Sunday, December 13, 2015

Stories below the fold

Library of Congress has more lectures up:

 This one is on Isabella, the Warrior Queen. (which I haven't watched yet).




 although technically she was the King of her country, not a queen, which implies a consort...

500 years before Donald Trump, she forcibly expelled religious minorities who many felt threatened the peace of her land. A

Because of her bigotry, she is not really considered a role model for feminists.. this is in contrast to Elizabeth I, who only killed or exiled thousands of English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish Catholics, and not just those who actually fought against her.

related lecture: Sufi mysticism in medieval Egypt.

Think of it as a religion that stresses a personal relationship with the deity rather than religion as ritual or as following rules...you know, like the Charistmatics/PopeFrancis,  or as described in the Gita....

also one on community gardens. well, I'm old enough to remember when we still had a "victory garden", not just in our postage stamp sized back yard, but on public land nearby.

The problem, of course, is vandalism...

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Did dinosaur farts cause global warming?


Scientists believe that, just as in cows, methane-producing bacteria aided the digestion of sauropods by fermenting their plant food. ''A simple mathematical model suggests that the microbes living in sauropod dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to have an important effect on the Mesozoic climate,'' said study leader Dr Dave Wilkinson, from Liverpool John Moores University.
and old link but something to think about. HeadsupInstapundit
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This is, alas, true: GlennReynolds at Instapundit writes:

NET RESULT: A TRANSFER OF MONEY FROM POOR PEOPLE IN RICH COUNTRIES TO RICH PEOPLE IN POOR COUNTRIES.
Global Climate Change Pact Approved at COP 21 Conference in Paris. 


Alas, true.

or as one local wag put it: Here in the Philippines, bribes are given under the table, above the table, and with the table...

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The BBC and WHO thinks this is good: Cuba forces you and your family to get preventive medical care.

Those delivering the message, overseeing, encouraging, inspiring healthy living, will be the local family doctor and nurse. And they'll be delivering it, in person, straight to the door.
the whole things smacks of propaganda. ... Happy doctors and happy patients, who always obey their betters.

Cuba has wonderful medical care for all of it's people! Socialism works!

or maybe not.

OK: That is a right wing site.

Read this article instead on AlJazeera.

The implication of this is that the US doesn't have such programs.

Except they do: They just might not have it as a single government program. And many of these things are done by family or friends, like checking your BP, reminding you of your doctor's appointment, or driving you to the clinic.

But high risk groups, as on Indian reservations (I worked for the IHS on and off for 10 years), where people are poor and isolated, we used home health aids to do these things: visit them at home and make sure they took the medicine,  take them to medical appointments in the city, and sometimes we even kept them in the hospital when outpatient treatment would work, to make sure they got proper treatment.(mostly patient with TB or with diabetic ulcers that wouldn't heal without good care).

Even then, sometimes the person "disappeared" and didn't keep the appointments or didn't take their medicines.

On the other hand, ordinary Americans can get home health care and free transportation, sometimes via friends or family, some programs through their churches, and for the handicapped and elderly, via Medicare/Medicaid/Insurance.

so what is wrong with Cuba? From the BBC article:
The difference? Government coercion.
And there's no getting out of it either.Compulsory health checks"My nurse knows where they live," Dr Quevas Hill jokes. "They can run, but they can't hide!"
I don't know how they punish you if you don't take your medicines, but most docs know that Cuba stopped their HIV epidemic by "quarantine". Think concentration camp.

From 2012:  NYTimes paints a cheerful picture here,but they do go into detail how patients can be coerced....NYDaily news paint a less cheery picture from a gay rights point of view.

one is reminded of CS Lewis's quip:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good
of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live
under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may
at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good
will torment us without end for they do so with the approval
of their own conscience."
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