To Infinity & Beyond!

New name for an unimaginably large number: a "stimulus." As in, "The star twenty galaxies away is a "stimulus" away from earth in light years." Iowahawk has the story.(Iowahawk language and imagery, you are warned.)

Project director Yujin Xiao of Stanford University said the theoretical number, dubbed a "stimulus," could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and Chicago asphalt contracting."Unlike the previous large numbers like the Googleplex or the Bazillionty, the Stimulus has no static numerical definition," said Xiao. "It keeps growing and growing, compounding factorially, eating up all zeros in its path. It moves freely across Cartesian dimensions and has the power to make any other number irrational."

Downside? A stimulus can kill you. Because tucked inside the stimulus bill is a health care coup in which a government board decides whether and how your doctor can treat you. Nobody's rosaries are going to be on anyone's ovaries, but Big Brother is going to touch you all over.

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446).

Oo, "monitor treatments," I like the sound of that.

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541).

My favorite part is where Tom Daschle, designer of the new program (although he won't be around to administer it, alas --and after he'd crafted his own powers so nicely!) admits the purpose of government health care is to destroy health care.

The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.

And behold the siren song of the culture of death:

He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

So that's what President Obama meant by

We will restore science to its rightful place

The back seat!

And Say g'night, Gramma! Except of course You, Gramma Pelosi, because Democrats in power will avoid this system as easily as they avoid paying taxes.

Update: a reader left a link questioning the validity of this, but Sen. Coburn's still crying foul. With links.