With my primary care doctor in Houston, I could almost always get in to see him the next day. Yes, I was very lucky, and he was part of a very large conglomerate.

Now, specialists? At least a week, bare minimum.

Yet another example of "just because you can doen't mean you should". See also, sandwiches that put fries IN the sandwich.

You have no idea what you are missing. Though, I do that with potato chips or corn chips too so it's possible I'm not in the normal range on this subject.

We about finished off our tortilla espangole, and JZ's having the last of the veggie chili for lunch.

So I guess I better make something new for tonight. Maybe a salade nicoise.

Dangit! Now you're all making me hungry.

Fortunately, I've recently discovered Good Luck Dim Sum nearish to Matilda's daycare. Shrimp dumplings! 3 for $1.50! Also yummy pork siu mai 3 for $1.50.

I miss home-cooked meals. We are entering week 7 of our remodel (FINAL WEEK, Y'ALL!) and I officially tired of all of our local restaurants about 5 weeks ago. Hate eating out!

With my primary care doctor in Houston, I could almost always get in to see him the next day. Yes, I was very lucky, and he was part of a very large conglomerate.

My family doctor (and his practice in general) are pretty good about that too. My dad gets in fairly quickly even in non-emergencies, and I've been able to get next day appointments over things like unusually bad sore throats and that freaky (but non-agonizing) insect bite a few weeks ago.

Of course, my family has had excellent luck with doctors in general. Our old GP, my former pediatrician, the neurologist who did Dad's brain surgery, and our new GP have all been worth their weight in gold. And even the Bible-thumping child molester that(briefly) took over our old GPs practice back in the early 80s didn't do any worse harm than misdiagnosing anemia for several of us as part of his B-12 shot racket.

Timelies all!

Freaking hot out there. Of course, it is August...

Why People Shouldn't Ride Bears

Sports Buzz Melaine Walker decides to celebrate winning the 400M hurdles by riding the mascot. It doesn't end well.

I just have the feeling that if you divided the wealth of the world economy by the population then everybody would have plenty.

I hate Marilyn vos Savant, but she actually just did the math last weekend:

The global money supply is about $60 trillion. (Economists call this figure the M3 value; it includes much more than currency.) Say that we take it all—which means that you and Bill Gates would have nothing in the bank—and then distribute it equally among every individual in the world, about 6.8 billion people. Each man, woman, and child would receive about $9000.

[link]

And I'm not sure that cheap = fair value. I think it's more likely to be the opposite. Our clothing is cheap because it's made in Asia & South America, by people who are making a lot less than $9000/year. Same goes for a lot of our food. Corporations can sell these things cheaply because the people who actually made the items are not receiving fair value for their labor.

Why People Shouldn't Ride Bears

Well. WELL. In my head, I'm taking all SORTS of exception to that assertion.

Indeedy.

Are production costs getting so low that the world economy could feasibly house and feed everybody in the world?

I guess the way to address this is by breaking certain things down.

did this with some friends of mine, one english,one spent a lot of time in holland and is an EMT. We were talking medical care and why it is so expensive in the US.

here are things we see as contributing to costs:

1) cost of medical school ( cheaper to free in other countires) less debt, lower saleries

2)Cost of insurance. Which is mostly unneeded in other countries -- I'm talking more malpractice and liability ( even for things like your home). of course the cost of private insurance doesn't help. ( My understanding is that there is rivate insurance in England, for example, but it is on top of the usual - which is decent)

3)overtreatment. -- there is a lot of that in the us by people like EMTs, so they don't get sued.

4) drug cost is development cost s -- and that seems to be pretty universal --

Power outage -- for an hour, so no idea if this is still relavant