Civil unions

As a way to deal with the fight over gay marriage, how about making the states only recognize a civil union, and leave marriage to churches?

What else didn't the government invent?

The blogosphere is all abuzz about an inane op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which alleged digital media expert Gordon Crovitz argued that the US government didn't create the Internet or the technology behind it, Xerox did. His argument is so wrong it's hard to know where to start rebutting it, but these articles give you the idea. Given that the history of the Internet is not exactly secret, where did this nonsense come from?

Portugese garlic sausage, v. 1.0

I have been meaning for quite a while to try to make linguica, one of the basic food groups in Portugal, which is sausage made with garlic and red wine, then smoked. I finally had, all in one place, ground pork, sausage casings, a sausage stuffer attachment for my mixer, and a Big Green Egg barbecue which can be damped down to 250 degrees, suitable for smoking.

Why does anyone read David Brooks?

In case you never heard of him, he writes for the New York Times' op-ed page, and is purportedly a moderate. But every time someone refers me to one of his columns, all I see is pompous rehashing of right wing talking points. Take (please), his May 8th column, in which he opines that the reason we have such high unemployment is that people have wrong skills for the available jobs, what economists call structural unemployment.

Tourtière around the world

A Tourtière is an old Quebec tradition that long ago spread across Canada. It's basically a flaky crust covering a filling made of ground meat and spices. The meat varies depending where you are; in Montréal it's usually ground pork, in Gaspé it might to be salmon, out in the bush a combination of pork and whatever you can catch locally. (Hares are supposed to be good.)

So I figured, OK, I can do that, although hares seem awfully boring. Turned out pretty good.

What do do about the post office?

The PO has a real problem that it has a lot less business than it used to.  UPS and Fedex have taken away much of the package delivery business, and the number of letters has dropped significantly as people and businesses switch to electronic delivery of bills, checks, and letters that used to be sent by mail.  But they still are required to deliver every day to every address in the country, and have a variety of other requirements put on them by Congress. As a result, their fixed costs are large, their variable costs relatively small, while their revenue is entirely variable, depending on how much mail they handle.

The magic of the health care market

Here is a bill I just got from a medical lab for a throat culture. They charged $55, which seems a little high. But wait! Due to the kind of insurance I have, they send the bill to Blue Cross, BC then adjusts it to their negotiated rate, and I pay that. So they adjust it by, hm, 77% to $11.43. So the $55 is really just the sucker price for people who don't have a large corporation to negotiate on their behalf.

Remind me again why this is better than single payer?