ObamaCare Is Winning the Fight on Fraud and Abuse

Thanks to provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA/ObamaCare) and to an unprecedented effort by the Obama Administration, more progress has been made in the past three years to combat health care fraud and abuse than ever before. There was a 68.9 percent increase in criminal health care fraud prosecutions from 2010 to 2011, and 2010 was already the highest ever. See the chart below, released last month by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Read the rest here

… in terms of tourism dollars, payouts, subcontracting, etc. etc. Indeed, most of the people I know in Italy who are not archaeologists are somehow involved in restoring old stuff, and I think a good amount of Vatican money goes into that. But it appears that my assumption was wrong.

Six billion euros. That’s how much the Catholic Church costs Italy every year, according to the first detailed investigation of the impact of state support and tax privileges received by the Church. The findings by Italy’s Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), a member organization of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, were published the day after Italy’s new government announced a budget filled with new taxes and drastic spending cuts.

“Six billion euros per year are a lot,” said Raffaele Carcano, secretary of UAAR.

I’ll say! Check out the whole story here. Tax The Churches!

Hat Tip Aseem.

In April, we continued to look at the disaster in Japan, focusing entirely on the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Miller and I were criticized for not focusing on something other than Fukushima. It became apparent that TEPCO had ignored warnings that Fukushima was poorly cited with respect to tsunamis, and despite the assertion that the nuclear material at the site was ‘contained’ the amount of radioactive material in the nearby ocean was rising. Much of the debate of whether or not Fukushima was a problem (this debate would sputter out by the end of the month or early May) shifted to whether or not nuclear accidents were normal and expected, and attempts by nuclear power advocates to paint nuclear power as a victim of unreasonable demands started to become more common.

Here are a few of the key Fukushima related posts with the most comments:

• Japan nuke news 20: Tokyo Electric: “fuel may have melted”
• Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 17: Fukushima is now officially “a Chernobyl”
• Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 16: Radioactive leaks? It’s a feature, not a bug!
• Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 14: Waiting for the other shoe to drop

I mentioned in my previous retrospective that I interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson in March. It was actually early April! Sorry. Details here.

I reviewed, controversially, the controversial film about the controversial Timothy Treadwell, produced and directed by the controversial Werner Herzog. We’re still trying to work out what happened: Why Was the Grizzly Man Eaten by a Bear? (Film review and commentary)

In April, I wrote an extensive set of posts on how to make good use of your time at the gym. But it wasn’t just exercise advice; There were stories too (Africa. Some time in the early 1990s.; Lenora; Funny haha, funny strange).

I had the pleasure of interviewing Aardvarchaeology blogger and renowned skeptic Martin Rundkvist and Swedish journalist Yusie Chou. Click through to the podcast.

I might have complained about Wikipedia.

Tornado season started. It was to prove to be a bad one.

I started complaining about Unity and Gnome 3.0. A lot of people told me to shut up. So I did. But I would like to note that Linus Torvalds and I have the same exact opinion, arrived at separately. So there.

In April, I started a new project which continues to this day. I write a blog post once a month for the esteemed birding blog, 10,000 Birds. My first one was: Bird Song and Parallel Evolution: learning from our feathered friends.

In this month, Michele Bachmann made her first mistake as a politician seeking the presidency: She admitted that Obama’s Birth Certificate is real and legal. But we still have hopes that she will be the republican Nominee!

Lew died.

We had some discussion about Gun Control and Firearms Owership, and Gun Safety, and I threw some data up on the blog. Here are the most relevant posts:

• “We’ve grown up around firearms. We know the safety and we practice it.”
• Injuries and Deaths from Firearms in the US in 2000
• Deaths from firearms in the US, 2000-2007
• Accidental v. Intentional, Fatal v. Non-Fatal, Gunshots, 2000-2007 in the USA

We discussed getting your toddler to sleep.

April is the month that we started moving forward with the National Geographic Society – ScienceBlogs partnership.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aezb_FO_JeA&t=0m22s

Found and and adapted from HERE

I hate stories like this because they fuel racism and make it hard to do good public anthropology. Before you read the following, do remember that even though the police were involved and paper work was filled out, it really, really, may not be true at all. I’ve seen accusations like this occur which were not based on reality, and I’ve seen them reported in newspapers.

On the other hand, things like this do happen now and then, and you might be surprised to know that they happen in the US as well as other places. OK, enough caveats:

Continue reading I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky in the US to merely have anti-Vaxers and Snake Handlers: →

… even if she’s not from Minnesota. Because we have a saying here: “It’s good enough.” This philosophy works great. If we figure out the exact optimal amount of effort to put into something, then put in just a little bit less effort, we get the job done in a way that saves a buck or two and lets us suffer just a little bit. Like good Norwegian Bachelor Farmers should.

But perhaps that’s not what Debbie was getting at in her latest essay: Fortune Cookie Consideration: Letting Things Be “Good Enough”

…, it can be easy to focus on the flaws and ignore the successes. When I reflect on myself and on my place in life, particularly during this downer time of year, I can be pretty critical. I think of ways that I should be better, of ways that my life circumstances could be better…

Go read it.

The National Defense Authorization Act probably did not authorize US police or military organizations or individuals to detain US citizens without cause or due process. The bill was written in such a way that existing statute in this regard would not be affected. But just to make sure, President Obama added a signing statement stating that the new bill would not be used that way.

Here is the signing statement.

The relevant paragraph states:
Continue reading NDAA signing statement: “Does not apply to US citizens.” →

March was a particularly important month for this blog, and for everybody in the world, really, because it is when the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, and Fukushima meltdown started. Although I blogged early on about the quake and tsunami, my colleague and friend Analiese Miller and I eventually focused on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and to date we’ve produced 41 numbered updates, part of a larger set of over 60 posts. And we shall continue.

We were able to identify, from the very beginning, a problem in the skeptical community’s reaction to Fukushima. For historical reasons, most skeptics had become supporters of nuclear power, and often with good reason, but many had become uncritical advocates and at the same time, uncritically viewed people (like Ana and me) criticizing the nuclear power industry as woo-peddling anti-rationalists.

They were wrong, we were right. We were seeing, in the physical evidence at hand, evidence of meltdowns, as our skeptical colleagues smugly and with perfect certainty told us that no such thing could happen. We questioned the intelligence of placing a nuclear power plant at an elevation susceptible to a tsunami, we were told by our skeptical colleagues that no one had any idea a tsunami could strike this location, and then it was shown that the possibility of such an event was known and brushed aside at the time the plant was planned and licensed. And so on. But if you think I’m saying here “I told you so,” don’t worry, I’m not. That will come later, when we know more, and when it will have more meaning and more exposure. Watch this space during the coming March.

There were a few other posts that month, of course. I addressed the question How long is a generation? This was the month Tom Johnson was revealed. I did an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I wrote a really fun essay about stramtolites. We talked about the question of how often animals die in front of visitors in zoos, after a tragic and rather public polar bear death. The Crossley ID Guide, a remarkable new bird book, came out (or, at least, my review of it came out). It was PZ Myers (of Pharyngula)’s birthday, which is also my brother’s birthday, and a big deal in the blogosphere. Also, I interviewed PZ on the radio.

In March, I updated and reintroduced The Skeptical Search Engine.

And I reposted one of my favorite essays, which you should read if you have not already: Finding Facebook.

… is over on Camels with Hammers.

Daniel documents and discusses Cee-lo Green, whom I’ve never heard of before but now know of as a dishonest, disgusting dick-head, singing but changing the words of a song written by a man who is a thousand times better than Cee-lo Green, as part of the New Year’s celebration. Cree Lo, kiss my ass.

Details here.

Read the comments at CWH. It appers that Cee Lo Green has committed an illegal act, violating copyright law, in the process of being a dick. I assume he has no problem with this because it was also a Christian Act, which justifies it. Right?

Whichever recording company or network owns his ass should make a statement explaining how they are going to fix this, I assume.

Last night, a Minneapolis woman gave birth to twins. Two of them. But labor was tough. The first one was born just before 7PM on December 31st, 2011. The second one was born just after midnight, Januray 1st, 2012. This will get interesting in about 12 years.*

The following tragic news story appeared on this morning’s WCCO Web Site. I’ve highlighted certain parts of it:

Are you tired of Tebow Tebowing? Well, one answers a gesture with a gesture, a symbol with a symbol. Next time you score at Touchdown during an NFL game, or whatever the normal human equivalent of that might be (finding your shoes on sale, getting your cheapskate friend to buy you a beer, etc.) try Thinkering. This is a picture of David Silverman of the American Atheists demonstrating this idea, which is apparently his. Good idea, Dave. A little reminiscent of the “Brights” idea but hopefully no one will remember that.

For the first time all year, we had more than just a dusting of snow. The snow transcended the New Years Moment, so only a tiny bit fell in 2011 and a tiny bit fell in 2012 (no big deal because that is not how we count winters, but still…). Unfortunately, the snow fell during the New Years Drunk Driving Tournament we seem to have every year, so statewide 138 vehicles were reported to have run off the road or spun out (I quickly add that this is a very under-reported statistic. If you drive your ride into a field and then back onto the road and continue on your way, you are not likely to call it in.) There were 88 crashes statewide, 54 in the Twin Cities Metro. There were eleven injuries and 20 people were arrested statewide for DWI. One of the accidents was a police squad car at a crash scene which was in turn crashed into by a (would have been) passing drunk driver. Happy New Year. I was in bed, didn’t see a thing. (Statistics from various radio and web reports.)

Birders, please report your first bird of 2012 here. And speaking of new year, what is the history of new year anyway? Here’s one take on it.

As you know, I rather enjoy having some food in my bugs, but sometimes it is nice to have some bugs in my food too.

And finally, check out this Skeptics Guide to New Year’s Resolutions.

If you have a touch screen device that requires a password to unlock, and the location of the password is fixed on the screen, add repeating digits to you PIN. For obvious reasons.

I just want all the fundraisers for candidates, the Democratic Party, and all the other causes and concerns to know the following: What you are doing now is causing me to remove myself from each and every one of your mailing lists. In other words, sending me dozens of emails asking for money before midnight tonight is, well, backfiring. Just. Stop It.