Sirened

Medical results out of Florida show that more people are dying from legal drugs than illegal ones. The Florida Medical Examiners Commission released autopsy results from 2007 that found that prescription drugs killed 3 times as many people as all illegal drugs combined.
In 2007, there were 168,900 deaths in Florida. 2,328 of these deaths were caused by pain killers (Vicodine, Oxycontin, etc.), 743 deaths were due to benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, etc.) and alcohol was judged to have been the killer 466 times (it was in the bodies of 4,179 people that died).
The deaths from all illegal drugs (cocaine, heroine, ecstasy, …read more

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People always talk about how the American political process is dominated by just two parties, but did you know that our US Senate has a socialist senator? That’s right, his name is Bernie Sanders and he hails from the free loving hippie commune Ben & Jerry’s state (aka Vermont). Sanders recently appeared on The Colbert Report and explained why the United States should morph into Finland.

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With the healthcare debate heating up on both sides of the aisle, I thought it would be interesting to look at the top 10 health problems, according to cost, that affect the United States. This list is according to Newsmax.com.
Heart conditions $76 billion
Trauma disorders $72 billion
Cancer $70 billion
Mental disorders, including depression $56.0 billion
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease $54 billion
High blood pressure $42 billion
Type 2 diabetes $34 billion
Osteoarthritis and other joint diseases $34 billion
Back problems $32 billion
Normal childbirth $32 billion

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If you have a Yahoo! or Hotmail account you’ve probably been getting a lot of spam lately to clean out your colon. Among other things, apparently this is becoming a weight loss fad.
According to the spam I receive, cleaning out your colon can prevent colon cancer. So it got me thinking…is a colon cleanse right for me? Perhaps, but I don’t want to buy their products and I don’t have to. I’m not sure if this is in Kevin Trudeau’s book Natural Cures (that I have not read) but I came up with the perfect solution.
Now if only there was …read more

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Yesterday, by vetoing Congress’s spending bill to provide additional money for poor children’s health coverage, the President essentially said ‘poor kids just ain’t my bag.’ While the President believes that fetuses must become babies, what happens to the babies afterwards is a whole different story. Sure they might have to hunt raccoons to eat or stitch up their severed off big toe themselves, but hey, at least they are here living in this glorious world!
Now the naysayers say why should their tax dollars go towards health coverage for the poor kids? Thing is, the additional $5 billion a year that …read more

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Will Bush even allow elections in 2008? Wonkette explores this.
The Portland Trail Blazer’s #1 pick, Greg Oden just had surgery on his knee and will likely miss his entire rookie year. Hmm, maybe ESPN writer Bill Simmons was right when he said they should have taken Texas forward Kevin Durant.
Latino’s are infiltrating this country in more ways than one as Hurricane Humberto hits Texas and moves on to Louisiana where it will seek construction work after destruction work.
Looks like health insurance rates will rise again next year. It’s estimated that the rise will be between 8-12%, I guess it’s time for a final surge during Bush’s last …read more

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Have you submitted your question for the youtubes yet? If not, be sure to make it creative (perhaps a superhero costume?) as there have already been some 1,500 questions submitted.
Some examples might be; how will you fix the mess George Bush has left? What role will “Slick Willy” take as a possible First Man? Is Dennis Kusinich in fact part elf? What will be Joe Biden’s next political gaff (aka pulling a John Kerry) to reduce his chances from very slim to none? Which candidate is Mike Gravel most likely to strangle? How many donuts did Bill Richardson eat today?
So many …read more

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Go on any of the presidential candidate’s websites and the first thing addressed is money. They need your money to support their campaign because the more money they have, the louder their voice becomes and the more likely they are to be elected. This is what “democracy” in the United States has evolved into.
According to this chart on Opensecrets.org Hillary Clinton has raised the most money at $63 million and Barack Obama has raised the 2nd most at $59 million. It really is mind boggling, we are still 6 months from the Democratic primaries (and 16 months before the general election) and just …read more

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Michael Moore just appeared on The Situation Room and blasted Wolf Blitzer and CNN for poor media coverage on health care and Iraq. He was fuming at their intro piece of him and accused CNN for selling out to insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
Moore also bashed CNN for being late on any coverage against the Iraq War. He bashed the mainstream media in general but since he was on CNN he focused on them and asked, when will people just stop watching you?
Moore was definitely spot on accusing CNN of being late in criticizing the Iraq War seeing as how they did …read more

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US politicians tout US healthcare as the best healthcare system in the world. Why is it the best? Because it’s American and Americans say it’s the best, therefore it is. It’s kind of like “world’s best fish sandwich” or “coldest beer in town.”
This article in the NY Times discusses a Pennsylvania study on differing hospital costs and how they affect length of stay and mortality rates. In a nutshell, it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
People think that because US healthcare is more expensive it must be better. From my experience this is definitely not true.
While living in Australia I was amazed at …read more

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