On Health Care - Why The State Wins

A couple of things in the last few days have motivated me to post these musings. The first is that last Tuesday a slight eye infection forced me to visit a GP for the first time in about 6 years, the second is that there seems to be a lot of flap in the States at present over the release of Michael Moore's new film, SiCKO, all about the health care system in the US.

First off I'll admit I'm totally biased, I don't know how any civilized industrial nation thinks they can get by without universal state sponsored health care, the fact that only one such country does so probably indicates that most of the rest of the western world agrees with me here. My perception is also coloured by the fact that whenever I, or anyone I have known has needed the NHS it has been very efficient, this clearly isn't always the case, but its good when as happened to me I walked in off the street and had seen a Doctor within 30mins, no appointment, no problem. It was also reassuring to know that the most I would have to pay would be about £6.90 for any drugs, were they to cost £10 or £10,000.

Now the NHS clearly isn't perfect, it clearly isn't even the best health care system around, but I think it is considerably better than a system which is run for profit. Whats more I would argue that if run efficiently any public health care system is clearly better than any private one. For one simple reason, economics, in a public system you remove several layers which are required to add a profit margin to everything they do. For example, in a system like in the US where health care is paid for by purchasing insurance, you have system where if you are ill, you visit the doctor, he does his job, then marks up the cost by ~20% or more to cover the profit margin of his medical group, he then calls your insurer who may or may not decide to pay for any treatment, in any case your premium includes a ~20% markup to cover their profit margin, you then get moved along to a hospital if you require surgery, they also add their own ~20% markup, so you have three layers where you end up paying more for private health care, just so a bunch of rich shareholders get to get richer.

Now people argue that a private health care system is more efficient so you don't notice these markups, because overall the service costs less than the supposedly inefficient state system. This can easily be shown to be nonsense, the US spends %15 of GDP on health care, to provide them a ranking of #37 in the world for health care, France spends %11 of GDP to be #1. Hmm how is that extra efficiency working out for you. It looks even worse when you realise everyone in France gets anything they need, whereas in the States an appreciable fraction of the population has no insurance, so get little or no treatment. So to take the stats at face value, the private health care systems costs you more to provide a worse service, good job. If your a stat fan, in the UK we currently spend around 8% of GDP, to be placed #18. Which anyway you slice it means that the NHS is both more efficient and provides a better service on average to boot. Its important to note that this is of course on average, I'm sure if you have the money in the States you get a good service, the problem is that most people either don't have the money, or are very close to losing their coverage.

There is of course one other major area that nationalised systems can outperform the private sector, in collective bargaining, it always strikes me as amazing that people that support the idea of capitilism (like me) seem happy to allow large companies, Walmart or Tesco for example, to drive down prices by buying in bulk (like me), however when in the States the idea of a similar approach to buying drugs is mooted you hear howls of disapproval (not like me). Apparently cheaper toilet paper is fine, but more affordable life saving drugs, oh no, you have to pay whatever the drug company feels like. If one buying system exists, as does here in the UK, it is much easier for them to say to the pharmaceutical companies, we are going to pay this much, and we'll take 10 million doses. When you have a series of medical groups all competing and serving (comparitively) small numbers of customers, its much more difficult to drive a hard bargain, the drug companies would rather not sell to you then have to cut the prices across the board.

Anyway musings over for the week. Back to work.

Political Stupidity

Does anyone else get the distinct feeling of being on a sinking ship? Its like rationality after 200 years of increasingly calm seas has run up against an island of stupidity and is slowly taking on water.

I'm sure most people reading this have seen the flap around the blogosphere (I hate that term, really need a new one) that 3/10 of the Republican presidential candidates don't believe in Evolution. I've been following it in a distracted kind of way, mostly because it makes my head hurt that people this dumb think that they are suitable material to lead the richest most technologically advanced nation on Earth. Chris Cillizza has a post on the Washington Post about the debate, more interesting I think are the comments people have responded with, they are utterly depressing to anyone that believes in rational thought. Check them out here (a free subscription may be required).

Here are a selection of some of the best, or worst depending on your point of view. Usually the creationists just fall on name calling and threats of eternal damnation (anyone else feel like we're already there?), though sometimes they're not above simply lying about the evidence for evolution. They also seem to like to confuse the scientific and laypersons use of the term "theory", they don't seem to have a problem with the theory of gravity though. Strange that.

How many of y'all evolutionists were there 6,000 years ago? But we "fundamentalists" have an eyewitness account!

Hey evolutionists - get a clue scientifically. It's a THEORY. No transitionary species ever found, and no real proof. Talk about a belief system that requires faith. You folks just don't WANT to believe in the Bible or in the God of the bible.

Break your chains of inculcation; evolution - as a theory of origin - is a fully, scientifically debunked myth. Open your mind, view science as a method and not a religion, and THINK FOR YOURSELF! Evolution is a 19th century false religion that has been completely exposed as such.

Biology DOES NOT rely on EVILUTION Yes I spelled Evolution as EVILution for that is what that deception is when it moves from the Science part (Micro) of small adaptions over time into the belief part (MACRO) small changes over LONG TIME HAD TO give us all this variety.

Because it isn't all bad, here are a few of the better retorts from the reality based community.

God gave you malaria. Science cured it. God gave you polio. Science cured it. God gave you most children dying before adulthood and many women dying in childbirth. Science made both rare. God gave you 99% of mankind starving so 1% could live like kings. Science lets most eat (while that 1% still live like kings). God gave you darkness and exhaustion at night, science gave you a light bulb and a computer and the time and energy with which to rant about the greatness and goodness of God and the stupidity and evil of science.

"The Pope has sanctioned the teaching of evolution in his recent Bull"FINALLY, someone is calling these fiats issued on scientitific questions by these nonscientist tribal chieftains by their appropriate term.

Welcome to the Republican party, please set your watch back 200 years.

I'm sure if you asked the candidates what our economic or military policies should be they would have somewhat informed opinions, but when it comes to making hard decisions they would defer to the acknowledged experts, i.e. Ph.D economists and generals. Yet for some reason when it comes to science and especially biology, these guys have ill-informed opinions and can't even acknowledge that their beliefs go against what the overwhelming majority of the experts believe. Their willful ignorance in this area may never directly influence what they do as President, but it says a lot about their character and their leadership style. The last 5 years are a great example of what happens when you get a POTUS who listens only to God, and ignores the experts.

Amen!

Politics, US v France

As a penance for all the faux French bashing I do to Maud here is a video she will probably appreciate, its from Bill Mahers HBO show Real Time and shows the difference between American and French politics. Sorry I can't find an equivalent Britain v France version. The clip is very funny, h/t to crooksandliars.com.

Bill Maher on the difference between the French and Americans

Corporate Greed

A rather depressing story from the world of business. An electrical goods chain (Circuit City) in the US is firing 3400 of its staff, simply so that it can hire new staff for a lower wage. Wow that place must really encourage success in its staff, stay there for more than a few years, work hard and get a little higher up the ladder and bam you're gone. If I lived over there you can be sure they would never get any of my custom, in fact it would call for a lot of picketing and an attempt to get people to boycott the place.

This op-ed in the Washington Post has more details plus some very interesting, and if your American, very depressing statistics like:

the bottom 90% (in terms of earnings) of Americans made less money in 2005 than 2004. All while the economy was growing steadily.

total reported income went up 9% in 2005, but all of that went to the richest 10%, everyone else lost 0.6%.

From 1947 through 1973, productivity in the U.S. rose by 104 percent, and median family income rose by an identical 104 percent.

Since then the rich have gotten considerably richer, whilst everyone else has been left behind, or even gotten worse off.

It amazes me that in light of this people like Rudy Giuliani can with a straight face support a flat tax rate, the only purpose of which is so the rich pay even less tax, and the already poor have to pay more, all in the name of "fairness".

I'm often confounded by the way things are in the states, people are genuinely being screwed by their employers and the system, with only a future of even less benefits and security to look forward to, all so that the already fabulously rich can afford another yacht or two. You would think that people might try to use their democratic rights to even things out, after all there are a lot more poor people than rich and all their votes are worth the same, yet every election there are millions that would rather vote on nebulous "moral values" issues than on issues that may provide them and their children a better future. Right rant over.

Science Takes A Stand

As many people may already know, there are big changes going on in the US at the moment because of the Democrats success in last years elections. This success has meant that they now have the power to hold hearings and basically stick their noses into all the rotten recesses which the present administration has been stashing bodies in. One of the trends that has gotten the Democrats rightfully vexed is the issue of the Administration censoring science that it finds problematic. In particular anything about climate changes or reproductive health comes in for major scrutiny, and usually any conclusions are dramtically toned down.

The latest example of this actually made me laugh. James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (a NASA organisation) was called before a federal panel to describe how he is followed by a government lackey whenever he gives interviews about climate change and that this lackey has the ability to modify his statements about his work. This lackey in particular, Philip Cooney previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, a fund set up to attempt to discredit climate change. What made me laugh though was that he was sat beside Hansen as he gave testimony, I'm not sure if he was called to give testimony, or was simply doing his job of trying to prevent the Hansen saying something the White House wouldn't like. Personally I'd veer towards the latter, because he had edited a statement Hansen was to give to the panel, changing the word "will" to "may" in reference to describing the impact of human activity--particularly the burning of oil and coal--on the Earth's temperature.

Something about the image of an indignant respected scientist giving evidence about White House interference in front of a panel of Democratic representatives scenting blood, all the while having this WH yes man sat beside him trying to control him made me laugh. Check out the full story here.

Popularity Contest For Nation States

The BBC has an interesting article on world opinion on countries. There are no real surprises, except that the UK is generally seen as a positive influence on the world, even after the Iraq debacle. Oh and that Iran is marginally more of a "Great Satan" than the US. The figure below shows the details on selected countries. Head over here for the full article.

Manned Space Flight

It's not that often that I am totally surprised by something, but today when I had a browse over at washingtonpost.com I almost fell of my chair. It turns out that I actually agree with Charles Krauthammer on something for the first time in my life. For those of you who aren't familiar with his writing he's a pretty strident right wing nut as far as I can tell, big fan of Bush, Iraq, Tax cuts for the rich etc. In essence not at all the kind of guy I would ever expect to agree with.

The op-ed in question found here (free registration required) deals with the idea of manned exploration of space. It basically comes down to examining the two arguments against manned space flight. The first is that there are many expensive pressing problems on Earth that need fixing, this is true but of course there always have been and there always will be, Earth is not Utopia and never will be, what else are non essential uses of money? Any recreation, TV, non essential travel? How many people argue we should be giving these up? Also the expenditure on space research is tiny by comparison to almost any other government expense, NASA costs about $17 Billion per year out of a total US budget of around $2.5 Trillion, so that works out about 0.7%. Though maybe when 20% of the US budget is currently paid for in debt it doesn't seem that good a deal.

The most compelling reason for abandoning manned space flight is from scientific purists who claim that robotic missions are far more cost effective, this is definitely true, it is many times more expensive keeping people alive in space than it is keeping a robot ticking over. This argument I think overlooks a fundamental need of human nature to explore, to put feet down on new lands and to gaze at vistas no one has seen before. If we ever lose that desire we may as well send machines in our place because we will have become them.

Conservapedia

The blogging world (well the sentient part of it) has been all over Conservapedia this week making some hilarious discoveries. For those of you that have been under a rock for the last week Conservapedia is the wingnuts attempt at making an "unbiased" version of wikipedia, by which they mean a version which is totally biased towards the right-wing creationist fundamentalist Christian demographic. For various other blogs on the subject try, here, here, here and here. Unfortunately the site is running extremely slowly, probably because so many bloggers are now causing mischief by editing the entries. Beware when reading it though, not only is it often (unintentionally) funny but its also incredibly difficult to read, the entries generally read like a 9 year old wrote them for a school project.

Some of the entries are very funny, it must be pointed out that its difficult to know how many of these articles are legit and how many were actually put up by people taking the piss. For example here is part of the entry describing a Democrat, as in a member of the Democratic Party:

According to leading conservative thinkers, no good Christian would ever be a Democrat. Catholics identify as Democrats more than Republican, but the opposite is true for Evangelicas. The major tenets of the modern Democrat platform include cowering to terrorism, cocaine presidents, corporate profits, and establishment of an aristocratic, faux-religious state. However, contempt for all the founding principles of America is not yet an official prerequisite for entry into the Democrat party.

Or how about part of the entry on Charles Darwin.

While often regarded by the majority of modern biologists (who accept evolution) as "the father of modern biology," Darwin himself was aware that some aspects of his work were not as scientific as he wished. However, this theory is promulgated by extremely biased groups not recognized as real science, or, truly, advanced critical thought.

This part from the entry on Bill Clinton is clearly a piss take. I guess they have been too swamped to change it yet.

Bill Clinton managed to serve two terms without botching the prosecution of two wars, manipulating intelligence, engaging in a systematic program of torture, or mishandling the federal response to flooding of a major American city. Obviously, he is the devil incarnate. Clinton also attempted to use the American military to kill Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, an action which was properly seen as a mere attempt to distract the nation from the Monica Lewisnky scandal.

Some entries are well somewhat lacking in content, take this one, which is the entire entry for France.

A country in Europe. Thrived during the middle ages. The capitol is Paris, France, which was founded in the Middle Ages.

Thrived during the Middle Ages, thats it? Or how about Germany? Again this is the whole entry complete with spelling mistakes.

A country in central Europe that was blamed for both Wolrd Wars and claimed to be the dominate race of mankind.

So there we have it the conservative view of everything you need to know about two of the most powerful countries on Earth. Kind of explains US foreign policy for the last 6 years doesn't it?

You can see how the site descended into a free for all as there we're people being banned at a rate of about 1 every ten minutes, in fact they have suspended new accounts now. Surely they could see that this was always going to be the outcome? Their ideas can only survive because they are so insular (its meant to help home schooled kids), any technology that allowed free discussion and presentation of the facts was clearly going to lead to articles that were reality based and hence not at all what they were looking for.

Any Room At The Trough?

Damn I'm glad I don't live in the states, my head would have exploded by now with the utter craven greed of the current political leadership. Check out this post for what set me off this time.

The short version is that Bush is attempting to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent whilst repealing the estate tax (which also only affects the rich). One set of figures to remember, amount of money this could save the Walton family over ten years (Wal Mart owners) = $32.7 Billion, amount cut from healthcare for everyone else = $28 Billion.

The Philosophy Of Science

The Philosophy of Science is not something I have really given any thought to, it always seemed so obvious what Science is that it didn't really need defining. In light of those damn Intelligent Designers/Creationists I've come to realise that this isn't the case. The people that push ID in the states are making a consistent attempt to redefine the definition of Science so that it can include supernatural explanations, which is clearly utter bullshit. Their main aim is simply to redefine Science so broadly that they can get past the requirement for separation of church and state in the US and begin to teach Creationisms bastard offspring, ID, in schools.

My own personal view on what Science is (and is not) is fairly simple. Science is the pursuit of knowledge of the natural world through purely natural explanations (no magic thank you). For a theory to be scientifically valid it has to do two things, it must make predictions about phenomena, and importantly those predictions must be falsifiable. It is on this second point that Intelligent Design falls down, this paper which is fairly short (6 pages) and can be understood by anyone (no maths at all) makes very interesting reading for anyone interested in why Intelligent Design will always remain non-science. Its also fairly good at elucidating just what Science is about. Note: As is this blog post which contains the excellently succinct definition of Science favoured by Richard Feynman: "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

I would personally put the Scientific Method as one of the pinnacles of human achievement, leading to a level of knowledge and control over the natural world incomprehensible to our less enlightened ancestors. To think that people want to change that because they see it as a challenge to their faith is beyond me. Get over it, why should the Creation story in the Bible interpreted literally when other parts are interpreted allegorically? How many Creationists that believe you will go to hell if you don't believe the literal truth of Genesis, also follow all of the commandments in the Bible, including ones like:

Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19) (Presumably in case you start to wear clothes that look a little bit fruity, if you know what I mean.)

If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.(Leviticus 20:9) (I imagine they would die out quickly if they were putting their kids to death for a little bit of back chat.)

Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed (Leviticus 21:17-18) (Doesn't sound very Christian does it? But there you go, the disabled are clearly not allowed to worship at the altar of God.)

Its the selectivity of their arguments that drives me nuts, some parts have to be believed without question, but the actual commandments of God, well you can pick and choose which of those you like the sound of.

Many people worry that the wingnuts are attempting redefine the things they don't agree with to gain more control and brainwash more people into their frankly ludicrous outlook, this may be true, but I always tend to look at why people are really doing this, fear. Inside every Creationist is the constant gnawing fear that they are wrong, they hope for certainty in numbers, after all if everyone believes what they do then they must be right, right? Their actions are not driven by any perceived rightness of their beliefs but by their obvious weakness in the face of real evidence. They cannot win on a level scientific playing field (hey we have the fossils) so they attempt to alter the rules to improve their chances.

Life On The Edge - Part Two

In the comments section of the previous post someone called Pete (thanks Pete) has made some good points that I think deserve response, I would insert this as a comment but I have the feeling that this post may run a bit long for that. So here are Pete's points on my previous post, my comments will follow.

Hi Mark,

Depressing indeed, especially because its a totally manmade situation.

But why is the land situation (as it was) "clearly ridiculous"? I don't doubt that white people originally got the land in, ahem, a less than sporting manner, but we have to deal with the world as we find it now. Is a land distribution that adequately fed and employed Zimbabweans really ridiculous - especially given the effects of changing it so drastically?

Further, how can land reform be "handled properly"? By necessity it requires compulsion which will lead to owners not investing in land, improvements, equipment etc because they fear it will be confiscated. Are there examples of land reform not leading to neglect, other problems etc (genuine question - not rhetorical!)?

Generally, we should be wary of seemingly "good/fair" ideas e.g. land reform that are fine in theory but have the massive caveat of "if we can actually get it to work". I'd rather be landless but have a job and cheap food than have my very own 60millionth of the UK and be starving!

I am being a bit of a devil's advocate - probably in agriculturally dominated countries more equitable land distribution could be more important, but its only a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Cheers,
Pete

My problem with the land situation in Zimbabwe, and in fact much of sub-Saharan Africa is simply one of practicality. I agree that there is no moral reason to punish farmers who most likely themselves have done nothing wrong, at least in the sense that they themselves did not steal the land, the land was most likely appropriated by their great great grandfathers. My point is simply an observation of human nature, when there are some people who are so clearly rich and privileged making up a tiny fraction of the population, and when they are so clearly "different" from those that they appear to disadvantage it is clearly going to lead to major tensions within any society. This is not to say that these tensions are fair or warranted, simply that this is just how human nature works and whilst we should aim for the best in human nature we should also acknowledge and plan for the worst. The way that the situation was in Zimbabwe simply made the current outcome almost inevitable, some unscrupulous politician was always going to be willing to exploit the situation for their own political gain, as Mugabe has done to shore up his rural support in the face of a more educated urban population rejecting his other policies.

The question of how to reform the situation more equitably is of course very difficult, there was however until 1997 a fairly good process set up to do this. Until 1997 the UK government provided money to pay for land reform in Zimbabwe, under a "willing seller, willing buyer" scheme, which of course is really the only "fair" method. This approach while obviously much slower naturally leads to a redistribution of land as farming families either die out or leave the industry. It also has the benefit of allowing time for people on a waiting list for land to be trained on all the intricacies of modern farming and because the situation is also of mutual benefit to both parties it is much easier to allow for smooth transitions between owners. This of course means that as long as the farms themselves are not broken up into small uneconomic blocks then the level of production should remain the same.

This scheme was shut in 1997 by the incoming Labour government who rightly thought that they had no obligation to pay for a scheme that was caused by the actions of their ancestors. This decision was however possibly one of the least far-sighted decisions they have made, considering the small amount of money being expended (£44 million) and the fact that the money would probably still be being paid as development aid anyway it would seem with hindsight to have been a much better idea to keep the scheme running. Of course they had other reasons for making the decision, chiefly the suspicion (later borne out) that most of the land was going to Mugabe's cronies. It is interesting to wonder what would have happened if the scheme had kept running, whether or not the land reform would have preceded in a less chaotic manner. I tend to think not, I think Mugabe was always going to abuse the situation, he needed the land issue to hold onto the less educated rural population, to counter the rise of an organised urban opposition.

The tragedy as you say is that the situation is totally man-made, you would think that Robert Mugabe who by my count holds at least 3 degrees in Economics should have realised what would happen. I guess the imperative to stay in power simply became more important than the needs of his people.

Life On The Edge

The BBC has another one of their series of stories about life in Zimbabwe. It makes really depressing reading, it really beats me how people can continue to live with inflation above 1500%, where soap costs the equivalent of $80 when bought legally or $4 on the black market.

The real shame is how in less than 10 years Zimbabwe has gone from one of the most advanced countries (literacy rates over 90%) in Africa to the country with the worlds lowest life expectancy (37 years) and highest inflation (1593% at last count). All because of botched land redistribution which anyone could have predicted would have led to this. Now before anyone jumps on me, I'm totally agree with redistribution of land from white farmers to the landless black populations of Africa (it is clearly ridiculous that 1% of the population held 70% of the agricultural land), but it has to be handled properly. Zimbabwe was a country that depended almost entirely on Agriculture for its income, the industry was modern and used all the latest machinery on efficient farms, in a stroke the farms were broken up into small sub plots and handed to people that in many cases had no experience of farming and no idea of how to use all the equipment required to do it efficiently. The farms that weren't broken up were given to cronies of the President, who had little interest or skill in farming. The result? Plummeting output, massive inflation, starving people and a country on the brink of disaster for the past 6 years. Would it really have been difficult to see this coming? Surely its a case of major mismanagement that should be enough to get any government kicked out of office.

Of course that's not what has happened, a series of power grabs by the Presidents party, a few murders to keep the opposition cowed and a total lack of any independent media means that Zimbabwe's President Mugabe is looking forward to his 30th year in power in 2010. What still seems crazy is that some people still support the government after this disaster, see this story for a truly sad tale of faith over reason. Robert Mugabe is a perfect example of why no-one should be allowed to stay in power for too long, the retention of power becomes the prime concern, turning a man once lauded as a freedom fighter into a caricature of a tin-pot African dictator who has destroyed everything he ever worked for.

Bloody Greenpeace

Sometimes I get really frustrated at people that most of the time I tend to think do a pretty useful job. This is just one such case, Greenpeace has managed to get a Judge to rule that the British Government has to rethink its plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants. The reasons for Greenpeace's objection are the usual, nuclear is bad, mountains of waste, cost etc. The BBC has a story about it here. Now before everybody jumps on me, I am not particularly pro-nuclear, I am however very much anti-turning-the-world-into-a-giant-f*£$ing-desert-through-global-warming.

Greenpeace's attitude in this is particularly irksome, its just so black and white, the world isn't black and white its shades of grey. Yes it would be great if we could cut our green house gas emissions through renewables and energy savings but this just isn't practical, especially in Britain where about 20% of our electricity is currently generated from nuclear power. This fraction is going to decrease over the next 20 years to zero as the old plants are decommissioned, leading to the building of even more coal and gas fired power stations. All of the cuts that could have been made by using renewables and energy savings will be offset by the need to replace the carbon-neutral nuclear plants with fossil fuel burning ones. Nuclear is costly, it is a pain to have to deal with the waste, but it is much easier to deal with the waste from a nuclear plant than it is to try and contain all the C02 from a fossil fuel fired plants.

Get a clue Greenpeace, yes nuclear is not ideal, but it is the least worst option, at least until ITER manages to demonstrate that fusion is a practical method of energy generation on Earth. Oh I've just noticed that Greenpeace objects to fusion power as well apparently, a project that could cut out all greenhouse gas emissions is not worth the effort, what a bunch of short sighted fools.

Bumper Stickers

I've just come across a huge bunch of great bumper stickers. Check them out here. My favourites are below. Now all I need is a car, dammit.

Medical Madness

Every once in a while a story comes along and you have to check that its not April Fools day, this is one such example from the BBC. The President of the Gambia and his health minister claim to have a cure for AIDS that works in 3 days and is a secret blend of medicinal herbs. There are very few details except that they claim that patients taking their potion have put on weight and their physical condition has improved. One patient, university lecturer Ousman Sowe had this to say:

I've noticed I've increased weight substantially over the last 10 days. I am no longer suffering from constipation, but we have yet to receive result of the tests.

I have 100% confidence in the president and I'm taking the medication with all confidence.

Sounds convincing to me, don't get me wrong it would be great if a bunch of herbs could cure a disease modern science is still years away from destroying, but I just don't buy it. To me it sounds exactly what you would expect from the placebo effect, this guy believes that the President can cure him so he feels better. This is exactly the reason why medicines are tested using the double blind technique, where neither the patient or the doctor involved knows if the real medicine or a placebo is being given. A quote from the President himself makes me even more skeptical.

I am not a witch doctor and in fact you cannot have a witch doctor. You are either a witch or a doctor.

So it would appear that while the President doesn't believe in witch doctors, he does believe that witches are real. Wow, I thought the US had it bad with their choice of leader.

Scientific Independence

More examples of White House interference in Science are beginning to appear now that the Democrats are in charge of congress. In particular it appears that the WH has been changing the wording of reports and ordering scientists not to use the words global warming in their talks or papers. For the full story click here. The White House's response, that it is only trying to provide balance to the debate is utter nonsense, there is no debate amongst anyone who has looked at the issue seriously, global warming is happening and it is being caused by humans. The only people who seem to disagree all seem to be in the paid employment of Exxon or some other oil company, like the quote says "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon him not understanding it".

Also potentially worrying is that the New York Times reported last week the WH is planning to place appointed officials in US government institutions to "supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries". What this actually means is that political appointees are going to decide policy in organisations such as the Environmental Protection Agency, so you will get another round of Bush appointing industry insiders to watch over their own industries. Just wait for the dirtier skies, polluted water and soaring profits for energy companies as all of the last two decades of legislation are undone. It amazes me that a President held in contempt by a majority of his population, whose ideas have been dramatically rejected in a recent election, can still have the balls to go about another huge power grab.