Of those three, I know that Krugman relies substantially on a much looser monetary policy and higher interest rates inducing inflation. As I see it, those things just aren't in the cards.
I had four hours to think about this while driving out to Vegas. Then I took a nap -- I am staying at a Holiday Inn Express.
That and I think the antibiotics are finally getting the upper hand on the little critters that decided to go on holiday in my lungs. If I could just stop coughing myself awake when I lie down, I'd actually feel pretty good right now.
Oh, I disagree. Both Mike and Elias avoided using terms like "Rethuglicans" or "Democraps," which seems to be a good way to attract assistance in the construction of an echo chamber.
Yes. A person who is paid to be pregnant is called a "surrogate."
And yes. A person who is paid for raising children is called a "nanny."
I have heard rumors that both surrogates and nannies have freely and voluntarily entered into arrangements whereby these servies are exchanged for money.
Asking whether we need stories is quite a bit like asking whether we need logic.
Both are foundational means by which conscious thought is organized. Indeed, at least syllogistic logic is concievable as a form of storytelling: major premise creates the environment in which the story occurs, minor premise creates tension, conclusion resolves tension and harmonizes the major and minor premises with one another.
Methinks Nob was obliquely referring to the libertarian-based arguments from the Obamacare hearings ("Can the government make you buy broccoli?" etc.).
Seems to me -- and I'm not a Christian -- that this particular verse doesn't need a lot of deep reading.
Jesus instructs: "Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Tend to the sick and the old. Treat prisoners with humanity."
By indictating that the righteous who failed to do these things in life will be punished by God in the afterlife for their omissions, we are to understand that feeding the hungry, etc. are moral imperatives, affirmative duties deriving from our common humanity, and thus to which there are no exceptions.
Am I missing something? Why all the spilt ink over splitting hairs about "Treat other human beings like they are, in fact, human beings"?
So is playing basketball in the NBA. Most people who play basketball don't play in the NBA. Most anaesthesiologists don't get to be high-falutin' expert witnesses charging six-figure fees and commanding gold-plated travel expenses. Good for your friend that he gets to do that, but this is atypical.
As I explored in the first link above, the reason malpractice insurance rates are high is not because of ridiculous verdicts in frivolous (I prefer "unmeritorious") lawsuits. To address Will H's concern above, a majority of states already impose damage caps on malpractice lawsuits. In California, for instance, the medical malpractice tort reform law limits general damages (commonly but imprecisely called "pain and suffering") to $300,000 -- not an inconsiderable sum of money, but also not something your typical lawyer looks to as the sole source of his retirement account (and indeed, often a $100,000 fee for eighteen months' worth of litigation is closer to "breaking even" or "making an okay living" than it is to becoming John Edwards).
And to get that point, the lawyer needs to overcome a substantial burden of evidence and overcome the jury's substantial predisposition to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt -- in other words, the lawyer needs to offer very substantial proof that the doctor really did screw up. No one seriously contends that a doctor who really does screw up shouldn't have to make compensation to the patient who is hurt thereby. But juries like doctors. While the theoretical standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence, the practical reality of the plaintiff's burden in a med-mal trial is something much closer to the criminal standard.
Now, a very real objection exists that even if the doctor wins the verdict after a trial, she's lost anyway because of the mere fact of the lawsuit, the requirement that it be publicly reported and disclosed, and the time, expense, and stress inherent in dealing with it. To that end, I've proposed my own, admittedly imperfect, variation on medical malpractice reform, because the tort system does not appear fundamentally broken to me. If the tort system produces what is derisively referred to as "defensive medicine," why is that a bad thing? The only concievable objection I could make to it is that it causes additional expense that outweighs the clinical benefit of the procedures or tests requested.
But as Dr. Saunders points out above, the status quo teaches doctors to disregard cost, and instead to focus on providing the best treatment for their patients. If we, as a society, adopt an ethic that instead we must balance the cost of expenses and procedures with the likelihood of the procedure producing a clinically useful result, then that is, by definition, incorporated into the concept of "prevailing standard of care." Doc once wrote that doctors are trained to not "look for zebras." Good advice for them, and that is the standard of care. We hold doctors liable for deviating below the standard of care in their treatment, not for conforming to it. If there really is a "zebra" condition and it gets missed and missing the diagnosis causes material harm to the patient, then the doctor who missed it was nevertheless conforming to the standard of care and therefore by definition will not be found liable.
The financial impact of malpractice litigation on the medical profession is a paper tiger, one which does not withstand sober analysis. The psychological impact of malpractice litigation on the medical profession may well dramatically exceed its economic importance -- but for some people, the threat of financial consequence is the only langauge that they understand. I see plenty of people speeding down the freeway, who slow down when they see a cop car. The threat of an economic consequence for unreasonably unsafe behavior, and not the inherent risks of that behavior, is what governs their conduct. No one would really want to drive on a freeway in which no driver faced any effective consequence for driving unsafely -- and no one should really want to participate in a medical care situation in which there was no effective consequence for Dr. Nickleaving a scalpel inside your body after surgery.
That Jenna Talackova looks like she's got a rocket body in that bikini photo. Assuming she's approximately as attractive IRL as in the staged photo, would you date her?
Excellent thoughts on the subject and worthy of frontpaging.
It ought not to be a surprise that a Black kid can be the victim of street crime or that he would be targeted in part based on his race. But when something gets this big a profile this fast it seems like a good idea to not immediately react to the noise in cavorted of waiting to tune in to the actual signal.
Even now the focus seems to be on Zimmerman and not the police. And we in the public still lack enough solid information to render judgment on them. Probably won't until all their interviews with Zimmerman come out. It's certainly not wrong for authorities to withhold making arrests and filing charges until they're sure they have a good case and here, we can all be sure the defense will claim self-defense. I'd cut the cops some slack if I knew they were gathering evidence to meet that obvious claim before making the arrest.
It's possible, sure, as Michael Drew points out below. If Manning is graceful about it, and cooperates with gradually stepping out of the spotlight as the Young Padawan steps into it.
I'm just saying there's zero evidence of that actually being the case. There's precious few examples of that kind of mentorship actually occurring, even when starting and backup QBs have gotten along well. Once you're The Guy, you're The Guy. The coach also has pressure to win, every game, all the time, and won't want to mess around with any combination that's producing good results.
Now, sometimes you look to your backup and discover that hey, this Brady kid is really stepping up, so let's run with it for a week or two to make really sure that Bledsoe is 100% healthy again, and see what happens in the meantime. But sometimes you look to your backup and discover... oh, jeez, he really is only Tarvaris Jackson after all and holding Brett Favre's clipboard for a season and a half really hasn't done anything to elevate him from Alex van Pelt territory.
So yeah, it's possible. But I don't see it playing out that way as a significant probability.
Pair-bonding and/or monogamy may not be the "natural" state of humans, but it is the aspiration to which western culture aspires. There are other kinds of "natural" human social organizations that may not be particularly good fits with modern culture.
For instance, we believe that caring for or respecting one's elders is a morally good thing to do. To the hunter-gatherers from whom we are descended, elders were likely burdens with few benefits, and in some hunter-gatherer societies, elders were expected at some point to wander away and die as part of their duty to relieve the tribe of the duty of caring for them.
Or consider hierarchies and primacies -- how do we select leaders, when and how do leaders get displaced? Democracy was probably not the method employed by our ancestors out on the savannah. But we all seem to prefer some other means of selecting leaders -- and rotating them periodically -- that is other than the strongest get their way. You can torture that to some degree, but
So for a good number of folks, going along with the dominant cultural ideal as opposed to the way that we might reasonably presume was the most probable form of social organization for humans of a hundred thousand years ago is not so unnatural or awkward as to be dehumanizing. Just because we can reach some reasonable conclusions about how prehistoric man did things, and draw reasonable inferences about our instincts and actual (rather than idealized) behavior patterns and physiologies, we can still govern ourselves as we choose.
On “Eating Peas”
Of those three, I know that Krugman relies substantially on a much looser monetary policy and higher interest rates inducing inflation. As I see it, those things just aren't in the cards.
"
I had four hours to think about this while driving out to Vegas. Then I took a nap -- I am staying at a Holiday Inn Express.
That and I think the antibiotics are finally getting the upper hand on the little critters that decided to go on holiday in my lungs. If I could just stop coughing myself awake when I lie down, I'd actually feel pretty good right now.
"
If that's the dog whistle, then it worked, because that's really not what I hear when I hear that phrase in this context.
And it's certainly not what I'm suggesting here.
On “Role Reversals”
Oh, I disagree. Both Mike and Elias avoided using terms like "Rethuglicans" or "Democraps," which seems to be a good way to attract assistance in the construction of an echo chamber.
On “The destructiveness of “hard work””
I'll play along.
Yes. A person who is paid to be pregnant is called a "surrogate."
And yes. A person who is paid for raising children is called a "nanny."
I have heard rumors that both surrogates and nannies have freely and voluntarily entered into arrangements whereby these servies are exchanged for money.
On “Strip-Searching: Supremes Say We Shouldn’t Doubt Law Enforcement…”
The level of discussion will pretty much always trend down to that joke, doesn't it? And we wonder why more women don't hang out here...
On “Leaguefest 2012: Reservations Still Available”
By all means. Unless you think you've already got a solution worked out, in which case it would be unnecessary.
On “How Not to Discuss Whether We Need Stories”
Asking whether we need stories is quite a bit like asking whether we need logic.
Both are foundational means by which conscious thought is organized. Indeed, at least syllogistic logic is concievable as a form of storytelling: major premise creates the environment in which the story occurs, minor premise creates tension, conclusion resolves tension and harmonizes the major and minor premises with one another.
On “The Roots of Scandal”
They don't file very many lawsuits, that's for sure.
On “Leaguefest 2012: Reservations Still Available”
Word up, man.
On “Strip-Searching: Supremes Say We Shouldn’t Doubt Law Enforcement…”
Methinks Nob was obliquely referring to the libertarian-based arguments from the Obamacare hearings ("Can the government make you buy broccoli?" etc.).
On “Bible Verse and Commentary”
Seems to me -- and I'm not a Christian -- that this particular verse doesn't need a lot of deep reading.
Jesus instructs: "Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Tend to the sick and the old. Treat prisoners with humanity."
By indictating that the righteous who failed to do these things in life will be punished by God in the afterlife for their omissions, we are to understand that feeding the hungry, etc. are moral imperatives, affirmative duties deriving from our common humanity, and thus to which there are no exceptions.
Am I missing something? Why all the spilt ink over splitting hairs about "Treat other human beings like they are, in fact, human beings"?
On “Leaguefest 2012: Reservations Still Available”
Excellent! This is going to be a lot of fun.
On “I don’t know what your healthcare costs”
So should only cops serve as jurors in a police abuse case?
"
So is playing basketball in the NBA. Most people who play basketball don't play in the NBA. Most anaesthesiologists don't get to be high-falutin' expert witnesses charging six-figure fees and commanding gold-plated travel expenses. Good for your friend that he gets to do that, but this is atypical.
"
I am of the opinion that the specter of medical malpractice litigation has, on balance, been good for the medical profession and the practice of medicine. The fear of litigation which doctors express -- usually at the behest of their insurance companies -- is dramatically overblown. Doctors win these lawsuits, much more than they lose them. Juries like doctors.
As I explored in the first link above, the reason malpractice insurance rates are high is not because of ridiculous verdicts in frivolous (I prefer "unmeritorious") lawsuits. To address Will H's concern above, a majority of states already impose damage caps on malpractice lawsuits. In California, for instance, the medical malpractice tort reform law limits general damages (commonly but imprecisely called "pain and suffering") to $300,000 -- not an inconsiderable sum of money, but also not something your typical lawyer looks to as the sole source of his retirement account (and indeed, often a $100,000 fee for eighteen months' worth of litigation is closer to "breaking even" or "making an okay living" than it is to becoming John Edwards).
And to get that point, the lawyer needs to overcome a substantial burden of evidence and overcome the jury's substantial predisposition to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt -- in other words, the lawyer needs to offer very substantial proof that the doctor really did screw up. No one seriously contends that a doctor who really does screw up shouldn't have to make compensation to the patient who is hurt thereby. But juries like doctors. While the theoretical standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence, the practical reality of the plaintiff's burden in a med-mal trial is something much closer to the criminal standard.
Now, a very real objection exists that even if the doctor wins the verdict after a trial, she's lost anyway because of the mere fact of the lawsuit, the requirement that it be publicly reported and disclosed, and the time, expense, and stress inherent in dealing with it. To that end, I've proposed my own, admittedly imperfect, variation on medical malpractice reform, because the tort system does not appear fundamentally broken to me. If the tort system produces what is derisively referred to as "defensive medicine," why is that a bad thing? The only concievable objection I could make to it is that it causes additional expense that outweighs the clinical benefit of the procedures or tests requested.
But as Dr. Saunders points out above, the status quo teaches doctors to disregard cost, and instead to focus on providing the best treatment for their patients. If we, as a society, adopt an ethic that instead we must balance the cost of expenses and procedures with the likelihood of the procedure producing a clinically useful result, then that is, by definition, incorporated into the concept of "prevailing standard of care." Doc once wrote that doctors are trained to not "look for zebras." Good advice for them, and that is the standard of care. We hold doctors liable for deviating below the standard of care in their treatment, not for conforming to it. If there really is a "zebra" condition and it gets missed and missing the diagnosis causes material harm to the patient, then the doctor who missed it was nevertheless conforming to the standard of care and therefore by definition will not be found liable.
The financial impact of malpractice litigation on the medical profession is a paper tiger, one which does not withstand sober analysis. The psychological impact of malpractice litigation on the medical profession may well dramatically exceed its economic importance -- but for some people, the threat of financial consequence is the only langauge that they understand. I see plenty of people speeding down the freeway, who slow down when they see a cop car. The threat of an economic consequence for unreasonably unsafe behavior, and not the inherent risks of that behavior, is what governs their conduct. No one would really want to drive on a freeway in which no driver faced any effective consequence for driving unsafely -- and no one should really want to participate in a medical care situation in which there was no effective consequence for Dr. Nick leaving a scalpel inside your body after surgery.
"
No, but I did once in a previous iteration of my career.
On “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and thinks its a duck…”
That Jenna Talackova looks like she's got a rocket body in that bikini photo. Assuming she's approximately as attractive IRL as in the staged photo, would you date her?
"
I'm with you too! Now I know what to do in addition to adding protest to my pre-existing apathy.
Thanks be unto Tod.
On “My Quick Take on The Martin-Zimmerman Incident”
Excellent thoughts on the subject and worthy of frontpaging.
It ought not to be a surprise that a Black kid can be the victim of street crime or that he would be targeted in part based on his race. But when something gets this big a profile this fast it seems like a good idea to not immediately react to the noise in cavorted of waiting to tune in to the actual signal.
Even now the focus seems to be on Zimmerman and not the police. And we in the public still lack enough solid information to render judgment on them. Probably won't until all their interviews with Zimmerman come out. It's certainly not wrong for authorities to withhold making arrests and filing charges until they're sure they have a good case and here, we can all be sure the defense will claim self-defense. I'd cut the cops some slack if I knew they were gathering evidence to meet that obvious claim before making the arrest.
On “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and thinks its a duck…”
What do I do if I already don't watch pageants?
On “Thoughts From Travelworld”
Thanks. Sometimes, I get inspired. That picture alone was why I put the post on the front page.
On “Peyton Manning is coming to Denver Open Open Thread”
It's possible, sure, as Michael Drew points out below. If Manning is graceful about it, and cooperates with gradually stepping out of the spotlight as the Young Padawan steps into it.
I'm just saying there's zero evidence of that actually being the case. There's precious few examples of that kind of mentorship actually occurring, even when starting and backup QBs have gotten along well. Once you're The Guy, you're The Guy. The coach also has pressure to win, every game, all the time, and won't want to mess around with any combination that's producing good results.
Now, sometimes you look to your backup and discover that hey, this Brady kid is really stepping up, so let's run with it for a week or two to make really sure that Bledsoe is 100% healthy again, and see what happens in the meantime. But sometimes you look to your backup and discover... oh, jeez, he really is only Tarvaris Jackson after all and holding Brett Favre's clipboard for a season and a half really hasn't done anything to elevate him from Alex van Pelt territory.
So yeah, it's possible. But I don't see it playing out that way as a significant probability.
On “Book notes: Sex at Dawn”
Pair-bonding and/or monogamy may not be the "natural" state of humans, but it is the aspiration to which western culture aspires. There are other kinds of "natural" human social organizations that may not be particularly good fits with modern culture.
For instance, we believe that caring for or respecting one's elders is a morally good thing to do. To the hunter-gatherers from whom we are descended, elders were likely burdens with few benefits, and in some hunter-gatherer societies, elders were expected at some point to wander away and die as part of their duty to relieve the tribe of the duty of caring for them.
Or consider hierarchies and primacies -- how do we select leaders, when and how do leaders get displaced? Democracy was probably not the method employed by our ancestors out on the savannah. But we all seem to prefer some other means of selecting leaders -- and rotating them periodically -- that is other than the strongest get their way. You can torture that to some degree, but
So for a good number of folks, going along with the dominant cultural ideal as opposed to the way that we might reasonably presume was the most probable form of social organization for humans of a hundred thousand years ago is not so unnatural or awkward as to be dehumanizing. Just because we can reach some reasonable conclusions about how prehistoric man did things, and draw reasonable inferences about our instincts and actual (rather than idealized) behavior patterns and physiologies, we can still govern ourselves as we choose.
On “A Quick “OMG! Update” on Enders Game & South Carolina”
Well, you blew that at the end.