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A relaxing day.
May. 11th, 2006 12:30 amTomorrow is an all-day training session, though, so it was good to relax today - have gotten most things in order regarding summer materials. Need one more approval to make this summer move along smoothly. Umpiring tonight was a rainout, which is fun, because I drove all the way up in a light rain, was getting set to start, and then came the lightning. D'oh well. The rain has continued since then. Have I mentioned I like listening to rain and thunder... even when I get nervous that it'll cause my computer to blank out or something...
An in-joke: Briiiiiiiiiick!.
An air freshener, consisting of an orange, cloves, an incandescent light bulb, and something to suspend the clove orange above said bulb. A heat source will do, at least according to the plans, but the example picture is a lamp. Another interesting DIY possibility.
An interesting take on why American health insurance coverage is lagging behind the rest of the world, and is often a morass of strange things that appear counterproductive: American health insurers and politicians believe people that have insurance use health care wastefully. What that produces, though, are deductibles and insurance plans designed to make people think twice about using their health coverage, and it puts a segment of the population that can't afford that kind of deal without insurance entirely. That can lead to a downward spiral of getting sicker because of no insurance, and getting no insurance because of getting sicker. It can also produce things like the second-worst newborn death rate in the modern world (which turns out to be five deaths per one thousand live births. There's still room for improvement, of course, but with a title like that, you would think it was more. Still, at least some of the blame, in that article, is leveled at the health care system.) The sick getting sicker and staying uninsured, though, is not such a hot idea, because they probably end up costing more in the long run when they finally do have to get care, or they end up dying prematurely. Socialized medicine has its own problems, but ensuring that everyone has affordable and complete medical coverage should be one of the tasks charged to the representatives we elect to oversee our well-being. There's support for the idea, it just never quite manages to get through. (Might be because of the "moral hazard" view that the paper describes. Go, read.)
A link passed to me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharpsight might be both an awesome thing and an example of why older activists may be annoyed that the current generation is more apathy than anything: Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor. The wants they have are far-reaching, for sure.
A good example of why you don't want people who will rule by their religious whims rather than by the law and by logical thought processes: Catholic school teacher fired because she underwent in-vitro fertilization. Or rather, because she announced her intent, and then went through with it. We've made laws that allow for religious organizations to sidestep certain discrimination statutes so that they can make sure that similarly-minded people are teaching in the religious schools. Imagine that principle applied to an entire country. "Oh, you have a prescription for birth control? Sorry, you're not allowed to hold a government job... or any job, for that matter." Of course, this is why it was mandated that no religious tests can be issued for anyone who's applying for public office, and there are antidiscrimination statutes as well. For now, people are safe, unless, of course, their state passes constitutional bans that can be interpreted broadly enough to permit such discrimination under law (Ave, Ave, Proposal Two. Fuck off and die, why don't you?).
The matter of the teaching in question is a separate thing. So long as the kids will be raised and healthy and happy, I really don't think anyone should care how they were conceived, unless you need to have a prophecy fulfilled or something.
Followup! A net neutrailty bill has been introduced. The article says there's a House and Senate version, a quick search of THOMAS indicates at the least, a House version (H.R. 5273). That's nice to know. Now we'll see whether it passes or not.
An interesting video - it bills itself as The Evolution of Dance, but at the very least, it's six minutes of entertainment. What I find mildly disturbing is that I recognize all the songs, and the associated dances with them.
Last item, also humorous: The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches. Feels like it came out of the Grand List of Overused Star Trek Cliches, but I recognize some other things there, too.
Bedtime now, training in the morning. Catch you on the flipside.
An in-joke: Briiiiiiiiiick!.
An air freshener, consisting of an orange, cloves, an incandescent light bulb, and something to suspend the clove orange above said bulb. A heat source will do, at least according to the plans, but the example picture is a lamp. Another interesting DIY possibility.
An interesting take on why American health insurance coverage is lagging behind the rest of the world, and is often a morass of strange things that appear counterproductive: American health insurers and politicians believe people that have insurance use health care wastefully. What that produces, though, are deductibles and insurance plans designed to make people think twice about using their health coverage, and it puts a segment of the population that can't afford that kind of deal without insurance entirely. That can lead to a downward spiral of getting sicker because of no insurance, and getting no insurance because of getting sicker. It can also produce things like the second-worst newborn death rate in the modern world (which turns out to be five deaths per one thousand live births. There's still room for improvement, of course, but with a title like that, you would think it was more. Still, at least some of the blame, in that article, is leveled at the health care system.) The sick getting sicker and staying uninsured, though, is not such a hot idea, because they probably end up costing more in the long run when they finally do have to get care, or they end up dying prematurely. Socialized medicine has its own problems, but ensuring that everyone has affordable and complete medical coverage should be one of the tasks charged to the representatives we elect to oversee our well-being. There's support for the idea, it just never quite manages to get through. (Might be because of the "moral hazard" view that the paper describes. Go, read.)
A link passed to me by
sharpsight might be both an awesome thing and an example of why older activists may be annoyed that the current generation is more apathy than anything: Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor. The wants they have are far-reaching, for sure. A good example of why you don't want people who will rule by their religious whims rather than by the law and by logical thought processes: Catholic school teacher fired because she underwent in-vitro fertilization. Or rather, because she announced her intent, and then went through with it. We've made laws that allow for religious organizations to sidestep certain discrimination statutes so that they can make sure that similarly-minded people are teaching in the religious schools. Imagine that principle applied to an entire country. "Oh, you have a prescription for birth control? Sorry, you're not allowed to hold a government job... or any job, for that matter." Of course, this is why it was mandated that no religious tests can be issued for anyone who's applying for public office, and there are antidiscrimination statutes as well. For now, people are safe, unless, of course, their state passes constitutional bans that can be interpreted broadly enough to permit such discrimination under law (Ave, Ave, Proposal Two. Fuck off and die, why don't you?).
The matter of the teaching in question is a separate thing. So long as the kids will be raised and healthy and happy, I really don't think anyone should care how they were conceived, unless you need to have a prophecy fulfilled or something.
Followup! A net neutrailty bill has been introduced. The article says there's a House and Senate version, a quick search of THOMAS indicates at the least, a House version (H.R. 5273). That's nice to know. Now we'll see whether it passes or not.
An interesting video - it bills itself as The Evolution of Dance, but at the very least, it's six minutes of entertainment. What I find mildly disturbing is that I recognize all the songs, and the associated dances with them.
Last item, also humorous: The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches. Feels like it came out of the Grand List of Overused Star Trek Cliches, but I recognize some other things there, too.
Bedtime now, training in the morning. Catch you on the flipside.
