An unvaccinated child has died from a preventable disease. I know there are well-meaning parents who promote a healthy skepticism of vaccinations. While I can appreciate their concern, they are putting their children’s lives at risk. The evidence is overwhelming — childhood vaccinations do not cause autism.
The Republican Party has elected Michael Steele as its new chairman. This is a fabulous development for the GOP. This is exactly the kind of move they needed to make at this time. Steele is an African-American, conservative former monk who served as lieutenant governor of Maryland. Here’s his RNC victory speech.
Obama Taps Pastor for Outreach Office: “President Obama plans to name Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal pastor and political strategist who handled religious outreach for the Obama campaign, to direct a revamped office of faith-based initiatives.” More about DuBois here and here.
Pope declares Facebook a sin. Well, tell me something I don’t know. It’s really the “obsessive” use that he decries, but, really, is there any other way to use Facebook?
Cal Thomas Interviews Bobby Jindal. I think that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is the best chance the GOP has to win the White House, in either 2012 or 2016. He has all the qualities that the GOP should be looking for in a candidate — he’s intelligent, articulate, likeable, geuinely conservative, and, perhaps most importantly these days, he’s not a rich, old white guy.
Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time. This doesn’t mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings — but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.
The Most Gerrymandered Congressional Districts. These have to be seen to be believed. Not included in this list is my personal favorite, Illinois 14th. It runs from the far western suburbs of Chicago all the way to the Iowa border.
Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches. Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.
The NY Times profiled Mark Driscoll of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church. If Joel Osteen is at one end of the spectrum of current mega-church preachers, then Driscoll is at the other end: “Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a ‘mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy’ who attends Mars Hill. ‘His answer was brilliant,’ Driscoll reported. ‘He said I break their nose.’”
Flu in U.S. found resistant to main antiviral drug. Virtually all the flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why.
The Irish economy’s rise was steep, and the fall was fast. Everything, it seems, has grown worse here. The recession started earlier and its bite has been deeper. Housing prices have fallen by as much as 50 percent. Bank shares have plummeted by more than 90 percent. Unemployment is approaching 10 percent. The roots of Ireland's fall date to more than 20 years ago, when a clutch of economists, politicians and civil servants put their heads together in this very pub and planted the philosophical seeds for the Irish economic miracle.
Go Gators. Tebow is my hero.
A Samoan male is 40 times more likely to play professional football than a non-Samoan male. That’s a crazy statistic.
Can Music Predict the Stock Market’s Volatility?. Phil Maymin, an assistant professor of finance and risk engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, has crunched 50 years worth of stock-market data — along with more than 5,000 hit songs. And he says he’s found an inverse correlation between stock-market volatility and whether the hot music of the moment is frenetic or steady.
