One way to think about the health care debate as it plays out in congress is in terms of vote-buying. The closer from passage a health overhaul gets, the more valuable everyone’s votes become, and the more reasonable it becomes for members to start raising all sorts of objections to try to maximize their share of the surplus. But anytime the prospects for reform start looking bleak, there’s a bubble in vote prices that collapses. The 218th House vote is very valuable, but the 112th is worthless. That creates incentives for members to make their asks cheaper and then things move forward.

A consequence of this is that the metaphor of “momentum” is very misleading—it’s more like a pendulum. Which I think is borne out by what you see on the ground. Something like the House passing a version of reform doesn’t, via momentum, eliminate objections in the senate. Rather, it leads to an intensification of intra-caucus animosity. What relaxes tensions is the prospect of failure.

It’s not clear to me if the final settling place of this dynamic is passage or failure, but I think it points toward passage. Another point is that Republicans, by taking themselves out of the game, are ceding a huge amount of bargaining power to the Democrats. If Republican members were willing to be more creative and buck their leadership, they could gain a ton for themselves.

I observed the other day that the average points per NBA three point attempt in 2008 exceeded the average points per possession. Then the next day I read in Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball about how low three point percentage was in the first few years of NBA three pointers. So I thought it might be useful to take a historical look at this question. Thus the following charts points per possession and points per three point attempt ever since the three pointer was introduced in the 1980 season:

In the early years, three point percentages were terrible and a possession ending in a three point attempt tended to be a badly below-average possession. But pretty quickly either the existing players got better at shooting from long range, or else better long range shooters got recruited into the association, and three point attempts became about average. Ever since that happened, the two indicators tend to be pretty close, though with the points per three point attempt slightly above the average points per possession.

It’s be interesting to compare the comparable figures from NCAA and different European leagues. Have all leagues converged to this same equilibrium, or are there some places where the average points per three pointer is somewhat lower than the average points per possession.

One of the best things about not working at The Atlantic anymore is not counting Robert Kaplan among my professional colleagues. Here’s his take on modern-day Europe:

Europe, having been liberated from nuclear terror at the conclusion of the Cold War, proved unable to muster the gumption to deal with Yugoslavia on its own, or, as the case of Afghanistan shows, to demonstrate much enthusiasm for any great collective effort. Which leads to the question: What does the European Union truly stand for besides a cradle-to-grave social welfare system? For without something to struggle for, there can be no civil society—only decadence.

Thus, with their patriotism dissipated, European governments can no longer ask for sacrifices from their populations when it comes to questions of peace and war. Ironically, we may have gained victory in the Cold War, but lost Europe in the process.

Spencer Ackerman observes that there’s something rather crazy about the view that the Cold War was waged “so that European soldiers would one day become our cannon fodder.” One might further note that it’s not at all clear that the American public has any real desire to sacrifice anything in Afghanistan. It seems to me that one of the key props of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been the consensus on both the right (Bush, The Weekly Standard) and the center (Blue Dogs, The Washington Post) that it’s not necessary to raise hundreds of billions in tax revenue in order to pay for hundreds of billions in war expenditures. By far the fastest way to end the war in Afghanistan would be to ask General McChrystal’s staff to produce a plan to make it deficit neutral and find sixty votes in the senate for his financing plan.

In a larger sense, however, Kaplan is merely highlighting the fundamental difference between neoconservative thinking and thinking undertaken by people with a moral compass. As Alex Massie says, present-day Europe’s state of peace, prosperity, and physical security is a good thing. Neoconservatives, however, see war and death as good things. Irving Kristol told Corey Robin that market-oriented conservatism is too “boring” (“The notion of devoting your life to it is horrifying if only because it’s so repetitious. It’s like sex.”) so you need to inject some death and destruction into the mix to keep things interesting.

The world would be a better place if people looking for cheap thrills would stick to the black metal scene or maybe take up extreme sports rather than foreign policy punditry. But the point is that it’s extremely dangerous to take advice from people with this mindset—they’re not even trying to enhance the country’s security, they’re trying to embroil the country in wars.

It’s not quite the high-profile issue that health care or climate change is, but there’s been some interesting developments recently on the quest to get paid sick leave for all of America’s workers. The fact that many American workers get no sick leave whatsoever is rarely discussed in elite circles, most likely because, as Steven Greenhouse has highlighted with this chart, the phenomenon is quite class bound:

Advocates for changing the situation have made headway in terms of linking the issue to fears about the spread of H1N1 flu. Does it really serve even the interests of prosperous professionals to live in a country where low-wage food service workers, for example, are likely to show up at work while sick and infect everyone else? This was discussed at a recent CAP panel featuring, among others, Vice President Joe Biden and Domestic Policy Council chief Melody Barnes where they seemed generally supportive. But things took another important step forward today in the somewhat obscure venue of the Senate HELP Committee’s Subcommittee on Children and Families where Seth Harris, Deputy Secretary from the Labor Department, came to offer a strong statement of support for paid sick leave:

In conclusion, it is clear that while much has been done to help prepare for a national health emergency like 2009 H1N1, more is needed to help protect the economic security of working families who must choose between a pay check and their health and the health of their families. That is why the Administration supports the Healthy Families Act and other proposals that advance workplace flexibility and protect the income and security of workers. I appreciate your time today, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

It’s worth observing that this bill would, among other things, be a specific boon to parents since it would allow you to take sick leave in order to take care of a sick child. You’d think that might be the kind of thing “pro-family” conservatives would be interested in along with us godless socialists.

It seems Olympia Snowe might be more comfortable in a different political party:

This Public Policy Polling survey of Maine isn’t all that surprising: She has a 46/40 disapproval/approval rating from state Republicans. By a whopping 27 points, those same Republicans say they’d back a “conservative challenger” to Snowe in the 2012 GOP primary. Voters who picked the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008 and self-identified conservatives all oppose Snowe and want a challenger; basically everyone else in the state has a more positive view of Snowe, the poll found.

I don’t know whether these results are “surprising” or not, but I think they ought to change our understanding of the prospects of bipartisanship in health reform. This means that when you’re thinking about whether Snowe will support a bill or not, the issue ultimately comes down to not triggers versus non-triggers, or employer mandates versus free rider fees, but whether Snowe wants to remain a Republican or not. Based on this polling, a Snowe who votes for a comprehensive health care overhaul is basically not going to be viable as a GOP primary candidate. Conversely, a Snowe who votes for comprehensive health reform and switches parties would remain a very popular general election candidate with a safe seat.

Incidentally, this poll inspired me to look up who’s important in Maine GOP politics aside from Snow and Susan Collins. Turns out the top Republican in the State Senate is Kevin Raye, who’s also proprietor of Raye’s Mustard Mill, which is one of Maine’s finest food products. I don’t know much about the guy’s politics, but he makes great mustard!