MetaFilter posts tagged with government

Health Care Has Passed

reenum — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:01:23 -0800

The House of Representatives just passed the health reform bill in a vote of 220-215.

MétaFiltre!

Shepherd — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:21:54 -0800

The Canadian Government’s Translation Bureau recently made its French/English/Spanish technical terminology database, Termium, free to access after over a decade as a subscription-based service. While off-the-cuff translations are often available from free services like BabelFish, Termium focuses on technical terminology such as scientific, medical and legal terms. Of equal interest to the core service are other tools like The Canadian Style, the government’s official rules for how to write "Canadian" (an odd hybrid of British and American styles), HyperGrammar 2, a series of educational grammar modules developed for self-directed learning, and Word Tailoring, an attempt to create a translation database for idiomatic French words and expressions that don't necessarily offer a single literal translation. There are also a wealth of French-language tools for learning grammar, improving your writing style, and seeking alternate terms for common verbs and expressions. Also worthy of note is the always-free Grand Dictionnaire, the product of the Quebec government's Office de la langue française, which is far less robust than Termium but has a stronger focus on "proper" language for Quebec. And, if you're struggling to improve your French writing skills, Bon Patron is a (frequently slow-loading) Java-powered tool that will check your French spelling and grammar and offer correction suggestions in real time.

Scrimping on the Future

kliuless — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:12:03 -0800

Information is stimulus, confusion is contraction.

Health care plan clears major hurdle

reenum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:34:23 -0800

The Senate Finance Committee has approved the plan proposed by Max Baucus.

The perils of openness in government

homunculus — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:35:26 -0800

Against Transparency. "How could anyone be against transparency? Its virtues and its utilities seem so crushingly obvious. But I have increasingly come to worry that there is an error at the core of this unquestioned goodness. We are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works, and where and when it may lead to confusion, or to worse. And I fear that the inevitable success of this movement--if pursued alone, without any sensitivity to the full complexity of the idea of perfect openness--will inspire not reform, but disgust. The 'naked transparency movement,' as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff." [Via]

Pension Fund Follies

reenum — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:28:48 -0800

Missouri's lack of conflict of interest rules for its teachers' pension funds creates predictable problems Such nuggets as the following can be found within:

Even Yoakum charged $100 for Glamour Shots while in Sacramento, Calif., in April 2007.

I could probably afford better insurance if I wasn't paying for theirs.

sio42 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:53:52 -0800

What kind of health insurance would you have as a federal government employee? The Office of Personnel Management would like to help you decide among the gazillion plan choices you have. Perhaps you are a Congress member? Then head on down to the Attending Physician of the United States, "It's one of the, quote, benefits of being in Congress," Kagen said. "They have physicians and nurses that will see you on the spot, on the beck and call." (link to single page print version). from the article quoting Kagen...

"But while [Rep Steve] Kagen touted in campaign advertisements and news interviews that he had no insurance coverage, he openly admitted he used OAP services. In January, for example, he paid more than $4,000 out of pocket for outpatient arthroscopic knee surgery. After the procedure, he said, he used the attending physician's office and staff to assist him with physical therapy."

Wikipedia on the Office of Attending Physician A NYT editorial on why we can't all have the same health care as Congress - and how we could possibly all have better care.

Congress’s health plan pays for routine expenses like office visits and vaccinations, for example, which is like auto insurance covering oil changes or new windshield wipers. As a result, the premiums are steep — upwards of $13,000 a year for a family (69 percent of which is paid by the government). To provide the 50 million Americans who are now uninsured with such a plan would require scary tax increases.

IANARL

ND¢ — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:14:48 -0800

Get This Rat a Lawyer! A recent target of right wing anger has been Obama administration "czars", a term used to denote appointed presidential advisers not subject to Senate approval. Opponents of "czars" were recently emboldened by the resignation of Anthony "Van" Jones, who served from March 16 to September 5, 2009 as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. An additional target of the hunt for Obama's czars is Cass Sunstein, a constitutional-law professor at Harvard University, who was confirmed Thursday as the director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Outrage related to Mr. Sunstein stems from a paper Sunstein wrote in 2002, in which he argued that individuals as well as the state should be able to file suit for animal cruelty, as well as a lecture on the subject given at Harvard in 2007. Sunstein, who has called for an outright ban on hunting, stated as follows: "If rats are able to suffer—and no one really doubts that they are—then their interests are relevant to the question how, and perhaps even whether, they can be expelled from houses," "At the very least, people should kill rats in a way that minimizes suffering. And if possible, people should try to expel rats in a way that does not harm them at all." Reports of these statements led to a notable quote from Saturday's Tea Party rally in D.C.: said Davy Reeves of Kalamazoo: "He thinks rats should have the right to an attorney, to sue humans," Reeves said. "Rats have no right to live in my house."

Know Thy Congressman

sciurus — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:29:45 -0800

Know Thy Congressman (an Apps for America Project of Sunlight Labs) provides a handy bookmarklet that lets you get a quick overview of Congresscritters that you might not be familiar with. The winners for Round Two of Apps for America (focusing on data.gov) were announced yesterday.

Round 1 submissions for Apps for America (previously)
Round 2 submissions for Apps for America
Round two winners:
- DataMasher - Create your own mashups. Want to know how many unemployed people there are per square mile? Find out here.
- GovPulse - Browse & filter the Federal Register.
- This We Know - Discover what data the government has on your community.

Politics 101: Don't Brag About Your Sexploits in Public

zarq — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:35:08 -0800

Conservative Republican California State Assemblyman Michael Duvall (Orange County) didn't realize his mic was live, moments before the start of a legislative hearing this past July. So when the 54-year-old married father of two began describing his ongoing affairs with two different women in very graphic detail for the benefit of a colleague seated next to him, he had no idea that he was being recorded. The story was picked up by KCAL, who cited unnamed sources that said Duvall was describing affairs with two married lobbyists. The problem: The KCAL report also tentatively identified one as a utility company representative. (The OC Weekly story says she works for Sempra Energy.) Duvall is the vice chairman of the California State Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce. Duvall "announced his immediate resignation from the Assembly this afternoon."

If Paul Krugman Was So Right

kliuless — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:00:24 -0800

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - The Great Recession was the result not only of lax regulation in Washington and reckless risk-taking on Wall Street but also of faulty theorizing in academia. Can economists learn from their mistakes? (via mr & ev) bonus :P

Government as Risk Manager
Keynesian reforms could stop us falling into more economic foxholes
On the "Course" to a New Normal
"Because I Said So..."
Too much of a very good thing
U.K. Wants Bank Buffers, Not Bonuses
Making Greed Good
Greed & The Other Seven Deadly Sins
White House to Propose Big Reserves at Banks
It's not the regulators, it's the politicians
The systemic threat posed by megabanks
Shrinking banks
All Those Arrows
Fool's Gold
The Value Every Business Needs to Create Now
What good is finance?
What Is Finance, Really?
The Nature of Modern Finance
Can We Afford Health Care Reform? We Can't Afford Not to Do It.
Why Paying for Health Care Reform Is Difficult and Essential
Health Care Lie #493: Rationing
Examining the Public Option in Health Care Reform
The Divisions in the White House Over Health-Care Reform - "hinge on Sen. Olympia Snowe"
What Leverage Do Republicans Have on Olympia Snowe?
Health Insurers vs. Big Corn? - "[If] health insurers can no longer pick and choose their clients, and throw sick people out, they will develop a much stronger interest in prevention, which is to say, in changing the way America feeds itself. When health insurers realize they will make thousands more in profits for every case of type II diabetes they can prevent, they will develop a strong interest in things like corn subsidies, local food systems, farmer's markets, school lunch, public health campaigns about soda, etc."
The Rotten Core - "Late empires are known for several things: a self-obsessed, self-serving governing class, small over-reaching wars that bankrupt the Treasury, debt that balloons until retreat from global power becomes not a choice but a necessity, and a polity unable to address reasonably any of these questions - or how the increasing corruption of the media enables them all."
$9 trillion -- what, me worry?
Obama on Bernanke - "his 'bold, persistent experimentation' has brought our economy back"

that is all!

Japan's Media Environment

armage — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:21:13 -0800

Japan -- Media Environment Open; State Looms Large (August 2009, PDF) A detailed, 67-page overview and analysis of Japan's traditional and new media environment published by the Open Source Center, an office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Government using Facebook and MySpace to find tax cheats

reenum — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:49:49 -0800

Tax authorities using social networks to find tax cheats Yet another reason to be careful who you accept a friend request from.

Oh where, oh where has my nuclear weapons data gone? Oh where, oh where can it be?

the littlest brussels sprout — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:58:59 -0800

Ever wanted a visual tally of the computers, personal data, and other property lost by or stolen from the US federal government? Presenting the Government Lost & Found Map, via OhMyGov!.

With whom it starts

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:43:09 -0800

Healthcare reform has agitated right-wing extremists and moneyed interests in the United States for some time — during the presidencies of FDR and Truman as well as Clinton and Obama, most recently — but where do the objections originate from, and particularly those which are known to be based on complete untruths? Some of these lies start with or are repeated by well-known right-wing media personalities, but there are other people who get the ball rolling, who are perhaps less well-known. Elizabeth "Betsy" McCaughey originated one of the current myths more commonly known as "death panels", but despite her attempts to market herself as a folksy voice fighting for the well-being of senior citizens, she has been an effective advocate for the interests of private health insurance companies since the early 1990s. In The Atlantic's fascinating overview Triumph of Misinformation, award-winning journalist James Fallows follows the Clinton administration's failed attempt to pass healthcare reform, during which McCaughey spread a false claim about the Clinton proposal actively preventing patients from going outside the government system for treatment. Her fictitious story was quickly picked up and amplified by the mainstream media, with devastating effect. Her own version was entitled No Exit: What The Clinton Plan Will Do For You and was printed in The New Republic. Despite its publication, it contained so many inaccuracies that the magazine's former editors have all since disowned the piece (though Andrew Sullivan still lauded it up until two years ago). In an essay published on Bloomberg.com in February (and in several essays and letters since), she attempted to promulgate another lie in which hospitals and doctors under an Obama-led plan would be penalized for failing to contribute patient data to a federal health database, eliminating patient privacy and enforcing uniformity in treatment. This falsehood did not appear to gain as much traction as her subsequent "death panel" myth. After scrutiny following a critical two-part interview (full, extended version part 1 and part 2) (Flash req'd) with Jon Stewart this past Thursday, McCaughey resigned today from a vaguely described position with Cantel Medical, a private heathcare product corporation.

A very good article on health care economics

kliuless — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:40:28 -0800

How American Health Care Killed My Father After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem. (via mr) BONUS -Health Care Spending and PCE -Consumer Driven Health Care Plans -4 Points on Health Care -A Public Option Isn't a Curse, or a Cure [also btw Thaler vs. Posner] -'A Plan to Swissify America' (P.Krugman) -Why We Need Health Care Reform (B.Obama) -Health 2.0 could shock the system (E.Dyson) -Mont. Clinic Aims to Deliver Top-quality Care for Less -Cleveland Clinic Chief: Lower Care Costs Must Be Focus in Reform Efforts -Healthcare lessons -The world's worst healthcare reforms

Zeitoun

reenum — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:14:17 -0800

Abdelrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian American businessman who spent the days after Katrina paddling around New Orleans in a canoe, saving elderly people and feeding stranded pets. His efforts were brought to a halt when he was detained by the Bush administration on suspicion of being a terrorist. Here is an earlier story about Zeitoun's exploits. Zeitoun also wrote about his experiences during Katrina and about being detained. You can see Zeitoun talking about his ordeal here. Eggers, like with his last book, has set up a foundation in Zeitoun's name where the profits from the book will go to help Katrina's victims.

Large-scale homeless organization: the hot new thing for August?

oinopaponton — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:41:44 -0800

A group of 25 homeless Polish men are building a boat with the intention of sailing around the world. Meanwhile, over in the New World, around 80 Providence, R.I. homeless people have formed their own government.

This will not Orwell.

memebake — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:55:42 -0800

The Daily Express reports on a UK Government Announcement to expand the use of Family Intervention Projects. However, the Daily Express exaggerates the report somewhat, the article stating (apparently wildly incorrectly) that the UK Government "plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV supervision in their own homes". Other reports in the UK press make no mention of CCTV. Nonetheless, the alarmist Express article is widely picked up and discussed on the internet, pushing many people past 10 on the Orwellometer. Then Mefite FfejL uses Twitter to ask Ed Balls, the minister responsible, if the CCTV aspect of the Express article is accurate. No, Jeff, it is complete nonsense is Ed Balls' reply. See also the original government accouncement and descriptions of Family Intervention Projects, which are already running in many parts of the UK. Apparently, in very extreme cases families may be moved from their (often state funded) homes to 'core residential units' for 24 hour support and supervision, but this is very different from the Express report of the government planning to put "20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV supervision" For an example of the situations the initiative is supposed to tackle, "The Addison family case study" in this PDF is interesting reading:

...Numerous agencies were trying to engage with Christine and her family. At the time of the project’s involvement there were around 20 agencies including the youth offending team, community mental health team, social services, education welfare officers, police, anti-social behaviour team, housing services, Connexions service, probation service, debt advice service, educational psychologist, etc. Christine and her children neither kept appointments with these professionals nor opened the door when they came to the house ... Christine and her family were costing services well in excess of £250,000 per year ...

Looking beyond the media curfuffle, there is an interesting question at the heart of this: When 'problem families' are ruining their own childrens prospects and making life miserable for the many people that may live near them, what is the correct response for a state to make?

it's a Federal crime

nickyskye — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:43:27 -0800

Brian W. Walsh thinks You're (Probably) A Federal Criminal.

Parkinson's Law

digaman — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:56:20 -0800

Why bureaucracy, like gas, fills up all available space. From the archive of The Economist, 1955 [via ArchiveDigger.]

Happy Science, and the Potential Joining of Church and State in Japan

filthy light thief — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:02:38 -0800

Kōfuku-no-Kagaku (幸福の科学), also called Happy Science, is a relatively new religious and spiritual movement, founded in Japan in October 1986. The organization is gaining ground world-wide, with the international headquarter office in central Tokyo, 6 local temples located in London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seoul and Taiwan, and an additional 37 local offices around the world. The group's leader, Master Ryuho Okawa, has is not limiting the scope of the movement to politics, and in May 2009 the Happiness Realization Party was formed, with over 300 HRP candidates running for the coming general election. To provide background on the religion and political movement, here is a little investigation of Happy Science by MeFi's own shii [via mefi projects] Believers state that Ryuho Okawa attained Great Enlightenment on March 23, 1981 and renounced his business career in the 1980s after being awakened to the hidden part of his consciousness, El Cantare, Eternal Buddha. El Cantare is also known as Elohim, the Supreme God in the Old Testament, and the Mahavairocana Buddha of Mahayana Buddhism. In the United States, Happy Science is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose aim is to achieve true happiness by deepening and widening our love, and to reach a higher level of enlightenment based on the teachings of truth by Master Ryuho Okawa. If you're in New York City, you might see ads for Happy Science lectures, meditations and discussions. On the other hand, this (unscripted?) interview with Sohken Kobayashi (the secretary general of the Happiness Realization Party) displays a group less focused on self-realization and more about the stability of Japan versus the forces of the global economy (Kobayashi explains the party already saved the world financial crisis last year by advising the Japanese Prime Minister to fund $100 billions of dollars to the IMF), and reacting to the threat of the secret nuclear alliance among the North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and China. Along with interviews of this sort are propaganda videos, depicting the potential events of North Korea bombing Japan (English summary of the Japanese video). Bonus bits: Full color pamphlets and books being made for Happy Science Uganda Peak inside a Happy Science building in Japan, who aren't too fond of unauthorized photography Happiness Realization Party posters in Kyoto, being posted by HRP candidate Karube Yoshiteru himself

building nothing out of something? or...

kliuless — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:21:22 -0800

Rebuilding Something Better by Barack Obama: "this week, I'll be talking about how we give our workers the skills they need to compete... Part of this goal will be met by helping Americans better afford a college education. But part of it will also be strengthening our network of community colleges..." BONUS -Zakaria: A Capitalist Manifesto -Cowen: Vaticanomics -The X-shaped recovery -Debt, Class Warfare and Entrepreneurship -America's Fiscal Train Wreck and Cassandra's Curse -Skidelsky: Economists clash on shifting sands -Skidelsky: The World Finance Crisis & the American Mission -Skidelsky: The Lost Continent -Obama: A New Moment of Promise in Africa -Sullivan: Barack Obama keeps his cool

The Squares of the City

kliuless — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:11:34 -0800

Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application - "His economic theory of history explains phenomena such as the constant improvement of the human standard of living by looking primarily at just two forms of innovative ideas: technology and rules." (previously, via) BONUS: UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY - What cities have in common [1,2,3,4,5] - Great structures? [1,2,3,4,5] - The new institutionalism [1,2,3,4,5] - Norms and deliberative rationality [1,2,3,4,5]

Don't worry, it's monopoly money anyway.

Justinian — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:59:03 -0800

Overly confident in the economic health of the United States? Feeling sanguine about current spending levels? Haven't yet been scared out of your wits about your financial future? No worries! The U.S. National Debt Clock page is for you! Your one stop shop for all things financial meltdown related: Total debt, debt per citizen, budget deficits and spending year-to-date, total governmental bailouts, and much much more!