Socialism is Good for your Health

A new study from the Cato Institute finds that Portugal's policy on drug decriminalization is paying health dividends. Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs on July 1, 2001, including heroin and cocaine. Trafficking in drugs is still a criminal offense. The study clearly indicates rehab is a major component of the success of the decriminalization policy, and that such rehab needs to be available to all. Successful rehab is thus only possible when health is a public service. Without a public health program, most users (who are poor) would be unable to afford rehab (which tends to be relatively expensive), thus removing any possibility of improved public health outcomes - users will remain as users with increasing incidence of STD & death. Unfortunately, the US would rather spend untold sums on the War on Drugs, and on the incarceration of users. Apparently it is still un-American (to some) to invest those sums in public health.

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Have you been teabagged by a republican, today?

I saw this at the gym last night, and almost fell off the treadmill! So many opportunities for double entendres - it's classic! Finally, something to thank our republican friends for! Although I refuse to imagine being teabagged by the likes of Armey, Beck or Cavuto! nuff said. Here's the video! (© MSNBC.com, posted by ThinkProgress)

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Barack Obama on the economy: we can’t go back to business as usual

One of Obama's main points today is that we can't go back to what we have been doing:

[W]e have to realize that we cannot go back to the bubble-and-bust economy that led us to this point.

It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st-century financial system that is governed by 20th-century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy. It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40 percent of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, over-leveraged banks and overvalued assets. It's not sustainable to have an economy where the incomes of the top 1 percent has skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their incomes decline by nearly $2,000. That's just not a sustainable model for long-term prosperity.

For even as too many were out there chasing ever-bigger bonuses and short-term profits over the last decade, we continued to neglect the long-term threats to our prosperity: the crushing burden that the rising cost of health care is placing on families and businesses; the failure of our education system to prepare our workers for a new age; the progress that other nations are making on clean energy industries and technologies while we -- we remain addicted to foreign oil; the growing debt that we're passing on to our children. Even after we emerge from the current recession, these challenges will still represent major obstacles that stand in the way of our success in the 21st century. So we've got a lot of work to do.

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It’s that time of year…

Spring on a large university campus means but one thing: crazy evangelicals. Since I attend (arguably) the largest university in the country, I get my fair share of kookery. Most evangelical preachers simply stand on a grassy area and preach, for hours, about the damnation that sinful, depraved college students face. Some gather crowds and screaming voices of dissent, but many are as easily ignored. But every spring, the evangelical season is rung in by a group so passionate they cannot be ignored: the abortion protesters. They cover the campus in the blight of propaganda- their commitment is clear. This year, I decided to take a few photos of the madness, and string them into a quick youtube slideshow. Check it out, and note the response of the pro-choice counter protesters:

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Buggy Salesmen 2.0

Do representatives of America's High-tech workers "get it" or are they stuck in the past? A recent New York Times story (by Matt Richtel) highlighted some cracks in American attitudes towards immigration. We know the republicans have been against the immigration of "poor and downtrodden" - but apparently there is now significant pressure against the immigration of "smart and innovative". The Times' story was primarily about US immigration, it's impact on individuals enmeshed in the process, and how it is perceived among some in the tech community. (disclaimer: I am a beneficiary of the H1-B/Green card immigration process, and I'm working towards citizenship)

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