Does paying bonuses to doctors for running fewer tests and issuing fewer references to specialists violate the responsibilities that HMOs have to patients? The Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides of this issue on Wednesday. The LA Times has a good article on the issue that provides lots of background information on why most people aren’t allowed to sue their HMOs right now. For what it’s worth, I think that giving doctors a financial incentive not to order tests or otherwide provide the best care possible for their patients is clearly unethical, and ought to be illegal.

If you’re not a baseball fan, you probably haven’t noticed that spring training is under way. I think that the reason I love baseball more than all other sports is that you can analyze it “scientifically”. As an offer of proof, I provide you with this comparison of two young players. I love that stuff, and you just don’t see articles like it written about other sports.

Here’s a shock … when millions (and perhaps billions) of dollars are at stake, people are willing to play dirty to get as much of it as they can. The Industry Standard explains why it’s a bad idea to trust venture capitalists.

Ted Rall explains Godwin’s Law.

Here’s a sad tale about Congressional cynicism being applied forcefully on behalf of monied interests. It seems corrupt House member Thomas Bliley from Virginia ordered a GAO security audit of the EPA Web site and then maneuvered to force the agency to take down its Web site and public email by manipulating the media and Congressional procedures. One can only assume that he did this because he’s in the pocket of corporate contributors who are regulated by the EPA.

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours? Dell has released its first multiprocessor desktop PC for the corporate market on the heels of the Windows 2000 release? Why? Because Windows 2000 is so bloated that you need two processors to achieve the same performance you could with Windows NT 4.0. At least that’s what Dell thinks. Also: Windows 2000 is supposed to be great for laptops because it provides all sorts of laptop-related features that were in Windows 95 but weren’t in Windows NT. Of course if it’s that much slower than Windows NT, won’t it really suck on laptops, which are slower than desktop PCs? And finally, one of the best new features in Windows 2000 (at least from Microsoft’s perspective) is the new licensing scheme that will cost customers big bucks.

Here’s a funny link that’s been floating around: a comparison of Windows NT vs. CP/M.

Simon St. Laurent offers a fine bit of XML evangelism over at A List Apart this week. If you’ve never really understood what the hype is about when it comes to XML, you should read the article.

It seems to me that Wired News has the appropriate take on the recent study showing that the more time people spend on the Internet, the less time they spend doing other things.

Check out the online Linux desktop at www.workspot.com. It’s amazing.