Archive for June, 2011

AT THE REDESIGNED POWER LINE SITE, which I should have mentioned earlier, More Jimmy Carter Theater.

JOE GANDELMAN ON MARK HALPERIN’S SUSPENSION from MSNBC for calling Obama a “dick.” Prediction: “In the way our media and political cultures now operate, Morning Joe will see its ratings go up.”

MORE ON EDUCATION: “A ProPublica analysis of previously unreleased federal data shows that Florida leads the nation in the percentage of high-school students enrolled in high-level classes—Advanced Placement and advanced math. That holds true across rich and poor districts.” The reason? Gov. Jeb Bush: “Bush introduced a combination of measures to foster AP courses, including a partnership with the College Board, the national nonprofit group that manages AP courses and exams. The partnership kicked off in 2000 and was later written into state law.”

GARNER, N.C. UPDATE: Police say no burglar shooting. Technically, of course, you can certainly be acting in self-defense while outside of your yard, but . . . .

REPORT: The California Dream Is Fizzling Out. On Facebook, Virginia Postrel comments: “There’s a lot going on, both in the article and in the state, but it’s a rather large oversight not to connect the high price of housing and the largely successful efforts of people like the woman in the lead to restrict new construction.”

DIET SODA not all it’s cracked up to be.

Just how does diet soda make you fat? The other study may hold the answer. In it, researchers divided mice into two groups, one of which ate food laced with the popular sweetener aspartame. After three months, the mice eating aspartame-chow had higher blood sugar levels than the mice eating normal food. The authors said in a written statement their findings could “contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans.”

But how?

“Artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite but unlike regular sugars they don’t deliver something that will squelch the appetite,” Sharon Fowler, obesity researcher at UT Health Science Center at San Diego and a co-author on both of these studies, told the Daily Mail. She also said sweeteners could inhibit brain cells that make you feel full.

So if sugar soda is no good, and diet soda isn’t either – what should we be drinking?

Dr. Hazuda told the Daily Mail, “I think prudence would dictate drinking water.”

Coffee’s good. Prevents Alzheimer’s, too. Just don’t add sweetener . . . .

RAPIDLY SPREADING WHOOPING COUGH IN NEW YORK. Contra the story, however, I think it’s a bacterial disease, not a virus. Either way, the key is vaccination. You really don’t want it, and you really don’t want your kid to have it.

THE CONTINUING APPEAL of coupons.

RETIREE TAX HEAVENS and hells.

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: Why Blogs For Women Are Bad For Women. “If blogs for women existed in the real world, rather than a virtual one, what would they look like? Giant pink bubbles in which women floated through life, peering through the see-through pink walls at the big, bad confusing world out there in which men exist, things are complex, and not everything has to do with whether or not you have a pair of ovaries. You don’t learn how to live in the world by withdrawing from it.”

WHEN I MENTIONED THIS SYMPOSIUM ON ADVANCING LIBERTY at Broadside Books, I should have mentioned that I have a contribution, too.