Yglesias points out the creeping government takeover of everything in the socialist hell that is Obama’s America…

I can’t imagine why conservatives aren’t more honest about this.

But the facts remain: government is smaller under Obama. Jobs in the private sector have been created under Obama, and some of those jobs have been created through the actions of the stimulus. Period.

Defazio Bears Attention

TPM reports:

Rep. Peter Defazio (D-OR) proposes that people be allowed to opt out of the insurance mandate altogether – but if they do, they will not be allowed to free-ride on the new health care system.

Under his plan, a person opting out “must file an ‘affidavit of personal responsibility’ with the state exchange. Such a filing will waive their rights to: 1) Enroll in a health insurance exchange; 2) Enroll in Medicaid if otherwise made eligible; and 3) Discharge health care related debt under Chapter 7 bankruptcy law,” DeFazio wrote in a letter to colleagues Tuesday.

Under his plan, if a person wants back into the system, they’d need to buy insurance on their own, out of pocket, for five years. The idea here, and with other, similar plans, is to moot one of the constitutional complaints about the mandate – that it penalizes “inactivity.”

Exactly. No doubt the legions of “go die in the streets” conservatives who are morally wounded by the very concept of the individual mandate are lining up to cosponsor this. Right? Right?

Defazio Bears Attention

Here we have the man who invented the personal computer, then the laptop. He’s now destroying them. That is an amazing life.

Rupert Murdoch on Steve Jobs. I’d quibble with the “invented” being more of a “popularized,” but otherwise spot on.
Equally amazing (to me, anyway) is that the transition from “let’s sell everyone personal computers” to “let’s sell everyone wireless things that people don’t really even realize are computers” took place within the span of one CEO’s lifetime, though not one continuous tenure with Apple (since we’re talking Jobs here).
Color me unimpressed with The Daily, though. Just the sort of crap magazine I avoid in print, much less on the iPad. Reeder is the really disruptive technology if you’re asking me. And I know you are.
Source: daringfireball.net

Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on the government is not libertarian.

Mitt Romney (when governor of Massachusetts) saying the sort of thing that makes him unelectable in 2012. Sad but true.
But he gets at the real “fix” for the individual mandate: simply opt out of guaranteed care for some defined period and pay a fine to get back into it with no guarantee against taking yet another hit for any preexisting conditions. In other words: Go die in the streets; we won’t lift a finger. The GOP and their Tea Klan enablers can certainly get behind that, as it’s the basis for their entire worldview. I’m sure they’ll all be rushing to get in on that particular filing deadline…

What can we do with the idea of a “book” if we eliminate the limitations of ink and paper, rather than mimic them?

John Gruber, asking a question that seems utterly obvious and yet is seldom if ever confronted. This Push Pop Press he’s talking about sounds like just the thing for a real magazine or deep-content newspaper experience on an iPad or similar device.
Well, except for the “content as app” design. I don’t want an app for each and every book/magazine/paper, and I don’t think anyone else does either. One app to rule them all, please.