I'll admit it -- I am ashamed to be an American many times, especially when traveling abroad. While the country may not actually be full of a larder of fat morons, you would be hard pressed as a foreigner not to come to that conclusion watching our news and TV. And especially listening to our morning radio.

That's a strong reaction. I have never been ashamed simply to be American. I think I'm a pretty OK person, and I was raised in America by Americans. I went to an American school, was taught by Americans, was friends with Americans. I turned out all right.

I have been embarrassed by things that people in my country's government have said and done, I have been angered by things that individual Americans have said and done, but none of those things have ever made me ashamed to actually be a citizen of this country.

Fortunately, almost 100% of the people I meet abroad have the sense to know that America is not Borg, we do not have a hive mind, and they treat people as they find them, and not like I'm personally responsible for all the words and (mis)deeds of crazy people that I've never even met.

I do try not to act like a moron when I'm overseas, but then I also try not to act like a moron at home so maybe its just that I don't want *anyone* to think I'm a moron, foreign or domestic.

If it were that simple, how come two thirty-year olds can make a new baby? If the germ cells can keep making perfect copies of themselves, so can any other cell.

But they don't.

Two 30 year olds can produce a healthy child, but two forty year olds are much less likely to produce a child with no genetic defects. The risk of genetic defect increases dramatically as people age.

Women have all the eggs their body will ever have at *birth*. The DNA strands in those cells are constantly replicating -- like once a day -- and with each replication comes the possibility of a transcription error resulting in genetic defect, benign or not, depending on where the error occurs. Just by playing the numbers game one can easily determine that as a woman ages, the quality (for lack of a better term) of those egg cells will decline significantly as transcription errors become more likely. This is why older women are warned of increased likelihood of producing children with Down's syndrome, for example, and older men are now being warned of the increased likelihood of their offspring having autism.

Or someone to walk around in front of me all day holding a piece of glass with a thin film of vaseline on it so that everyone would see me in soft-focus all the time.

You can't emulate Vogue models or top actresses because, in a certain very critical sense, they don't exist.

Many months ago, someone posted a series of URLs to sites that show the "before" and "after" shots for photo retouching and airbrushing services. Many of these are shots of very famous actresses, and I was really stunned to see how different they look without computer enhancements to lift boobs, remove jowls, smooth out crinkly or mottled skin, plump up thin lips, you name it.

They must be really upset with the rapid adoption of HD television...

It is amazing to me how far into the dark ages medicine is when it comes to tracking what patients take and when.

There is such a database, more or less, it's called RxHub. If your patients have prescription drug coverage, their rx history is available through this database. This is especially significant with the rollout of Medicare Part D, given the myriad medications that seniors are on, and all their potential interactions.

If your patients are paying cash, that's another problem.

"Depression" is not the reason for everything, folks.

People go into 'dark places' sometimes. It just happens. I suppose it can be brain chemistry, but normal reactions to environmental factors (boring job, hate your boss/coworkers, crappy personal life, etc.) are not the same thing as "depression".

You're allowed to react badly to crummy situations: you're allowed to mope, you're allowed to be sad, you're allowed to not want to get out of bed and go to work if you can't stand your job. It doesn't mean you need to be medicated, it means you need to think about why you really are procrastinating, and come up with some ideas to change your environment.

in fact falling home values actually help the long term homeowner. why? their percent of ownership actually increases. i have paid 100k on a 200k house and the value falls to 150K, i am now closer to paying off my mortgage.

Eh? The cost of your mortgage does not miraculously adjust itself to match the current market value. You still owe $100K on your mortgage.