Information, DNA Testing and Economics
Over at reason Katherine Mangu-Ward has an interesting article on DNA testing and some of the impacts on workers, employers and the health care debate. She points to a bill in Congress that deals with this issue. Congress reached an agreement clearing the way for a bill to prohibit discrimination by employers and health insurers on the basis of genetic ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 26, 2008 13:55
1985 AIDS ‘Victim’ Still Alive
Michael Petrelis has learned that Lauren Burk, pictured along with her husband and infant child on a 1985 LIFE magazine feature informing us that "Now No One is Safe from AIDS," is still very much alive. From the 1985 story: Patrick Burk fits the original profile of the AIDS patient because he is a hemophiliac who received the virus in a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 14, 2008 08:23
Eating Eggs Will Kill You
Remember the 1970s, when we thought eating eggs was really bad for you? Welcome back to the future. Middle-aged men who ate seven or more eggs a week had a higher risk of earlier death, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. Men with diabetes who ate any eggs at all raised their risk of death during a 20-year period studied, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 9, 2008 13:38
Obama vs. McCain Fall Preview
Bill Kristol, fresh from various cocktail parties with conservatives and a couple of e-mails from Democrats, lays out his vision of how a general election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain will play out. He dismisses the notion that the prolonged, bitter fight between Obama and Hillary Clinton will ultimately hurt the Democrats, figuring that Clinton will graciously concede a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 7, 2008 06:26
Charlton Heston Dead at 84
Hollywood legend and longtime NRA spokesman Charlton Heston had died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. Robert W. Welkos and Susan King for the LAT: Charlton Heston, the Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing larger-than-life figures including Moses, Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson and went on to become an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of conservative causes, has died. He was ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 6, 2008 06:10
Time on Hillary’s Side? Or Obama’s?
Two reports highlighted at memeorandum give opposite views on what impact the six week lull between the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries will have on the Democratic race. ABC's Rich Klein argues that it will benefit Hillary Clinton in a piece headlined "Time on Her Side: Obama Maintains Lead, but Clinton Might Have the Edge." "When a team comes from far behind ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 13, 2008 06:05
John McCain’s Melanoma in Perspective
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President, and I have a similar medical history. In a recent NY Times article, Lawrence K. Altman, M.D reported, "Mr. McCain has had four (malignant) melanomas." Until 2007 I was tied with the Senator. I had four of these deadly skin cancers diagnosed in 1993-94. A fifth was located on me and biopsied ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 11, 2008 10:00
Working While Sick
Laura W. argues, in a manner reminiscent of a sailor, that people who are sick should stay home rather than contaminating the workplace with their disease. Joy McCann retorts that Laura must never has worked anywhere where she was actually necessary. Joy's right that some jobs are so deadline-driven that skipping work is simply not an option. Telecommuting ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 19, 2008 12:23
Usury Laws, the Christian Right, and Bad Statistics
A study (or, rather, a report on said study) by two law professors on the relationship between the availability of high-interest payday loans and representation by Christian conservative legislators is generating some blogospheric commentary. The study's abstract: The culture war has become a national moniker describing a variety of policy debates between social conservatives and secular liberal Americans. Hotly ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 17, 2008 07:45
Fat People, Smokers Have Lower Medical Bills
Instead of lecturing smokers and the morbidly obese on their behavior, governments should encourage them. Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn't save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 6, 2008 13:17
