The Angry Bear

Other than among Jehovah’s Witnesses, vaccination rightly gained widespread trust and acceptance in America. Innoculation against smallpox was around for hundreds of years before Jenner described the eponymous vaccine. Polio was a scourge in the US through the 1950s until it was virtually eliminated by vaccination. Many deadly diseases like whooping cough and measles were all but elimated in my lifetime through vaccination.Now, thanks to rank...

Weekly Indicators for February 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I am back from my travels, so it’s time to catch up. There’s no significant economic news until tomorrow, but in the meantime I neglected to link to my weekly high frequency indicator wrap-up, which was posted at Seeking Alpha. As usual, if you haven’t already done so, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual minute on the economic data and...

What’s Medicare’s secret sauce for controlling costs? The agency sets provider prices. It’s still the prices, stupid, GoozNews, Merrill Goozner, Sept. 7, 2023 AB: What is fun is my being able to talk to these guys and exchange thoughts. Then I bring them to Angry Bear. Kind of under the weather yesterday and today. Got the chills and a headache. The Times’ Upshot columnists weighed in on Labor Day on a subject I’ve written about extensively...

Some history While debating the original Post Office Act, Alexander Hamilton and others argued the post should support itself and make money for the rest of the government. Others, including George Washington and James Madison, didn’t seem to care whether it turned a profit. Jonathan Trumbull, the speaker of the House of Representatives in 1792, observed that having the post subsidize the circulation of periodicals would be “among the surest means...

Read a couple of articles this morning. One by Slate and the other by Newsweek. Sneezing away here and not feeling up to par. I am not going to post them here. Just too long, even if I made the print smaller. My perspective? I thought they were both good. Maybe you will think differently. There is sense of evil in both of the articles. Ivanka Trump Instagram: The former adviser to the president has slipped back into her rose-colored bubble,...

In January, the governor of Utah signed the “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act.” The law sets up a process for the state to overrule or otherwise ignore federal rules and decisions.For now, the law is just performative right-wing Republican bafflegab. While it appears to set up a challenge to the US Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause,” Governor Sandall denies this:“Our attorneys have indicated to me that the process that’s in place is...

We were living in Michigan when Engler and the Republican Legislature passed Right to Work Laws. The effort was meant to undercut Unions and saving costs for the Big Three automakers. Supposedly cars would be lower in costs to with the reductions reflected in prices to consumers. Never happened. Michigan reversed Right to Work Laws just recently. Michigan becomes 1st state in decades to repeal ‘right-to-work’ law, PBS NewsHour, Paula Gardner...

Topical Emails from all different sites. Pulled from my In-Box and which I have no time to write about. Thinking, they still may be of interest to readers who visit Angry Bear. Please be topical or at least close. Healthcare Neighborhoods And Health: Interventions at the Neighborhood Level Could Help Advance Health Equity, Health Affairs. Mariana C. Arcaya, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Justin Steil. Housing is tied to neighborhoods. To understand...

One of the most reliable lazy pundit columns Democrats in disarray and the related warning that Democrats have to watch out for the damage done by the McGovern wing of the party. Lazy pundits have a problem as Democrats are in array and only aging boomers such as myself remember 1972 (even older boomer Michael Kinsley noted that it is odd that the party which nominated Richard Nixon isn’t the one constantly apologizing for the mistake they made in...

One of the corollaries to the “life begins at conception” view is that all zygotes created by in vitro fertilization are fully human, so their deliberate destruction is ipso facto murder. This would effectively end IVF, since most zygotes will never be implanted. So sayeth the Alabama Supreme Court:“An embryo created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is a child protected by Alabama’s wrongful death act and the Alabama Constitution, the Alabama...