have had a mild stroke, which is what had precipitated the fall.

So now she’s in the hospital, and the doctor says, Look, you’ve got about — maybe you have three months, maybe you have six months, maybe you have nine months to live. Because of the weakness of your heart, if you have an operation on your hip there are certain risks that — you know, your heart can’t take it. On the other hand, if you just sit there with your hip like this, you’re just going to waste away and your quality of life will be terrible.

And she elected to get the hip replacement and was fine for about two weeks after the hip replacement, and then suddenly just — you know, things fell apart.

I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn’t have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life — that would be pretty upsetting.

NYT: And it’s going to be hard for people who don’t have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

NYT: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

This is a pretty easy set of thoughts to twist out of shape, no? Obviously, "death panels" is unfair -- but why put it out there in the first place?

My sympathies are with the President, who's got a very tough nut to crack. Thankfully (for my long-term job prospects), it's pretty clear that it's the insurance industry that's going to take one for the team first. Doubtless, pharma will be next (although they appear to have negotiated with the crocodile) and then it'll be hospital employee salaries...

"First, we kill all the chemists"

Sarah Palin, channeling Michelle Bachmann, revs up the fear machine by describing how unwanted children and seniors will be put before a Big Brother Death Panel to determine societal worth. I don't know where she gets this from because it is my understanding that the "Death Panel" will be used to lower unemployment by getting rid of the jobless.

Merit pay watch: optimistic

This recent NPR story is good news -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went to face the NEA and tell them that "but to remove student performance from [teachers' job] evaluation is illogical." Click on the link to listen to angry teachers tell him that their job performance just can't be quantified.

Obviously, merit pay is something that is a very small blip on the Obama Administration radar. But if they can make this happen, it will make them that much more popular with independent voters and his credibility will be that much greater.

Sanford vs. Foley

I have to say that Bill Maher makes a good point.

Enjoy prison!

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A former engineer for Rockwell International and Boeing was convicted Thursday of economic espionage and acting as an agent of China, authorities said.

Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 73, was accused of stealing restricted technology and Boeing trade secrets, including information related to the space shuttle program and the Delta IV rocket.

Thanks, f%$%$#r. You and your #$#$# friends that are doing this -- you're making that much harder for honest Chinese nationals and Chinese-American folks to get hired at defense contractors and serious IP generators (pharma, high-tech) (i.e. good-paying jobs) in the US. Hope you enjoy your time rotting in the federal pen.

A backpedal too far?

I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences. - Her Honor, Judge (and soon-to-be-Justice) Sonia Sotomayor, 7/14/09

I think she went too far. Every person? Regardless of their background? I don't believe this statement is true -- do you?

A Rambling Basketball Diagram