Isn't is a little odd that a manufacturer would associate themselves with homeopathy to add legitimacyto their product health claims???

I suspect that Zicam doesn't do a damn thing, and I really doubt that with the huge number of people who take it that an average of 13 people per year losing their smell would be a large enough number to even make the assertion of some sort of causal relationship - hell I don't even see any correlation there.

East Los Angeles Community College astrophysics curriculum easy enough for an 11 year old to complete.

He probably is a smart kid, but I think that this story says more about the (apparent) sad state of the East Los Angeles Community College than it says good about this 11 year old.

Seems to me that what is needed is a large number of people abusing this law and lodging false complaints with the aim to deny service to random/ non-random people before the legislators will be able to understand what a stupid law this is. Once enough of their (voting) constituents are adversely affected they'll either rescind it or be voted out of office.

So this is probably a stupid question, but as I understand things, a PAP smear is actually a test for HPV which a woman can (I assume) contract with or without her cervex. While it is true that HPV is very much the leading cause of cervical cancer, they are not one and the same. If all the above is true, then doesn't a PAP smear still make sense no matter the state of a woman's cervex? And for that matter, I do believe that men can catch HPV also, why is it that we test woman twice a year and men never?

As much as I hate to admit it, I was misinformed about the actual wording of the bill in question and I have to partially concede your point. I relied on a columnist to read the bill for me and I think she misinterpreted a section relating to the use of information technology and asserted that they were talking about patient care.

        However, I do still believe that that is exactly what this bill will eventually bring. While the text of the bill is (disturbingly) vague, if you read the House committee report on the bill, "those [items] that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed." The setup of the board sound very similar to the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which in my opinion, has a horrendous track record of rationing out health care on a cost-benefit (to society of course, not the individual) basis. It has decided that Britain should spend the same amount saving or improving the life of an elderly smoker as it would a young child. Any treatment found to cost more than around $30,000-$45,000 per "quality-adjusted life-year," it is rarely allowed. I realize that the debate is not really on what they're doing in Brittan, rather what is being suggested for use in the US, but given that:
        * The proponents of this bill seem to be modeling their structures on what Brittan did.
        * In his book, "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis," Tom Daschle wrote, "Doctors, hospitals, and other health-care providers will have to adjust to a value-oriented system...They will have to operate less like solo practitioners and more like team members, working with providers in other practices, hospitals, and even states, to coodinate care..." Even though he's no longer in line to be secretary of the department of health and human services, the fact that he was chosen is a good indicator that his beliefs are in line with the Obama administration's plans.
        * I don't believe this administration and Congress are being honest with us on their intentions. I think their track record of extorting money from me to waste on social engineering projects is every bit as bad as the Republican's track record of using the force of government to legislate morality. Obama's chief of staff (who actually has been paying his taxes AFAIK) Rahm Emanuel, when discussing this "economic crisis" said that it was "an opportunity to do things you could not do before . . . You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." The new administration, same as the old administration, is lying to us about what it's trying to do.
        I therefore think it's reasonable to look across the pond and what's going on over there as a foreshadowing of what's in store for us if (probably when) we go down this path.

        I believe that government over-regulation is what has caused our health care system to become as expensive and inefficient as it is so far, and I don't see how giving them more control over my health will make things better. I base this belief not only on the regulations that exist, but also on the government's track record of botching almost every private sector industry upon which it infringes. Congress can't even run their own bank or cafeteria without bailout after bailout, what makes anyone think they could possibly handle something as complex and critical as health care?

>And if you step back from the rhetoric for a moment, does it really make sense that the government would dictate to private companies what they can and cannot do in terms of health care procedures?
        Of course it doesn't make sense - that's my whole point. But they already do this with the health insurance companies - case in point the state of Minnesotta requires that all private insurance companies doing doing business in Minnesotta cover the following things:
        * removal of port wine stains (this refers to a type birthmark - not a discoloration from the alcoholic beverage)
        * special food for persons born with phenylketonuria (PKU)
        * hairpieces for people who lose all their hair due to alopecia areota
So, if I live there I have to pay for coverage of those things even if I don't want of need coverage for them. As a citizen and consumer I have no choice under the law as it stands today. No this makes no sense to me, but then again neither does any of this porkulus bill if I assume that the purpose is to benefit the economy.

>Though at the same time, how does private insurance work right now?
Big difference. If your private insurance won't pay, you still currently have the legal right to pay

>Many research universities in this country report a return on investment on the order of 6:1 to 12:1,
        Many of my family members work for various universities. As far as I am aware (feel free to fact check this assertion - I've not spent the time to back it up with statistics yet), most research done even at public universities comes from the private sector - companies, endowments, and individuals are directing research with their funding in order to get that return on their investment. I suspect that if you compare the ROI of government funded research vs private sector research that you would find a much higher return by the private sector - because the private sector is governed by fiscal discipline, while the government is governed by populist discipline. Now you can argue that all of this research is a public good since the schools are owned by the state, but I think that the institution owner is irrelevant - it's the decision maker who is important, and as far as research goes, that's usually NOT the government.

>The Soviet Union fell due to corruption and power concentration.
        My opinion is that the corruption was a direct result of the power concentration which, in turn, was a direct result of their economic philosophy. Part of the problem with their philosophy was that it ignored human nature, and tried to overcome basic human greed rather than harness it for the greater good. In any economy someone has to allocate resources. If resource allocation is left up to each individual person then that is capitalism. If it is left up to the state then that is totalitarianism, of which both communism and fascism are subsets.

The "stimulus" bill creates a new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, which will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. Hospitals and doctors that are not "meaningful users" of the new system will face penalties. This isnâ(TM)t defined in the bill but will be left up to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose "more stringent measures of meaningful use over time." This bill would apply a cost-effectiveness standard set by the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. Basically they will divide the cost of any given procedure over your life expectancy to see if you will be allowed to receive it. And what frightens me is this is not necessarily limited to what Medicare pays for, but given that they are charged with penalizing physicians who treat patients they deem to be not worth the cost, it may have the effect of preventing me from finding a good doctor willing to treat me even if I have an unlimited amount of money to pay (OK, so with enough money I probably could find someone willing to play outside the newly defined legal health care system, but I shouldn't have to turn to the black market in order to continue living.)

And that is why I oppose that section of the bill. I have other reasons for opposing the other sections, but mostly I have a philosophical problem with the idea that the government has any ability to "stimulate" the economy. If that were true then the Soviet Union would not have fallen and Cuba would be a tropical economic juggernaut. Command and control economies have always failed because no single group of government workers is smart enough (or have enough information) to be able to effectively and efficiently control an entire nation's economy.

So you have proof that those proposals will "destroy the ecological balance of the planet"??? Since when has this planet ever been in an "ecological balance" anyway?

The point is that HE subjected his audience to the mosquitoes (or symbolically did, or threatened to or whatever.) We DO NOT subject people in developing nations to mosquitoes - they're just part of the environment. I don't see them protesting about problems we have over here, why should I protest the way they live their lives?

You can keep your shame, no hypocrisy here, I am shameless.

This is a beautiful illustration if the Liberal mindset. Rather than trying to raise the poor by eliminating mosquitoes he's trying to equalize everyone by lowering the wealthy.

Yea, I know it was really just a symbolic gesture, but that's why I'm examining the symbolism inherent in it. There are a probably a million ways he could have gotten his point across about the dangers of malaria and the urgency of dealing with the problem, but he chose to do so in a manner of knocking the "rich" down to the level of the "poor."

I think it says a lot about the guy, and the way he thinks.