Saturday Morning News Bucket

11 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on August 7, 2010 at 9:51 am

   Friends of friends, and worth the click just for the bridal bicycle pictures.  

2. 

   CabinGirl on August 7, 2010 at 10:02 am

   take me on over to the Phoenixville Farmers’ Market, I read this interesting article in The New Yorker on death panels and cancer patients earlier this week. It’s long, but raises interesting questions to think about. And then there was this quote:

   Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. When Cox was transferred to hospice care, her doctors thought that she wouldn’t live much longer than a few weeks. With the supportive hospice therapy she received, she had already lived for a year.

   Why am I not very surprised that being comfortable in one’s own home with their family members close seems to prolong life?  Moreover, why are the GOP trying to put the kibosh on the types of conversations that need to take place for patients to be able to make those decisions for themselves?

   • 

     Indianadem on August 7, 2010 at 11:21 am

     “Moreover, why are the GOP trying to put the kibosh on the types of conversations that need to take place for patients to be able to make those decisions for themselves?”

     They probably think it somehow interferes with somebody’s bottom line. Having just been through this with an old friend & fellow political traveler, the subject is still very close to my heart. Her last words to me, “Don’t ever stop fighting.”  

     • 

       CabinGirl on August 7, 2010 at 1:48 pm

       I’m sorry about your friend.

       One of my friends passed away from an aggressive breast cancer earlier this year, and she was able to make the right decisions for herself and her family, and spend the time she had left in a way that meant something.  I spend a lot of time working on new cancer treatments, and I was happy to see that there is starting to be some more emphasis on recognizing that there will be a time to let go and not keep chasing experimental treatments that aren’t likely to provide any real benefit to the individual (even though the contribution to research will help future patients). Having had friends who had experienced the negative impact of cancer treatment – with no added length of survival – with their loved ones, I’m especially glad to see it getting some discussion.

3. 

   Alice on August 7, 2010 at 11:18 am

   Cabin, I’m thrilled to see you back at this, your News Bucket has been missed.

   Us ‘rule of law’ canine friends are feeling very triumphal this morning.  From the NRDC:

   In an exciting and hard-fought victory today, Judge Donald Molloy ruled that Northern Rockies wolves must be returned to the endangered species list. This ruling in our favor, the latest in a long saga of legal battles, restores critical Endangered Species Act protections for all wolves in the Northern Rockies….
   Judge Molloy’s opinion clearly states that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service acted illegally when it removed wolves from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana but left them on the list in Wyoming, splitting the population along political, rather than biological, lines. Judge Molloy wrote, “The Endangered Species Act does not allow the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list only part of a `species’ as endangered.”  
   The ruling effectively returns ALL wolves in the Northern Rockies to the endangered species list and puts a halt to the wolf hunts that were planned for this fall, starting next month.

   “As you know, the states’ management of wolves has taken a terrible toll over the past year and a half. Since the Obama Administration stripped these wolves of federal protection, more than 500 of them have been gunned down by hunters or government agents.”

    

4. 

   Oui on August 7, 2010 at 1:06 pm

   .
   We do have a lurker from the future Palestinian state …

   وروسيا هي حرق

   IP Address   213.6.177.# (Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL))
   ISP   Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL)
   Location   Continent  :  Asia
   Country  :  Palestinian Territory, Occupied
   City  :  Gaza
   Lat/Long  :  31.5, 34.4667 (Map)

   Language   Arabic (Jordan)  

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

5. 

   sjct on August 7, 2010 at 1:14 pm

   If I click on the Powell’s Books ad to pre-order William Gibson’s new book, will BooTrib get a kickback or some other compensation?

   • 

     Oui on August 7, 2010 at 1:25 pm

     .
     .. you can use the Powell’s Books search box on the left side of the page and I’ll get a 7.5% commission.

     Blog Reader Project Survey

     "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     CabinGirl on August 7, 2010 at 1:34 pm

     Yes.  We need to update the book links too, I think.

6. 

   Mac G on August 7, 2010 at 2:12 pm

   I came across these sites on food safety. http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/
   http://www.salmonellablog.com/

   Scroll down for all of the goodies. Taco Bell is making people sick in multiple states.

   • 

     CabinGirl on August 7, 2010 at 4:14 pm

     That actually puts the “irradiated ground beef” that they were sampling at Wegman’s today in a new light…we were surprised that they would be using the term irradiated as a selling point.  Guess the prevalence of E Coli has changed that…