Wednesday night

Watched President Obama's press conference tonight. I hope everyone did. I think he did an excellent job explaining things. If the blue pill costs twice as much as the red pill and both pills work the same, the red pill will be prescribed. No duplicative or otherwise unnecessary medical tests or treatments. I wish he'd touched on the fact that some treatments not only are not necessary but also may be harmful--which totally goes against what good medical practice is all about (do no harm!). (Actually, he kind of did when he talked about doctors making more money off a tonsillectomy for a child's sore throat than off other, non-invasive and less expensive treatments, but he wasn't out to dump on doctors.) I'm glad he made the point about MedPAC, the Republican invention designed to keep Medicare costs down. Obama wants to beef up its role. Meanwhile I've been listening to some of the talking heads and their hyped-up crapola.

Even when I was growing up, doctors performed tonsillectomies like they were going out of style. I did have tonsillitis as a kid but didn't get my tonsils out. It turned out not to be necessary. (My mother kept a record of my childhood medical treatments in a "baby book.") A tonsillectomy is an operation, with all the risks (including death) operations involve. (The treatment can be a lot worse than the disease.)

I was up early this morning and the inspector came just before 8:30 and spent a couple of minutes looking stuff over and then signed off on the permit. This was the final inspection. This was the same guy who last week inspected the plumbing. Again, he opened the dishwasher and looked under the counter and then looked under the sink. I was glad the piece of trim between the dishwasher and stove had been fixed, since it was preventing the dishwasher door from closing properly.

Making some quickie Swiss Steak with cubed steak that was on sale. I think I'll do this more often, since these go on sale a lot and they need help. They're cooking in crushed tomatoes and Publix frozen Seasoning Blend (plus garlic powder, salt, and some pearl onions I had in the freezer). Tasty sauce. This will be packed up and taken to work for lunch.

[Later] Tired. Watched Obama instead of taking a nap, and I was up an hour early to meet the inspector (did snooze on the bus). Didn't want to rely on the talking heads or bloggers for info.