The rush to pass health care reform has been slowed by mostly just criticisms of an overly ambitious, almost incomprehensible bill, that could well lead to health care rationing as it also breaks the bank. When they thought they could shove this boondoggle down out throats with little . . . . Continue Reading »
I have no idea how this works, but Secondhand Smoke (and the other First Things blogs) are now available on Amazon’s Kindle. I guess for the very modest price Amazon charges, it is downloaded to the device so you can read it when you are at the beach. In any event, here is the . . . . Continue Reading »
A reader commenting on Jody’s bed post — so to speak — remarked that those tree-bed hybrids he was writing about looked like furniture for Rivendell. Rivendell, of course, is the holy valley of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. That is, Tolkien never uses the word holy: . . . . Continue Reading »
In “Wrong Big Picture, Dangerous Fine Print: But Otherwise Obama Care is Swell ,” James Capretta reports: Funding abortion and abortion providers . Both the Senate HELP and House Democratic bills fail to exclude abortion from the services that constitute “qualified” . . . . Continue Reading »
Imagine if President Bush had appointed as a high adviser, a man who had once advocated eugenic forced abortion and the sterilization of people in developing countries. Congress would have held angry hearings! The press would have been at his house every morning demanding answers! . . . . Continue Reading »
Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible? So Sam Harris asks in the New York Times . Harris column has received various replies, including a note from . . . . Continue Reading »
The “cash for clunkers” program, which paid $4500 to consumers who traded in their old gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles, has crashed and burned in less than a week. From the story:Less than four days after launching a popular cash-for-clunkers program, the Obama . . . . Continue Reading »
Remember those psychological studies that purported to show that having children doesn’t add to a person’s overall level of happiness ? A new, more nuanced, study provides a different perspective : According to the [“day reconstruction method”] DRM, people seem to spend an . . . . Continue Reading »
I have now had the opportunity to read the Debbie Purdy court ruling. First, it is clear that it did not create a right to assisted suicide. From the judgment:26. It must be emphasised at the outset that it is no part of our function to change the law in order to decriminalise assisted . . . . Continue Reading »