August 2011
End-of-Life Warning at $618,616 Makes Me Wonder... →
The documents revealed an economic system in which the sellers don’t set and the buyers don’t know the prices. The University of Pennsylvania hospital charged more than 12 times what Medicare at the time reimbursed for a chest scan. One insurer paid a hospital for 80 percent of the $3,232 price of a scan, while another covered 24 percent. Insurance companies negotiated their own rates, and...
July 2011
If you think the debt crisis is bad now ... |... →
For all our obsessing about it, the national debt is a singularly bad way of measuring the nation’s financial condition. It includes only a small portion of the nation’s total liabilities. And it’s focused on the past. An honest assessment of the country’s projected revenue and expenses over the next generation would show a reality different from the apocalyptic visions conjured by both...
Contraceptive Comeback: The Maligned IUD Gets a... →
By the early 1970s, 17 IUDs were under development by 15 different companies. The problems started with the fourth one to actually hit the market: the Dalkon Shield. AH Robins (which also made ChapStick and Robitussin) marketed one version of it as a smaller option for women who didn’t have children. Like all medical devices at the time, the Shield wasn’t vetted by the FDA. While drugs got...
Dems, GOP Float Eye-Popping Debt Limit Compromise... →
From ABC News, the key detail: “The special committee must make recommendations by late November (before Congress’ Thanksgiving recess). If Congress does not approve those cuts by December 23, automatic across-the-board cuts go into effect, including cuts to Defense and Medicare. This ‘trigger’ is designed to force action on the deficit reduction committee’s...
“What explains the reticence of most journalists toward Fox News? Fear is no...”
– Michael Massing, It’s Time to Scrutinize Fox (via nybooks)
“Today’s report was clearly designed to drop into the biggest news black hole of...”
– Air France Flight 447: Who’s Fault Was It? - The Daily Beast
Watchjoshualane:
(via Avatar: The Legend of Korra Teaser Trailer)
!!!
Icahn’s Bid for Clorox | Crossing Wall Street →
What’s interesting is that Icahn isn’t even interested in buying the company. He already owns 9.4% and he’s more interested in getting a bidding war started between other consumer products companies. Icahn even suggested potential buyers. (Here’s his letter.)
On Friday, shares of $CLX closed at $74.55, which is short of Icahn’s offer. This means that investors are doubtful that a bidding war...
Much Ado About Michele - NYTimes.com →
WatchFatbear Productions Blog · This Is Ridiculous
Holy shit. Man I miss trips to Whistler’s downhill park during the summer. However, my body no longer youthfully bounces off things to effectively ride.
(Nor did I like the fuckers who’d clip a girl’s back tire to knock me and my bike out of their way on the non-advanced connecting trails where I’m supposed to ride. Few...
“Most journalism seeks to convey information objectively, but trauma stories have...”
– http://www.jinamoore.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/moore.pdf
Via “Crisis Reporting and the Ethics of Storytelling: Mac McCelland and Writing”, which is also excellent.
“This was not a spa set up to cater to my whims for cucumber water; this was set...”
– Beauty, and What It Means: Equalizing Power in Salons and Spas, Or Why Spa Castle Is Basically the Best Place on Earth
Ego Check: Anna Kreider of Go Make Me A Sandwich |... →
I do enjoy Go Make me a Sandwhich. Give this a read if you want the perspective without the day-to-day disheartening examples Anna collects.
How We Drive: Carmaggedon →
The perturbed driver may be asking, ‘why do they have to close the whole thing down? Why can’t they just do it a lane at a time?’ And indeed, any number of strategies have been tried to mitigate traffic impacts during construction, from nocturnal work crews (which has been found to add 6% to the base price of a project) to various incentive plans for road contractors.
But as research by the...
WatchFatbear Productions Blog · New Matchstick Productions Trailer
Damn Matchstick’s getting good. Toasty in my apartment on a summer’s evening and now I feel like taking an inventory of my ski gear. (BTW, the Old Arcade hit? Awesome.)
Syria accused of crimes against humanity →
aljazeera:
Amnesty International says it has gathered proof of such crimes by the government in the northern town of Tell Kalakh.
The Ruricolist: The Miser →
Where Have All the Girls Gone? →
Then I looked into it, and discovered that what I thought were right-wing conspiracy theories about the nexus of Western feminism and population control actually had some, if very distant and entirely historical, basis in truth. As it turns out, Western advisors and researchers, and Western money, were among the forces that contributed to a serious reduction in the number of women and girls in...
stranger in a strange rand: America, China,... →
ckwinny:
Hi, YouTube-
I had a video posted of a sabong match in the Philippines. “Sabong” is cock-fighting, and I believe I’d marked the video as possibly-offensive/adult or whatever the indicator was… It’s been up there for a year or two, and I just (unexpectedly) got an email saying I’d received a…
That sucks, Stacy. I hope YouTube responds.