Reflective Reads

Creative thoughts - Mr. Laszewski has an interesting take on the individual mandate spotlighted at Kaiser Health News.

For me, the individual mandate is really a non-negotiable; however, Mr. Laszewski's is the first true "practical" compromise I've seen that tactfully addresses a viable substitution to the mandate:

"A compromise could make guarantee issue health insurance entirely voluntary. If it is purchased when the consumer is first eligible -- such as when the exchanges are first available or at the time of a new job -- the consumer would not be subjected to underwriting or preexisting condition rules... But if they didn't purchase coverage when they were first eligible, any preexisting condition would be subject to a two-year waiting period."

Cool tool - Freeware Genius is featuring a free optical character recognition program that converts images to text in multiple languages. Having spent several years as a technical writer, this piqued my interest as a noteworthy find.

Data visualization - Beautifully compiled maps of American dialects such as this pristine example always tend to bring out the nostalgic linguist in me.