From the front page of the Boston Globe:
The Globe is no longer publishing a stand-alone classified advertising section Monday through Thursday. A classified section will appear in the paper on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and local classifieds may also be found in the Thursday regional sections.
And a display ad on the NYT front page.
Appleyard reports on the recession’s silver lining:
The strange thing is that people get healthier in a recession, according to Chris Ruhm, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina. Some years ago he decided to test the conventional wisdom that hard times make people sick. He found the opposite.
“People get physically healthier and mortality rates fall during bad economic times,” he tells me. “It’s the opposite of what I expected to find.”
Studying recessions since the 1970s, Ruhm found that traffic deaths fell noticeably, probably because of a combination of less drink consumed and fewer miles driven. Even deaths from heart attacks, strokes, flu and pneumonia fell.
Out of work and not eating out, people lose weight; and they tend to find something more active to do than sitting in front of a computer screen. Also, of course, they can’t afford to smoke and drink as much. “When times are hard, they control the things they can control – they live healthily.”
On the other hand, Ruhm found a recessionary decline in mental wellbeing. Suicide, anxiety and depression all increase as GDP falls.
My preliminary take from this morning is here.
"Dominic Holden, news reporter at The Stranger, regrets that in an attempt to spell out the word “brassiere” in a Slog post, he mistakenly spelled it “brazier,” which actually means “barbecue.” He further regrets that upon trying to amend his error, he spelled it “brassier,” which, if anything, means “more brassy.” Holden recognizes that, as a homosexual, he should avoid subjects related to women’s undergarments." – The Stranger.
That was what Jett Travolta was dealing with, unmedicated, according to the Travolta lawyers. One anti-seizure drug had been used in the past but was stopped because of ineffectiveness and side-effects. No other treatments are cited.
Portland, Oregon, 3.06 pm.
Larison makes his case against marriage equality:
When endorsing a change, particularly one this radical, a conservative would need to show not only that it does not do harm to the institution in question but also that it actually reinforces and reinvigorates the institution. Whether or not “gay marriage” harms the institution of marriage, it certainly does not strengthen it. It is therefore undesirable because it is unnecessary to the preservation of the relevant institution, and so the appropriate conservative view is to leave well enough alone.
"My Big Fat Straight Wedding" argues the opposite. I think allowing gay couples to marry does strengthen the institution, because it ensures that everyone in a family has access to the same civil rites and rights, and so the heterosexual marriages are as affirmed as effectively as the gay ones. (It is not my experience that the straight siblings and families of gay people feel their marriages affirmed by excluding some of their own.) By removing the incentive for gay people to enter into false straight marriages, which often end in divorce or collapse, wrecked childhoods and betrayed spouses, heterosexual marriage is also strengthened. And the practical alternative to marriage equality – civil unions for straights and gays – presents a marriage-lite option for everyone that clearly does threaten traditional marriage in a way that gay marriage never could.
Serious conservatives understand that these are the three practical options on modern America: including everyone in civil marriage; creating a two-tiered system of civil marriage and then lesser civil unions for straights and gays; or simply resisting any change and using the government and law to perpetuate the stigmatization of homosexuality. If those three are the choices, my view is that the first is easily the most authentically conservative. I suspect that the impact on those states that now allow such inclusion will prove it in due course.
Sometimes, K-Lo gives good political advice. (Hat tip: TS.)
A reader writes:
Israel’s rationale is not that hard to figure out. Check out Rosner over here. Here’s the summary paragraph:
So – the IDF and Israel’s leaders have three goals in launching this ground war: First, they want to make Hamas pay a price that will force it into a renewed ceasefire. Second, they must prove to the Arab world that Lebanon 2006 did not turn Israel into a country afraid of war. And third, they must engender renewed Israeli confidence in the country’s armed forces.
As to the first goal, we don’t know how Hamas will respond, i.e., whether it responds to deterrence. Israel has never gone after Hamas. That was Pollak’s point to you over here. Money quote:
Nobody knows at this moment whether Hamas is deterrable. The question depends on whether Hamas actually intends to fight to the last man and on the efficacy of the IDF’s ground war. But surely it is also true — according to just war theory, no less — that the sovereign state of Israel, in an attempt to protect its citizens, is allowed to discover whether deterrence is possible. I note that since August 2006, Hezbollah has been awfully quiet on Israel’s northern border; and that since 1973, so have Syria and Egypt.
Krauthammer proposes a gas tax, balanced by a payroll tax reduction. Joe Klein applauds:
Krauthammer is, not surprisingly, more sympathetic to the national security arguments for higher gasoline prices than the environmental ones–Krauthammer remains unconvinced that global warming is man-made. But it is fascinating to see this proposal on the cover of Bill Kristol’s magazine. (And yes, one might argue ulterior motives–let a Democrat self-immolate by imposing a gas tax…one wonders where Krauthammer was on this issue the past eight years?)
Still, the simplicity of the thing is beautiful–especially when you compare to the mind-numbing complexity and scam-ability of a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions.
Kinsley also made the case recently. I’ve long been on board.
The Dish 