Month: August 2007
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AMA and Prescription Data Mining
It’s a few weeks old, but I just came across this oped in the San Francisco Chronicle by Robert Restuccia and Lydia Vaias. They’ve painted a big target on the American Medical Association for its role in prescription data mining. It’s important to note exactly what AMA is doing here, because, from the oped, it…
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Turdblossom quits
Karl Rove quits. I wonder what this means? This administration has so little transparency one always feels like interpreting their actions is like trying to read tea leaves. Does this mean they realize Karl Rove’s advice isn’t pulling Bush out of his terrible approval ratings? Is Rove trying to avoid going down with a sinking…
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Sworn Virgins and Albanian Feminism
The Washington Post had a fascinating article over the weekend entitled The Sacrifices of Albania’s ‘Sworn Virgins’. It turns out that in the rural and mountainous regions of Albania, there developed a custom several hundred years ago by which women could assume all the rights of men, but in return had to sear to never…
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Scott Hatfield to debate Uber-Crank
Responding to an idiotic challenge from Vox Day Scott Hatfield has chosen to debate Vox at some point after August 15th. I don’t know what to think. On the one hand, debating a crank like Vox day is unlikely to do anyone any good. It’s not like a guy who doesn’t think that science is…
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Is it economics they want taught or religion?
The Wall Street Journal comments on some select results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing which this year included some questions on economics. Pop quiz. Which has been most important in reducing poverty over time: a) taxes, b) economic growth, c) international trade, or d) government regulation? Now this is an interesting…
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Please KQED, Stop it with the Bogusity
Where does one start with this? Some bald dude who lives in Maui and talks about ancient Chinese texts and gives advice on “The Power of Intention” belongs in a strip mall, not on PBS. Looks like the PBS Ombudsman has commented on objections to Dr. Wayne Dyer (PBS can’t say his name, not once,…
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Get a First Life!
Today’s WSJ has a profoundly sad article about the real life of some Second Lifers. It’s worth a read, especially the end of the article, where you find gems like this: Back in the world of Second Life, Mr. Hoogestraat’s avatar and Tenaj have gotten bored at the beach, so they teleport to his office,…
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This is a think tank?
The critical word being “think”. Cato’s Daniel Mitchell writes The More You Tax, the Less You Get . His stunning proof? Cigarette taxes. Wow. An article in USA Today notes that big tax hikes on tobacco have dramatically reduced consumption of cigarettes. This is hardly surprising. Indeed, politicians openly state that they want higher tobacco…
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I love Blogs 4 Brownback
Today’s post is one of the best ever. Woodwinds are the instruments of Satan.
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No! Bad media!
Do I have to roll up a newspaper? Big Tom warned me in today’s cranks post of the ABC news’ headline Global Warming Tipping Point in ’09?” in regards to this paper from the Hadley Centre on new more sophisticated modeling techniques. Could they be more boneheaded? Fortunately, nowhere in the article do they mention…