Yearly Archives: 2005

Gladwell on our Healthcare System

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Malcolm Gladwell:

One of the great mysteries of political life i the United States is why Americans are s devoted to their health-care system. Six times i the past century—during the First World War during the Depression, during the Truman an Johnson Administrations, in the Senate in th nineteen-seventies, and during the Clinton years—efforts have been made to introduce som kind of universal health insurance, and eac time the efforts have been rejected. Instead, th United States has opted for a makeshift syste of increasing complexity and dysfunction Americans spend $5,267 per capita on healt care every year, almost two and half times th industrialized world’s median of $2,193; th extra spending comes to hundreds of billions o dollars a year.

Tyler Cowen offers a number of counterpoints, links really, to Gladwell’s words.

Northwest Machinist Strike: Well Laid Plans Kept Their Planes Flying

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Micheline Maynard:

Over the last 18 months, the airline analyzed every job represented by the mechanics’ union at every airport and calculated the skills required to fix each of its planes. It then decided how many of those workers it actually needed and what kind of replacements it would require in the event of a strike.

Some differences between the airline’s old and new approaches began to appear.

Before the strike, union rules specified that only members of the mechanics’ union, known as AMFA, could deliver planes to airport gates. But on Saturday, the pilot of a Northwest 757 in Detroit, upon discovering his plane was not ready, hopped into a pickup truck and went to the hangar to fetch his plane, rather than keep crew and passengers waiting, airline officials said.

Meanwhile, members of the machinists’ union, which usually handles tasks like baggage handling and customer service, took on the task of cleaning Northwest’s cabins between flights at its hubs here and in Minneapolis, a job that was previously done by the mechanics’ union.

Northwest is the Dane County Regional Airport’s (Still without WiFi!) largest airline. More.

5Mbps for $50 – Move to Iowa

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Madison continues to fall behind in true 2 way broadband, as Jon Van illustrates:


The Mudd Group uses high-speed optical fiber lines supplied by the Cedar Falls Utility, a municipal operation that offered affordable high-speed data connections years before the local cable TV operator or phone company made such services available.
Municipalities from Lafayette, La., to Philadelphia are moving to provide residents with broadband connections, while in others, such as Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles, voters rejected the idea. The initiatives, which proponents say boost local economic development opportunities, are spurring intense battles across the nation with cable and phone companies, which believe the competition is unfair.
The issue is whether it’s appropriate for government entities to use taxpayer money to invest in infrastructure that is also a commercial technology because it’s offered by cable and phone companies.

The Ballads of Richard Thompson

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All Things Considered:

The world British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson creates is so vivid it feels as if you’re in the company of the characters he chronicles: bikers, schoolyard bullies, dreamers, lovers and losers.
For nearly four decades, Thompson has performed and recorded a wide variety of music, from traditional folk songs to rock-and roll.
His latest effort is Front Parlour Ballads, a mostly acoustic work recorded in a small studio in his garage.

audio

Sun Prairie Cornfest

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Salt Shakers
High School Students who will butter your corn (optional) for a tip.
Fabulous sweet corn
Some of the people who make it happen

More on the cornfest. I avoided the butter, but did speak to a couple of the students who were seeking college funds. One had her eyes on Michigan State while the other is seemingly UC-Berkeley bound.

Request Your Right to Travel Records from the TSA

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Ann Harrison:

In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?

You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.