phillbecker

Apparantly there’s an outbreak of the mumps across middle America.

abcnewsHealth

It’s not known precisely why this mumps outbreak is occurring, especially when so many U.S. residents receive a vaccination for it during childhood. Infectious disease expert Dr. William Schaffner said he hopes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will fully investigate why Americans are coming down with the illness.

Hmm. I wonder if it’s because vaccines are a scam and they don’t work? nah. couldn’t be that.

While the word “outbreak” typically means bad news, there is a silver lining: Mumps is a fairly mild viral infection, causing swelling of the salivary glands and soreness in and around the mouth and jaw areas. It usually goes away after a few days and rarely causes complications.

So why bother making a vaccine against it? More chemicals to dump into a tiny body that short circuits the natural immune system, potentially weakening it against other pathogens.

As of today, the University of Kansas has six confirmed cases and 15 more probable cases among students, said Sheryl Tirol-Goodwin of the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department in Kansas.

All but one of the infected Kansas students had received two doses of the MMR vaccine, she said, a strange pattern seen among many of the cases.

Hmmm. Interesting.

sid meier’s civilization II. about 10 years old and silly graphics, but I get addicted to Sim games. the control, the attention to details. the fact that there’s really no break in the gameplay - even if it is “turn based”. I’ve already lost one complete night sleep and most of 2 others… and I downloaded it a couple days ago. used to play CivNet in college. same problem. addiction.

must stop. sleep good. Civ bad.
blink.
blink.

CitizensAgainstGovernmentWaste:
This is an extensive look at pet projects around the country. Not all are useless, but they meet the criteria of “pork projects.”

my favorite so far:

$591,017,000 added in conference for eight additional C-130J aircraft. A February 2005 Associated Press article noted, “A 2004 report from the office of the inspector general of the Department of Defense rated the J model unsatisfactory and cited deficiencies in, among other things, its defensive systems.”

I upgraded the wordpress software and now It lost all the changes I made to the theme.

blah. sigh. one more time I guess.

edit: fixed it. just needed to reload the CSS file too

Taxachusetts just passed a law that will soon force everyone to have health insurance. Subsidies for those who can’t afford it and penalties for those who can but choose not to. And for businesses who don’t offer insurance.

One of the reasons I hate health insurance is that I have never found a plan that I will use. I want emergency medical (ER, bambulance etc) for trauma. I want some help with glasses and dentist (one must see and chew to survive, no?). That’s it. But I can’t find a minimalist plan like that. Why pay for services that aren’t going to be used?

It’d be great to find a plan that covered prevenative health programs (not just disease management) like exercise clubs, chiropracty, nutritional supplements etc. Something that pays to stay healthy so there’s fewer actual medical bills.

Eddy and Allison have both been to see doctor’s recently (one is sick, the other pregnant). The bill shows that the doctors charge more than the insurance will pay, and then choose not to bill us for the balance. What that means is the medical industry is intentionally marking up their bill to get the most money from the insurance company that they can. If the cost of the service actually represented the charge, they would have to come after us in order to keep from losing money. And this is apparantly standard practice.

rawr. I hate insurance. I hate doctors and hospitals. I hate the state of health care and that victims of malpractice and mistake are being blamed for driving up the costs with “frivolous law suits.” How about frivolous markups? How much does actually marking the price up drive up costs?

Man, if I get cancer… fuck it. I’ll live it out as best as I can. Go carrot juice and algae 24/7. Sad thing is, insurance would pay for the drugs and surgery to make my longer life hell, but not the actual things that might take care of my health. yeah yeah. I’m young and invincible, right? sure. If that makes you feel better, think that.
/rant

Mass.LawmakersOKMandatoryHealthBill-YahooNews