Testicles - Bibletastic.com

Testicles - Bibletastic.com

Health care once again

I have spent most of my life in the pharmaceutical industry. I was responsible for my company's most important product line everywhere in the world with the exception of the US and Canada. I have dealt with the national health care systems in 45 countries and I can say that many of them (especially in the Scandinavian countries and in France and Germany) are very superior to health care in the US (just look at life-expectancy, quality of life, and infant survival data). If we do not change the way we handle health care, we will be unable to compete with the rest of the world because more and more money will pour down the black hole hole we call the "American Health Care System" (as if there is a system).. The per capita expenditures on health care in France and Germany is half ours and we do not even have universal coverage. In addition, their systems are better than ours in almost every metric you want to examine (especially so when it comes to patient satisfaction and new born life expectancy).

If you are interested in the facts concerning the proposed health care system and not the lies and exaggerations of the tartigrade twit know-nothings, please review the following 8 points and examine the information contained in the administration's website by clicking the link at the bottom of this post:

8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage

1. Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
2. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
3. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
4. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
5. Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
6. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
7. Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
8. Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.

Learn more and get details: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/

Internet Search Techniques

Internet Search Techniques

This advice is very useful and I hope that you take the time to read it.

Time to Think

Today, I remembered having read something about the shortest event ever measured. I don't remember the event, but I remembered that it lasted 2 attoseconds. I knew that an attosecond was quite short. I thought that an attosecond was to a second as one second is to a million or maybe a billion years (although I really doubted the latter). I'm not sure why, but I looked it up today and found out that one attosecond is to one second as one second is to the time the universe has existed. How can one possibly live in "the moment" when discrete actions begin and end in such an infintesimally small amounts of time?

The Egyptians and Proclus may indeed have been right when they said that "god" was not to be found "out there somewhere", but in the eternal present the eternal now. "God" or whatever you want to call the Source of Being may indeed "exist" in all the way down outside the very bottom of time and bring all creation about with actions infinitely small and infinitely short. It's just a thought.

Mayberry

We all have images in our minds of bucolic small towns where everyone knows everyone else and all the people get along for the most part. A place where most are disposed to help anyone in the town in almost anyway they can. It does not matter whether it's Mayberry, Lake Wobegone, or the suburb of "The Wonder Years." These places are part of the American Identity and what makes these places such a persistent idea is that they exist and existed- not as perfect as the myth, but closer to it than one might imagine. These places are rapidly disappearing due to a number of factors and one of these is chrystal meth. According to Walter Kirn, writing in today's New York Times Book Review, Methland - The Death and Life of a Small American Town by Nick Reading gives the reader a very effective and engaging account of how, why, and by whom these towns are being destroyed. Reading also describes how meth is a symptom of the diseases destroying the towns - it is not the cause. Finally, he also shows how one town began a process of recovery that appears to be working. I have placed this book high on my reading lst and I hope you will do the same. The unending "Dateline", "60 Minutes", et al reports will not bring about the political action needed. The only thing that will lead to political action is us. Our leaders will not act until we force them to - with letters, emails, phone calls, demonstrations, etc. There are solutions out there and it is up to us to make the politicians find and adopt them.

Minds and Gods

Image via Wikipedia

This is a fantastic book that in the world I wish and even pray for everyone would be intensely interested in. The author, Todd Tremlin, demonstrates through cognitive science that various neural structures and programs that came about as a result of evolution function together to actually predispose us to believe in divine agents as long as these agents have a limited number of "unbelievable" attributes and that these "unbelievable" attributes are somehow acceptable. The book is a fascinating tour of the mind. One might expect that a book such as this would have as one of its messages that our cognitive predisposition to attribute phenomena to divine agents argues against the existance of such agents. However, Mr. Tremlin makes it very clear that this is not a conclusion with which he would agree. He does, though, make it very clear that an understanding of these predispositions is essential as they can create unconscious and subconscious assumptions about our God or gods with which our conscious mind would not agree. All-in-all, whether you are agnostic, athiestic, or very religious, this is a book that you should definitely read.

The flag says it all.