Unintended Consequences

Barack Obama has declared that it would greatly improve health care if women got more mammograms, and save us a lot of money in reduced health care costs.

While some feminists have been pushing this notion as an agenda item, the science says otherwise.   Routine mammograms INCREASE the risk of breast cancer because of the radiation used in the procedue – which more than offsets the value of detecting a few cancers a little bit earlier.

Study

There is nothing more dangerous than a man who believes things are true soley because he said them.

It will be interesting to see how Dr Dean Edell handles this situation – he’s long been an advocate of keeping politicians away from driving decision making in medicine.   Will Dr Edell take on President Obama’s uninformed statements and beliefs?

Bob Brinker has been on a rant for months now that the solution to all our imported oil problems is to convert to using natural gas for cars, since the U.S. is drowning in domestic natural gas supplies.   Let’s look at the numbers

The U.S. currently consumes about 20 million barrels day of oil, the largest portion of which is used in transportation – which includes airplanes, trucks, and trains.  In 2008, we used about 132 billion gallons of gasoline.

Gasoline contains about 125,000 BTUs per gallon. 
8 gallons of gasoline = 1000 cubic ft (mcf) of natural gas = 1M BTUs
1 mcf delivered to your residence costs about $13 at current rates (about $1.62/gallon if you assume the engines are equally efficient)

The total annual consumption of natural gas for all purposes is about 23 million million cubic feet, or the energy equivalent of 184 billion gallons of gasoline.

Known U.S. reserves of natural gas are around 800,000 billion cubic feet, or the energy equivalent of 5.6 trillion gallons of gasoline, which would last about 41 years if all  gasoline consumption was switched to natural gas (and no new gas was found).

Natural gas gives off CO2 – it does nothing about so-called global warming.

Let me know if I dropped some zeroes….

British Petroleum has another very significant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico, at a depth of 35,000 feet:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/BP-announces-giant-oil-find-apf-2273328778.html?x=0&.v=1

All of these deep oil finds strongly suggest that oil is not based on decayed organic material at all, but a chemical process based on the heat and pressure of the molten core of the Earth creating new oil constantly – throwing the entire notion of “peak oil” and “the last barrel of oil” out the window for those who still have open minds about science.

I’ve just spent 5 days experiencing a revolution in wireless technology – it probably isn’t that “new”, but it was new to me.   I’ve written before about how LTE or WiMax is going to change every aspect of our lives very soon in ways we don’t even think about yet.

When I was in the hospital, I was put on a cardiac monitor that monitored every little pitter patter of my heart 24 hours a day.   It is a device about the size of an iphone that is in constant contact with the monitoring center via wireless (which in theory could be anywhere in the world).   If a lead came loose, within seconds a page would go out to the nurse telling them to go to the room and fix the problem.   Had anything “exciting” shown up on the monitor (it didn’t), the response would have been in seconds to start to deal with an issue with a real time display in front of a doctor with the skills to make informed decisions in real time.

Now broaden that picture out to be that someone with a heart issue could wear this device and go pretty much anywhere in an entire city, and be just as much in touch, including the ability of a doctor to remotely intervene (perhaps adjust a pacemaker or zap with an implanted defibrillator to restart a heart).

This technology has great potential to do wonderful things – but it also could be the technology that enslaves us if used by the wrong people with the wrong motivations. 

It’s critical that the government recognize that trust is the key for any solution.  Trying to beat people into submission without adequate thought and discussion will result in failure and extreme danger to the future.  I’m hoping the adults are beginning to take control of the process and we can stop with the “emergency” crap and have some balanced rationale dialog soon.

http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2009/08/24/story1.html?b=1251086400%5E1970491

Just one of many ethanol plants that have been built that make no economic sense – “because the government said we had to”.

If you’ve visited a Clear Channel radio station in the last few days, you probably were greeted by a vague ad showing the picture of an electric outlet, and the message 23  8-11.

Pretty odd, huh?

If you click on the ad, you’re taken to the Chevrolet web site.  After waiting about 3 minutes for the site to load, there is nothing on the web site.   The logical subject of the ad is the Chevrolet Volt.   I’ll guess that 8-11 is August 11, the date for some announcement.

23 is either a reference to the price ($23k) or the number of miles the Volt will go before you need to call a tow truck.

Plugin Electric cars sound like a great idea if you’re Ed Begley – you are not constrained by cost, you live in a place that never gets cold, and you are the only one in the city plugging your car into the electric grid.

But let more than a few people start driving plugin electrics, and you’ll start seeing serious problems with shortages in electric power generation and distribution.   Shortages in power will increase the costs for electricity, even for those people who don’t buy a plug-in electric car.

We’re just on the edge of seeing the unintended consequences of plugin electric cars, especially if we remain in idle about building new nuclear power plants.