HumanRightsFirst.org is live-blogging the Gonzales hearing. Cool! (They also have links to the Real Player feed from C-SPAN.)

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Modern medicine has crossed into magic.

My wife Ann went into the Brigham and Women’s Hospital today at 6AM to have her tachycardia — episodes of a racing heartbeat — fixed. A little before 10AM, they threaded five wires up through her arteries (veins?), from her groin directly into her heart. Ann says the procedure was basically painless.

Once the catheters were in her heart, the doctors stimulated a tachycardia episode and used that to figure out which circuit was going astray. They heated the tip of one of the wires and burned a square millimeter or so of her heart. They then tried to stimulate another episode. They failed, which is a good thing. Ann was wheeled back into the recovery room a little before 11. There she lay on her back to let her blood vessels recover. She was discharged at 3, and was told not to lift any heavy objects for a day or so; otherwise, she can go back to her normal routine of lifting light objects. We’ve been home for half an hour, and Ann is resting in bed, drinking a cup of tea.

Everyone we dealt with at the hospital treated us with warmth and humor.

Details about Tachycardia: Ann had been having episodes for several years. We were assured that they were not life-threatening to healthy hearts, but because of the episodes’ frequency, duration, and intensity — typically over an hour, 250 beats/minute, about once a month — her cardiologist thought she was a good candidate for the procedure she went through today. (Beta-blockers were making her tired so staying on medicine forever wasn’t an attractive option.) We were told that the fatality rate is well under 1% and the chance of ending up needing a pacemaker because of the procedure was also under 1%. The success rate is 95%. So, we decided to go ahead. Her problem turned out to be with the AV node.

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I have very limited Web access today, so I won’t be doing much (= any?) blogging. Try to carry on without me.

I did, however, give blood this morning, the first time in several years. I used to give a few times a year when it was convenient, e.g., when a bloodmobile would drive up to the doors of the building where I worked. Now that I have to get off my fat ass to drive 10 minutes to the blood clinic, I don’t do it. If only I could give blood over the Web…

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Ethan has a fascinating post about the growing skepticism about the reports from the Burmese government that the tsunami caused only minor damage. The Myanmar government continues to refuse aid.

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Peterme points to a terrific essay by Adam Mathes titled “Folksonomies – Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata” and sparks a discussion of whether “folksonomy” is a good or right term for the sort of thing that del.icio.us does. I happen to think it’s a keeper, but I also like Kirk Scott‘s “tagsonomy.” [Note: Jon Lebkowsky tells me that he was actually the one who came up with it. Kevin Marks seems to have come up with independently.]

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Dan Gillmor is off on his journey. His new blog is here. This should be fascinating to watch…

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Banda Aceh before

Banda Aceh after

More at DigitalGlobe.

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A number of commenters are looking for ways they can lend a helping hand beyond opening their wallets. Some are willing to travel to the affected areas, live in tents, and pitch in. Does anyone know of any groups willing to take them up on their offer?

Here’s Peter Kaminski on that very question. And a tsunami aid blog. (Thanks for the links go to Staci Kramer, who has more on donation sites.)

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RealClimate.org defines its purpose this way:

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

Inevitably, because this is a blog with a voice and a point of view, the discussion is far from dry, with entries such as these:

George Will-misled and misleading
How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?
Fox News gets it wrong

This is engaged, passionate science. Cool. [Thanks to Hanan Cohen for the link.]

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And the winner is: The Boston Globe for today headlining the plight of tsunami victims and, three inches away, running this teaser at the top of the page:

The article, on the front page of Living/Arts, relates the heart-breaking story of Blake Conney who drunk-dialed her old boyfriend and gave him a chicken recipe. Should she have deleted his name from her cellphone? The decision is, as the teaser promises, agonizing.

[Thanks to our daughter Leah for pointing this out.]

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