A new study has come out that theorizes circumcision may actually help prevent the spread of AIDS.
Least popular preventative act ever.
So if heterosexual sex can't cause AIDS like the New York Post is saying, then exactly how do you explain the gigantic AIDS epidemic sweeping Africa? Is it a continent of gays or just something in the food?
I love this Administration.
Well, I can go back to my old plan of just scrubbing everything really, really hard. (Actually, cleaning/scouring surfaces for 15-30 seconds is a better idea than grabbing the nearest antibacterial soap and wiping a couple of times to begin with.)
In fact, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A penny saved is a penny earned. Count all your chickens before Rick Santorum gets to them.
I'm just full of folksy wisdom today.
I have to admit, I'm pretty skeptical of this report stating that half of all young Americans will get an STD by age 25 due to their ignorance about protection. Aside from the fact that it was commissioned by a sex-ed group, it just doesn't ring true.
I'm against abstinence-only education because it's a foolish idea. Nonetheless, I don't believe that kids are all that ignorant of the wonders of condoms. I don't think abstinence only education is keeping our youth from having sex nor wearing protection, it's just a huge waste of money. I also don't believe the 50% number, it's simply too high. I'm a young American under age 25 and very few of my friends have STD's, despite engaging in a number of (drunk) behaviors that would lead them down gonnorhea lane.
I have a feeling we have some magical statistical analysis going on in this study. I could be wrong, but considering the methodology was to:
For the first time since World War II, a national survey has measured the American body or, more specifically, a lot of American bodies:
Among the findings: older men have trimmer thighs than younger men. Black women are larger than other women, but they are also most likely to have the classic hourglass figure. Sixty-four percent of women are pear-shaped, and 30 percent are "straight," meaning they had little perceptible waist.
Nineteen percent of men are "portly," and another 19 percent have "lower front waists," meaning, the researchers said, they had to look under a belly to find the waist. Men over 45 are most likely to have potbellies, women over 36, bigger hips (though black women older than 55 have smaller hips than those 46 to 55).
Via Outside the Beltway.
President Bush is a bold and confident leader. Well, mainly when it comes to figuring out who else is responsible for things that are politically damaging to him.
Of course, given that his party runs Congress, proposed the plan with his knowledge, passed it with his support and aid, and he signed it at that cost...it's still Congress's fault.
This bit on the deficit, though, is teh awesum, as the kids say:
Administration officials said that Mr. Bush's budget would not include the costs of the Iraq war. Nor, they said, would it include the costs of restructuring the alternative minimum tax, estimated at more than $162 billion over five years.
First, the brilliance of Bush's deficit-cutting plan. Ramp up the deficit to unprecedented levels, then hope that it falls to high, but not completely insane levels.
Second, the fantabulous manner of deficit calculation. Take two major policy initiatives, both of which have a minimum amount of money attached to them, and pretend that the billions of dollars they represent aren't being spent.
At this point, the Democratic nominee doesn't even need to campaign against Bush. As long as he's simply allowed to govern away, he'll sink his own ship.
I was reading this article, and it says something that just showed me how deeply ingrained the inane search for "liberal media bias" is, even when I'm not thinking about it.
There will be a subgroup of loud, very silly people who will think that in an article with this sentence:
this is the most important line:
How DARE they use an adjective for Republicans and not for Democrats!!! Oh, and the extra 134 billion needed for a plan that will provide no solutions. That's, uh...you liberal leftist!
Dwight Meredith has two wonderful posts up about medical malpractice - the first again debunking a Newsweek article on medmal payouts and America's "fear of getting sued". America might be so afraid of getting sued because they hear of so many made-up and misrepresented cases...that could happen to you!
The second is in response to a comment by Jane Galt, in which she tries to justify support for tort reform by wholly making up figures for the actual costs of litigation.
Dwight gets to the heart of the matter in the two posts, which is that "tort reform" addresses a problem that nobody bothers to know anything about - not even the people suggesting the putative solution. If Jane/Megan is indicative of any of the rest of the tort reform brigade (and she really does seem to be), then there is a serious problem. It's not the insurance companies, it's not the legal system, it's not even the doctors - it's that the people who are saying there's a problem which needs "tort reform" have no idea what they're talking about.
The tort reform argument is really simple. Cap the amount of noneconomic damages a jury an award, and insurance companies will lower the rates, since they only have to cover a set amount of noneconomic liability.
Florida did this. Which is why an insurance company has to raise rates 45 percent to cover the decreased financial liability, because they were apparently losing money in the old medmal marketplace. Of course, if you have to raise your prices by nearly half, the problem might be slightly more skewed towards the business end of things rather than the legal liability end.
The medmal insurance industry is screwed up, and "tort reform" doesn't solve it. It's an ongoing effort to remedy the internal weaknesses of the healthcare and insurance industries (the latter in particular) by shifting the external demands on them to mask the flaws of their respective systems.