according to this wired article, yet another reason the widespread use of antibiotics is harming the human race. or at least americans.

boy, my sense of timing could use a tuneup. two of my favorite things - information and disease¹ - now taste great together, thanks to google and the harvard medical school.

it’s healthmap. and in these days of the census bureau goofing around with the protocols for the 2010 headcount, it’s a breath of fresh air.

hmmm. they appear to have a jobs listing…²
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¹ see - i didn’t even have to create new categories for this post. that’s how near and dear those topics are to me.
² just kidding! i really like my current job!

it is fitting that the most promising experimental vaccine for malaria has roots at walter reed.

for a long while, in a previous professional life, i was a tobacco control advocate. i worked on the framework convention on tobacco control, coordinated legislative proposals in “the global south,” and helped review “how-to” manuals released by such august organizations as the UICC and the american cancer society.

it was interesting work, and i was, i still believe, fighting the good fight.

but as with many well-intentioned projects, there comes a time when the work spontaneously becomes reductio ad absurdum. such is the case with old morris tobacconists, in the city of victoria, british columbia.

Rick Arora is caught in a situation you would only expect to find in a dark comedy about bureaucracy run amok. If he covers up the historic signs on Old Morris Tobacconists, the City of Victoria is threatening big fines.

If he doesn’t, the Vancouver Island Health Authority plans to charge him under provincial laws banning tobacco ads and displays where people under 19 can see them.

my take remains the same as it was when i discovered harpercollins had removed the cigarette from the jacket photo of clement hurd, the illustrator for goodnight, moon (coincidentally one of my favorite children’s books ever): enough already. pre-verbal children won’t become smokers because of a barely-visible butt in an old black-and-white photo, and i seriously doubt teenagers are going to have an uncontrollable urge to light up after seeing antique signs for “house blend tobaccos” and “havana cigars.”

yes, public health measures are by nature coercive. but when they attempt to rewrite history, they go too far. such exercises are more fitting of stalinists and the taliban - company that public health advocates in “free” societies should be loathe to keep.

hat tip: james.

this morning’s random bits:

• it’s apparently difficult to get rid of all the personal data on an iphone.
• xkcd introduces geohashing. geekier geocaching for the investment-inclined.
• sometimes i think people would be easier to understand if their speech had html markups.
• nick has photos from istanbul up - quite neat, even if he didn’t take his SLR. apparently his main site is down, tho. is this the end of defenestrate.org?
• bad political news: kennedy’s malignant glioma. good political news: va’s abortion law gets overturned. again.
• and a quasi-art project.

that is all for now.

preserving virginity be damned. those horny kids have sex and want more and varied experiences!

and continuing my meta-analysis, the wapo article doesn’t appear to misrepresent the underlying study. but then, i haven’t yet read the actual study, so i can’t make that assertion with any confidence.

yet another reason to be ashamed of our government. the medical “care” provided to detained immigrants documented by the series is appalling; it looks like priest is gunning for another pulitzer.

i really need to stop reading the washington post in the morning. every time i do, it seems i find reason to blog.

take this report being released today by the ondcp, finding that “teenagers who smoke marijuana put themselves at risk for future mental illness and higher rates of depression.” sounds scary! but the report also states that “too often teens do not seek treatment for their depression, choosing instead to seek relief by smoking marijuana. they do not realize that pot can make their problems worse and can set them up for serious health consequences.”

that’s right. the white house report says that depressed teenagers who don’t get treated have a higher likelihood of growing up to be depressed adults. i call that one for the file marked “duh.”

or take this gem:

The report also found that teenagers who smoke marijuana at least once a month are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than non-users. It said that even though the percentage of teens who are depressed is equal to the percentage of adults who say they are depressed, teenagers are more likely to seek solace in marijuana or other illicit drugs.

add that to the previous information and what you have is the following: teens who aren’t treated for depression are likely to have suicidal thoughts. the causality of marijuana just isn’t borne out in the analysis presented in the washington post article. by their logic, i can safely assert that home schooling leads to smoking pot from corpses’ heads. (and thanks, james, for that link. i was eating lunch.)

*sigh*

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in other news, also reported by the wapo, it seems the u.s. commission of fine arts has its nose out of joint because the working model of the new mlk jr. memorial features “a stiffly frontal image, static in pose, confrontational in character.”

heaven forbid a man who led marches, who packed the mall, and who - yes - confronted the racism in america be depicted in full frontal suitedness, arms crossed.

but what the commission is really bent about, apparently, is the artistic style of the proposed piece: the commission sec’y, thomas leubke, wrote that “the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries.”

call me crazy, but i don’t think the sculptures to which he’s referring (saddam, anyone?) were removed out of aesthetic concerns. and in demanding that the dr. king sculpture be altered to evoke the “works of sculptors such as michelangelo and rodin,” leubke is completely missing the appropriateness of depicting dr. king in the social realist style: art that “belongs to the people and to the land and not to the exclusionary cliques of art world elites.” it almost seems that despite being sec’y of the fine arts commission, leubke is unfamiliar with the wpa.

ed dwight, a denver sculptor, has said the sculpture doesn’t look like dr. king. now that seems to be a more valid criticism.

dc is so bent on prohibiting its residents from owning handguns¹ it took the issue all the way to the supreme court.

now the city is going to arm its patrol officers with assault rifles.

while it’s arguably safer to have handguns in the hands of police officers than criminals, i don’t think that necessarily extends to the average law-abiding citizen. i’m left with the thought that this move must be in reaction to a concern (i’d say likelihood, but i haven’t read the transcript of the oral arguments or paid much attention to legal commentators’ opinions on the subject) that the lower court ruling on the dc gun control ordinance will be upheld by the supreme court or remanded to the lower court for a narrower review. “hey! let’s throw MORE high-powered guns at the problem!”

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¹ D.C. CODE §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), AND 7-2507.02

…is it more dangerous than smoking asbestos?

all that yakking will kill you.¹

(still no word on the impact of bluetooth earpieces.)

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¹ i have yet to read the study referenced in this article. to be honest, i’m more interested in the recent IP opinion on superman² out of the u.s. district court, central district of california.

² i’d link to it³ but i’m still waiting for cut-and-paste capability on my iphone. apple wankers.

³ there it is. long URL, too.