Federal Health Insurance, Passed into Law in 1798

     Paul O'Rourke wrote an article a year ago about a 1798 law for sick and disabled seaman.  The Federal government passed the law which forced ship owners to collect out of seaman's salaries and give to tax collectors monies which were to go to hospitals and for caring for these seaman when they get sick or disabled.  The article piqued my interest, so I did some more research.  Here is the text of the statute.

     Some interesting things.  Seems like Representative Sewall from Massachusetts didn't like the idea because everyone in Massachusetts already paid into a public health insurance program that covered everyone, including seaman:

     Seems like this sort of accusation never goes away:

Language And Peace In The News: Myanmar

     The Shan language is part of the Daic (Thai) language family, while Myanma(Burmese) is part of the Sino-Tibetan.

     The junta of Myanmar is re-escalating its war with the Shan.

     Myanma is the pre-British name the ruling leaders at Ava and Pegu had for themselves.

Advice for the Lazy College Student

     I really like a variation on the Yerkes-Dodson law. If there's no pressure to do something, it won't get done for apathy. If there is too much pressure to do something, it won't get done because one will crack under the pressure. There is an optimal amount of pressure to get anything done.
You aren't feeling that pressure.

     There would be two natural reasons for that. Either the pressure isn't there, or your sensitivity to it is out of whack.

    Maybe the pressure isn't there. Then keep your powder dry and wait for it.

    Maybe the pressure is there. Then you have to ask yourself "What am I doing with my life that desensitizes me to the pressures of the world around me?" Perhaps it is just college life, where you have a roof over your head and a food in your belly without regard for how you proceed. It's not any sort of hell, but heaven, and, for many people, the last time you'll probably ever feel that way.

    If you are rich, you probably won't feel the pressure, either.

Language And Peace In the News: Norwegian

     Langauge And Peace in the news: Norwegians propose dropping lesser used Norwegian variant to present a more unified front.

Questions for Glenn Beck

• If you know the suffix proto-, what features of Theodore Roosevelt's Progressives were the most proto-fascist?
• the most proto-communist?
• What progress of the last 100 years would you see rolled back?
• You, and those who work for you and Fox News have done a fair job linking Progressives to both Nazis and Soviets through the use of the catch phrase "Social Justice." Are you aware of any professional or academic research that attempts to links the Progressives to the fascists? Please do not include any research you, or Fox News, has helped fund or has instigated.

Cops in NYC being bullied to arrest anyone, just to keep up quotas

"I'm not going to keep arresting innocent people, I'm not going to keep searching people for no reason, I'm not going to keep writing people for no reason, I'm tired of this[.]"

Trent Franks Compares Slavery Favorably to Abortion

And Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona said today that the abortion rate among black women means that “Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery."

From WIIIAI

Please Check My Blog

     From PleaseCheckMyBlog.blogspot.com

A little video response to the Health Care Summit

On YouTube

Sen Coburn on fraud

     It isn't clear if Senator Coburn's statements on preventative care were actually linked to any proposals, and therefore represent a sincere contribution, but his discussion of fixing "fraud" in government indicates, to me, insincerity.  He talks about doing it "tomorrow."  Tomorrow this little confab will be over.

The Crazy Nitze, NSC-68 continued

The assault on free institutions is world-wide now, and in the context of the present polarization of power a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere.

     Really, Paul?  Really?  Our loss in Viet Nam meant freedom was defeated everywhere?  When the Soviets ended the Hungarian 1956 revolution freedom was defeated everywhere?  Where do they get these people?

NSC 68 by Paul Nitze, an important Cold War Document

     Somewhere into it I found this quote and instantly Glenn Beck jumped to mind, principally because he is amazingly irresponsible (as are many of his fans) but also because I wondered what he'd think of it, especially if you got someone to say it was from a bad source before he heard it:

The free society values the individual as an end in himself, requiring of him only that measure of self-discipline and self-restraint which make the rights of each individual compatible with the rights of every other individual. The freedom of the individual has as its counterpart, therefore, the negative responsibility of the individual not to exercise his freedom in ways inconsistent with the freedom of other individuals and the positive responsibility to make constructive use of his freedom in the building of a just society.

     Also, I find it odd that this paragraph, which I like, is in a national security document.  Nitze could have just said we are free and they are a tyranny, but he goes on here to define free.  I certainly wasn't expecting to find anything I'd like here, and I am finding quite a few sentences which are unbalanced (grave threats are mentioned, but so far none of our abilities to counter them are addressed, entirely one sided).

Is It Possible To Be Happy?

     Is It Possible To Be Happy?

     The meaning of the above is found in Google and based on the idea that $cientologists $uck.

Rachel Maddow Does the Job for Democrats

Youtube

Blair Spinning, Or Being Cagily Truthful?

     Headline from the Times UK reads "Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair slated for Iran threat claim" followed by

Tony Blair’s claims that Iran now poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein's Iraq have been dismissed as a "piece of spin" by the British ambassador to Tehran.

     Maybe Blair's just saying Iran poses no threat at all?

Simplifying the "shortest unique" string of DNA

     Find the shortest length of the beginning of the gene in question (AUG,...,...,...) which identifies that gene uniquely and only operate from there, hunting the shortest unique sequence that the cancer has.

More Specifically

     Referring to the last post

1. Sequence the person's (healthy) genome


2. Do a biopsy and sequence the cancerous mutation


3. Find the {edit:] shortest sequence in the cancer that isn't in the genome


4. Develop a broken, homing mega-endonuclease to locate it

Broken Homing Endonuclease Cancer Cures

     Homing Endonuclease seeks out certain sequences in DNA and cleaves it at that point.  Normally a ligase would simply find the two cleaved ends and fuse them together with some small ATP cost.  However, if the enzymatic functioning was broken, leaving one cleaved end difficult or impossible to rejoin to the other, the endonuclease could impair or kill the host cell.  While typically only short sequences of base pairs are recognized (as few as 6 base pairs in restriction modification systems in bacteria), mega-endonucleases which recognized far larger sequences might be developed to operate only sequences of base pairs associated with the patient's cancer.

     If perfect, only recognizing the cancerous cells, inundation of the patient with the broken homing endonuclease could be sufficient, but delivery via virus is certainly also a possibility.

Thank you President Bush

     During Bush's 8 years in office direct aid to Israel dropped from 4.1 to 2.4 billion dollars.

Why don't they just ask Cheney this?

     While you were in office, Vice President Cheney, you and the Bush administration set up the Transportation Safety Administration and had some role in setting its policies.  What rules or regulations that you and the Bush administration set up did President Obama change to make the Christmas bombing more likely?

     The way I hear it, there was so little explosive that the guy who put the fire out got some burns on his hands, and the attempted "bomber" got some 3rd degree burns.  Does anyone really think you can take down a plane with so little explosives that it doesn't even kill the guy who has the bomb in his underpants?