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22 days ago
I don't understand why people are so bent out of shape about the notion that rich folks might get priority access to the H1N1 vaccine*. Don't they realize that this is a big part of the reason that the United States has the world's best healthcare system? * - A concern, by the way, that seems largely blown out of proportion. Sure, large NYC employers like Wall Street banks are getting doses of the vaccine, but at least in theory they're supposed to be giving it to the portion of their employee populations that are in high-risk groups for medical reasons. Like owning a yacht.
74 days ago
I’ve had my current mobile phone (a Samsung Blackjack) for nearly three years, and while it has served me reasonably well, I’m overdue for an upgrade. Here are some of the things I want in my next phone that would improve upon my current experience: Not taking two or more minutes from the time I turn the phone on until it’s actually useful. Not freezing on startup (occasionally more than once per day), requiring me to remove the battery and restart. Not being unable to connect to the network after startup (also occasionally more than once per day and usually associated with a stuck ATU_NITZ and/or clocknot process), requiring me to turn the phone off and turn it on again. A battery that lasts long enough that I’m not always carrying around a spare battery. The ability to be charged via its USB connection even if the battery is completely drained. A Bluetooth stack that is compatible with Microsoft Voice Command. A web browser whose default home page is ...
76 days ago
Having recently read David Kessler’s book The End of Overeating and Michael Pollan’s essay Big Food vs. Big Insurance, I have a proposal for how to address a major health care issue. Create a “Calorie added tax” that applies to prepared food served in restaurants. Whether it’s based on the number of calories in the food served or is truly analogous to a Value added tax, it seems like it would be a relatively straightforward way to address the issues that Kessler and Pollan raise. It appears that the biggest issue with our public health in the United States today is that we are consuming too much unhealthy food – for which calorie count is a useful proxy – and this is leading to a whole series of obesity-related problems. In addition to Kessler’s observations about the food-production industry’s role in engineering food for maximum palatability, leading to overconsumption, I’ve heard Adam Drewnowski observe that while historically less healthy food had a higher ...
82 days ago
Having read Obama's prepared remarks to school students, I'm trying to imagine what George W. Bush would have said in a similar context. Probably something like this: "... and so, my advice to you students is to be born rich, white, and male. And it doesn't really matter how hard you work in school or how many times you screw up, as long as you can rely on your family connections to keep getting you out of jams."
137 days ago
From Sotomayor Defends Ruling in Firefighters’ Bias Case - NYTimes.com (emphasis mine): In his opening remarks to the nominee, [Oklahoma Senator Tom] Coburn apologized for the several outbursts by anti-abortion protesters since the hearings began. “Anybody who values life like I do and is pro-life recognizes that the way you change minds is not yell at people,” the senator said. “ You love them. ”
