Dr. Jim's WebLog

Here is a cool website. I'm going to the airport tonight to get my two daughters for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and you can track flights on the web with it. Useful when you don't want to spend forever driving to pick folk up. Also just in case you didn't already know this, you have to call before going to catch your flight! Mine on Sunday was cancelled and had to go to next flight, and today my daughter missed a flight because they rescheduled for half an hour earlier.

Another cool site came my way. If you believe that life begins at conception, what happens when you do in vitro fertilization and have ten embryos frozen away, and the first one or two result in babies? Here is an answer: a national embryo adoption service. Pretty cool, really--you can adopt an embryo and have it implanted, have your own pregnancy and delivery, without having to go through all the in vitro manipulations. Something to consider.

Health News: Flu is bad this year! Go get a flu shot. Reactions are rare. Last year, while looking up SARS statistics, I found some interesting numbers. Accorging to CDC, since SARS was recognized 774 deaths occurred in abou 8000 cases, worldwide. Influenza, on the other hand, leads to 114,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 DEATHS in the US in an average year. (see "myths" at bottom of page.) That is more than all the firearm deaths in the country and almost as many as die in automobile accidents.

Here is an interesting post about business and character. We all remember the business excesses of the last few years and the obvious political excesses. People laugh at character these days, and call for more regulations.

I submit the following thought: If people have ethics and character, little regulation is needed. If they lack ethics and character, no amount of regulation will be adequate because they will circumvent it.

Rabies from a raccoon. When I was a pathology resident, I got a call at 3 AM from a medical student who told me "My wife just got bit by a raccoon, so I killed it. What do I do?" I told him to wrap it in a bag, keep it cold, and take it to State Health Dept. Now there is a news story about a death from Rabies in a human who seems to have gotten it from a raccoon. Don't worry, it's still pretty rare!

Thomas Sowell agrees with me on "Free Lunch Healthcare."

Quotes of the day:
"Son, you guys will never control health care costs until the customer pays the bill."
--Masters in City Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"It's all part of the Holy Grail of health care in America -- getting someone else to pay."
Debra Saunders

"I tell a patient they need to stop smoking. Their copay is $5 for the visit. They figure, these days, that my advice is therefore worth $5 and they blow me off. A movie costs more than my advice, that cost me a hundred thousand dollars and eight years of my life to learn."
--Internist in Denver

It's not about paying for healthcare. It IS all about getting somebody else to pay for my care. I see people fight over a $20 pap smear bill, then go to a drive up grease shop four times a year and pay $30 per car. The pap smear will only save your life.

The President made a milestone speech earlier this week on Iraq, laying out his vision for freedom and democracy. It has been hard to find the text. It is in the Investor's Business Daily, the complete speech, a few days ago. I found a link to the speech if you want to read the actual speech instead of just commentary about it.

Read an enjoyable hard science fiction book by Greg Bear called Slant. It's about the near future with most of our mental illnesses having been cured by nanotechnology. In fact, people who have not had "therapy" are unusual. Unfortunately, there is a worm in the apple, and the author weaves several disparate stories together as they converge to an exciting ending.

One of the most valuable lessons that Christians and Jews have is the story of the Garden of Eden. People just cannot leave well enough alone. The "serpents" don't have to be Satan. They are anyone or anything that offers us power or pride or security. I think the story explains why socialism, royalty, military dictatorships, communism, or theocracy all tend to fail--they expect people to act other than human. The reason I quit the Libertarian party is that it is philosophically pure, and I came to realize that any philosophically pure system will inevitably fail with philosophically impure people.

Oops, first time I've tried to insert a link. Try again:
Sex Education Link

Here is a great website. This is a group of physicians who decided to really look at data on sexuality and come up with a complete educational approach. Take a look!

My wife is terrific. She's from the south and they have the most interesting language down there. For example, one time I came home somewhat depressed and said, "I'm the new hated minority. I'm a white male christian doctor!"
"Could be worse."
"How?" I asked.
"You could be Southern."

Or there's "hoo haw." Hoo haw is what happens when several teen age girls get together and start fighting. Growing up out west, we called it fighting. But she calls it "lots of hoo haw" and it's just so much more descriptive.

A good book about Southern women is The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love. There is a whole series of them. My wife's book club read this book. Click on Amazon below and get it--it's terrific, funny, and everybody can use a good laugh.

An email group I'm on has been having an interesting discussion in the past few days. The premise seems to be that religious fundamentalism causes problems, so the best way to run things is through a secular humanist system that does not allow any religion to be in charge. Sounds reasonable in theory.

To see what can go wrong with such a system, look at Stephane Courtois' The Black Book of Communism. Written by European historians, it catalogs the incredible crimes committed by completely secular, completely atheistic governments. The death toll in the 20th century, found on page 4, is approximately 100 million people murdered by their secular governments. These governments were supposedly founded on Communist principles of equality and distribution of wealth and went terribly wrong. As a matter of fact, such a number must certainly dwarf the death toll from all the religious wars ever fought.

The problem is not religious fundamentalism OR secular atheism. The problem is human nature and ambition. Religion, money, land, food, etc. just provide excuses, rationalizations, and raw material. Until we recognize that there are those among us who will attempt to corrupt any system we can devise, we will keep trying the simple naive solutions that give the tyrants a foothold. I'm afraid the American system of checks and balances, always teetering, always drifting back and forth between extremes, and never philosophically "pure," is the best we will ever do.

Man, what a day. I planned to come in early, get my work done, and get to an off-site meeting. But then, the phone, the phone. Oh well, at least I'm employed doing something that I mostly enjoy. Pathologists look at the tissue the surgeons take out to figure out what it really is. It's lots of science, beautiful images that rival modern art, and a certain amount of memory of what different diseases look like. Sometime I'll learn how to post pictures on this site and then look out!

It always brings a smile when I hear or see yet another comedian call George Bush a "moron." Let's see...MBA from Harvard Business School, BEFORE daddy was in public office. Moderately successful businessman, Governor of Texas, elected president of US, first president in recent memory to gain significantly in Congress in midterm elections. His "smart" opponent? Finished middle of high school class, but admitted to Harvard because daddy was a senator. (I, on the other hand, had SAT scores hundreds of points higher than either of these guys, didn't get accepted at Harvard.) Finished Harvard, started Divinitiy school, quit, several failing grades. Started law school, quit. Ran for daddy's congressional seat. Followed in daddy's footsteps his entire career. Lost home state in presidential election. Yep, a smart guy.

I sure hope we have a lot more morons ready to run for office. The "smart guys" can't finish anything.

As I was going through my burgeoning pile of paperwork, I came across a useful item that I thought I'd pass on. It's ways to protect your credit and identity from fraud.
1. Put only your initials on your check (like J. M. Small) instead of whole name. But sign with whole name. Thief won't know your true name.
2. Put only the last four digits of credit card numbers in memo field.
3. Make a copy of all the contents of your wallet and keep in a safe place.
4. If you lose your wallet, make a police report immediately and also notify the credit reporting agencies: Experian (888-397-3742), Equifax (800-525-6285), and TransUnion (800-680-7289). Also call Social Security Fraud 800-269-0271.