Where the Hell Are We?
Posted in Money Matters, Health, wordpress, disclosure, ethics, sports, Baseball, Big Pharma, Legislation on April 9th, 2010 by Stanford MatthewsNothing like being in the right mood to publish a post on what can only be described as stupid. A baseball game just ended. It should have been one for the win column for what should be MY team… the Milwaukee Brewers. After leading since the third inning a pinch hitter for the Cards smacked a two run homer in ninth and the Brew crew went down in order in the bottom of the ninth. This is not an uncommon event for the team from brew town.
To add insult to injury a fitting annoyance was observed at a sports site while preparing this post. Wanting to represent the games’ chronology accurately a peak at the stats was in order. On arrival at the site a big picture of T Woods was presented with the title ‘destyiny of a champion.’ Excuse me while I throw up. The Masters is in session and this occasional viewer will neither watch it or the network, CBS, airing it. The whole scenario from Tiger’s dishonesty to his tabloid ’secret’ lifestyle and the public’s eagerness to ‘forgive’ (as well as his wife’s) strike me as shameless AND stupid.
Enter the original focus of this post…. healthcare. Yup, Obama won a coup d’eta with his Obamacare and while attempting to destroy the American health system he moved on quickly to doing same with our national defense and security. But some events in healthcare and reports about it are the real subject of this post. The rest was just a fun way to start this.
First, there is a report on clinical trials. The initial premise describes a situation where trials are stopped short of completion due to better than expected results. It further suggests those results are flawed.
If this doesn’t remind you of the AGW scam it should. It is as if we have been time warped back to the Dark Ages. How long will it be until we reach the age of enlightenment? Seriously folks, it really doesn’t matter whether the stupidity is the result of intentional deception or not having a clue. The outcome is not better either way.
The second report in this group features another curious announcement.
I’m sorry. Neglect is not the real problem with curing disease. This is not the first time this thought has been expressed on this blog. Given Big Pharma, a sector of the economy producing drugs, their billions in sales would be at risk if diseases were regularly eliminated by finding cures. Likewise, researchers and others who earn a living ’searching for cures’ would be out of a job (and income) if they solved the problem.
How about you don’t get another dime until you cure something?
Then there’s a report about the need for more minority doctors to serve minority patients. At first glance the proposition seems innocent enough. But after further review stupidity is observed revealing the nonsense.
While living in an area liberals would define as ‘diverse’ a successful doctor once expressed a simple yet intelligent formula for dealing with patients. The doctor was white and many of his patients were not. He held that effective communication with one’s patients did much of your diagnostic work for you. Letting them speak, listening and asking the right questions provided the necessary information to solve the health problem(s).
Please, let’s not suggest that successful outcomes in medicine require the doctor and the patient to possess a shared cultural or demographic heritage.
Two reports for this post remain although there certainly are more to review. The first of these two is absolutely priceless. So is pursuing the sort of reasoning it describes. Which may help understand some of the reasons why healthcare costs continue to rise so fast. Stupidity.
The details about the equipment are what make this report ’stupid.’ For those not fond of the metric system, if memory serves, kilograms are converted to pounds by multiplying the number of kg’s by 2.2.
680 x 2.2 = just under fifteen hundred pounds (1,496 lbs). You don’t need an explanation do you?
The last report is a repeat of some from the past. Caesarean Deliveries at All-Time High in US may indicate a trend in unnecessary procedures. All of these reports feature a serious case of stupid.
If you disagree, sound off. It appears there is much evidence to suggest the human species is mired in stupidity. Are we all in decline based on our recent collective performance. Has someone spiked the water? What’s the deal?
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
There ya go. Feast your eyes on sexual nirvana. Nearly guarantees an increase in the number of HIV/AIDS cases for the remainder of 2009 and beyond. Why you ask? With the exception of those who have not contracted aids through any fault of their own as in rape victims, blood transfusions or other involuntary exposure those whose life choices make them targets for this virus will be dumb enough to believe the battle was won. As if their previous choices were not evidence enough they will likely die from doing something stupid the introduction of the report alone without the product will subject their dense learning curve to more mistakes than before.
Athletes who use drugs in general is bad enough. But when performance enhancing drugs are used to alter the outcome of competitive sporting events the definition seldom used and focused on is fraud. It is the same with Barry Bonds and the home run record. If you cheat there is no record breaking event. The lame debate on whether the Barry Bonds’ record should stand or have an asterisk placed next to it in the record books is deranged.
The formation of the Indo-American working groups comes after meetings this week in India between U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and his Indian counterparts.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contributed $2.3 million to India’s efforts to eradicate polio.
Avian flu may be the best example of a potential catastrophic event that will be largely ignored or shrouded with incompetence or sheer apathy right up until the moment it becomes a pandemic. While considerable focus and attention was placed on the topic early on, since then the tiny foe has systematically gone about its business with little opposition from any source capable of mounting a reasonable defense.
has for lack of successful method to infect other species. There have also been reports that much progress has been made in developing vaccines. Reports in addition to the two presented here have suggested enough vaccine can be produced but there may be shortcomings attached to this solution. And of course, the early discussions made many comparisons to the 1918 flu epidemic as well as the frequency of such events and that we are overdue for another.
‘Make sure’ means an unlimited supply of taxpayer money to pay for whatever politicians think will make them look good. By the time the truth of the failure is published in the press, the usual anonymous suspects will be guilty as charged. Like a quote from a recent PBS program, ‘everyone is guilty so no one’s to blame.’
result in the same problem for different reasons than the Dems plan. Both political parties are missing the point on this issue. They both rely on government appropriations as the vehicle. This is an issue where we are all guilty but everyone is to blame. It is understandable that anyone who is satisfied with their current health care situation would be reluctant to change. But even those who are happy are at risk. The system cannot be supported by taxpayer funds forever and the costs will not decrease if we continue the way it is.
Hillary Rodham Clinton should choose her words more carefully. Who in their right mind would agree that politicians have gotten anything ‘done’ in the true sense of the word? Just look at a few examples of legislation in general. If you read the text of most bills you will find phrases like ‘to modify’, ‘change’ or in some way alter existing legislation. A bill is introduced and before it ever passes or fails it is swamped with amendments, lost in committee, languishing in some isolated outpost in Washington or being revised. Little gets ‘done’ in Washington. So please, Hillary Rodham Clinton, stop with the rhetorical nonsense, like suspension of disbelief. Which could have been used here to describe your statements.
The youngest among us are the easiest to fool. Haven’t been on the planet long enough or care about the trends that matter. Gotta have the newest and coolest even if it is a marketing campaign that defines the object. The trend is the business community has long known how to use hype to drive revenue. They not only target the younger demographic due to the extreme discretionary income as compared to other groups but they are keenly aware that they are largely clueless when it comes to intelligent purchasing decisions supported by fact.
Why do cars cost so much? Why does health care cost so much? Why is the cost of an education higher than most think it should be? Although the details may vary the overall reasons for the cost of goods and services and their associated real value are so dramatically skewed. People convince themselves they need what they are buying and have no patience, discipline or any buyer sophistication adequate to the task. This is followed by subsequent complaints about how bad things are without the consumer accepting any guilt for the outcome. The ‘i’ in iPhone stands for idiot.
The not so subtle predictions that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the default Democratic candidate for 2008 is largely a product of people like Penn and Wolfson or others linked to the Clinton crew. Stay on message, cultivate the middle of the road liberal appearance, speak to the concerns of the Democratic base and lie your way to the White House.
Scientists say stem cells offer the promise of cures to everything from cancer to spinal cord injuries. Stem cells are malleable and can be used to create virtually any kind of tissue. But there has been a fierce ethical debate over stem cell research, because until now, it was assumed the cells had to be harvested from human embryos, destroying them in the process.
There is no reason to get overly excited and there is equally no reason to despair. The caution on this great news is like any other discovery. There will be no solutions provided by this advance any time soon. The good news is this finding may end the ethical challenge about stem cell research much sooner than previously anticipated.
Do you suppose it is possible that Chuck Grassley and friends are missing the point? Prescription drug prices are merely one symptom of a health care system that is totally out of control. Another major symptom is the refusal of Congress to deal effectively with this problem.
In other words Mr Grassley, your support of importing drugs from other countries solves nothing. There is no real competition or incentive for it in the health care system. And even if you were lucky enough to lower some prices it would not be universal nor would it affect the price of health care services. Even before the failed Clinton Administration health care reform, no one in Washington is interested in real health care reform. It is all smoke and mirrors and political rhetoric. Get a grip and do something real about health care or simply stop talking about something you will never fix.
Speaker Pelosi, would you be so kind as to explain in more detail the relationship between publicly funded research, privately funded research, business and government? The reason for this request is simple to understand. If, as you stated, basic research is a low priority for private funding, why should it be subsidized by taxpayer funds? Is it because the private funding sources know they will get the successful research for free?
Hope for millions is a recurring theme when discussing solutions and their timetables. Apparently, Senator Snowe is taking this opportunity to praise herself and/or her colleagues for passing stem cell legislation that has a low probability of becoming law without the votes to override the President’s veto pen. But hey, if you are going to get criticized for being pathetically ineffective, you might as well take the opportunity to pat yourself on the back to even it out some.
With the ability to patent nearly everything including discoveries from the genome project, by the time any stem cell research results are ready for prime time, the only way Big Pharma will ever allow a cure to be distributed is if they own the patent. That way the drug that was rendered obsolete by the cure from stem cell research will allow them to continue ripping off the public and deciding who gets cure and who does not. And don’t even think for a New York minute that this is a wild conspiracy theory.
Washington Post -