] The Chinese Communist Party survived a brutal civil war
] with the Nationalists, battles with American forces in
] Korea and massive pro-democracy demonstrations at
] Tiananmen Square. But now it may finally have met its
] match - the Internet.

Death by a Thousand Blogs - New York Times

Sorry for the highly partisan host but this is where I found it. I'm sure the copy is genuine. Interestingly, the left wing nuts seem to be celebrating and the right wing nuts seem to be fuming. This doesn't jive with how I read this deal.

The left wing nuts either think that they got more then they got, or they are simply overjoyed about being able to exercise some amount of influence.

I presume the right wing nuts have absolutely no interest in anything less then absolute power. I think they wanted to be able to approve radical nominees with impunity and they wanted the nuke option to proceed because they figured they'd win and get to rewrite senate rules in their favor. They were looking forward to it.

In the end, the Republicans loose 2 nominees and they don't have to proceed with a risky vote on senate rule changes until a supreme court justice is on the line. I see that as a pretty enviable position. They are much better off pulling the nuke option out when the stakes are at their highest. If they had pulled it out now and lost they would have lost big and the option would have been removed from the table almost entirely.

The first rule of announcing any sort of compromise is to claim victory. By screaming and fuming over loosing two nominees the Republicans may be canibalizing themselves. Its not in their interest to destroy Frist's credibility as a leader, but they may do so in their vanity, and if so this will be the thread that begins to unravel them. The NRO predicted this. NRO's editorial board (who opposes the nuke option) recently came out and said that at this point they had no choice but to proceed because backing down would cost the party too much face. If the Republicans target their own leadership for being wimpy they'll set the stage for less experienced voices to come in and start sowing the seeds of the party's fall. Something to watch over the next few days...

The Filibuster Deal [PDF]

] Uder the deal, the Democrats agreed to accept cloture
] votes on three of President Bush's judicial nominees:
] Priscilla R. Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William
] Pryor.
]
] The Democrats made no commitments regarding
] two other conservative judicial nominees, Henry Saad and
] William Myers.

Hrm. Most of the stuff I have been reading has focused on Owen and Brown as being the most contentious nominees, rather then Saad and Myers. (Although Myers in particular seems to have a lot of people up in arms.)

I'm not sure what the democrats have gained here. A promise not to use the nuclear option is rather empty if there are no fillibusters to nuke, and this deal seems unenforceble. There is nothing to stop the Republicans from going back on their word once these nominees are approved and a Supreme Court position comes up. Taking a politician at his word seems like a dumb idea. By the time this comes back around most will not remember this debate and a little bit of spin will be all thats needed to deal with those that do.

Democrats: 0 Republicans: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Senators Reach Deal on Filibuster

In this dawning era of genomic medicine, the concept of private health insurance, which is based on actuarially pooling risk within specified, fragmented groups, will become obsolete.

This is an interesting article, but I think its idealistic. In the United States we have a bunch of people who beleive that a massive cost sharing system that most (but not all) people are allowed to participate in coupled with a 10 year government vetting process for any new innovation is a "free market capitalist" solution to the problem of healthcare but any effort to extend the system to the small group who are currently shut out is "dirty communism." "Better that people die then we sacrifice our ideals about communism! Here's my $10 copay!"

Changes to the U.S. healthcare system will be driven by what suits the vested interests most. While I commend Bush for working to enable employees of small businesses to obtain health insurance the fact is that the Republican party has been calling health insurance for employees of small businesses "communist" for 10 years. Now that they are also calling small businesses the growth engine for the economy they were sitting on a rhetorical contradiction so big the democrats could have driven a truck through it. Of course they are doing something about it.

It is inevitable that genetic profiling will be used to cull people out of the healthcare system. Most people will not be culled out. Just the really expensive ones. Reasonable objections will be cast as "communist." Most people will not be affected. There will be talk of reducing the rising costs of health insurance but, of course, prices will not actually be reduced.

I think prices will continue to rise until the industry restructures. You'll go to walk in clinics and pay for it. Cost sharing will be limited to catastrophic diseases. Most people won't have access to state of the art treatments.

More people with treatable illnesses will die, but warbling about that is a bunch of liberal bullshit. Its possible that one might argue that as technology advances it no longer makes sense for everyone to have access to top notch care, and that the level of care that people receive will not regress. I have some sympathy for that perspective, but I don't beleive it. I think the level of care will regress. Anyone who gets an expensive and suitably rare condition will be shuffled out of the system by any means available because our society really does not care. The system will move from treating sick people via insurance to providing maintainance to people who aren't sick. There is simply a lot more money in it.

Decoding Health Insurance

I'm quoting the story but I'm linking to Lessig's response to the story, which which links to the story.

] While Fraser has written more than 150 songs, continuing
] royalties from radio and TV use of two compositions --
] "All Right Now" and "Every Kinda People" (first recorded
] by Robert Palmer) -- generate most of his income. Had he
] given up his rights to those early hits, he would not
] have the resources to cover his treatment for AIDS.
]
] Such a decision might have been tragic...
]
] "No one should let artists give up their rights," he
] says.

Creative Commons kills people with AIDS

] Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring
] from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really
] Want to Give You One

Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring

] For a certain segment of the population, Nascar's raid on
] American culture -- its logo festoons everything from
] cellphones to honey jars to post office walls to panties;
] race coverage, it can seem, has bumped everything else
] off television; and, most piercingly, Nascar dads now get
] to pick our presidents -- triggers the kind of fearful
] trembling the citizens of Gaul felt as the Huns came
] thundering over the hills. To these people, stock-car
] racing represents all that's unsavory about red-state
] America: fossil-fuel bingeing; lust for violence; racial
] segregation; run-away Republicanism; anti-intellectualism
] (how much brain matter is required to go fast and turn
] left, ad infinitum?); the corn-pone memes of God and guns
] and guts; crass corporatization; Toby Keith anthems; and,
] of course, exquisitely bad fashion sense. What's more,
] they simply don't get it.

Instapundit asks if you replaced the word "nascar" with the word "hiphop" in this article if it would have run in the Times. I agree, this is garbage journalism. What the hell does nascar have to do with racial segregation? If you ever wondered whether red staters are justified at feeling like blue america is really ugly and ignorant, you need look no further then this.

On the other hand, conservatives have little cause to feel smug or justified. When the "right" gets all ugly and ignorant about hollywood or hiphop they do things like declaring cultural wars and threatening to ban things. No one has ever threatened to ban nascar.

Zell Miller (who is clearly a cultural conservative) said on the Daily Show recently: "I don't think the first amendment applies to hiphop..." Thats not just ignorance. Thats an ignorant threat. The right wing can look for support from me on the day the left tries to ban nascar, at which point they'll find me their commited advocate. Presently, they are the ones making the rules and others are under the sword.

'Sunday Money' and 'Full Throttle': Nascar Nation - New York Times

] Finally I gave the conference on the university
] cafeteria, for 5 hours, in front of 150 people."

This sounds questionable...

Slashdot | Teacher Fired for P2P Lecture

] Maybe it won't be so bad being cut off from the
] blogosphere. I look around the Web these days and find
] that Newsweek's retracted atrocity story has sent
] everybody into cloud-cuckoo-land. Every faction up and
] down the political spectrum has used the magazine's
] blunder as a chance to open fire on its favorite targets,
] turning this into a fevered hunting season for the straw
] men.

AKA the Bird Seller's Lament.

The blogosphere is talking about newsweek's irrelevancy. I'm sure they'll take this column from Brooks as defensive main stream media blog bashing. Its not. There won't be any great controversy when people stop reading political blogs. The numbers will just quietly go down. The authors will be howling all the way...

The Lament of David Brooks

] Are you a kid? Does your microwave oven belong to your
] parents? If so, then don't even THINK about trying any of
] these experiments. I'm serious. If I wreck my microwave
] oven, I can buy another. Also, I'm a professional
] electrical engineer. I know enough physics and RF effects
] to take correct safety precautions when I'm
] experimenting. But you don't know the precautions, so you
] should be smart: read and enjoy my writing, but don't
] duplicate my tests unless you grow up to become an
] electronics tech, engineer, etc., and buy your OWN
] microwave oven.

Yes!

Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments