Jericho is Back

Catch up with the first episode of this season at the CBS web site.

The "Will To Live"

   Various news articles are reporting on a study which found that age-related disease is not necessarily an accurate indicator of which senior citizens will reach extreme old age. If I understand the article in Forbes correctly, a better indicator of who will live a long time is whether they remain disability-free. The article quotes Dr. James S. Goodwin, director of the Sealy Center on Aging at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, as saying "...'when people go on to become disabled, that's the bad sign,' he added. 'Because it's disability that interferes with your life and your ability to thrive -- to be physically and mentally able to reach your potential. So really, these things we call diseases could be thought of as risk factors for disability. Because when people become disabled, that's when they become truly sick. And that's when they stop living long'"(Forbes, "Disability Stronger Predictor of Longevity Than Disease Is", 2-11-2008)

    It sounds like what these studies are confirming is a "common sense" idea: it's not just your physical health that determines how long you will live, but your so-called "will to live". People who become disabled would tend to loose this will to live because they are no longer able to enjoy their lives, and probably become dependent on others for their survival. For a human being, this state is probably, from a mental and emotional stand-point, so untenable that most of us may invariably loose our will to live. If the choice to live in the present is a "basic choice" that necessitates one's future choices, then I think this makes sense. If one has nothing to look forward to in the future but pain and suffering, then there would be no motivation to make that basic choice to live.

Da Vinci's Inquest Has Started Over

   As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of Da Vinci's Inquest, a procedural set in Vancouver, British Columbia. Re-runs are now showing from season one of the series in my local broadcast market, so now is a great time to get into the show from the beginning.
   I am pleased that it finally started over with season one because I think this is the only season I haven't seen. I even watched the "Da Vinci's City Hall" portion, which they still called "Da Vinci's Inquest" in my broadcast market, and I thought it was decent. Maybe it wasn't as good as the original show, but it was certainly decent enough that I didn't think it deserved to be canceled.

Obama versus Clinton on Socialized Medicine

    First of all, the medical industry in America is already mostly socialized. Also, the road to socialized medicine in America started almost a hundred years ago when states began mandating who could and couldn’t practice medicine (thereby restricting supply and raising prices), and by requiring a government-approved doctor’s prescription to obtain drugs. Anybody who is for these laws is opening the door to collectivism in medicine to some degree, and since no Republican would call for the repeal of unauthorized practice of medicine statutes today, they are also advocates of collectivism in medicine. The only debate the two major parties are engaged in today is: “How much socialism do we want in medicine?”

    It is important to me in my voting decisions that this process of collectivizing the American health care industry occur as slowly as possible, consistent with other political issues like maintaining a strict separation of church and state, since collectivism will invariably destroy technological innovation and raise prices, or create shortages. This collectivization of medicine won’t be in anybody’s long-run self-interest. I also draw a distinction between using taxes to pay for the uninsured –which is basically just a new welfare program, and using direct governmental coercion to force people to obtain health insurance. The later is a direct assault on the freedom of an individual to choose whether health insurance is important to him. Many people, especially young, healthy people, could rationally prefer to take their chances with a major illness, which is statistically not likely at their age, and forego health insurance altogether. It appears that the current difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on their respective plans to further socialize medicine is that Clinton would use direct governmental force (including wage garnishments) to take money from people who refuse to buy health insurance. I said some time ago that I think Hillary Clinton secretly wants communism, by which I more literally meant totalitarian socialism. Her views on health care demonstrate what I mean. Her approach to every problem is not only more governmental force but the most governmental force she can possibly bring to bear on each and every individual man, woman, and child in the country. Obama may want to hand out more welfare to poor people using taxpayer funding, which I don’t consider ideal, but he at least seems to have some respect for individual freedom.

The Election Comes To Texas

    According to the Dallas Morning News, Texas may actually play a role this year in deciding who the Democratic nominee is for that party. McCain is probably going to win the Republican nomination, but, Texas will also play a bigger role this year in that party as well.

    I still want to punish the Republicans for almost 14 years of pretending to be the limited government, free-market party, then pandering to the religious right and doing nothing substantial to restore private property rights and economic freedom in America, so the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and I will vote for whoever the Democratic contender ends up being, but my preference is still for Obama. The issue of electability seems to be a concern for some Democrats but this web site seems to suggest that McCain will beat either Clinton or Obama, and, in fact, Obama looses by less than Clinton:

"In general election match-ups, McCain leads Clinton 47% to 41% and he leads Obama 46% to 43%. Both Democrats lead Romney. Clinton leads him 48% to 41%. While Obama has a 47% to 40% advantage. These numbers are likely to remain quite fluid as the nomination battles continue to unfold."(rasmussenreports.com)

    Now, if I am shown that there really is a difference in electability between Obama and Clinton against McCain, then that might change my mind, since I sincerely do want a Democrat to win the White House, if only because the US Supreme Court will probably get too right-wing with another Republican President, but so far, it doesn’t look like Obama is any less electable than Clinton. So, to Democratic voters, I say: if both of the Democrats loose to McCain, then why the hell not vote for who you want? (And does anybody really want Clinton as President?)