Pacman's Talking Points

Fresh Links

2010-06-03T13:23:00.002-04:00

Brady and Patriots drifting apart-Apparently there is some concern on the Patriots side regarding Brady and his contract being up at the end of the season. They don't like the fact that he has spent the last few offseasons in LA with his son instead of in New England. Don't think anything will come of this but maybe Brady will make the move to the Niners in a year to be closer to his son as well as the place where he grew up.

New Airline Regulations from Department of Transportation -DOT coming out with new regulations that among other things raise compensation for passengers denied boarding oversold flights (as well as require the airline to give you the option of getting cash) and reimbursement of baggage fees and expenses if luggage not delivered on time

Moving Towards No More Plastic Bags in Cali-California Legislature at it again and the State Assembly passed a law where they ban plastic bags from pharmacies, groceries, convenience stores and liquor stores while also making retailers charge at least a nickel for paper bags. No idea if it will actually be signed into law.

NBA Scouts on Lakers-Celtics-Sports Illustrated asks NBA scout about the NBA Finals matchup. Scouts pick Lakers in 6. Scout think that Kobe should guard Rondo for short parts of games. Scout had an interesting comment that he thinks that Kobe doesn't get the calls that Lebron and Wade get.

New Links

2010-05-10T14:37:00.004-04:00

The Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician-talks about Julian Castro (Mayor of San Antonio) who some people think will one day be the first Hispanic President. Also of note, there is another George Bush (Jeb's son) in the pipeline who is Mexican on his mother's side and may be the great Republican hope.

Some liberals disappointed with Kagan-Basically the left is looking for a liberal Scalia or Roberts and Kagan is not it. Obama not really looking for that kind of fight though. Richard Primus quoted in article.

Should baseball merge leagues? -Discussion as to whether baseball should merge the AL and NL. Apparently the AL has been stronger the last few years and merging leagues would get the better teams into the playoffs (article argues that reason for this is DH rule). Also says should come up with uniform DH rule for entire league.

Post Spring Practice College Football Top 25-Bama number 1, Boise St 2. USC lowest I've seen them ranked in a long time. Michigan opening opponent UConn ranked 24.

How to build a Time Machine-Stephen Hawking on how to build a time machine in 3000 words or less. So he has moved on from talking about aliens coming to kill us all onto time travel

Today's links

2010-05-03T11:42:00.007-04:00

Obama interviews Kagan for Supreme Court spot-Apparently the list is currently down to 4: Kagan, Garland, Wood, and Sydney Thomas the surprise contender from Montana. Wood is probably the only one that Republicans would raise any fuss about.

3 Problems that Financial Reform Not Going to Address-Major concern that the new regulation is not going to address three things that were a huge part of the financial crisis. Specifically, reform of Freddie and Fannie, leverage and capital Ratio requirements, and credit runs on short term debt.

The Business of Owning a NBA team-Not alot of NBA teams doing very well financially. Team like Cavaliers who at the top of the league with most marketable player going to need long playoff run just to break even.

Andrew Luck, Stanford QB-profile of Andrew Luck one of better pro prospects in college football. Apparently unique because he actually takes real classes instead of general athlete stuff

Andrew Cuomo relationship with his father-Cuomo has kind of a different relationship with his father. Very businesslike and calls him Mario. Mario does call up all his boys and tell them they should support his son

Mexico trying to recruit American born players-Mexico wants to take any talented Hispanic Americans born get them to play for the Mexican national team in soccer. So far there have not been any.

FDA plans to limit amount of sodium in processed foods-Americans eat too much sodium. FDA thinks we should cut down the amount of sodium in food by half over the next 10 years. Rationale is that something like 77% of sodium comes from the processed foods meaning that consumers are unable to self-regulate

News Aggregation

2010-05-02T21:47:00.005-04:00

It's been awhile since I posted anything on the blog but I think I am going to try posting more often and generally trying to get a post every day (this may be too ambitious) aggregating news from around the web that I thought valuable. So here is my first iteration.

Bankruptcy lawyers getting paid off from Lehman

High Fructose Corn Syrup maybe not so bad

Why the Senate is killing the judicial careers of up and comers like Goodwin Liu

Synopsis for penultimate Wheel of Time book

Has Ahmadinejad crushed the Green Movement?

Arizona not the only problem when it comes to immigration

White House Correspondent's Dinner (Obama funny, Leno not so much)

World's Worst Immigration Laws

Catholic Bishops come out against Arizona immigration law

Education Research not up to par

Rich Rodriguez and other coaches

2009-11-01T22:16:00.002-05:00

I have always felt that you really start to judge a coach on how their team does in their second season. I have had this in my head based on the performances of Jim Tressel, Bob Stoops, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, and Pete Carroll during their second years and their current schools. I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at a number coaches record in their second years (and their schools records for the previous five before they were hired) and compare their performance to that of Rich Rodriguez.

This is not necessarily the fairest comparison because every situation is different and looking solely at record does not take into account of things like strength of schedule. Still I think that the examples listed are useful in evaluating the tenure of Rich Rodriguez. I put the down the records for the coaches listed above and put in a few others as well. Les Miles and Jim Harbaugh were both listed because they are Michigan alums who are head coaches at BCS conferences. I included Mike Leach because I wanted an example of a spread team. Tedford is in there because of the rapid improvement that Cal showed under him. Texas was included because they are one of the top programs in the nation and I included Michigan St so I could get a comparison from down the road in East Lansing.

Alabama (Nick Saban)
2003 7-5
2002 10-3
2004 6-6
2005 10-2
2006 6-7

After coaching change:
2007 7-6
2008 12-2

Ohio State (Jim Tressel)
1996 11-1
1997 10-3
1998 11-1
1999 6-6
2000 8-4

After coaching change:
2001 7-5
2002 14-0

USC (Pete Carroll)
1996 6-6
1997 6-5
1998 8-5
1999 6-6
2000 5-7

After coaching change:
2001 6-6
2002 11-2

Florida (Urban Meyer)
2000 10-3
2001 10-2
2002 8-5
2003 8-5
2004 7-5

After coaching change:
2005 9-3
2006 13-1

Texas Tech (Mike Leach)
1995 9-3
1996 7-5
1997 6-5
1998 7-4
1999 6-5

After coaching change:
2000 7-6
2001 7-5

Cal (Jeff Tedford)
1997 3-8
1998 5-6
1999 0-11
2000 3-8
2001 1-10

After coaching change:
2002 7-5
2003 8-6

Oklahoma (Bob Stoops)
1994 6-6
1995 5-5-1
1996 3-8
1997 4-8
1998 5-6

After coaching change:
1999 7-5
2000 13-0

LSU (Les Miles)
2000 8-4
2001 10-3
2002 8-5
2003 13-1
2004 9-3

After coaching change:
2005 11-2
2006 11-2

Stanford (Jim Harbaugh)
2002 2-9
2003 4-7
2004 4-7
2005 5-6
2006 1-11

After coaching change:
2007 4-8
2008 5-7

Texas (Mack Brown)

1993 5-5-1
1994 8-4
1995 10-2-1
1996 8-5
1997 4-7

After coaching change:
1998 9-3
1999 9-5

Michigan State (Mark Dantonio)

2002 4-8
2003 8-5
2004 5-7
2005 5-6
2006 4-8

After coaching change:
2007 7-6
2008 9-4

Michigan (Rich Rodriguez)

2003 10-3
2004 9-3
2005 7-5
2006 11-2
2007 9-4

After coaching change:
2008 3-9
2009 5-4

There were a few other coaches I could have listed who had success later in their tenure but didn't because showing their record during their second season would have been shown anything. In particular these coaches were Mark Mangino, Gary Pinkel, Greg Schiano, and Kirk Ferentz. Alot of people think that their wasn't alot of talent for Rich Rodriguez to work with, but I still don't think the Michigan situation was very comparable to Kansas, Missouri, or Rutgers. Kirk Ferentz went from 1-10 to 3-9 to 7-5 to 11-2 (and had two great seasons after that as well)

Charlie Weis wasn't there despite his decent record in his second year because of his sharp drop off later. I didn't include Brian Kelly because everyone is pretty familiar with his success and Mark Dantonio was started to do alright at Cincinnati before Kelly came. Paul Johnson was fairly successful his first year and I felt like there was no reason to look at him. Other than the exceptions mentioned, I could not think of any coaches who took over a program and really started to get it done in the third season or later (maybe Wake Forest, I am open to any suggestions). This is not to say that Rich Rodriguez will not be successful, just that our lack of progress in year 2 is a bit concerning.

Alot of these teams may not be the best comparison and it may be better to take a look at more spread teams that made drastic changes in their offense and that maybe an area for further research. Otherwise I think that the above numbers speak for themselves and don't really need much analysis. I think the most impressive jobs were probably done by Pete Carroll, Jeff Tedford, and Bob Stoops.

However, as long as Bill Martin is the athletic director Rich Rodriguez is not going anywhere. I mean Tommy Amaker was given six years to try and make it work. A new athletic director however is kind of an unknown quantity and it is unknown as to what standard he would hold a coach to.

Rebalancing the Economy-US, China, Germany, and Japan

2009-08-15T17:26:00.000-04:00

Nathan Wolfe on pandemics

2009-08-15T17:18:00.001-04:00

Nathan Wolfe and his team found the origin of human malaria. Their methods may predict the next pandemic

Health Care Around the World

2009-08-12T15:46:00.004-04:00

TR Reid recently wrote a book where he went around the world looking at different health care systems. He did a special on frontline about 5 different health care systems, focusing on the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan.

Brian Schweitzer: Future Democratic Candidate for President?

2009-08-10T00:42:00.007-04:00

Brian Schweitzer is the current Democratic Governor of Montana and someone to watch out for in 2016. He is a pro-gun Democrat who has done very well in a Republican state. He seems to me as a guy who could do very well in a general election. He probably plays well with a lot of constituencies that Democrats generally struggle with. I think for the Republicans to beat someone like this they would be best off running a socially liberal fiscal conservative who could do well in California and New York(probably someone who has similar beliefs to Arnold or Bloomberg. I am not sure that is something Republicans would want to do but there was in talk in both 96 and 2000 of Colin Powell running for president.

Schweitzer is also pretty pro-environment and speaks fluent Arabic (from spending time working in Libya and Saudi Arabia). He stance is not really that clear on many of the other issues. He also is going to be heading the Democratic Governor's Association for the 2010 (and maybe 2012) elections. Come 2016, there may be some Democratic governors who owe him some favors and that could come in handy when running for president.

I've put up three videos of Schweitzer. The first is one of his campaign ads from the 2008 election. I think it would be hard for anyone to say that he is going to be taking anyone's guns away. He was even endorsed by the NRA. He apparently had a pretty prominent pro-gun ad in his 2004 election. The second is his speech from the 2008 Democratic Convention and it was fairly well received. And the last is a good interview with Schweitzer on Charlie Rose. He seems like he understands the Middle East pretty well and I was pretty impressed with him on the issues that he discussed. I disagree with him on free trade though I think. Though he did say that he could support Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney and Health Care

2009-08-10T00:35:00.002-04:00

Just a random thought, but if Obama is able to pass some kind of health care reform, Romney probably won't be able to use this as an issue in 2012. This is because any kind of reform is likely to be very similar to the reform passed in Massachusetts when Romney was governor. Kind of makes it hard to use as a campaign issue when you passed the same thing.

The name of Mitt Romney's upcoming book is going to be "No Apology." It looks like he is going to come after from a foreign policy perspective. This probably would not work. It's difficult for a Governor with no foreign policy experience to beat a sitting president on foreign policy (and lets not forget that I think that Obama is doing a good job on foreign policy).

I'm not sure what issues Romney can highlight in order to beat Obama in 2012. He could try and play up the deficit but I don't know if you can win a presidential election based on deficit reduction. Romney's ability to beat Obama is going to come down to the strength of the economy, something that is going to be completely out of his hands.

Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem

2009-07-30T22:05:00.003-04:00

Movie that was shot in Jerusalem asking people about what they think about Obama. Very controversial and was removed from youtube.

John Bolton and Iran

2009-07-30T21:53:00.002-04:00

John Bolton making the case for bombing Iran, I don't agree with his analysis at all but he presents the view in favor of military action. Personally I don't think a military strike would work because the west doesn't know where all the weapons, they might not be able to destroy them all, and if they destroyed all the weapons, it would only set Iran back 1 or 2 years (and notice that Bolton has no answer for this last part). Any strike on Iran is also likely to trigger retaliation by the Iranians. And any legitimate regime change in Iran can have nothing to do with the United States. Otherwise you would have a government that the people wouldn't support.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

John Bolton

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Joke of the Day

Younger Voters and Party identification

2009-07-30T20:48:00.002-04:00

Some graphs regarding younger voters and party ID over the years

Two Doctors on Health Care

2009-07-30T19:32:00.003-04:00

Two Doctors who are also former politicians, discussing Health Care reform. Bill Frist is the former Senate Majority Leader and Howard Dean is the former governor of Vermont). I think it's a fairly good interview and they do a decent job of showing both sides without any of the rhetoric coming out of Congress.

Mayo Clinic

2009-07-30T17:57:00.001-04:00

Interview between Charlie Rose and the head of the Mayo Clinic (who have managed to deliver high quality care at lower cost)

Winning Back the Working Class for Republicans

2009-07-30T17:53:00.003-04:00

Good Interview between Ross Douthat and Charlie Rose about the future of the Republican party and how they can better appeal to working class workers. The middle part of the interview isn't really relevant but Douthat gives an interesting perspective on the Ivy League.

Younger Voters

2009-07-29T19:34:00.002-04:00

Following up on the last two posts, some may say that younger voters always vote democrat but as they get older, they vote republican. This is not necessarily true. The phenomenon of younger voters voting Democrat has not always been the case, it is more of a recent trend. In 1992, Republicans and Democrats split younger voters. And in 1984 Ronald Reagan won 59 percent of younger voters. These younger voters who voted for Reagan grew up and continued to support people like George Bush. Voting patterns tend to reinforce themselves and lead to voting the same way in future elections.

Orange County's Future

2009-07-29T19:13:00.003-04:00

Perhaps in the future, it won't be impossible for Democrats to win in Orange County. Obama came very close to winning Orange County and he was able to pull out a victory in the 48th, which is centered around Irvine. It was the best performance by a Democrat in 72 years.

Great map

2009-07-29T19:08:00.003-04:00

This is a great map that I enjoy looking at. Hopefully these trends continue as these voters get older.

Obama and Israel

2009-07-28T17:53:00.006-04:00

There was an Op-Ed today in the NY Times that says that Obama needs to come and talk to Israel like he has with other Middle East countries. I think that this would be a good idea. It wouldn't hurt to make sure that Israelis understand him. Here is what he should say:

1. US is committed to the security of Israel

Obama should make it clear that he understand Israel's need for security and that he would do nothing to jeopardize it. Israel and the United States have long been allies and will continue to be so.

2. Israel is going to have to make compromises, but so are the Arabs

The US is going to avoid setting forth specific proposals for peace. This should generally be negotiated by the parties. America's job is to make sure it is a fair deal that both sides can accept. Such a process will not happen overnight but it is important that there is progress. It is also important that both sides realize they are going to have to make concessions (ie Jerusalem for Israel and right of return for Palestine). Other Arab nations are also going to have to come around to the idea of normalizing relations with Israel. It would also help if Israel could act in a way to help promote moderate Palestinian leaders.

3. Settlements

It is important that Israel freezes all settlement growth. Settlements are a one-sided land grab by the Israelis (though I wouldn't use such strong language). Settlements are also counter to international law. They are an attempt by the Israeli right to upset the status quo and ensure that the West Bank can never be given up in a peace deal. Obama needs to make sure that Israeli's understand that this cannot happen. If Israel were to absorb the West Bank and Gaza, they would be left to decide whether they want to apartheid state (though I wouldn't use this language) or if they want to give up their Jewish character. This is because there will soon be more Palestinians than Israelis within the entire territory. The only option is for the Israelis to pursue a two state solution. And this state requires all the trappings of a true state, unlike the vision of Netanyahu. Continuing to build settlements stands in the way of a viable Jewish state.

Obama shouldn't say this in his speech but he should start to send feelers that he is thinking about cutting off aid if Israel does not freeze settlements. This could be a risky move and it is up to Obama to decide if he wants to pursue this path. But it could be the only way of getting Israel to stop building settlements. It could also have the added benefit of getting Netanyahu out of office and replacing him with someone better.

4. Iran

Israel has done a lot of fear mongering on the Iran front. Clearly it would be damaging to the entire Middle East if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon. This could be a great area for the Israelis to work with their Arab neighbors. But Iran is not the imminent threat that Israel makes them out to be.

The US strategy of engagement needs a chance to try and work. Any military strike by Israel would probably not be enough to stop the nuclear program. The only way of doing so would be to invade Iran. And this is not a viable option for either the United States and Israel. The US should have a chance to negotiate and if that does not work, then they will move from there.

More important than anything, the Iranian political situation continues to evolve. This could require drastic changes in strategy. Both the US and Israel have to adjust to the constantly changing situation. Obama should make it clear that it is his top priority to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But he should also say that moving towards peace would help defang the Iranian rhetoric and make it easier for Arab states to work with Israel.

Here is the Obama administrations answer to the idea that they should give a speech in Israel
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/0/the_white_house_reacts_to_aluf.php

Health Care Reform

2009-07-27T20:25:00.007-04:00

I'm very concerned about the way health care reform has been going. My ultimate concern is that they are going to pass a bill that doesn't cover everyone and doesn't satisfactorily cut costs. I think the Obama team has been too concerned with the failed Clinton health care legacy and has not taken a strong enough role. At the same time, Congress has proved to be a huge impediment.
While I think there is a moral imperative to provide every American with adequate health care, it is also essential to cut down the health care costs to help ensure the long term fiscal sustainability of the United States. With that said I have provided a set of principles I see important to the health care debate.

1. Medicare Reform

I think that there is general agreement that Medicare needs reform. The first order of business should be to fix its long term sustainability. I'm exactly sure the best way of doing this, but it would probably involve things like raising the age for eligibility. In addition, doctors have alot of complaints about Medicare and we should help address some of their concerns. This does not mean, however, that all their compensation issues will be dealt with. Lastly, we should do the best we can to root out fraud and abuse in the system. This is a politically touchy issue though.

2. Preventive Care

The cost-savings from doing this are unclear but it is still a path that we should pursue. In some cases preventive care means that people will live longer, meaning additional costs. The real goal should be to help avoid catastrophic cases that can be avoided with prior care. There is a statistic that around 62% of personals bankruptcies are caused by health care costs (any many of these people do have health insurance). It is these catastrophes that cause these bankruptcies and we should do whatever we can to avoid them.

There was a New York times article about this a few months ago. It discussed how having follow up calls with heart attack patients helped avoid future problems. And alot of hospitals did not follow this path because there was no money in it for them.

3. Health care Delivery-Fee for Service Model.

One of the major problems with the health care system is the fee for services model. The more tests that doctors run, the more they get paid. And there have been studies that show that excess care does not really lead to better health care results. For more information on this there are some studies out of Dartmouth and there is also an excellent New Yorker article from Atul Gawande.

So there needs to be a realignment of incentives. Ideally, hospitals would follow the model of places like the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic where doctors are paid a salary and not for each test that they perform. These places deliver excellent health care at a very reasonable cost.

If the health care system is reformed in the way it needs to be, doctors are going to be paid less. Looking at other health care systems (note there is a great book coming out by T.R. Reid on other countries health care systems) the biggest complaint from doctors is that they do not get paid enough. And in a health care system that really works, this will likely be the case. While this may not completely make up for it, the answer may be to do things like making medical school cheaper or even free like it is in some countries. Also there can be medical malpractice reform, which I will discuss below.

4. Hospital Reform

Most of my thoughts from this come from the Economist issue from two weeks ago. Extending health insurance will benefit the industry in the long run. People who turn up in emergency rooms often do not pay bills and hospitals often recover 10-12% of these costs. In 2007, this was 34 billion. Hospitals also often have problems collecting from under insured patients.

The first thing that we need is more competition for hospitals, this could achieved with better antitrust enforcement. Hospitals face too little competition and often price at a city or regional level.

Some have proposed changing the tax status on non-profit hospitals (who provide little charitable care, while paying enormous salaries) but I don't know if this would work politically. Closing the loophole could lead to hospitals shutting down and higher costs.

5. MedPac

A important component of changing health care delivery would be creating something like MedPac. This would be a group of doctors and other experts who would come up with a set of best and effective practices. They would do things like to set Medicare payment rates, conduct trial programs, and fund policy initiatives. There would also be the added benefit of taking things out of Congress's hands which has shown the complete inability to act and can be heavily influenced by special interests. Republicans may call this a bureaucrat deciding what medical treatments you get and say that this will get between patients and doctors, but insurance companies already occupy the space between patients and doctors.Peter Orzag and the CBO do not seem to agree on how much this would bring down costs.

6. Malpractice Reform

An important part of this process has to be malpractice reform. One reason that doctors are running endless tests is because they are afraid of being sued and practice defensive medicine. A friend of mine says that the doctors he works with have the philosophy of CYA, as in cover your ass. Doctors also pay quite a bit in malpractice insurance. Now I still want to protect a patients right to sue if a doctor seriously screws up, but I want to get them away from having to practice defensive medicine.

7. Increase in number of doctors

There is consensus that the number of doctors needed in the US is going up (especially if we get universal care). There needs to be some mechanism for training the necessary number of doctors and getting them to under served areas. There also needs to be an infusion of primary care doctors. Not enough med students are going into this specialty and often they are the most important because they are the first doctor you see. Perhaps we can increase their pay or something like that.

Alternatively, we can up the use of Nurse practitioners and other equivalents. As long as they are supervised by doctors, they should be able to provide comparable levels of care.

8. Insurance Reform

There is general consensus, though no agreement on particulars, that insurance needs to be reformed. The United States is different than the rest of the world because other countries have either a single payer model or non-profit insurance companies.

An important component on this is increased competition. For instance, in some states there is only one insurance company that has an effective monopoly. The Democrats have proposed a public plan that would act as to keep insurance companies honest. This has been a non-starter for Republicans.

What I would do is create a trigger for the public plan. If the insurance reform fails to achieve certain goals, then in five years (the period could very easily be adjusted) the public plan would come into play. To help encourage Congress to craft an effective plan, I would make sure the plan comes into play without any enabling legislation.

An example of the kind of reform I would offer would be a federal charter for insurance. Jim DeMint has talked about allowing competition by insurance companies across state lines. Because some states do not do a good job of regulating insurance, I would seek to avoid this. Instead I would create an optional federal charter that regulated in a way to help increase competition. It could also require federal plans to cover a broad number of treatments, as opposed to catastrophic care. This would help the many people who are under insured.

Insurance companies should also be forced to offer care to everyone, even the sick and very old. In return for this there must be an individual mandate that requires everyone to get some form of insurance. This means that many young and healthy people would be forced to buy insurance. There has also been some talk about providing subsidies to help the poor purchase health care.

I don't know if a public plan would really drive private plans out of business. Ezra Klein has used the example of public colleges not driving private schools out of business but I am not sure if this matches up completely. Ideally a public plan would force private plans to adopt a set of best practices and drive down costs.

I am open to any other suggestions on insurance reform.

9. Paying for Health Care Reform-taxing employer based benefits

Health Care reform has to be paid for and I am opposed to just taxing the rich more. While I believe in a progressive tax system, the rich are not a well that we can draw from to pay for every program we want to pass. It also prevents us from increasing taxes to help cut the deficit. And if we are going to provide our society with health care, it is important that all pay for it. It's bad when a majority can get services that they do not have to pay for.

The best way of doing this is taxing employer based benefits. I think John McCain talked about replacing this with a tax credit. Because Obama campaigned against this, it might be best to cap the exclusion at first and phase it out over a few years. Though this is unpopular with unions, it is the best path. There is no reason for the government to subsidize employer provided health care. Changing this would help everyone to realize the growing costs of care. Otherwise, employees do not know how much their employer is paying for health care. They don't know about how much they not getting in wage increases. Employees become unaware of growing costs and the need to reform the system.

It is also a good idea (though politically difficult) to move away from the employer based model of insurance. There are a number of reasons for this. The big reason is that to do so makes it easier for employees to change jobs. One of the best aspects of the American economy is the idea of creative destruction. And the easy movement of labor helps to drive this. If you do not have to worry about losing your insurance, you would have no problems changing employees or quiting your job to start a new business.

Moving away from this model would also help employers. They would get be able to avoid the growing costs of health care that have helped cripple the auto industry. I would also oppose the employer mandate which could be unaffordable for small businesses (who employ about half of the US workforce)

10. Prescription Drug Reform

An important part of this process requires that the cost of drugs comes down. The pharmaceutical industry is very powerful and would be very resistant to price controls. They argue that because of the high costs of developing drugs, they need to charge alot and require maximum patent protection.

There is some truth to these statements. Drug development is a long and expensive process. I would be all for streamlining the process to help drive down development costs. In return, I would expect prices to go down and I would limit some of the patent protection. Pharmaceutical companies would also get the added benefit of more people using their products. It might also be a good idea to loosen restrictions on drugs from Canada.

There is also a need to reform Medicare plan D. I confess to not knowing enough about plan D, other than it is in need of drastic reform.

11. Sin Taxes

I would also advocate a tax on things like soda to help pay for this reform. The same way that we tax alcohol and cigarettes, I would want to tax products that hurt health care outcomes. I want to incentivize better health care decisions. If society is going to be paying for health care, then we have an interest in encouraging healthier choices.

11. Better Use of Technology

The major thing that people have discussed when it comes to technology, is moving to electronic records. This would help to decrease costs, though apparently not as much as people say. Taiwan has a model that we could try to copy where every person has a card that contains their records. These cards provide doctors with easy electronic access.

The Taiwan example is meant to illustrate a way that we can implement technology. One of the problems with the health care system is that we do not do a good job of integrating new technologies. Doing so may lead to better and cheaper care.

12. Look at other models around the world

There is a tendency in the United States (especially amongst Republicans) to criticize other health care systems. Clearly the United States is unique and is going to require its own solution. But that does not mean that we shouldn't look at other models and implement their best practices.

13. Aging Population

I don't really have any comments here, except to say that we need to be aware of this and adjust when the time comes.

14. Politics of Health Care Reform

Since Truman, Democrats have tried to pass health care reform and have failed every time. Looking at the current situation, polls say that people are in favor of reform but that they want to keep their current care. This is because there is a realization that the system is broken, but people are afraid of what they will get. Democrats have to deal with the politics of fear and defang words like rationing. Even our current system rations, as there is only so much care to go around.

There is some talk amongst liberals that Obama should follow the Massachusetts model of getting universal coverage first and dealing with costs down the road. I would hate it if they pursued this path, it is important to get the legislation right the first time.

Sarah Palin

2009-07-09T19:52:00.004-04:00

Excellent article in the Economist today about Sarah Palin and what she represents to the Republican Party. She is definitely someone who inspires of strong feelings from both sides of the aisles. For my own part, I have no idea what possessed John McCain to make her a national figure. But, I also think that we talk about her way too much, as she is basically irrelevant these days.

According to the Economist though, 44% of people think poorly of her while 45% have a positive view. And among Republicans she has a 73% approval rating, beating any other potential presidential nominee. So maybe she is not as irrelevant as I think.

I don't know if she truly desires to be president or not, but she is not really handling herself as if she does. She would be running for president with her experience consisting of being Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska for two years. Though according to Ted Sorenson (JFK's former speechwriter and right hand man), there is no job that prepares you to be president and the experience factor is overrated.

I do think that if someone can make it through the ordeal that a presidential campaign has become without screwing up, then they are probably qualified to be president. In such a campaign, every move is scrutinized and it is very easy to make a mistake. Anyone who makes it through something like this, probably meets the qualification test to be president. I do doubt, however, that Sarah Palin could make it through a full campaign.

People clearly like Sarah Palin because she represents every person, as opposed to the average politician who may appear to only represent elites. Great section from the Economist article:

Many Americans want as president someone who is exceptionally well-informed about public policy, who surrounds himself with experts, who weighs the evidence and then does what is best for the country. But few people are policy experts, so they often follow their hearts rather than their heads when deciding whom to vote for. Often, they assume that someone culturally similar to themselves will be more likely to look out for their interests. And that is why Mrs Palin is still so popular. There are an awful lot of Americans who see her as one of their own. She talks like them. She guts her own fish. She wears her faith on her sleeve. She obviously didn’t go to Harvard. And when people who did call her stupid or mock her faith or her family, her fans take it personally.

There is clearly a large segment of the population that identifies with Sarah Palin. Personally I did not like how she carried herself during the campaign, particularly when she would do things like talk about the "Pro-American parts of America" and say that Obama was "palling around with terrorists." I understand that the Vice President has to be a kind of attack dog, but this kind of rhetoric has no place in our politics. And this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that the Republican party needs to get away from and what turns off many immigrants.

She also represents the anti-intellectualism that has sprung up in the Republican party. For whatever reason, the idea has emerged that it is a bad thing to be too smart. And I think part of the blame for this comes from the politicians who are fairly intelligent and who do not do a very good job of showing people that they identify with their problems.

The Spread Offense

2009-04-16T11:25:00.004-04:00

Over the last few years more and more college football teams have moved towards the spread offense. This has made it very difficult for the NFL to evaluate a number of players.

One guy that people have alot of questions about is Tim Tebow. There is no debate that he is one of best college football players in recent memory. There will clearly be a place for him in the NFL. Alot of people question whether or not he will be able to play quarterback in the NFL. Looking at his career thus far, I don't think so. Tebow has yet to show the ability to make the throws that he would have to make in the NFL. Florida's offense doesn't require him to and he struggles when forced to make the tougher throws. Tebow is a great runner, but he won't be able to run as much in the NFL.

I've heard some comparisons between Tebow and Ben Roethlisberger. I just don't see it. They were completely different college players. Roethlisberger barely ran at all and played in a pro-style offense. And he is a much better passer than Tebow.

The good news is that Tebow has another year to improve all this. And Florida brought in a great qb coach in Scott Loefler. Whatever team drafts Tebow will give him a chance at QB. But if wants to stick at quarterback, he is going to need to become a better passer.

I guess I would say that I am not really a fan of the spread offense. Teams started using because they had lesser talent and needed to find ways to create mismatches. A great example of this was Northwestern's 54-51 victory over Michigan in 2000. The spread offense really helped Northwestern overcome a talent disadvantage. Though I would note that this was against one of the worst Michigan defenses I have ever seen.

In recent years teams like Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas have had alot of success running the spread. And Michigan brought in Rich Rodriguez to transition them to the spread offense. I still say that I have two major concerns with the spread.

The first concern is that you have a much higher probability of the quarterback getting hurt. And when your offense is so dependent on one player, an injury kills you. Texas and Florida did well because they had bigger quarterbacks in Tim Tebow and Vince Young. But guys like that don't grow on trees.

In 2007, Oregon appeared to have the best team in college football. But once Dennis Dixon got hurt, they completely fell apart. And you saw something similar with Pat White at West Virginia. They would always lose one or two games a year where Pat White was beat up and couldn't play. In the NFL this risk is even greater. You cannot let your quarterback get hit like he would in the spread offense.

Another problem that I have with the spread is that a defense with good athletes will be able to shut it down. You saw this in the National Championship game last year where Florida held the Oklahoma offense to 14 points. South Florida was another team with good athletes that always shut down Rich Rodriguez when he was at West Virgina.

There are few college teams with the athletes to stop the spread. The case in the NFL is a bit different. There are great players across the board and you don't really see as many mismatches. There is a reason that no one in the NFL runs the spread. Guys like Vince Young and Michael Vick were great college quarterbacks who are ideally suited to run the spread. But their NFL play has been inconsistent.

You could make the argument that the undefeated Patriots ran a version of the spread offense. And they did. What made it work was the amount of talent they had across the board. With Tom Brady, a good offensive line, and receivers like Randy Moss, Wes Welker, and Donte Stallworth they were probably uniquely suited to run that offense. This is a combination that you do not see very often in the NFL.

The Armenian Genocide

2009-04-06T15:02:00.004-04:00

Barack Obama faces a difficult choice in deciding whether or not to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide by the Turks. Turkey has always denied that a genocide occurred and the United States has continuously refused to use the word genocide.

While I'm not an expert on the history, from what I understand the general consensus amongst historians that a genocide did occur. During the campaign Obama promised Armenians that as president he would acknowledge the Armenian genocide. Now that he is president it looks like he may not follow through with this promise.

Turkey is an important country in alot ways. They are a moderate Muslim ally with the second largest army in NATO. They have decently functioning democracy, unlike many of their brethren in the Islamic world. We have a key airbase there that's crucial to supporting our troops in Iraq. And they have the potential to play a big role in the Middle Eastern Peace Process.

Israel and Turkey have always had an interesting relationship. The countries have close ties and the Israel lobby has helped block any kind of congressional resolution to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. Before the whole Gaza mess, Turkey was helping to broker negotiations between Syria and Israel. I think that more so than any other country, Turkey is trusted by both nations. And while the negotiations were cut off, there has been talk of them picking up again.

Peace between Syria and Israel would an important first step towards peace in entire region. Israel would have one less enemy to worry about and Syria would have to end their support of terrorist organizations within Israel. And Iran would be left isolated, which would hopefully lead to them making some sort of deal with the United States.

Acknowledging the Armenian genocide would threaten all of the above. Turkey would be pretty upset and we would lose their support on issues where we need their help. We could even lose our airbase within the country. At the same time, I don't like the idea of ignoring the fact that a genocide occurred. And Turkey shares a number of common interests with the United States and they want our support on things like getting into the EU. While they would definitely be upset and the relationship could get chilly, they may not take the drastic steps that some have suggested.

Currently the Turks and Armenians are trying to negotiate some kind of settlement on the genocide question. At least for now, Obama looks like he is going to let the negotiations play themselves out.

Newt Gingrich and Nuclear Weapons

2009-04-06T15:00:00.002-04:00

According to Newt Gingrich, Barack Obama is running a fantasy foreign policy. His bases this on Obama's stated goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and by his response to North Korea's missile launch. I think that Newt is way off here.

I don't think that there is anyone who disagrees that the elimination of nuclear weapons is a good thing. And while it may not be achievable anytime soon, it is not a bad thing to shoot for. Obama did say that it may not happen in his lifetime. And let us that forget that Obama is only echoing the words of Ronald Reagon who, in his second inaugural, called for an elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Newt was also upset about Obama's response to North Korea's missile launch. It's true that calling on the UN Security Council to act against North Korea didn't accomplish anything. The United Nations is not that effective, but that doesn't mean that we ignore it. I'm sure that Obama himself knew that the Security Council was unlikely to do anything. The reality of situation is that until America is able to convince China to come along, it is going to be difficult to do anything about North Korea. And it wasn't practical to take up Newt's idea to disable the missile before it launched. I don't know if anyone is really interested in launching a military strike on North Korea at this point in time. Even if we had disabled the missile it wouldn't have accomplished anything. North Korea would still have nuclear weapons and they wouldn't just forget how to build missiles.

Let's not start comparing Barack to Jimmy Carter just yet.

The Future of Charlie Weis

2009-04-01T15:25:00.008-04:00

Charlie Weis was hired with the intention of returning Notre Dame to its rightful place in the college football universe. Unfortunately he has not done much to distinguish himself from his predecessors. With a record of 29-21, Weis has failed to show significant improvement over Bob Davie (35-25) or Tyrone Willingham (21-15).

There is a story today on ESPN that discusses the current state of the Notre Dame program. Given the last two season at Notre Dame, Weis probably needs to win at least 8-9 games to keep his job. And from reading the article, I get the impression that the team will be improved.

Weis has made a couple coaching moves that should help. He has finally hired a new offensive line coach which may help improve the weakest area of the team. I don't know much about Frank Verducci, but the offensive line can't really get worse. The offensive line is also no longer young and inexperienced. Weis has also gone back to calling the plays. I never know why he went away from this in the first place. Play-calling is probably his greatest strength and that's how he helped win three Super Bowls. And except for a few games where Notre Dame didn't have the talent to compete, he did a pretty good job calling the plays during the Brady Quinn years.

I also really liked how Notre Dame brought in Jon Tenuta to help coordinate the defense with Corwin Brown. This was a brilliant move. Corwin Brown is highly regarded in the coaching profession (he was recommend to Weis by Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells) but he is pretty young and doesn't have much experience as a defensive coordinator. Tenuta on the other hand is one of the best coordinators in the college game. I remember being pretty excited when he was rumored to be going to Michigan with Les Miles. He is known as a guy that blitzes alot and he will only make the Irish defense better. And having been defensive coordinator at Ohio State, he knows what it is like to coach at this kind of program.

One thing that I found fairly interesting was that:

After last season, Weis asked for the offensive and defensive averages of the 10 teams that played in the BCS games, plus Cotton Bowl participants Ole Miss and Texas Tech. "If the goal is to be a BCS team," Weis reasoned, "then that's what we should be doing."

The statistics are just another way of viewing Notre Dame's shortcomings.

"We averaged 3.3 yards per carry," Weis said. "The average of these guys is 4.6. We averaged 109 rushing yards per game. The average for these guys is 175 ..."

I don't know if Notre Dame can improve to 4.6 yards per carry or 175 yards per game, but with new offensive line and running back coaches along with a general increase in experience, they should be able to substantially improve on last years numbers.

Jimmy Clausen should also take a pretty big step forward this year. He looked pretty good in the bowl game and he should build upon his performance, especially if he able to get the improved line play and running performance that Weis expects. Clausen had a lot of hype coming out high school that he is probably never going to meet. I mean who can ever forget that he promised he would win four Heisman trophies and four national championships. Or that Sports Illustrated hyped him up to be the Lebron James of football. Clausen was placed in a pretty tough situation having to start as a freshman on a 3-9 Notre Dame team. The experience of these last two years will only help him going forward. I don't expect Clausen to ever a pro prospect on the level of Matthew Stafford or Mark Sanchez, but I think he will develop into a pretty good college quarterback.

Looking at the schedule, it shapes up pretty nicely for the Irish:

Sept 5	Nevada
Sept 12	at Michigan
Sept 19	Michigan State
Oct 3	at Purdue
Oct 10	Washington
Oct 17	USC
Oct 24	Boston College
Oct 31	Washington State (at San Antonio)
Nov 7	Navy
Nov 14	at Pittsburgh
Nov 21	Connecticut
Nov 28	Stanford

Notre Dame opens with Nevada and that's a game they should win fairly easily (though they did struggle with San Diego St last year). At Michigan is usually a pretty tough game, but Michigan is down and Weis has won in Ann Arbor before. They are probably the favorites in this game and have a fairly good chance to win. This is probably the hardest game on their schedule to predict, because knows what to expect from Michigan.

Notre Dame has consistently struggled against Michigan State, but they have the better team and Michigan State is rebuilding. They should win this game. Purdue has a new coach and was pretty bad last year. This is another game that Notre Dame probably wins.

Washington is beginning the Steve Sarkisian era and they face a pretty big rebuilding job. Playing at home Notre Dame wins this game. After this comes Notre Dame's annual beatdown by USC. They still don't have the athletes to compete with USC and they lose, even to a rebuilding (at least by their standards) USC team.

Boston College comes to town the following weekend and this is a team that Notre Dame usually struggles with. Boston College really screwed up their coaching situation and I think they are going to be alot worse off. This is going to lead to Notre Dame winning this game.

Playing Washington State in San Antonio shouldn't be a problem for Notre Dame. They were one of the worst teams in college football last year and I don't think they will be much improved. Notre Dame wins this game.

Navy has been able to stay close with Notre Dame the last few years and even managed a victory two years ago. They just don't have the talent to compete and Notre Dame will beat them for the 45th time out of the last 46 years.

Dave Wannstedt has done a good job of recruiting at Pitt and they are probably one of the favorites to win the Big East next year. Playing at Pitt, this will be a tough game for the Irish. I think that people are expecting big things from Pitt, but that they are going to take a step back after losing Lesean McCoy to the NFL Draft. They are not going to be as good as people think and this allows Notre Dame to win this game.

Connecticut is a team that I don't know much about, just that they lost their really good running back from last year. Assuming that he was a big part of their team, Notre Dame wins this game with no problem.

The season closes with Stanford and usually Notre Dame has no trouble in this game. I think that Jim Harbaugh is a pretty good coach and it's going to really start to show in his third year at Stanford. The Cardinal will come to South Bend and shock the Irish, ruining their BCS hopes.

Assuming that Notre Dame loses to Michigan, they finish the season 9-3. This probably doesn't get them into the BCS, but it allows Weis to keep his job for another year.

The Eye of the World

2009-03-30T17:59:00.008-04:00

The last few years I've heard a lot about the Wheel of Time series, both good and bad. The word on the street is the series starts out well but that the quality starts to slip around the 6^th book or so. This concern has always held me back, but recently I decided to give the series a chance. And I'm glad that I did.

The series has a pretty interesting premise that I haven't really seen in other fantasy novels. I really like the idea of a Wheel of Time where time is cyclical and consists of repeating ages. I know this draws alot from religions like Buddhism and I don't think that's something that you see very often in Fantasy.

The story opens up with a prologue that follows a man known as the Dragon, Lews Therin Telamon. The Dragon is the Wheel's response to the Dark One. The Dark One is sealed away at creation, but he is continuously trying to escape from his prison. Lews Therin manages to defeat the Dark One and seal him away, but in the process he is drawn mad. He and all the other channelers go crazy, kill a bunch of people and generally cause lots of chaos. It takes the world a while to recover, but the Dragon will one day be reborn. The female channelers don't go crazy and are part of a order called the Aes Sedai. That's kind of the premise of the story and gives you a good feel of what the series will be about.

The story follows three young guys from a small out of the way village and they somehow get caught up in this battle between good and evil. Some may think that the "farmboy who ends up having an important destiny" idea is kind of played out, but I've always been a fan. A big part of the Eye of the World involves the characters trying to escape the forces of the Dark One. There is a little bit of a Lord of the Rings feel to it.

Overall I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I've always liked the idea of an eternal battle between good and evil and that is something that you definitely get here. There is a lot of stuff going on about the idea of fate and free will. I'm currently working on the third book and I look forward to getting through the series.

Democracy Building

2009-03-28T23:22:00.018-04:00

There is a great quote from a new book on democracy building:

"If democracy means little more than elections, it is damaging to the reform process.”

This is how you end up with Hamas winning the Palestinian elections (and a huge blow to any potential peace process). One of the mistakes of the Bush Administration in the Middle East was to hold elections for the sake of holding elections.

Don't get me wrong, democracy is clearly the most preferable system of government. But if you don't take the time to build the institutions that support a functioning democracy (like a free press, independent judiciary, etc.) then you create the potential to leave things worse off.

Anyone interested in the full article and context of that quote can check out Wars, Guns, and Votes.

Welcome, West Coast Style

2009-03-28T12:56:00.016-04:00

Welcome to Pacman's Talking Points! We'll mostly be covering and commenting on sports, politics, entertainment, and anything else that interests us from time to time. We also plan on getting some kind of weekly podcast going at some point, so you can listen to all the wonderful things we have to say on the go!

For now, we'll leave you with one of the greatest (post-championship) interviews of all time: