Articles of interest!

[grysar]

Ezra Klein has an interesting discussion of the American handling of terminal illness:

Stage IV metastatic breast cancer isn't something you recover from. So the question is not how to get better, it is how to live until you die.In other words, the question we're theoretically asking all the time. Reframe to the old cliché: If you were going to die tomorrow, or next year, what would you do? The answer is never go home. Some people say they'd steal a car, or go to Hawaii, or travel to Tibet. Running for president and spending your time advocating for what you believe to be a better world isn't a particularly strange choice.

Andrew Sullivan links to a Lancet study on the lethality of various types of drugs. Not shockingly, alcohol is among the worst and well past many illegal ones. I've skimmed the extended article, interesting stuff. I was rather surprised how low LSD rated.

The first private rocket reached orbit, although it only accomplished a half-orbit before it lost control. Seems like the company still has a ways to go, but good luck to them. (Linked from Slate's Human Nature column.)

Discussion of what stone-aged women were probably like and the major problems in the conventional wisdom. This actually reminds me a lot of discussions I had with bannoubunkacoby and capfox on Angel's question of whether a caveman could take an astronaut. This certainly supports the idea that even without weapon, the astronaut would kick ass. Massive mammoth hunts similarly seem to be a matter of collective imagination rather than historical fact.

Comments

[korgmeister.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. People regularly forget that it's a drug, and caffeine can kill you pretty easily.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

They also left lethal doses of vitamins, minerals, etc. off the list (yet included nutmeg). It would have been funny to see iron poisoning along side those drugs.

[korgmeister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but nutmeg and caffiene can get you high. Vitamans can't, AFAIK.

BTW, I think your hat is cool. (I tend to notice hats as I work in a hat store)

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I picked it up at a local farmer's market to keep the sun out on my next hiking trip, but ended up rather fond of the style.

As for high-or-not... Yeah, that'd put them rather far over on the lethality vs. "effect"iveness scale.

I'm curious, is sars the drink they renamed to sarsi? 'cause if so, that stuff's *good*. (There's a little philipino shop on the corner here that carries it.)

[korgmeister.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's a local brand of Sarsparilla.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I like your writing, so just put you on my reading list; hope you don't mind.

[korgmeister.livejournal.com]

Not at all!