The immigration bill was just a mess, and I’m glad it’s over.

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It isn’t short, but this is a fascinating explanation of how drug reps influence doctors - and patient care. Read it for self-defense, because this is the logical outcome of a profit-based healthcare system:
As the figure of the traditional doctor fades away, it is being replaced by a figure akin to the drug rep, one […]

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It’s not just us:
At least thirty five people have died in the intense European heat-wave.
People, wildlife and crops have been affected. Animals are dying, grain is wilting and fruit is ripening weeks early in Italy.
Fish stocks in rivers and lakes are dropping as water is pumped out for agricultural use.
Eight people have died in Greece, […]

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So true.

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They have a fascinating interview (to me, anyway - I love business stuff) this month with Al Gore:
That helps explain why, despite the interest from so many Democrats in his political aspirations, he seems genuinely distanced from the idea of running for President–at least for now. “What politics has become,” Gore explains at one point […]

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Now, this is kinda cool. The Smithereens have done a cover album - their take on “Meet the Beatles,” called (of course) “Meet the Smithereens”:

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Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN).

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You know, the main thing a blogger gets for all this work is feedback, a sense that it doesn’t fall into a black hole.
So how come hardly anyone comments anymore? Is it really that big a pain in the ass to register?

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That strange top-of-my-head headache I had before is back. I mentioned it to a friend who’s a pharmacist, and she said, “That’s weird.” But then we agreed it probably had something to do with the change in barometric pressure and my sinuses. (Did I mention when I go outside it feels like I’m snorting pollen? […]

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Now here’s a good teacher. This journalism professor says the conventional media has a lot to learn from Jon Stewart:
When Hub Brown’s students first told him they loved “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and sometimes even relied on it for news, he was, as any responsible journalism professor would be, appalled.
Now he’s a “Daily […]

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I can understand why Gore doesn’t want to run. Being in national political office is a lot like being in prison, and he seems to be enjoying the sweet taste of freedom.
But I hope he does it, anyway:
Former Vice President Al Gore is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s worst nightmare in the nation”s first […]

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Still surging:
BAGHDAD (AP) — Twenty beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, two Iraqi police officers said.
The dead — all men aged 20 to 40 years old — had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, the officers […]

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Bruce Fein in Slate. You’ll want to read the whole thing, but I especially liked the closing paragraph:
In the end, President Bush regularly is unable to explain or defend the policies of his own administration, and that is because the heavy intellectual labor has been performed in the office of the vice president. Cheney is […]

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It seems there aren’t enough donations coming in for the GOP’s Twin Cities convention, so the governor is hitting up local business to cover the tab.
It’s sad, isn’t it? It’s like someone taking up a collection to pay for her prom dress.

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Outsourcing isn’t about saving money. It never was.

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All that money given by Big Pharma PACs to Bush and the GOP?
Such a bargain:
In June 2005, Bristol Myers Squibb entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey.
The U.S. Attorney, Christopher Christie, filed criminal charges against the company, but promised not to prosecute those charges for various fraudulent financial […]

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Avedon:
I see the WaPo gave real estate in today’s paper to a couple of conservative flacks to “explain” the current politics of a further sell-off of the electromagnetic spectrum, and, naturally, they’re saying that net neutrality is “a bad idea”. Of course, it’s only a bad idea for people who want to gouge profits out […]

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I have to pack to go to D.C. tomorrow, and I’m putting it off. I hate traveling (unless it’s by car). In this case, I’m taking the train. That means I have to haul my heavy laptop and a suitcase. Because I’ll be gone overnight, I have to take all that crap - allergy stuff, […]

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You know, I just can’t stand Tucker Carlson, because truth is such a fluid concept to him. Every once in a while, I flip through the dial and happen to stop, fixated by a particularly awful moment, and today was one of them.
Get this. He says that John Edwards is just as bad as Anne […]

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Won’t this be fun?
CAPITOL HILL (AP) A Senate panel is demanding some documents from the White House and from Vice President Cheney’s office.
The Judiciary Committee today issued a subpoena for documents related to President Bush’s program involving eavesdropping without warrants.
The subpoenas also name the Justice Department and the National Security Council.

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Today’s guest poster for Outsider Politics Week is my friend Melanie Mattson, of Just A Bump in the Beltway. Here’s her story:
Ever since I was a kid (a very sick kid, at that), it seemed to me there was something morally wrong about making money off of other people’s ill health. That is, in essence, […]

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I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly proud of my America:
Toughness is the watchword in immigration policy these days. When you combine the new toughness with same-old bureaucratic indolence and ineptitude, you get a situation like that described by Nina Bernstein in The Times yesterday. She wrote about how the boom in immigration detention […]

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This is really pretty funny:

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Anyone else noticing a pattern here? I don’t feel safe buying anything from China.
UPDATE: This just in:
BEIJING (AP) — China has closed 180 food factories after inspectors found industrial chemicals being used in products from candy to seafood, state media said Wednesday.
The closures came amid a nationwide crackdown on shoddy and dangerous products launched in […]

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Just thought I’d point out the difference in this new study on aspartame (Nutrasweet), in case you wrote it off.
In the previous studies which have “cleared” the sugar substitute (the ones the FDA use), lab rats who consumed it regularly were killed after two years. The newest study allowed the rats to live out […]

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