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That was Strategic Vision, not R2K.

(Hey, I'd be much happier if people named products with distinguishable proper names rather than generic sounding word combinations and worse yet, acronyms, so you have my sympathies for getting them mixed up.)

The pollster was subscribed to by DailyKos, among hundreds of other news organizations, and the results were skewed IN FAVOR OF RIGHT-WING CAUSES, not left-wing, so the assumption that DailyKos was somehow complicit in this is absolutely not true. (And I've rarely, if ever, read DailyKos, so I have no personal interest in defending them.. the headline is just grossly misleading).

I googled that for you:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/use-of-likely-voter-model-does-not.html

Actually, I do. And now They're suing the pants off of R2K.

If this was the National Review Online, or Free Republic, or what have you, there would be a huge push to cover this up and blame the "liberal media"(whatever the hell THAT is) for any accusations that they did something wrong.

I doubt they would have questioned the results to begin with, much less investigated...

Nate Silver on Possible Biasin Rasmussen Reports
"What Rasmussen has had is a "house effect". So far in the 2010 cycle, their polling has consistently and predictably shown better results for Republican candidates than other polling firms have. But such house effects can emerge from legitimate differences of opinion about how to model the electorate. And ultimately, these differences of opinion will be tested -- based on what happens next November. If Rasmussen's opinion turns out to be wildly inaccurate, that will impeach their credibility, and believe me, we will point that out. Likewise, if they turn out to be right when most other pollsters are wrong, we will point that out too."

Apparently the situation with Rasmussen is complicated, but this seems to be a fairly decent starting place (that's not just some activist blogger).

Actually, I do. And now They're suing the pants off of R2K.

If this was the National Review Online, or Free Republic, or what have you, there would be a huge push to cover this up and blame the "liberal media"(whatever the hell THAT is) for any accusations that they did something wrong.

Zogby is an Internet pollster and so-called "social research" company; they got some of the lowest reliability marks from these meta-pollsters because their numbers were neither consistent nor terribly accurate in the last American election cycle.

So I would take the assertions of this study with at least a pound of salt; it could very easily be a study paid for by someone who has something to lose should Google continue to gain popularity.

The immediate cause of the coup was the crushing defeat suffered by Rudd's Labor party in a by-election at a state level in the New South Wales seat of Penrith. Normally this might not have mattered immensely, but the by-election is likely to be the last major electoral battle that will occur in Australia before the country goes to the polls, perhaps as early as August.

Labor is throwing Rudd under the bus in an emergency measure to avoid getting wiped in upcoming elections. Since this is a parliamentary system with preferential voting, large swings can happen (see 2008, where PM Howard not only lost his PM status, but his rather safe seat as well)... large swings just like what happened in Penrith (26% swing = landslide).

While Microsoft, Apple and Google were each trusted by 49%, the percentage expressing little or no trust was higher for Microsoft and Google (both 46%) than it was for Apple (35%). The percentage of not sure responses was higher for Apple (15%) than for for both Google and Microsoft, both 5%. Adults under 30 had the least trust in the two computer giants, especially Microsoft. Among First GlobalsTM under 30, 34% had trust in Microsoft and 41% in Apple. That age group's trust in Facebook (20%) and Twitter (15%) was also greater than that of older age groups.

I recommend you go over and look at the original report yourselves, it makes some really odd choices – for instance lumping together “trust a little” and “not at all.” Similarly "The Media" represents some monolithic entity - which is also primed against given the pervasive creation and politicization of the catagory of "mainstream media" - whilst Twitter, Google, and Apple somehow deserve their own catagories.

While Microsoft, Apple and Google were each trusted by 49%, the percentage expressing little or no trust was higher for Microsoft and Google (both 46%) than it was for Apple (35%). The percentage of not sure responses was higher for Apple (15%) than for for both Google and Microsoft, both 5%. Adults under 30 had the least trust in the two computer giants, especially Microsoft. Among First GlobalsTM under 30, 34% had trust in Microsoft and 41% in Apple. That age group's trust in Facebook (20%) and Twitter (15%) was also greater than that of older age groups.

I recommend you go over and look at the original report yourselves, it makes some really odd choices – for instance lumping together “trust a little” and “not at all.” Similarly "The Media" represents some monolithic entity - which is also primed against given the pervasive creation and politicization of the catagory of "mainstream media" - whilst Twitter, Google, and Apple somehow deserve their own catagories.

There are already enough reasons to write them off

Rasmussen does lean toward Republicans, though there are lots of potential reasons for this.

My feeling is that Angle is relatively unknown to the bulk of the electorate right now, so people being asked "Reid or Angle" right now are choosing between someone they know they don't like and someone they know nothing about. But people will start paying more attention as the midterms come around. Reid may still lose, but an Angle 10 point blowout is really unlikely.

The people who are alleging fraud are claiming that this is a scheme to ensure that the Republican incumbent is re-elected.

That makes no sense. Even the left-leaning fivethirtyeight blog listed the South Carolina Senate seat as safely Republican back in late April, with a 95+% chance to be won by the Republican candidate.

There have been, what, 6 terrorist plane incidents in the last 10 years, 2 of which had no fatalities, in the US? And 6 crashes with fatalities due to other reasons in the same period. Looks like we'd be better of putting time, effort, and money should be put into plane maintenance; mechanic, air controller, and pilot training, salaries, and working conditions; instead of security theater. See also: PBS Frontline's Flying Cheap.

Did you see this? http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/world-cup-2010-advancement.html Would be nice if he entered. Or else it looks like there's enough info for somebody to enter using his behalf.

A few different things:

1) ThreeHundredEight is an excellent resource for Canadian Poll analysis, much like the United States' FiveThirtyEight. Personally I think Rae is probably the only electable leader of the proposed coalition. I think Layton is too far left for Western Canada.

2) Search Engine has an excellent podcast up this morning on how the Conservatives are pushing to get this through again.

3) I swear the Conservatives are trying everything in their power to piss off the future political power base in this country. By 2020, everyone under 40 will have intimate knowledge of digital privacy, copyright, and barely remember a time when there wasn't an internet. Nobody under 50 will remember a time without videogames and personal computers. This legislation will hamstring the Conservative party for years to come.

Disclaimer: I used to be a diehard federal conservative-voter (I'm a social liberal, fiscal conservative), however with the garbage the Conservative party has pulled in the past few years, I would be surprised if I would return in the near future.

Nice way to hide misrepresentation of the facts with an emotional appeal. The actual facts are that 4.5 million construction and manufacturing jobs have been lost this decade (~20% of the total). Jobs that don't require higher education are declining (this is spelled out in a lot more detail at the link). While I have no disrespect for the guy who washes dishes, there are a lot more people who are willing and able to wash dishes than dishwashing jobs. We're not doing anyone a favor by not educating our population for the jobs that we will require.

FiveThirtyEight looked at this question from a fairly rigorous statistical point of view. Their conclusion was that college graduates have far better career prospects than lower levels of educational achievement. In fact, US college graduates have remained at (the technical definition of) full employment throughout the current economic downturn, while other groups have suffered terribly. The obvious conclusion is that there are not too many college graduates.

Actually, U.S. manufacturing output has risen steadily since 1960. "There is a common theme across the internet: US manufacturing is dead. ... there's a big problem with that analysis: it's not true" http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html

I would start by reading this article, then look at the trade data on your own here.

I don't know if any countries are exporting anything at all times highs right now because of the global recession, though the trade data does show some detail about the US import/export ratios for certain products. For example, in January '10 the US exported over 2x more airplane engine parts, plastics, coal, corn, cotton and metal ore than it imported. If you remove crude oil from the equation the trade imbalance shrinks dramatically.

For all of the above points, not necessarily. The reason it's stable despite job losses could be due entirely to productivity gains, as show in this post from FiveThirtyEight. Note that the source of data is from the Fed. Productivity gains could have been brought about from all manner of things, but particularly relevant would be increased automation, for which "us" nerds are at least partially to blame.

That said, the mil-ind complex certainly has a hand, and had Chrysler/GM gone down hard it would be a very different chart, I suspect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports

We are #3 behind China and Germany, who both produce 20% more than we do for exports.

As far as raw manufacturing goes, USA is far ahead in the #1 position.

http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/

The catch is, while manufacturing is actually increasing in America, employment in manufacturing has fallen because of increased productivity per worker.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html

So while it's not true that the USA doesn't make stuff, it can seem like it because there are fewer jobs in manufacturing.

I agree illegal immigration has reduced the incentives in the US to automate agriculture for decades. And I say that as someone who was long interested in agricultural robotics since the 1980s, but there was little money for such research. Ultimately, because organic agriculture has been knowledge and labor intensive, robotics will help farmers produce large quantities of cheap organic food without as much pesticides, conventional fertilizers, or widespread irrigation, by precision irrigation, robots that can pick insects of plants, and other things. (Still, many people do like to be around growing plants... So I'm not saying we have to automate all of this, or that we should, just that we could...)

Still, the alternative to illegals is sometimes cheap imports from places with relatively cheap labor (like from China).

We would be importing, say, cheap sugar from South America, and sugar is healthier than corn syrup (even as raw sugar can be unhealthy too) except for import duties on imported sugar, created mostly for the US farm lobbies to appease corn growers.
    http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/imports/ussugar.asp
So, instead the typical US consumer is paying more to have their pancreas destroyed by HFCS and become diabetic.

We have not had much illegal immigration for factory work in the USA, but we still have lost a lot of jobs both to imports but even more to increased productivity in the USA. See the graphs here:
    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html
"US Manufacturing is alive and well. The real issue is manufacturing employment, which is dropping like a stone. And the reason for the drop is an increase in productivity."

Ultimately, even preventing illegal immigration will not fix these overall trends and the effects on US jobs, even as above, I agree that having people around willing to do dangerous jobs for little pay distorts the labor market and affects what things we choose to automate, and it also removes the likeliehood there will be anyone around to blow the whistle on things like agricultural pollution. (So, we have polluted watertables instead...)

Eventually though, robotics are going to be cheaper than illegal immigrants. It's only a matter of time with all the continuing advances (including ones driven by the military for various reasons). Of course, by then, most US jobs will be going the same way, as indicated by factor work. The fact is, only about 1% of US employment is in agriculture, down from 50% a century ago. Fixing the illegal problem in agriculture won't make much of a difference in that sense because we are talking such a small percent of the workforce, even as those unskilled agricultural jobs illegal immigrants take are otherwise great for people who want a job and like the outdoors (if they paid well).

US manufacturing employment has dropped from about 30% fifty years ago to about 12% now (and continues to drop). I'm not sure how many illegal immigrants work in US manufacturing? Maybe you know? Again though, even if we tried to employ more people in US manufacturing, between automation and offshoring, the trend is towards less employment. (I predict, like agriculture, we will see 1% of the workforce still in manufacturing in a couple decades...)

That leaves services. But many services can be offshored, and most services are optional. By the time we have 1% of people growing all our food, and 1% making all our stuff, then I think we need a different model for our economy than 98% of the population paying each other for hair cuts and investment advice you can get for free from friends or through the internet.

What's the big stink about ACORN anyhow? Are conservatives genuinely outraged that two people in an organization of over 400,000 members know what money laundering is?

As far as I see it, Democrats are peeved that Obama's been spending a lot of time and resources to appease conservatives and moderate democrats (he has), which has come directly at the expense of the democratic "base" (much tougher to prove). I honestly can't think of another president in recent history who has given so many concessions to the minority party and his political opponents.

Appointing a respected statistician like Tufte is a great strategy, and sends the message that "I have nothing to hide." I'd love to see Nate Silver directly involved with the administration as well...

"The worst change IMO is going to be journalism."

Journalism, newspapers and magazines are in for some lean years. Then we'll all realize that no, a million random bloggers on the Internet are not a replacement for a trained, professional journalist/writer.

I agree completely with your first statement. Journalism is undergoing a radical transformation. 'Interesting Times' (pun intended) in the worst sense of the Chinese curse.

Your conclusion, though, is too reductive. You're begging the question by implying that the only way to be a skilled journalist is to have training and to be a professional. History tells us otherwise. Many, if not most, of the stars of journalism never went near J-school and a substantial number of the ones who did the most to define journalism spent their careers working against the grain of Establishment attitudes. Billy Russell, Peter Arnett, Robert Capa and Don McCullen are just a few who fell sideways into print and photo journalism, but who were each revolutionary in their own small way.

If I were looking for the future of journalism, I'd be looking carefully at Marcy Wheeler and Nate Silver - people whose extraordinary skill at research and analysis has been enabled by their ability to start a blog and work on their own terms, spending time on subjects and approaches that most bean-counters would never allow.

Full disclosure: I'm biased in favour of such an outcome because I do my own writing and photography on those terms. I don't really care whether I earn money from it (though I do derive a modest income), because I long ago learned that it's just something I love to do.

Maybe my work will never be of more than regional interest. I don't care. The beauty of the format is just this: It doesn't have to be popular. It can just be good. I can focus on quality for its own sake; I can write and photograph what I consider to be in the public interest and allow people to make of it what they will.

Actually, "US Manufacturing is alive and well. The real issue is manufacturing employment, which is dropping like a stone. And the reason for the drop is an increase in productivity. "

"Since 1960, the index of industrial production has risen from a little below 30 to its current level of about 100. And the increase is continual -- meaning the number didn't just hover around 30 for most of that time only to spike up in one big move. The index has continually risen over that entire period."

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html

I agree with Corporate Greed and Maximization of Profit. However, the idea that our manufacturing sector is "destroyed" is not supported by the evidence. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html/

Yeah, I don't want a faceless government bureaucrat to get in between me and my doctor. That's what private sector bean counting bureaucrats are for!

Unfortunately for you, the facts about socialized medicine are in. They're in from Canada, Europe, Asia, even right here in the USA with Hawaii ("This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 — the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest. Hawaii residents live longer than people in the rest of the country, recent surveys have shown, and the state’s health care system may be one reason. In one example, Hawaii has the nation’s highest incidence of breast cancer but the lowest death rate from the disease."), and the facts are that it costs less and improved access to healthcare improves the health of the population.

Meanwhile, the status quo has lead to us having the highest spending in the world, yet getting nothing for it.

The current system is fundamentally broken and doesn't achieve it's social purpose. Scrap it.

Nate Silver would like a word with you.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-not-dead.html

I don't disagree that we are moving towards an ideas economy (Apple develops the iPad, send it to be China to be manufactured, products come back here), but its not like manufacturing its dead.

It's not OK, but I don't think I'd find the need to take naked pictures of everyone I meet just in case they're carrying a blunt knife as well. Have a peek at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/skies-are-as-friendly-as-ever-911-al.html (also referenced elsewhere in this article, can't remember where) - the risk per flying passenger is actually quite low. Just because you're a nut job that wants to make an inept attempt to stab me doesn't mean I'm going to get paranoid about everyone else in the world. I've never been stabbed by a blunt knife wielding maniac before, so it's probably not going to happen again and I feel no need to change my behaviour to avoid this.

Thankfully somebody has already run the numbers. Even accounting for all of the 9/11 deaths, the skies are much safer than they were in the 70s and 80s.

I think Pat Robertson ought to reread the book of Job sometime (paying special attention to Job's so-called "friends") and I agree with the other person who pointed out that most Christians are trying to get all those Hatian orphans adopted and working with the relief efforts, not worrying about legends and whatnot.

But that aside, he did not invent this story. There is an actual legend concerning this pact that existed long before this disaster.

Contrary to most people’s reactions to Pat Robertson’s remarks on Wednesday, his reference to Haiti’s “pact with the devil” did not appear out of thin air. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out this was a reference to the Bois Caiman ceremony at the beginning of the Haitian Revolution in 1791. This is not strictly a mangling of history on Robertson’s part. His comments come straight out of a blend of theology and history that, at the grassroots, pervades Haiti’s political discourse. Labeling the event at Bois Caiman a satanic pact touches on the most potent part of a vibrant oral tradition, a national myth that attempts to explain Haiti’s relationship with God and the world.

The French Revolution had been going on for two years when slave leaders gathered in the Caiman woods outside of what’s today Cap Haitien. The fighting between and within the white elite and the free mulatto population presented an excellent opportunity for general revolt. Most of the slaves present worked as overseers or coachmen for their respective masters, giving them freedom of movement and the right to carry swords. Dutty Boukman, a slave originally from Jamaica, and a priestess of disputed identity led a Voudou ceremony where they allegedly charged the gathered slaves “to throw away the image of the god of the whites who thirsts for our tears and listen to the voice of liberty that speaks in the hearts of all of us.” They then made an oath of secrecy and revenge, sealing it by drinking the blood of a sacrificed pig, a ceremony possibly West African in origin. This event bears a similar relationship to the Haitian Revolution as the Boston Tea Party does to the American Revolution—a critical event that helped galvanize the founding generation and forms a centerpoint for revolutionary legend today.

One of the first things that comes to mind in any discussion of Haiti, Voudou is a complex blending of West African and popular Catholic traditions. Paul Farmer gave the best description of Voudou’s place in Haitian culture and society when he thus described a firmly Christian peasant: “Of course he believes in Voudou. He just believes it’s wrong.” The Voudou question strikes at the heart of Haitian religious life. For its practitioners, Voudou offers a pantheon of friendly spirits, or lwas, that offer avenues to healing and hope. For its opponents, including many conservative Protestants and Catholics, it is spirit possession and satanic worship. The two sides disagree on what percentage of Voudou involves curses and malevolence, but both agree that such things are part of the religion. And, for those who oppose Voudou, Boukman’s ceremony in Bois Caiman sold the country to the devil.

For religious conservatives in Haiti and abroad, the idea that the leaders of the slave revolt led and participated in a Voudou ceremony provides a troubling contrast to presentations of the United States’ founding fathers as devout Christians, one that explains their vastly different fortunes. Many view the U.S. invasions and the rule of the Duvaliers as indications of the devil’s two hundred year lease on the country.

I freely admit I don't know how the NY system works--however I believe in a moral obligation to universal coverage as a part of the social safety net. You can fix all the problems you want, but if it's not universal, it's not done.

I know the chances of the House passing the bill are not terribly good, however the talk is of a dual bill, which would mean passing the Senate bill and then doing the rest through reconciliation. Add in the fact that it's now all-or-nothing and it becomes a different game. There can be no more quibbling about this language or that. The Dems have already paid the political price for HCR, now they need to just go ahead and get it done. Even Stupak hasn't ruled out voting for it.

Fivethirtyeight has done some analysis of the ideal situation for swing district D representatives, and that analysis suggests (sorry I don't have a link at the moment, but this isn't too hard to swallow) that the optimal outcome for them is to pass reform without voting for it. So no matter what, you're going to see a skin-of-the-teeth vote. And at this point you won't have the liberal 'no' votes like Kucinich, and you might get the votes of the impending retirees.

It's not a terribly large majority that oppose healthcare reform per se, so much as the bill in its current incarnation. Much opposition (as much as 12% of the total people polled) oppose from the left. Even with that said, it's liable to get more popular over time, as has the MA system, and as have other social services since their inception.

The problem is that MY insurance company doesn't say 'no', but the government "for the people" system will be telling everyone 'no'. My costs will go up and my service will go down, which is what will happen for a majority of the people.

As it turns out, there are millions of uninsured patients--or underinsured--who are simply told "no" because they are poor. I find that unacceptable. And I don't know any elderly who are complaining about the quality of care they get with Medicare. We already have a government-run system that works. Their costs do not go up beyond the general inflation index of healthcare costs, nor their services down.

The numbers in particular that I speak of are here and they are from the OECD.

So you're saying that in the reform, health insurance will no longer insulate you from the financial consequences of health catastrophes? That doesn't explain the cap on annual and lifetime expenditures that they've put into the legislation.

Are you not aware or are you sabotaging the discussion on purpose?

Today I can go out and buy a plan that excludes everything but catastrophic care. After the reform all plans will be required to have certain features, and the kind of coverage you're advocating will only be available as a part of a package.

It seems to me, if you genuinely believe that insurance primarily serves this purpose, that you would be in favor of allowing people to select a catastrophic-only plan.

At a minimum there seems to be a disconnect between what you feel insurance is for and what the people writing the reform bill feel it is for.

You're making my argument for me--a system with no profit motive will go with the 'best' rather than the cheapest. Once you eliminate the profit motive, the only motivation left is to provide the most effective care for the money.

How does a system with no competition suddenly stop caring about profit? You're mixing metaphors here to your benefit. You simply can't have one (no competition) with the other (no profit motive). There exists a little called corruption that you may have heard about...

Of course there are demographic trends. However, unless you can explain away 100%, it's still a problem that needs solving.

On this we may agree, but due to the importance of what's involved here, I'd advocating having some kind of a clue what the causes of the issues are before we take action. Groping around in the dark isn't going to cut it here.

Drop a name on that if you'd like, but there's just no logical way to deny how a system without any independent oversight and without competition will not gorge itself to death.

Evidence belies your assertion. We already pay multiples of what countries that have universal healthcare pay.

You'll need to back that one up with some more information. This isn't evidence. There's nothing here, nor in the links, about the content of the data. Are we looking at out of pocket dollars, billed charges, taxes paid - what? Arbitrary links to graphs do not convince me, and further there's zero discussion here as to how our government would keep these costs in check. Please do note that while private insurance presently pays based on a percentage of what Medicare allows, the health providers bill everything they can possibly consider. Most of what is billed is denied by everyone but Medicare. This is the system you're advocating we modify, not necessarily the one they had in Australia, Finland, etc.

It's about protecting you from the financial consequences of catastrophe.

Do you realize that this kind of policy is being outlawed in the reform?

So you're saying that in the reform, health insurance will no longer insulate you from the financial consequences of health catastrophes? That doesn't explain the cap on annual and lifetime expenditures that they've put into the legislation.

And it does serve to get you treated better once you're already sick.

That is a byproduct of the system, and nothing designed into it. In fact, the insurer actively works to prohibit you the more expensive treatments in favor of cheaper ones. This is irrespective of which care is actually 'best'.

You're making my argument for me--a system with no profit motive will go with the 'best' rather than the cheapest. Once you eliminate the profit motive, the only motivation left is to provide the most effective care for the money.

I'm sure you are aware of the fact that if you're uninsured and you go to the ER, you're twice as likely to die [msn.com]?

Do you suppose there are any other forces at work? Or are you implying that those with insurance have magical antibodies that keep them well?

Of course there are demographic trends. However, unless you can explain away 100%, it's still a problem that needs solving.

Drop a name on that if you'd like, but there's just no logical way to deny how a system without any independent oversight and without competition will not gorge itself to death.

Evidence belies your assertion. We already pay multiples of what countries that have universal healthcare pay.

Insurance stocks [rose 3.40%] on news of healthcare deal [...] The 3.40 percent net gain translates into about $3.34 billion in market capitalization added. [...] This would mean that the total value added from passage of the bill is $16.04 billion. [...] That's a lot of money: $16 billion. But relative to the total outlay from the bill, it is fairly small. Over the course of the next ten years, the Senate's bill directs about $447 billion in public subsidies to people for the purchase of private health insurance. (This is in addition to another $400 billion or so in subsidies for the expansion of Medicaid). The $16 billion in value-added, therefore, represents about 3.6 percent of the subsidy. Coincidentally -- and it is mostly a coincidence, since the numbers are not directly comparable for a variety of reasons -- this compares rather neatly to the 3.3 percent profit margin in the health insurance industry overall.

This is not to mention the fact that after passage, the stocks were down in the net, but the math about the percentage of the subsidy that actually profits insurers is the important bit.

Insurance stocks [rose 3.40%] on news of healthcare deal [...] The 3.40 percent net gain translates into about $3.34 billion in market capitalization added. [...] This would mean that the total value added from passage of the bill is $16.04 billion. [...] That's a lot of money: $16 billion. But relative to the total outlay from the bill, it is fairly small. Over the course of the next ten years, the Senate's bill directs about $447 billion in public subsidies to people for the purchase of private health insurance. (This is in addition to another $400 billion or so in subsidies for the expansion of Medicaid). The $16 billion in value-added, therefore, represents about 3.6 percent of the subsidy. Coincidentally -- and it is mostly a coincidence, since the numbers are not directly comparable for a variety of reasons -- this compares rather neatly to the 3.3 percent profit margin in the health insurance industry overall.

This is not to mention the fact that after passage, the stocks were down in the net, but the math about the percentage of the subsidy that actually profits insurers is the important bit.

FiveThirtyEight provides fantastic political coverage, largely based upon statistical analyses. Although the site became a bit more editorialized after the 2008 election, Nate Silver acknowledges his biases up front, and almost always provides rock-solid data to back them up. He's also been responsible for bringing down a few fraudulent pollsters.

Speaking of political commentary, Andrew Sullivan is certainly an interesting beast. His tangents about Sarah Palin are a bit silly, although his general political commentary tends to be spot-on.

Bad Astronomy is an all-around fantastic science blog.

Jason Kottke's blog has very little original content, although his content selections are impeccable, reminding me of what Slashdot used to be. He's good at his job in the same way that NPR is good at what it does.

There are more excellent music blogs than I can even possibly begin to enumerate. These have helped launch a mini revolution in the music industry. Although mainstream pop is still the same recycled garbage as it always was, the alternative music community is thriving, and occasionally some of the good stuff does trickle up into the mainstream.

BLDGBLOG is a great read for armchair architects. Infrastructurist is a great read for armchair civil engineers.

FlowingData is a fascinating read about data visualization.

Want to look good at work? Read this.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few good ones. Google solicited the reading lists of a few experts. Their recommendations are generally quite good.

The answer: No.

Yes we can, we already have. Though we can't protect against every contingency the odds of dying on a flight because of a terrorist attack are astronomical : "the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning."

The odds of airborne terror are so low it's ridiculous that we focus on it as much as we do. Here's an excellent post on the subject:

----------

Not going to do any editorializing here; just going to do some non-fancy math. James Joyner asks:

"There have been precisely three attempts over the last eight years to commit acts of terrorism aboard commercial aircraft. All of them clownishly inept and easily thwarted by the passengers. How many tens of thousands of flights have been incident free?"

Let's expand Joyner's scope out to the past decade. Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner than landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident in December 2001, and the NWA flight 253 incident on Christmas.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics provides a wealth of statistical information on air traffic. For this exercise, I will look at both domestic flights within the US, and international flights whose origin or destination was within the United States. I will not look at flights that transported cargo and crew only. I will look at flights spanning the decade from October 1999 through September 2009 inclusive (the BTS does not yet have data available for the past couple of months).

Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.

These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

Again, no editorializing (for now). These are just the numbers.

Hey, idiot, maybe you would be interested in reading this article which explains why you're wrong.

Unless something's changed in the past two years, this probably didn't have a huge effect, given that the next two games following Vancouver are going to be held in London and Moscow respectively. Neither the UK nor Russia have a reputation of being particularly welcoming to travelers.

Although not as bad as the US, border security in the UK is by far the most invasive in the EU, opting to screen people arriving from within other parts of the EU. Back when I used to hold a multiple-entry visa to the UK, it was treated as a point of suspicion every time I crossed the border (despite the fact that I had to provide the consulate with every shred of information about my private life in order to get the visa). This policy is completely and entirely illogical -- odds are that the border agencies knew more about me than they do about their own citizens.

On the other hand, Russia takes the cake for bizarre and restrictive immigration procedures. The US state department's page describes these in detail, as there are far too many peculiarities and specifics to list here.

If this was an issue, I seriously doubt that the UK or Russia would have been selected by the IOC. As it stands, Chicago didn't lose by that many votes, and the IOC's voting rules and distribution of membership are hardly fair. An IRV system is definitely needed to prevent the sort of gamesmanship that likely caused Chicago to lose, and somehow made Tokyo lose votes in the second round.

That all said, Rio will be a fantastic host for the games. This will be the first time ever that the Olympics have been held on the South American continent, which is a pretty cool milestone all in itself. I'm fairly confident that the US will be first in line for 2018.

It's a couple of months old so it might have been superseded, but here (by way of Nate Silver).

FYI:

Good: Strategic Visions Inc. @ http://www.strategicvisionsinc.com/
Suspect: Strategic Visions, LLC @ http://www.strategicvision.biz/

See: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/few-more-questions-for-sketchy-pollster.html

Second, if they're the same "strategic vision" that the article is talking about

They're not, from another helpful article from FiveThirtyEight

Why would you pick the name "Strategic Vision, LLC" for your company when the name "Strategic Vision, Inc." was already in use by an extremely well regarded, San Diego-based research firm that has been in business for more than 30 years? Are you deliberately trying to confuse your potential clients and leverage Strategic Vision, Inc.'s much stronger brand name?

You're looking at the page from the well regarded Strategic Vision, Inc. Funny that SV LLC seems to be so happy to sue Nate Silver, it would seem that SV Inc has a far stronger case against SV LLC.

Could be an interesting intersection of Trademark/Slander laws...

if they're the same "strategic vision" that the article is talking about, their webpage says "Strategic Vision has worldwide experience developing tools to measure decision-making, human behavior, attitudes and perceptions....

Nope, you're looking at the webpage of a different company! See Nate's previous article:

Why would you pick the name "Strategic Vision, LLC" for your company when the name "Strategic Vision, Inc." was already in use by an extremely well regarded, San Diego-based research firm that has been in business for more than 30 years? Are you deliberately trying to confuse your potential clients and leverage Strategic Vision, Inc.'s much stronger brand name?

In other words, do they do stuff that actually matters?

In a word, yes. Nate Silver manages the blog FiveThirtyEight and is well-known as a statistical analyst from the 2008 US election (among other things). Strategic Vision has released quite a few polls. In Silver's words,

...Strategic Vision's polls cover a wide array of topics: Presidential horse race numbers in any of a dozen or so states, senate and gubernatorial polling, primary polling, approval ratings of various kinds, polling on issues like the war in Iraq, and more abstract questions such as whether voters think that 'experience' or 'change' is the more important quality in a Presidential candidate.

So yes, this is pretty big news, should it turn out that Strategic Vision's behavior is in fact illicit. They're influential enough that news agencies may pick up their polling results. This is bad enough, but when you factor in the fact that polling results can be very effective propaganda in something like a presidential race, fraudulent polling can have significant consequences.

Canada = single-payer. Canada != UK. UK != single-payer. UK = national health care. Big difference.

And to answer your question, it works right here in the good ol' U-S-of-A. Just ask someone on medicare if they want it taken away. But wait! Claire McCaskill beat you to it. "Get your government hands off my Medicare," indeed.