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Medicine

Some Saturday morning links with my coffee

Here are a few links that I didn’t get around to mentioning during the week that are, in this blogger’s humble opinion, worth a read by my readers:

This week saw the 25th anniversary of MTV. Terra Sigillata has two posts on his favorite MTV memories (with the latter link showing a 17-year-old Pharmboy jamming out), and Stereogum has the playlist for the first 24 hours of MTV, plus a YouTube of the first few minutes, in which the VJs were introduced.

Should I get wooden knobs for my stereo system? The manufacturers claim that they will greatly improve sound quality, and they’re a bargain at $485.

Now that it’s been a year since the sixth Harry Potter book, people are speculating about how the series will end when J. K. Rowling finishes the final book in the series. The most speculation centers around which major characters will die. Lance Mannion has a prolonged discussion and some ideas about who’s toast. He doesn’t think Harry Potter will die. (Neither do I, for that matter.) But there are lots of other candidates for becoming room temperature.

Thanks to antivaccination activists (among whom are the mercury militia), vaccine-preventable illnesses are returning to the U.S. Kevin, MD considers failure to vaccinate one’s children akin to child abuse.

And, finally, fellow surgeon Sid Schwab shows ’em how it’s done when he deals with a committee that seemed to be saying that, because his hospital’s system was not finding and identifying adequate quantities of unnecessary surgery. His response to the committee’s complaint is hilarious. I wish I had the balls to do stuff like that at my hospital.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

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