Free Republic

I sympathize with your feelings. I have yet to see an article pointing out that America is still a sexist country for failing to elect our first female VP. Since I don’t know how many “America is still a racist country” editorials would have followed an Obama defeat, I think it’s an interesting omission.

As it is, I don’t think sexism is the reason Palin won’t be VP for the next four years. Most people who voted against her did so because they disagreed with her and McCain on the issues, not because of her gender. But, of course, that’s exactly why most of us here who voted against Obama did so — we disagree with him on issues of importance to our country. The color of his skin has nothing to do with it. Yet I’m not sure many commentators would have given us the benefit of the doubt had the election gone the other way.

Personally, I thought the magazine spread was more sexist than racist. Vogue did photo spreads of five or so big-name male athletes (including Apollo Anton Ohno and Michael Phelps) cavorting with models. Then it features a handful of female athletes, but do they get male models twisting around them? No! Where’s the outrage?

Wow, the "Unfair Sales Act" sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel.

I wonder if various posters are talking about different measures of gestational age. Most OB/GYNs in the states count from the last menstrual period (LMP) -- so a 22 week fetus is only about 20 weeks from conception (assuming the child was conceived about 14 days into its mother's cycle). If other people are counting gestational age from conception, 22 weeks would mean "24 weeks" from LMP. It matters, given that 22 weeks since LMP has much worse statistics than 24 weeks.

Yes, I'm not sure why the AP is reading this in the market's movements the last few days. Given that the Democrats have more or less committed to raising the dividend tax back up to pre-Bush levels if they win, any stock that's got an attractive dividend should be becoming a lot less attractive if the Democrats are poised to win. I would think that would be a more pronounced effect than some vague hope in future gridlock reducing the deficit and hence lowering interest rates.

I have no doubt that the median income is pretty flat -- the modern economy gives great returns to education and risk. There's a reason they didn't use the mean for this press release; the long tail out to the right would raise the needle in the middle. This long tail extension will continue happening under a Democratic president too. Raising the minimum wage won't do much for someone earning around the median of $30,000 per year (approx $15/hour or three times the minimum wage), and these people tend not to get too much in the way of transfer payments under Dems or Republicans (they earn too much).

Hey- I just posted on another thread also asking this question: What is the tone of all the ads and campaigning in South Dakota? To an outsider, it is sounding pretty civil, with the pro-life side focusing on women and motherhood being empowering, and the pro-choice side saying they value human life but the law goes too far... Different rhetoric than you normally hear in abortion battles. Is this true? I have a theory that when you have to appeal to actual voters, as opposed to far-away judges, the tone changes...

As a non South Dakota person, what seems most interesting to me about this campaign is how civil it sounds. The pro-life side is focusing on women and how empowering motherhood is -- not bloody fetus pictures. The pro-choice side is running ads saying they value human life, but the act goes too far. Not so many "rosaries off my ovaries" chants. Is this true? Is it really that civil? I get the sense that when people have to appeal to actual voters, as opposed to railing against judges in Washington, you change the tone.

Actually, I think with House races they just do a quick election, with every state having different rules. So maybe neither Bush has that kind of power! But FL voters could have had a real choice, rather than a pedophile or a Democrat, which is what's now on their ballots.

Jeb Bush, not GWB.

What, you mean Rachel Carson wasn't the hero people claim she was? She wasn't so much a "courageous woman who took on the chemical industry" as the NRDC calls her, but a cause of suffering and death on par with the worst dictators in history? I wonder if the story will ever be revised in mainstream books. I strongly suspect the people who supported the ban believed there were too many Africans anyway. This is a story that deserves to be told widely.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but the Oprah show today (which I watch on the treadmill) was about raising the federal minimum wage. Two things stuck out for me.

First, they had Morgan Spurlock on (of SuperSize me fame), who did a show on living for 30 days on minimum wage. He did a lousy job of it, buying bottled water, sodas, snacks and whatever else a guy who is used to buying whatever he wants walking down the street in NYC would buy. Shockingly, that doesn't work when you're working for low wages. He was NOT, however, working for federal minimum wage.

Indeed, (and this is the second thing that struck me) in the whole show, which featured people from all over the country, they didn't have anyone who was actualy making $5.15 an hour. I guess that's an easy point to rally people around, raise the minimum from $5.15, but for some one who makes $8.50 an hour and lives in poverty, raising the minimum wage to $7.00 isn't going to change a thing.

Oh yeah, Morgan Spurlock also admitted that until he did the 30-days-at-minimum-wage experiment, he didn't provide health insurance for any of his employees. (to his credit, he decided to, afterwards). But then he had the nerve at some point to say "it's the corporations who don't want to raise the minimum wage." But you know what, Spurlock? Most big companies at least provide health insurance for their employees. Unlike (until recently) you.

For all the praising of places like Hillsdale, VMI... I'd definitely tell a kid, if he got into Harvard or Princeton, to go. Not only are there great professors and great classes but you meet the kind of great classmates who will make sure you have all the well-connected contacts you need for the rest of your life. And frankly, we need more conservative-oriented young people to go be part of those elite groups than we need them congregating with like-minded types at Hillsdale.

Agreed- Roberts' views on abortion don't matter. One can even favor legal abortion (as Judge Bork said he used to) and think Roe was an awful decision. Like Lochner vs. New York in 1905, it basically said state legislatures didn't know what they were doing when they made regulations based on health, safety or welfare, and overturned laws based on nothing in precedent or the Constitution.

I wish everyone asking Roberts' views on abortion would remember that. If Roe were overturned tomorrow, I can only think of about 10 states that would be likely to keep or enact bans. (Some pro-abortion groups have claimed it's a higher number, but they're trying to raise money with alarmist claims). Needless to say, those states (think South Dakota) don't have a lot of abortionists anyway. Absent Roe, abortion will be fought in the political, legislative sphere. Again, Roberts' opinions of abortion don't matter -- it's his views on originalism that matter.

The study is saying that the reason aspirin costs $5 a pill in the hospital is that many people don't pay for care, so hospitals pass along higher costs to those who can pay, ie, the insured. Health insurance companies then pass those costs along to people as premiums. So when people don't pay for their care, those who are insured pay more.

Basic things that need to happen for costs to come down:
1. More transparency in costs. Doctors, hospitals, etc. should publish exactly how much they charge for everything.
2. More people should carry catastrophic insurance, not the kind that covers everything like well-patient visits and most prescriptions. The reason drug companies and doctors charge so much is that most people are not paying full freight-- so there's no price sensitivity. Insurance should cover low probability high cost events like hospital visits, not high-probability low-cost events like doctors visits.
3. Malpractice reform. It's not as big a part of the cost structure as many people think, but it's there, and adds to costs by more tests.
4. More doctors -- the AMA artificially holds the numbers low to keep salaries up. We need more medical schools and residency slots.
5. More nurses/physicians assistants/nurse practitioners doing more things doctors used to do. Also pharmacists. All these people can diagnose most ailments, so there's no need for people to see a doctor for a sinus infection.

I think you can also turn the bathrooms you have into unisex ones. In other words, one men's and one women's becomes two unisex ones. Guess men will have to learn to wait in line too!

Sitting in a just slightly larger place in NYC right now. Of course, it's 30 storeys up, so that improves the view a bit.

That is largely true. I wish it were a more fluid system, though. Because the labor market is less efficient than financial markets (employees don't see all available jobs and salaries, employers don't know everyone who's looking, and there are costs beyond salary incurred in hiring someone) people and companies waste a lot of time and money trying to find good matches.

Even if the metaphor is stretched (flat?) the point is worth keeping in mind for anyone interested in the quality of our education, and our workforce. Bill Gates is right that our high schools are atrocious. U.S. fourth graders rock the world-- twelth graders are middling at best. So what happened in the middle? The sheer fact of being in a developed, wired, rich country will not be enough to guarantee a livelihood when folks other places can do the same job, and perhaps better. So, as the (wacky) Tom Peters used to say, you have to become Brand You. Our education system should push higher level skills and more importantly, flexibility, ability to adapt to changing situations, creativity, and finding solutions to problems (not just getting the answers in the back of the text book). Some folks have already adapted to this system or achieved that kind of education on their own. I think this is a fundamental divide in how folks who generally like the free market see outsourcing and (skilled) immigration. Those who have jobs that require them specifically feel like "let it rip!" Those who have jobs others could do approach both concepts with more wariness.

That implies the post was worth about $2.25. Possibly $2.60 in my neck of the woods. Seem right to you?