Czech Health Care System in Numbers

According to the recent statistics, socialized health care system in Czech Republic spent 17493 CZK on curing the patients and 74 CZK on preventing the diseases, per insured, for the last year.

No, there (probably) is no error in the magnitude of these numbers...

Interesting Times

Terry Pratchett has a book called "Interesting Times", in which is this lovely quote

" They have a curse…

They say…


May you live in INTERESTING TIMES "

If you had no idea what that means, you should right now. Or you better check the news quickly.

How to win the elections

Not much time for blogging but this one is worth linking to:

My favourite blogger and sci-fi writer says:

I’m not suggesting the Obama campaign is comprised of innocent does who would (gasp!) never stretch a truth for political gain. I am suggesting the McCain campaign is the first campaign, certainly in modern political history, that has decided that truth is entirely optional, and isn’t afraid to come right out and say it. And it’s working — and might well work all the way to the steps of the White House.

If it does, that will be an interesting political lesson for the GOP. It will be confirmation of the actual “Bush Doctrine” of “do and say whatever the hell you want, because no one has the will to stop you.”

The whole article is worth reading.

Benefits from alumni? Think again

Some faculty members or school administrators seem to think that it is enough to produce plenty of graduates to generate income and other benefits from alumni. This logic is flawed - you surely need alumni but they have to be happy to be from your school.
I can serve as an useful example. I'm pretty good student, I will most likely finish among the first in my cohort. My research, while not the best in the world, is well above average. I was even stupid enough to get funding for my mobility - something everyone is supposed to try to do yet nobody does. Even though I have encountered plenty of stupidity among the huge crowds of employees of CERGE-EI prior to my departure, it cannot be even compared what happened when I came back.
The school did not manage to get my entry card working, even after 6 weeks since I came back. I had a prior written agreement over my status for the next year. After I fulfilled my obligations, some people changed our agreement to something that had already cost me about $1500. When I came to a meeting with infamous Mr. Nemec to "negotiate", he told me "This is how it will be". I being discriminated by not getting a stipend when everybody else does - for reasons manufactured by "them". I will not continue, even though I could. It is a long list.
The point of this story is that when your graduates leave you angry and pissed off, they won't be very helpful for the school. I have graduated from Masaryk University and I have much, much better memories for that time. I will be glad to help them (In fact, I already am) whenever they ask. I will not for CERGE-EI. I hope this post does not prevent me from getting my degree, but as you can clearly see I am angry.

Back in Prague

I'm back in Prague, enjoying certain things (like parks, architecture, beer and food, rather few cars), hating others (quality of services, behavior of people to each other, reckless drivers).

I was thinking about a post evaluating my overall experience, maybe even a comparison of the cultures. I don't think I can do that. I just want to say this: You need to go there and return back to make a proper comparison.

I will note one other thing. The distances here are incredibly smaller. If you ride a car for 30 minutes outside of the city, you get somewhere. In the USA, it does not even count as a trip. Within such distance, there are literally hundreds of places worth visiting around Prague (not to mention the hundred within!). There are maybe two in San Diego, if you live in the right spot. It takes 45 minutes even to get to the San Diego Zoo.

Take Climate Change Seriously

There is one thing most of us can do to slow down or stop global warming. It comes for free - it even saves you some money. It increases your welfare or at least economic well-being. It gives you more free time, better social life.

Yes, I'm talking about NOT having babies.

The subconscious urge to spread your genetic material makes you have sex, not to have babies, and you can do that safely and comfortably these days. And you should find a restraint on the conscious level, because you now know you will save plenty of resources and reduce your CO2 (etc.) emissions.

Defend Yourself

How would you defend yourself if you were a small country, say Georgia, against somebody like, I don't know, Russia?

Obviously, raw military power is useless. It is not feasible to build regular army strong enough to defend your country against opponent that much bigger. One would hope that NATO and such organizations could help. But our own pre-WWII experience suggests otherwise.

Other means are difficult to obtain, and if your country signed certain international contracts, also illegal. I'm talking about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Such weapons won't help you in a local fight, they won't drive insurgents away but may deter your opponent from a full scale invasion.

As a legal and feasible method I see only special form of military training. You need to teach your people how to use guns, grenades, rocket launchers and explosive in a partisan war. Basically, you need to teach them how to become terrorists. If you opponent comes, your people will be learning it anyway - like Czechs (few of them) did when Germans came. Or even fewer when Russians did.

Let's hope it's not what Georgians are doing these days. It's kind of hard to prevent the people to use this partisan knowledge later in other causes. Like defending Islam, for example.

Anyway, all my support goes to Georgia. I hope their suffering will help others to remember that Russians are not a civilized nation and it seems unlikely they will ever be. Unfortunately, that does not mean that anyone who can do anything will do something. So what, Russians are conquering one small nation, right?

Well, one at a time. That takes Ukraine and Slovakia to get to Czech Republic.

Game over

I'm leaving for Prague next week. My stay here is basically over and so is probably this blog.

4th of July

I celebrated the 4th of July at the beach. Swimming just a little deeper allowed me to see a bunch of dauphins very closely. Being closer than 50 meters from them was really cool.
Unfortunately, after I came back to the beach to my stuff, I did not find my new sandals. I hope they serve the new owners well.

Happy days

I'm happy to inform you that this information came by mail

Your plans to leave the U.S. on the [July 16] have been approved...

Great! So I'm actually allowed to go home. I should not forget to apply for permission to breathe when I get there.