John Bolton

A nomination vote was blocked again today by failing to reach the 60 votes needed to force cloture.

I'm on record as not caring about the Bolton nomination to be UN ambassador, but I think the issue holding up the vote does have merit. Senators Biden and Dodd are being denied access to certain documents they'd like to see before a final vote.

No Democrat has said that they wish to filibuster this vote indefinitely. However, the White House and many Republican Senators are accusing the Dems of simply stalling because they don't want to vote.

It's always dangerous to ascribe motives to others that are contrary to what they may state, so I think this issue comes down to the simple issue of "Do Senators Biden and Dodd have a legitimate right to these documents?". The answer by every account is yes.

RFK Jr, Autism & The Anti-Science Crowd

It's truly sad to see a strong environmental advocate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. get swept up by junk science. His recent article in Salon and Rolling Stone about the supposed link between autism and vaccines w/thimerosal, a preservative which contains mercury seems to show that he doesn't understand the difference between causation and correlation.

A few points:

(Almost) no thimerosal has been used in vaccines Canada or the Netherlands in 10 years, yet the rate of autism has not dropped in those countries, as you would clearly expect if that were the cause.

He speaks about the conflict of interest with the pharmaceuticals industry research and vaccine makers, which is a fair point to consider. However, his expert researchers, the Geiers, make their living as expert witnesses in torts against the vaccine manufacturers. Clearly they are no less the disinterested research scientists.

This is all extremely well analyzed over at Orac Knows.

UPDATE: Even more excellent analysis over at Skeptico.

More Facts on Malpractice Costs

Actual Malpractice costs (both legal judgments and out of court settlements) continue to grow at about the same rate at medical costs. The data shows little increase in the past 10 years. There have been slightly higher settlements, and slightly fewer cases.

So why the giant spikes in malpractice insurance rates, and fearmongering about doctors being driven out of business? Ask the insurance companies.

The Wisdom of Dick Cheney

Maybe this will be the time he's right. Let's hope so.

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." - vice-president Dick Cheney, May 31, 2005.

"They will do everything they can to disrupt the process up to those elections in January because they know that once you've got a democratically elected government in place that has legitimacy in the eyes of the people of Iraq, they're out of business. That will be the end of the insurgency." - vice president Dick Cheney, October 28, 2004.

(cribbed from Andrew Sullivan)