Do NOT Let Traitors Undermine the Freedom
For Which Patriots Paid the Ultimate Price
Quote of the Day
Murphy's Seventh Law: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Image of the Day
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| McDonald's Answer to Minimum-Wage Nonsense HT ZeroHedge |
Osseointegration, FDA Approval, and Wounded Vets
Whereas Memorial Day primarily focuses on those who have died in America's wars, a number of wounded vets must deal with horrific disabilities for decades, including missing limbs.
There are, of course, prosthetics manufacturers who serve a market need for those with amputated limbs. I've briefly mentioned in past posts that my first college RA was a disabled Vietnam War vet who lost one of his legs. Tom didn't always like to walk around his prothesis, often hopping around on his good leg or using his crutches. (During my family's visit to the dorms, my baby sister saw Tom without his prosthesis and to my dismay loudly pointed it out.) There have been some technological advances since then towards more natural prostheses:
Osseointegration refers to a direct structural and functional connection between ordered, living bone and the surface of a load-carrying implant. Currently, an implant is considered as osseointegrated when there is no progressive relative movement between the implant and the bone with which it has direct contact.I stumbled on this related story in one of today's emails:
I recently met [Joe, one of those recent veterans who lost his right leg] while in the US, and he has an unbelievable story.I have not reviewed this issue in depth, but I do believe there have been trials scheduled. At least one source suggests that the real story is not-invented-here syndrome and crony prosthesis manufacturers lobbying for protectionst policies. In any event, this blog repeatedly beats the drum for FDA reform or (preferably) privatized.
Despite losing a limb in combat, Joe can’t get a new leg because the FDA won’t approve the procedure that he needs.
It’s called osseointegration. And the FDA thinks that it might be too risky for Joe.
Risky. Kind of like being in a combat zone in a country that never should have been invaded to begin with for reasons that were all lies, all to support a war that only makes the country less free.
So since the government doesn’t think that Joe is responsible enough to make his own decisions, he now has to go overseas and pay tens of thousands of dollars out of his own pocket.
Joe doesn’t have the money; so a family member set up a donation page on the Internet trying to get help. (I’m not publishing the link here because I’m going to take care of it myself.)
It’s amazing when you think about it– a combat veteran who lost a leg supposedly fighting for ‘freedom’ can’t have the medical procedure he needs because a destructive government bureaucracy.
Sunday Talk Soup and Martin O'Malley
This holiday weekend gave me me an opportunity to catch up on some podcasts. The May 3 MTP focused on the Baltimore unrest over the Freddie Gray incident. Former Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, a widely expected challenger to Hillary Clinton for next year's Dem Presidential nomination, was a guest. Expect him to concede decades of failed public policy at the local and state level? Think again...
FMR. GOV. MARTIN O'MALLEY:
Oh, I think the problem is the fact that we have built an economy that's leaving whole parts of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, so many citizens behind. I mean, I was giving out food there at St. Peter Claver's in the aftermath of this unrest, and there are people in whole parts of our cities who are being totally left behind and disregarded.
They are unheard. They are told they are unneeded by this economy. And that extreme poverty breed conditions for extreme violence. People are frustrated. They're angry. And they feel like people aren't listening.
Now it couldn't be social welfare policies are at least in part morally hazardous in contributing to single-parent household and up to a 75% illegitimacy rate? Or public union controlled schools are abysmal failures/? Or government employment mandates (e.g., minimum wages), sky-high incarceration rates or a dysfunctional war on drugs.
That an unaccomplished political whore like O'Malley would try to engage in political spin pretending that he is on the side of the urban underclass whose lots did not improve under his tenure as mayor and governor boggles the imagination. The fact is that government is part of the problem, not the solution. O'Malley is trying to sell the vision that all we need is a huge urban city bailout from a central-planning federal government. To be fair, Todd does point out that the government has thrown an ungodly amount of money at urban issues, but O'Malley tries to deflect the blame on the federal government not throwing even more money at the problem:
CHUCK TODD:Facebook Corner
And this morning's Baltimore Sun has this headline or, excuse me, Washington Post: "Why Couldn't $130 million Transform One of Baltimore's Poorest Places." $100 million was poured into this community over the last 20 years. Are we not spending the money correctly? What are we getting wrong here? Money has been there; what are we getting wrong?
FMR. GOV. MARTIN O'MALLEY:
No, Chuck, that's just not true. We haven't had an agenda for America's cities for at least two decades.
(IPI). Two bills promoting criminal-justice reform from the liberty perspective passed through the Illinois General Assembly this week.
House Bill 218 addresses the sentencing system for low-level cannabis possession and House Bill 494 removes automatic lifetime barriers to employment in schools and helps give former offenders the opportunity to prove themselves rehabilitated and able to work.
It's sad that we need to explain to the crony prison industrial complex and their misguided supporters why an incarceration rate multiple times any other democracy in the world and a discriminatory government prohibition on employing those who have paid that debt to society violate the very principles on which this republic was founded.
(LFC). A pretty remarkable thing. A fast food restaurant that can feed thousands of people per day with custom orders, with only a few employees. You mad, commies?
You know, if the economically illiterate fascists were more transparent in their morally contemptible intervention, wage-price prohibitions on labor-market clearing wages, they might want to consider redistribution via, say, the earned income tax credit, rather than penalizing low-skill/low-experience workers or the plurality of small businesses hiring them operating on paper-thin profits. Bottom line: if you aren't a jobseeker willing to work for less money than some number a corrupt demagogue political whore picks out out of his ass or if you're not a small business owner trying to manage your budget, mind your own business!
(FEE). Requiring inventors to get permission from the government before using technologies is a sure way to stunt innovation and economic growth.
The protectionism and the cronyism of those with a vested interest in the status quo are predictable; I think to some extent there is going to be some resistance of change, some fears of economic uncertainty in the context of creative destruction. A country, however, has to foster innovation and trial and error in the private economy if it expects to remain relevant in a growing global economy. If, say, IBM had been obsessed with cannibalization of its mainframe business by low-cost personal computers, competitors would have been more than willing to take IBM's market share. Try as they might, the Luddites can'r put the genie back into the bubble. We need to fend off the special interests who fear-monger and rule at the expense of consumers, who benefit from greater competition and variety of goods and services.
(Rand Paul 2016). Is there a bigger idiot than Peter King?
Peter King, by sacrificing individual liberties in his mindless fearmongering defense of Big Brother run amok and his feckless support of throwing American lives and treasure at unsustainable foreign interventionism, is the true national disgrace.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Scott Stantis via IPI |
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| Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via Townhall |
Cat Stevens, "Wild World"
