Short Healthcare Rant

Everybody’s ranting for one side or another on the current U.S. health care debate, so I might as well add my fuel to the flames.  After listening to a wide range of opinions, from single-payer systems to death squads, I have the following observation.

We, as a society, acting through our elected representatives, have determined that universal access to electricity is in the best interest of the country.  So in 1935 Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act to subsidize universal access to electricity among the rural and poor areas of the country.  We still have subsidized loan programs and grants for electrical infrastructure in rural areas.

We have determined that universal access to basic telephone service is an essential need of all Americans.  Our elected representatives passed the Telecommunications Acts of 1934 and 1996 to subsidize phone service to acheive that end.  We all pay $4-$5 per month on our phone bills to support basic telephone service for all households and schools.  We, as a society, have determined that it is in everyone’s best interest that poor folks can dial 911, and we, as a society, pay a monthly fee to subsidize universal access.

We have even determined that universal access to basic cable television is an essential need of all Americans that is worth subsidizing at the federal level.  And in 2007 Senator Ted Stevens sponsored the Universal Service for Americans Act that would have subsidized broadband internet to acheive near-universal access.

But many people, and their elected representatives, do not consider universal access to basic health care as an essential need of all Americans.

What does it say about us, that we value universal access to Fox News and broadband internet porn as more important than universal access to basic health care?

Norwegian Offshore Spill

From the newswires:

StatoilHydro shut in the Statfjord C platform on 25 September after a leak of produced water from platform’s riser.  Production is expected to resume within a few days.

StatoilHydro spokesman Geir Gjervan confirmed that produced water had leaked from the platform’s risers this morning, but said it has spince been plugged.

He added that the spill was minor, and that an internal investigation into the spill has begun.

Gjervan said he did not know whether the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), which was informed of the leak this morning, would also launch a probe.

Gjervan added that StatoilHydro could not put a figure on the amount of produced water which leaked from the risers.

A Coast Guard spokesman told news agency NTB that oil sheen had been observed over an area about two kilometres long and 300 to 400 metres wide.  He added that the Coast Guard had sent a plane to the area to observe the slick.

A PSA spokesman told NTB: “The leak was stopped immediately and StatoilHydro has shut in production from the platform until further notice. It is too early to give an indication of the leak’s severity.”

The sea in the area is said to be choppy, which should break down the slick quickly.

StatoilHydro operates Statfjord, which produces from three platforms.

The field’s total output is between 150,000 and 160,000 barrels of oil per day, according to StatoilHydro’s data.

A gas and oil leak onboard Statfjord A in May 2008 caused the evacuation of 160 workers, with several workers injured due to gas inhalation.  The leak was from onboard oil and gas storage vessels.

Statfjord C had a piping system leak in 2006 that required the mustering of non-essential personnel to the lifeboats for the better part of an hour until the leak was plugged.

The Angler Chants

Upon a rock-strewn western strand
Storm-driven waves thunder in
Rhythmic crashing I count the series
Three small, one large, the twelfth the largest
The fog begins to form.

Far east a dark hatted wheelchair
Claims arcane control of the winds
Chimeric chants, undisclosed locations
Connect secret dots, read foreign entrails
The fog sweeps in.

Pour water down a chained man’s throat till death’s smell starts
Chant three times, talk in circles, claim circumspect
A mumbled rendition
The storm will soon abate
The fog thickens.

Farther east, storm tossed on a raging sea
A father’s son slept on a boat
Woken by fearful fishermen, spoke
“Be still” and laid back down
The seas calmed.

The wind shifts, the mists recede, the seas calm
The dark hat tosses bones, chants three times thrice again
The angler summons, opaque shadows coalesce
I count the receding waves
The clouds gather for the next storm.

Photo for Friday

Kayaking through the ice fog in front of Taku Glacier on the Taku River.

Poetry for Thursday

W.B. Yeats, promoting the quiet contemplation needed for the spark of genius.

Long-Legged Fly

That civilization may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.
(Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.)

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.
(Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.)

That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope’s chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
(Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.)

W.B. Yeats

Updated Sarah Palin Poll Numbers

Hays Research has released updated poll numbers, the first since Sarah Palin resigned from office.  The poll was conducted 29-30 July, and has a margin of error of 4.9%.  For more information, see my earlier post or the Hays Research website.

Here’s the trendline graphs:

These are the aggregate numbers, with trend lines.  The non-aggregated data is a little more interesting.

She’s succeeded in pissing off about 1 in 3 Alaskans.

Basho Haiku

The household events of last night and this morning prompted memories of Basho.

mewing, bedroom’s
touched by moonlight.

Spring rain -
under trees
a crystal stream

Latest Sarah Palin Poll Numbers

An addendum to earlier posts, here and here, adding the most recent poll results from the 5 May survey.

The telephone survey polled 400 Alaskans over 18 years old, selected randomly.  If no one was home, up to four consecutive attempts were made to reduce non-response bias.  The margin of error is 4.9% and the confidence level is 95%.

The downward slide continues.  She has suffered a 45% loss of people who rate her “very positive”,  and the number of people who view her “very negatively” continues to grow.

Her overall “positive” rating (“very positive” + “somewhat positive”) was around 80% throughout much of 2007 and 2008.  Once she started campaigning for vice-president those numbers started to nosedive.

Conversely, her negative numbers are rising, especially the “strongly negative” replies.

The Price of Oil

The Department of Energy held a conference earlier this month.  One of the recurring themes of the speakers was the “slingshot effect” that current low oil prices could have on future production and future prices.   The prevailing theory is that if oil companies cut back too far on their investments, the world could find itself short of crude when the economy recovers and oil demand picks up again.

And if returning demand far outstrips supply, prices could shoot up again — just as they did last year — forcing consumers to conserve energy and driving down demand, eventually taking prices back down, starting a series of wild swings in price and supply.

Saudi Arabia would like to see oil stabilize at around $75 a barrel.  They worry that large swings in the price of oil will drive the world toward other energy sources — not good news for an oil-producing nation, particularly for Saudi Arabia, which has no backup plan for a continued existence as a country without oil.

The general feeling was that most new big projects around the world need oil above $50. That seems to be the break-even point for many projects. Angola deep-water prospects need something around $50, or even up to $80 in some cases.  Unconvential oil sources like Alberta’s oil sands or ANS cold oil have even higher break-even points.

Some low-cost producing nations are in better shape than Angola, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But cost of production is different from the price needed to pay for government programs, especially in countries such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Venezuela needs oil at almost $95 to balance its spending and meet its social agenda. The Saudis need $50 oil to balance their budget.

There was a lot of discussion of the causes — real and emotional — of last year’s oil-price spike.  The Department of Energy pointed out that on April 6, for example, 229 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude oil were traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, yet just 400,000 barrels of the oil is produced on an average day and worldwide just 80 million barrels of all grades of oil are produced on an average day. Obviously, most of the traders never take actual delivery of the oil, they are hedging their bets, gambling, speculating or investing, depending on your choice of words.

All that speculation does not affect price, said Robert Weiner, a professor of international business  at George Washington University. What it does affect is price volatility, he said. Prices spiked last year because of strong demand growth among developing nations, lack of enough new production to meet that demand, increased nationalization by oil-producing nations, and fear of supply shortages, he said.
Some argued the fear was irrational, but no one argued that it did not affect the market.

Spring

Spring is coming.  Out for my morning walk, I heard the first varied thrush of the year.  The breeze is warmer, with every day above freezing.  The days are noticeably longer, and the sun actually feels warm to these old bones.  The buds on the alders are beginning to swell.