Wednesday Bible Study: Going around in circles
The ridiculous repetition continues, and I ' m not sure what to do about it. This is incredibly boring. They just keep saying the same thing, over and over, at absurd length. I pledged we ' d read the whole damn thing however so in order to keep my word, we just need to plow ahead. Unfortunately, I must warn you, it goes on for quite a while longer in the same circles. This does give us a few popular cliches, e.g. nothing but skin and bones, the skin of my teeth. Whether that makes the whole thing worthwhile I can ' t say. Anyway I ' ll give you two chapters to try to get this over with as soon as possible.19 Then Job...
Source: Stayin' Alive - October 4, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Federal spending
A commenter asked about historic federal spending. The meaningful comparison is spending as a percentage of GDP, so here it is. As you can see it spiked during WWII, obviously, then came down and tended to ascend slowly until 1982, when it leveled off, then it fell from 1990 to 1998, during the administration of Bill Clinton. It rose sharply during the administration of George W. Bush, and then fell again under Barack Obama after a brief spike due to the financial crisis. It then rose sharply under Donald Trump, and has come back down just as sharply under Joe Biden. Right now it is higher than it has been since the e...
Source: Stayin' Alive - October 4, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Big gummint
Just so we ' re clear about the facts. And by the way, the U.S. population has doubled since 1955.(HT to Barry Ritholz) X (Source: Stayin' Alive)
Source: Stayin' Alive - October 3, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
I feel I must belabor the obvious. Yes, it's a cult.
For most of my life, the Republican party has promoted itself as the true patriots, the people who " support the troops, " will aggressively confront foreign adversaries, and spend trillions of dollars for what they define as a " strong " national defense. They also purport to be the competent party, the " grownups in the room. " Now, quite suddenly it seems, they worship and adore a demented idiot who disparages and disdains the military and wants to bow down to the nation ' s most dangerous adversary.General Kelly, who served as white house chief of staff, has recently granted an interview to CNN. A person tha...
Source: Stayin' Alive - October 3, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: More endless yammering
Again I ' m going to post two chapters today just to try to get this over with. I sincerely apologize, I ' d forgotten how turgid and repetitive this book is. Yet again, Job takes hundreds of words to say that the comforters aren ' t helping and he ' s despairing; and in the next chapter Bildad once again says Job must have done something to deserve this, in hundreds of words. I ' ll just say that it would be impossible to get this drek published today, even in a college literary magazine. I ' m sorry to have to tell you that it goes on and on after this while nothing happens and nothing new is said. Again, if this is the ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - October 1, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Ripoff
You may have heard that the FDA recently concluded that a common ingredient in over-the-counter cold medicines doesn ' t work. That ' s a gift link to a NYT essay byRandy C. Hatton andLeslie Hendeles. This may not seem like such a big deal in itself, but there was never any good evidence that it worked in the first place and pharmacologists have been telling the FDA that it doesn ' t work for decades. The fact is that a lot of over-the-counter products that have FDA approval probably don ' t work. Oh, and by the way just about 100% of the so-called " supplements " and homeopathic " remedies " don ' t work either.Thes...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 29, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Future Proofing Healthcare Automation
The following is a guest article by Niall O’Connor, Chief Technology Officer at Cohere Health
Constructing a Responsible AI Framework for Prior Authorization
The American healthcare system is on the precipice of a critically necessary digital transformation. Anyone who has experience with healthcare, even just as a consumer, knows technology and change are needed. A recent report found that 89% of healthcare organizations are still using fax machines and 39% are using pagers. It’s time to future-proof healthcare automation, and I’m not the only one suggesting that now is the time for a digital transformation in hea...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - September 27, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Administration AI/Machine Learning Health IT Company Healthcare IT Revenue Cycle Management AI Accountability Cohere Health Healthcare Automation Niall O’Connor Prior Authorization responsible AI Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: My apologies
This endless yammering is totally frosting my pumpkin. I ' m not sure what to do about it, however, because these chapters are long and it seems like an awful lot to do two of them at once. But what the hell, we have to get this over with. In Ch. 15, Eliphaz castigates Job for complaining to God, basically, and just says, as MacLeish translates it, " In Adam ' s fall we sinned all/We ' re like the flies the creep and crawl/Across the dusty windowpanes, " IIRC, or something like that. In Ch. 16, Job essentially adds the would-be comforters to his afflictions, which is fair enough. What Job doesn ' t know, however, is that t...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 27, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Inexplicable irrationality
For mysterious reasons, there have been anti-vaccination movements since vaccination was invented.* The eradication of smallpox from the earth; the near eradication of polio (which terrified the population in the 1950s); and the near elimination of measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, typhus and other diseases which formerly maimed and killed many children; and many other triumphs ought to have convinced people that vaccination was an unalloyed benefit to humanity. But somehow it ' s profitable to deny this obvious reality.The near miraculous success of the Covid 19 vaccines turns out to be one more opportunity for charlat...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 25, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Life sucks and then you die
Ch. 14 is yet more of the seemingly eternal lamentation and despair, now all about mortality. This does seem a bit ambiguous about the possibility of an afterlife. Job seems to be saying that there isn ' t one, but there is at least a hint of some sort of possible resurrection in the future, or anyway a question about the possibility. At least that ' s how I read it. But no, there really isn ' t any.14 “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.2 They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.3 Do you fi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 24, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Hard Times in the Country
The AP recently reported onthe disappearance of maternity wards in rural areas: Alisha Alderson placed her folded clothes and everything she needed for
the last month of her pregnancy in various suitcases. She never imagined
she would have to leave the comfort of her home in rural eastern Oregon
just weeks before her due date. But following the abrupt closure in
August of the only maternity ward within 40 miles, she decided to stay
at her brother ’s house near Boise, Idaho — a two-hour drive through a
mountain pass — to be closer to a hospital. . . .A growing number of rural hospitals have been shutt...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 22, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Yeah, this is getting tedious
Sorry for the limited posting of late, I ' ve been distracted by a few issues. Proposal hell, small town politics, memorial arrangement for my mother -- yeah, I have excuses. But I ' ll get back to it.Meanwhile, I have to admit the Book of Job is getting very tiresome. It ' s long-winded and repetitive. Apparently the profession of editor had not been invented in the 6th Century BCE so the author indulges himself with an endless and tedious stream of imagery. I ' m tempted to fast forward but for now we ' ll just stay with the program. Basically, it ' s the same argument. The " comforters " are telling Job he must ha...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 20, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: More of the same
In Chapter 12 Job rambles on with the same basic idea. God is all powerful, he does whatever he does, and it ' s impossible to discern justice in his whims. The obvious question occurs to me. Why worship this psycho? Especially since the righteous often suffer and the wicked may be rewarded. But that was, after all, the original bet -- that he will continue to worship God. Okay, but don ' t ask me why. 12 Then Job replied:2 “Doubtless you are the only people who matter, and wisdom will die with you!3 But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to y...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 17, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
More on idiocy
Wow. I got a comment on my previous post claiming that the reason people don ' t believe in climate change is because " liberals " have made wild claims about it that have not come true. Man, you need a glass navel to see. In fact the consequences are happening faster, and are more severe, than even the most dire predictions of a few years ago. The truth is the exact opposite of what you claim. This idiot also claims that we shouldn ' t do anything about it because - China, apparently, although he omitted the name. In the first place, logically, the question of whether it is true is completely separate from the questi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 16, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Small Town Blues
A couple of weeks ago we had a tornado that knocked out power for a whole lot of people for a day. Okay, no biggie maybe. But yesterday we had a downpour of Biblical proportions that washed out three bridges. This has never happened here before, not even in hurricanes. A town of 1,500 people has no way ever to pay for three new bridges. We ' ll see what kind of help we can get from the state, but meanwhile there are people who live between two of the bridges who are completely isolated from the road system. I don ' t know what they ' re going to do. This is getting to be the new normal everywhere. Yeah, it ' s disturb...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 14, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
