birdog1960

uh huh, you'd never see something like that happen at Fox.

we need rain in virginia too. down about 1.5 in.

best year in ages. we moved so i started anew with raised beds and store bought soil. hopefully, i'll have no blight this year on my tomatoes. i,m staking my plants with bamboo and it seems to be holding for now. i tie with this rubberized wire stuff that works great. sorry, dont know about the florida weave. i'm pretty agreessive at pruning the plants tho and that helps keep em compact. going to pull up my peas as it's way too hot. had plans for the space but my wife has claimed it for perrenial seeds. oh well, store bought carrots are cheaper than store bought foxglove plants. and i did something this year some of you might want to try. didn't want to use space in my raised beds for cukes and squash so i put weed guard in a 12x12 ft area anfnd dumped 4 separate bags of tops soil in piles surrounded by rocks. planted 2 plants in each pile and they're thriving. my first zucchinis are now ready. i've heard of people doing this with tomatoes too: just putting a slit in a bag of topsoil and putting a tomatoe plant in but have never tried it.

tonite, i can't come up with anything better than: "what's in your wallet? seriously, i need to see your papers." from the comments section. maybe i'll do better tomorrow but i doubt it. that's damn good.

read the qoute you cited "prevailing in only 21% of the verdicts"...i'm no lawyer (thank god- most i've known are miserable) but a verdict implies a trial, non?

while the authors find 1/3 of claims (it was actually 37% as only 63%of claims were judged to be the result of error) without merit to be acceptable, presumably because most went unpaid, i doubt many practicing physicians would agree. the fact that this many cases were ever brought is harmful in and of itself, especially to the physicians. not only to the doc who's been unfairly targeted but to the courts with wasted resources. one can accept a papers results and not the conclusions...happens all the time in medicine and i suspect other fields. and what of the 3% of claims where no adverse medical outcome was present? how can this be justified. and did you not state that if my numbers were correct on succesful litigation being so low that you would concewde a problem? the numbers from this study are are widely cited. you seem to accept them. yet you still don't see a problem. if i were wrong 40% of the time as were the plaintiffs attorneys in this study, i'd be in court more than i'd be working. why should attorneys be held to a lowewr standard?

i'm concluding that too many meritless cases are being pursued. too many fishing expeditions. too much harm done to too many blameless docs. and i think the prospect of a mutimillion dollar jackpot at the end of the fishing trip is at least part of the incentive.

perhaps next time you can be compelled to do some research before declaring reported statistics incorrect. check out nejm may 11, 2006 (it can be accessed online without subscription. it is a harvard based a study done by lawyers and clinicians. for a short summary of med malpractice statistics see medicalmalpractice.comm. this is a site supported by malparactice plantiff lawyers and could therefore be expected to use high end numbers for wins. it givews 21% as the number and seperates settlements out of that figure. i'm certain a google search will turn up many more references. i use thrown out to mean dropped from the suit after depositions (extremely common- often every doctor that was near a patient is sued initially in a fishing expedition) csae dropped entirely after obtaining expert opinions and depositions, case dropped for any other reason (except settlement) before trial. btw, i have been retained by defense attorneys in multiple medmal cases as an expert to review records and give opinions. so despite, d/c's contentions, sveral regional law firms think i know a bit about medicine.

new england journal published a study about 5 years ago estimating that 40% of malpractice cases were unfounded. this was based on the fact that in about 2% of cases there was no actual harm and in about 38% there was no causal medical mistake. sounds like spaghetti throwing to me but maybe we're arguing semantics.

so how do you explain those figures? and that's not including the cases thrown out before court. maybe that's why so many big law firms are hurting right now. can't say i have much sympathy.

from 10 - 20 % of cases brought to trial are won by the plaintiff. that implies a lot of spaghetti throwing to get a meatball. it cost/benefit again and the the benefits go towards attempting to litigate some very iffy cases. and you're gonna school me? everyone has a lot to learn about medicine. it's a vast field that changes constantly. what was true yesterday, is often considered totally incorrect the next.

i've been involved in 2 cases - both thrown out before ever going to court (one compaint plastered on the front page of the local paper and they never published the fact that it was later thrown out). they do harm. they are not in any way benign. an arbitration board would never have let either case begin. who's protecting me from that happening a few more times before i retire?

aka evidence based medicine. more is often not better despite that almost universal belief (another reason to avoid jury trials). countries who spend less and do less have better outcomes than the us. tests can do harm. yet "failure to diagnose" is one of the most common malpractice complaints. there is a balance between risk (cost) and reward and the us system is a long ways from it.

it can be done. this was proposed early in the game of reform proposals. expert boards can make protocols for common conditions and symptoms. it's done in the UK for instance will they be up to date with every new study? no, but changes could be made for important new findings on the fly. that's better than the hit and miss dissemination of info we now have. daschle outlined this plan in his book just before he was nixed for healthcare czar. and why not mandatory arbitration? we have people on juries now who don't know what blood actually does or have never heard the word pancreas.

there's a relatively simple solution to medical malpractice problems and defensive medicine. carve out safe harbors for different diagnoses. if a patient has chest pain and a doctor does standard of care testing (evidence based and formulated by experts), then he/she should have no liability regardless of outcome. and these protocols don't need to include a "million dollar work up" in many patients. national medical groups are calling for less and less testing and screening. make it official and make it law. the other option that would appeal to physicians and i find reasonable is arbitration boards staffed by experts rather than juries. currently we expect averagew joes to become medical experts in a trial setting.

i know what a backhanded compliment is but...i hope your forehand is better.

yes, no doubt putin's read "the prince" but machievelli ended up a loser begging for the medici's mercy. putin? one can certainly hope.

yeah,well, helicopter gunships are a lot cheaper than negotiating and then propping up a puppet new leader. i'm betting assad's goin down..this is a hail mary bet by putin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyoPaVxMyWY what can i say? i'm an oldtimer. pretty risque for the time.

yup, that's the first time i'd seen it (told ya, don't watch the nba much). i can kinda see it...sort of like the strict contact rules on defensive backs in the nfl. but traveling? that's like keeping the current nfl rules for receiver possession on the sideline and blowing off every time a big name guy gets only one foot inbounds. "oh, it's all good. he's selling tickets". don't think that would be ignored in the nfl.

i rarely watch. this just seemed a good match up and it turns out it is. but basketball is based on dribbling and passing and not travelling (walking). hell, i doubt the kids in parochial grammar school league get away with it these days. we sure didn't and shouldn't have. it's not really basketball if you can walk around like that with the ball in your hands.

did anybody else see lebron walk several times last nite? on the dunk/foul in the 3rd quarter he took 3 full steps. they showed it 3 times and the announcers never mentioned it. in general, i thought the calls were very favorable to the heat.

if you're there on a saturday check out the farmers market - usually some good free live music and local flavor. gotta hit the honky tonks - tootsies and the bars surrounding have live music all day on weekends. for food, there"s a good hole in the wall sushi place downtown and indian place just outside downtown that should be highly rated on yelp. can't remember the names. pretty sure there's a mortons or ruths chris downtown near the hilton..not my thing but predictable quality. a tour of the oprylsand hotel is worth it if your out that way. the gardens and inside creek are very cool and the place is huge and impressive. i also enjoyed the wild horse saloon downtown- decent food and lots going on- (can you 2 step?)owned by gaylords who also own the opryland hotel. often some national acts at the ryman so check out the schedule -mumford was just there. it's pretty small and intimate for the acts they often get. i wouldn't bother with a tour though.

the deviation on the low end of this data is slight. doesn't that disqualify it from being characterized normal distribution in a statistical sense? and yes i realized what you meant. it just had nothing to do with my argument. does incentive need to be 100's of times average income? would you not be incentivized to work for double your current salary?

there is nothing normal about wealth distribution in the us, and that's the point. if you were to attempt to set up a society, economic and political system from scratch would your desired outcome be this huge wealth disparity and concentration with only a few winners and more and more losers? maybe this board is the wrong place to ask but i think a sizable majority of americans would emphatically say no.