A relaxing day.

[silveradept]

Tomorrow 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 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.

Comments

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

An air freshener, consisting of an orange, cloves, an incandescent light bulb, and something to suspend the clove orange above said bulb.

...but... you could make that same scent, so much more easily, and with so much less mess, with a simple lamp ring or oil burner and a bottle of essential clove oil and sweet or bitter orange oil. (I tend to think bitter orange would work better.)

[silveradept]

Undoubtedly. These are for the people who, for whatever reason, don't want such things, or would enjoy the presence of the clovestuck orange. Or for people who have oranges and cloves laying about, don't want to eat them, and want something to do with them.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

On the subject of that dance viedo... it's scary enough to recognize all those songs and dances. What's scarier is that I've /done/ a good percentage of those. (Don't ask me which ones, I'm not going to tell.)

[silveradept]

Shhhh... there's probably a significant number of them I've done, too.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

it's fun to stay at the A C M Y?

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Bah media statistics mongering.

5 deaths per 1000 live birth could very well reflect that the quality of medical care means that many babies which are born early or underdeveloped or already severely handicapped are not stillborn or spontaneously aborted.

Bah.

[silveradept]

You know, five death ber one thousand live bith isn't that bad at all, compared to what it probably is in a lot of other places. At least, officially, five death per. That's still quite a few when there's lots of biriths, and if there's room for improvement so that it's basically only freak accidents that cause deahts, then that would be spiffy, but you're right - that's statistical manipulation.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

...I was waiting for "Jump around"...and I wasn't dissapointed.

Also, I thikn they played all those songs at the prom last month!

I'm not sure if i should say this with shame, or pride...I knew every single song, and at some point did most of the dances too. Oi. What a LOSER.
--
I still don't understand the net neutrality thing. If it doesn't pass, does that mean the "tolls" will be in effect? Christ, I'm not paying anyone other than my host for faster access for my websites.
--
Is he Catholic Church sudently above the law? They do know there are discrimination laws against firing someone for being pregnant, right? Haven't they heard of FMLA? I thought the Catholic Church was all about the baby Catholics to raise? Who cares how the baby is concieved!

Secondly, it usually requires male masturbation to harvest sperm, which the church holds immoral.

Oh-no. Someone better alert the Catholic High Schools that they need to start monitoring the teenagers for any immoral behavior! Seriously....what? I don't get it at all.

Allison and Alexandria Romenesko, who celebrated their first birthday in March, were baptized Lutheran.

HA! IN your face, Catholicism!

[silveradept]

No, the tolls don't go into effect, but the possibility that they could remains.

As for that bit, well, there are laws that allow employers to get around discrimination statues for religious reasons, mostly because religious schools were founded with the idea of passing on their belief system to their children. So, when you work with them, they can fire you for not adhering to their religious principles (or rather, for following through with something they have declared to be immoral)

Regarding the masturbation thing, I think they do. Or their parents do, or some other thing. It's not like they're going to get complete sex ed, and both their parents and teachers are probably on the lookout for any un-Catholic behavior, to stop it so that they don't become depraved or fall away from the church.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I know. The lack of sex ed is why so many Catholic teenagers get pregnant. The Catholic Church doesn't even allow condoms! "Rhythem Method"....riight, because that's totally reliable.

wait..isn't your family Catholic?

I think it's ridiculous to be able to get around discrimination for religious purposes. Then all a business has to do is declare they are some form of religious organization, or affiliated with a religion and they can start tossing people out based on whatever stupid reasons they want.

[rimspace.livejournal.com]

Whoever said employment laws are there to benefit anyone other than employers....

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

True enough. I mean, I know I've been denied a job based solely on my height before.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Well some politicans said it, when trying to look like they were doing something for the people they supposedly represent. However if we start believing what politicians say, then we've got to buy the most amazing amount of BS and it gets too confussing.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

It does seem that while trying so hard to defend the faith, they lost 4 of the faithful. What are they going to do when there are no more faithful? End of the faith I suppose, which means they failed to defend it.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but aren't there more Catholics out there than any other religion?

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Well the quick answer is no, probably not. The long answer is that it depends on who you ask. The Catholic chruch claims there are 3 billion or whatever number they like to use, some sources claim they're counting everyone who is Christian, but some other sources point out that there are more Muslims than Christians (not just Catholic, all Christians) out there. My math tells me that it's incredibly hard to count anyone, since if you take all the claimed numbers that all the religions claim, there are about 10 billion people on the planet. No one has a good count, but when the Church is trolling for sympathy (or indignation as the case may be) they keep mentioning these empty churches, the churches that had to close because of lack of attendance, and how they're all going broke because no one gives money to the chruch anymore.

Sooooo... yeah, it's a tough call, but I doubt anyone who claims to have the most believers.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I meant in terms of Christianity. I'm sure I've read the Catholic Church claim that somewhere...

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Again it's a tough call. It also depends on where you are. There are more Catholics in South America than North America for the most part. The problem is there isn't a really accurate way to count the faithful.