David Dobbs’s Somatic Marker

According to a poll (pdf) conducted in the days before the Super Bowl, "Democrats strongly prefer the Saints, by a 36-21 margin, but Republicans are narrowly going for the Colts, 26-25. Independents lean toward the Saints as well, 33-20." Hopefully, Democrats take some lessons from their favored team, too.

Early in the game, the Saints failed to score when they had the ball on their opponent's three-yard line. Big setback, and eerily reminiscent of the metaphors many are using for health care. But then the Saints decided against walking off the field and throwing the game to the Colts. Instead, they ran their plays again and came back to win.

NB, healthcare advocates

Five crates of Scotch whisky and two of brandy have been recovered by a team restoring an Antarctic hut used more than 100 years ago by famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.

Five cases of Scotch and two of brandy, and all of it heavy. You can see the importance Shackleton put on a good nightcap

This puts me in mind of John Wesley Powell's Grand Canyon expedition, as described in his classic account of same. Powell had nearly as trying an adventure as Shackleton did — an 8, I would say, to Shackleton's 10 — and when he and his party finally emerged from the canyon into the world of relative safety and food, he took account of their remaining food supplies. The list, published in the book, provided pretty thin gruel. As I remember, there was a bit of flour, perhaps some corn meal and salt — hardly enough to make anything. They had clearly exhausted virtually all food supplies, save what they could catch, gather, or shoot, some time before.

There was only one thing the party (of a dozen or so, if I remember) still had in good supply. They still had 80 pounds of coffee.

I love that. I too would hate to run out of coffee, especially in a stressful envrironment. So when I think of that 80 pounds, I like to imagine the conversation as Powell and his team assembled and packed their provisions before setting out and leaving all stores behind:

"Think that's enough coffee?"

"Should be. That's a lot of coffee."

"But ..."

"What?"

"What if we run out? We can't get more."

A silence.

"You're right. Buy another two hundred pounds."

I love this man.

The Rise Of Marketing-Based Medicine

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By Ed Silverman // January 28th, 2010 // 7:57 am

We’re not on health care now,” Mr. Reid said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.

With friends like this ...

Changes in human diet driven by cultural evolution seem to be at the root of many relatively recently emerged patterns of genetic variation. In particular, lactase persistence and varied production of amylase are two well known cases. Both of these new evolutionary genetic developments are responses to the shift toward carbohydrates over the last 10,000 years as mainstays of caloric intake.

We don't have a government-run system. But our system is so expensive that our government's partial role is pricier than the whole of government-run systems.

Absorb that: Our supposedly efficient supposedly free-market healthcare system costs us more in government spending alone than other countries spend on government-run systems.