Postponement

Too busy here now, so I'll get to the media thing tomorrow, perhaps. Still, think about how the Kung Fu Monkey post could be expanded beyond Hollywood.

Flooding

NASA has some amazing satellite images contrasting the look of New Orleans before and after Katrina.

Darfur is Burning

We must take action. The first thing you need to do, and you do need to do a first thing if you haven't been working to save Darfur yet, is to familiarize yourself with what's going on there. I recommend Brian Steidle's photos as a first bite. Today I watched a video of his recounting the genocide he saw in Darfur, Sudan. His evidence should bring us all to action. There is no cease fire, only slaughter.

Also from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum'd Committee on Conscience, check out this page for updates.

Africa Action will be a good place to look to for political advocacy on Darfur.

The next steps then sit in front of us. We must donate to the organizations providing aid to refugees, like MSF and the Red Cross, as well as support UN aid efforts. However, we must never forget that donations cannot and will not stop the genocide - only extreme pressure on the Sudanese government in Khartoum can end this, and should that fail, humanitarian intervention will be imperative. We cannot hesitate; estimates put death tolls at over 400,000, already half the total in Rwanda.

We must not fail again.

4th Gen Media

If you haven't, go read this from Kung Fu Monkey. I'll be discussing it tomorrow.

Providence

I am unbelievably happy, making the emotional craziness of today complete - more on that later. I just found, thanks to the seeming inability of the building staff to throw anything away, a stack of notebooks I thought I'd lost in May. I was certain they'd been destroyed along with the desk they were in, which was removed during renovations. I see this as a rare second chance to pay attention to what is valuable; these notebooks, holding the record to my academic life for the past three years, are irreplaceable.

They happened to be in a storage room that I have never seen unlocked before, and I happened to be visiting the basement garage at this strange hour. If anyone out there is responsible for this coincidence, thanks.

Katerina

Via BoingBoing, the situation in the area hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina is dire:

I keep getting reports, both media and from friends, that the water is still rising as of 1 a.m. CDT, even though the hurricane has long since cleared the state. Best guess is that it's a combination of tides and currents pushing water over intact levees and through the breached Ninth Ward levee. Also heard some rumors that the worst things right now are animal infestations and downed power lines - alligators in the east bank, mosquitos breeding like crazy, huge balls of fire ants. This is going to get worse before it gets better ... Also, it may be worth noting that the Red Cross needs money donations, blood and volunteers more than anything. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to come back with the "Let's send blankets, clothes and canned foods" mindset that followed the tsunami, but if there's anything New Orleans has plenty of, it's food. They need money, badly, for rescue boats, potable water, generators, axes and other search and rescue equipment.

Donate to the Red Cross.

On an inappropriately unrelated note, why Flickr is important:

That's an image of Katrina posted, as far as I can tell, by the photographer, who was aboard a hurricane observation aircraft. Access to that kind of first-hand stuff, without having it first digested by big media company intermediaries, is going to change the world.

The war on science

Interesting Wired review of Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science, which details the highly organized efforts of some on the far right who seek to undermine scientific reasoning for ideological or business reasons (think kyoto protocol and intelligent design). Seems like an interesting read; maybe I'll have to pick up a copy.

Moves on Abortion

There's a slow effort to overturn Roe vs. Wade underway, and it has little to do with the confirmation of John Roberts. An article in the Post gives some details of the antiabortion movement's methods:

Antiabortion activists say they have pursued a two-pronged approach that aimed to reduce the number of abortions immediately through new restrictions and build a foundation of lower court cases designed to get the high court to eventually reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision making the procedure legal.

I think the language used both in this account of the movement's goals and Hillary Clinton's famous remarks on the topic is misleading - while the publicly stated objective of these folks is to "reduce abortions," a closer reading of the right's various newsletters reveals a certain subset are absolutist in their rejection of abortion, to the extent that they don't accept any health exceptions to prohibitions on abortion. It would be a mistake to try compromise with this sort - they'll keep fighting you until the center moves totally into their camp.

Back in DC

And back online. I'll be responding to email and other communication now, thanks to a few hours of tinkering with my network settings.

Back to DC

My Cleveland summer is over - in a few hours, I'll be back in the belly of the beast once more.

Balance

Atrios points out the inane tendency of journalists to find and publish opposing viewpoints to every commentator or source. He specifically cites Howard Kurtz's comments on the Cindy Sheehan, that "you also need journalists who are going to give that kind of attention to somebody from the other side."

I think back to journalism class. Yes, I remember - when reporting on contentious issues, it's always good form to report not just the viewpoint of the first person who talks to you, but also that of someone representative of the other side. And, of course, there may be multiple sides - but I digress. Anyway, makes some sense in the case of debate.

But this Sheehan story isn't a debate story, not really. She's getting attention because of what she's doing, mostly, much like reporters covering a burning building or the circus coming to town. There are particulars about her reasons for being out there in Crawford that make her story more newsworthy, yes, but thousands more share her feelings and yet are not given even a minute on CNN. No, she's in the news primarily for what she's done. Finding somebody from the other side? That's like reporting on a random building that happens not to have caught on fire today, or a bunch of guys in town who are not riding elephants or eating fire.

Not every story need opposition. Sure, publishing statements from Sheehan merits asking those in the administration for their response, should they give it. But many reporters don't seem comfortable in stopping there. They want to fill their quota for reporting some other, disagreeing person. But sometimes, as any kid who's played opposite day or handled a mobius strip may know, there isn't an antonym, there isn't another side.

Elitism

Atrios pointed me this way, and I will do the same for you.

Patent law changes

I've been working on some patent claims recently (long story), so this article caught my eye. Seems there's some in Washington who want to reform US patent law to match more closely the world standard of "first to file" rather than "first to invent." While I can see where this would reduce paperwork and to some extent the burden on the US Patent and Trademark Office, I think that the better way to improve the operation of the USPTO is actually just to fund it better, as some cited in the article argue. A lot of the legal problems we face now with regard to patents stem from basically poor, overly-broad patents. Of course, another way to improve things would be to get rid of software patents, but that isn't very likely for now.

More Detail on Roberts

This is oldish stuff (in blog time, anyway), but worth a look. I was among those who felt pretty willing to give John Roberts an easy confirmation, because he seemed a lot more moderate than some possible Bush appointees. However, on further review, I think Roberts definitely has some questions to answer, particularly about his consistent opposition to progressive policies on gender and race.

Opportunity

The nay-saying commenters on the Editors' hopeful post about lobby reform are probably half right - even though Democrats receive only about 10 percent of K Street dollars, they're unlikely to push for serious reform, and would probably call anyone crazy who did. It's like the fabled American Dream - no one wants to mess with the system, even if it screws most people, because each thinks she might get rich someday.

What the DNC would need is a crazy man at the helm, one so nuts he'd build a ground operation in red states like Texas, a place in which it is of course totally impossible for any Democrat to win, ever. Someone under whose supervision of the Democratic party would waste resources in pointless races in Southern Ohio. Oh, and maybe someone whose fundraising strategy aims to collect millions of dollars over the internet by giving ordinary voters as much attention as the other party lavishes on oil-mongering, war-profiteering CEOs. Yeah, like that could work.

Yes, the Democratic party would have to go "crazy" and abandon its establishment ways before it could deal with the blatant corruption of the Republican Party. And what are the chances of that happening?

The future of Gelman

From CBS (via Slashdot):

The UT library is undergoing a radical change, becoming more of a social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse than a dusty, whisper-filled hall of records. And to make that happen, the undergraduate collection of books had to go.

GW officials must feel pretty damned humiliated. US news ranks UT austin as the 52nd-best national university. GW is 53rd. We lost to a school without books?

Only one thing to do. Yes, I can see it now: seven full floors of Starbucks. It's already replaced one quiet study room; why not the stacks? Out with the books, in with tripple-venti-white-chocolate-mocha frappuccinos!

Shadowy threats

Ever feel like we're slipping into some new dark ages, what with creationism replacing science in schools, rapidly increasing income inequality and our use of violence as a first resort?

Well I clearly do, and I often ponder at why we might be backsliding so. This post by Kos gives a look at some who are the architects of our feudal future. Serfdom, here we come.

More Pat

Atrios links to a great clip from NBC.

Contrary to what NBC says, Robertson's an extremist cleric if I've ever hear one.

Google can Talk

I was tooling around Flickr and found that there were an inordinate amount of images tagged as "gmail" recently. Suspicious, I checked some out. What did I find? Google has released their chat service, Talk, as a beta. gmailers rejoice! AOL and yahoo, not so much.

Why is it so great? Because, without anyone having to monkey with anything, it works with iChat. And Adium, Trillian GAIM and Psi (whatever those last two are). It's just jabber, nothing new, but it works with your existing gmail account. The PC client allows you to email gmail subscribers from inside it.

If you're on gmail, go try it. I want buddies.

WTF?

Gaaa! From CNN:

Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas.

Let's read that again:

Conservative Christian ... has called for the United States to assassinate ...

I'm not sure where in the bible it says "thou shalt assassinate the socialist president of thine neighboring country." Maybe right after "love thy neighbor" or "turn the other cheek." Yeah, it's probably right there.

Jim Borgman is on my cool list

I was listening to the "Around Noon" program on 90.3 just now, and they had two cartoonists on to talk about the content of their work, both on the funny pages and off. One, Tom Batiuk, I've heard before. His Funky Winkerbean has been doing great stuff for years, covering topics from breast cancer to suicide to teen pregnancy, and recently he's been exploring the conflict in Afghanistan.

The second guest I hadn't heard much about. Jim Borgman, in addition to co-authoring Zits, is the editorial cartoonist to the Cincinnati Enquirer. He doesn't have the same topical content in Zits as Batiuk does in Funky, but he said he'd fight to his death for Batiuk's and Gary Trudeau's right to publish serious comics in the paper. That earns him some points.

If that wasn't enough, he's also won a Pulitzer for his other cartooning, which is pretty damn fine. Check it out.

SJT = Valerie Plame?

It seems I missed some hoopla in January about Riggs Bank, the institution on whose board once sat President Steven Joel Trachtenberg, GWU's dear leader.

Beyond suspect dealings with Saudi nationals and banking for Pinochet, it seems the bank was mixed up with the big kahuna of all suspicious money, the CIA. This is interesting, because I just heard speculation to this end earlier tonight. Let's review the facts, just so we can see where this is significant:

SJT is President of GWU
SJT goes on numerous trips to Korea and the Middle East
SJT sat on the board of Riggs Bank
Riggs Bank had dealings with the CIA

The only logical conclusion? SJT is CIA.

I just wish Karl Rove had told me that.

How to look overzealous

Well, one great way is to arrange an anti-anti-war demonstration. Another is to say this:

"If I have to sacrifice my whole family for the sake of our country and world, other countries that want freedom, I'll do that," said Qualls, a friend of the local business owner who started the pro-Bush camp, Bill Johnson

Kinda reminds me of another guy.

... more seriously, I feel badly for Qualls' loss (as may the folks at Camp Casey, it seems, since they keep putting a cross up to honor his son). And he's certainly free to grieve however he wants. My point is that I don't think everyone is prepared or willing to make the same sacrifice as he is. Also, I think countless people not prepared to give up so much will make political hay out of his reaction, hiding safely behind this gold-star father's rage. It's ironic, since it's exactly what those very pundits, radio personalities and spin doctors have criticized about Sheehan and her supporters.

Life has a sick sense of humor, I guess.

Gas isn't expensive enough

Sure, it's way high for my tastes. The Post has an article saying that I have an average price of $2.67 per gallon to look forward to when I return to the Washington area (good thing I don't own a car).

But that's still not expensive enough to make hydrogen economical. This morning, I read in a blurb in the September issue of Wired that hydrogen is still 85 times more expensive per unit of energy produced. Plus, it costs $400k to convert a gas station to pump hydrogen, and that still doesn't solve the problem of transporting it there.

So, President Bush's solution to our problems is hydrogen-fueled cars? Sure. At this rate, it'll make sense in, oh, about 50 years.

"a main source of legislation"

A compromise has been reached on the position of Islam in the Iraqi constitution, one of the major sticking points that has split sunnis, shiites and kurds. While the "a main source" language is certainly better than the variant "the source" which was proposed by some, I can certainly appreciate the apprehension that secular or even non-mainline islamic Iraqis have in response to this agreement.

Think of where the United States would be now if the framers of our constitution had included such language, naming Christianity as "a main source" of our laws. We'd be hard pressed to keep creationism out of schools, make abortion and perhaps contraception legal, and provide for same-sex marriage. None of these goals are explicitly non-christian, but the largest denominations of Christianity are opposed to them, and could probably shout down smaller churches and theological arguments. It wouldn't be Christian ideas that would run the country, but the dogmatic bigots who hold the most sway. Think Pat Robertson and Pope Benedict.

Things in Iraq may be headed in that direction. There are plenty of Muslims with great, compassionate beliefs. I just worry that, in a country wedged between Iran and Saudi Arabia, those Muslims aren't going to be the ones who define what Islam is in respect to the law.

Renegotiations

Brazil will be negotiating with pharmaceutical producer Abbott over their prices for AIDS drugs:

According to ministry spokesperson Estenio Brasileino, the government last week sent a letter to Abbott after several Brazilian drug makers notified the ministry that they could manufacture and market a generic version of Kaletra for 41 cents per pill, compared with Abbott's price of $1.17 per pill (Prada, New York Times, 8/19)

That's a huge price difference. Considering that Brazil provides the drug in question to over 23,000 residents, the savings will be immense. If Abbott won't lower prices to a more reasonable level, I hope Brazil will have the guts to go generic.

Our not-so-speedy withdrawl

Well, seems the army is making plans for sustaining troop levels in Iraq for at least another four years. Big surprise there. Troop levels could decrease sooner than that, administration officials said. Of course, the weasel words "if certain conditions are achieved" were attached, as always.

What are those conditions? What will it take to satisfy our President Bush? I'd like some concrete idea of what exactly constitutes sufficient victory for these folks, so we don't end up staying indefinitely just because we haven't got any idea what we're after. My guess, though, is that the particular conditions sought by the Neocons will be impossible to achieve given the current strategy, and we'd be better serving ourselves and the general stability of the region by leaving before their crackpot wishes dictate. Until they provide me with more information, that's what I have to believe - it's on them to convince me otherwise.

T-Shirt Activism

A woman came up to me in a bar tonight and gave me her number. Why? Because I was wearing my Housing Works shirt, of course.

Seems she works with a group called the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH), and liked the message on my back, which reads "Demand housing for homeless people living with AIDS & HIV." Her group acts as a kind of advocate and watchdog for the interests of homeless people, from increasing government funding for housing to making sure shelters are up to snuff. Seems like a very cool group - I'll have to give them a call.

More ID

Thoughts on a NYT article:

"When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute"

Yes, good job. That's how talking points work.

"Pushing a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion."

Well, who let them do that, I wonder? Certainly media organizations bear no responsibility through their constant portrayal of a debate, though nobody practicing actual science has yet found empirical evidence of "design."

Interest groups don't just do this stuff on their own, guys.

Geek break

I can't get enough of machinima. This Spartan Life is the first talk-show I've seen that's shot in a game, and it definitely cuts the mustard.

Why we're at war

Atrios had a good bit up yesterday about who's responsibility this fiasco is. With all the talk about Cindy Sheehan, you'd think she was the first person in America to question our war in Iraq, the first mother of a fallen soldier to question the wisdom of violence. I know that among the hundreds of thousands that marched against this war even before it began, there were many like Sheehan, folks who'd lost loved ones to past conflicts and couldn't bear to see that happen to someone else. It's because no one in the media gave voice to those people that Bush has to contend with Sheehan.

... and Atrios has more on the media's responsibility.

Violent Extremism

The Editors are really on recently. Check out The Poor Man. There's really not much I need to say beyond that - just go read.

Getting a fuller picture

Interested Soldier writes a lengthy reply to my abbreviated coverage of this NYT story about US soldiers in Iraq who have lots of stuff. I agree completely - the most important condition for our democracy to make informed decisions about what steps to take in Iraq is to have as full as possible disclosure of the conditions faced by troops there. I hear almost constantly that our friends, siblings, children and parents over there have shortages of supplies, from body armor down to sandbags. Some pundits and certain politicians often disagree. The response to such contention I expect of big media organizations with lots of resources and access to information is that they (a) systematically (rather than anecdotally) assess the situation and (b) provide us with as much information as is possible without endangering troops. Like the Interested Soldier, I don't see that in anything I read. That problem isn't limited to Iraq coverage, though...

Language

The Editors provide us with a great addendum to any dictionary which brings the English Language up to date with its use by pundits and bloggers.

John Roberts, Reaganaut

Seems the squeaky-clean Bush nominee has more unpalatable views up his sleeve.

Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done, and argued that promotions and firings in the workplace should be based entirely on merit, not affirmative action programs.

I'm not sure if I'm itching for this fight, but views like this make it seem like a better idea than it did a week ago.

... DC Media Girl has more.

MoveOn Vigil

I made it to the antiwar vigil in Cleveland Heights yesterday - seemed well attended, maybe a couple hundred. I was most surprised at how old the crowd was - there were far fewer young people than I expected. I suppose I'm used to DC, which is a much younger city overall.

Anyway, pictures:

Things I've been reading, haven't had time to blog.

Soldiers in Iraq have lots of stuff. I bet being there still sucks.

Cindy Sheehan

Some Senators are idiots, and shouldn't be let near technology legislation.

The Department of Homeland Security lost an important ruling on their new labor rules. This is good, because success there would mean the Bush administration would bring anti-union practices to all government jobs.

More progress on halting direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals.

AIDS aid organization sues USAID over policy requiring seekers of funding to oppose sex work; USAID says nothing's wrong.

Think Progress gives us a list of people involved in the CIA leak.

The Nation opines on the Strategic Class.

The Times takes a look at the developers who are destroying America.

Don't worry.

Still alive, it seems. Just haven't gotten around to finishing a couple posts i've been working on, and am pretty busy with (gasp) other stuff.

Intelligent Design

So, we should teach both sides, eh? Ok, sounds good, as long as the full strength of the evolution argument is permitted to crush the wimpy Intelligent Design. We're talking books vs. pamphlets here, so as long as Darwin isn't hogtied, I'm sure the wily old geezer can beat the snot out of the upstarts. A fair fight, however, may be too much to ask for.

I've spent a good part of today reading wikipedia, everything from the basic tenets of Methodism to Maimonides to Transubstantiation. With all that spinning in my head, plus a bunch of crap about ID, I've come to a couple thoughts:

Maimonides makes an interesting point (in the twelfth century, no less) that those who anthropomorphize God are lazy and just don't get it. Dude even gets pissed at people saying "hand of God." The scholar's genius workaround is that when any adjective is applied to God, like mighty, we ought consider it to be a homonym of mighty, but actually a totally different word (easy to say of biblical Hebrew, a language in which everything is spelled the same anyway). The point is that it's stupid and insulting to assume that anything about God is in any way the same as anything about you, me, a rock, etc. I'd extend this a bit further to say that anyone who can't wrap their theology around evolution is an uncreative heretic who wants God to design things like a mere person might.

Also, there's a reason that evolved organisms look designed. Now, here's where it might be good to "teach the controversy," since I wouldn't have thought about this if not for reading the inane arguments of IDers. They like to point to how similar the tiny mechanisms of life are to human machines (whatever they mean by that; consider the pump versus the protein pump). If there are any similarities, though, I think it's not best explained by organics being designed, but rather design being an organic process, an evolution of memes. Think about it - the human design of a watch took hundreds of years and generations of designs to perfect, and started from very simple models made of components (gears, springs, etc.) that themselves are simple machines that took hundreds of years and many generations to perfect. So, rather than bend evolution to fit into the Intelligent Design paradigm, maybe we ought to model our notion of design on concepts of evolution. Take that, ID.

Interesting reading

I found myself reading the Methodist Articles of Religion this morning. Think of it as the constitution of the United Methodist Church. Some things that surprised me:

- It provides for the separation of church and state, saying, "Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral."

- Marriage is not a sacrament; like confirmation, penance, orders, and extreme unction, matrimony doesn't have "any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God."

Methodists are said to be the largest of the mainline protestant denominations in the US.

Back from Michigan

And sun-burned to boot.

Holy Crap

Peter Jennings is dead.

PhRMA and Gilead

Well, PhRMA has finally recognized (thought not fully acknowledged) that at least one bit of their policies hurt people. Great news, even if it is only the advertising so far.

In other news, Gilead has increased profits on the backs of people with AIDS.

Greed, greed, greed.

Nicaragua Photos Are Up

Off to Michigan

I'll be in the Traverse Bay area for the weekend. No idea whether I'll have time or access to post.

The Editors strike again

Best thing I've read all year, on the war or otherwise. Go read it.

Other Economics News

So the 30-year bond is back, here to help us refinance the national debt. It's like a mortgage, but we don't have to call those annoying Ditech people. Thank god.

Almost missed it

So, the biggest macroeconomics news in years almost passed me by, since I've seen almost no coverage of it in American media.

Who else caught that the Chinese are no longer pegging the yuan to the dollar?

Euros add to Global Fund

Seems like small change to me - didn't Japan just promise like $500 million?

The European Commission on Monday announced it has donated about $70 million to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, VOA News reports. The donation brings the EC's total commitments to the fund since 2002 to more than $500 million (VOA News, 8/1). The EC is the second-largest contributor to the Global Fund after the U.S.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is the multilateral institution that is the best hope for fighting three of the biggest killers in the world. It has been underfunded for its entire existence, as the US and other countries have repeatedly failed to meet their fair shares of the need. Here's info on the funding gap.

If you are mad about CAFTA and want to do something meaningful over the next few days, I recommend giving your congresspersons a few calls and ask that they support appropriating $930 million (the US fair share) for the Global Fund for FY2006.

... checked out the excel sheet on the GF page - very informative. Japan, it seems, has pledged $500 million but has not set a period for the pledge. The EC, while they have pledged less, have actually paid more out than any nation save the US. So, the EC is cool, but could still use some work.

The problem with the drug war

... is that we're more interested in prosecution than treatment, more interested in appearances than getting at the real sources of the problem. That much shouldn't be news to anyone by now, but a recent NYT story highlights the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

So, meth is a problem. I'm willing to concede that, as I don't know a whole lot about meth. OK. So what do we do about it? Find those who are abusing it and offer counseling, while going after its producers? That might make sense. Maybe too much. Instead, let's launch a sting operation in which we get convicted meth dealers to entrap immigrant convenience store clerks, busting them when they sell sudafed and aluminum foil in one purchase. Makes sense. Oh, and our justification for why the convenience store guys just had to know that the items - the everyday, legal items - that they sold would be used for meth production? The customers dropped absurdly obvious hints that they were meth producers, including that they needed to do a "cook" and such. Now, my english are pretty good (and so probably is my drug slang), but I wouldn't know that meant meth production. Here's what one clerk thought:

"This is not even slang language like 'gonna,' 'wanna,' " said Malvika Patel, who spent three days in jail before being cleared this month. " 'Cook' is very clear; it means food." And in this context, she said, some of the items the government wants stores to monitor would not set off any alarms. "When I do barbecue, I have four families. I never have enough aluminum foil."

This whole business is straight-up idiotic. I kinda want to go buy some kitty litter and cough medicine just to see what happens.

... guess I have to add hair dye to the shopping list. Yeesh.

Bolton

I'm proud that my Senator Voinovich had such a large role in the fact that the Bolton appointment was done in recess, the Bush administration cowering in fear of opposition from the Senate. We weren't really going to keep him from the UN, perhaps, but at least now it's clear he's unpopular.

This seems like an interesting piece - I haven't had time to finish it, but what I saw I liked.

Oink

Fun with Pork!

Good to see that congress has its priorities straight while we have a war on. It's lucky that our troops have all the armor and supplies they need to be safe, so that members of congress can be free to spend frivolously. Oh, wait...

Big bad HMO

So I had an appendectomy last week. I'd gone in to get a CT scan of my liver, but after 24 hours in the hospital, two reviews of the scan data and an ultrasound, I was diagnosed with appendicitis and admitted for surgery. All went well.

Now, I get a letter from Medical Mutual, my insurer. In it, they express disbelief at the medical necessity of the procedure, and of my hospitalization. They claim they won't pay for any of it.

Now, I really didn't know that an appendectomy was an elective surgery.

... All has been sorted out. Seems they didn't receive notice that I had appendicitis, and had just heard that I went to the hospital with abdominal pain and was discharged. How they missed all that went on in between, I don't know...