The return of the Week in Doom seemed to go well enough last week, so I’ll inflict it on you for another installment. Do Not Get Sick Item: “Minority Contracting Comes to Medicine”. Tarrant County’s [Texas] public hospital system, JPS Health, evaluates bids for contracts on a 100-point scale that gives more weight to “diversity and inclusion” (15 points) than to the reputation of a vendor’s goods and services (10 points) when assessing providers of transcatheter heart valves—devices used to counteract cardiac failure and keep blood flowing throughout the body.
Don’t know if this exactly fair treatment of Rep. Jackson Lee, an Ivy League graduate who could have taken her pick of career paths but chose instead to serve the people of Texas. OK, maybe astronomy is not her strong suit, but just look at her stellar track record in politics: Jackson Lee introduced the Essential Transportation Worker Identification Credential Assessment Act in 2013 — I mean, the title of that law alone took some serious heavy lifting. Critics assert the program has cost over $420 million and has little to show for it. A 2013 GAO report found the TWIC card reader program results to be unreliable and questioned its "premise and effectiveness in enhancing security." Rep. John Mica (R-FL) has called the cards "at best no more useful than library cards". She also worked for expanded summer hours at city parks and recreation centers as a way to combat gang violence. That’s innovative policymaking right there, getting those driveby shooters off the streets and into city parks at night.
In the headline competition, I vote #1 because it is the embodiment of the old joke about the Washington Post's treatment of news that Jesus was returning the following day with the headline, "World To End Tomorrow. Women, Minorities Hardest Hit".
“that complete-rounded circle, which is made up mostly of gases”
I believe she might be thinking of Jumpin’ Jack Flash, whom we know is a gas, gas, gas but still, after all these years, have not yet been able to ascertain at what temperature he becomes solid.
Although I have already read about many of these items (we must be reading the same stuff), this would make a good regular feature--you should keep it.
“Do not get sick” is good advice, which I took to heart some time ago. The state of medicine has been seriously deteriorating for some time now, with the push for DIE being only one of the issues, especially in the US. Since the advent of Covid, this has become even more blatantly obvious. It appears that we are largely on our own now.
I don't know anymore ... whenever Texas pops up these days, first things that come to mind are STILL John Coffee Hays and Cormac McCarthy. Guess I just can't handle the truth. Longing for yesteryear is my drug of choice. Dang!
W M Briggs thank you for making me laugh, not because of the subject matter but your ability to put it in a way it still can be perceived as hilarious - alá body integrity dysphoria.
It’s interesting that mathematics, foundationally a set of relational rules to deduce quantities, contains a quantity (quantities) in which the relational rules collapse. Consider infinity plus one, and infinity times two.
Man, people are always telling me how "based" Texas is but half of these wacky headlines I see on a daily basis come from there. I know it's the usual suspects from big cities, but isnt that true of literally every state?
HAHAHA, William, these are absolute gems! Starting the day with laughter is truly a gift. You're absolutely right—our universities could mine hubris like it's going out of style. In fact, dare I say there's an INFINITE supply of it nestled within the ivory towers. HAHAHA.
So this is what Gates and his cohorts have been up to in San Francisco? I recall hearing something about this. These rich tycoons have morphed into a colossal headache for the rest of us mere mortals. Gates, Soros, Zuckerberg, Schwab... a rogues' gallery of troublemakers, if you ask me.
But hey, at least we can find solace in a good chuckle now and then, courtesy of your wit and wisdom, William. Keep 'em coming!
Can we all say it together again, 'Infinity is not a value.' There is no static infinity. Infinity is a condition of increasing or decreasing without bound. It is entirely theoretical. There can be an infinity in a model, there is no actual infinity. Theology doesn't embrace any infinities except by loose and poor use of language or thought, as the Deity is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Its nice that 'His Holiness Pope Globohomo Shill' finally got around to condemning elective castration but how much lower can the quality of Vatican theology go?
Don’t know if this exactly fair treatment of Rep. Jackson Lee, an Ivy League graduate who could have taken her pick of career paths but chose instead to serve the people of Texas. OK, maybe astronomy is not her strong suit, but just look at her stellar track record in politics: Jackson Lee introduced the Essential Transportation Worker Identification Credential Assessment Act in 2013 — I mean, the title of that law alone took some serious heavy lifting. Critics assert the program has cost over $420 million and has little to show for it. A 2013 GAO report found the TWIC card reader program results to be unreliable and questioned its "premise and effectiveness in enhancing security." Rep. John Mica (R-FL) has called the cards "at best no more useful than library cards". She also worked for expanded summer hours at city parks and recreation centers as a way to combat gang violence. That’s innovative policymaking right there, getting those driveby shooters off the streets and into city parks at night.
In the headline competition, I vote #1 because it is the embodiment of the old joke about the Washington Post's treatment of news that Jesus was returning the following day with the headline, "World To End Tomorrow. Women, Minorities Hardest Hit".
“that complete-rounded circle, which is made up mostly of gases”
I believe she might be thinking of Jumpin’ Jack Flash, whom we know is a gas, gas, gas but still, after all these years, have not yet been able to ascertain at what temperature he becomes solid.
Although I have already read about many of these items (we must be reading the same stuff), this would make a good regular feature--you should keep it.
“Do not get sick” is good advice, which I took to heart some time ago. The state of medicine has been seriously deteriorating for some time now, with the push for DIE being only one of the issues, especially in the US. Since the advent of Covid, this has become even more blatantly obvious. It appears that we are largely on our own now.
I don't know anymore ... whenever Texas pops up these days, first things that come to mind are STILL John Coffee Hays and Cormac McCarthy. Guess I just can't handle the truth. Longing for yesteryear is my drug of choice. Dang!
7 billion infinities - is that like a multiverse?
W M Briggs thank you for making me laugh, not because of the subject matter but your ability to put it in a way it still can be perceived as hilarious - alá body integrity dysphoria.
It’s interesting that mathematics, foundationally a set of relational rules to deduce quantities, contains a quantity (quantities) in which the relational rules collapse. Consider infinity plus one, and infinity times two.
Hubrium, I'm stealing that one.
Man, people are always telling me how "based" Texas is but half of these wacky headlines I see on a daily basis come from there. I know it's the usual suspects from big cities, but isnt that true of literally every state?
“Men punching random women in NYC: A desperate last gasp of the male rage fueling MAGA”.
A desperate last gasp from Salon, more like.
HAHAHA, William, these are absolute gems! Starting the day with laughter is truly a gift. You're absolutely right—our universities could mine hubris like it's going out of style. In fact, dare I say there's an INFINITE supply of it nestled within the ivory towers. HAHAHA.
So this is what Gates and his cohorts have been up to in San Francisco? I recall hearing something about this. These rich tycoons have morphed into a colossal headache for the rest of us mere mortals. Gates, Soros, Zuckerberg, Schwab... a rogues' gallery of troublemakers, if you ask me.
But hey, at least we can find solace in a good chuckle now and then, courtesy of your wit and wisdom, William. Keep 'em coming!
Ha ha ha! Hysterical and tragic at the same time. Keep ‘em coming. Headline 2 is amazing from a Chutzpah point of view.
Infinity is infinitely bigger than you think.
Then we get to countable and uncountable infinities, of course.
Can we all say it together again, 'Infinity is not a value.' There is no static infinity. Infinity is a condition of increasing or decreasing without bound. It is entirely theoretical. There can be an infinity in a model, there is no actual infinity. Theology doesn't embrace any infinities except by loose and poor use of language or thought, as the Deity is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Its nice that 'His Holiness Pope Globohomo Shill' finally got around to condemning elective castration but how much lower can the quality of Vatican theology go?
Quote of the week-
Climate change fuelling MAGA