Cutting off parts of people's penises reduces the chance that said penises will pick up the AIDS virus. As other people have pointed out, let's go that one further, and just cut the troublesome organ off altogether! Breasts are have a tendency to get breast cancer... better have all of them off too, while we're at it.

The 50% solution to AIDS reduction may be circumcision, but the 90+% solution would be condom use. And if you think it's tough to get African truck drivers to use condoms, how easy do you think it's going to be to get them to agree to having the ends of their penises removed?

I somehow missed this article when it first came out (and I read Salon absolutely every day). It was a great article - put me down in the "getting it" category.

Maybe the article was changed since you posted, but I pretty clearly read that authorities were searching for the "parents":

Officials are asking the community for help finding the parents and are offering a $5,000 reward.

It did, however, say that the "mother" was at risk of criminal charges, and if the father was involved in the abandonment, clearly he should face the music as well. But I'm guessing it would be hard to establish his involvement.

What, pray tell, is "overdiagnosis" of breast cancer? There are four cases to consider: Case A - breast cancer is detected and in fact, present; Case B - breast cancer is not detected but present (a "false negative"); Case C - breast cancer is detected but not present (a "false positive"); and Case D - breast cancer is not detected and not present.

The effect of doing more testing has two effects - it moves some people from Case D to Case C (increases false positives), and moves some people from Case B to Case A (decreases false negatives). I can see the argument that doing the additional testing is not worthwhile because the increase in false negatives outweighs the value of the missed detections... but that doesn't seem to be the argument here. In fact, I'm not really sure WHAT the argument is.

Are you trying to say that we'd be better off not detecting some cancers, because there's a chance that they wouldn't need treatment anyway? That's not going to be very well received by women whose cancers DID need treatment. This quote is telling:

In general, early detection is "a strategy that turns many more people into patients. Its effect on how many people die is relatively small, at best."

It's hard see how this isn't an argument in terms of cost. The reason we don't want to turn too many people into patients is that doing so costs money. This is exactly the claim that the Dartmouth doctors claim it isn't - that we're not doing these tests because it costs too much. And maybe it does, but let's not pretend that it isn't a cost issue.

I haven't done any exhaustive survey, but if anyone cares about another anecdote - it went pretty much the same way at my house. I bought CFLs, my wife objected... mostly because she thought the bulbs themselves were ugly, and you can see them in some of the fixtures. However, she did end up coming around, mostly because I really, really wanted to use the CFLs, and she only sort of didn't want to.

... in this case, I thought he was wide of the mark. All was fine up to the point where he recommends that the LW cut off the SOB from future reference. Two problems there: 1) refusing the kid is much more likely to get back to the boss than an honest reference, and 2) you make yourself look like an ass. What is this, the etiquette policy academy?

Just use some combination of faint praise and gently worded but true criticism: "he did the best he could"... "there were some communications issues". The only thing the kid is going to hear back is "we found someone we thought more qualified".

I'm having a hard time reconciling this:

(In fact, no one has suggested that the rumor is true.)

With this:

But then it happened in my workplace and I watched as the office descended into a caldron of resentful whispering.

So, by "it", I assume you mean false accusations of adultery and workplace favoritism? Come on, Carol - I agree that firing people for gossiping is pretty far over the top. But you're hitting the town administrator pretty hard over an allegation that no one even suggests is true! Spreading false rumors about adultery is a very serious matter - I think he's right to be able to expect at least some recourse here.

... that purport to show that "men are good at this, and women are good at that". But I can't resist pointing out a fallacy in your opener:

Seriously, I love research that declares my inferiority in an area where I (with all due humility) tend to whup most men's butts.

Of course, the article didn't say anything about your personal ability at map reading, which I don't doubt is excellent (my wife is the same way). It said that women as a group are not as good as men at this task. These two statements are not at all the same thing.

Whether the article's actual claim is true or not - color me unconvinced.

Where is all this money coming from? Income is pretty flat, mortgages/home LOC's are about tapped out, etc... where are people getting the money to do all this consuming?