My friend had a baby six weeks after Hawaiian Punch was born.
Wow, really? It hasn't already been six weeks since Hawaiian Punch was born, has it?
(Goes to another window, does a Google site search for a phrase I remember from the announcement post: "blissed out.") Huh. I guess it has. Um, happy six weeks, HP.
(It has been almost nine weeks! She's coming along nicely.)
I did a paper on this in law school, but yeah, it's a problem. There are plenty of areas where the local hospital is Catholic, and procedures that (some, not all) Catholic hospitals won't do. And people don't expect it, so they get blindsided -- your friend probably didn't realize they wouldn't tie her tubes when she initially planned to give birth there.
(It has been almost nine weeks! She's coming along nicely.)
How much longer until she's ready?
5: 18 years, give or take ten weeks.
If the choice is tubes tied vs vasectomy, I am having a hard time finding a good justification for choosing tubes, given the relative seriousness of the procedures.
What 7 said.
To make it more complicated, this varies by Catholic hospital.
7: Well, if you're already open for a C-section, the tube-tying isn't any additional trauma. Once the hospital won't let you do it that way, the vasectomy starts looking more attractive.
the vasectomy starts looking more attractive
Except, it would seem, to Dad....
Has she considered this? No reopening necessary.
OT: No more masturbating to Michael Jackson.
That was a disturbing sentence to write.
12: CNN just says hospitalized. He's dead?
Could her husband have a vasectomy instead? I dutifully inquired and got some mushy science hocus-pocus as to why he could not, and also got some vibes that it would be antisocial of me to try to pin them down on the particulars of the science-mush.
I don't think the science mush is all that confusing. A vasectomy won't solve anything if they have a non-monogamous sex life.
12: TNC says he's dead, but the link is to TMZ, so I suppose one may continue masturbating, but may not orgasm until and unless further word develops.
13: He hasn't been declared dead yet. He's holding on to give us all one last chance.
16 was pwned because I cannot type with only one hand.
7
If the choice is tubes tied vs vasectomy, I am having a hard time finding a good justification for choosing tubes, given the relative seriousness of the procedures.
If the guy is really phobic about vasectomy it is contraindicated.
erm, that's not what contraindicated means, i think, James. There is no increase in risk...
14: if the goal is that they have no more children, that situation is entirely symmetric.
so they must have both.
Dead Michael Jackson: the only news ever big enough to have everyone on my Facebook homepage writing about the same topic.
The vasectomy hocus-pocus was around some increased cancer risk associated with him getting a vasectomy, that smelled to me like a general not-wanting-scissors-near-your-junk cancer risk.
Have I told the story about how when I was in the Peace Corps, my Samoan had just gotten good enough that I could eavesdrop on people's conversations a little, and I was idly sitting on the ferry listening to a couple of women from a village talking about stuff. And then I had to interrupt them to confirm: "Excuse me, but did you just say that Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley?" It's a very small media world.
Ok, it turns out you should have stopped masturbating at least 15 minutes ago.
The writers for the London Times online quit masturbating long enough to write this, and sums up everything I love about the English:
Jackson, 50, was due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010...The shows for the London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale in March, and these will now be thrown seriously into doubt.
Scissors are an underappreciated cancer vector.
I am so looking forward to 24 hours of "breaking news stories" about Michael Jackson, consisting of "He's still dead!" and "Yes, he died. Here is a picture of the hospital where he died." "Yes, Michael Jackson. Still dead."
Now if there was a possibility he was going to become a zombie, or rise as a vampire, that would be news...
he shows for the London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale in March, and these will now be thrown seriously into doubt.
Unless he rises as a vampire.
19
erm, that's not what contraindicated means, i think, James. There is no increase in risk...
Actually I believe there is an increase in risk particularly of complications like impotence.
29 hadn't thought of that. i suppose it's plausible, if unlikely --- the mind is a funny place.
11: Yes, people should know about that option.
If the choice is tubes tied vs vasectomy, I am having a hard time finding a good justification for choosing tubes, given the relative seriousness of the procedures.
Here's one. The woman wants permanent birth control, and the guy doesn't. Pretty simple.
Unless he rises as a vampire.
I guess that's one (the only?) way to top "Thriller"
28: Zombie is more likely, given the precedent established by Thriller.
Now if there was a possibility he was going to become a zombie, or rise as a vampire, that would be news...
Well, you know... (8:25 mark).
Now if there was a possibility he was going to become a zombie, or rise as a vampire, that would be news...
Apart from 'Thriller', he is said to have spent $150,000 on a Malian witch doctor in an attempt to kill 25 people, including Steven Spielberg.
Incidentally, if we are eulogizing Michael, it is hard to overestimate the impact of the Jackson Five in the early 70s. Fuck, even Stevie Wonder was getting profound and depressing.
"123" was a jolt of perfect joy.
35: This zombie is not available in my country due to copyright restrictions.
38: But it was those songs that did it to him: "Sugar Daddy"? "The Love You Save"? Messed up. Messed up.
Regarding the OP, rather than the dead pop singer stuff, I'd really like to put in a good word for vasectomies.
Heading in for mine, I got all psyched up for convalescing with a very personal pain for a while, picking out books, etc. But it was really no big deal at all. It was *not* like getting kicked in the nuts for three days. It wasn't even like getting kicked in the nuts once. I didn't finish any books, I just went back to work dicking around on the internet.
I didn't have any psychological weirdness about it either. I chatted amicably with the doctor about what could possibly cause the 1 in 10,000 failure rate for the procedure and walked away comfortably knowing that I will only have to deal with two pain in the neck kids for the rest of my life.
40: "The Love You Save" is a perfect pop song. Shhh.
I have a memory, perhaps false, of Michael Jackson performing with the Jackson Five at Mandel Hall durinng the UofC folk/blues festival. That would have been in the late 1960s.
I'm getting disturbed by the people dying. Farrah Fawcett. The nice lady from the South Pole. Now Michael Jackson. I wish they'd stop. Only people at least 40 years older than I should due. I want to speak to the management.
due = die. No Freudian interference there. for sure.
Look on the bright side - Jackson's children are young enough that several years of intense therapy ought to be adequate to deal with their various Daddy-induced traumas. They may even learn to walk around without veils/scarves/towels around their faces.
On topic: Lots of hospitals have been taken over by the Catholic medical megalith in the last couple of decades. There are a lot of things they won't do - abortions, offering Plan B to rape victims, etc. In the olden days, the policy with problem births was "save the baby, let the mother die".
OT: Never break your pelvis. It fucking HURTS! Even on large doses of opiates. [I'm surviving on Fentanyl patches, morphine, Vicodin and extra-strength Tylenol.] Pain, BTW, is not a "medical" reason to keep a patient in the hospital, according to Blue Shield. Nor is the inability to walk. They kicked me out of the Acute Rehab ward a week before my doctors thought I should go, and before I could walk.
Catholic hospitals: really really crappy if you happen to be a woman with functioning reproductive organs.
46: Wow, I just saw him perform this March.
DE, so glad to see you. Wish you were already sound and healed.
DOMINE!
OT: Never break your pelvis. It fucking HURTS! Even on large doses of opiates. [I'm surviving on Fentanyl patches, morphine, Vicodin and extra-strength Tylenol.]
I am 100% sure this is true. Also, that really sucks.
Pain, BTW, is not a "medical" reason to keep a patient in the hospital, according to Blue Shield. Nor is the inability to walk. They kicked me out of the Acute Rehab ward a week before my doctors thought I should go, and before I could walk.
Yeah. Arkansas loves you, in their own little banjo-playin' way.
I'm very glad that you live and at least can somehow type!
max
['Just say no to zombiefication.']
47: Also, in re acute rehab, that sucks! How is this determined? My mother walked out of acute rehab against medical advice -- she felt she was done and being there with much worse off folks was making her worse -- and she had been there a while.
DominEditrix! Glad to see you're back.
I cried a little in the car today when I heard the news. And then all the radio stations started to play an MJ marathon, and when "The Way You Make Me Feel" came on I cried again. It's not even close to his best song, but it's the one that I always imagined I'd dance to at my wedding.
DominEditrix, Good to see you. That totally sucks about the pain. If you're feeling up to it, would you write to DiFi about your experience and tell her that she can't fucking vote against health reform and that we can't leave it to the private insurers. Boxer has not been making promising sounds either.
Also B, you promised a post on healthcare before leblanc got inspired to write about Iran.
(Sorry, guys, for being so earnest and so annoyingly dogged about this one issue.)
31
Here's one. The woman wants permanent birth control, and the guy doesn't. Pretty simple.
This is a better reason.
61: Hey, is that linked thread the site of pre-dating Sifu/Blume flirting? I believe it is.
Although I suspect she wasn't actually attempting to flirt with me.
I don't think Sifu was on my radar back then. Not romantically anyway.
Bave's mix from that thread looks awesome. I don't think I ever listened to it, though. Maher Shalal Hash Baz AND Magma?
237 et seq is very flirty.
Blume: I imagine Jarvis Cocker hiding in my shower.
ST: You'd mace him.
Blume: No, I'd do him.
ST: I should look more like Jarvis Cocker.
68: oh, I was totally flirting with her. I just don't think she was aware of it.
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Virgin America's hip, funky aesthetic has a bit of a "trying too hard" feel to it (the purple lights are a bit much), but given the sorry experience that is most air travel these days, I appreciate the effort.
Girls next to me are looking through bridal mags, planning a wedding.
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70: I mean, hell, you're on the internet.
My ideal air travel experience would involve being completely unconscious between the moment I leave my apartment and the moment I arrive at my destination.
73: assuming your destination is your apartment, may I recommend Air Blackberry Schnapps?
Under "tries a bit too hard" add the "chat with the other sexy singles on the plane" feature. That you have identified how?
Or maybe I just have no plane game.
73: That coincides with mine, though I'd kind of like to have the view outside the window filmed for me, because I enjoy it.
Of course, that also describes my ideal dentist visit.
73 describes my ideal life experience.
76: your dentist has a nice view?
They could try harder by adding Newark to their list of airports.
Seat-to-seat chat is such a bad idea. "Make your kid shut the fuck up!" "I can smell that sandwich from five rows back, you bastard!"
78: The view of their chin and throat as they lean over you is always pleasant. I'd love to memorialize it.
73: Amen! I just did the Los Angeles to Miami and back within a few days horribleness. Next time I pay the extra for non-stop.
So far I'm the only one to show up in this plane's chat room. The girl directly in front of me was pretty cute, but I think that if I were to invite her to chat by seat number rather than just, say, talking to her, she'd probably be creeped out.
2.2 Mbps down, .23 up, BTW.
I'm on SFO-SEA. Going to screw around and enjoy being away from lab for a day and then, on Saturday, try to run a faster than I ran before.
Oh, and you can buy a $5 West Coast carbon offset from the inflight store if you want to assuage your guilt before you even land.
on Saturday, try to run a faster than I ran before.
Enigmatic, as befits the airborne.
Maybe someday you too will join the jet age, Sifu, and then you will understand.
Seattle is such a nice place to visit. Then, so is SF. Wait, why do I live on this coast, anyway?
Wait, why do I live on this coast, anyway?
self abnegation?
Distressingly on-topic, but Heebie are you saying the vasectomy discussion was cut short?
Though I am of course certain it's not the length of the discussion but the quality of the discourse that really matters.
14: yes, "she's sleeping with other people as well" was my first assumption.
91: I think irrational fear/male genital fetishism is a much simpler explanation. I know dozens of guys who would balk at vasectomy simple because of the fear of sharp objects near their junk and a mystical attachment to fertility as essential to manhood.
Open relationships are far rarer than are men with stupid issues about their balls.
They kicked me out of the Acute Rehab ward a week before my doctors thought I should go, and before I could walk.
Look on the bright side: At least we don't have socialized medicine, with rationing and all.
I hope things go smoothly - pain sucks.
22: People always hinted to me that there was some downside to wearing pants made entirely out of scissors, but I could never figure out what it was. Now I know.
92: who said anything about open relationships? If you mean "relationships where at least one person is at some point non-monogamous" I think they're running at north of 50%. If you mean "relationships where at least one person is at some point non-monogamous and the other person knows and approves" then that's a bit rarer.
"relationships where at least one person is at some point non-monogamous"
Careful of those tranny hookers. Once in a while they turn stabby.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12690664
And, we found him/her hiding under an old mattress in a back yard, not in a shed.
Look on the bright side: At least we don't have socialized medicine, with rationing and all.
Speaking of which, I thought this son of a bitch was supposed to be on our side:
But the well-insured happen to include virtually all the people making the key decisions about health-care reform -- members of Congress and their staffs, the White House staff, Washington journalists, and so on. These people's fears that they would lose the right to "choose my own doctor" (code for getting treatment with all the bells and whistles) helped kill Hillary Clinton's attempt to reform health care in the early 1990s. Fear of rationing could kill Obamacare for the same reason.
Whether or not this makes sense is a question of taste, not policy.
Jesus. And just what the fuck does that mean, "question of taste, not policy"?
96:
It was unclear why the man was wearing women's clothing, or why the two were in the room together, though there did not seem to be signs of forced entry
What about consensual entry?
I just got out of minor surgery, the first time I've had anything like it without someone experienced with hospitals and medicine running interference and generally playing wingman. What a bunch of stupid crap they throw at you! I learned yesterday that they wanted to sedate me, which means I can't drive myself home. Of course there's a $240 fee for canceling less than 48 hours before surgery (and they only do the pre-op interview after it's too late to cancel, the assholes), so I either had to scramble to ask a favor from someone who would have to take a day off (using up some of their meager vacation time) or eat the $240. My solution was to give the doctor a bunch of shit until he agreed to do the procedure under local only, which turned out to be just fine, about as painful as digging out a splinter.
Saved the insurance company some money (not that it's going to come off my deductable, of course), got the surgery, back home waiting for the local to finish wearing off so I can get and accurate read on the pain before diving into the percocet.
toglosh: sorry to hear that, heal fast!
politicalfootball, that is a really crappy piece. The reasoning in it sucks--even before you get to the line about taste.
And honestly, I have no idea what that means.
Here there is much less to debate. Cheaper treatment means less treatment: fewer tests, fewer surgeries, fewer drugs.
Probably fewer surgeries, but possibly less expensive drugs and less intrusive cheaper tests might be developed if teh incentives are right. Under FFS medicine they get paid more for offering more tests.
The whole defensive medicine is such a canard. (I have heard a couple of things that I thought were not evil Republican talking points on malpractice reform. Specifically, the records should be anonymized and not kept secret by legal agreement and there ought to be ways to compensate more people more efficiently since so few go to trial.)
The Washington Post is so much worse than the NY Times.
And honestly, I have no idea what that means.
It means they either don't know what they are talking about, or are pushing an agenda. There are definitely options, as you point out, for reducing the cost of treatment without reducing the standard of treatment.
Sorry that should have been " I have no idea what that line about 'whether or not this makes sense is a question of taste, not policy" means.
This may have pissed me off enough to write a letter to the editor.
Open relationships are far rarer than are men with stupid issues about their balls.
Or their dog's balls, even.
Or their dog' truck's balls, even.
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Not content merely to pepper his posts with typos, Yglesias is taking his game to a whole new level (with an assist from Ryan M. Powers).
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Soup is right that what they say about the cost of treatment is bizarre, especially if they mean something like overall expenditures.
A pathologist I know recently said that "To be brutally frank a great deal of what anatomic pathologists do, and bill for, needn't be done at all. There is very little to be gained from putting through tissue on gangrenous legs, hernia sacs, DJD, placentas from normal deliveries which are grossly normal. To go further, most uteri could be done simply with a careful gross evaluation, as could tonsils (especially from kids, and most from adults). Not every bone marrow needs flow and cytogenetics."
Yglesias is taking his game to a whole new level (with an assist from Ryan M. Powers)
That is hilariously bad.
Cheaper treatment means less treatment: fewer tests, fewer surgeries, fewer drugs
Like the pointless sedation the goddamn doctor wanted to give me this morning, for example. Also probably a bit less of the crap they sent home with me, like enough gauze to wrap a mummy. The little postcard in a printed envelope welcoming me to the hospital was a nice touch, wasting not just money and trees, but also the five seconds it took me to locate a trash can (is there anyone who would take something like that home? I can't imagine those things have an average lifespan of longer than a minute after they are given to the patient).
Pain meds definitely wearing off now. Right on schedule.
Moreover, hospitals and surgeons fequently do extra imaging, because they can't get the old test and they can bill for it anyway. I was seen at MGH once and the doctor did an extra TSH test once, not because it had been a long time since I'd had one, but because she couldn't manually insert the paper records that I gave her. Only tests done at MGH can be in MGH's computer. A total waste until we have thyroid tests that are as cheap as diabetic testing supplies.
108: I was in the process of making an udder for my wife's truck when we divorced. I still think it's a great idea, but I don't have a truck, and my car is too low slung for an udder.
my car is too low slung for an udder
...laydeez.
109, 111: I really don't understand the people he works for. It seems clear that he can't be educated on the proofreading front, and they've decided he's worth paying anyway. That's fine, and a perfectly reasonable decision. But why isn't it worth routing his posts past someone else before they go up -- I'm not talking about serious editing, just enough to fix the real blunders like this?
just enough to fix the real blunders like this
I'm beginning to believe it's performance art.
110: One of the problems is that if you build the equipment, people want to use it. There is a screwy incentive structure behind all of this which ends up with over- and under-utilization problems in US healthcare, at the same time.
just enough to fix the real blunders like this
I can't even imagine how he put up the post without noticing it. He somehow managed to take a screen shot and then post it without ever even glancing at it?
116: Surely it's considered a patina of rustic charm, to cut the aura of ivy-league weenie or something.
Wow, two posts and a bunch of snarky comments later, he still hasn't fixed it.
MY might be a bot. .... laydeez.
I used to like the yggles, but his persistent typos and refusal to engage his commenters has dropped him pretty far down on my daily blog reading.
Wow, two posts and a bunch of snarky comments later, he still hasn't fixed it.
Does he ever fix anything? It's not just typos, he can get substantive factual information wrong, be promptly corrected in comments, and never do anything about it.
125: no, i don't think he does.
write-only blagging.
Does he ever fix anything?
Yes, which makes the decisions of what not to fix even more interesting.
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I'm watching the Waxman-Markey bill debate on C-SPAN, and it's probably doing bad things to my blood pressure. Couldn't we have some sort of safeguard against congresspeople blatantly lying?
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Couldn't we have some sort of safeguard against congresspeople blatantly lying?
Don't be ridiculous.
Speech or Debate Clause says no. Sorry.
Couldn't we have some sort of safeguard against congresspeople blatantly lying?
Wouldn't leave them much to do, apparently.
Fascinatingly, a little-analyzed subclause prohibits Yglesias from fixing his typos.
refusal to engage his commenters
be promptly corrected in comments
I've never seen any convincing evidence that he's even aware that there are comments to his posts.
I've never seen any convincing evidence that he's even aware that there are comments to his posts.
IIRC, there was some post once where he said something like "there's a new system where responses from me in the comments will be displayed in a special format, see the comments section for an example", and then no such comment appeared in the comments section.
Sometimes he solicits comments about what to post.
Not only have I not seen comment 135, but I also find it unconvincing.
And 134 sounds too much like an urban legend for me to place any stock in it. 133 stands.
Speech or Debate Clause says no. Sorry.
It says they can't be arrested, right? But surely there could be some sort of, I don't know, official fact-checking, or big blinking sign saying "LIAR!" that could go off at appropriate times.
138: I sometimes think nearly all footage of political debate would benefit from a mystery science theatre 3000 treatment with debunkers in the foreground.
136
Not only have I not seen comment 135, but I also find it unconvincing
141: La la la, I can't read you!!!
109: It's still there!
I mean, obviously, at this point it's not coming down. But still.
Crazy.
"Why yes, John Boehner, you are giving me a clear idea of why I think Congress is out of touch! But, um, not how you think."
...and I don't understand House protocol at all. Boehner was given two and a half minutes, used over an hour, then Waxman asks how much time Boehner took and is told "he used the customary amount of time allotted"?
NPR just now broadcast a selection of Michael Jackson fans from all around the world singing snippets of their favorite MJ songs. It was horrible, but also pretty damn touching.
Waxman-Markey passed! In many ways it objectively sucks, but here's hoping it signals the US is finally willing to take action, and makes a difference at Copenhagen....
145:Each side of the aisle is allotted a fixed amount of time, to be distributed by each side's floor leaders as they like. This can be 50 different speakers, or it can be one, usually the floor leader.
I think Boehner is the default floor leader. The term may be wrong. It may all be wrong, but this is how I remember it.
If, as you say, one speaker used most of the alloted Republican time, that probably means that the other Republicans did not want to be on TV arging against the bill. Everybody insisted on their three minutes for the Clinton impeachment. This dynamic can be a little interesting.
148 cont:The 2 1/2 minutes would be the time Boehner could talk before a Democrat could ask him to yield, to be subtracted from Republican time.
If a Democrat doesn't ask, or if the Democrats have no more time, he can go on.
Clinton impeachment was the last time I watched any C-Span, I think.