- SpaceX has launched — and landed — an orbital rocket at Cape Canaveral. Whoohoo! ADDED: Better link.
- If you’ve got friends or family who don’t think there’s anything wrong with being on a government list, or who believe the gov’s pledges of privacy or promises that missions will never creep … have them read Carl-Bear’s latest over at TZP. Real world example, right there.
- If those friends are against the wide dissemination of “dangerous” information, Historian says, “Ask the Jews of Warsaw.”
- Kaiser Permanente opens its own medical school with a focus on teamwork. I can see some positives and some big negatives there. (H/T PT)
- The chief publicist for Bloomberg and Watts has apparently been sexually harassing every female he could get his hands on, including his own employees and clients’ employees. (H/T David Codrea) This is not the first time Trevor FitzGibbon has been caught, either. Perfect guy to represent people who don’t believe women should be able to defend themselves.
- To call this puppy-murdering, people-despising (now-ex) police chief a pig would be doing a disservice to swine the world over.
- Some cops apparently consider cats easier targets.
- James Kosur discovers it’s a lot harder for a man to take his wife’s last name than it is for a woman to take her husband’s.
- The 12 flavors of rainbows. (Yeah, but none of those include my glorious rainbow because technically it wasn’t a rainbow but a halo.)
My experience with Kaiser Permanente, via home care for their patients and listening to people’s trials and tribulations, indicated then (who knows about now) that the medical model was first responsive to the system, to the insurance companies, and so forth. They have had a bad reputation for a very long time of putting actual patient needs and concerns at the end of the line of their priorities. Doesn’t seem, by this article, that they plan any changes in that. The infamous 15 minute office visit is probably even shorter now.
Kaiser Permanente insurance had “affordable” premiums and lots of options, but the patients I talked to were generally frustrated by the actual doctor visits. They said they were not treated like individual humans, with ideas and needs of their own, but more like unrelated body parts. And most “treatment” of any condition was centered on prescription drugs and surgery. No discussion, no insight into individuality, just “take these pills and don’t call me in the morning.”
And that’s even if they could get an appointment. More and more, patients told me of incredibly long waits, and many had gone to the ER or urgent care centers because they were afraid. And, of course a lot of that was driven by the ingrained belief of so many that they need to see a doctor immediately for almost everything, or just because they read something that “might” be wrong with them.
And most go in to see a doctor demanding to get the latest pills and potions, so the proliferation of prescription “medicine” is not all the fault of the doctors by any means. It seems to me that it is a sad combination of deluded patients and physicians who were never taught how to deal with people, or understand that there’s more to health care than anatomy and pharmacology.
As long as the involuntary government has control of standard medicine, it can only get worse. There is no incentive for them to treat the whole person, with a range of options to be discussed and explored – and the choice left to the individual at their own risk. The underground is developing some interesting alternatives, including a great deal of self care. Not everyone needs a doctor, by any means. Buyer beware, of course… but there is hope for real progress there, I think.
RE; FitzGibbon: That puts David Codrea’s “Moms I’d Love to Mock” (riff on MILF) in an interesting perspective.
In addition [to what MamaLiberty said], there is a definite conflict of interest when an insurance company sets up its own “medical school”, especially today under ObamaCare where insurance companies and government are in the driver’s seat.
Kaiser will be determining what is taught and how it’s taught. Their emphasis will *not* be on teamwork — except as the team works best with Kaiser! — but on, as the article says, “research and the new technologies.” There’s nothing wrong with research if it’s done properly and within true scientific parameters, something that’s not gauaranteed under Kaiser; many scientists are suspect today, exactly because they are paid to get results the funder wants. There’s nothing wrong with technology as long as it becomes a /tool/ for aiding the doctor in his diagnosis, care and treatment of the patient; if used to replace the doctor’s knowledge (as is already happening today), it will not allow him to expand his knowledge or modus operandi to give the best service for the individual. And neither research nor technology is aware of, or takes into consideration, the financial or social status of the individual patient being treated. Many doctors even now ignore the patient’s condition when he sends them home to care for themselves in impossible situations.)
This plan of Kaiser’s will direct the doctor’s education toward what Kaiser wants her to learn, and apply that knowledge to Kaiser’s self-interest. It will do nothing to help the patient, but everything to help Kaiser increase its influence over the medical profession.
(And what happens to the patient when technology breaks down? What will doctors know, and how will they treat a patient when they’ve not been taught to think a problem through, and look-listen-feel?)
About 10 or so years ago I knew of a guy who took his wife’s name at the wedding. Not sure if he did it “legal” or not. I just remember people talking about how shocked they were when the preacher introduced the couple at the end and called them by the wife’s last name. At the time I knew the guy’s last name and completely understood why he would do it, and why his wife wouldn’t have wanted his last name. I wish I could now remember what his horrifying last name had been. Seems it was something almost obscene- but not a name I had ever heard of before.
Kent — That’s funny that they surprised the wedding guests like that. But given some of the weird surnames around, I’m surprised more people aren’t more flexible when it comes to changing names. (I do understand people whose names — ugly or not — have significant personal history and significance for them.)
I also knew a guy who changed to his wife’s surname. He did it unofficially and long after the wedding. His name wasn’t obscene, but it was the name of a disease, while her name was classy and sounded like money. Besides, he had a “colorful” history under his original name, which he was probably happy to leave behind.
I watched the SpaceX launch/landing live on a webcast. Totally absolutely awesome. They flipping NAILED landing the first stage, landing almost directly on the ‘X’ in the middle of the pad. They broadcast the whole thing, even through the deployment of the Orbcomm satellites.
A small interesting tidbit. There is some web footage shot by somebody watching (probably on the ’causeway’) of the landing. And just about exactly the same time the stage touched down, the sonic boom from the rentry hit. Elon Musk tweeted that he thought that it exploded.
But no. The stage looks to be in great shape. A tad blackened with the smoke from the exhaust.
Awesome.
“Nothing special about America…”
Awesome, indeed!
Besides freedom, banning all the information about how to make things go boom isn’t safe; since it would necessarily involve suppressing information about keeping things from going boom. Like grain silos and fertilizer plants.
The chief publicist for Bloomberg and Watts has apparently been sexually harassing every female he could get his hands on, including his own employees and clients’ employees.
And he’ll get the Cosby treatment in 4…3…2…{reset (again)}
Perfect guy to represent people who don’t believe women should be able to defend themselves.
Yet “womyn” like Watts can’t see it.
Me? Given how many women I’ve taught to shoot, you better believe I treat ’em with respect.
On the name change, I’ve had the opposite problem – a name that is rare. Sometimes I wish I had a name like “James Johnson”, a way to fade into the background…
Having been involved with computers and databases most of my life, it is an interesting problem finding an identifier that will correspond to one and only one individual. This is why so many people want to use Socialist Security numbers, as there is only one individual for each number. But there are obvious problems with government using such a system. The whole point of enumerating people, of identifying them more reliably, is to more easily parasitize them. No one can slip through the cracks. That is what civilization is, the collection and registration of people who act as fodder for ruling class whims. James C. Scott goes into this in great detail in the book, “The Art of Not Being Governed”.