linkedy links xvi

more occasional link fodder from the recent past

'cause y'know, linking is an inherent good

  • Jay Bookman reports on a editorial in the IBD which notes: "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K..."
    "...where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,"
    Stupid blighters, the IBD.
    Don't they know Stephen is a fellow of Caius...

    Actually, good thing he got that dual appointment at the Perimeter Institute on this side of the pond, eh.
    That way the Canadians can step in as needed, eh?

    h/t atrios

  • Cosmic Log has a take on Pluto and the IAU saga
    I have my own take on some of the internals, maybe I'll pontificate on it again some time
  • Through judicious use of the FoIA, the NYT reveals that Former Secretary of Treasury called head of Goldman Sachs, lots
    kos summarises

    Come on people!
    Of course those phone calls are perfectly innocent.
    They were just arranging to meet, for coffee and a chat.
    Long serious chat about friendship and loyalty, and what is best for the institution they owe it all to.

    Paulson knew perfectly well that with the NSA fishing no phone call would be secure.

  • Alda at the Iceland Weather Report reports on the Hot Pot Conspiracy
    I tell you, Iceland is just six months ahead of the rest of the world.

    Banksters in hot water in Iceland

    A lot of houses in Iceland are getting a post-modern paint job
    we do like our houses to be bright...
    I wonder if red is the new "in colour" for the financial vikings... very fetching.
    Did I mention Iceland seems to be ahead of the rest of the world in so many ways?

    But, no sheep shit? No slor?
    Come on cousins, you can be more imaginative than that...

  • Southern Beale tells us all about Death Panels
    Private ones - they even have a code for it: HTD
    "Home To Die" - it is where they send you when your private insurance runs out.

    via Digby

More like this

Yesterday was a long, busy day of driving, ferrying offspring about, and I listened to a lot of NPR. All I heard, over and over again, was talk about Henry Paulson and his new position as Treasury Secretary. Not a contrary word was spoken: I heard all about his pro-environmental stance (good, but I…
Right now, the US is in a political struggle to get better national health care. One of the chief tactics of the opposition is, in addition to simply lying and pretending it would be horrible for poor children to get medical treatment, is to tell us horror stories about all those wicked socialist…
...leave it to the Investor's Business Daily to kick it up a notch to thermonuclear as an anonymous editorialist tries to criticize President Obama's health plan by invoking the dreaded British NHS: People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National…
The reason the AIG bonuses are upsetting isn't the amount of the bonuses--although the bonuses are larger than the entire National Endowment for the Arts budget--it's the complete impotence of and cooptation of the government by the financial sector (yes, we need banks and a financial sector, but…

As a Canadian, I apologize profusely for my country, which has been systematically killing the elderly and now has Stephen Hawking in its sights.

I mean, thank goodness for our social health service. It's so much more efficient than the age-old Canadian tradition of simply letting them go onto the ice floes.

Of course, the US government already provides health insurance to all those aged 65 and older... and as far as I can tell all socialized medicine has a 100% mortality rate.

I'm really confused - where does this "Obama will be killing off the sick and old" come from? That happens neither in the US, Scandinavia nor in Germany, as far as I'm aware. And right now there are so many with no health insurance whatsoever.

My aunt died of a heart attack because she had no health insurance, so instead of calling an ambulance, she called a friend to come take her to the emergency room. She didn't make it.

And thanks for introducing me to Aldakalda - really enjoy her blog!

By ScienceWoman (not verified) on 11 Aug 2009 #permalink

Well, Bayesian inference would suggest that the mortality rate is asymptotic to 100% for all socialized medicine programs, though I think, strictly we must allow a range of 99.9999999%-100.0%
It is always good to provide hope to the masses.

Unless you know something about the asymptotic structure of space-time that I don't...

The "Obama death panels" idea comes from a very simple place: cynical and amoral political opponents sat down and convolved the two concepts of "what would scare people the most", with "what would a sociopath like myself do with this" and then promulgated the deliberate lie.