Bill Whittle's Kidney Stone

You know you're a political junkie when...

"Do you want to know what my honest-to-God first thought was when the pain got manageable enough to be able to hold a thought? I tell you: I thought of John McCain. And I’ll tell you what hit me the hardest: not his pain lasted for five years when mine lasted for four hours. But to add to that raw fear, lying in filth and knowing that those footsteps in the hall would bring not relief but more pain . . . my God! When I think about those men on those fields from Bunker Hill to Baghdad, lying there for hours, awaiting rescue and relief that often simply never came . . . I end up — and I don’t expect any of you to actually believe this — I end up grateful for those few hours."

Catnap

I've got my board examination coming up very soon, so the light blogging will likely continue for a bit longer.

Nonpolitical pictures

She's not a kitten anymore.

How Affirmative Action Damaged Our Economy

"The mortgage bubble was essentially a bet on the purportedly increased creditworthiness of the bottom half of the American population. After three decades of the home ownership rate stalling at around 64 percent, a series of federal initiatives to increase minority and low-income ownership helped push the rate up to just below 70 percent.

The housing bubble ... never made much sense. The lower half of American society, where the new homeowners had to come from, isn’t getting better educated, is not settling down to more stable family structures, and is not developing a more rigorous code of honor about paying debts.

Nor was the government doing much of anything to help the bottom half earn more in order to afford home ownership. Indeed, by not enforcing the laws against illegal immigration, the Clinton and Bush Administrations were flooding the country with unskilled workers who competed down the wages of blue-collar Americans.

It turned out, not surprisingly, that contrary to the assurances of the Great and the Good of both parties, many of these marginal homebuyers should have continued to rent."

Read the rest. It's a long article, but well worth reading. As you will see, the Clinton and Bush administrations share much of the blame for this mess.

Picture of the Day

No, that's not really 911doc. It's from a really funny website I just found.

I'm Not Bitter, I'm Blessed

from the NRA, via Hot Air

Blogging Buzz Killer

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two University of New Mexico Hospital employees have been fired for using their cell phone cameras to take photos of patients receiving treatment and then posting the images to a social networking Web site.

Director of Public Affairs Sam Giammo said Sunday the photos — mainly close-ups of injuries being treated in the Albuquerque hospital's emergency room over the past few months — were posted on an employee's private MySpace page.

Giammo said he's never heard of a similar incident at the University of New Mexico Hospital or any other hospital.

The patients in the photos could not be notified that their pictures had been taken because their faces and personal identifying features had been removed from the photos, Giammo said.

Giammo said the MySpace page could only be accessed by the employee's online friends, not the general public.


Chilling.

Quote of the Day

"In the concerted effort to destroy Sarah Palin, her husband, and her children, we've seen the progressive blogosphere and professional media adopt the no-holds barred, street-fight viciousness of a community organizer fighting for scraps. The petty brutality has trickled down from the man they idolize, a man cool enough to befriend and use aging terrorists and racist ministers as they can help him, and callous enough to discard friendships decades old if it suits him, without a backward glance.

For all his eloquence behind a teleprompter, Barack Obama is still at heart a thug, and his disciples learned well from their master."

- Confederate Yankee

Picture of the Day

Medical clinic reopens on the West end of Galveston Island.

via the Houston Chronicle

A Letter to a Cliché

Dear Mademoiselle:

I'm so sorry that your visit to our storm-ravaged ER was less than satisfactory to you. I must admit that working for 20 hours straight in a facility without air conditioning might have made me slightly less than optimally compassionate, therefore I was not inclined to repeat my explanation to you why you couldn't have a fifth round of intravenous narcotic for your "migraine."

A delicate migraineur like yourself obviously ravaged by pain to the point that you "almost threw up" once and bearing such a tortured expression when I would enter the room to interrupt your cell phone conversation obviously needed much stronger medication more frequently than I was willing or able to provide to you. Our nurses definitely got the message because you were hitting that call bell like an enthusiastic xylophonist. Well played!

Unfortunately mon cherie, as I explained to you already, your extensive list of allergies to non-narcotic medications made treating your condition rather challenging. You are living proof that narcotics are ineffective for treating migraines. Merci!

Complain about me then as you wish, my delicate little cheesepuff, but understand that welfare recipient drug seekers like yourself aren't entitled to unlimited narcotics any more than you are to unlimited recitations of my gentle GTFOOMER speech, and that on your next visit your reputation will precede you.

Oh, and that "bloating" in your abdomen? It's called fat. Might I suggest avoiding the crepes and that obviously uncomfortable thong?

Bonne chance,

Scalpel

Lessons From Ike

1) The generator I was thinking about buying a couple of months ago? That would have been nice to have. And maybe one of these too. If I had to choose between water and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning. One more night without power and I'd have slept in my car with the engine running.

2) When there is no electricity, ice is the next best thing. Ice is worth waiting in line for several hours to obtain.

3) If you have a headlamp, then you don't have to hold a flashlight in your teeth when you pee.

4) Despite the tragedy and inconvenience of hurricanes, I still enjoy them. As an extreme weather junkie, I feel energized by their awesome power. The aftermath of a disaster helps us to view (and live) our lives with a new perspective. Sitting in a dark hot room listening to a radio by candlelight makes me appreciate the simple conveniences I usually take for granted. I especially enjoy watching the community come together to help their neighbors afterward. With the political climate heating up, it is refreshing to see people unified for a change.

The weaker trees were blown down and will be replaced by new ones, while the stronger growths survive another season. Similarly, many of the dilapidated old buildings were washed away; some will be replaced by new construction, and some areas will perhaps not be redeveloped at all. Despite their destructiveness, hurricanes ultimately make many things better.

Was it Her?

I wish.

Ideal vs. Reality

There's more funny drawings and witty insights over at Indifferential Diagnosis. I'm a new fan.

(click on picture to enlarge)

Chronic Pain and Suicidal Ideation

If you tell me that that your chronic pain is so bad that you are thinking about killing yourself, then I'm not going to administer any opiates to you in the ER but I'll gladly arrange a psychiatric admission for you. You've had a sad and painful life for many years - I seriously doubt that another shot of Dilaudid is suddenly going to make your world full of rainbows and unicorns.

Once you drop the S bomb, either you're really suicidal or you are a manipulative scumbag. Either way, the administration of opiates in the ER is unlikely to be beneficial and is relatively contraindicated. I doubt they are going to give you parenteral narcotics at the psych facility, so you might as well start to come to terms with your psychiatric condition. Suicide may be painless, but manipulative "suicidal ideation" is painful for everyone involved.

Pick one - pain crisis or suicidal ideation.
You can't have both.

mp3 codes | Johnny Mandel MP3s

Show of Force

An intoxicated gentleman who was assaulted by two dudes and knocked unconscious was brought to the ER for evaluation. He was confused, agitated, and irrational, he couldn't stand up well, and he certainly couldn't walk a straight line. Yet he was coherent enough to tell us that he wasn't going to lie down for that f-ing CT scan and he was going to walk the f*** out the door.

Umm, no sir, you aren't.

Unfortunately we had no security on duty in that particular suburban ER, and we were staffed with only diminutive female nurses. I didn't really want to sedate the gentleman given his possible concussion, and physically taking him down was likely to be an unpleasant, complicated, and potentially dangerous situation. So I asked one of the nurses to call 911.

Since there usually isn't much action in that little town, I expected a solitary policeman to show up sleepily munching a donut, probably after my patient had already escaped. Instead, almost instantly, 5 squad cars pulled up in the parking lot and ten steely officers filed into the hallway, each packing a taser, baton, and semi-automatic pistol. Even if we'd reported a shooting I doubt that we'd have gotten that sort of response. It was an intimidating scene. As it turned out, they were having a training session and didn't have anything better to do that night.

After they showed up, the patient was very cooperative and didn't even seem intoxicated anymore. He was so meek and polite I was sort of embarrassed that I'd called the police at all. There was no physical contact required.

As a bonus, none of the patients in the waiting room who saw them arrive gave us any trouble either.

My New Favorite Pizza

Since Pizza Hut finally fired their delivery driver who defended himself during an armed robbery, I've had to get my pizza fix elsewhere. There are several other places that deliver pizzas around here, but none that I like all that much.

So now, I just keep some of these in the freezer. Good stuff.

Hurricane Hunter Aircraft

What types of aircraft does NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) use to fly through the eye of a hurricane to measure its strength and make their amazing predictions?

The P-3 turoprop, among others:

"Slicing through the eyewall of a hurricane, buffeted by howling winds, blinding rain, hail, and violent updrafts and downdrafts before entering the relative calm of the storm's eye, NOAA's two P-3 turboprop aircraft probe every wind and pressure change, repeating the grueling experience again and again during the course of a ten-hour mission.

Scientists aboard the aircraft deploy instruments called GPS (Global Positioning System) dropwindsondes as the P-3 flies through the hurricane. These devices continuously radio back measurements of pressure, humidity, temperature, and wind direction and speed as they fall toward the sea, providing a detailed look at the structure of the storm and its intensity."

Earwax is good for you

"[Earwax] is not intrinsically evil stuff, and consequently does not have to be removed merely because it's present," said Peter Roland, an ear, nose and throat doctor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. "In fact, it serves a function and so if you don't need to take it out, you should just leave it alone."