A PROFOUND STORY

Motorcyclists are an unusual lot. Many are just regular folks that like to feel the wind and the open road. Some have risk-taking personalities and enjoy other adventures. A few have sociopathic tendencies and a small number are downright masochistic.

And then there is the Author, who shall remain undiagnosed.

DRESS FOR THE SLIDE, NOT THE RIDE

This little platitude above encapsulates the need to wear protective equipment when you ride. The reasons to wear protective gear bear no need for explanation. Yet many motorcyclists fail to don the most basic of safety gear, a helmet.

Two posts from May, Law, Economics, Seat Belts and Motorcyclists Skulls,and Law, Economics, Seat Belts and Motorcyclist Skulls-Redux addressed some legal and economics concepts regarding negligence, the incurrance of risk, and measures to properly allocate risk.

The link below puts a human face and a human experience upon the failure to wear protective riding equipment. Please note that the woman was wearing a helmet and might have been killed instantly had she not worn a helmet.

Let her tell her story:

THE ACCIDENT

It was a beautiful Sunday morning even through my blurred vision. I was on the back of my friend Shaun’s GSXR 750 and was excited to be on a sport bike, even if it was as a passenger, after a long streak of no riding whatsoever. I had shed my prescription glasses for a pair of sunglasses, my cowboy hat for an oversized helmet, and quickly thrown on a pair of capri jeans, tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt over my bikini. I thought nothing of the fact that I had practically no protection against the asphalt if anything were to happen. I figured that we couldn’t get into a wreck, it simply wouldn’t happen to me. It’s amazing how fast life came at me that day.

http://www.speedfreakinc.com/content/articles/riding/roadrashqueen.html

SOMETIMES IT PAYS TO SHUT UP AND LISTEN IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

WELCOME DUCATI INDIANAPOLIS!

A new Ducati dealership opened in Indianapolis, Indiana, Ducati Indianapolis

The store is located at:

4629 Northwestern Drive
Zionsville, IN 46077
Phone: (317) 337-1098

The general location is north of 465 just off of Michigan Road. The Author's old stomping grounds when he lived in Indianapolis and Frankfort.

The Author wishes Ducati Indianapolis the best of luck. Indianapolis, and Indiana as a whole, has been without a Ducati store for sometime, so this is a welcome announcement for Indiana area Ducatisti.

BTW, the Author has no financial or personal relationship with Ducati Indianapolis. This post is just a public service announcement about a new dealership selling the finest motorcycles in the world today.

IN BOCCA AL LUPOL FROM THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

ARE QALYs INHERENTLY BIASED IN FAVOR OF PREVENTION OVER CURE?

YES, WHEN YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT ZAMBIA AND BURKINA FASO*

An article in Slate Magazine, “Wrong Number: Is it Cost Effective to Treat the World’s Poor”, written by pediatric cardiologist Darshak Sanghavi, triggered the Author’s interest in revisiting QALYs. Sanghavi begins the Slate article with the story of one of his former students working in a remote Zambian clinic. A three-year old boy, weighing only 15 pounds, was admitted to the malnutrition clinic. When the student listened to the boy’s heart, the student determined that the boy had a serious heart malformation.

The student then emailed her former professor Sanghavi and asked it there were any inexpensive drugs that she could give the child. Sanghavi replied to the email stating that unfortunately, there were no drugs that could help the child. And without surgery, the child would almost certainly die.

THE ZAMBIAN MEDICAL SYSTEM DOES NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO HELP THE BOY

Sanghavi notes the seemingly obvious:

Pediatric heart surgery is fabulously expensive, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars per case in the United States. Thus it would be foolhardy, goes the thinking, to offer surgery to poor African children who live on less than a few dollars per week. Isn't it better to invest in more cost-effective public-health measures, like mosquito netting to prevent malaria and vaccines against diarrhea? For decades, this kind of reasoning has been used to deny expensive but lifesaving treatments to the world's poor, most notably for HIV infection, in favor of more cost-effective measures focused on prevention. Dollar-for-dollar prevention is supposed to yield greater aggregate quality-of-life benefits than actual treatment.

Sanghavi then states that this argument, prevention buying lots cheap QALYs over expensive intervention, rigs the game so that the world’s poor will rarely receive expensive but effective medical care.

Know what? He is right. QALYs are economic calculations, not moral pronouncements. But unfortunately, money is a devilish limit upon otherwise salutary aims. And even the angels cannot manufacture more of it.

SO WHAT THEN IS TO BE DONE?

Most of the readers know that the author is an economic conservative and a social liberal. Nay, social radical. He believes that everyone on earth deserves a minimum level of support, food and health care. (Even uninsured Americans.)

To that end, he further believes that developed countries, and emerging developed nations such as China and India, should be required to pay some percentage of their GNP, perhaps around 5%, to developing nations to eliminate hunger, provide medical care, alleviate poverty, and stimulate economic development. Of course the Author recognizes that the governments of some developing nations (and at least one large developed nation) are riddled with corruption. In all cases the funds drawn from developed nations should be provided to the government and NGOs. In cases where the governments are so corrupt that they cannot be trusted with the resources, the proceeds should go to NGOs.

If there are better solutions, the Author would like to hear them.

ESCHEWING THE CULT OF NATIONALISM SINCE 2001 IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!


*Zambia and Burkina Faso are relatively poor, developing countries in Africa. The Author is confident that his loyal readers already know this, but offers this explanation for newcomers.