Exoskelet: Japan vs USA

Purpose is to support disabled, and to support nursing personnel. Here a short vid on it, and here an article.	Purpose is evident I’d think. Here a short vid on it, and here an article.

The last weeks I sometimes try to understand the heated debates about Obama’s intention to reform the US healthcare system(s), and I get quite astonished by some aspects of it.

Like the often heard objection resumed in the oneliner: it is socialism!, the s-word obviously standing for some ultimate doomsday-scenario.  In Europe this ‘extreme left’ point of view was common practice till the privatizations became the standard. Nowadays here in Holland inurance for medical care is obligatory, and often it is the insurance company who decides which drugs or treatment are prescribed, and not the doctor. That’s something to worry about, I don’t know the role of the insurance companies in Obama’s view, but it has nothing to do with socialism, it’s plain capitalism.

I understood in America lots of money is spent on healthcare, but a large group (40 million +) is excluded. And that with all the different insurance companies and government agencies,  31% of all the money spent is spent on administration. So I guess there is room for some adjustments.
I can imagine the state-of-the-art-healthcare only in reach of a small group with private insurance or the money to pay it ‘out of pocket’ cannot be made accessible to everyone, or only at very high costs, especially with the babyboomers getting at the age to become dependant of all kinds of care, but I guess there are some basic things that  could be covered.
There may be some younger people who complain about paying taxes for a generation that did not pay for it in their time (and came up with the idea ‘to their own benefit’), they will benefit also in their time.
‘Funny’ thing is, in Europe lots of people are afraid they will not profit of all the money they spent on healthcare, pension funds etc., simply because the money will be gone when it is their time, with the aging of the babyboomers and lots of bad investments done by the funds.

When I surfed the facts & figures I stumbled on the staggering amount of taxmoney spent in the US on ‘defense’, which most US citizens do seem to take for granted.  Defense in brackets, because I don’t believe  you defend yourself bullying the rest of the world. Like ‘spreading democracy’ , another eufemism. I remember the docu ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ about the Bush-backed coup in Venezuela, where the new attorney- general (I believe, anyhow one of the gang) spoke those classic words: “We hereby decree, that a democratic transitional government shall be established in the following manner: we hereby dissolve the National Assembly, we also dissolve the Supreme Court, we dismiss the Attorney General, the head of the Central Bank, the Ombudsman, and the National Electoral Board.” To decree democracy is a whole new definition of the word. The docu may be manipulated by the Chavez-side, those words were not spoken by some actor hired to ridicule the anti-Chavez.
Acting like that you don’t make yourself popular, so you’ll have to buy more weapons to bully more, to make more enemies, to get in need of more arms etc. etc. In the end only good for the military industrial complex, not for the taxpayer.

Lots of idle words in clumsy English, like often an illustration says more than 1000 words, so I thought the ‘exoskeleton’ is a good example. In Japan an exoskelet is developed for medical purposes, in the US for warfare.

Lots of military applications may have their civil spinnoff (after being tested on the battlefield), it may delay developments also, because in the US inventions can be refused patent when they might have some military purpose. Since lots of things may have military purposes nobody knows how many beautiful inventions (energy, transport, medical) are dusting in army-labs, waiting for an opportunity to be tested.
So come on Uncle Sam, roar another battle-drum, we cannot wait for all the beautiful results…

U.S. Healthcare | World Military Spending

bellenblazen in de ruimte

	Een plaatje van één van de ‘planetary nebulae’, een naam die eigenlijk niet klopt, want het gaat om nevels die ontstaan in de laatste fase van het bestaan van sterren, het zijn de gassen die dan uitgestoten worden. De laatste adem dus. Een heel tijdelijk iets, want deze fase duurt ‘maar ‘ enkele tienduizenden jaren. Al zullen de creationisten zeggen dat dat allemaal gezwets (in de ruimte) is, want alles is pas 7000 jaar geleden gemaakt…. Lees hier meer over deze ‘Cygnus Bubble’. Hierondermeer van dergelijke nevels, die (behalve de officiële aanduiding zoals PN G75.5+1.7 voor bovenstaande), aangeduid worden met namen als ‘eskimonevel’, ‘kattenoognevel’ of ‘Gomez’ hamburger’. van links naar rechts, boven naar beneden: knipperende nevel, boomarangnevel, kattenoognevel, eskimonevel, Gomez’ hamburger, zandlopernevel, netvliesnevel, ringnevel, rot ei-nevel, zuidelijke krabnevel, spirograafnevel, twin jet-nevel. hier de pagina’s waar onderstaande plaatjes groter te zien zijn, met wat aanvullende info.

de ‘zeepbel’ is gefotografeerd met behulp van de ‘Kitt Peak Mayall 4-metre telescope in Arizona‘, ik mag ook graag kijken naar de opnamen van de Hubble-ruimtetelescoop, hier nog maar een keer de link: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/