April, 2013 archive
We Need Single Payer 0
PoliticalProf offers a fable about how we establish the cost of health care.
It has a moral, but not morals.
Facebook Frolics 0
Sometimes, good things happen through Facebook. (One even happened to me.)
“They took my left kidney,” she says with a mixture of awe and pride.
Actually, nobody took it – Coe gave it, willingly.
And there’s the story, modern, quirky and a little bit funky, just like Coe.
The match was made on Facebook, the recipient was the stepmom of an old high school classmate, and the tale was documented in a short film with a great title: “Does Anybody Need a Kidney?”
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, April 4.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
I will be making a little presentation, dispensing some Enlightenment.
Enlightenment 17 on Slackware–Current
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness must be inculcated from an early age.
(snip)
“The father was fixing a toy and his girlfriend was on a laptop,” Sandy Springs police Capt. Steve Rose told Channel 2. “They were in bed, they hear a sound and go into another room where the child had shot himself with a .380 pistol.”
April Fools 0
I outgrew “April Fools Day” a long time ago, once I realized the most “practical jokes” manifest an undercurrent of cruelty.
Others clearly still relish the cruelty. All you need to do to see this is watch an episode of AFV. Scattered amongst the babies and kittens and puppies, you will see a sadistic need to humiliate others.
Dick Polman offers a list of Republican outreach April Foolery, more fool than April.
His examples illustrate that “undercurrent of cruelty” which I recognized so long ago.
I give you the Republican Party, the party of childish nastiness, the party for those who don’t want to grow up.
Evolution (Updated) 0
Adventures in White Privilege 2
When an ethnic slur can be defended as tradition, that’s privilege.
TSA Security Theatre 0
No ADA for the TSA.
As my freshman roommate once said about some of the cadet officers in ROTC, “Give some people a flat hat and they think they rule the world.”
Light Bloggery 0
Family matters.
Humpty-Dumpty Hyperbole 0
PoliticalProf explains how wingnuts are trying to turn “religious freedom” on its head. A nugget (emphasis added):
(snip)
Indeed, the writer’s version of religious “freedom” in this case is nothing of the sort: it embodies the use of State power to enforce a particular religious value. Which is pretty much exactly what religious freedom is not.
Cut through the wingnut crap. Read the rest.
Opening Day 0
Celebrate, then read E. Paul Zehr’s description of why playing baseball well is so challenging.
The two quotes above capture this pretty well. A lot of what happens in baseball is pretty challenging for us to do. It’s difficult to do, hard to do right. And your brain has to do a lot of calculations all the while you are consciously aware of only the smallest amount of all that is going on.
Follow the link for the quotes to which he refers, as well as the rest of the post.
Health (Records) Check 0
My local rag has a long and fairly level-headed article about the security of your computerized health records and related identification information. A nugget, chosen to illustrate the level-headedness:
The number has dropped each year since 2010, said Chris Hourihan, principal research analyst at the Health Information Trust Alliance. However, it’s not yet clear whether that’s because security is improving or because organizations changed their conception of what constituted a significant risk of harm. Starting this year, all breaches are considered potentially harmful and must be reported unless proved otherwise.
Notice the lack of the “OMG we are all going to die!” that is typical of such reports, a lack of the hysteria that keeps Dick Destiny busy over at his place.
Follow the link, check it out.
It includes a list of things you, as opposed to healthcare providers (who must police their own stuff), can do to help protect yourself; most of them are fairly standard stuff that anyone who pays attention to computer security is already doing, such as
- Don’t open attachments from unknown emailers,
- Keep an eye on your credit card statement, bank accounts, and credit reports,
- Be cautious in deciding to enter information in forms at websites, and so on.
The only hint that I would question is the one to use a “virtual private network” (VPN) when connecting to the internet when away from home (for example, at a coffee shop or library with open wireless).
Since most persons likely don’t know what a VPN is, let alone how to set one up on the fly, I would have suggested “Don’t use open wifi for email or confidential business–just don’t–unless you can use a VPN.”
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Lessons in politeness on this Eastertide:
Give children the opportunity to experience politeness . . .
How did the gun that apparently killed little Rahquel Carr get into the hands of a group of children? And who owned the weapon?
A 6-year-old was found holding the weapon after the shooting. Police would not confirm if he fired the fatal bullet.
. . . extend a polite hand to your neighbors . . .
Police offered no new details Sunday about the shooting, and many questions remained unanswered. Cabarrus County Sgt. Dennis Gray said Sunday the office had no further information about the investigation.
Police said Anthony Charles Hardy shot and killed his neighbors on either side of his two-story brick home at 7795 Coachman Court on Friday.
. . . and to those you care about.
Matthew Walsh, 23, purchased the .38 caliber handgun in a casino parking lot and was showing the gun to his girlfriend on March 13 when he accidentally shot her in the hip, according to a court document.
Stray Question 0
Tell me again, why they are called “student” athletes?
Use ‘Em Up, Throw ‘Em Out 0
Virginia prepares to throw its adjunct (read, “underpaid and exploited”) professors to the wolves.
A “fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” need not apply.
Adjuncts have proliferated in Virginia, in no small part because they’re cheap: A typical adjunct who teaches a full course load year-round, including summers, earns about $25,000 a year – barely above the federal poverty level for a family of four.
Adjunct teachers are being snagged by Gov. Bob McDonnell’s decision to limit part-time state workers to a maximum of 29 hours a week. The reason: The federal Affordable Care Act requires that employees working 30 hours a week or more receive health care benefits, which by one estimate could cost Virginia more than $100 million a year.
(snip)
“I have colleagues with Ph.D.s who moonlight at restaurants to get health insurance or, in some cases, have no health insurance at all,” she (Sarah Williams-Tolliver–ed.) said.
’nuff said.
Teacher Evaluations 0
Noz has a question about them:
Holy foregone conclusions! No! Batman! Facts delendi est!
Flawed and perverse policies must be defended against facts at all costs.
