MORE ANALYSIS THAN YOU EVER WANTED ON THIS TOPIC. In regards to the morning's big Clinton story, it really is all a matter of emphasis. As Mattnotes, the actual article spends most of its time hinting that the Clinton's don't have much sex (I'll get back to this in a moment). The piece admits that, since the start of 2005, the Clintons have seen each other, on average, 14 days out of every month. Also since the start of 2005, Bill Clinton has quarterbacked a multibillion-dollar foundation and ran the government's response to the tsunami while Hillary has kicked her traveling into high gear to prepare for her presidential bid.
It is now 36 days since the Washington Post published an article that reported that Mexico's economy has grown at a world record 17.5 percent annual rate since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. (According to IMF data, annual growth averaged 2.9 percent.) They have refused to print a correction despite repeated calls and e-mails from my colleagues at CEPR.
The Post has a very strong policy on correcting errors, which was printed in a recent column by the ombudsman ("Policy vs. Reality in Correcting Errors" 5-7-06; B 6):
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL GLASS HOUSE YOU HAVE! To follow up on Matt's post about Ramesh Ponnuru's complaints that we, among others, won't review a book that we haven't been sent review copies for, I just did a search on a book I quite like: The Medical Malpractice Myth, by Tom Baker. Baker is a law professor at the University of Connecticut and one of the nation's foremost authorities on insurance issues.
The Times had an article this morning about the effort by stock exchanges to merge across international borders. At one point, it comments about fears that this trend could make it easier for companies to shop among stock markets in order to list their shares in the country with the least restrictive accounting and reporting rules.
This is a reasonable concern. It is a safe bet that if companies can evade regulations that cost them money, they will.
JUST POSTED ON TAP: WHO�S YOUR DADDY PARTY.Francis Wilkinson�s cover article on the end of the GOP masculinity monopoly is now online. The rest of the June issue is also available, and subscribers who prefer to print out the magazine can download the PDF here.
THE HORSE'S MOUTH. Fans of Greg Sargent's contributions to Tapped, take note: As part of the Prospect's ever-expanding blog empire, we're now hosting Greg's own blog on media and politics, The Horse's Mouth. You'll want to make it a regular part of your daily TAP online intake. (Greg won't be a stranger to Tapped, however -- have no fear.) Meanwhile, those Tapped readers who haven't yet made Midterm Madness a daily destination as well really need to consider doing so. There's great stuff over there, and when it comes to the midterms, they know what they're talking about a hell of a lot more often than us Tappers do.
THE RETURN OF EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE. It's easy to forget how much of American medicine is a guessing game, how your treatments are a composite result of your doctor's experiences, biases, treasured anecdotes, and personal reactions to his own training. Most folks think medicine operates off a rigidly defined set of standards: If you have symptom A, your doc orders tests B, C, and D. Not quite. According to a new study, doctors are ordering useless tests for asymptomatic patients at staggering rates. Of tests that aren't recommended for patients with a particular batch of complaints, we're spending between $12 million and $63 million.
SHOW ME THE BOOK! Lord am I tired of all this whining about how liberals aren't reviewing Ramesh Ponnuru's book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life. I think Kevin Drum already wrote the definitive take on this, but I'll reiterate.
