Recent Comments

1. 6 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Right, and although I do sometimes get that here, I don’t get it kind of thing on Facebook. Seriously!

2. 15 days ago on Arlo and Janis

   Here are some highlights I made in an article by John Abramson: The medical-industrial complex has taken control over what doctors and the public accept as medical knowledge. This is something that has evolved over time.

   There are three main factors. One is that the U.S. is the only wealthy developed country that has no formal mechanism of price negotiation. A second is that because most consumers are insured, they pay only a small part of the price—so high prices don’t provide market discipline. A third important factor is that, as a country, we are perhaps too mesmerized by the idea of biomedical innovation.

   Regarding this third factor, historian Jill Lepore has written: “Innovation might make the world a better place, or it might not.” Innovation, she goes on to say, is not necessarily “concerned with goodness,” but often “with novelty, speed, and profit.” It is certain that in the biomedical area, too many innovations we are being sold today are not being properly evaluated in terms of their true value for the public. We in the U.S. are spending 96 percent of our biomedical research money on medical drugs and devices, and only four percent on how to make the population healthier and how to deliver health care more efficiently and effectively.

   Instead of focusing on our disagreements, we need to focus on what we agree about—namely, that it would be better if Americans were healthier and didn’t spend over twice as much money (much of it to little or no benefit) on health care as citizens of other wealthy countries.

3. 16 days ago on Arlo and Janis

   Same here. I also needed a short-term memory for my work.

4. 26 days ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   TDS remains a global pandemic.

5. 2 months ago on Brewster Rockit

   Liquor was used to buy votes for most of the history of the USA.

6. 2 months ago on Wizard of Id

   Anything is possible. Life’s not always fair, and that can be said about any circumstance.

7. 2 months ago on The Argyle Sweater

   He’s biden his time.

8. 2 months ago on Wizard of Id

   I could not disagree more. What is done publicly should be public knowledge. What I did in my young and dumb days was made public and it was for my good. I’m a much better person today, partly because of it, thank you very much.

   Hiding things that should not have been done does not benefit the person for whom they are hidden. It just makes it easier to rinse and repeat.

9. 2 months ago on Wizard of Id

   Hmm, didn’t find anything saying that, but regardless, let me ask you a question. Are you saying that the public should not know when someone publicly breaks a public law, whatever it may be? If so, explain to me why public acts should be considered private.

10. 2 months ago on Wizard of Id

    You seem to be confused. It’s New York from which people are fleeing. More than half a million left New York in 2022 with more heading to Florida than anywhere else.