birdog1960

is that the royal "we", a schizophrenic "we" or a "we" referring to your multiple identities on this board?

well said. i listened to kennedy and roberts question florida's lawyer and didn't come away thinking anything was a done deal. listening to questions addressed to both side it appears the potential swing votes are well aware of what's at stake: nearly 20% of gdp and tons of political ramifications. i'd hold the dancing in the streets til late june. i found it interesting that some of the greatest legal minds in the nation used similar arguments to those labelled ridiculous here....like the analogy with car insurance. of course, any comparison to broccoli is just idiotic.

so sorry. i thought i'd been dismissed. just voicing my appreciation.

everytime you're faced with a losing argument, the ad hominem attacks come out. i've lost count in this thread. at least you could try some other fallacious argument from time to time. and Joe Miner, you're so clever that i don't even want to engage you

advanced age infers a worse prognosis, in general. life expectancy also is less. cost/benefits start favoring costs. but he was also saying that the outcomes are improving and they are becoming more open to doing older patients. hence, my comment that time will tell if the 3-5% is a static or dynamic range. in this instance: organs for transplant. if you want, we could generalize it to health care. broadening it any further would make for a pointless debate but i'd be happy to dicuss it on an issue by issue basis. didn't we just do minimum wage?

conservatives don't have a monopoly on fairness. in fact, that doesn't often seem to be a consideration. the fair distribution of scarce resources seems a consistent, core tenet of liberalism. i don't care what the candidate for transplants name, ethnicity or accomplishments are even if it's cheney...he/she should be judged only on medical criteria. no hypocrisy there.

and you seem more than reluctant to review the facts we do know: smoked from 17-37 (up to 3 packs per day). 1st heart attack age 37 at which time he may have quit smoking. morbidly obese at times during later life. history of other documented vascular disease (popliteal aneurysm). history of hyperlipidemia. history of gout. there are many forms of heart failure that aren't lifestyle linked. infectious myocarditis comes immediately to mind and is often not associated with comorbidities. someone with this diagnosis alone would have a better expected survival than someone with cheney's history. i said the data points to one of two conclusions: 1. that cheney truly was in the top 3-5% of candidates over age 70 or that he received preferential treatment (you only filled in 1 blank!). additionally, a 3rd possibilty is that in 2012, more than 3-5% of the transplant recipients will be over 70. that oossibil;ty will be easy to confirm or deny in the near future.

are you listening to "pretzel logic"? only excellent candidates with expected good outcomes get transplants. historically those over 70 have comprised only 3-5% of this population. therefore, either.... i'm sure you can fill in the blanks?

really? you don't think it's relevant that cheney was apparently considered one of the 10 best over 70 candidates in the us for a heart transplant? you don't think they had the means to give that heart to someone with better predicted outcomes regardless of age?

u chicago transplant surgeon on the newshour just said 3-5% of transplant patients are over 70....therefore, since there are about 2000-3000 transplants/year, he's one of 6-15 patients per year his age that got a transplant. draw your own conclusions.

keep telling yourself that and eventually you'll believe it. just like right wing talk radio audiences.

you equated transplant surgeons to traders. i illuminated some differences.

fair enough...and where would civilization be if their priests never existed? mine?

really? how many of them are based at university centers or carry professor titles? one of the attributes is seeing the forest from the trees.

the very picture of health! didn't really need the link to diagnose obesity, did we?

um, yes? he was older than the usual cutoff. he was on the waiting list longer than usual. the usual cutoff is 65. he's had multiple cardiac procedures and diagnoses at age 71 including diffuse coronary artery disease...and the conclusion that the surgeon made was "he must of taken good care of himself"? that all other organ systems functioned at a normal level? another conclusion might be that he didn't and they don't but he's dick cheney. none of us know but we are told that 65 is the usual cutoff in 2 separate article (reuters ). i don't see the conflict in the 2 articles except that there is more than 1 hypothesis to explain cheney getting a heart. given his age and history, i'll take the odds on him being dick cheney as the reason. if you need a transplant and you don't want to associate with them, than he's the only one who would be able to help.

i do. i listen to the fascist radio guys when i need a good laugh or just need to get fired up. but i've yet to hear them interview a transplant medical director from a major national program, a transplant surgeon from wash u, a cardiologist from northwestern and a bioethicist from georgetown separately or together in any show. rarely do they interview anyone with these types of credentials in any field. and who else does besides pbs and npr? maybe if they could get over their envy and outright hostility to academics and intellectuals, they might learn something. but i won't hold my breath. they'll just keep interviewing other "experts" on conservative philosophy. this pales in comparison to the flu pandemic threat a couple years ago when goldman sachs execs got vaccine while pregnant women and babies couldn't. it helped then to have some ties to the vaccine manufacturers. think that could happen again?

yall really need to consider listening to npr on your morning commute.

ya think there may be just a few fathers and grandfathers deemed too old or too sick for transplants who are in just as much need. this IS the public test case for rationing. demand greatly outstrips supply. the patients likely to benefit the most should be the ones chosen. no other criteria should be considered...not what a nice or evil guy, not insurance and certainly not status.

heard some transplant surgeons interviewed today. 65 is the usual cutoff but not written in stone. they consider those in very good shape that are older. cheney is not one of those. had his chest opened too many times which makes it more risky. everybody is equal except some are more equal than others.

when i read this story, I kept thinking of "the wizard of oz". cheney's the tin man, scarecrow and cowardly lion all in one. now, i can imagine him singing "if i only had a brain".

i have a goto scope that i had out that night which was clear and still. i kept requesting hard to find stuff and it would get near them and then shut off. took me til it was too late to realize that my outside power outlet had tripped for some reason and the batteries in my scope were nearly dead so the scope wasn't getting enough juice. oh well, there will be other good nights.

i last looked about two weeks ago. i think 3 jupiter moons were visible. i like watching them move as much as the planet itself. Venus, despite it's name, aint much to look at but the alignment is very cool. with that sliver of moon, i'm hoping for some clear nights to try and find some deep space stuff. it's always disappointing to see some faint blur that looks incredible in astrophotographs but it's still very cool

looks like racism is gonna be a big theme. i think they touched on it with the drapers' maid in past seasons.. it was a huge issue in that era. and yes, i think padillo will be shown to be a gangster. maybe the firm runs out of credit and goes to him for help? that's the first time i've heard "zoo be zoo" but since then i'm hearing it in my head all day long. all in all, a very good premier.

i was thinking about starting one on civility and respect as effective tools in debate.