Anyone still reading this thing? I just signed up at Multiply to track some of you down, my name there is jrishel. Most of my posting is still at rishel.org, and it doesn't look like Multiply has a way to pick up content from wordpress... am I wrong?
I was recently having a discussion with a friend about whether our "system" of medicine in the US is better than ones in Canada, the UK, the EU, etc. For sake of argument, I took the position that it arguably was (although I'm definitely not convinced of that). We came upon an interesting hypothetical example: assume that in system A, half the people get treated right away for disease X and half the people never get treated (because they can't afford to). In system B, everyone gets treated 6 months after being diagnosed with disease X. Now, it turns out that if you're treated for disease X right after first being diagnosed, your survival rate is 90%. If you wait 6 months, however, your survival rate is only 25%. In this hypothetical situation, 45% of the population under system A will survive and only 25% of the population under system B will survive.
My friend agreed that, for this case, system A was a better system—but only if the 50% were chosen randomly and not by whether or not they had more money. I argued (again, really just for the sake of arguing, although I think I have a valid point here) that what family you are born into is random and from there on making good choices (or possibly unscrupulous choices) will make you more likely to be rich, hence using money as a means to divine who gets treated isn't any worse than choosing at random.
I'm curious, what are your thoughts?
Big brother is at it again. The Department of Homeland Security is issuing new regulations requiring reporting on, and guarding of, hundreds of common chemicals with "terrorist applications" (such as propane, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine,
Per the police report, Washington State Representative Richard Curtis (Republican) (representing La Central) was having his sexual orientation used in an effort to black-mail him. In the House, he has acted against gay rights, making this another example of presumed hypocrisy. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I'm experiencing a some schadenfreude here. Of course, this is an excellent time to introduce people to this comic strip if they haven't already seen it.
Edit: <ignore>He's a State Representative for Louisiana, not Washington (as I originally wrote), per this source.</ignore> Strike that previous statement. He represents La Central in Washington State, not central Louisiana. I really need to read for comprehension better.
As the nation slips into a new "Not So Great Depression," Republicans are embracing a new kind of Compassionate Conservatism that should appeal to poverty-stricken people who've lost their homes, jobs and traditional abhorrence of homosexuality and pedophilia. Leading the new effort is Wisconsin Republican leader and Brown County GOP Chairman Donald Fleischman, currently facing charges of child enticement, contributing to the delinquency of a child and exposing himself to a child -- all because he (allegedly) wanted to show his love to a runaway boy!
Of course, this one is much worse than the Larry Craig one as it involves a teenager and an abuse of Fleischman's authority. What I don't know yet is to what degree hypocrisy is involved. Was this guy a log-cabin Republican, or one of the typical self-loathing closeted Republicans who push anti-homosexual agendas in an effort to hide their own sexuality?
"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger