The plural of anecdote IS data [part 2]

Someday I will actually work on improving my blogulation skills, like learning to make sticky posts. For now I'll just make a new post occasionally, with updated data and just lazily link to my introductory rant. You needn't bother to follow the links in the original post, I've reproduced them all here.


Data to be updated periodically*
[compilation of anecdotes]

• pregnancy, followed by baby with rare genetic disorder [more examples in the comments]



• video interviews [4 so far] of people who have been denied health care



• a loophole [soon to be closed?]



• Sticker shock -- Twisty can afford can afford to pay for the cancer drugs that her insurance won't cover, but few of us could



• Suspicious breast lump? Sorry, go away.



• Lose your job, your money, your house when you get cancer. Oh yeah, and you'll never be able to get insurance again. [1st comment, by Spinning Liz]



• Moral of this story: Don't get old. [the long-term care insurance industry is just as good for you as the health insurance industry]



• Bob Herbert would start with guaranteed coverage for all kids, but he's still looking like a pro-corporatist shill here [thanks, syd]



• Using ethically questionable methods to sell "privatized Medicare" [Medicare-replacement insurance] to the elderly, then hitting them with high costs, such as huge co-pays [and not all doctors accept these plans either]



• “Actually, I was going to become one of the 45 million uninsured for the summer,” she said. “The think tank does not provide insurance for ‘temporary’ employees, and my school did not allow extension of health insurance post-graduation. I still haven’t found a reasonably priced insurance plan for this period.”
  
  Aaaaargh! When a newly minted doctor investigating Americans’ access to medical care has no insurance — then you know that our health care system is truly bankrupt. [quoting Kristof becuase I'm too lazy to condense it for you]



• "I want to be able to eat more often. I would like to have my SSI back until I can work. I'd like to have a place to live besides with my bipolar mother. I don't think it's really too much to ask. It would be nice if elderly people didn't have to choose between food or medication. It would have been wonderful if I didn't have to wait several months to get a pair of glasses, simply because I couldn't afford to buy new ones when mine broke. I can't see much without them. I don't want to live off the government either. It's not a choice for me right now. Despite what some may think. I'm not lazy or stupid, I'm sick. I need medical care so that I don't die."



• skitch, like he always does, entertains with a story that could have turned out badly



• James Capozzola, 1962-2007, a blogger who probably died because he couldn't get insurance



• [this space to be filled at a later date]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]

* particularly if syd keeps providing me with stuff.

[interlude]

Mom cat, kittens, curmudgeon cat, and the dog are all doing well. I, on the other hand, am feeling a bit under the weather. Back whenever.

Detente, part 1

When last we blogged on all things kitten, a couple of nights ago, the dog had enthusiastically joined in the kitten games. Over-enthusiastically, in mom cat's opinion. As a result, relations at last night's open door policy session were a tad strained.

Mom cat gives dog the evil eye.

Dog wisely decides that retreat is the better part of diplomacy.
Blue kitten 2 and patches kitten are brave enough to play at ground level.

Tiger kitten, mom cat, and blue kitten 1 watch from above.

Help! We're being invaded by kittens!

Actually, that was my nefarious plan all along.

These kittens are not receptive to people. The dog has been very patient, and after many hours he has convinced them that he is [mostly] harmless. They will now all, mom cat too, walk up to the dog, even going so far as to touch noses with him.

Me, they run from. And hide. For ages after I walk out onto the porch, bearing food and water. Tiny fluffy cute little ingrates. But every evening, as I sit here in front of the computer blogging all things kitten, or lie on the sofa reading all things Agatha, I've left the door open between the porch and the living room. Mom cat was the first to cave. Because of this, I think it's possible that she's not truly feral, but a pet that was dumped when the owners moved.

Anyways, Mom cat has made several forays into and around the living room, streaking out of here in a flash of blue-cat lightning if I so much as turn the page in my book. Ttyping doesn't bother her, though. Maybe it's because reading is quiet, punctuated by a sudden move [hand reaches up to corner of page], accompanied by a sudden sound [sound of page turning]. Typing on the other hand, is a steady[-ish] stream of white noise [punctuated by the occasional muttered four-letter word], accompanied by a steady stream of white-noise-like movements.

Difficult to know what goes on inside their furry little heads, though. Probably Schrodinger equations [forgive the lack of umlaut].

Patches kitten was the first to follow mom cat's lead and step foot over the threshold. Got both front feet inside, planted on the carpet, and froze, as though wondering how the heck to get one's feet back off the carpet. Evidently, picking up one paw to return it to the outdoors puts too much weight on the paw that's still on the carpet. Careful, dude! That paw might sink irretrievably into those fibers!

The problem was solved by rocking back on the hindquarters and simultaneously lifting both front paws, followed by a pirouette to freedom.

Sofas are irresistible though, and patches kitten was back last night, bounding over the threshold, around the door jamb, and behind the sofa. Then out from under the sofa. Then around the legs of the coffee table, under the sofa, back our from behind the sofa, around the door jamb, followed by a final leap from the carpet of the indoors to the concrete of the outdoors. Do... While...

What signal is it that travels through a school of fish, a flock of birds, a herd of horses, where all individuals suddenly move as one organism? I don't know, but I saw it in action tonight: all four kittens burst through the doorway, all at once, all lined up for the start of the Preakness, and stampeded into the living room, heading for the sofa.

The dog is thrilled. The kittens have now come to see him! All those hours he has patiently lain here just inside the door, or slowly and gently stepped out onto the porch have paid off. Unfortunately he got into the spirit of things a bit too enthusiastically and ran out onto the porch when the kittens did. Mom cat took this badly and fluffed up to three times her size. I've called the dog back inside, and closed the door, but I can still hear mom cat's fur crackling from here.

No photos tonight. Too much fun just watching.

Reserve yours now.

mom cat: _____________
tiger kitten: upstairs neighbor
patches kitten: DragonTat2
blue kitten 1: _____________
blue kitten 2: _____________
dog: mine
curmudgeon cat: mine, and he wants his porch back. yesterday.

subversive

The kittens are home again, all four, safely corraled. Until they get their climbing legs under them, which should be in just a few days. With luck the new containment [and my nerves] will last through the rest of this work week. Mom cat continues to sneak over the wall for now.

Speaking of work, I went off to it this morning not knowing the fate of any of the five furries. Not knowing what to expect from the animal control side of the issue, I took off from work early today and went by the pound, just before they closed, just in case they had any new additions. None that I recognized, thank goodness.

Three long narrow rooms of just stray cats, floor-to-ceiling cages on each long wall, every cage filled, almost all of them with mom cats and their kittens. I wanted to take them all home with me. Not home home, just out of there. The survival statistics are grim and I will leave it to you to do the arithmetic, should you be so inclined.

The visit was heartening in one respect: the employee who took me on the look-for-your-impounded-pet tour is sympathetic to the plight of feral cats, and took down detailed descriptions of mom cat and the four kittens, promising to keep a special lookout for them and detailing everything I could do to maximize the chances for survival of my Fab Five, as I've come to think of them. Stray cats get 24 hours here and then pffft! that's it for them.

So now I feel like I have my very own mole in the animal control department. This appeals to the subversive in me. In keeping with the theme of subversion, I include this photo: dark, grainy, hard to make out. There really are five cats in there. The quote stenciled on the mat they're sleeping on: This is not a joke. If you ever want to see these people again, leave 5 lbs of fresh tuna in a plain brown bag. Signed, the cat.

I was afraid this would happen.

The kittens have been getting out and about and drawing lots of admiring attention. Neighbors have been dropping by more and more the past few days [it's a large and busy apartment complex], and ooh-ing and ah-ing over them. I'd almost managed to lure them into the great indoors by last night, but Momcat moved them off the porch late this afternoon.

The dog and I went out looking for them just a little while ago, but didn't find them anywhere nearby. I've left out food and water [and hiding places] for them, hoping they'll sneak back under cover of darkness, but I'm none too sanguine about this.

The weather is mild, we're surrounded by dense scrubby woods full of prey [why there are so many ferals around here in the first place], and several of the residents leave food out for the "neighborhood" cats. Their chances of survival are better than many, and certainly better than if the management had called animal control and had them taken away.

If they don't come back on their own, the dog and I will be taking longer and more frequent walks through the neighborhood, but this evening we're both sitting around the place moping, feeling sorry for ourselves.


UPDATE! I hear mewing from the front porch!
oh... i hope... i hope...

Updated update: A momcat-sized shadow and three kitten-sized shadows [one of them definitely black and white patched] were visible in the dark when I peeked out the window just now. Okay, I can sleep now.

It's right here in black and white.

mom cat: supervising is the hardest job




tiger kitten: who knocked over the food bowl?




patches kitten: what food bowl? where?




blue kitten 1: not me! i'm way over here by the water bowl and my doppelganger is ... somewhere.




blue kitten 2: you'll never take me alive!




dog: i can clean that up for you.

"... the injustice of having to leave your country,

simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it... "

Appalachian Springtime

Kimchi


via

Everything you always wanted to know about sex,

but couldn't see. Until now.

Stuff you might ought to know about.

Or not.

I've been running a bit of a spoon deficit lately, so I'm not up for actually writing [or even thinking] right now, but I thought I'd point out some items I found at the Public Citizen Consumer Law and Policy Blog. What they said.


Food

• Preventing Contamination Of Our Food Supply: Is FDA Up To The Task?

Privacy

• The Spy Act Protects Corporations, Not Consumers


• More Google Privacy Fears


• Uncle Sam: Dangerously Careless With Our SSNs

Corporations behaving badly and Lobbyists run amok

• Is There A Relationship Between Predatory Mortgage Lending And Political Contributions?

Skip the above if you like, but read the links in this post

• Poverty in Business Week

syd: get lost!

Also, you have to listen to me because

Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: You are your own God or Goddess   Sorry to say, i have no answer that fits you. You are your very own person, and you like to do things your own way. You have stumped me this time, but i will soon make a quiz that will have your answer, just you wait...
Jesus
God Zeus
Budha
Goddess Sekhemet
The Christian God
Satan
Goddess Bast
Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz

Some definitions, from Wikipedia

universal health care
publicly-funded health care
socialized medicine
social health insurance
single-payer health care

The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells present an analysis and an answer. It's a lengthy read, but mostly correct.

Y'all have to listen to me.

The New York Times says so.

You can take the quiz here and read the article here.

[via]

A Modest Proposal

Medicare [2005, 2006]:
37 million old folks [2005]
$324,911,000,000 spent on their medical care [2006]
not quite $9000 per person

Veterans Affairs [2007]:
5.5 million veterans
$31,510,000,000 spent on their medical care
not quite $6000 per person


Nobody wants to see the health insurance industry go belly up [well, I do]. They're taking in and throwing around a chunk of money: $227 billion last year [about $12 billion of it profit] for the 13 largest companies. The disappearance of those 13 companies alone would [theoretically] put 200,000 or so folks out of work [not entirely].

Thud! Thunk! Crash! That's the sound of free-marketeers falling over in a dead faint at the very thought. Nanny state! Socialized medicine! Government interference between a woman and her doctor!

Oh. Boo. Hoo.

So, a proposal for them [and you]: let ordinary people buy their way into their choice of either Medicare or the VA system.

How much should the government charge? It would be a challenge, but I could swing $6000/year if in return I got guaranteed coverage. In fact, that's just about what I was paying before, to the insurance company, for coverage that turned out to be useless once I reached my [$1500? I forget] out-of-pocket maximum. Funny thing, but about the same time I reached that magic out-of-pocket number, the insurance company had paid out about $5000 to my doctors, hospitals, labs, etc, at which point they started denying the rest of my claims.

It's not like any for-profit insurance company is going to offer to cover me now for $6000 or even $10,000 per year in my present state of health. What have they got to fear from uninsured and uninsurable little me?

I'm firmly of the opinion that we could and should jump right into single-payer universal health care, but until the rest of you agree with me, I would be happy to follow the Libertarian mantra and go vote with my dollars.

Speaking of China

It's not just our pets that they're poisoning.

No, it's not West Texas

It's China. That infamous Wall, to be exact.

Yes, I do have a "thing" for China.

I'm a girl!

Finally. I usually end up being labelled a boy on all these Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus tests.
And you are... ?

eight clouds

tagging the candidates

via

The plural of anecdote IS data [part 1]

I've grown tired of that stoopid shibboleth: the plural of anecdote is not data. But I have grown even more tired of that other shibboleth: health care rationing. Just try to get good hard data on that from insurance companies. Pretty much leaves us with just anecdotes to analyze.

I, for one, do not believe we'd have a serious rationing problem if we went to single-payer universal health care. But if we did, I'd much rather the rationing get decided based on my fellow citizens' health care needs or even on a first-come-first-served basis outside of emergencies. I do not consider it right that rationing be based on the profit margins of corporations.

Besides, I'm old enough [just barely!] to remember when doctors were the medical experts, not accountants. I'm also old to remember when insurance companies really and truly sold you insurance, rather than just bet with you on the state of your health and then welsh on their bets. I'd really, really, really like to go back to that era. I'd even be happy with high-deductible, major-medical, guaranteed-coverage, for-profit insurance. That guaranteed coverage is a sticker though. This country has already gone way far past the point where we hold corporations to the same standard of responsibility that we demand of the fellow in the street.

Speaking of insurance company profits, check out the Industry: Health Care: Insurance & Managed Care Fortune 500 list for 2007.



So, anyways, excuse the tangential rant, back on topic: rationing. Anybody who doesn't think we already have rationing right now, here, today, in the good ol' US of A, hasn't been paying attention. Some of the forms that rationing takes:

• waiting periods for coverage


• partial coverage with none for pre-existing conditions


• complete refusal of coverage because of particular conditions, past or present [asthma, once had anti-depressants prescribed, had cancer, ...]


• not to mention deciphering all the gobbledygook in the fine print, which basically leaves them lots of weasel room when deciding how much of any one charge for any one service they will pay for [and argue with you about till you decide it's easier or cheaper to pay it yourself].


• [add your example here]

Data to be updated periodically*

[compilation of anecdotes]

• pregnancy, followed by baby with rare genetic disorder [more examples in the comments]


• video interviews [4 so far] of people who have been denied health care


• a loophole [soon to be closed?]


• Sticker shock -- Twisty can afford can afford to pay for the cancer drugs that her insurance won't cover, but few of us could


• Suspicious breast lump? Sorry, go away.


• Lose your job, your money, your house when you get cancer. Oh yeah, and you'll never be able to get insurance again. [1st comment, by Spinning Liz]


• Moral of this story: Don't get old. [the long-term care insurance industry is just as good for you as the health insurance industry]


• Bob Herbert would start with guaranteed coverage for all kids, but he's still looking like a pro-corporatist shill here [thanks, syd]


• Using ethically questionable methods to sell "privatized Medicare" [Medicare-replacement insurance] to the elderly, then hitting them with high costs, such as huge co-pays [and not all doctors accept these plans either]


• “Actually, I was going to become one of the 45 million uninsured for the summer,” she said. “The think tank does not provide insurance for ‘temporary’ employees, and my school did not allow extension of health insurance post-graduation. I still haven’t found a reasonably priced insurance plan for this period.”
  
  Aaaaargh! When a newly minted doctor investigating Americans’ access to medical care has no insurance — then you know that our health care system is truly bankrupt. [quoting Kristof becuase I'm too lazy to condense it for you]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]


• [this space to be filled at a later date]

* I'm much better at starting projects than keeping up with them. If you didn't already know that, you haven't been paying attention.

Is his name

Janus?

via

Ezra Klein waxes eloquent on health care

here.


And a resource: The Health Care Blog. My favorite comment at that blog:

Damn. What could be simpler than a single-risk pool Medicare-for-all system with no tricks of the trade, 100% coverage, no pre-existing disease issues, no wait times when changing jobs or even becoming unemployed, no COBRA, no employee questionairres to be later used to rescind an individual or group policy, and etc etc etc?

Will we ever get to be that smart?

Posted by: Jack Lohman | Feb 1, 2007 8:08:47 AM

From a Publishers Weekly editorial review of Maggie Mahar's Money Driven Medicine:

She traces how today's market-driven medical system emerged over the past century thanks to trends that gradually stripped power from doctors and gave it to corporations, turning patients into profit centers.

Fox news

with apologies to Jimmy Buffet
life is just a trampoline

"...a cross between Robert Louis Stevenson and Douglas Adams."

That's what one customer review says about Pirates of Pensacola. The others are blandly lukewarm.

Still... Douglas Adams died way too soon. If there's a possible replacement out there for him, I'm going to at least check it out. Adding this one to the list of "books I can wait for till they come to the public library."

I want one.

Gosh, it's cute.


i sense a recurring theme here...

Of jaguars and piano cats

Mexico is host to approximately 10% of all plant and animal species in the world. All those years I lived this || far from Mexico, and traveling into that country frequently, though mostly in the border towns. Places like Matamoros ... Nuevo Laredo ... Juarez. Places that, in spite of their physical beauty and cultural richness, I mainly rememeber for their poverty and violence. And people. Masses of people everywhere. The only animals I can associate with time spent in Mexico are the mental images I have of fly-covered cabrito in the open-air markets or the little carved onyx trinkets I bought: a bear, a burro, a turtle, some horses.

Among the thousands crossing the border from Mexico into the US, stealthy shadowy immigrants rarely seen, though, were jaguars. And ocelots. I'm thrilled to have discovered today, while saving the rain forests with just the click of a mouse, the jaguars of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve.



As I understand it, Friday cat blogging is supposed to be all about taking one day off and lightening up from the angst of political blogging. As you can see, I have trouble leaving politics out of most anything. But now, in the true spirit of Friday cat blogging, I present: Nora.

They have art in Angola?

Angola, for as long as I've ever heard of it has always been a place of war and pestilence, a place where lives truly are nasty, brutish, and short. They have art there?

Why, yes they do. Why wouldn't they? All art is a revolt against man's fate. Just the other day I stumbled into these woods, In the company of wolves, vaguely expecting something Arctic, I think. Instead, what I got was a fascinating trip to one corner of Africa.

Art isn't the only subject of the blog, nor is it exclusively about Angola, but you might enjoy the trip anyway.


Tonight is a two-fer. Mustang Bobby reminds us Why We Need Theatre.

The other reason I got my hair cut.

Snakes in a drain

One man's abortion.

DBB writes passionately and intimately about his abortion. True, it was his wife who had the abortion, but this one was a bit different. You should go read it.

He's also posted a heartwarming tale of their first pregnancy.

Daily Darfur

Blogswarm!

Take Back The Blog!

Mostly I'm either late to these things, or write pathetic posts, so I may or may not participate in this one. I like the idea, though, so if any of you feel motivated, do check it out.

found it here

Are they religious zealots, misogynists, or just plain idiots?

Lots of bloviating in the blogosphere as to whether this cartoon is anti-Catholic. I say it's not. Every single one of the Catholics on the Supreme Court voted to uphold the nation-wide ban on "partial birth abortion" [more properly referred to as intact D&E]. Every single one of the non-Catholics on the Supreme Court voted to to strike down that ban. It's the duty of editorial cartoonists to point out stuff like this, and to do so in a pointed manner too.

There's also the further bloviating on whether these Catholic judges really did let their religious beliefs influence their decision. I think it's very possible that they did, and I find this scary. If you read the entire opinion and the dissent, you can see that Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, expends a lot of words on "moral" issues. This isn't conclusive proof either, but it's suggestive.

However, I'll save you the morality bit, and move on to the part that's really bothering me. Kennedy thinks there's legitimate dissent in the medical community on the health risks associated with various abortion procedures. He gasses on at length about this too, but here's part of it:

Here, by contrast, whether the Act creates significant health risks for women has been a contested factual question. The evidence presented in the trial courts and before Congress demonstrates both sides have medical support for their position.

Respondents presented evidence that intact D&E may be the safest method of abortion, for reasons similar to those adduced in Stenberg. See 530 U. S., at 932. Abortion doctors testified, for example, that intact D&E decreases the risk of cervical laceration or uterine perforation because it requires fewer passes into the uterus with surgical instruments and does not require the removal of bony fragments of the dismembered fetus, fragments that may be sharp. Respondents also presented evidence that intact D&E was safer both because it reduces the risks that fetal parts will remain in the uterus and because it takes less time to complete. Respondents, in addition, proffered evidence that intact D&E was safer for women with certain medical conditions or women with fetuses that had certain anomalies.

These contentions were contradicted by other doctors who testified in the District Courts and before Congress. They concluded that the alleged health advantages were based on speculation without scientific studies to support them. They considered D&E always to be a safe alternative.

Ginsburg, on the other hand, goes right to the heart of that matter:

In this insistence, the [Supreme] Court brushes under the rug the District Courts' well-supported findings that the physicians who testified that intact D&E is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman had slim authority for their opinions. They had no training for, or personal experience with, the intact D&E procedure, and many performed abortions only on rare occasions.

So, which is it? Is Kennedy [and the other four concurring Catholics] too stupid to distinguish the real experts from the wannabe experts? Or did he just gloss over the opinions of the true experts because they didn't support his moral [read: religious] views?

Then again, it could simply be outright misogyny. Kennedy blathers on, in a most patronizing manner, about protecting the woman's fragile emotional state. Ginsburg blasts him for that too. In fact, she neatly tears apart all of Kennedy's legal, moral, and pseudo-scientific reasoning.

These are all disturbing thoughts, trying to discern the possible motivations behind the decision, but the scariest thing to me is that FIVE Supreme Court justices are either unwilling or unable to recognize who the credible experts really are here.

Partial Birth Abortion

In 1911, the elegant Grace Miller posed in fashionable clothes. She and a partner operated The Ladies Tailoring College. Grace secured her hat with a long hat pin, and a second pin was held ready between her teeth. A breeze could send a large hat flying away, and pins through the hairdo and hat kept the hat in place.


Dave Nalle gives us a description of the partial birth abortion ban and wonders which way the Supreme Court will rule. Well, we need wonder no longer. Pseudo-doctors Anthony M. Kennedy, John G. Roberts Jr, Samuel A. Alito Jr, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, practicing medicine without a license, have decided that "partial birth abortion" is never medically necessary "... because other abortion procedures are still available."

Yes, the phrase "partial birth abortion" is used in the text of the law itself, rather than the medical term "dilation and extraction intact dilation and evacuation." You can read a good description of the procedure, and when and why it is used here.

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban, odious as it is, does at least include an exception for its use if the mother's life is in danger, but it does not allow a physician to use the procedure for saving the mother's health. Only her life is of value, not her health or well-being.

The procedure is gruesome, even when described coldly and clinically and devoid of all the loaded words and images favored by abortion opponents. However, from my [admittedly frivolous] reading of hundreds of murder mysteries and true crime books, I have learned that one quick jab of the Victorian woman's hatpin to the base of the skull and the poor guy never knew what hit him. Whether this is true or not, I don't really know, but it strikes me as a better way to die [if you're unlucky enough to be a fetus with with gross abnormalities and no hope of surviving] than being delivered by caesarian section and then dying.

Do they give the poor little things some kind of pain killer while they're lying there waiting for the Angel of Death to swoop down upon them?

If you can stand it, the video is of a baby being delivered by caesarian section.

Live long and prosper.

That does it. I'm moving to Andorra and I don't even know where that is. Failing that, I do know where Aruba is. I think I could stand to live there.

[please forgive the formatting. i'll fix it if i figure it out.]

Life Expectancy:
Rank Country Name Male Female All

1 Andorra 80.56 86.56 83.46
2 Macau S.A.R. 78.80 84.55 81.60
3 San Marino 77.57 85.02 81.14
4 Japan 77.51 84.05 80.70
5 Singapore 77.10 83.23 80.05
6 Australia 76.90 82.74 79.75
7 Guernsey 76.65 82.75 79.65
8 Switzerland 76.73 82.63 79.60
9 Sweden 76.95 82.37 79.58
10 Hong Kong S.A.R. 76.85 82.41 79.54
11 Canada 76.02 83.00 79.43
12 Iceland 77.19 81.77 79.39
13 Italy 75.85 82.41 79.03
14 Gibraltar 76.09 81.96 78.95
15 Cayman Islands 76.10 81.27 78.88
16 Monaco 74.88 83.00 78.84
17 Liechtenstein 75.16 82.47 78.81
18 Spain 75.32 82.49 78.79
19 France 74.85 82.89 78.76
20 Norway 75.73 81.77 78.65
21 Israel 76.57 80.67 78.57
22 Jersey 76.07 81.07 78.48
23 Greece 75.89 81.16 78.44
24 Faroe Islands 74.96 81.92 78.43
25 Aruba 75.00 81.90 78.37
26 Netherlands 75.40 81.28 78.28
27 Martinique 79.03 77.46 78.25
28 Virgin Islands 74.20 82.25 78.11
29 Montserrat 75.78 80.23 77.96
30 Malta 75.49 80.62 77.94
31 New Zealand 74.85 80.93 77.82
32 Belgium 74.47 81.30 77.80
33 Guam 75.51 80.37 77.78
34 Austria 74.52 80.99 77.68
35 United Kingdom 74.97 80.49 77.66
36 Saint Pierre and Miquelon 75.36 79.95 77.60
37 Man, Isle of 74.09 81.04 77.47
38 Germany 74.30 80.75 77.44
39 Finland 73.74 81.20 77.41
40 Jordan 74.94 79.93 77.36
41 Luxembourg 73.84 80.63 77.13
42 United States 74.24 79.90 77.12
43 Guadeloupe 73.82 80.30 76.99
44 Bermuda 74.89 78.86 76.94
45 Saint Helena 73.95 79.85 76.83
46 Ireland 74.06 79.74 76.81
47 Cyprus 74.43 79.10 76.71
48 Denmark 73.95 79.27 76.54
49 Taiwan 73.62 79.32 76.35
50 Cuba 73.84 78.73 76.21
51 Anguilla 73.22 79.09 76.11
52 French Guiana 72.77 79.60 76.10
53 Kuwait 75.27 76.92 76.08
54 Costa Rica 73.30 78.47 75.82
55 Portugal 72.24 79.49 75.75
56 Chile 72.43 79.22 75.74
57 Puerto Rico 71.05 80.30 75.55
58 Northern Mariana Islands 72.45 78.82 75.54
59 Panama 72.74 78.31 75.47
60 Montenegro 71.45 79.82 75.46



Ah, here it is, in between Spain and France, best skiing in the Pyrenees. A bit far from the sea, but I could be happy skiing.

In my country there is problem ...

Throw Imus down the well! I've confused SBC's characters here, but The Poor Man has my favorite take on the Imus flap so far. Booyakasha!

Titan

more

Life is a beach.

Scribble Beach

Yes, there IS steam coming out of my ears.

Harvard panel on the AutoAdmit mess [audio]

Fun to listen to ivory tower inhabitants discussing trolls on the web. It's a lengthy file, and it's late, so I'll come back to it later.

found it at PrawfsBlawg

I need to get my hair cut. Now.

I can't go out of the house looking like Ann Coulter! Argh! I promise to not get it cut this short though.

Four dollars and eighty-seven cents? For a poster? Young Republicans are such cheapskates.

Back on the topic of bad haircuts: did we really used to look like this?

Well, ok, so none of y'all were alive then.

The Tax Man Cometh

TurboTax Rap

win $$

Yes, Joe, it IS open season on Christians.

[y'all are right: he's an idiot and i don't need to be wasting my blog space on him.]

Kinky fats.

It's been a while since everybody was up in arms over banning trans fats. What people didn't understand at first [maybe they still don't] is that -- for once -- no, the food nazis were not trying to keep you from eating calorie-laden food. Instead, the point is to make restaurants serve you food, not some chemically-altered something-or-other thought up by food scientists. That stuff'll kill you.

Anyways, I was going to go into some explanations of cis versus trans fat, but it's already been the Molecule of the Day elsewhere.

"Our officers need more firepower."

"The bad guys are outgunning us."

So now we need to take pictures of everybody's license plates, even when they're not doing anything wrong. If you like red light cameras, you'll love this.


More here. YouTube has everything.




Veriplate website

US Petition for Public Access to Research

Check it out at Public Library of Science. Sign it, if not for yourself, then for me.

Public Library of Science

I hope this idea catches on and runs like wildfire through the entire scientific community.

PLoS is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. All our activities are guided by our core principles.

I have long wished for, and argued for, complete and open [read: free] access to peer-reviewed science and medical journals. I get into lots of arguments in blogs, on message boards, in real life, in which I'm challenged to back up my statements. I'm almost always right [April Fools Day jokes notwithstanding], and a quick Google Scholar or other search often turns up just the right article[s] I need to buttress my point. Voila! Click on the relevant link and get directed to an abstract [or sometimes an abstract of an abstract] and a link to buy a copy of the article.

WTF?! Twenty or thirty dollars to buy one article?! At that rate I could spend my entire paycheck between coffee break and supper time.

• Didn't my tax dollars already pay for you to not only do this research but also for you or your institution to subscribe to this [horrendously expensive] journal? Yes, they did, so don't tell me that's why you need to charge me such outrageous fees again.


• Nor am I buying the "it costs big $$ to store all that information" argument. Google and YouTube, and many more sites like them, let me and countless millions of other folks blog and vlog for free. That's a lot of server space, dudes; if they can do it so can you.


• And finally: No I do not trust the MSM* to read and accurately regurgitate scientific literature for me. I want to read it for myself.

* I've already forgotten which blog I saw it on, but we're being exhorted to stop calling it the "mainstream media" and start calling it the "corporate-owned media." It's a good idea, but MSM looks better than COM, and typing out the full phrase just increases my chances of making embarassing spelling mistakes. I'll be sticking with MSM for a bit longer I think.

I want one.

Gosh, it's cute.

I'm still confused.

Oooookkkkkaaaaayyyyy.

Apparently Michael Egnor is just an elaborate April Fools joke. Apparently I'm supposed to be mortified for believing that IDers are the same thing as YECies, or perhaps I'm supposed to be mortified for believing that a respected surgeon and medical school professor could be a YECie.

Bad on me for falling for that last one, believing that a respected surgeon and medical school professor could be a Young Earth Creationist, but the thing I'm still unclear on: to me it still looks like Egnor does in fact believe in Intelligent Design.


I don't have a problem with scientists, engineers, doctors et al, believing in God or believing that a supernatural Intelligent Designer does indeed exist and did create all of us.

I already know that YEC and ID aren't the same thing. YEC denies evolution entirely, and ID believes that antibiotic resistance in bacteria evoles but that flagella did not. Yes, that was facetious and simplistic, but not unfair.

The problem with both philosophies is that they want science to stop asking questions, to stop looking for natural explanations for the world around us when we reach points that we don't have answers for [yet], to teach in schools and colleges that [whatever] is so because God said so.

That's Philosophy, not Science, and the real joke they're going to play on us is if we let them get away with muddling the two.


UPDATE 4-2-2007: I need to just stop paying attention to these people. It's turning my brains to mush. Thanks for the tipoff, sparky.

Happy April 1, 2007, to you too!

everything you always wanted to know about TiSP but were afraid to ask

Happy Bunsen Burner Day!

Best Wishes and have fun!

Friday mixed species blogging

Life is short. Play with your food.

Speedpainting with Ketchup and French Fries



Speedpainting with Chocolate and Spoon



drawing lessons

Lemmings ... Cliff ...

from The Week in Political Cartoons

The Practitioner's Reference Book

Adapted to the Use of the Physician, the Pharmacist, and the Student
... By Richard James Dunglison, MD
1878

Grab a beer, pop some popcorn, it's 2 hours long.

The Collapse of Intelligent Design
Will the Next Monkey Trial be in Ohio?



found it at Red State Rabble

Some of my best friends have penises. And blogs.

In spite of being a [sometimes radical and militant] feminist, I like men. Really, I do [stop that snickering!]. Heck, I even fell in love with one once. Lived with him for quite a while too.

But the world, including blogotopia, has creeps and jerkfaces in it and damned if they don't all seem to be men.

Anything in the service of science...

I know this || much about Google bombs, link fests, etc, but if I can help in even a tiny way to throw monkey wrenches into the workings of creationism, I'm happy to try. From Coturnix:

Michael Egnor

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Michael Egnor being a notable physician who has recently become affiliated with the creationist Discovery Institute

FDA: Fibbers and Dissemblers Administration

Uh oh. Cloned food animals really are different from ordinary food animals. Not that the FDA was going to tell you that.

I swear, it's enough to make you wonder if the Bush administration is so obsessed with controlling sex that not even farm animals can be allowed to indulge in it.

8099 warriors and their horses can't be wrong

thanks be to Echidne for pointing out some lovely photos of China, home of the terra cotta army

I was looking for something else

and found this:

South Carolina

Hey! That's me! Number 1090 and I voted NO.



South Carolina wants to force women to look at an ultrasound image of their own fetus before being allowed to have an abortion.

Opinions vary predictably: the female OB-Gyn is opposed to this bill, but the male OB-GYN seems to approve of it, and the male pastor doesn't condemn it very strongly.

If you can't stand the thought of reading the entire article [I couldn't], that's ok. Just go vote in the poll here. Not that I have a lot of faith in this one little poll being able to sway a significant number of votes in the South Carolina legislature, but it can't hurt to try.

Just for you, Keifus

The chemical engineers are going to save us!

New biofuels process promises to meet all U.S. transportation needs

And if the Chem E's can't save us, maybe the high school students can.

Stonehenge Reloaded

found it here

I've always wanted to go to New Zealand.

And I've never believed that carnard about "socialized medicine will lead to rationing."

• Americans are The Healthiest People in the World.
  
  FACT: Citizens of 34 nations live longer than Americans.


• The U.S. is the Best Place to Get Sick.
  
  FACT: The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world for health system performance. Countries like Australia and the United Kingdom rank above the U.S. Americans have lower odds of surviving colorectal cancer and childhood leukemia than Canadians who do have national health care. Americans also experience greater problems in coordination of care than the previously mentioned countries and New Zealand.


• Covering All Americans Will Lead to Rationing.
  
  FACT: Same-day access to primary-care physicians in the U.S. (33%) is far less available than in the United Kingdom (41%), Australia (54%) and New Zealand (60%). Per capita spending for health care averaged $2,696 in countries without waiting lists and $5,267 in the U.S.


• Global Competitiveness is Hampered in Comprehensive System.
  
  FACT: "Health care costs are not just a burden and barrier to care for individuals; they are taking a heavy toll on American businesses." The strain on employers in 2005 was staggering. "The average total premiums for an employer-based family plan was $9,979 in 2005 ..." Most of our competitors in the world markets finance their systems outside corporate taxes and employer mandates. Without Medicare for Everyone, the U.S. will continue to hemorrhage jobs.


• We Cannot Afford to Cover All Americans.
  
  FACT: We already spend enough to have universal health care. "The truth is, we cannot afford to not reform the health system." We spend about 50% more than the next most expensive nation and nearly twice per person what the Canadians do. On May 1, 2006 Paul Krugman explained in Death by Insurance how incredibly wasteful the current system is. The doctor he referenced has two full-time staff members for billing, and two secretaries spend half their time collecting insurance information on the 301 different private plans they deal with. This type of waste is easily 20%. Also consider that 98% of Medicare funds are spent on medical care.

Please call your member of congress today

in my e-mail inbox, from Kucinich 2008:


Dear Friends,

Four years ago this week, in violation of international law, standing upon a mountain of lies, the United States went to war against the people of Iraq. Our nation now has the moral responsibility for the deaths of as many as 650,000 to one million innocent Iraqi civilians, for the destruction of Iraq, and the theft of billions of dollars in oil assets.

Those who told lies to take us into war should be held accountable under the U.S. Constitution and at the International Criminal Court.

Instead of true accountability on the war, this week Congress may give the President and Vice President more than $100 billion to keep the war going through the end of their term. More war, more civilian deaths, more U.S. soldiers killed or maimed. Less money for housing, for health care, for education, for seniors here at home as we borrow money from Beijing to keep the war going in Baghdad.

Instead of accountability, the appropriations bill will mandate the privatization of $6 trillion in Iraq oil assets, and it will provide money which can be used to attack Iran in an attempt to grab another $6 trillion in Iranian oil assets for the oil companies.

We must support the troops, stop the war, end the occupation, and support HR 1234.

Please call your member of congress today.

Thank you,

Dennis J Kucinich

If we use ethanol to power all our cars ...

... will there be a shortage of corn starch?







Quick! Stock up on borax!

At this speed, the tires wear out in 15 minutes.

But that's ok, because the fuel runs out in 12 minutes.

Bugatti Veyron at top speed
Uploaded by Flabber

Plus: it's got 10 radiators.



friday car blogging, via dogscratcher