Author: MarkH
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Readers remember Ayn Rand and cringe
A great article from the awl asks writers and book critics which books they liked when they were younger, but now make them cringe. The results are interesting, the two authors those surveyed reported most cringe-worthy were Kerouac and, you probably guessed it, Ayn Rand. Ha!
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Ron Paul & Clicktivism
The point raised by yesterday’s Times article on Ron Paul was that while Paul attracts big crowds, these crowds do not translate into voter turnout. Perhaps the problem is that Paul has appeal within his fervent base, but that base is unable to influence people outside the circle. If Paul can attract thousands to a…
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There is no There There — Ron Paul's Loud, Thin Base
Writing in today’s Times, Richard A. Oppel asks, “Whatever happened to Ron Paul?” Ron Paul has fans, in the traditional sense of the word–fanatics. They foam over this small and strange man, whose career in Congress has largely been ineffectual. Thousands go to his rallies, but as Oppel observes, “A Feb. 27 event at Michigan…
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Bad news for the Affordable Care Act
The NYTimes reporting suggests a 5-4 split against ACA is likely: Justice Kennedy, along with Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. all asked questions suggesting that they had a problem with the constitutionality of the mandate requiring most Americans to buy insurance. Justice Clarence Thomas, as…
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Mooney now agrees with us – Denialists deserve ridicule, not debate
He had to realize Nisbett’s framing was worthless and write a whole book on defective Republican reasoning to realize it but it sounds like Chris Mooney has come around to the right way to confront denialism: The only solution, then, is to make organized climate denial simply beyond the pale. It has to be the…
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Three reasons the Supreme Court should uphold ACA
With the Supreme Court hearing arguments for the next three days on the Affordable Care Act, many commentators, including Dahlia Lithwick appear to have so much contempt for the Roberts court that they believe the issue will likely be settled on politics rather than law. The first proposition is that the health care law is…
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What is the cause of excess costs in US healthcare? Take three – signs of reform
We’ve already extensively discussed why it costs twice as much for the US to provide healthcare for it’s citizens all the while failing to cover health care for all. Most recently, we discussed the hidden tax of the uninsured and the perverse incentive structure of US healthcare which encourage costlier care, more utilization, and more…
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Huffpo Science – already slipping into anti-science
Our initial optimism over Huffpo science being a haven for reason in a den of disease-promotion and quackery appears now to be misplaced. It appears the animal rights cranks have made inroads with Bruce Friedrich, a member of PETA and advocate of animal liberation, who has jumped from Huffpo “green” to Huffpo “science”. The science…
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Supreme Court to Debate Affordable Care Act Next week – and plaintiff's case has imploded
With the impending, and unprecedented, 3 days of arguments over the Affordable Care Act occurring early next week, it’s interesting to see that the test case being used to challenge the law has now become a test case demonstrating the necessity of the law. Mary Brown, the woman who asserts no one has the authority…
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2nd US Hospital to do full face transplant – today at University of Maryland
The news was just publicly announced that the University of Maryland is now the 2nd hospital to perform full face transplant in the US. Just a handful of these procedures have been performed around the world, and they are enormously complex ethically, surgically and medically. To begin with, long before the surgery even became a…