The Angry Economist says that American Health Care is Totally Broken because "[i]n the American health care system, nobody is optimizing for value". I agree with that sentiment, but I wonder if the fix is as easy as he proposes.

What's the difference between accurate number and made-up numbers?

According to Reg Braithwaite, it's an exciting tale of collusion! Read Why Apple is more expensive than Amazon. Then decide if you think this is a case of collusion, or that of "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

I found the perfect description of my Halo 3 strategy: loss aversion. It means losses hurt more than gains feel good. Incidentally, it's also why most people make for lousy investors.

Well, they are probably only reading about 20-28% of the words. So says Jakob Nielsen in How Little Do Users Read? over at Alertbox.

P. J. O'Rourke weighs in with Fairness, idealism, and other atrocities. My favorite passage is this:

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you."

I thought I was one of about three remaining Eagles fans who supported Donovan McNabb. Now I found a great article showing how he compares favorably to none other than golden boy John Elway through the first nine years of their careers (Donovan has played nine seasons). Please read Get Off Donovan McNabb's Back by The Angry T.

It may seem strange, but Alex at TheDailyWTF makes a compelling case on how to solve the IT turnover crisis -- by embracing a culture of quitting. For one thing, it beats lying to yourself that your employees will never quit.

One week before my dad's first (only?) marathon, I convinced him that he needed to purchase real running shoes, from a real running store. This was to be the final step in his distance running makeover: shorter runs become longer runs, no water becomes water/Gatorade/gels, cotton T-shirts become breathable/wicking shirts, and sneakers become running shoes. Prior to our shopping trip, he had prided himself in buying the cheapest shoes possible for running.

The shoe tryout started typically, as the salesperson had my dad walk up and down the store, and he was able to detect my dad needed stability shoes. Then he asked what size - Dad said "9 1/2". After all, that's what the last pair had been. The salesguy looked skeptical and had him step on the sizing tool - which read "10 1/2 - 11". Finally he asked to see Dad's old running shoes. When he saw them he gasped in disbelief. "You were running in those!?"

In the end, Dad buckled down and got a rather nice set of shoes, with running socks to boot! All that was left was to run the race.

If you're not saying Om Nom Nom Nom out loud ... then you're doing it wrong!