Around the Moronosphere 7/22/09

Doubleplusundead - Idiot congressman tries to defend vote on Cap and Trade. I know how eddiebear feels. Listening to Dave Reichert on the radio the other day I threw up in my mouth a little (joke, but I didn't buy his reasons)

Flopping Aces- Ground Shifting Fast in Health Care Battle -

The last 24 hours have brought a slew of positive changes to the effort to stop Obama’s plan to socialize America’s health care and force Americans to become more dependent on the Federal Government.

Instapundit - Facing Blue Dog Rebellion, House Energy and Commerce Committee Cancels Markup for 2nd Day in a Row.

Not a good sign for the Democrats trying to report the bill out from committee onto the floor for a vote. Seven conservative blue dog Democrats on the committee have said they can't vote for the bill in its current form.

Slashdot - Med Students Get Training in Second Life Hospitals -

The real innovation in SL clinical simulations is that they bring people together in a clinical space — you are standing next to an avatar who is a real patient, and the doctor avatar to your right is a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital and the nurse to your left is at the University of Pennsylvania hospital,' says John Lester, the Education and Healthcare Market Developer at Linden Labs. The most significant benefit of SL training may be the cost. Real-life training facilities require thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars to build and maintain, while SL simulation rooms can be created for minimal costs, and accessed from anywhere in the world for the price of an internet connection. SL can also expose students to situations that a standard academic program can't duplicate: 'You can take risks that aren't safe in the real world and teach more complex subjects in three dimensions,' says Colleen Lin. 'When you're resuscitating a dummy in real life, it looks like a dummy. But you can program an avatar to look like it's choking or having a heart attack, and it looks more real to the student responsible for resuscitating it.'"

This is what technology is supposed to do. Make things better, safer and more efficient. A lot of times it seems to work the opposite way.

The Art of Manliness - The Ultimate Push-up Guide

Alabama in Between - Fascinating Focus Group Result - Apparently people don't want to experiment with health care.

The Other McCain - The Mother of All IG-Gate Updates - What it boils down to is Obama didn't like what an IG was reporting so he fired him in direct violation of a law that he himself voted for. It may not be an isolated incident.