Plunderbund

So, I may not be the best person to ask since I came into this debate feeling much more positive about Obama than Clinton, but if you were to ask - and I assume since you are reading my blog, you are asking - I think Obama won. For starters, he feels way more […]

It’s pretty well recognized that college professors as a group are more liberal than the population at large. The unexplored question was always “why?” People like David Horowitz would blindly speculate that it was hostility towards conservatives that drove them from academia, but nobody actually tried to learn why there weren’t more conservatives […]

One of Bush’s visitors tonight at the SOTU is actually prohibited by US law from being here in the states. HT Sullivan.
Tatu Msangi, a nurse and single mother from Tanzania: Tatu Msangi is a 35-year-old single mother from Tanzania. When Tatu became pregnant, she went to the antenatal clinic at KCMC and […]

AP, via MSNBC:
In a troubling reversal, the nation’s teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials who had no immediate explanation.
The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent […]

A study of the Canadian health care system…
In the studies of adult populations, with adjustment for potential confounders, private for-profit hospitals were associated with an increased risk of death (relative risk [RR] 1.020, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.003–1.038; p = 0.02). The one perinatal study with adjustment for potential confounders also showed an increased risk […]

Jenna Bush, that’s who. Yes, the President’s (blond) daughter. When asked by Diane Sawyer if she supported her father’s “abstinence-only” plan.
No, I mean, not at all, first, because I’m not part of the administration. You know, I’m just my father’s daughter. … I think that when we’re talking about keeping kids safe, and […]

I finished watching The New Asylums last night, and it’s a great little documentary. It seems that our prison mental care facilities are far beyond what is available in the “real world” to these men when they are released, and since many of them become homeless and run out of meds, their mental illnesses […]

Yesterday I watched part of a PBS documentary called “Frontline: The New Asylums“, which demonstrates that the prison system has become the dumping ground for the mentally ill. 16% of all inmates in Ohio have been diagnosed with a mental illness. It’s really quite remarkable. Ohio, thankfully, does much better than most […]

From the Baltimore Sun:
At National Right to Life’s conference this year, Mitt Romney set out to convince anti-abortion leaders he was their candidate. At the podium, he rattled off his qualifications. To a layman’s ears, it sounded pretty standard for abortion politics. He wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. He supports teaching only abstinence to […]

I agree with Matthews and Olbermann - this man, this moment, might well be one that changes how Americans view health care. Or more precisely, how tolerant they are of how their elected officials view health care.

For at least four years Americans have wanted universal health care by a 2 to 1 margin. […]

This appeals to me.
Everyone should be seen as a potential organ donor on their death unless they expressly request not to be, England’s chief medical officer says.
Several European countries have opt-out organ donation laws, with great success. Some of them have “soft” opt-out provisions, where even if the potential donar has not opted out, […]

Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona appeared Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, charging that top Bush administration officials silenced him in his public health reports. According to Carmona, during his four-year term (2002-2006) he was not allowed to speak or issue reports regarding stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or […]

Read a summary of the tripe coming out of Wingnutistan about universal health care (and SiCKO) breeding terrorism.
UPDATE: Krazy Kenny gets on the “universal healthcare causes terrorism” train.

This is very interesting:
Outside the restroom doors… the theater was in chaos. The entire Sicko audience had somehow formed an impromptu town hall meeting in front of the ladies room. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is Texas goddammit, not France or some liberal college campus. But here these people were, complete strangers from […]

There was a terrific article in yesterday’s Washington Post that clearly lays out the evidence that federal bans on embryonic research - such as the stem cell research ban - are actually causing an increase in birth defects. (HT: Mahablog.)
The gist of the story is that the human reproductive system is optimized for a […]