Friday, April 25, 2003
It was about 6 months ago when the Moscow hostage crisis ended with more than a hundred hostages and all Chechen hostage takers dead. The substance used was an opiate called fentanyl (actually a derivative of it), a synthetic compound that is 100 times more powerful than the naturally-occurring heroin. To quote Les Dabney quoting at Testify! who quite independently did his own work on the subject back then...
FENTANYL, a commonly used and extremely potent narcotic, seems to be the most common narcotic associated with death in the recovery room.That's right - even the best of anesthesiologists have trouble controlling fentanyl - why should the Russian military do better? Answer: they can't and shouldn't have been expected to. I'll forgive the people on the ground because they didn't know any better. Blame should go to the leadership. Wasn't there anything that would incapacitate all in the theater without killing 1 in 7? Go ask any competent anesthesiologist.The real danger of the drug results from its long half-life and peculiar double-humped decay curve.
The average short procedure such as hemorrhoidectomy, nose job, dental extraction or arthoscopy takes less than 30 minutes. By 45 minutes the patient has arrived in the recovery room, received her initial assessment by the cautious and attentive recovery room nurse (one thing we have found in even some substandard hospitals is the quality, concern and attentiveness of the recovery room nurses) and is allowed to rest undisturbed. A few minutes later the recovery room nurse turns around and the patient is blue and pulseless.
(As for going in and shooting the hostage takers, I make no judgment against the military. These hostage takers got what was coming to them - they had already killed hostages. Screw them.)
Anyway, for grits and shins, I decided to check out the responses to that post in the blog world. Atrios linked to it first; it resulted in the biggest bump in my rather paltry hit count (I'm too lazy to advertise - tough nuts). It was also linked to by Neptune World, who rather enjoyed me going off on some Glennuendo. And then there was the pathetic Jay Caruso and his circle jerk, "Uh huhh huh huh. Uhhh huh huh huh. He said 'chickenblogger'." The only value to that little addition to the discourse was to prove Hesiod right when he coined the term 'chickenblogger'. It's perfect for the "kill the Muslims" chanters that are too afraid to address any actual point being made, lest they make idiots of themselves falling all over their 'logic' that they know to be full of shit.
For the record, that was the second and latest time I had used the term 'chickenblogger'. The first time was about 8 weeks earlier. So they read all about fentanyl and couldn't say a damn thing about it.
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Try to believe that the following sentences appeared in the lead to a New York Times thumb sucker entitled "Dilemma's Definition: The Left and Iraq" by one David Carr: "This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush."Or cheering for the Rams while carping about Mike Martz. It's a pretty obvious analogy that a liberal had to think up for the mental giants that make up the right.
Evidently, Carr is not a sports fan, or he'd have understood the concept of, say, cheering for the Arkansas Razorbacks while also thinking they need a new coach.
(I was going to use Marty Mornhinweg and the Lions as an example, but seeing as how they were much more feeble in their field than the US military is in theirs, the underachieving Martz seemed like a much better analogy.)
The Ashcroft Department has dropped its probe of Texas Tech professor Michael Dini. Dini changed his wording slightly in his procedures for giving out letters of recommendation for medical school, but his rules are the same as before.
Previous wording: "...truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer to the question: 'How do you think the human species originated?'"
New wording: ""If you set up an appointment to discuss the writing of a letter of recommendation, I will ask you: 'How do you account for the scientific origin of the human species?' If you will not give a scientific answer to this question, then you should not seek my recommendation."
Same thing if you ask me. The yutz that was turned down for a letter would still be turned down, because he simply refused to do what was asked. I don't know if it'll shut up the extremists, but they won't be getting any more assistance from John Ashcroft (R-insane).
