Andy Kessler

Podcast: Instapundit - The Glen and Helen Show: Andy Kessler on the Revolution in Medicine

I did a podcast today with Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and his wife, Helen Smith, the Glenn and Helen Show. You can download an MP3 of the podcast here, or subscribe via iTunes here.

The discussion covered a lot of topics in The End of Medicine : How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor, and you can get a pretty good flavor of what the book is about. Helen had a "freakish" heart attack at age 37, misdiagnosed as panic disorder, and now has an implanted defibrillator. The idea of early detection of heart disease or cancer seemed to hit home with her.

"Do you ever wonder if your doctor is really doing a thorough job when you go in for your yearly physical? I do. You go in and he/she hits your knee with a rubber hammer, runs a few blood tests and asks about any symptoms--all the time, checking their watch to make sure they can get to the next patient. What if a tumor is growing inside you or your arteries are clogging up faster than last night's dinner in the drain of your kitchen sink? Wouldn't you want to know in advance so that treatment could be started immediately before your life is threatened? Well, soon you might."

Weekly Standard: Give Me Bandwidth...No one to root for in the net neutrality debate.

June 26, 2006 issue of The Weekly Standard

Finding it hard to understand the "net neutrality" debate? On one side are the hip, cool, billionaire web service companies like Google, eBay, Yahoo, and even Microsoft. Net neutrality is their rallying cry. Despite the fact that they are basically schlocky ad salesmen on a grand scale, they're pushing this quaint, self-serving '60s notion that the Internet is a town square--all for one and one for them, or something like that. Everyone should be allowed to hang out in the town square and use it as they please, one low price, eat all you want at the buffet.

As Dean Wormer might put it: Fat, drunk (on telco profits), and stupid is no way to go through life, son. Bam-Bam, not Barney Rubble is the future. Take the telcos and cable companies out at the knees.

On the other side are the monopolist plumbers like Verizon and AT&T and Comcast. These are the folks who laid the pipe that delivers the Internet--the blogs and pirated movies and photos of Shiloh Brangelina--to your house or office. They think the Internet is more like a giant shopping mall, and they're the mall owners. You the customer can walk around as if you were in the town square, but the tenants (see billionaire web service companies above) are going to have to pay for the upkeep of the premises. If they're one of the anchor stores, they might pay a lot.

In an effort to skim their own fees off the Google crowd, lobbyists and Congress have also taken up the fight. So far, the telcos are winning--a bid to add net neutrality language to a telecommunications bill was shot down 269-152 by the House on June 8--but this is one of those bizarre issues where both sides are off their rocker.