Baron, either you are incapable of understanding English or very stupid (possibly both - I do not want to pre judge

):
“ … I told clearly why I want the type of federal health care I described - BECAUSE IT IS CHEAPER FOR ME, AND PROVIDES ME WITH A LONGER AND HEALTHER LIFE.
I want the economy of preventive care for all so I do not have big hospital bills to pay …
To hell with the guy who needs false teeth and cannot afford them. - He will not cost me or my grand children anything if he only eats soup etc. …
Reducing the number poor people going to hospital emergency rooms SAVES me money. Reducing the number of snotty-nosed, constantly-sick kids on the school bus via preventive care keeps MY grandchildren healthier. – It is simple selfish looking out for number 1 that makes me support preventive health care for ALL (and centralized birth to death health records).
How many times must I tell you this? I am not supporting this to help anyone but ME and MY family. …
Only the ideologically stubborn and stupid oppose the well demonstrated in other countries health care systems which provide very large cost reductions AND longer, healthier, life expectancies. …”
This blue text “quoted above, is part of my post 320.
Thus only as an uncomprehending idiot can you say, in post 325, I am:
“… holding yourself {Billy T} out as a righteous proponent of helping the poor and under-privileged of the world???? ...” - Baron said.
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Now a note on quickly made post 320:
I did not have time to edit to correct for my mild dyslexia. It is epidural stimulation (not edidural). The dura is the tough sheaf that surrounds the spinal cord. (“dura” even means “tough” in Italian, I think.) Thus epidural electrical stimulation is sort of like direct electrical acupuncture with current passing thru the dura to reach the nerves of the spinal cord. The dura surrounded cord is inside the lumen of the backbone. The needle which can penetrate to it must be stiff and strong. (If you have ever seen the needle used to make a spinal tap, you would be shocked how big and stiff it is.) We used that large needle to slide my electrode thru and then pulled it out of the body, leaving the long thin electrode in contact with the dura.
The other end of the cable from the electrode had no connector –just loose wires. (Had to be that way so the needle was not captive on the cable.) Thus, in the sterile field of the OR the doctor, or I, had to solder the connector onto these wires AFTER needle had been totally pulled off the cable. The rechargeable (by AC magnetic field) drive unit for the electrode is typically implanted inside the abdomen. In the case of a heart stimulator, with open chest surgery, this drive unit is already attached to the electrode cable and no needle is used to place the electrodes on the heart.
Making a solder connection in the OR is not the best procedure and has no quality control, so I invented a special stiff needle which had two parts. One was U shaped in cross section and the other was a thin “blade” that closed the top of the U. One laid the cable into the U from the side, then made it captive inside by sliding the blade part into the U. (Note the top corners of the U were rolled slightly inward both to avoid needless cutting of the patient and to hold the blade in place.) Then the proceed proceeded as normal. After the electrode was in place on the dura, and the needle fully removed from the body back to the pre-attached connector (or drive unit in later cases) the blade part was pulled from the U part and the cable freed SIDEWAYS from the needle.
I am only the inventor of this special epidural electrode insertion needle. JHU/APL is the owner and it is probably “off patent” by now. I tell this to show how important it is for the physics support person to be in the OR and really understand what is done.
Now some more (only a tiny part) of my connection with the JHU hospital:
I have looked inside a lady’s abdomen on the OR table via the micro optical system of a laparoscopic procedure. (She is anesthetized and her abdomen is greatly expanded by CO2 to have room to work with the tiny tools that slip thru the small diameter tube.) The immediate impression is: My God how neat and clean we are inside!
The gas expanded abdomen void is very beautiful to see, neat and clean inside – there is no blood free and all the organs can be examined. That is why I was there – to understand a still existing problem of laparoscopic surgery: I.e. the doctor needs three or four arms. - One to hold and direct the light, one to work the tiny scissors etc., one to move organs out of the way with a blunt “stick” and one to direct the micro camera or hold the tube and guide the optics that permits him to see what he is doing. Currently, (at least 25 years ago) an advanced medical student stands behind, in contact with the doctor’s back, and supplies the extra needed hands. (Sometimes he may be on the other side of the table, but he is more in the way of nurses etc. there.)
The Doctors at JHU Hospital think we well paid physicists at JHU/APL can do anything technical. (Almost true) He wanted me to design a robot he could verbally command to replace the sleepy and bored medical student leaning on his back. That was too tough BACK THEN, and I was scared of the potential for serious trouble if verbal command was misunderstood etc. So I compromised with him and made a clamp on the end of a “goose neck” (many short rigid segments) that collectively were flexible, IFF there was a significant vacuum inside, which there was when he put his finger over a small hole. Normally the “goose neck” was a completely rigid structure as the hospital vacuum system was sucking air in thru that hole. He did not get the verbally commanded robot he asked for, but with one or more goose necks, he could hold the light and view tube in a fixed position, until he wanted to move them to another. In their illuminated field, he viewed and worked the micro scissors with his dominate hand and used the other to stabilize organs, etc.
In my 30 years at JHU/APL I spent a lot of time at the hospital, the primate lab, and the Wilmer Eye Clinic. I had a ball, did what I liked and usually only what interested me, and was paid well to do it! (Eventually, I was part of the “principle staff” – highest rank, sort of like a professor, only better paid.) I was granted one year with full pay to spend 100% of my time at the University. – I spent it in the cognitive science department – why I know a little about how the brain functions and how our perception works (but my POV is definitely not the accepted one.)* See:
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*
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.ph...6&postcount=52
for details, and evidence supporting this non-standard POV. It is a long read, about 8 pages if printed and this post is mainly focused on how my POV about preception etc. does make it possible to have "free will" and yet not be in conflict with the fact that the firing of every nerve is controlled by the laws of Physics about difusion of neurotransmitter across the synaptic gaps , etc.