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Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Browser daily newsletter [21 Feb 2013]

21 February 2013

 Best of the Moment

Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

Steven Brill | Time | 20 February 2013

Familiar subject, dynamite long piece of investigative reporting. Must be a Pulitzer contender. "What are the reasons, good or bad, that cancer means a half-million- or million-dollar tab? Why should a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion bring a bill that can exceed the cost of a semester of college?"

The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food

Michael Moss | New York Times | 20 February 2013

Fourteen years ago the heads of America's biggest food companies held a secret meeting to discuss the early signs of an obesity epidemic. Did they agree to tackle the public health issue? Not exactly. They decided to profit from it, by making snack foods more addictive. Some industry figures now show a proper sense of shame. But the damage is done

When To Sell Your Company

Ev Williams | Medium | 20 February 2013

Founder of Blogger, Twitter, Medium, walks back through his rationale for dismissing an early bid for Twitter. It makes sense to sell your company when you get an offer so big that it captures all foreseeable upside; or when you face an imminent threat that you can't deal with alone; or when you've had enough of the business. Otherwise, hang on

Friends In Low Places: Where The Real Lobbying Happens

Jesse Eisinger | Pro Publica | 20 February 2013

So far from being adversaries, Congressional staffers, regulators and lobbyists have become the same group of people, swapping from job to job. "An outsider looking at a negotiating table would glance from lobbyist to staff member, from colleague to former colleague, from pig to man and from man to pig and find it impossible to say which is which"

Ice Removal

Scott Andrew Selby | Foreign Policy | 20 February 2013

How do you launder $50m of stolen diamonds? Very easily. "Anyone could walk in off the street with a few million dollars in polished diamonds and ask for them to be graded. Unless the person were acting very strangely, it is unlikely anyone would find this suspicious. This is a business in which millions of dollars in stones are commonly traded"

Video of the day: Unpretentiousil

Thought for the day:

"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true" — Homer Simpson

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