Saturday, February 27, 2010

A Senator making sense? That's weird.

I came across this and was very surprised to hear it coming out of a Senator's mouth.  I didn't know we had people in D.C. who referred to actual facts instead of just talking points when discussing policy.  Granted Senator Durbin did use a particularly emotional reference to some woman's medical malpractice case to support his point, on the whole I think he was honest and direct.  I enjoyed his reference to Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, which I just finished reading and plan to post a review soon.  Medical malpractice reform is by no means a bad idea, but it's not some cure-all for health care costs.  And people whose lives are forever changed by gross medical negligence (i.e. not something that can be easily remedied by another operation paid for by the erring party) do deserve fair compensation for the impact the error has had on their lives.  I'd be interested to see how many lawsuits are of the unwarranted "get rich if they let me" kind or just someone trying to get their medical and legal fees paid for because a medical error was made that lead to those costs.

Anywho, here's the video:

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Why is buying an eBook such a pain?

As much as I've enjoyed free shipping with Amazon Prime lately, I'd enjoy buying eBooks that I could read on my Palm Pre even more.  The problem with eBooks right now is that you're throwing all of this money at a specific format/company, but if that company goes under or doesn't support your current or next mobile device, you're pretty much screwed.  To be fair, eReader does support a lot of other devices, but their lack of Pre support is a deal breaker for me.  I love my Palm Pre, but unfortunately it doesn't have the same market penetration that the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android smartphones are enjoying (but hopefully its recent Verizon launch will change that).  Maybe the Kindle software will come out for the Pre soon too, but we'll see.

Right now, I think I'll give Kobo Books a try with my next purchase.  It's available on my Palm pre and other devices and I'm pretty sure it even syncs your bookmarks with the cloud so you can log in from a different device or in a browser and continue reading there.  I like the idea of always having my books with me on my phone without also having my library (and bookmarks) limited to just my phone.  After I finish with Hidden Empire, I'll probably read Checklist Manifesto.  Kobo Books' prices even seem to be pretty reasonable ($10-$15 for most books), unlike eReader and Fictionwise that charge $20+ for books that have been out for years.  If anyone has any experience with Kobo Books, or if you would like to suggest another eBook solution, please let me know.  Otherwise I'll see how it goes when I get around to trying it out.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Hidden Empire

I'm in the process of reading Hidden Empire, the sequel to Orson Scott Card's Empire. I can't always force myself to read my histology or physiology textbooks, but for some reason I always find time to read Orson Scott Card's newest books.

Anyway, for those of you who haven't read the 1st book, Empire was set in the near future and basically takes a look at what would happen if disagreements between liberals and conservatives were to escalate towards an actual civil war. Granted this is a hyperbolic sci-fi-ish look at the situation, but if you take the story as a whole, it can be a bit disturbing when you see so many similarities to what's going on in America today. I think Empire is one of Card's best books, and he does an excellent job of merging modern, relevant political topics with engaging science fiction. Hidden Empire has been great so far, and I'm looking forward to finishing it within the next week or so. I'll be sure to post a review then. In the meantime, check out Empire if you haven't already. It's only $8 on Amazon.

"Sarah Palin ahead of where Obama was 30 months before his nomination." Umm, what?

I came across something interesting terrifying horribly misleading today. A blogger from the LA Times reported that Sarah Palin is apparently ahead of where Barack Obama was 30 months before his nomination as the Democratic candidate for president. Let's take a closer look:

A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll found that 30 months out from the 2012 party presidential nominations, only 71% of Americans believe that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president.

This compares with someone named Barack Obama. At the same point in his then unannounced campaign, 0% thought he was qualified for the Oval Office. That's because he wasn't even on the polling lists' radar then.

"Only 71%" believe that Palin is NOT QUALIFIED to be president? How is that better than not being in the poll? Note that saying 71% believing she's not qualified does NOT mean than the other 29% believe she IS qualified, considering polls like that tend to give the option of "don't know" or some such. The post didn't link the poll results directly, so I'm not sure what the choices were. Some very quick Googling didn't reveal the exact poll parameters or results, but if anyone finds them, please let me know!

(More after the jump)


Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Moral Reasoning

I attended a lunch talk by a Christian doctor, Dr. John Patrick, who started talking about the "myth of moral neutrality." I'm confident he finished the talk, but I had to get to class so I couldn't stay for the whole thing. Nevertheless, during the time I was there, he made a few assertions with which I have to strongly disagree.

Chiefly among these is the idea that Darwinian evolution is somehow used as a basis for moral reasoning. I encountered something back in my first year of undergrad where another biomedical engineering student told me,

"I don't understand people who believe in evolution. I mean, if evolution were really true, why don't all of these evolutionists just let all the sick people die since it's all about the survival of the fittest?"

The speaker said something similar when he said that no one would want to live in a world where everyone was only concerned with propagating their own genes (as in letting sick people die, etc.), which he described as having morality based on Darwinian evolution.

(More after the jump)


Sunday, February 14, 2010

Republicans respond to Obama's invitation to healthcare summit

I know this is almost 1 week old, but I'm trying to post more often so I figured covering something late is better than not at all. House Republicans responded on Monday to President Obama's invitation to a televised healthcare summit. I'll let you do most of the reading, but it seems like this sentiment is one I hear a lot from Republican congressmen, as well as from conservative citizens, bloggers, etc. The main complaint is that Obama hasn't taken enough input from Republicans. Now, I would argue that when Democrats argued against many of Bush's policies, they were dismissed as being unamerican or giving into what the terrorists wanted, but let's not focus on the past. In all honesty, the idea of the majority party legislating without input from the minority is bothersome indeed. The Republicans seem to be much better at doing so (I mean that as a compliment; Democrats suck at getting enough congressmen to agree on anything in order to get stuff done even with the majority). Nevertheless, I disagree on the legitimacy of the Republicans' complaints here.

(More after the jump)

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The Greatest Show on Earth

I finally finished the new book by Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. It was a good, interesting read, and made me want to finally get around to finishing The God Delusion. His anecdotes are usually very amusing, and he does well with finding metaphors that can be used with most people regardless of whether or not they have a science background. My main complaint is that he occasionally drones on about silly details, some of which are amusing, and some of which force me to scan through a few paragraphs until he gets back to the topic at hand. Either way, he is a very intelligent man and I appreciate how he tries to get information to those who haven't the time, energy, or background to go through the mountains of scientific journals about the subject of evolution. I'm a first year medical student with a degree in Bioengineering, and he still managed to surprise me a couple times with new information or by clarifying details that previously had not made complete sense to me.

(More after the jump)