This Foreign Policy article by Tina Rosenberg explodes a lot of conventional wisdom about AIDS, and is well worth reading in its entireity. However, what  really surprised me was the fact that patients in poor countries are much, much, better about keeping up with their drug regiments for AIDS than us Americans, where only about 70% take the drugs on time as opposed to well above 90% in places like Camaroon, Uganda and Malawi. Shamefully, I had always unthinkingly bought into the racist trophe that Africans somehow less likely to follow the regiment correctly. At least I didn't go as far as Andrew Natsios, who runs the U.S.

Thanks to Ezra for inviting me back, and thanks to co-guest-blogger Amanda Angelica for being awesome.

I want to offer my apologies for being a little late on the posting thing, although I guess that's only true in East Coast Time. It took a little longer than usual to get all the bread products out of our house. (Happy Passover!) In honor of this vaguely holy day, here's the latest news on the Ratzinger front:

Spain's parliament is set to pass a bill legalizing a form of gay
marriage and gay adoption. Guess whose finely sewn, textured, and lacy
Bavarian underthings are in a bunch.

[Hi all. 'Tis Angelica, otherwise known as Battlepanda.]

Watergate and Monica. Yeah, they're the same. Don't take my word for it, listen to retiring congressmen Henry Hyde, who lead the <strike>witchhunt</strike> impeachment efforts against Clinton.

The veteran republican is also admitting for
the first time that the impeachment of Clinton may have been in part
political revenge against the democrats for the impeachment proceedings
against GOP President Richard Nixon 25 years earlier.

  "Was this pay back?" asked Andy Shaw. 

Last night I went to a lecture by Samantha Power, she of A Problem From Hell fame. If you ever get a chance, see her speak -- she's amazing. And for that matter, buy her book (or buy it for me -- yes, I lack all shame), she's an incredible mind and was somehow able to make an hour on Sudan and genocide an uplifting, informative, and inspiring experience. Anyway, I have some projects on Sudan in the works (some of them pre-lecture!) so stay tuned for that. Right now, I want to talk about humanitarian interventions for a sec.