It turns out that how well you know your basic economics principles correlates pretty closely with your spot on the political spectrum. Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101. Zogby researcher | Read More »
This woman and Penn Jillette might have a lot in common to talk about regarding how the Religious Right have been portrayed in our culture. [Eve] Tushnet entered Yale in 1996 a happy lesbian, out since age 13 or 14 (she can’t quite remember). Her father, a nonobservant Jew, and her mother, a Unitarian, both belonged to progressive traditions, tolerant of her sexuality. When, as | Read More »
In the superb movie “Awakenings”, Leonard Lowe (Robert DeNiro) is woken up from his catatonic state by a drug administered by Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams). All goes well until Leonard starts to exhibit some side effects. While this is happening, he insists that Dr. Sayer continue to film him, which Sayer is doing as part of the research. We see Leonard from the perspective | Read More »
Moore made some money making the movie “Sicko”, which extolled the virtues of the Cuban health care system, such as it is. Margaret Chan might be trying to do the same for the North Korean one. GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea’s health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of | Read More »
I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while, and I think it’s time to put these thoughts out there and see if I can get other fair-minded folks to back me up on this. I’ll have to admit it’s not something that’ll be easy to adjust to, but I think that, in the end, you’ll thank me. On average, every year airline travel kills | Read More »
A blog I used to write was just a collection of quotes I liked. Early one was this one: “Smokers don’t impose health care costs on society; governments that insist on paying for smokers’ health care impose health care costs on society.” — Sasha Volokh, from The Volokh Conspiracy blog (This was done while the Volokh Conspiracy was still using Blogspot. They’ve moved to their | Read More »
While I’m just as “avid” a fan of Glenn Beck as my co-group-blogger Rusty (i.e. only really catch him on the occasional web snippet), I have read the transcript of his “social justice” rant, and I really don’t think Beck said what his detractors say he said. Beck was talking about churches/denominations for whom one of their driving forces is implementing aid to the poor | Read More »
Should something as huge as the remaking of the healthcare system in America be done in such a “unipartisan” manner? Ask Barack Obama. That was then: And this is now: White House officials tell ABC News that in his remarks tomorrow President Obama will indicate a willingness to work with Republicans on some issue to get a health care reform bill passed but will suggest | Read More »
That was then: We are in a war because the Generals want to play with their toys and don’t give a damn how many people get hurt in the process. We are in a war without direction, or discipline, led by a disengaged simpleton who will do whatever he is told by the unelected war mongers who are running our government. This is now: Now, | Read More »
A Knights of Columbus / Marist poll shows that the trend in the abortion debate is moving towards the pro-life side. And not just from a political standpoint, but from a moral one as well. On the eve of the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion throughout the United States, a new survey shows a strong majority | Read More »
Over my Christmas vacation, while I wasn’t blogging much, I was still watching the news and bookmarking articles to cover later on. Today I’m using one of those bookmarks. While the original story itself is a bit stale, the concept is what I want to focus on. From “Investor’s Business Daily” on December 4th: Chile is expected to win entry to OECD’s club of developed | Read More »
Any religious expression, it seems. A commentator can’t say anything remotely religious without getting lambasted by the Left. (And, no doubt, with exclamations like “Jesus Christ!” thrown in for good measure.) While commenting on the Tiger Woods situation, former Fox News anchor Brit Hume dared dig deeper into the story and commented on one of the underlying issues. Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. | Read More »
Well, up to a point, but it’s not the bugaboo that many people make of it. Young children spanked by their parents may grow up to be happier and more successful than those who have never been hit, a study has found. According to the research, children spanked up to the age of 6 were likely as teenagers to perform better at school and were | Read More »
President Obama announced yesterday evening that he’s authorizing 30,000 more troops for Afghanistan. Reactions to it have been just about what you’d expect. The NY Times headline is, “Qualified Support From G.O.P.; Skepticism From Democrats”, and the article quotes Democrats upset at it and Republicans with guarded approval, with some concern over a specific timetable. Bruce McQuain at the Q&O blog expounds more regarding the | Read More »
And it ain’t a happy day for the CRU. True, this is a cybercrime, and the perpetrator(s) should be brought to justice. But equally as big is the contents of the >1000 e-mails and >3800 documents. The Hadley Climate Research Unit has confirmed the hack, so this is not a hoax, and global-warming-skeptic sites like “Watts Up With That” and Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald-Sun | Read More »
That’s the title of a new campaign by the Family Research Council, trying to get the word out on how so many diseases and conditions (>70) are already being treated successfully with adult stem cells. Currently the most common and effective treatments using stem cells are various forms of cancers and anemias, he said, though adult stem cells have also repaired heart attack damage, treated | Read More »
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is being promoted to, what amounts to, full citizen of the United States of America for purposes of standing trial, in civilian court, for his war crimes. He’ll get all the rights and privileges afforded citizens, and even just residents living under the laws of our land, even though he has never been either of those. | Read More »
She didn’t just quit her job… Planned Parenthood has been a part of Abby Johnson’s life for the past eight years; that is until last month, when Abby resigned. Johnson said she realized she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure. “I just thought I can’t do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I | Read More »
Nancy Pelosi called them “immoral”. But by what standard is she measuring them? Certainly not based on the numbers. Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better – drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10. The railroads brought | Read More »
The founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein, has watched as his organization has lost its focus and come unmoored (to mix metaphors), and has written a piece in the NY Times about what he sees as the principal reason. AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: | Read More »
![[RS]](/t/img/logo-footer.jpg){kind=logo}