Author: Tony

Vacation Blogging – Spring Training Edition

It’s that time of year again. I’m in Florida watching the Phillies. As a result, blogging will be light, if at all, through the weekend. Until I return, enjoy this picture from today:


That’s Cole Hamels. That’s from his pre-game preparation in the bullpen. It was the best he looked all night. No, that’s not a good thing, but it’s Spring Training. All is still right with the world.

A caveat on the caveat.

Spot the obvious obfuscation in this New York Times article:

While circumcision may help protect a man from catching the AIDS virus, men who are already infected and are then circumcised should refrain from sex until they have fully healed, researchers said last week.

That’s not the full story, is it? Is the Times suggesting that circumcised men, once healed, can then engage in risky, unprotected sex after the healing process finishes? I doubt it. I fully expect the Times to mention condoms at some point.

Further down in the article, it does, so the relevant question pops up. How effective are condoms at preventing HIV infection as compared to circumcision? Reasonable estimates place the success of condoms at 80-90% and above, when used correctly. Why not include this in the opening paragraph? Does it skew opinion too far to the rational understanding that there are better methods of HIV prevention than circumcision? (We haven’t even addressed the serious ethical questions involved.)

It’s useful to consider what the Times says on condoms:

In any case, Dr. Wawer said, men should practice abstinence or fidelity, and use condoms. All the men in the study, including 5,000 who were not infected when they were recruited, were given that advice and free condoms. But many clearly did not follow the recommendations.

Three studies in Africa in the last year have shown that circumcision cuts a man’s chances of catching the virus by 50 percent or more. If an AIDS vaccine that worked that well had just been invented, “the world would be jumping for joy,” Dr. Wawer said.

We already have a tool that reduces a man’s chances of catching the virus by significantly more than 50 percent. Yet, no one is jumping up and down. Instead, we get the condescending reminder of what civilized people are supposed to know about Africans. “Clearly” men are not following that advice. (That’s not what the Times wrote last April.) So start chopping. That’s amateurish and insulting.

Now note the emphasis placed in these two paragraphs:

Women who had sex with recently circumcised men who had not waited about four weeks to heal seemed to have a slightly higher risk of catching the virus from them, according to scientists conducting a circumcision trial in Rakai, Uganda. …

The researchers emphasized that their data were “very preliminary” and based on only 124 couples followed for only six months out of a study meant to last two years. They released the findings, they said, only because the World Health Organization was writing guidelines for circumcision in African countries with skyrocketing AIDS rates, and they felt obligated to raise the alarm about the risks of sex before healing.

I’m okay with skepticism, even when it makes it harder for me. I want to succeed in convincing people that circumcision is unnecessary and unacceptable, but lying or tweaking the truth won’t help. I’m even frustrated now when reports on this story leave out the fact that the newly circumcised men were already HIV-positive, which is where the risk to women ultimately comes from. There’s no reason to hide anything, helpful or harmful.

Excess skepticism, though, seems unjustified. The results, however preliminary, are common sense. A wound isn’t healed? Blood will be involved. HIV-tainted blood. I don’t understand the over-the-top caution on these findings. Again, is anyone going to suggest that the couples in this study shouldn’t use condoms?

The larger lesson from those paragraphs reveals a lot. How is this fact pattern any different than what media outlets have claimed since December (and before)? None of that skepticism existed when the studies showed a lower risk after a short time frame in studies designed to last two years, yet these crucial bits appear now in force. The overall results surrounding circumcision and HIV are not concrete to the point that we should just say circumcision is “good” and set aside the significant ethical concerns. This shows a bias that doesn’t address the scope of the topic. Clearly.

Thought for the Day

I like this, from Annie Sertich’s blog, Jesus’ Favorite:

As I drove myself back from Hollywood tonight, I turned off the radio, got off the phone, and just made another car memory. One that involved just silence. And as I drove in silence, I heard my Dad’s tears. His regrets. His sadness. It broke my heart.

And THEN, just as I was pulling up to my place, I heard her. Her laughter from the passenger seat. Her singing along to Donna Summer. Her telling me. What to remember. “Don’t wait. Don’t fucking wait. Do what you want to do, NOW. Be with who you want to be with NOW. Believe in what you want to believe in, NOW. ‘Cuz in 6 months or 8 months or 7 years, it may be too late. “

They waited. They fucking waited. Waited until the savings account looked ok, and the job was done. But cancer didn’t. And now my Dad drives that car alone.

I don’t envy having to go through such experiences, but that’s great writing.

Carefully chosen words are not an accident.

I haven’t tracked the developing scandal involving the Bush administration’s Justice Department’s firing of eight U.S. attorneys for what appears to be little more than insufficient prosecutorial partisanship at Rolling Doughnut, but I’ve paid enough attention to figure out that something’s rotten. I have no confidence that it won’t get swept away and ignored from the viewpoint of consequences. Still, I’m stunned that those involved think we’re this stupid:

At a Justice Department news conference, [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales said he would find out why Congress was not told sooner that the White House was involved in discussions of who would be fired and when. He did not, however, back away his stance that the dismissals that did take place were appropriate.

“I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision,” Gonzales said.

The White House said President Bush retains full confidence in the attorney general. “He’s a stand-up guy,” White House counselor Dan Bartlett said in Mexico, where he was traveling with the president.

Let me know how well that investigation into the delay goes. I bet it’ll be carried out with the same expediency with which the Bush administration’s connection was revealed. Until then, we have assurances from both sides that each side is filled with nothing but upstanding statesmen. Yeah, right.

For example, a semi-skilled individual could read this statement from the Attorney General and get the impression that he feels he’s above such demeaning tasks as keeping the Congress informed.

“Obviously I am concerned about the fact that information _ incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress,” Gonzales said. “I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when we provide information to the Congress, it is accurate and it is complete. And I very dismayed that that may not have occurred here.”

He’s making zero claim that he’s obligated to report such information, only that when he decides to provide it, it should be accurate and complete. Thanks for the clarification, but I’ll take a little more regularly-scheduled oversight with my Department of Justice government.

Which cellular service will each candidate endorse?

If it walks like a duck…

What’s the closest thing in politics to a religious experience? The ethanol conversion.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) experienced one in May of last year. Long opposed to federal support for the corn-based biofuel, she reversed herself and endorsed even bigger ethanol incentives than she previously voted against. Now running for president, Clinton is promoting a $50 billion strategic energy fund, laden with more ethanol perks.

Political opponents depict Clinton’s about-face as pandering to Iowa Democrats, who will cast the first votes of the 2008 nominating season. …

That’s the most obvious explanation, and the one that came to my mind first. But it doesn’t really matter what reasoning she used. In the best analysis of her switch, she believes that the free market can’t figure out a viable solution to our dependence on oil. If ethanol is so wonderful, it will succeed without government help. If it needs government help to succeed, it isn’t the solution. Senator Clinton’s opinion is irrelevant, other than to broadcast how she would treat the economy as president. If this is any evidence at all, I’ll pass.

Further into the article, the reporter claims that a candidate having an opinion on how to use ethanol is now expected, so it gains little for anyone. Essentially, we now expect our political candidates to inform us which products we should choose. Forgive me for having a brain and an independent streak, but I’m more than qualified to figure out how to choose for myself. I also trust other individuals and businesses to search for opportunities in the marketplace, whether or not that marketplace exists today. Human history is full of examples. That includes energy sources. No politicians necessary.

I don’t know which part to praise most.

This is the most sensible article I’ve read concerning circumcision as an HIV prevention tool. It’s brilliant from start to finish. An excerpt:

All of a sudden a quick and cheap solution to reducing the ravages of AIDS seemed at hand; line up all males, nip off their foreskins, and voila, you have reduced the possibilities of future HIV infections by half!

Among the few voices that expressed caution was that of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who said he didn’t think it was that simple. Museveni should know. Uganda, after all, has Africa’s — and one of the developing world’s — best record in reducing HIV infections. In the 1990s, Uganda had among the highest infection rates in Africa of well over 30 percent. In the last eight or so years, it has sliced that down to just under 6 per cent. The awards Museveni has received for this achievement can fill the State House garage.

I don’t know anything about the science of this study to fault or laud it. But its politics are very troubling.

Read the whole thing. It’s worth your time.

Good Luck Collecting This

Here’s one more inconvenient blip on the ethical radar:

The world could have a new vaccine designed to kill the AIDS virus in as little as three to four years according to an Atlanta-based group working on the vaccine.
…

The vaccine works using a one-two pharmaceutical punch to prime the body then kill the virus.

“It raises both antibodies that can block the virus and it raises white blood cells called t cells that can kill the virus infected cells,” said Dr. Robinson. “So it really has two methods of controlling an HIV/AIDS infection once it enters the body.”

Will this work out? No one can know for sure, but if it does work within 15 years or so, many people will owe a significant apology to millions of boys around the world. The apology wouldn’t be worth much, but they’d still owe it.

Via Fark.

Reducing spending should be step two.

I’m not optimistic:

Key House leaders are pushing to sharply limit the scope of the alternative minimum tax, providing relief to many families who already pay the unpopular levy as well as millions more who would be hit for the first time next year.
…

“This system originally designed to catch millionaires who were avoiding taxes with excessive deductions has gone seriously awry. It is my intention to offer a permanent solution to AMT,” Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on select revenue measures, said yesterday during the first of two hearings on the issue.

No good solution will arise from an underlying assumption that adds excessive to deductions. If a deduction is excessive, Congress is to blame for creating that deduction. It is to blame for complicating the tax code with social engineering garbage. It sold the tax code to willing bidders and now we’re supposed to believe it wants to fix that at the same time it places blame on “the rich”. For example:

“We may be talking about redirecting those tax cuts,” [Rep. Charles] Rangel said this weekend on “Fox News Sunday.” “Within the system, there can be more equity without increasing the tax burden.”

Let’s just write the non-solution’s script now. Include the rich, the poor, income inequality, fairness, working taxpayers, middle class, economic uncertainty, job insecurity, and family values. Agitate. Pour during October. Repeat in 2008.

The worst part is the reality that this diversionary scheme works.

Buying Anti-Competitive Protection

Here is a perfect example of why I would never join a labor union:

Leaders of the AFL-CIO pledged yesterday to consult more widely with workers before making a decision about endorsing a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and strongly urged individual unions not to back any candidate until later in the fall.
…

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, outlined the evaluation process at a news conference in Las Vegas.

“The breadth and depth of our effort to engage union members and their families in the 2008 presidential endorsement process will be unparalleled,” Sweeney said.

He means the 2008 Democratic president endorsement process, of course. What about those union members who wouldn’t vote for a Democrat? If they would vote Democrat, what about those who support a different candidate? Too bad, I guess, except their money is compelled. That’s obscene.