Daily Archives: October 17, 2006


If You Have Young Children…

turn off the television!

As a final point, although as discussed our results do not definitively prove that early childhood television watching is an important trigger for autism, we believe our results provide sufficient support for the possibility that until further research can be conducted it might be prudent to act as if it were. page 42

You should turn off the TV for your children anyway but this is certainly another great reason to do so.

Via /.Science


George Will Has Lost Count

As noted here a while back:

The us congress has passed legislation which prohibits US banking institutions from processing credit card and funds transfer transactions by once free residents of the United States with internet gambling companies.

Now president w has signed the legislation.
George Will rips the new prohibition and provides some detail on which slime balls are benefitting.
Unfortunately George can’t count:

Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans’ behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money.

Surely, Prohibition II is the failed war on drugs and this gambling stupidity might reasonably be called Prohibition III. Except, that as Will points out:

Forty-eight states (all but Hawaii and Utah) have some form of legalized gambling. Forty-two states have lottery monopolies. Thirty-four states rake in part of the take from casino gambling, slot machines or video poker.

Hardly seems to qualify as a prohibition does it? Nevertheless the federal action reeks of the same broken rationales as Prohibition I and the horrendous war on drugs.
When a foreign government or an al quaeda kills Americans, destroys their lives, our response has been clear and strong: see WWII and Afghanistan. If a foreign government had ruined as many American lives as the war on drugs there would be a massive outcry to obliterate said foreign government. Why do we give our local, state and federal governments a pass?

Via A Stitch In Haste.