Rick Perry off the rails.

I was impressed by the latest ad from Rick Perry 2012. You can see the video below, but the text is as follows:

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As President, I'll end Obama's war on religion. And I'll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again. I'm Rick Perry and I approve this message.

When I say "impressed" I mean absolutely horrified. Let's take it line by line:

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian

Why would he be? Over 80% of Americans are. And many people who call themselves Christian manage to ignore the flagrantly immoral guidance provided by the Bible, so being Christian doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person.

something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military

Would someone please, please, please tell me WHY it's wrong that gays can serve openly in the military? Is he proposing that we go back to kicking people out of the military for being gay? Or forcing them to lie about their sexual orientation? Only the most retrograde ignorant bigot would support such a move.

Perhaps he's got reasons we should reverse course on gays in the military? Let's hear them. Until Perry can provide sensible reasons, he should not just assume that listeners will share his bigotry and ignorance. And "the Bible says so" is not a reason. The Bible says lots of stuff that no thinking moral person would ever defend.

but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school

Perry seems to be suffering paranoid delusions. What's stopping kids from praying in school? The fact that public schools are prohibited by the Constitution from officially endorsing (establishing) religion does not mean that kids can't pray or openly celebrate Christmas. I'm sure he could trot out some story about an overzealous school administrator making a kid take off a Christmas sweater or something, but then we'd all (including the present administration, surely) agree that that's over the top. This does not constitute a war on Christmas or a war on religion or a war on Christians. Ridiculous, paranoid bullshit.

Obama's war on religion

War on religion? War? Perry is running for president, not jockeying for Bill O'Reilly's position at Fox. If he believes that there's a war on religion it means he's completely out of touch with reality and unable to discuss policy like an adult. If he doesn't really believe this, then he's pandering to people who do. Either way, this is not how a president should behave.

I'll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage

Again, I'm not sure what the hell he's talking about. In what way are you not entitled to your religious heritage? Oh, you mean you're upset that some of us like to point out that you're not entitled to use the power of the state to promote your religious heritage, the way you have historically done? Cry me a river, Pat Robertson.

Faith made America strong.

I'm not sure how he means this. There are a number of interpretations, but under most of them this is palpable nonsense. And under all interpretations, he seems to ignore the things that actually make us strong--Democracy, respect for the rule of law, respect for individual rights, etc.

Again, who or what is stopping you from having as much faith as you want? Who or what advocates policies that would restrict your right to exercise your faith? Even a liberal atheist like me would never use the power of the state to prevent you from exercising it. Please try to distinguish that from using the power of the state to prevent you from using the power of the state to promote it.

Ugh.

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Here's the video:

Brain Modulation in Disorders of Consciousness

Free full text is available for the paper in the Feb 4 NEJM, entitled:

Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness.

These are the data I've been waiting for!

In brief: they report fMRI imaging of 54 patients in VS and MCS, using the mental imagery protocol that was described in Adrian Owen's Nature report (I think one of the patients in this paper is the same patient?)

It looks to me like they got "hits" on both the motor imagery and the spatial imagery task for four patients. In one patient, they got a hit on the motor task but not the spatial imagery task, which may be why they say "five patients" in the abstract.

All five of those patients had traumatic injury (not anoxic or stroke.) The four who got two hits were all in their 20s, and their insult happened 1, 6, 30, and 61 months prior to the scans. I think patient #23 in their table is Rom Houben.

They asked one of the two-hits patients (a 22 year old man in VS, 61 months out from TBI,) to do answer yes-no autobiographical questions, and got 5 out of 6 correct--the sixth was not an incorrect answer, but "no activity."

Okay, this is news to digest. All the reports until now have either lacked detail, or have only shown evidence of awareness in young patients less than 12 months after TBI (a group of patients who still have reasonable odds of emerging from VS.)

Clear morning!

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A little past peak color.

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Zoos

I generally don't like zoos, but in the case of the San Diego zoo, I'll make an exception.

Lousy arguments against health insurance reform

Lousy argument #1: The number of uninsured (e.g. 50 million) is exaggerated.

I'm not sure why this is thought to be helpful to opponents of reform. If the number is correct, then that's a LOT of people without insurance. If the real number is smaller by an order of magnitude (e.g. 5 million) then that's still a LOT of people without insurance. But here's why it's a crappy argument: the smaller the number is, the less excuse there is for refusing to insure those people.

Let's say--counterfactually--that the real number is 5 million. And let's say that 1 million of those are children (so that we're not picturing people who lack insurance because of poor choices they made.) What excuse is there for failing to provide basic health care to 1 million U.S. children?

Perhaps the excuse is:

Lousy argument #2: The uninsured can already get healthcare in emergency rooms.

I still hear this from people (including some doctors) who should know better. Three big problems with this argument.

• First: if, as you claim, the uninsured are already getting adequate healthcare in emergency rooms, then it won't cost us any more to provide adequate healthcare in doctors' offices. In fact, it would cost less. (Who do you think pays for the ER visits?)
• Second, do you really believe that children with cancer, with asthma, with juvenile diabetes, with genetic metabolic disorders are adequately treated in ERs? Really? Have you ever been in an ER? Do you have any idea what it takes to treat these problems?
• Third, if this is your argument, please never let me hear you complain about waiting times in ERs. Don't come crying if your true medical emergency isn't treated in a timely fashion. Little Bobby is getting his chemotherapy in room 3 and little Suzie is getting a breathing treatment for her asthma in room 4. We just don't have room for you now; hold pressure on the bleeding and sit in the waiting area. If you lose consciousness, please let someone know and we'll do our best to move you up in the queue.

Lousy argument #3: The government doesn't do things well or efficiently, so we shouldn't allow the government to provide health insurance.

The first part of this argument is certainly true on some level, but the second part is a non sequitur unless there is a better alternative. If the argument is that the private markets do a better job of allocating health care resources, then why haven't the markets insured (for example) the uninsured children? The market has been operating since...always, so why is there still a problem? (If you're tempted to say "there's no problem" or "the problem is exaggerated," see Lousy Arguments #1 and #2 above.) Note, by the way, that this is a perfect argument for dismantling Medicare and Medicaid. If you believe we should do just that, then you lack historical perspective...if you were old before Medicare or disabled before Medicaid, you were just SOL.

I'd entertain this Lousy Argument if the people floating it proposed an alternative.

What?

What are all these people running from?
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