Weekend Open Thread
Happy weekend everyone! I hope you’re enjoying your relatively snow-free weekend. Are you ready for an open thread? Let’s roll!
Tiger Woods has started his apology tour. One blogger put together a handy flowchart to determine if that apology is intended for you.
My answer was “no.”
Remember the miraculous story of the man who had been misdiagnosed in a vegetative state but thanks to science can now communicate? Not so much:
It seemed to be a medical miracle: the car crash victim assumed for 23 years to be in a coma who was suddenly found to be conscious and able to communicate by tapping on a computer.
The sceptics said it was impossible – and it was. The story of Rom Houben of Belgium, which made headlines worldwide last November when he was shown to be “talking”, was today revealed to have been nothing of the sort.
…
Laureys, leader of the coma science group and department of neurology at Liege University hospital, said a study he had done of three speech therapists working with minimally-conscious patients showed that in two cases, including Houben’s, facilitated communication failed. “From the start, I did not prescribe this technique. But it is important not to make judgments. His family and care givers acted out of love and compassion,” he said.
The turnaround vindicates those doctors who had doubted Houben’s apparent ability. “It’s like using an Ouija board,” said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bio ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. “It was too good to be true, and we shouldn’t have believed it.”
Do you think this retraction will be as widely reported as the supposed breakthrough? I doubt it.
Tags: Open Thread
UI–you bring up a great post in regards to comas. With what medical science has brought about in the last decade or two with brain chemistries and the whole neuropschyiatric/physiologic field, we are really soon to be on the precipice of coma recovery and reintegration. Slow, slow stuff; with painful timelines, but perhaps encouraging to those who want hope.
Meet Rip Van Winkle. May soon be your neighbor. And at a price every insurance company can afford, and every political party can agree to the research involved.
Oh..and I think Tiger Woods should be sorry HE DOESN’T owe me an apology…cuz it’z a long way back!!!
Got to love teabagger originality – http://handsoffliberty.com/
David Waldman at dkos explains how forcing Republicans to talk through a filibuster would work.
From Mike Castle’s locally taking credit for projects that he voted against, to George Will’s recent climate change denial column, Republicans are officially “The Party of Bad Ideas.” Add in the SC plan to do away with paper currency and the Utah plan to cut eudcation spending by cutting off a year of public education, the GOP has truly become the party of lunatic crazebagitude.
http://mydd.com/2010/2/20/the-party-of-bad-ideas
I’m in moderation.
Tea Party Movement Hopelessly Divided Into Enraged, Apoplectic Factions
FEBRUARY 15, 2010 | ISSUE 46•07
WASHINGTON—Organizers of the Tea Party movement, a group opposed to the federal government’s attempts to alleviate the ongoing financial crisis through increased spending and taxation, announced today that their members have split down reactionary lines into those who are apoplectic in regard to the Obama administration and those who are merely enraged. “This rift is absolutely irresolvable,” screamed red-faced events coordinator Daniel Hume, head of the movement’s apoplectic faction. “We believe that now is simply not the time to be irrationally furious about unprecedented economic policies that have had little more than a year to start showing any signs of effectiveness. Now is the time to be foaming-at-the-mouth, incoherently livid about them.” A third camp of angry protesters had reportedly emerged from the recent upheaval, but its entire membership tragically died from massive brain aneurysms shortly after the group formed.
The Onion
Why did Obama throw the Dalai Lama out with the trash?
Trash? Everybody knows the Dalai Lama is recyclable.
for anyone on facebook who hates child molesters (so no TeaBagz i guess) http://apps.facebook.com/causes/430819/2973554?m=9e4cc0c7&ref=nf
has everyone called Tom and Ted today?
The Unted States of Ameica is dominating the winter Olympics. WE’RE STILL THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, teasmokers notwithstanding.
Which, by the way, the Olympic team is funded by the US government.
Have a great day.
GO USA HOCKEY.