Apparently a slow news day.

Contrary to the ad campaign against teen pregnancy by the Candie Foundation, Jezebel weighs in on how writing “sexy” across your chest doesn’t encourage abstinence.

Ezra Klein, by far the best source of commentary on domestic and health policy, has posted an interview with Senator Johnny Isakson on the rumors circulating about euthanasia and end-of-life care in the house bill.

What is being talked about is a provision in the house bill, similar to that in medicaid and medicare, that covers a voluntary consultation with a physician to create an advanced directive. In an advanced directive, you indicate the kinds of medical decisions you want to be made in the case that you become unable to make decisions. For instance, you may write that if you suffer brain death, you don’t want to end up on a respirator and feeding tube indefinitely. Or you may write that you want everything possible done in every possible scenario.

The bottom line is, a voluntary consultation to write an advanced directive is NOT, in Sarah Palin’s words, a “death panel” that will determine who will be euthanised by the socialist State.

We will be lucky to get any sort of health care bill covered, since public rhetoric is at best 30 years behind the learning curve.

So says the President of Zambia.

Thanks to this post by Conor Fridersdorf at True/Slant, I now know a new tactic by “pick-up artists” labelled “the neg.”

Citing examples:

Negs: turning your back to her, pointing out a flaw in her clothes, her hair, something, anything. ‘Hey your nose wiggles when you talk’. ‘Your lipstick is weird’. Eating a sandwich while talking to her, with sweet sandwich in your mouth. Ignoring her. Correcting body language is a great neg. I don’t like when people cross their arms, it’s a sign of anger, so when girls do it I tell them to uncross them. They always do, it’s a very alpha neg… and compliance test… and IOD… and DHV!!! Oh sweet negs, you do so much, so very very much, you are the swiss army knife of pickup!!! They Alice-in-Wonderlandise the world, black becomes white, up becomes down, cute becomes ugly - that 9 you would covertly beggar yourself for is suddenly seeking your smile, your good graces, like some moon-pale concubine in Kublai’s court!

The writer of the cited blog Elysium Revisted clearly swears by it. In reality, what has been so cleverly defined as a “neg” is an attempt to gain power over someone by negating them. Think you’re pretty? You’re not. Smart? Not. Desirable? Hell no. And let me tell you why. By the time I’m done, you’ll be lucky to know what planet you’re on. Surely then you’ll be into me.

Degrading a woman and breaking down her confidence is an easy way to gain power and influence over her. This has been done for centuries, albeit with a bit more rape and violence. But old habits never die.

If the object of the “dating game” is to screw as many women as possible, then yes, perhaps this technique has worked for some people. If it’s a matter of “conquering” women, like you do enemies or rogue countries, then anything you can do to break them is a win.

People who think with anything other than their genitals find other things to hope for.

In his NY Times article, Peter Singer suggests that we must ration health care, indeed we already are, and that the best way to do so is by computing the Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY) that a given procedure will provide, and outweighing that number with the procedure’s financial costs to determine which procedures will produce the best “bang for your buck.” Unfortunately for people with disabilities, Singer’s theory argues that saving the life of a paraplegic is not equal to saving the life of a non-paraplegic.

His arguments are too abstract to be taken seriously. There are a lot of assumptions involved—like assuming that we know how much a certain treatment would prolong life, or assuming we could establish a consensus on the type of life the “majority” considers worth living, or considers more preferable living (how does he suggest we do this? and who will be calling the shots?)

On the other hand, he is addressing the very difficult question about what to do with a finite amount of health care resources, which it seems we’ll inevitably have to deal with at some point. It seems that if we are going to have a sustainable health care system, not everyone can get all the care they need or want—an idea we struggle with, both when we need care and when our loved ones need care.

He makes the point that in our current system, we are rationing care on the basis of “ability to pay”, and discriminating against lower and working class people. Singer claims to be offering a solution that doesn’t use moral or prejudiced judgments by not taking into account whether someone is a parent, or is talented, or is an alcoholic, etc. But since his solution would promote that people with disabilities would always get less care than people without disabilities, he clearly fails in this regard.

But of course, we then go back to the question, in a world with finite resources, who gets them?