W, the Mensa Member

My Beef This Week

A coworker of mine made two statements this past week that I just found laughable. 1) “George Bush is a republocrat,” meaning he’s a moderate. 2) “George Bush is intelligent.”

Now when these things came out of his mouth, I thought he might be drunk. Turns out he was just stupid. Normally I try to keep from talking about politics with coworkers since most of them are republican for the money factor. This time I just couldn’t help myself.

“What makes you think he’s a moderate?” The primary example I was given had to do with the borders and immigration. I can only think of um…..oh…..maybe a thousand other examples of why he is an extreme conservative. But in my coworker’s opinion, the immigration issue trumped all my thousand of conservative examples. That’s how the rules work in the republocratic society. One lame example beats anything legitimate – no matter how many examples you have.

“How on earth can you call this guy intelligent?” Personally, I think he is mildly retarded, or mentally handicapped as the PC term may be. I was told he merely APPEARS less than brilliant because he lacks verbal eloquence. I know a lot of people who are not very charismatic and lack wit, but I would by no means classify them as slow. W definitely falls within my “slow” parameters.
I would suggest a hunting trip with Cheney, but I shudder to think what would happen if Satan himself were sworn into office. Jesus I can’t wait until ’08. I just keep reminding myself that even though we have an aristocracy, W probably can’t push through an autocracy in 2 years.

My friends are worried Jeb is next. Me? I’m going to keep my shotgun clean, just in case I have to do some “bird” hunting in a few years.

This I Know, Because CNN Tells Me So!

My Beef This Week


I just watched on CNN last night about how it is “certain” that the avian flu would be in the US in a year. I have news for these “news reporters.” It is almost certainly already here. Scary? No. Life? Yes. It is the same as Mad Cow Disease. The media and current surveillance programs tell us that there is no CJD here in the US. However, if you talk to cow farmers that have been farming for over 50 years, they will tell you the “wasting” disease has been around since they began farming. Farmers know that if they get a cow like that, they put the cow down and burn the carcass to prevent spread. Surveillance is only as good as people are truthful. Farmers aren’t going to be truthful about having to put every cow in their farm down because one comes up sick, it would destroy their livelihood. I’m not saying this is right, I’m just saying that’s how it is. The same principle applies to avian flu. You can’t tell me that Tyson is going to slaughter thousands of chickens when they determine one has the avian flu. They are going to do their own surveillance and not share that with the government surveillance. And as much as people would like to believe out government surveillance is great, it is barely more than terrible. The only reason there are “more” cases of the avian flu in Thailand is because people are testing more. There is better surveillance evolving there. It is still terrible, just not as bad as here in the US. And the 19 people that have been diagnosed with the avian flu thus far is just that…19. And these infections are not transmissible except in extreme contact cases. Are these the first 19? No. Are these the first 100? Absolutely not. This happens ALL THE TIME in evolution, in nature. This happens daily and evolution rejects the consequence. Will avian flu evolve into the next “Outbreak” movie? Doubtful. Actually, me, you, and your neighbor have a better chance at winning the lottery…all independently, at the same time. This has been happening since avian flu first hit chickens and chickens started cohabitating with man. What the hell are we so worried about it now? Because CNN tells us so.

So for now, quit worrying so much. Get yourself a bucket of fried chicken. Me? I’m going to buy a lottery ticket.

Me and My Black Box

My Beef This Week

Black box warnings are a political/social decision most often rather than medical ones. I’m so tired of all this bullshit. It breeds more bullshit. And a hell of a lot of truly unfounded lawsuits; which just makes rich lawyers. More of the let’s-freak-the-people-out-so-we-can-look-like-we’re-doing-a-good-job-protecting-the-people bullshit. I’m not sure how many people know what a black box warning is or what it truly means. It is the strongest warning the FDA can give a medicine. It is the mark of death for most drugs. But what does it really mean? Nothing. For example, most antidepressants contain black box warnings about increased suicides on these drugs. No shit. Depressed people killing themselves? Is it statistically relevant that in a pool of depressed people that are more likely to kill themselves, that when they are put on a certain drug, they are still more likely to kill themselves than people who are not depressed? Doubtful. It is the same thing that keeps cancer patients from being in any trial except ones where it is expected that some will die. That abandons a lot of legitimate research because of the inability of the FDA to compare true control groups.

Which brings me to the fundamental beef of this rant. Most experiments are set up for the oblique views of the government. That and to sell as much drug as possible. Definitely, not for the benefit of medicine or humanity. Far be it for science to truly help the depressed. God forbid we make large strides in cancer research.
So why don’t you go slap on some Elidel and maybe you can get in on the cancer class action lawsuit. Me? I’m going to take some Tequin, Vioxx, and Lexapro and hope I don’t slip into a diabetic coma or have a coronary before I contemplate using my Lady Bic in unorthodox ways.

Me, W, and goat-boy

I am not exactly sure why I am doing this. Probably for the same reasons others do...cheap catharsis.

A Little About Me

I am an opinionated, fairly liberal, sarcastic, loquacious, witty, annoyingly specific and sometimes argumentative human being. In my struggle to be precise in what I say, I tend to vex others. You'll have to forgive me: 6 years of grad school made me that way and I can't (and won't) undo it.

I work with physicians, so you will probably read my complaints about them a lot. Some of the stuff may make you think twice about what your doctor tells you. The sheer magnitude of incompetence that I encounter never ceases to amaze me.

I have some fabulous friends. I feel fortunate to know them. The older I get, the more I realize that good people, and good chemistry with those people, are sparse. Most people seem to bug the hell out of me.

My family is a source of both comfort and consternation for me. Most of my family (including extended family) are Republican, blindly religious, racist, and closed-minded...but there are still a few jewels in there. I have hope for some of them. Others are a lost cause and you just accept them as such.

My husband is a source of random information and amusement. He busts out with these random tidbits of information that both entertain and baffle me. He is a right-brained person. Extremely creative doesn't begin to describe him. I am left brained. Projects we do together are either awesome or catastrophic. Left-brained projects he does alone are infallibly catastrophic.

My Beef This Week

Since the primary function of this is to vent, I plan on updating this weekly with whatever is getting on my nerves, I need to get off my chest, or to bitch if I’m just plain pissed off. Hopefully it will often be peppered with humorous anecdotes, but since the evolution of this thing is completely unknown, I honestly have no idea. But since my life seems to have hundreds of them, I’m hoping that will be displayed here.

So…for this week, given the State of the Union Address and the actual state of the union, I have to say my biggest beef is W. Now I’ve always thought this man was a boob, but every day he seems to confirm my initial impression like it is some kind of Stuart Smalley daily affirmation specifically for me. Every day I think, “This man cannot possibly appear any dumber.” And each day he pulls something out of the tricks bag just for me. Being from the state of Texas, W and I have had a long history. The boobiness goes WAY back for me. W left all sorts of children behind here in Texas as he went to the White House to leave even more children behind throughout the United States.

Now I understand that a 6th year president doesn’t have much to say, but come on! It’s like they laid off the speechwriters and cut and paste from old speeches. The one new tidbit I did catch was his latest wag-the-dog target of chimeras; or to use W terms, “animal-human hybrids.” He probably doesn’t know how to say the word chimera. His terminology paints pictures of a Pan-like monstrosity that scares Ma and Pa Citizen. This “abomination” as he calls it has been in use for DECADES without producing goat-boy and has invaluably advance science while saving millions of lives. It has extended our life spans. It has increased our quality of life.

Because he doesn't understand something and it SOUNDS like science fiction, it must be horrid. Because he can't wrap his teeny, tiny mind around it, it must be an abomination. Because he needs something else to distract the public (Ma and Pa Citizen), he pulls goat-boy out of his bag of boob tricks. I read in one of the newspapers yesterday (I will try to be more diligent in the future of documentation, but this blog just started on a wild hair today) that Congress is discussing such absurd things as talking monkeys and human embryos in animal wombs. If that is actually true then these discussions are not tangential of reality, they are proud residents of some loony bin slighty east of my ass. I can't even begin to wrap MY teeny, tiny mind around the absurdity of such discussions.

If there's one thing I do know, it's science. I spent the better part of my life with test tubes, Petri plates, and lots of little tubes holding stuff most people can't pronounce. I will try not to be too science-y on this blog since I often see my friends glaze over and start to drool when I get on a science soap box...but I digress. I just want you to understand that I get all of this stuff at a molecular level.

If we allow W to distract us like this, there is no telling where it will lead. Legislation passed by a reactive Washington could set us back immeasurably. Ignorance seems to breed fear and W loves the people to be afraid. That is his (or more properly Karl Rove's) control mechanism. "Nuculer" weapons. Anthrax. SARS. Chemical warfare. West Nile. Yellow alert. Avian Flu. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

It's enough to keep you bug-eyed and staring up at the ceiling at night. But at least you're not thinking about what a boob W is.

Me? I'm going to get me a Thai chicken and French kiss it until we make some Avian Flu. Then I'm going to find goat-boy and see if we can get a 1/4 goat, 3/4 human embryo going in my womb. I'll let you know how that turns out.