My Non-Myoablative Autologous Hematopoetic Stem Cell Transplant (aka My Bone Marrow Transplant)

Let's start with the disease. We have three types of blood cells which are created in our bones. The red blood cells to carry oxygen, platelets to fix holes, and white blood cells, the police force of the body.

My police force has been going around killing perfectly healthy cells for the last couple years. That's what auto-immune diseases are.

Every new recruit that hits the streets is tainted, and becomes tainted right away, so this is what the doctors did.

First, they took a sample of my blood university, the bone marrow, millions of blood cells in training. Then, mostly over the last week, they gave me chemicals (the chemo) that killed off every single bad cop in the system. This has the affect of negatively impacting the red blood, platelets and university system, too.

For the next 8-10 days, I don't have any cops on the beat. It's blood anarchy, and the the medical condition is called neutropenic. They'll keep me filled with anti-virals, anti-fungals, and anti-bacterials, you can think of these as contract cops doing a temporary job. They don't have any skin in the game, so I probably will get at least a fever at some point, like a baby.

They already gave me back the bone marrow they collected, and I still have some left because they don't need to give the autologous (self-transplant) patients as much chemo as the allogeneic (used for blood cancers and other auto-immune therapies) but it is going to take about 10 days for my own bones to start making enough fresh new blood for them to safely let me go.

Let the boredom begin!

Debunking the Broken Window Fallacy

It says that, according to Keynes, it is logical for the government, facing a recession, break windows, to create demand for glass and window installers, to spur the economy.

Yes, it says that, but Keynesianism does not say that is the only source of truth. Keynesians might also say that the government has a job to try to control unemployment. This does not mean Keynesians are suggesting murdering the unemployed.

There is no broken window fallacy, just as there is no murdering the jobless fallacy, because people have some common sense and don't usually throw it all away in the name of ideology.

We need to impeach George Walker Bush

If impeached, he will never again be allowed to hold office in the government of the United States of America. Any executive agent, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bremer III, can also be impeached, with identical consequences. They thought they could fix something by starting a fight. They thought they could fix Iraq by starting a war. Do not ask about the 100s of thousands of dead people. Do not ask about the 2 trillion dollars gone. We won't ever do it. But we need to.

What do you think he meant by witchcraft?

I mean, we all know witchcraft doesn't exist, right?

So, what do you think Mohammed meant when he said we need thank God for protecting us from something that doesn't exist?

113: The Daybreak

113:1 Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the Daybreak
113:2 From the evil of that which He created;
113:3 From the evil of the darkness when it is intense,
113:4 And from the evil of malignant witchcraft,
113:5 And from the evil of the envier when he envieth.

They found us in Year 103

of the new Calendar.

It was totally unfair.

They were hovering over Earth, telling us, free people, that we had to exterminate lots of people.

They had determined, using their computers, unless we wiped out some of the people of the nations with the most aggressive recent histories, we'd never get along in the inter-galactic community.

So many people were killed. The English, the French, the Spanish, the Italian, the German, the Russians.

Then, with half the world's population gone, they told us they didn't need to do that. They only made us do it to show that they could.

I figure this is how it will happen

We'll send people into space, a colony ship.

Hopefully it will be the libertarians.

And as they are heading away, very fast

It might be 1000 years for us, and 50 for them

And so both mother and child

will have a claim

to being called

Original.

Why was "Victory" so very hard to define for the Bush administration to define in Iraq and Afghanistan

In his final State of the Union, Stephen Grover Cleveland spoke only about Cuba and this is one of the things he had to say about the insurgents fighting against Spain.

In a country where all that is indispensable to life in the way of food, clothing, and shelter is so easily obtainable, especially by those born and bred on the soil, it is obvious that there is hardly a limit to the time during which hostilities of this sort may be prolonged.


Here's a similar question. How could the Bush or Obama administrations have prevented the continuation of insurgent attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan, given any length of time?

I don't think there is any way to guarantee the end of the attacks. I don't think there is any way to stop the flow of funds to the insurgents.

So, how do you make sure it stops?

It took only one.

     It took only one. The man who sold us out.

     It was 41 in the new calendar and things were still bad, yet no one could remember when they were better.

     Just like in your time, science's laboratories were producing ever greater wonders, fixes and problems. And all that data that they produced; all those drugs that affect us, and how; and all the little fiddly bits of DNA and how it's basically the blueprint for life on Earth; they published it all, except for things like when the Tobacco companies hid that their products cause cancer.

     They were headed towards us, when we detected the aliens, about as far away as the sun. They set up their base in the center of the face of the moon.

     And they took all that scientific data, and one person to translate it, and they made something, something like a disease, which makes us docile, and their slaves.

Why I Think the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Will Work

I worked at a boutique health care firm, that is, I did until we were taken over by a very large insurer a month ago.

We were bought because we seem to have a successful formula for keeping the most expensive patients out of the hospital. So far I am given to understand that we have been successful for the large insurer's members, too. The trial has been going on for over a year.

This huge company isn't providing free services to their members for fun, they are doing it because they know they have to cut costs, and all the insurers will have to do likewise or find themselves with relatively lower profits.

Costs will go down.

The Answer For Citizen's United

     There was a whole bunch of ignorant idiocy going on in the 1950s with regards to Church that was meant to distinguish ourselves from the Godless Communists.  "In God We Trust" went on the coinage, "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and, in exchange for keeping out of political life, Churches were given tax exempt status.

     I disagree with all of that, but I think there is a nearly 0% chance that I can convince Americans to start taxing Churches, even by saying that I think Church leaders, as community leaders, should have more say in government, so, I work within the status quo

Corporations exist because of series of decisions made in the 1840s through 1860s, mostly in the UK, which gave the owners "limited liability." Unlike economic history up until those days, owners were no longer legally responsible for the debts or crimes of their agents.

At the time, no tradeoff was demanded of corporations.  Until that time, all corporations were created only via act of Congress.  This went on until 1884 in Pennsylvania, for example.  Now we should demand something in return for limited liability.

"In exchange for continued limited liability, like the Churches, you stay out of politics."

How Was This Not Completely Obvious?

Religious school fires teacher over health claim.  Teacher was teaching some religious subjects.  Takes it to Supreme Court who gets it all wrong. Here.

I think it is completely fair that no Catholic Bishop who converts to Pastafarianism should be able to fire a religious discrimination lawsuit when they are fired.  But, here, in the Perich case, she wasn't fired because she deviated from Lutheranism, but for a totally cut and dried ADA-violating reason.

The exception is written for ministers, but it shouldn't be, it should be written for religion-related issues. If someone deviates from the faith then it would be absurd to force a religious community to keep them.  If they fire someone for any other protected reason, though, it's clearly discrimination.

A special "Fuck You" shout out to Antonin Scalia.

I wonder if the defense, led by the US Solicitor General, really cared, or secretly wanted to lose, or was just incompetent.

I should file some amicus briefs.

What is wrong with Wealth Inequality?

This was a question posed to me recently, this was my response.

It's a theme which runs on for some time in the Spirit of Laws, by Montesquieu.

It's totally inappropriate for a direct democracy, he says, and needs to be kept in check in an electoral democracy.

In what Manner the Laws should relate to the Principle of Government in an [Electoral Republic]. When Montesquieu mentions a "popular government" he is referring to a direct democracy.

The above link is Montesquieu is arguing that wealth inequality undermines virtue.

The next link is modern science proving it: the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

Language and Peace in the News: The Tuareg Rebellion

Four nice maps here.