Bottom Line

Ok, I read too much and think too much and don't act enough on what I think, so there. I keep a rack full of magazines and books in handy places so I can grab one and read my mind off of something it has gotten hung up on. Here's something I ran across that sort of made me go, "Huh?"

90% of all heart bypass surgeries have no effect on the patient's lifespan.

Between 1% and 2% of patients will die during the operation.

40% of bypass surgery recipients will have cognitive deficits as a complication.

The beneficial effects of any of the surgeries that remain in patients for as long as 2 1/2 years after the surgery are roughly equal to the same in patients who never actually had the surgery but thought they did and received the same post op physical, drug, and diet therapy.

Statistically, only one in ten bypass surgeries should have been performed. There is a legitimate need for this in some emergency patients but 9 out of 10 are getting screwed!

Senator Frist? You listening? Does this mean you got rich mutilating cats and performing unnecessary operations?

(Businessweek, July 18, 2005, page 32, just in case you want to read it yourself.)

The bad news is...I have to eat better and workout more...You too!

My fat self is hereby, so resolved!


OK, Now...

The Karl Rove treasonous acts eventually have no real relevance to America except for this:

(Insightful Snark, From Josh Marshall:)

Frank Rich says, this isn't about Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson or even Karl Rove. It's not about exposing a CIA agent. That's merely the tear in the fabric, the third-rate burglary, if you will.

This is about a president who knowingly took his country to war on the basis of lies and the war on the homefront against anyone and everyone who's tried to peel back the lies and expose the truth.

So there!

W will soon announce the name of an outrageous Supreme Court nominee that he hopes will take Rove out of the news spotlight. Maybe, maybe not...When you boil all the potatoes down to mush and swizzle through the leftover lumps, you still have the same bottom line.

President George Bush lied, lied, LIED, America into a stupid war we have no chance of winning in any meaningful sense.


Peace,

Steve

*****

My vote for Rant of the Week:


Thrusting his fists skyward, he rattled off the seemingly insurmountable challenges civilization has overcome in the past -- slavery, communism, restricted suffrage, segregation, disease, apartheid -- and roared,

"So now we are called to use our political institution, our democracy, our free speech, our reasoning capacity, our citizenship, our hearts, and talk with one another, reason with one another, see the reality of this problem, act as Americans, and understand that it's a different issue than any we've ever faced."

Then the crescendo:

"We have to make our stand!" he thundered

. "This is our home!

So who is this man?

Al Gore, the Magnificent...President in Exile

algore