The Tax Court has finally issued a long-awaited opinion in O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner. The majority concluded that O’Donnabhain’s hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery constituted deductible medical expenses… Sex Reassignment
Surgery Is Tax Deductible « Feminist Law Professors
Lancet Renounces Study Linking Autism And Vaccines – Shots – Health News Blog : NPR
It took 12 years, but the medical journal the Lancet has retracted once and for all a controversial paper that drew a link between vaccines and autism and helped fuel a backlash against immunization of children.
But now there are so many angry people involved, with so little scientific education and so much face to lose, that it will be a miracle if the evil genii can be put back in the bottle.
Adam’s Family Jewels < Killing the Buddha
We already know that the authors of the Bible are hardly trustworthy in matters of biology. Leviticus, after all, attributes only four, not six, legs to insects and appears to classify bats as birds. But … scripture isn’t nearly as chaste as we’re normally led to believe.
More women dying from pregnancy complications; state holds on to report | California Watch
The mortality rate of California women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, prompting doctors to worry about the dangers of obesity in expectant mothers and about medical complications of cesarean sections.
When they say it’s not about the money (C-sections bring in about twice as much as vaginal births), you can bet it’s about the money.
One of the worst things about living in South Florida is working in South Florida in the Winter. We won’t get into the traffic, or the snowbirds, or the vicissitudes and woes of any particular job — though, bog knows, I certainly could. What I mean is the weather.
I’ve lived in Florida all my life, for practical purposes. I love the state. No doubt I will die here, with a bunch of other old farts, and the worms won’t care that I’m a native and they’re transplants. (Well, they might, since I plan on a natural burial, but let’s not go there right now, please.) I’m perfectly willing to admit my state’s faults — many of them imported — including the weather, which tends toward hot, humid, infested with biting bugs, lightning, high winds and torrential downpours.
The “bad” weather is actually a good thing, since Florida sits at a latitude that includes practically all of the Northern Hemisphere’s major deserts, and would doubtless be one itself were it not for having the warm water on both sides that enables our wet season. But I digress…
The bad part about being employed in the Winter is that — on perhaps two to three dozen Winter days — this part of Florida has, without question, the most wonderful weather in the world.
It’s that kind of day today. The temperature is about 64 degrees, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, we have a 3-4 m.p.h. breeze to keep things comfortable if you are in direct sun, and no sign of a change all day, except for the possibility of a sizzling 75 later in the afternoon. That sucks. Because your humble servant is surrounded by windows and has to look out at it, but is stuck indoors with no prospect of freedom until too late in the day to make it to the woods.
With luck, we’ll have another frontal passage on Friday, and another beautiful, crisp day on Saturday. I want to take my granddaughter on her first birding expedition. In the meantime, I’ll just suffer.
If you’re outdoors today, have a little joy on my tab.
You’re welcome.
