Download Full Content – Printable Pickings
Christopher Hitchens says we need to help Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
… Suppose the narrow and parochial view prevails in Holland, then I think that we in America should welcome the chance to accept the responsibility ourselves. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become a symbol of the resistance, by many women from the Muslim world, to gender apartheid, “honor” killing, genital mutilation, and other horrors of clerical repression. She has been a very clear and courageous voice against the ongoing attack on our civilization mounted by exactly the same forces. Her recent memoir, Infidel (which I recommend highly, and to which, I ought to say, I am contributing a preface in its paperback edition), is an account of an extremely arduous journey from something very like chattel slavery to a full mental and intellectual emancipation from theocracy. It is a road that we must, and for our own sake as well, be willing to help others to travel. …
John Tierney says forget everything you thought you knew about fat. And have some Rocky Road.
In 1988, the surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, proclaimed ice cream to a be public-health menace right up there with cigarettes. Alluding to his office’s famous 1964 report on the perils of smoking, Dr. Koop announced that the American diet was a problem of “comparable†magnitude, chiefly because of the high-fat foods that were causing coronary heart disease and other deadly ailments.
He introduced his report with these words: “The depth of the science base underlying its findings is even more impressive than that for tobacco and health in 1964.â€
That was a ludicrous statement, as Gary Taubes demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories†(Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros.
It may seem bizarre that a surgeon general could go so wrong. After all, wasn’t it his job to express the scientific consensus? But that was the problem. Dr. Koop was expressing the consensus. He, like the architects of the federal “food pyramid†telling Americans what to eat, went wrong by listening to everyone else. He was caught in what social scientists call a cascade.
Power Line added dittos to Barone’s piece on “higher education.”
… Elite private colleges are even less constrained. They face little if any competition from colleges that don’t fit the post-modern leftist mold. No one likely to break that mold has much chance of being entrusted to run such an institution, and the demise of Larry Summers at Harvard illustrates the fate that awaits even a mild iconoclast who manages to crash the party. And a hypothetical college that somehow succeeded in breaking the mold would likely be punished, plummeting in college ratings that rely on the views of entrenched academics to assess “academic reputation.”
In theory, alumni should be able to act as a voice of sanity. But colleges have structured themselves (or in Dartmouth’s case, restructured itself) in a way that deprives alumni of any real voice. The only thing they get to say is “yes” or “no” to requests for donations. With only a dim sense of what’s going on, a critical mass continues to say “yes.”
Thus, the rot continues to spread, with no end in sight.
Thomas Sowell adds part 2 to his comments on Clarence Thomas.
… The really fatal fact about Anita Hill’s accusations was that they were first made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in confidence, and she asked that her name not be mentioned when the accusations were presented to Judge Thomas by those trying to pressure him to withdraw his nomination to the Supreme Court.
Think about it: The accusations referred to things that were supposed to have happened when only two people were present.
If the accusations were true, Clarence Thomas would automatically know who originated them. Anita Hill’s request for anonymity made sense only if the charges were false.
Washington Examiner says there are a lot of meetings on global warming.
John Stossel tells how medical care can work properly.
Health-care costs overall have been rising faster than inflation, but not all medical costs are skyrocketing. In a few pockets of medicine, costs are down while quality is up.
Dr. Brian Bonanni has an unusual medical practice. His office is open Saturdays. He e-mails his patients and gives them his cell-phone number.
“I need to be available 24 hours a day,” he says. “I want to be there when a patient has questions, and I want to be reachable.”
I’ll bet your doctor doesn’t say that. Bonanni knows he has to please his patients, not some insurance company or the government, because he’s paid by his patients. He’s a laser eye surgeon. Insurance rarely covers what he does: reshaping eyes so people can see without glasses.
His patients shop around before coming to him. They ask a question that people relying on insurance don’t ask: “How much will that cost?”
“I can’t get away with not telling the patient how much exactly it’s going to cost,” Bonanni says. “No one would put up with it. And the difference of a hundred dollars sometimes makes their decision for them.”
He has to compete for his patients’ business. One result of that is lower prices. And while the procedure got cheaper, it also got better. Today’s lasers are faster and more precise. …
NY Times takes exception to the bashing of the Dems 12 year-old spokesman. Even thought ther’re carrying Dem water, it’s here for balance.
Mark Steyn answers the Times.
WaPo editors are not happy with Hill’s trade ideas.
… Yet Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) seems to have forgotten her husband’s winning formula. Campaigning for president, she has been busily repudiating his legacy on free trade, voting against the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement in the Senate and backing away from NAFTA. In an interview published yesterday by USA Today, she called for a “timeout” on further trade agreements until their impact can be fully studied. Ms. Clinton even suggested that it might be time for NAFTA to be “adjusted.” Her reasoning was not terribly clear: This is a candidate, after all, who has voted in favor of free-trade deals with Singapore and Chile. She suggested that perhaps something changed between the end of the 20th century, when “trade was a net positive for America and American workers” and now, when we need to have “a serious conversation about that.” …
AdamSmith has ethanol thoughts.
Even the most politically profitable, and therefore highly government-protected, industries are subject to market forces. Ethanol, a bio-fuel grown from corn, is supported by huge US government subsidies (not entirely unrelated to the importance of the Iowa Caucus) and this has led to overproduction on a massive scale. Transportation services cannot keep up to supply the coasts and few gas stations even supply it. …
Slate says the monks are going to beat out Al for the Nobel. Too bad. Pickerhead always thought it would be neat if Gore scored, when all Bill did for has last few years was pursue Monica and the Prize. That’s why he wouldn’t move against Osama, and why he turns up the heat whenever criticisms head his way.
Dilbert dreams up names for bands.