Department of followups
Check it out (Very Hot Spot in California), 7/16/2005 -- Fire crews in California found that the ground in parts of Dick Smith Wilderness near Santa Barbara was hot enough to set wood on fire. The explanation may have to do with the geology of the area: soil with high sulfur content that was re-mixed and spontaneously ignited by a recent landslide. Earthfiles.com's Linda Moulton Howe interviewed the lead scientist investigating the phenomenon, Allen King of the USDA Forest Service:

The exact cause is still unknown, but again our theory or working hypothesis is that the sulfide minerals in the shale body are reacting with oxygen and giving off an exothermic reaction that is producing the heat. But so far, it's not at all proven because the quantities of the sulfide minerals and organics within this rock body are so small that we're just not sure there is enough there to support our hypothesis.

(Via Andrew Alden's geology blog at About.com)

Bob Ehrlich: petty governor, petty threat, petty vision, 7/28/2005 -- Over Republican objections, Democrats in the Maryland legislature have convened a panel to investigate the Ehrlich administrations wholesale and allegedly partisan firings of state employees. The Washington Post's John Roberts reports the panel will have subpoena power, and that Ehrlich disputes the firings were politically motivated.

"True paper trails bills" in Maryland, 3/25/2005; followup 4/27/2005 -- Meanwhile, Ehrlich vetoed even the milquetoast electronic voting measure passed by the Democratic legislature earlier this year which called for 'study' of the system's shortcomings. TrueVoteMD.org had tallied 531 problems with electronic voting in the 6% of Maryland precincts it was able to monitor, and reported that 12% of Montgomery County e-voting machines were "locked down" after the November 2004 election and may have lost significant numbers of votes. Ehrlich's veto prompted a Washington Post editorial calling for paper trails for electronic voting systems in Maryland and elsewhere. Via Avedon Carol ("Sideshow"), who asks

Why is that? Why is it that Republicans are so adamantly against any moves to ensure voting integrity?

Good question. Ms. Carol would prefer scrapping electronic voting systems altogether; at the rate things are going in Maryland, I'm starting to agree with her. Meanwhile, the Post's editorial line is welcome, considering that columnist Anne Applebaum dismissed the whole issue after last year's election.

NLRB: No Logic Recognizable Board, 8/8/2005 -- NLRB chairman Robert Battista fired off a letter to the editors of the Washington Post taking issue with Harold Meyerson's August 10 op-ed "Big Brother On and Off the Job." Meyerson had castigated the labor board's go-ahead to a security company make rules about off the job relations between employees -- a clear impediment to union organizing, and a clear abrogation of NLRB responsibilities. Not so, says Battista:

The guards union argued that the word "fraternize" meant that the employees could not talk about unionization. However, the rule did not explicitly prohibit such talk, and no evidence showed that the rule had ever been applied in this fashion or that the employer intended it to apply that way. Finally, the rule was not adopted in response to any union activity. In these circumstances, the board held that the rule, reasonably interpreted, applied to personal relationships, not union discussions, and did not violate the act.

It's like okaying a "don't get wet" rule and denying it could be used to prevent swimming. So the rule doesn't explictly "prohibit such talk" -- it just explicitly prevents employees from being in the same place while they do it. I suppose that leaves open teleconferencing and smoke signals, but look for 'anti-harassment' rules to close that door as well. This is bizarrely determined, public idiocy on Battista's part -- other companies won't care what his ostensible basis for allowing the rule was, just that it helps stifle unionization.


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EDITS, 8/28: Meyerson op-ed link added, and that overly long sentence divided in two. Also, it was the Maryland legislature that called for more study of e-voting problems, not Governor Ehrlich; that sentence hopefully gets that across more clearly now. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 AM -- |  

 
H5N1 can breathe a little easier tonight
H5N1 is the avian flu virus that may become a lethal pandemic if it makes the leap to become easily transmissible between humans. A recent Washington Post front page article by David Brown ("Scientists Race To Head Off Lethal Potential of Avian Flu") tells why it's so feared by scientists:

The fatality rate of 55 percent outstrips any human flu epidemic on record, including the epochal Spanish flu of 1918 and 1919 that killed at least 50 million people. [...]

Normally, the flu viruses can replicate only in the throat and lungs. With H5N1, however, the protein that triggers replication can be activated in many other organs, including the liver, intestines and brain. What is usually a respiratory infection can suddenly become a whole-body infection. Simultaneously, a second "defect" in the virus unleashes a storm of immune-system chemicals called cytokines. In normal amounts, cytokines help fight microbial invaders. In excessive amounts, they can cause lethal damage to the body's own tissues.

So far, H5N1 remains more easily transmitted among birds than to or among humans. But with all Asia as a breeding ground, it would be foolish to count on that remaining true; the United States need to be well prepared if the virus jumps to humans.

Enter the Bush administration. Remember the State vs. Defense Department and CIA vs. White House infighting over Iraq? It's more of the same on the avian flu front. On Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Jeff Nesmith and M.A.J. McKenna reported:

The head of the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that his agency --- and not the federal health establishment --- would manage the nation's response if a deadly new strain of bird flu evolved into a human pandemic."

Via PSoTD and Effect Measure; the latter is a public health blog that takes up the story in considerable detail. It's actually worse than the quote above makes it look -- they're still quarreling about who takes the lead, meaning probably no one will. But I know who I hope gets the nod: to hand a catastrophic medical problem to a bunch of bozos turning babies away at airport security makes me very, very worried. Oh, and let's be sure to close key urban hospitals before the epidemic begins.

Meanwhile, H5N1 is spreading:

Last month, two teams of scientists based in China, one assisted by Webster, proved that H5N1 is now circulating in several species of migratory birds capable of carrying the virus to India, Australia and Central Asia. Tests announced last week suggest that some of those long-distance fliers have already carried H5N1 into Mongolia, where it hadn't been seen before.

Bush's homeland security and the H5N1 epidemic... I imagine Peggy Noonan has just thought of another good reason to keep all those military bases open -- hospitals or not. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:00:00 PM -- |  

 
American peons
If you're down and out in America, or even just unfortunate enough to need a job with the Navy or Wal-Mart, you're part of a new underclass. That's the message from two recent news stories and a study published earlier this year.

Five years ago, Debbie Shank had signed on to Wal-Mart's self-funded health care plan, such as it is. In September 2000 she suffered grave brain damage in a vehicle accident, and is now confined to a nursing home. Her family sued the owners of the tractor-trailer that hit her minivan, and won. But the vultures were circling. The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Robert Patrick reported last week:

Last week, the health plan sued Debbie Shank in federal court in St. Louis, demanding the full $417,000 she got in the civil suit - plus at least $51,000 more from the share that already went to lawyers and costs.

(via Wal-MartWatch's Brian Kline) The sum -- about $469,000 -- constitutes the full cost of her care. The article points out:

Lawyers familiar with employment law said that while state law generally bars a health insurance company from trying to get a piece of a settlement, self-funded health plans are allowed under federal law to recover their costs. [...]

Wal-Mart's health plan explicitly states that it gets reimbursed first out of any settlement or judgment, up to 100 percent of the total amount of the medical expenses, according to the lawsuit filed by the Administrative Committee of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Associates' Health and Welfare Plan. The plan also explicitly states that, "All attorney's fees and court costs are the responsibility of the participant, not the plan," the suit says.

So while Wal-Mart was happy to let the Shanks do their litigation for them, they can't be held responsible for their poor planning in having to settle for less than Wal-Mart will pay out. Presumably grudgingly at best for the minimum level of care, given that the Shanks apparently felt the need to pursue the lawsuit rather than simply rely on their "health plan" to see them through. Mr. Shank says they will likely lose a special van and caretaker for his wife if Wal-Mart wins its case.

Then there's the case, reported in the New York Times last week, of the Justice Department successfully suing the wife of a sailor (household annual income under $20000) for the $3000 cost of aborting her anencephalic (no cerebellum, no forebrain) fetus. After beginning his piece by saying "I can't figure out whether to laugh, cry, or throw up," Mark Kleiman provides a remarkably fair analysis that can be summed up with Michael Kinsley's useful dictum, "sometimes the scandal is what's legal." Upshot: direct the live steam coming out of your ears at the nutball religious right and their Congressional enablers -- and at the Justice Department goons with tasseled loafers who decided to appeal this case when they didn't really need to.

Bad as all this is, being completely uninsured is even worse, of course. From Benjamin Healy's review ("Dr. No", The New Republic, 4/13/05) of Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity:*

As one uninsured woman who works part-time in a call center (and therefore out of public view), tells them: "I've gotten toothaches so bad, so that I just literally pull my own teeth. They'll break off after a while, and then you just grab ahold of them, and they work their way out ... The hole closes itself up anyway." As the insured reader guiltily and involuntarily runs his tongue over his teeth upon reading these lines, the authors' caste argument essentially proves itself.

And there's plenty more where that came from, as the authors present through their subjects a laundry list of ominous examples of untreated suffering, ranging from gallbladder disease to diabetes to asthma, addressed alternately by hopeful neglect and homemade cocktails of alcohol and over-the-counter pain medication--or in the harrowing case of an Idaho man with recurring bone spurs in his feet, a power sander.

Health care in America: just another word for nothing left to lose.


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* Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle, University of California Press posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Sky of blue, sea of green
Back from Topsail Beach, North Carolina, having "survived" Tropical Storm Irene; see the fittingly anticlimactic map below. The beach was nice, the waves were highly satisfactory to Maddie, who as a veteran swimmer dog-paddled forth from my arms in the surf singing "bibbity bobbity boo." For my part, I would face the beach and claim, "OK, that was the last wave, there won't be any more," while she said "No NO NO!" (Crash). We have both enjoyed that game for years.

I was online a few times. Highlights:

Henley on Menezes -- libertarian instincts prove out:

The British government’s job on that morning was to safeguard the life and liberty of Charles de Menezes, British resident. There is no recourse to, They had to play it safe to protect Londoners. He was one of the Londoners they were to protect. They failed and lied. They will always have powerful reasons to fail and powerful incentives to lie.

Huffington on Judith Miller -- and her equally shameless visitor:

According to a trusted Judy File source, [John] Bolton recently took time out of his busy schedule to pay a jailhouse visit to Judy.

Bush on Sheehan vs. vacation -- via Digby, the Birmingham News reporting on Bush's refusal to meet with bereaved mother Cindy Sheehan::

"But," he added, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

The comments came prior to a bike ride on the ranch with journalists and aides.

Digby on Dole and the Times -- following Dole's (not) stirring op-ed defense of Judith Miller echoing numerous silly Republican talking points ("could be seen going to and from the CIA," etc.):

The NY Times is foolishly putting all its eggs in Judy Miller's basket and it's costing them. It's one thing for them to support her legally and financially. But considering the huge controversy about her role in the case, for them to be helping the Republicans discredit the investigation is beyond the pale. [...]

You really can't go wrong if you sidle up to the Republican character assassins. Good copy, big ratings, easy access. It's good business.

Kevin Drum on Iraq -- responding to Marshall Wittman (and, BTW, incorrectly characterizing him as politically "liberal"):

So: if you do believe we can win in Iraq, let's hear what you mean by "win" and how you think we can do it, and let's hear it in clear and compelling declarative sentences. "Stay the course" isn't enough. What Bush is doing now obviously isn't working, so what would you do that's significantly different?

Conversely, if you don't believe we can win in Iraq, and you're only suggesting we stay there because you can't stand the thought of "looking weak," then your moral compass needs some serious adjustment.

Rich on Sheehan -- today, not at the beach:

When Mr. Bush's motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war's critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.

We left without CDs to listen to on the longish drive to Topsail Island. By the time I drove home, I had the "Red" and "Blue" Beatles albums I bought in a Wilmington CD store, and a Starbucks Elvis Costello CD that was disappointing at first: it turned out to be some of his favorites, rather than some of his own music (I was in a hurry). But it was OK, the first and last tracks were especially good: Louis Armstrong "Let's Fall in Love" and Freda Payne's "Bring the Boys Home," which had Maddie beaming in the back seat. And it turns out she already knows and likes "Get back." That girl is always surprising me. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:25:00 PM -- |