Health care for everyone costs half as much

The facts of the cost control debate are crystal clear: Countries with universal, accessible health care (note that I didn’t say “health insurance”) have per capita costs that are about half those of the US. ( e.g. Klein, Krugman, Somerby also has links to original data.) Should I repeat that? Our system of health care [...]

Can Honour Killing In Muslim Communities Be Ended Through Islam?

Recent events in the United States and Canada, in which fathers and families treat their daughters in an inexcusable manner, compel me to release this draft of an incompletely distilled paper. I apologize for its length, but the topic is not amenable to a series of posts, and it may offer some understanding as to [...]

Cambridge Police May Release Tapes of 911 Call and Police Transmissions During Prof. Henry Louis Gates’ Arrest

From The Boston Herald: Mounting pressure to get to the bottom of the controversial arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is centering on recorded police tapes that may offer a dose of reality amid all the media and political noise. Cambridge police brass and lawyers are weighing making the tapes public, which could [...]

Friday Morning at The Confluence

Is it just me or does it seem like the Professor and the Policeman story is getting more airplay than the Michael Jackson story did? Obama and Axelrod must be giggling and snickering right now. Talk about astroturf! The topic of the weekend was supposed to be health care, but just one planted question and [...]

Overnight Open Thread: Professor vs. Policeman

The latest on the Prof. vs. Cop story: The Police Side The Boston Globe: The Cambridge police commissioner, breaking his public silence yesterday amid an increasingly vitriolic debate, strongly defended the actions of the sergeant who arrested Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. At the same time, Commissioner Robert C. Haas announced that an independent [...]

Stealing Iran . . . Stupidly

The statistics don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. The stealing of the Iran’s June 12 election has been obvious from the start. But that’s the nature of statistics; it’s real value is telling you that you what don’t know, it’s eliminating false positives. Walter Mebane of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor [...]

Thursday Morning Breakfast

A month from now, I will have lost the muffin top and will be lounging around somewhere in Maui drinking Bad Ass Coffee for breakfast.  I will toss my red hair in the trade winds and laugh, “ha-hahhhh!”  Until then, four more weeks in frickin’ New Jersey with an eighth grader who is making my [...]

Open Thread: “The Cambridge Police Acted Stupidly”

Will Obama regret saying that? Personally, I think he’s right, but how will the Cambridge police react? Will there be pushback from law enforcement generally? The arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley (who lives in Natick) says “I’m not apologizing.” The Cambridge cop who arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. told the Herald tonight he [...]

Live Blog: President Obama’s Press Conference

Tonight’s press conference by President Barack Obama is to focus on health care, according to the Washington Post: Six months into his presidency, Barack Obama now owns America’s problems and a solid but slipping approval rating. He goes before the nation Wednesday night to defend his economic decisions and press his fight for the health [...]

Wednesday Morning News at the Break of Day

General News Senate Backs Obama on F-22 Fighter The vote was a major victory for the White House and makes it unlikely, though not impossible, for the F-22 to survive. Blasts Kill at Least 15 in Baghdad The violence was the worst to hit the Iraqi capital since American combat troops withdrew on June 30, [...]