-
High ResolutionGeorgia town passes law requiring citizens to own guns and ammo
(Photo: Johnny Clark / AP)
A Georgia town has passed a law requiring its citizens to own a gun and ammunition — a measure one councilman says is similar to putting a security sign in your front yard to deter criminals.
Oh, but ‘forcing’ people to have health insurance is a bad thing - but not forcing people to have guns!
This is stupid.
Yeah, so they are mandating the purchase of a particular product… Irony overload!
(via darwinsminion)
-
The hospital did a single toenail clipping. The bill is $1,206. Welcome to America’s health-care system.
by Ezra Klein
(The Washington Post) - Last week I posted 21 charts showing the absurdly high prices Americans pay for health care. One reader wrote in with a story that is perhaps more compelling than any of them:
Let me briefly share with you a rather amazing personal experience of overcharging by a Harvard-affiliated hospital here in the Boston area. It’s not a huge matter, but it is so outrageous and almost funny in a way that I thought you might have an interest in using it, maybe in something you are otherwise working on.
The hospital did a single toenail clipping. The bill is $1,206.
To avoid misunderstandings, this was not a surgical intervention. It was the same kind of clipping that you do yourself every week, except that only a small piece of only one nail was clipped.
The whole encounter, including the prior doctor consultation, took about 15 minutes.
Admittedly, the tiny piece of toenail was sent in for lab analysis, because the doctor thought there might be some infection. (There wasn’t.) But the lab charges, although extremely high, were only part of the issue.
Here is how the charges broke down in detail. (From Brigham and Women’s, the dermatology department, dating from March 5, 2013.)
Office Visit — $248.00
Biopsy — $182.00
Treatment Room — $328.00
AMB Clinic — $117.00
Pathology Lab — $165.00
Laboratory Services — $166.00
Total — $1206.
I called the billing department of course, and they say that everything seems correctly coded. The billing person agreed personally that the numbers are outrageous but says there is nothing they can do about it. I then called the department of dermatology and spoke to two separate people there, who both also agreed that the charges are ridiculous, but they emphasized that there is nothing they can do, either. I have a call in to the Patient Relations department, and they have promised to return my call within two working days, but frankly I’m not holding my breath for any redress or mitigation from them.
Read more, and get links to further reading
My own personal experience with this - When I had my most serious diverticulitis flairup last summer, I would have died if I had not gone to the ER.
Let that sink in for a second. I WOULD HAVE DIED.
The bill ended up costing more than my car did. In fact over double that.
-
High ResolutionHave we found a broad-spectrum solution for viruses?
The new compound disables the machinery that the virus uses to copy its RNA, the molecules the carry a virus’s genetic information.
-
-
Catholic bishops announce new rule: No more saying a fetus is not a person just to win a lawsuit
How convenient!
(Source: diadoumenos)
-
From Grief Beyond Belief
Mutual grief support is powerful and comforting. But sometimes a person who is grieving needs more help than peer-to-peer support can provide. If you are in need of professional grief counseling or other therapy free from religion or spiritualism, Grief Beyond Belief recommends The Secular Therapist Project. The project provides confidential referrals for secular mental health services; if they do not have a provider listed in your region, many of their therapists will provide services over the phone.
http://www.seculartherapy.org/ -
In malpractice case, Catholic hospital argues fetuses aren’t people
Because laws that limit people’s reproductive choices are only good things when it *doesn’t* cost you money, apparently. The Catholic hospital’s lawyers are arguing that, since the unborn are not people with legal rights under Colorado law, they are not liable for their deaths (the case is a wrongful death suit for the mother, who was 7 months along with twins). And they are correct. A fetus does not have the same rights as a born human being. But Catholics, come on. Either you ideologically believe fetuses are people, or they aren’t. You don’t get to decide which is which when it suits your fancy. Pick one.
<face palm>
Wow.
(via goodreasonnews)
-
3 Ways Conservative Christianity’s Obsessions Promote Abortions
One of the great ironies of American society is that most abortions in the U.S. are caused by conservative Christians. Read the statistics: Forty nine percent of pregnancies in this country are unintended, a rate that has been painfully stable for almost 30 years. Almost half of those pregnancies end in abortion.
Or, to turn it around, over 90% of U.S. abortions are the result of accidental pregnancy. U.S. rates of unwanted pregnancy and abortion far exceed any other country with similar economic development. So does our rate of religiosity. The fact that we are outliers on both is not a coincidence.
Three aspects of conservative Christianity promote abortion: pro-natalism, an obsession with sexual sin, and an emphasis on righteousness over compassion.
1. Biblical Christianity is not pro life. It is not even pro human life. Steven Pinker recently estimated that the Old Testament alone describes 1.2 million deaths at the hand of Yahweh or his servants. It is, however, pro-birth. Be fruitful and multiply.(Genesis 1:28) Women will be saved through childbearing. (1 Timothy 2:15). Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant reformation, put it in his own words: “If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her only die from bearing; she is there to do it.” Christian competitive breeding, a strategy for increasing adherents, is at the heart of the Catholic anti-contraceptive stance and the Protestant Quiverfull movement.
2. Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe. We all know what it means. By the time the Abrahamic religions emerged, the male desire to invest in only their own offspring had taken the form of men owning women. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17) Women caught in adultery (or missing their hymens) were killed by the ancient Hebrews, just as they are by some conservative Muslims today. Christianity’s obsession with sexual sin or rather with female purity has produced the American virginity myth. In contrast to more secular, open societies, American teens typically don’t seek contraception for a year after becoming sexually active. Contraception would make them guilty of the sin of premeditated sex.
3. 38,000. That’s the number of Christian denominations. Ever wondered why? Traditional Christianity is about right belief, orthodoxy, rather than right living. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Acts 16:31 Contrast this with the central virtue of Buddhism, ahimsa, or non-harm. “Catholic” (meaning universal) and “Orthodox” (meaning right belief) are competing turf stakes from one of the first splits after Christianity beat out paganism. But schism and fracture are just one consequence of beliefism. Many believers would rather be right than in community. They’d rather be right than compassionate. They’d rather be right than solve problems. They would rather oppose abortion than prevent it.
The numbers are in. The most effective way to reduce abortion is to de-stigmatize sexual education, de-mythologize virginity, and invest in broad access to the most effective contraceptives available. In the highly secular Netherlands, that formula has knocked abortion down to 7 per 1000 women annually, one third the U.S. rate.So why does the Religious Right keep their focus on restrictive laws instead of contraceptive access? Why do they promote person-rights for zygotes, in contradiction to the very essence of personhood? Why do they oppose medically accurate sex ed? Why do they pledge to defund Title X family planning?
Because abortion isn’t really what interests them. They want purity. They want righteousness. Some want designated breeders. Even those who don’t consciously promote more births are subject to the competitive strategies that were baked into the desert religions from the beginning.
The world is on the cusp of a contraceptive revolution. Compared to the best birth control available to your parents (the Pill), latest generation long-acting reversible contraceptives, also known as LARCs, drops accidental pregnancy by 10 to 50 fold. Each year one in twelve women on the Pill gets pregnant. Over a lifetime, that’s two or three extra pregnancies per woman – unsought children or abortions. With a hormonal IUD or implant, that drops to one in 500, because a LARC toggles the fertility default to “off.” If that wasn’t enough, some LARC’s also get rid of that messy monthly uncleanness (Leviticus 15:19-24) brought on by Eve’s curse.
Someone who wanted to prevent abortions would advocate showcasing LARCs in every teen health class in the country. They would make sure that the most effective contraceptives available were available to all. They would be more focused on wise childbearing than on virginity. Those who say they are all about ending abortion, don’t—because they aren’t.
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer
read in full at http://www.alternet.org/story/153869/3_ways_conservative_christianity%27s_obsessions_promote_abortions?paging=off(via skepticalavenger)
-
Religious freedom and worker exploitation: Christianity Today wants to bring back the company town
Christianity Today is required by law to provide every member of its staff access to booze and porn.
Most of us don’t think of it that way. We would just say that Christianity Today is required by law to pay its workers for the work that they do. The wages paid to their workers then belong to those workers, and since that money no longer belongs to Christianity Today, it has no say in how those wages are spent. The compensation has changed hands. It no longer belongs to the employer, but to the employees, and it’s up to them what to do with it.
But CT says this isn’t fair. It is, after all, a religious company with religious values, and it seems to them to be a violation of their religious values if the pay they pay their workers can be spent on things like alcohol and pornography. Labor law, they say, restricts their religious liberty to ensure that wages they pay are not later spent on anything that would contradict their core religious convictions.
(Source: azspot)
-
"For Jindal, poor and disadvantaged kids should have the same educational opportunities as kids from wealthy families. Fine. There’s ample evidence that vouchers don’t work, but let’s stick to the larger principle. The next question is pretty straightforward: can poor and disadvantaged kids have the same access to quality health care as kids from wealthy families? How about the same access to safe and affordable housing? How about nutrition? And transportation? And political influence?"
-
“Other countries that have guns (like Canada, which has 7 million guns – mostly hunting guns – in their 12 million households) have a low murder rate. Kids in Japan watch the same violent movies and kids in Australia play the same violent video games (Grand Theft Auto was created by a British company; the UK had 58 gun murders last year in a nation of 63 million people). They simply don’t kill each other at the rate that we do.
Why is that? THAT is the question we should be exploring while we are banning and restricting guns: Who are we?
I’d like to try to answer that question.
We are a country whose leaders officially sanction and carry out acts of violence as a means to often an immoral end. We invade countries who didn’t attack us. We’re currently using drones in a half-dozen countries, often killing civilians.
This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to us as we are a nation founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves. We slaughtered 600,000 of each other in a civil war. We “tamed the Wild West with a six-shooter,” and we rape and beat and kill our women without mercy and at a staggering rate: every three hours a women is murdered in the USA (half the time by an ex or a current); every three minutes a woman is raped in the USA; and every 15 seconds a woman is beaten in the USA.
We belong to an illustrious group of nations that still have the death penalty (North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran). We think nothing of letting tens of thousands of our own citizens die each year because they are uninsured and thus don’t see a doctor until it’s too late.
Why do we do this? One theory is simply “because we can.” There is a level of arrogance in the otherwise friendly American spirit, conning ourselves into believing there’s something exceptional about us that separates us from all those “other” countries (there are indeed many good things about us; the same could also be said of Belgium, New Zealand, France, Germany, etc.). We think we’re #1 in everything when the truth is our students are 17th in science and 25th in math, and we’re 35th in life expectancy. We believe we have the greatest democracy but we have the lowest voting turnout of any western democracy. We’re biggest and the bestest at everything and we demand and take what we want.
And sometimes we have to be violent m*****f*****s to get it. But if one of us goes off-message and shows the utterly psychotic nature and brutal results of violence in a Newtown or an Aurora or a Virginia Tech, then we get all “sad” and “our hearts go out to the families” and presidents promise to take “meaningful action.” Well, maybe this president means it this time. He’d better. An angry mob of millions is not going to let this drop.
While we are discussing and demanding what to do, may I respectfully ask that we stop and take a look at what I believe are the three extenuating factors that may answer the question of why we Americans have more violence than most anyone else:
1. POVERTY. If there’s one thing that separates us from the rest of the developed world, it’s this. 50 million of our people live in poverty. One in five Americans goes hungry at some point during the year. The majority of those who aren’t poor are living from paycheck to paycheck. There’s no doubt this creates more crime. Middle class jobs prevent crime and violence. (If you don’t believe that, ask yourself this: If your neighbor has a job and is making $50,000/year, what are the chances he’s going to break into your home, shoot you and take your TV? Nil.)
2. FEAR/RACISM. We’re an awfully fearful country considering that, unlike most nations, we’ve never been invaded. (No, 1812 wasn’t an invasion. We started it.) Why on earth would we need 300 million guns in our homes? I get why the Russians might be a little spooked (over 20 million of them died in World War II). But what’s our excuse? Worried that the Indians from the casino may go on the warpath? Concerned that the Canadians seem to be amassing too many Tim Horton’s donut shops on both sides of the border?
No. It’s because too many white people are afraid of black people. Period. The vast majority of the guns in the U.S. are sold to white people who live in the suburbs or the country. When we fantasize about being mugged or home invaded, what’s the image of the perpetrator in our heads? Is it the freckled-face kid from down the street – or is it someone who is, if not black, at least poor?
I think it would be worth it to a) do our best to eradicate poverty and re-create the middle class we used to have, and b) stop promoting the image of the black man as the boogeyman out to hurt you. Calm down, white people, and put away your guns.
3. THE “ME” SOCIETY. I think it’s the every-man-for-himself ethos of this country that has put us in this mess and I believe it’s been our undoing. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! You’re not my problem! This is mine!
Clearly, we are no longer our brother’s and sister’s keeper. You get sick and can’t afford the operation? Not my problem. The bank has foreclosed on your home? Not my problem. Can’t afford to go to college? Not my problem.
And yet, it all sooner or later becomes our problem, doesn’t it? Take away too many safety nets and everyone starts to feel the impact. Do you want to live in that kind of society, one where you will then have a legitimate reason to be in fear? I don’t.
I’m not saying it’s perfect anywhere else, but I have noticed, in my travels, that other civilized countries see a national benefit to taking care of each other. Free medical care, free or low-cost college, mental health help. And I wonder – why can’t we do that? I think it’s because in many other countries people see each other not as separate and alone but rather together, on the path of life, with each person existing as an integral part of the whole. And you help them when they’re in need, not punish them because they’ve had some misfortune or bad break. I have to believe one of the reasons gun murders in other countries are so rare is because there’s less of the lone wolf mentality amongst their citizens. Most are raised with a sense of connection, if not outright solidarity. And that makes it harder to kill one another.”
read in full: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/celebrating-prince-peace-land-guns
-
Catholic Church Defeated, Bill to Expand Birth Control Is Approved in Philippines
MANILA — After a ferocious national debate that pitted family members against one another, and some faithful Catholics against their church, the Philippine Congress passed legislation on Monday to help the country’s poorest women gain access to birth control…
…The measure had been stalled for more than a decade because of determined opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. Roughly four-fifths of Filipinos are Catholic.
Birth control is legal and widely available in the Philippines for people who can afford it, particularly those living in cities. But condoms, birth control pills and other methods can be difficult to find in rural areas, and their cost puts them out of reach for the very poor.
“Some local governments have passed local ordinances that banned the sale of condoms and contraceptives and forbid their distribution in government clinics, where most poor Filipinos turn for health care,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on the issue, adding that the new bill would override such ordinances.
The measure passed on Monday would stock government health centers, including those in remote areas, with free or subsidized birth control options for the poor. It would require sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. The Philippines has one of the highest birthrates in Asia, but backers of the legislation, including the Aquino administration, have said repeatedly that its purpose is not to limit population growth. Rather, they say, the bill is meant to offer poor families the same reproductive health options that wealthier people in the country enjoy.
The United Nations Population Fund estimates that half of the 3.4 million pregnancies in the Philippines each year are unintended, and that there are 11 pregnancy-related deaths in the country each day, on average. Most of those could be avoided, the organization says, through improved maternal health care, a need that proponents say the new legislation will directly address.
Catholic Church officials took a hard line against the measure, saying it was out of line with the beliefs of most religious Filipinos. The church equated contraception with abortion, which is illegal in the Philippines…
The Catholic Church, sticking it to the poor like only they can. Thankfully they were unsuccessful in the end, but they did tie up access to life saving contraception for 10 years while an avg of 11 women died every day from lack of access to contraception. That’s about 40,000 deaths you can add to their score card.
-
Archaeologists find prehistoric humans cared for sick and disabled Read more: Archaeologists find prehistoric humans cared for sick and disabled
…The archaeologists described the extent of Burial 9’s disability in a paper in Anthropological Science in 2009. Two years later, they returned to the case to address the issue of health care head on.
“The provision and receipt of health care may therefore reflect some of the most fundamental aspects of a culture,” the two archaeologists wrote in The International Journal of Paleopathology.
In the case of Burial 9, Tilley says, not only does his care indicate tolerance and cooperation in his culture but suggests that he himself had a sense of his own worth and a strong will to live. Without that, she says, he could not have stayed alive.
“I’m obviously not the first archaeologist” to notice evidence of people who needed help to survive in stone age or other early cultures, she said. Nor does her method “come out of the blue.” It is based on and extends previous work.
Among archaeological finds, she said, she knows “about 30 cases in which the disease or pathology was so severe, they must have had care in order to survive.”
-
-
High Resolution
Divine Irony
is a rich archive of religious delusions, scientific truths and political implications.
"Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
-George Carlin
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed”.
-Albert Einstein
