Friends have been asking about China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735, the Boeing 737 (non-MAX) that departed Kunming and crashed nose-down near Wuzhou yesterday. Without the flight data recorder it will be tough to determine what happened, but what I’ve been telling friends is that … | Continue reading
Here’s how tough the supply chain is right now. GM is delivering partially completed cars for dealers to finish once the parts are available. (from Sebring, Florida) | Continue reading
A friend is a tinted window enthusiast and mentioned in a chat group that he was having some trouble getting his doctor in Maskachusetts to sign documents that will satisfy the bureaucracy that runs the tint waiver program: Apparently this should not be too challenging. The ti … | Continue reading
“Twitter suspends Babylon Bee for naming Rachel Levine ‘Man of the Year’” (New York Post): Twitter locked the account of a right-leaning parody site, The Babylon Bee, after it awarded Rachel Levine, the transgender Biden administration official, the title of “man of the year.”Th … | Continue reading
Here’s an annotated chart from a tweet: The CNN article cited seems to be “The Omicron surge hasn’t peaked nationwide, and ‘the next few weeks will be tough,’ US surgeon general says” (updated Jan 18). The February 23 interview with Dr. Biden’s colleague Dr. Fauci can be found … | Continue reading
Cover story in the March 2022 issue of a printed-and-mailed magazine for Cirrus pilots: “Flying Across Russia”. Here’s the route that John R. Bone, a Florida-based pilot retired from Delta Airlines, took in July 2021: (the trip from Florida to Iqaluit and Iceland was a mere … | Continue reading
Although quite a few people of modest means enjoy aviation as a hobby, those of us who fly small aircraft often encounter the financially comfortable ($10-100 million in savings; when a house in Palm Beach costs $210 million, these folks can’t be considered “rich”). U.S. governme … | Continue reading
We’ve been seeing cars with Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick license plates here in Florida. A surprising number say that they won’t be going back to Canada unless forced to. They cite the Canadian government’s lockdowns, mask orders, vaccine coercion, and dissent … | Continue reading
From what I have observed, there is no better way to tackle the perfectly smooth roads between a suburban Florida house and the perfectly smooth paved parking lot next to the beach than in an off-road vehicle equipped with monster mud-tread tires. The neighborhood elite seem to h … | Continue reading
While visiting the new Peppa Pig Theme Park, I researched the glorious history of this cartoon. Wikipedia: Peppa Pig is a British preschool animated television series by Astley Baker Davies. The show revolves around Peppa, an anthropomorphic female piglet and her family and her … | Continue reading
Tucker Carlson took a break today from spreading Russian disinformation and Covid misinformation to interview Rymma Zelenska, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mother. Fox News: Mrs. Zaxby’s, the whole world admires your son Voldemort for hispersonal courage, determinati … | Continue reading
The latest book… Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression (Christopher Knowlton). I’m enjoying it so far (listening via Audible). Timely, considering that home prices in the decent neighborhoods of Florida have roughly doubled si … | Continue reading
I’ve now done enough coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgeries to learn the typical sequence: Surgeon arrives for “time out” (checklist review to prevent, e.g., wrong side operation), then leaves the room for the physician assistant to harvest the saphenous vein. The anesthe … | Continue reading
A suburbanite came to Boston’s North End, the historic Italian neighborhood, and was enjoying cannoli and espresso at Mike’s Pastry, which opened in 1946. He noticed a funeral procession down Hanover Street. A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse. Behind the second … | Continue reading
“Will Inflation Stay High for Decades? One Influential Economist Says Yes” (WSJ): When the global economy tanked in March 2020, the rate of inflation looked like it was heading to zero. That made it a surprising moment for former U.K. central banker Charles Goodhart to predict t … | Continue reading
Two years ago (CBS): The National Naval Aviation Museum is temporarily closing due to concerns over coronavirus.The museum will be open this weekend, and then close on Monday, March 16. According to the museum’s official web site, the museum is now technically open, but practic … | Continue reading
How is Women’s History Month going for you? Here’s what happens when you type “women’s history month” into an incognito browser (i.e., not affected by your previous search history): Note that Black History Month and National Hispanic Heritage Month are related events, as far a … | Continue reading
The cardiothoracic surgery service invites in some residents and medical students each year, but does not rely on them in the same way that other services do. For six months per year, PGY3 residents come in one month at a time. I am one of four medical students who will rotate in … | Continue reading
Raging inflation at the sushi and noodles place near Legoland (burned some $4.50/gallon dinosaur blood in the minivan): Can we find someone to blame for our debased money? The Wall Street Journal can! “The Humbling of the Federal Reserve” (3/14/2022): The central bank faces a … | Continue reading
A photo taken last week, while Ukrainian cities and homes were being destroyed, on the Brandeis University campus: While bravely behind a Zoom screen, students identifying as BIPOC could participate in the “Surviving White Spaces” support group, for example. There was “drop-in … | Continue reading
“Ford Will Have a ‘Pet Mode’ Similar to Tesla’s, Patent Application Shows” (Car and Driver, 2/24/2022): Perhaps trying to compete with Tesla’s Dog mode, Ford has filed a patent application for something called Pet mode, which would allow drivers to remotely control things includ … | Continue reading
We recently had an election here in Jupiter that generated a fair amount of local advertising, e.g., lawn signs at street corners, and discussion at the playgrounds, soccer fields, dog parks, skate parks, beach, etc. People are very interested in who will be on the town council a … | Continue reading
For basketball fans, today is the beginning of March Madness. For the rest of us, the primary kind of madness to which we’ve been exposed is the idea that humans can control a respiratory virus with bandanas as PPE. But what about the second maddest form of madness, i.e., the bel … | Continue reading
Monday is a typical day in wound care. I perform forearm squamous cell excisional biopsies. and suture the 3 cm incision. We chat about reimbursements. Wound care can be quite lucrative from debridement and graft procedures and marking up devices. “Our wound care clinic is not gr … | Continue reading
“CDC revokes U.S. authority to expel migrant children” (CBS/Yahoo, 3/12/2022): The Biden administration announced late Friday it is ending a Trump-era border deportation policy as it pertains to unaccompanied migrant children in response to a court ruling that could’ve forced of … | Continue reading
Portions of The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III (Andrew Roberts) are, unfortunately, timely. The American rebellion surprised the experts: One of the reasons why British politicians failed to comprehend that Americans would soon be agitating for nati … | Continue reading
Portions of The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III (Andrew Roberts) are, unfortunately, timely. The American rebellion surprised the experts: One of the reasons why British politicians failed to comprehend that Americans would soon be agitating for nati … | Continue reading
Coronapanic shut down America’s offices. It seems that a lot of us aren’t going back to work in the office or back to work ever. BLS: If office buildings are turned into warehouses, apartments, etc., what happens to all of the Herman Miller and Steelcase high-end desk chairs? … | Continue reading
This two-week wound care elective starts at 8:00 am. Most hospitals have a wound care service that is run by certified wound care nurses who change dressings, order offloading devices, and apply negative pressure wound vacuums to complex wounds. Unusually, our hospital has a woun … | Continue reading
Democrats frequently promise to “fight” when seeking election. Here’s the party’s thought leader, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “‘We can and must fight‘: AOC urges Americans to ‘get to work’ to defeat Donald Trump following Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death” (Independent 2020). Nancy’s Pel … | Continue reading
SXSW (like Burning Man, but with better barbecue) starts today. The COVID-19 policy could have been drafted by Andrew Cuomo and his young Science-following friends. Vaccine papers will be checked, including children over the age of 5 (for whom no FDA-approved vaccine exists, only … | Continue reading
The mobile data/voice network in the United States is spotty (in fact, there are plenty of places near our house in flat thickly-settled Jupiter, Florida where it is impossible to get data service from Verizon Wireless). This leads to occasional tragedies such as the family that … | Continue reading
New York is following Science by forcing 2-4-year-olds to wear face masks in their preschools (see Adult unvaccinated New Yorkers can go unmasked to the strip club; 3-year-olds must be masked in pre-K). A saliva-soaked rag has been proven “protective” against an aerosol virus acc … | Continue reading
A friend is heading off to Europe right now for a big academic conference. He’s a(n actual) scientist who lives in a Democrat-governed city and has supported mask orders, vaccine paper checks, school closures, and other Science-based interventions to stop the spread of the respir … | Continue reading
Most of the patients are admitted for trauma or transferred after a brain injury. The patients on other services, e.g., colorectal, bariatrics, or surgical oncology, are here because something went seriously wrong. I’m on the “ICU Team,” but enjoy listening in on the other surgic … | Continue reading
Yesterday on boston.gov: Mayor Michelle Wu and Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Commissioner of Public Health and Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission, today announced Boston’s COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Declaration will end on April 1, 2022. The announcement follo … | Continue reading
Here’s a BMW M8 hero showing how to park with low-profile tires: (Stuart, Florida) | Continue reading
July 2019. I meet the SICU team at 6:00 am for handoff. The 35-year-old PGY3 “upper level” surgical resident is in charge of our team (he worked a Navy desk job before going to medical … | Continue reading
I try not to brag about going to places that only the one-percenters can afford, but I visited a gas station yesterday. Sign inside: “We do not know why Dunkin is closed or when it will open&… | Continue reading
We happened upon these blueprints that are relevant to International Women’s Day: The house was designed for a couple with no pronoun imagination (“his” and “hers”). &… | Continue reading
On International Women’s Day (however the term “women” might be defined), we can celebrate Eileen Gu’s successful escape from racist America to non-racist China. Despite Pre… | Continue reading
Nostalgia for our old neighborhood, a lawn sign in front of a successful divorce plaintiff’s $1.8 million (Zillow estimate) house: One good thing about Massachusetts family law is that it rel… | Continue reading
A hot war rages in Ukraine and Americans have the leisure to argue about the extent to which 5-year-olds should be given an emergency use authorized vaccine against a disease that kills the elderly… | Continue reading
Happy 6th birthday to the SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (symbol: SHE): Seeks to provide exposure to US companies that demonstrate greater gender diversity within senior leadership than other firm… | Continue reading
Friends and family trying to visit us here in the Florida Free State are finding that airfares are usually over $1,000 if the luxury of lugging a bag on board and picking a seat is desired. Before … | Continue reading
It has been more than three years since Gillette paid huge TV ad dollars to teach Americans that masculinity was generally toxic. This prompted the following posts here: Are there any razors as goo… | Continue reading
“Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Proposes Limits On Protests At Private Homes” (CBS): Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who has been targeted in early mornings by people outside her home protesting he… | Continue reading
Recent email from a school in the Land of Closed Schools and Open Marijuana Shops…. (not in quote style for superior readability) Massachusetts law mandates school districts to screen student… | Continue reading