Word: perfectible
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that measured? It's based on the cost of a measure called the "quality-adjusted life year" [QALY]. A QALY scores your health on a scale from zero to one: zero if you're dead and one if you're in perfect health. You find out as a result of a treatment where a patient would move up the scale. If you do a hip replacement, the patient might start at .5 and go up to .7, improving by .2. You can assume patients live for an average of 15 years following hip replacements. And .2 times 15 equals three...
...good news is that today's nuclear industry is no longer dysfunctional. It's not perfect-an Ohio reactor nearly melted down in 2002, and the lead operator of a Florida plant recently quit after accusing his bosses of unsafe practices-but it has learned from its mistakes. Its reactors ran at a record 92% capacity last year. It's doing a better job of storing its radioactive waste at its plants. It has standardized designs for new reactors, which should enhance safety, and it has successfully lobbied to streamline its regulatory process, which should reduce delays...
...debut album, Fortress Round My Heart, Maria opens with the perfect song for her aesthetic. "Oh My God" is basically just a few frantic chords and two repeated phrases--"Find a cure/Find a cure for my life" in the verse and "Oh my God" in the chorus. One lyric is a prayer for control; the other a realization that she has none, and Maria plays the former like someone meditating before a hurricane and the latter like the hurricane itself. She roars from the back of her throat, timing the G in God to the crash of the snare...
...Shahar, who is the author of Happier (2007) and a new book, The Pursuit of Perfect (April 2009), describes realistic optimists as "optimalists" - not those who believe everything happens for the best, but those who make the best of things that happen...
Gelb, who believes the proper reaction to an Iranian bomb is containment and deterrence, not force, may be reacting to past American arrogance with undue humility. "If you try for the perfect solution, you're asking for failure," he says. We have to tolerate a world that isn't quite as we'd want it to be. It will be interesting to see if Barack Obama, who has pretty much gotten his way at every turn, will be able to handle that...