Summer Doldrums

Tired of the news of late? So are we. The hot political scandals aren't doing much for us (Ensign, Palin, Sanford), nobody seems to know definitively what is going on in Iran, and enough with Michael Jackson already. Fortunately, TIME magazine has stepped into the breech with a hard-hitting piece titled "Why Are Southerners So Fat?"

As Midwesterners, we know better than to cast stones at glass houses. However, this article is at least mildly amusing, and its thesis is refreshingly simple:

"Southerners have little access to healthy food and limited means with which to purchase it. It's hard for them to exercise outdoors, and even when they do have the opportunity, it's so hot, they don't want to."

Oh.

"elf and safety"

In a news cycle dominated by Michael Jackson, Iranian clerics rejecting the Supreme Leader's verdict on the vote, and Palin's odd and disjointed resignation, we bring a breath of fresh air from Boris Johnson, the mayor of London.

This week, in his regular column for the Telegraph, our tow-headed mayor touches on a subject that will drive anybody who lives in England nuts: "Health and Safety." The refrain "health and safety" is used widely to justify imbecilic decisions: it is the foundation of the much-maligned nanny state that exists here--and is spreading to the U.S. (traffic cameras are just the beginning). Singapore occupies the outer frontier on nannying--signs in public bathrooms have lectures about remembering to flush, not wringing water on the floor since someone might slip--but the UK is a close second in what is a disturbing trend. As Boris writes:

We were exploring the magical cliff-top castle of Tintagel and we came across a sign on the edge of the cliff. It was expensively hand‑painted and about 1ft high. It said: "Edge of cliff". As a statement of the plonkingly obvious, it could have been bettered only if there had been another sign with a vertical arrow saying "Sky". We laughed so much we almost fell off.

The examples are certainly risible, but they raise a serious question: why is any government so extensively involved in "protecting" us from the obvious? We are not any safer, and as we allow ourselves to be monitored, directed, and constrained, we certainly have less freedom.

Itchy and Scratchy Show

The article everyone will be talking about this week: Todd Purdum at Vanity Fair profiles Sarah Palin.

Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future.

The Welfare Queen

Is Britain's "Royal Family" a waste of taxpayer cash or good value for money?

The Daily Telegraph's take is here.

Don't be fooled, though: the figures they use do not even begin to cover the actual costs of maintaining the royals (i.e. they do not include security). Also, by virtue of birth, each member of the royal family has an "estate" from which they earn millions of pounds of personal income. So when you add it all up, these ribbon-cutting clowns (our sentiment shining through yet?) cost a pretty pound indeed.

Perhaps this explains why so many in this country are dependent on benefits-for-nothing and government handouts: it is the behavior modeled by the queen!

Jack-o

Even The Informed Voter can join the fray of news organizations covering Michael Jackson's demise, with this semi-plausible connection to politics:

Verily, We Are All Sinners

The Democrats have Spitzer and John Edwards--and going back further, most famously Bill Clinton.

But it often seems like the GOP has more high profile members who end up buying crystal meth from gay hookers, sexting with young boys, or say, popping down to Buenos Aires for a few days. TPM put together this best-of-the-worst slideshow of sex scandals from the party of "family values," highlighting one more reason why the GOP brand may be suffering in the last few years.

Sorry, Guv'nor

The Mark Sanford revelations are a nice dose of schadenfreude for Dems as the GOP throw away their telegenic and seemingly innocuous 2012 offerings (Sanford and Ensign, to name two taken down by adultery in the last two weeks) and are left with Palin and Gingrich (for a very funny take, check out Gail Collins today).

Also, take three minutes to check out this Colbert Report before they found Sanford, where Stephen crowns himself governor and admonishes Sanford for going on the Appalachian Trail and "Henry David Thoreau-ing" away his career.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Governor Alert - The Search for Mark Sanford
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

Barring Any Unforeseen Circumstances...

Reports today that Palin may not run for governor in 2010 to free up her schedule for other political ambitions.

As one local pol put it: barring some "unforeseen collapse on the national stage' Palin won't run again for governor.

Didn't Palin already collapse on the national stage? If Republicans still think she has national standing (not notoriety) and that she can win, that would be fantastic...Obama can win that race any day. But I am afraid that too many GOPers already know her 15 minutes are up, and will look beyond her, and beyond Jindal, for 2012.

Warning Signs

A sign that the "green shoots" in the market may be stymied before they get out of the ground: in the U.K., Barclays and other lenders are raising mortgage interest rates. Banks, which have been under pressure to lend after receiving government bailouts, are struggling to hold up their end of the bargain--and if banks aren't lending, recovery isn't here yet.

Charlie Wilson's War

From time to time we post reviews of politically-themed movies on the site, but nobody does a better job reviewing films then friend-of-the-blog Josh Edelglass at www.motionpicturescomics.com. So when he covers a movie with even a tenuous connection to politics, we are always happy to send our readers his way. This week, check out his review of Charlie Wilson's War (click here for the review).

Filet d' Equine, Medium Rare

From the department of "Surely-There-are-Higher-Priorities": the EU wants horse owners to sign a pledge not to eat their animals.

Zebras will also be included in the legislation.

Different Strokes

As the U.S. bails everyone and their mother out of financial trouble (including U.S. and global firms), Europe is starting to focus on cutting deficits.

Is Europe taking the lead on a more sober course to recovery? Or are they just free-loading on the back of U.S. intervention?

It's Not All Doom and Gloom

A summary of late-night's funny jabs at the Iranian election ruckus:

Conan O'Brien: President Ahmadinejad is claiming that he won, causing a lot of controversy. Some people say that Ahmadinejad cheated a little bit. They’re now that saying weeks before the election President Ahmadinejad distributed 400,000 tons of potatoes to voters in rural areas. Who knew he’d be put over the top by the Iranian-Irish vote?

Craig Ferguson: Election returns are kind of hard to believe. According to the numbers, both opposition candidates lost to Ahma-Dinna-Jacket in their hometowns. That’s like Barack Obama losing in the city of Chicago. I’m not, in any way, suggesting Iranian politics are as corrupt as Chicago, but even Blagojevich is like, “Oh, they’re good.”

Jimmy Fallon: Well, the results from Iran’s presidential elections are in. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared victory. But his opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, is claiming ballot fraud and wants an investigation. If that doesn’t work, he’s planning on making a documentary about global warming.

I Ran...I Ran So Far Away

The recent upheaval in Iran is exactly the type of geopolitical volatility we predicted would result from the economic crisis: with the regime's money spigot turned off, many Iranians are no longer content directing their rage at the U.S. and Israel.

Ross Douthat, the new Times columnist, writes that stagnating GDP, joblessness, and inflation are the root causes of the challenge to Ahmadinejad, and that the obvious election fraud may permanently discredit the clerical leadership.

It is too early to tell, but the geopolitical shift may in fact be favorable for the West--a lucky turn indeed, if it is true.

A Health Care Post Script

We are heartened that The New York Times' Editorial Board has taken notice of our humble little blog. How else would they have heard about Atul Gawande's excellent article in the New Yorker about health care that we urged you to read last week?

On Sunday, they posted the following:

"There is disturbing evidence that many [doctors] do a lot more than is medically useful — and often reap financial benefits from over-treating their patients. No doubt a vast majority of doctors strive to do the best for their patients. But many are influenced by fee-for-service financial incentives and some are unabashed profiteers."

Now, we certainly don't adovocate a witch hunt to find out which of America's doctors are behaving unethically. But we do advocate adjusting the structure of our health care system so that doctors aren't given incentives to push un-needed medical procedures in order to line their pockets. This is a goal that is well within reach of policy makers, and it will save the taxpayers' millions (not even Newt Gingrich could complain about that!).

One more reason to read Gawande's article: according to the Times, it "has become must reading at the White House." As well it should!

True Costs

In last week's New Yorker, Atul Gawande (himself a doctor) tackles the issue of healthcare costs, and presents an interesting conundrum: how is it that the per patient spend for residents of McAllen, Texas, a poor border town, is one of the highest in the whole country? And does that mean that they receive better care? Bet you can guess the answer. We strongly urge you to read the entire article, but here we post a couple of intriguing snippets:

"The primary cause of McAllen’s extreme costs was, very simply, the across-the-board overuse of medicine. This is a disturbing and perhaps surprising diagnosis. Americans like to believe that, with most things, more is better. But research suggests that where medicine is concerned it may actually be worse. For example, Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic dominates the scene, has fantastically high levels of technological capability and quality, but its Medicare spending is in the lowest fifteen per cent of the country—$6,688 per enrollee in 2006, which is eight thousand dollars less than the figure for McAllen."

Why is this? Because at the Mayo Clinic doctors work together (without personal financial incentive) to coordinate the best treatment for patients. Not so in places like McAllen, where a more 'entrepreneurial' spirit presides. A memorable analogy from Mr. Gawande:

"Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coördination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later? Getting the country’s best electrician on the job (he trained at Harvard, somebody tells you) isn’t going to solve this problem. Nor will changing the person who writes him the check."

Incidentally, at the moment the number one article at the New York Times website is Nicholas Kristof's Thursday editorial on one American woman's experience with national health care in Canada. It is also well worth a lunchtime read.

Call and Response

Karl Rove makes the five key arguments Republicans should use to fight a public option as part of the health care solution (with comments):

1) A public option is not necessary because there is already lots of competition. [This is a weak argument because the private market also has different incentives, namely, to deny coverage. The better argument is that proponents of health care should form a not-for-profit insurer; this in theory would allow for a more ethically-aligned industry that provided good care.]

2) A public option will undercut private insurers because they pay less. [This would seem to be a good thing, right?: if government can get away with paying less because it is effectively the largest insurer, costs come down for everybody. Just adding the uninsured alone would make this a powerful bloc for buying services, prescription drugs, etc.]

3) A public option would "crater" the private market since many employers would abandon plans. [Wal-mart and others have not supported universal health care out of a strong concern for employee health, so this is probably true. Of course, separating health care from employment might be a good thing. And employers competing for talent will offer supplemental coverage, as they do in countries with national plans: there will always be a two-tier system with faster access and premium care for those with more money.]

4) The public option is more expensive. [This argument alleges that the lower prices paid by Medicare to doctors and hospitals are effectively subsidized by private insurers who pay more. In any case, one thing Hillary got right last time around was that any move toward universal health should go hand in hand with a change in doctor liability. If we can reduce malpractice premiums doctors can make comparable incomes on lower fees, and maybe even enjoy their practice more.]

5) A public option puts the government between patients and doctors. [The Republicans' favorite bogeyman in the healthcare debate. It is true that the government will need to decide what services it pays for and how much it pays, just as they do with Medicare and as private insurers do (anybody with private insurance think their coverage is carte blanche?). Any insurance provider, public or otherwise, will always make choices on the relative value of services, period.]

So that's the Turd Blossom play book. To us the most astonishing thing in the whole piece is what is not said: there is no acknowledgement that the current system does not work for most Americans (especially in an economy when we are all one pink slip away from being uninsured).

Our ideas about how public health can be best served have evolved a lot over the last two years living in the U.K. The National Health System (NHS) is not perfect, but it is pretty damn good. And compared to a system that ties your health to great financial risk, and a good chance of being hung out to dry on needed care, it is sublime.

From A Guy Who Used to Drive a Chrysler LeBaron Convertible...

Jon Voigt calls Obama a "false prophet." Bold call from a well-known male prostitute who hangs out on 42nd street in Times Square.

Editor's Note: By chance the editors saw "Midnight Cowboy" last week. Despite its Best Picture nod, we can confidently say that the movie was awful and that Jon Voigt was not a particularly good actor.

Gushing (Briefly)

How cool is this: I head whistles and sirens this afternoon and looked outside my office window. What do I see: Michelle Obama's motorcade passing by! I could clearly see Sasha Obama and her grandmother in a heavily armored SUV, accompanied by a nimble but heavily-armed armada.

Let the Eagles Soar

Be sure to check out the Colbert Report this week, with episodes shot in Baghdad. Readers who live outside the U.S. can watch the episodes on iTunes (unlike the Daily Show, Colbert is still blocked over here); proceeds this week go to an organization close to our heart: the USO.