Imagine that you’re a doctor treating a patient for back pain. Imagine telling that patient that the cause of his back pain is a tumor. Imagine performing surgery on the patient’s back to remove the tumor. Imagine opening up the patient’s back, and seeing . . . . tiny human feet and hands. Yup. A 35 year old truck driver … Read More
A Public Service Message From The Editors of No, You Can’t Have A Pony
Do not kiss your dying chickens. This has been a public service message from the Editors of No, You Can’t Have a Pony.
The Bush Medicare Plan
Here’s how bad it is: For starters, coverage is woefully inadequate. You pay a $250 deductible and then a 25 percent co-pay on the first $2,250 of drug benefits each year, plus roughly another $450 a year in premiums. So if your prescriptions cost $2,250 a year, or about $190 a month, for prescriptions, you pay $1,200 a year all … Read More
Sounds Like A Lifetime Movie
In Boston, an 11-year old girl lies in a coma. Like Terri Schiavo (remember her?), there is a court battle over whether her ventilator and feeding tubes should be removed. The twist is that only one person is fighting for the girl’s "right-to-life" — the girl’s father. But he’s more than the girl’s father — he’s the guy who beat … Read More
The Abstinence Wars
What’s more important? Young girls learning to have safe sex so that they don’t get pregnant and/or sick — or young girls being sexually abstinent? Logically, these two positions are not incompatible. Most would agree (I hope) that we would want young girls to be knowledgeable about safe sex, and then choose abstinence (until they are ready). But sadly, much … Read More
AIDS Relief in Africa: Strings Attached
AIDS in Africa could reach pandemic perportions: The HIV/AIDS scourge on the African continent could worsen in 2006 if developed nations do not deliver on their financial pledges, the U.N.’s top AIDS official in Africa said on Monday. Stephen Lewis, U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said treatment, prevention and care programs on the continent will start losing out … Read More
Mildly Depressed People Are More Perceptive
This is one of those scientific studies where I go "Duh", but apparently the scientists at Queens College (in Canada) were astounded: Surprisingly, people with mild depression are actually more tuned into the feelings of others than those who aren’t depressed, a team of Queen’s psychologists has discovered. “This was quite unexpected because we tend to think that the opposite … Read More
Does The Absence Of Fathers Cause ADHD?
That’s the question raised by a new book entitled Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm. The authors there assert that ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) might be related to a lack of a positive father figure. Or more precisely, a lack of a disciplinary father figure. I’m actually in accord with much conservative thinking on this … Read More
Heckling The Hucksters
The What Would Jesus Eat Cookbook is a companion book to What Would Jesus Eat health book (both by Don Colbert*) Favorite Amazon customer review: FIVE STARS First I learned what Jesus would eat, and now with this lofty book, Mr. Colbert teaches us just how Jesus would cook it. I find this all to be astonishingly remarkable. Not only … Read More
For Once, I’m Ahead Of The Curve
Everyone on the right and left seems to be blogging today about something I wrote about twice before (here and here), i.e., the religious right’s opposition to a 100% effective vaccine that prevents cervical cancer, a terrible illness that kills over 10,000 American woman per year. The reason for the fundamentalist rejection? They think that this vaccine will cause women … Read More
Better Early Than Late
I was watching a Tivo recording of Bill Maher’s HBO show from last Friday. I forget now what the topic was, but one of the panelists noted that Bush has such low expectations now (even from his supporters) that when he does something even half-way right, everybody tends to applaud and praise him. You know, as if he is a … Read More
On Quitting Smoking
I intend to do it soon, and articles like these give me ideas: Although both marijuana and tobacco smoke are packed with cancer-causing chemicals, other qualities of marijuana seem to keep it from promoting lung cancer, according to a new report. The difference rests in the often opposing actions of the nicotine in tobacco and the active ingredient, THC, in … Read More
Maybe It’s Just Pinin’ For The Fjords
Parrot In England Dies Of Bird Flu
Biological Attack? By Who? Against Whom?
I blogged about it here, but there was little national attention to it. But Salon is picking up on the story. From Sploid: DID WASHINGTON ‘TEST’ BIOWEAPONS ON D.C. WAR PROTESTERS? It is the most perplexing "non story" of the American terror era: For the first time ever, a half-dozen of the bioweapons air sensors installed around Washington, D.C., all … Read More
Holy Crap
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — The likelihood of a human flu pandemic is very high, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said as he began a tour of Southeast Asia to coordinate plans to combat bird flu. – CNN.