2010 archive
We Need Single Payer 0
Suit:
(snip)
Medical records at Underwood indicate that at 10:54 p.m., Penn said it would take Murray and began to arrange for a helicopter to transport him, according to the complaint. Then at 11:50 p.m., an Underwood nurse wrote that Y. Joseph Woo, a heart surgeon at Penn, called and said they would not take Murray “due to no medical insurance,” the suit alleges.
Ripple Effects 0
After the earthquake in Chile:
“The weird thing about this one was we saw it in wells we normally don’t see response in,” he said, looking over water level charts called hydrographs. “There’s one out in Clarke County that we’ve never seen anything like this in, but there’s a little blip up.”
Business Week quotes Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as reporting that the whole thing was earthshaking:
Business Week story via GNC.
QOTD 0
Dr. Seuss, from the Quotemaster:
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
Dumb Is Good 0
Tom Levinson explicates the “GOP War on Knowledge” which seeks to discredit opponents by claiming that they are too smart, too knowledgeable, too grounded in reality:
Read the whole thing.
(Aside: Hofstadter was right.)
I Miss Slackware Linux 1
My laptop, which is my primary computer for daily use, is a Dell 1545 which came with Ubuntu. It works fine, and I’m a believer in “if it ain’t broke etc.”
Linux can be especially dicey as regard wireless, because many makers of wireless devices do not make Linux drivers or, if they do, they do not make good Linux drivers.
And the wireless in this thing works great, so I’m not touching it.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to write some posts on Geekazine about installing and using Slackware (you can read them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6). As part of doing that, I upgraded one of my old inherited desktops to Slackware Linux 13.0 and configured it up.
We Need Single Payer 0
It’s all about the executives’ country club memberships:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
With proper instruction.
Climate Change Strikes Homes 0
From the BBC:
There is growing fear in Australian coastal areas about storm surges and possible inundation from rising oceans.
The Victoria state government’s decision was based on a projection that sea levels will rise by 80cm (11.8 inches) over the next century.
We Need Single Payer, Reprise 0
Warren Buffet, via Reuters:
“If it was a choice today between Plan A, which is what we’ve got, or Plan B, which is the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill,” he said. “But I would much rather see a Plan C that really attacks costs, and I think that’s what the American public wants to see.”
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
Chinese temple art:
Packing the Court 0
It is idea that seems attractive at a distance, but, close up, it’s a non-starter.
FDR tried it and failed. I think that precedent would prevail.
QOTD 0
Charles Darwin, from the Quotemaster:
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
Comment Rescue, Fee Hand of the Market Dept. 1
A commenter to this post said:
What they need to do is stop the direct to consumer advertising, like all the other countries, with the exception of New Zealand.
I agree.
The advertisements for prescription drugs directed at private citizens put a lie to the theory that market forces will encourage businesses to act morally (remember that private citizens cannot purchase prescriptions drugs without a prescription; all they can do is pester their doctors for prescriptions).
Market forces encourage business to sell more stuff using any means possible.
For example.
Note that this article talks about the FDA’s failure to regulate. If the FDA is failing to regulate (and it is), it is not because the persons who work there don’t care.
It’s because 30 years of Republican Economic Theory and Faith in the Fee Hand of the Market have spayed the FDA.
The FDA is a gelding, as are most other regulatory agencies.
Republicans, under the tutelage of their corporate masters, have made it so.
Sticky: Please Report Broken Stuff 2
I have moved this site to a new server. Please use the email link at the top of the page to tell me of any broken links, missing pictures, or anything else whifty. Please include a link to the specific post or page in your email so I can fix it quickly.
Housekeeping 0
I have deactivated the Gatekeeper plugin in favor of Akismet. If all goes well, no more “What color is an orange?”