What is the number 3 most likely cause of death in the US? Yesterday on Car Concerns Harry had a guest on who asked us just that question. The guest was Jake Shannon. Jake has a book out called Anomaly: Revolutionary Knowledge in Everyday Life. You can see the book at his web site www.AnomalyNow.com.

Maybe Jake intended to take the answer to his question and use it to make a point about resisting manipulation in today’s world. We did talk about that, but once I knew the answer, we talked about something else.

What’s the answer? It’s Death by Doctor, in other words, medical malpractice. Jake’s source was an AMA article. (I found the link. Here it is. www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm)

Speaking of links, my mind immediately made this one. What is one of the things opponents to health care reform want to whine about? They want tort reform. The poor Doctors need relief from all those nasty groundless (so they say) lawsuits they’re being subjected to.

And then we find this little tidbit about causes of death. Puts a new spin on things, doesn’t it?

I’ve said before I’m open to looking into reducing costs by reducing the need for unneeded medical procedures. I still am, but I’m not open to lowering quality in medical practice, especially when current practice procedures results in the 3^{rd leading cause of death.}

Two events in the last couple of weeks (Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s award acceptance and Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s recent address to Congress on Health Care Reform) provide an opportunity to illustrate some of the principles I have been promoting in this spot.

While commanding a mechanized infantry organization I had two of its members get into an alcohol facilitated fight in the barracks. Those present intervened before significant human injury resulted, but the door to the room they were in suffered severe damage.

I was reminded of the incident based on Jay Leno’s interview with Kanye West one day after the incident. Leno asked West what West’s recently deceased mother would think of West’s behavior. West’s reaction clearly showed his mother would not have been happy with his behavior.

I’m reminded of my own incident because when I had each of my offending soldiers before me for corrective action I asked each of them the same question Leno asked West. Each of those soldiers had the same reaction West did. They knew they had made a mistake they regretted.

So maybe . . .