It's hard to believe

But China's medical system is truly terrible. Some examples:

China has one general practitioner for every 6,666 people, compared with the international standard of one for every 1,500 to 2,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

It's so difficult to get an appointment with a doctor that scalpers make a living doing it.In July, hundreds of thousands of children were found to have been injected with faulty vaccines.

Instead of going to a doctor’s office or a community clinic, people rush to the hospitals to see specialists, even for fevers and headaches.

This winter, flu-stricken patients camped out overnight with blankets in the corridors of several Beijing hospitals.

People bribe doctors to get an appointment.

A typical doctor sees 50 to 60 patients in a workday of about seven and a half hours. In the United States, a family doctor has 83 “patient encounters” in a 45-hour workweek.

Hospitals have become battlegrounds. At least one hospital has hired taekwondo experts to teach doctors self-defense techniques. Some hospitals pay private security companies for protection. Last year, the government pledged to station an adequate number of police officers in emergency departments, where most doctor-patient violence occurs.

h

Pushing the limits

California has just passed a law which makes it mandatory for companies “whose principal executive offices” are in California have at least one woman on their boards by the end of 2019 and two by 2021. Failure to do so means a fine of $100,000 for a first violation and $300,000 for a second.

While European countries, including France, Germany and Norway, have already developed gender diversity requirements for corporate boards; it seems ant-democratic to me.

They were prescient

In 1780 John Adams wrote that "the greatest political evil" to be feared under a democratic constitution was the emergence of "two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other." I can't say that our two parties are "great" but they sure oppose each other. 

In his farewell address George Washington described the "spirit of party" as democracy's "worst enemy." It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one party against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection." He's right on the button for today's parties.

Rand Corp. Analysis

Will they be happy ever after?

Will your vote in November be hacked?

Shall we do the dance?

How equal are we?

Are you retiring soon?

Why doesn't he have side effects from the pill?

Pills don't work the same for everybody. How can you know this pill will work for you? Well, there may be a way for you to know before you start taking the pill. DNA analysis may be that way. As its name suggests, the Center for DNA Guided Medicine claims to be able to tell you how a particular medicine will work on you. You supply your DNA and they compare it to drug response outcomes which they have gathered over the years. They can then answer such questions as:

Why don't my medications work?

How come the pill I am taking gives me side effects, but my friend does not have any?

Will my medications work better if I take more or less?

What combinations of pills are safest for me?

Is there only one thing to do today?

Will you join the millions who will watch THE HEARING? Of course, I'm talking about the Kavanaugh hearing. It sounds as though this is the most important thing that has happened this year, if not this decade. How many stations will carry it? How much is this costing us? How much time have our leaders spent on this rather than on more important matters, for example our failing infrastructure? Is it analogous to the battles in the Forum when Rome was failing, as we are now? Why can't we smarten up?

Living in Hell

We need AVR

A 7-year-old performs

Two heads are better than one

Repair or Prevent

FEMA operates on the basis of repairing and restoring property damaged by severe storms. Holland tries to prevent or minimize the danger from occurring. Which makes more sense to you?

FEMA winds up repairing dangerous locations - such as seashore homes - more than once. The residents suffer more than once. Federal flood insurance is paid more than once to the same people. It's likely that the costs incurred by FEMA match or exceed those incurred by Holland. Plus, people in the states suffer a lot more than those in Holland.

A recent 60 Minutes tells the story well.

It's getting better but still too many

New Army Recruits

Should we be worried about our debt?

John Feffer, who is not an economist, thinks so. Household debt hit a new high ($13.3 trillion) last month. Student debt hit its own record - $1.5 trillion. Mortgage debt at $9 trillion is close to the $10.5 trillion it reached during the mortgage crisis in 2008. Credit card debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. Corporate debt hit a new high of $6.3 trillion. And, companies have less cash available to pay that debt - the cash-to-debt ratio, which was 14 percent in 2008, has dropped to 12 percent.

Cute photos

From the Guardian:

I love you

Stay away from me

Shall we dance

Mortgage delinquency rate and housing prices

From Wolf Street
What will happen when housing prices fall?

Media Bias?

The following chart was posted on Business Insider. It was based on the Feb. 5-March 11, 2018, Gallup/Knight Foundation survey of 1,440 Gallup Panel members. How accurate it is I don't know.



From our Florida correspondent

A few ways Japan differs from U.S.

 Drink Cans Have Names Written In Braille On The Top

There Are Baby Seats Attached To The Wall In Most Bathrooms

This Kind Of Toilet. Wash Your Hands And Reuse The Water For Your Next Flush

u

Painting herself

Painting with no arms

Where are you on these charts?

Sorry you're leaving. Here's a little present

Slow processing of immigrant children

We have more than 100 shelters for migrant children who have crossed the border alone. These shelters are becoming overwhelmed. There were 2,400 such children in custody in May 2017; now there are 12,800, an increase of more than five times. It's not that more children are crossing the border; it's because there are far fewer being released to live with families and other sponsors. The number of children in a shelter last year occupied about 30% of the shelter last year; this year it's almost 90%.

The number of children crossing the border has not increased. The number of people coming forward as sponsors have decreased considerably. They don't want to be deported.

Is this OK?

Managing money

At the beginning of what may be a pretty devastating hurricane season would you shift money out of your budget if you ran FEMA? Well, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has documents that he says show that to be the case. Where was the money moved? You won't believe this. ICE!

Where were you on this day in 2001?

Like December 7, September 11 will always live in our memories. I distinctly remember the radio broadcast on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when I was four years old. And, of course, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, has never left my memory. But the periods after these days was very, very different.

World War II dominated the lives of Americans. Everybody was involved in the war. I saved aluminum foil. My sisters sewed for the troops. My brothers joined the Army; one volunteered, the other was drafted and, at age 18, earned a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge. My father joined the local Draft Board. My family was not alone in these activities, by any means. Just about everyone I knew or saw did something to help this country fight the war. We went to the grocery store with our ration books. Women became factory workers. Every day the front page of the newspapers told us what was going on in the war. We didn’t drive as much as we used to, we wanted to save gas.  Air raid drills occurred fairly often, as we lived on the coast. The men who did not go to war served as Air Raid Wardens. At school we practiced hiding under our desks should an air attack occur. We knew the names of most of the generals and admirals. Every so often we sent a large package to our cousins in Italy; the package contained food, clothing and other items to help them survive the attacks. Yes, some Americans protested the war, but there were very few ‘conscientious objectors’. We saw players from the Boston Red Sox (one of whom was Ted Williams) and the Boston Braves leave the ball field to serve in the military. When we went to the movie theater the first film shown every day was a newsreel about the war.

Our post-911 days pall in comparison. The only defensive incident that happened to me was a lengthy investigation at the Canadian border when I drove back to Canada the following weekend. That was the first and only investigation although I crossed the border subsequently quite often. Since we no longer have a draft, I knew hardly anyone who joined the military. The attack dominated the news for a relatively short while. Today, we seldom hear any news about Afghanistan – although we’ve been there for seventeen years. We’ve had a number of generals leading our forces there; the only one I can remember is Petraeus. Although we have failed to win a war since WWII, we seem to be doing little of value – other than spending trillions of dollars - to improve our capabilities.

What do the opposite post-attack experiences tell us about our country?

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reports

Despite spending around $900 billion in Afghanistan,  “between 2001 and 2017, U.S. government efforts to stabilize insecure and contested areas in Afghanistan mostly failed.” According to a July 30, 2018, report by that same inspector general, the Taliban was by then contesting control of or controlled about 44 percent of that country, while Afghan government control and influence over districts had declined by about 16 percent in a few years.

The Taliban view is
“This year Eid­ al­-Adha approaches us as our Jihadi struggle against the American occupation is on the threshold of victory due to the help of Allah Almighty. The infidel invading forces have lost all will of combat, their strategy has failed, advanced technology and military equipment rendered useless, [the] sedition and corruption­-sowing group defeated, and the arrogant American generals have been compelled to bow to the Jihadic greatness of the Afghan nation.”

Some thoughts about Afghanistan by Nick Turse:
The United States has not won a major conflict since 1945; has a trillion-dollar national security budget; has had 17 military commanders in the last 17 years in Afghanistan, a country plagued by 23,744 “security incidents” (the most ever recorded) in 2017 alone; has spent around $3 trillion, primarily on that war and the rest of the war on terror, including the ongoing conflict in Iraq, which then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld swore, in 2002, would be over in only “five days or five weeks or five months,” but where approximately 5,000 U.S. troops remain today; and yet 74 percent of the American people still express high confidence in the U.S. military.

The Real Lesson of Sept. 11

Joe Quinn, a veteran of Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan, has some interesting comments in today's Times. Here are a few excerpts (emphasis mine):

In Afghanistan, after an Afghan police officer demanded money from me at gunpoint to get through a checkpoint, I learned of the Kabul government’s widespread corruption. I learned that spending $68 billion on Afghan forces doesn’t buy the essential ingredients of a fighting force: loyalty, courage and integrity. I learned that most generals would always ask for more money, more troops, more time — and more war. It’s like asking Tom Brady what he wants to do on Sunday.

I learned that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For the past 17 years in Afghanistan, we’ve tried everything: a light footprint, a big footprint, conventional war, counterinsurgency, counter-corruption, surges, drawdowns.

I learned that Osama bin Laden’s strategic logic was to embroil the United States in a never-ending conflict to ultimately bankrupt the country. “All that we have to do is send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written ‘Al Qaeda,’” he said in 2004, “in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note ….” Why are we continuing to do what Bin Laden wanted all along?

The ICC is bad

That is according to John Bolton and his boss. They have threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) because of two issues:

The first was ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's request last year for a full investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, which would include any committed by US military and intelligence officials.
Then, a 2016 report from the ICC said there was a reasonable basis to believe the US military had committed torture at secret detention sites in Afghanistan operated by the CIA, and that the Afghan government and the Taliban had committed war crimes.

The ICC was established by a UN treaty in 2002, and has been ratified by 123 countries. The court investigates and brings to justice people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.

Interestingly, China and Russia have not joined the court.

How not to rob

You, Smartphones and Your Kids

Boats and 9/11

Last Week with Oliver

Census 2020

What has to be done per the GAO:

Schedule management: The Bureau's schedule for developing systems to support the 2018 End-to-End Test has experienced delays. These delays have compressed the time available for system and integration testing, and several systems experienced problems during the 2018 End-to-End Test. In addition, the Bureau is currently revising the system development and testing schedule for the 2020 Census as a result of challenges experienced and lessons learned while completing these activities during the 2018 End-to-End Test. Continued schedule management challenges may compress the time available for the remaining system and integration testing and increase the risk that systems will not function as intended.

Contractor oversight: Among other challenges, the Bureau is still filling vacancies in the government program management office that is overseeing its key integration contractor. In June 2018, Bureau officials reported that 33 of the office's 58 federal employee positions were vacant. This adds risk that the office may not be able to provide adequate oversight of contractor cost, schedule, and performance.

IT cost growth: The Bureau reported that its estimated IT costs had grown from $3.41 billion in October 2015 to $4.97 billion in December 2017—an increase of $1.56 billion. This increase was due, in large part, to the addition of technical integration services and updated costs for other major contracts (such as the contract for mobile devices). The amount of cost growth since the October 2015 estimate raises questions as to whether the Bureau has a complete understanding of the IT costs associated with the 2020 Census.

Cybersecurity: The Bureau has made progress by completing the security assessments for 33 of the 44 systems needed to support the 2018 End-to-End Test. However, as of June 2018, the Bureau had identified nearly 3,100 security weaknesses that will need to be addressed in the coming months. Because the 2020 Census involves collecting personal information from over a hundred million households across the country, it will be important that the Bureau addresses system security weaknesses in a timely manner and ensures that risks are at an acceptable level before systems are deployed. With the 2020 Census less than 2 years away, it is critical that the Bureau address these challenges and risks to ensure that its IT systems are developed, tested, and secured in time to support the count of the nation's population.

Meet the Civilian Marksmanship Program, or CMP

The organization, which is about one hundred years old, became a spin off of the Army in 1996. The Army hands over old weapons to the CMP, which then sells them to the public. They have been doing this for more than seventy years and have amassed a quarter-billion dollars in assets. The purpose of CMP is “To promote firearm safety and marksmanship training with an emphasis on youth.” The government could very easily sell these old weapons on the open market and put the money in the U.S. Treasury.

Obama's comment on the NYT unisgned OpEd

“The claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly are not following the president’s orders?” Obama said. That is not a check — I’m being serious here — that’s not how our democracy is supposed to work. These people aren’t elected, they’re not accountable. They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this White House, and then saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’re preventing 10 percent.’ That’s not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal.”

Texting changed his life

The arms of his mother

What's next for our country

It's hard to believe that this article in today's NY Times was written by a Trump insider. Some quotes:

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.
But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

90 degree days

In 1998 there were 6 days of 90 degree heat during the entire summer in Cambridge, Ma. where I grew up. Twenty years later in Connecticut (about 100 miles south of Cambridge) there have been at least 12 such days. Global warming, anyone?

Meet Ann and Gussie

The tallest statue in the world

India is honoring the memory of a famous Hindu who was active in India's battle for survival by building a statue 600 feet tall, taller than any other statue. It will cost $430 million. That is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. The world's current tallest statue in China is 422 feet tall. The statue will be dedicated in October.

What does George W. have to say?

The White House is withholding from the Senate more than 100,000 pages of records from Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s time as a lawyer in the administration of former President George W. Bush. The reason? Executive privilege. Why are they being withheld? The records “reflect deliberations and candid advice concerning the selection and nomination of judicial candidates, the confidentiality of which is critical to any president’s ability to carry out this core constitutional executive function.” Sounds weak to me.

Clouds fly

More deaths by car here

I like this ad

Death by gun

The 2020 Census is in trouble

The Predeccesor

Looking for action

Zafar, the dolphin pictured above, is the one looking for action. A seaside village in Brittany has banned swimming on its beach because Zafar is in heat and has been scaring tourists and locals by approaching them and trying to rub up against them.

He has even tried to prevent several swimmers from getting back to the beach at Landévennec, using its nose to push one woman out of the water and up into the air. The beast, often clearly in a state of sexual arousal, also often tries to rub up against kayaks and other small boats.

Trusting scientific studies

There are more studies published each day than I can count. But how correct are these studies. One group of scientists tried to find out by attempting to repeat 21 influential studies that had been published in Science and in Nature. They could only reproduce 13 of those papers — or 62%. The eight papers that did not fully replicate have been cited hundreds of times in scientific literature and many were widely covered by the media.

Virtual Scam

Student Loans are in tough shape

Ben Miller, the senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, has a depressing article in today's Times. Of borrowers who started repaying in 2012, just over 10 percent had defaulted three years later. However, the feds officially track student loans for three years. At the end of that period the default rate continued climbing to 16 percent over the next two years, after official tracking ended, meaning more than 841,000 borrowers were in default. Nearly as many were severely delinquent or not repaying their loans (for reasons besides going back to school or being in the military). The share of students facing serious struggles rose to 30 percent over all.

Closing the gap

Do as I say, Not as I do

This old adage applies quite well to Wells Fargo, which was fined $185 million because its employees created millions of fake bank accounts for customers. From 2011 to mid-2016 Wells employees created more than 1.5 million unauthorized deposit accounts and issued more than 500,000 unauthorized credit card applications. These accounts racked up $2.6 million in fees for the bank.

This paragon of virtue just closed the campaign account of Nikki Fried, a candidate for agriculture commissioner in Florida who supports expanded access to medical marijuana, after inquiring about her donors.

Coal - fading production?

Is diet soda for you?

Making pollution worse

The EPA has issued new pollution rules governing coal-burning power plants. The details indicate that the new rules would increase carbon emissions and lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths annually.

The new rules make minor on-site efficiency improvements at individual plants and also let states relax pollution rules for power plants that need upgrades, keeping them active longer. Emissions would grow under the plan, as the plan says “implementing the proposed rule is expected to increase emissions of carbon dioxide and the level of emissions of certain pollutants in the atmosphere that adversely affect human health.”

The plan defining the rules predicts between 470 and 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 because of increased rates of microscopic airborne particulates known as PM 2.5, which are dangerous because of their link to heart and lung disease as well as their ability to trigger chronic problems like asthma and bronchitis. Plus, at least 21,000 new missed days of school annually by 2030 because those pollutants would increase in the atmosphere rather than decrease.

Want some?

Bees are valuable

Without bees there would be no almonds. And that's a lot of money. Almond growing in California alone is a $7.6 billion industry that wouldn’t be possible without the 30 billion bees (and hundreds of human beekeepers) who keep the trees pollinated.

But bees don't pollinate only almonds. Bees are central to an enormous agricultural industry — about one of every three mouthfuls of food we eat wouldn’t exist without bee pollination. However, bee keepers are worried. Since 2006, annual winter losses in colonies have averaged more than 28 percent, nearly double the historical winter mortality rate of 15 percent. The decline is based on 
parasites, pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition.

Which one is the world's Flycasting Champion?

It's the 14-year-old girl on the right, Maxine McCormick of San Francisco. She's been doing it for only five years, but has been recognized as the champion for the past couple of years.This year she won again as the world champion. She scored 52 in the women’s division — 21 points clear of the second-place finisher. She also won the salmon distance category.

The cost of medical school

The average doctor comes out of medical school with at least $200,000 of debt. NYU is doing something about this. 

It will provide all new, future, and current students a full-tuition scholarship—financial need and merit aside, meaning wealthy students and low-income students alike will receive it. The scholarship doesn’t cover the rest of the costs associated with college—housing, food, child care—but it takes $55,018 a year out of the picture. This will cost $600,000,000; they already have raised $450,000,000.

There are at least two benefits of the program. It may help put a dent in the dearth of diversity in a field in which a little more than 8 percent of physicians are black and less than 7 percent are Latino.
There is expected to be a shortage of up to 120,000 doctors by 2030. Up to 49,000 of that shortfall will be in the realm of primary-care physicians.

Crows as janitors?

That's what a theme park in France is trying to do, at least with regards to cigarette butts and bits of trash. The park has trained six crows to pick up this type of trash and put it in a box. When the crow does so, he is rewarded with some food.

This is not the first time this has been tried.

It reached the level of a TED Talk in 2008. The gig was a crow vending machine that let birds trade coins for peanuts. The concept, though, did not fly. Then, last year “The Crowbar” was developed; it would teach crows to pick up half-smoked cigarettes. It was greeted with muted interest.

Ornithologists and bird experts are skeptical that wild birds can be trained to pick up after humans. Birds raised in captivity, though, have a better chance.

Calling 911

What's with New Zealand women?

The prime minister gave birth to a girl in June. She took six weeks of parental leave and returned to her leadership role with a baby in tow and nary a fuss.

This week the minister for women and associate minister for health and transport, rode her bicycle to the hospital and delivered her child. She and her partner, Peter Nunns, cycled to the hospital because there was not “enough room in the car for the support crew.”

Taking it easy

Who we deal with

Would Universal Basic Income make a real difference?

Joining Mensa at age 3?

Rowing across the Atlantic

That's what Bryce Carlson, an Ohio teacher, just completed. He set a new record - 38 days, 6 hours and 49 minutes,one-third faster than the previous record of 53 days 8 hours 26 minutes. And he did it even though the main desalinator which supplied drinking water stopped after the first day. The boat also capsized twelve times. Salt water salt slowly began to corrode his electronic connections, leaving his navigation system unreliable about halfway through his journey.

Are you one of those counted?

From Social Media Today

National Relaxation Day

Did you know that? Or, who establishes these days? Some company called Mental Floss has declared it. They have even given us "15 Scientific Ways to Relax for National Relaxation Day".

Here are their "ways"
1. GET A HOUSE OR OFFICE PLANT.
2. AVOID SCREENS BEFORE BEDTIME.
3. LISTEN TO CLASSICAL MUSIC.
4. DRINK GREEN TEA SWEETENED WITH HONEY.
5. GIVE YOURSELF A HAND MASSAGE.
6. LOCK LIPS WITH SOMEONE.
7. CHEW GUM.
8. BLOW UP A BALLOON.
9. MOW THE LAWN.
10. FIND SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU LAUGH.
11. MUNCH ON CHOCOLATE.
12. EAT A BANANA.
13. MAKE ANOTHER TRIP TO THE FRUIT STAND.
14. FOCUS ON RELAXING ALL OF YOUR MUSCLES.
15. TAKE A MINI MENTAL VACATION.

A super athlete at 84

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent

Dogs and wounds

Be a college application consultant

Your background need not be education. You can be a former CIA agent, a Hollywood screenwriter, a radiologist. There are more than 2,000 people doing the job. And making a decent dollar. Ms Bayliss runs the four-day Application Boot Camp at a Boston-area hotel. It's only $16,000.

Or, you can charge $5,000 or more if you are a summer expert who helps a teenager “find his passion” and “architect a plan” that includes brand-building volunteer, educational, or work opportunities. 

In the Boston area, the average consulting package — which includes a college list, essay and interview prep, and organizational tools and general advice — costs about $4,800. But it’s possible to spend $80,000 or more for star consultants.

The Mass. State Police has a few problems

The Boston Globe has been looking at the State Troopers and has found out a few things: 

Forty-six  troopers are involved in a pay scandal.

Two troopers routinely filed for more than 30 hours a week in overtime and paid details, but, according to the investigators, didn’t work the entire shifts, and sometimes no part of them at all. 

Leaders were repeatedly confronted not only with remarkable amounts of overtime hours but also suspicious sick time claims and sloppy record keeping across the agency.

Scores of troopers continued to routinely rake in more than $100,000 a year just in overtime and paid details.

Audits and disciplinary letters reviewed by the Globe show that at least 67 troopers were suspected of abusing sick leave since 2011, though they received little, if any, punishment beyond an infrequent written warning. One trooper regularly worked a paid detail, then clocked in for his regular shift, then filed for a partial sick day.

State Police audits show that payroll records in about 40 percent of the barracks contained inaccurate or unclear entries or were missing key information, such as when and where troopers worked.retired amid a scandal involving troopers who say they were ordered to falsify a police report to protect a judge’s daughter.

A trooper is charged with embezzlement; he altered traffic citations to make it look like he issued tickets during phony overtime shifts.

The pay of two troopers; one earned $187,340 last year, including about $72,000 in overtime and additional pay. The other earned roughly $181,661, including about $82,000 in overtime and other pay.

The agency’s former head of payroll pleaded guilty in June to stealing $23,900 from the department.

Inspectors found that one Troop F member coupled so many sick days with other time off that he worked just four Fridays during 2014.

A separate 2016 inspection of Troop F uncovered 11 senior officers who failed to clearly document what work they did during significant chunks of overtime.

School days 2018

From our Florida correspondent

Taxes, profits, wages

From Don Moynihan

Living in a mining town

Helping him walk

Minimizing risk in the Emergency Room

See a woman doctor.

At times it seems that there are more studies than people. While the authors usually believe strongly that their studies are error-free and reflect the real world, that is not always the case, as we are all human beings. Nonetheless, studies are interesting.

One new study I looked at recently does not have a definitive conclusion. It only suggests that female heart attack patients may be at a higher risk of mortality in the emergency room if they see a male physician rather than a female one. Women are significantly less likely to survive heart attacks. According to 2016 American Heart Association statement, 26 percent of women will die within a year of a heart attack compared with just 19 percent of men. The gap widens with time: By five years after a heart attack almost half of women die, compared with 36 percent of men.

The study I looked at was done in Florida. The researchers  reviewed every heart attack case from every ER in the state. They found that if a heart attack patient was a woman and her emergency physician a man, her risk of death rises by about 12 percent. This means approximately one out of every 66 women with heart attacks dies in the emergency room if she sees a male doctor rather than a female one.

Interestingly, the study found that everyone was more likely to survive if they saw a female physician, and a study published last year in JAMA Internal Medicine indicated all patients of female physicians had lower mortality and hospital readmission rates.

Checking Fingerprints

Get your facts straight

How big is your pi?

Courtesy of a Duncaster resident

She has Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD)

It's a rare neurological disorder that renders people unable to form cognitive maps—the brain’s way of orienting a person in the environment.

Something new to me

The military, including General Eisenhower, opposed the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski. That's what Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, claims to be the consensus among US historians. He also tells us that "in the months prior to the US’s atomic bombings, the Japanese government attempted to surrender on terms the US ultimately accepted after the atomic bombings: unconditional surrender with the exception of the emperor remaining on his throne".

Refugee Road

One component of GDP

A new member of the family

Where would you rather live?

Collecting garbage in NYC

Sanitation Salvage is not the only company with poor performance. Century Waste is another. Century Waste trucks have failed 65 percent of the government inspections performed. Brakes, axles, steering mechanisms — they’ve all been found faulty. In February, yet another truck was ordered off the streets after inspectors found “wheel fasteners loose and/or missing.” Recently a wheel flew off a Century Waste truck and killed a motorist.

Trucks operated by New York City’s 50 biggest garbage companies are pulled off the road and declared unsafe to drive after 53 percent of government inspections, according to an analysis of data from the city and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Fourteen of those 50 companies hadn’t been inspected even once in the past two years. Nationally, commercial trucks are pulled off the road after 21 percent of inspections.

Make your own gun

If you have a 3D printer, one of the things you can 'print' is a plastic gun. That is, if the Trump administration is able to get a judge's negative ruling on the matter overturned.

I was surprised to learn that you can buy gun parts and designs for guns without any Federal regulations. No federal license is necessary to sell gun parts. And no background check is needed to purchase them.

She's betting on China

A conservative's view of Russia and the 2016 election

Why does anybody buy Tesla stock?