Posting....

There's no theme here... yet. I'm just catching up on my Washington Post reading...

Vioxx lawsuits would be a perfect moment for the Bush administration to stand up for science, particularly since they could do so by beating up on trial lawyers? It would be nice to see them on the side of science for once, and they've oddly neglected the trial lawyer blight since the campaign (which featured a trial lawyer against them, of course, and which was largely fantastical to begin with). I guess it depends on whether Merck's been paying their grift lately.... or signed on to the dirty tricks squad.

In other science news, nasal spray flu vaccines are much more effective for young children. I've been wondering when we were going to get around to following the Japanese model of vaccinating schoolchildren -- which interrupts the largest transmission pool of the disease -- and shift away from playing catch-up with elderly/toddler vaccinations. Apparently the answer is "not yet, but we're getting better anyway." Speaking of Japan: when demographics and economics collide, obstetrics (i.e. pregnant women) suffer. Also, what's the most widely used pseudoscientific tool in law enforcement, on which our national security depends? answer here

You know this, because you're a blog reader, but blog readers aren't youthful slackers. No, we're professional procrastinators, with years of experience and highly qualified.... If you haven't had quite enough mainstream media metablogging lately, go here and realize that there are some people honestly trying to think things through. Mostly because they'd like to be on the "making a buck" side instead of the "failing economy" side, of course. With sweeping overgeneralizations like this, the transition to blogging ought to be a snap.

John Kenneth Galbraith falls into the category of public intellectuals whose influence I seem to be too young to really appreciate, but the description of The Affluent Society in this obit is uncannily still accurate, fifty years on. Speaking of economists, supply and demand explains a lot about oil prices but very little about energy policy

Reminder: Movies are movies, history is history. movies are not history, they are entertainment created for the purpose of making money.

Still no theme, unless you count the ongoing, continuing rampant march of morons...