Marijuana Reform Moving Forward in Two Dozen States

"Under [Seattle legislator Mary Lou Dickerson's] bill, marijuana would be sold in Washington state's 160 state-run liquor stores, and customers, 21 and older, would pay a tax of 15 percent per gram. The measure would dedicate most of the money raised for substance abuse prevention and treatment, which is facing potential cuts in the state budget. Dickerson said the measure could eventually bring in as much to state coffers as alcohol does, more than $300 million a year."

To put it bluntly, the people of Seattle aren't dummies. Between Boeing and Microsoft and all the companies in between, Seattle has the highest
average education level of any American city. And lots of other states are following the lead of cities that have already legitimized marijuana by taxing it, and doing what makes sense.

It's a question of liberty - who's better suited to decide what you're allowed to put in your body? The Federal government - or you?

Note to Terrorists: China Will Negotiate With You

An oddly irrational decision. Someone (Chinese Navy? The shipping company?) has paid Somali pirates four million dollars to release a ransomed ship. Guess which ships pirates will go after from now on? I would not want to be a crewmember on a Chinese freighter in the near future.

Mitch Daniels, What Are You Thinking

Atheist conservatives (like Right Wing Nuthouse, Little Green Footballs, and the Secular Right) - and me - are feeling a little lonely these days. Do you want us as part of conservatism or not? One of the problems with modern conservatism is that driving for ideological purity doesn't win elections. It shrinks the size of the movement. (Even the Tea Party leaders are excommunicating each other.) So if you tell us over and over that we're not welcome, guess what? We'll take our votes and rhetoric elsewhere, and you can keep celebrating victories just like NY-23.

Charles Johnson's break with the right was in no sense radical. The right left him, not the other way around. Like Johnson I usually avoid openly mentioning my atheism because a) I'm not trying to convert (or devert) anybody anyway, and b) a lot of conservatives will sadly write off anything I have to say one second after they hear that. Unfortunately, many social/religious conservatives have forgotten that intrusion into religion (or lack thereof) is about the best hallmarks of big government that there is. It doesn't make it okay just because it happens to be your own religion; otherwise, how are the Iranian Ayatollahs doing anything wrong?

This is why I was so disappointed to hear Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels get on the bandwagon with some ignorant comments that further marginalize conservative voters. Daniels is a real Reagan Republican - one of few genuinely small-government moderates left - and I was hoping to have him as an option in the 2012 GOP primary. In an Indiana publication he talks about his faith. To be clear: it's not Daniels's faith, or his profession of it, that's a problem; of course he has the same rights that the rest of us do in that regard, and the only thing that matters is a candidate's ability to execute specific policy decisions in office. The problem here is not only that he expresses a fundamental misunderstanding of the underpinnings of American democracy but that he makes out-and-out bigoted comments. Mitch, you can't expect people to vote for you when you talk like this:

"And Judaism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by Jews."

Shocking that he would say something like that, right? I took some liberties there. He said exactly the same thing, except about atheists. Read it again and try to tell me it makes what he said any better:

"And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists."

So either Daniels is a bigot, or he's just saying bigoted things to win votes from Christians. And to Christians, his sudden public professions of faith must seem a little eleventh hour. Thinking about 2012 Mitch?

I cannot vote for an openly bigoted candidate who considers me, and 13% of Americans, fundamentally immoral. I'm very sorry to cross Mitch Daniels off my list.

Wear Green Today: Support Democracy in Iran

No, it's not St. Patrick's Day. For the second time in 2009, the brave people of Iran are engaged in massive protests against the cynical theocracy that's kept them down. People have been killed, including an old man shot between the eyes and an opposition leader's nephew. As usual, Andrew Sullivan has excellent coverage. The Ayatollahs must realize that they're on the wrong side of history, that as with the idiot on the Detroit flight, they'll soon be a historical curiosity. Even Twitter users in China know this.

Dear Al Qaeda: Strong Work, Fellas

Terrorists are supposed to create terror, right? That is, as opposed to make us laugh at their incompetence and the ridiculous stone age religion that motivates them, like this most recent stunt over Detroit has done.

Unsurprisingly, the evolutionary throwbacks in Al Qaeda have failed again. These days they seem less like terrorists and more like that kid at school who misbehaves because daddy doesn't pay him enough attention. Seriously, lighting your pants on fire? I've seen the guys on Jackass do worse stuff.

I can understand why these Islamist losers are upset. Many of the hard-working, intelligent people from their countries have emigrated elsewhere in the world, where they (including their sisters, wives and daughters) have been astoundingly successful in business and medicine and just about any other secular endeavor they've undertaken. Meanwhile, the religious types can only sit and stew impotently in their hovels, wondering why their own "civilization", based as it is on a fairy-tale collection called the Qu'ran, can barely manage to keep the lights on, and never mind a healthy GDP growth.

So guys, why don't you chalk up one more failure, then get over that cute superstition you call Islam and just turn bin Laden over to us now. You are a back alley of history, and it's only a matter of time. Here are some cartoons of Mohammed to tide you over until then.

Hugo Chavez's Cynical Use of Native Americans

Background: I was reading up on the Warao, who live in northeastern Venezuela and are probably best-known outside that country for having a language with a rare word-order (object-subject-verb; that is, "Pizza I eat.") Recently they've made news for more unfortunate reasons, as people are dying from a virulent rabies-like disease.

The point of this background is that, for once, I was actually not reading up on Venezuela to find the most recent outrage or incompetence committed by Hugo Chavez. But all roads lead to Rome. A group from UC Berkeley visited the Warao home territory in the Orinoco Delta, and when they came back to the capital to inform Chavez's medical officials that there was an outbreak, they were largely ignored. It turns out that Chavez's government considers Indians to be subhumans not worth treating medically:

"We traveled by bus 16 hours to Caracas to make the authorities aware of the situation with the hope of getting some response," said Norvelis Gómez, a Warao paramedic who was one of four community leaders in the group. "And we are met with disrespect on every level, as if the deaths of indigenous people are not even worth noting."

Here we have another example of how unquestionable state-power attitudes inevitably translate into categorizing some individuals as less worthy than others. The reasons are never stated openly (because to decent people, they couldn't be) but they're always the same - because the people are the wrong color, the wrong religion, or the wrong social class. A powerful state with no accountability lets these base animal instincts that all humans share run wild. And running wild they are in Chavez and his medical ministers.

It's worth noting that Chavez has not exactly acted as the modern-day uniting Bolivar, since he's been caught twice by international organizations supplying weapons to rebel groups in a neighboring country. And it's further worth noting that an administration ingoring plagues spreading within its borders is anything but "populist".

What's interesting is that the Berkeley researchers take great pains to soften their criticism (not wanting to "smear" Chavez's government?); I hope this is for purely pragmatic reasons, that they want to come back to work more with Warao and keep Chavez from punishing them, as opposed to Berkeley people feeling a need to justify leftist oppression. Notice that indigenous people in the U.S. and Venezuela are now seeing through Chavez's use of them as political tools.

Next time you see a progressive reserving criticism of Chavez because he was so brave to blow hot air about Bush at the U.N., it's worth mentioning that he is one of the only national leaders who supported China in their smashing of Tibetan dissidents, and that he has no time for indigenous people unless the state's cameras are rolling.

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Patriot

Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese writer, signed a document with 300 other Chinese intellectual figures calling for increased civil liberties. The Chinese government has sentenced him to eleven years in prison and told the rest of the world to f*** off. This, after underhandedly smearing the U.S.'s international credibility in the Copenhagen climate talks. To learn more about China's abuses of its citizens visit Human Rights in China.

To say the least, this is not the behavior of a regime secure about its legitimacy. The Chinese Communist Party must be quite convinced that their tenure as ruling elites would be short if there were free elections and the Chinese people were allowed to say what they think.

Paying attention to stories like this and applying what pressure we can to our biggest competitor and trade partner for the twenty-first century is a potential big win for conservatives. I'm sure that GOP Senators can do better than the luke-warm denunciations that Pelosi et al have issued. Conservatives have a tendency to get scared off by words like "human rights", but why are we worried about state power and collectivism if not for exactly this reason? Visit Human Rights in China.

About Medicare: Is the GOP Pro-Free Market, or Not?

The GOP remains the defender of the free market where healthcare is concerned; this is good. The GOP also ardently defends and in fact even broadly expanded Medicare; this is puzzling. Medicare is a massively expensive healthcare entitlement program, but the GOP is the first to squeal when the Democrats try to cut or alter it. If the GOP is actually serious about protecting the free market for healthcare - and I sure wish someone in Washington would be - they would be the first to cut Federal entitlement programs like Medicare. It's medical welfare, plain and simple, and the GOP is just behaving like another pro-big-government party (and we have one of those already). While it's clear that they're maneuvering for senior votes, this doesn't alter the hypocrisy of the position, and the distortion that Medicare continues to wreak on the American medical marketplace.

The Source of All China's Social Problems: Video Games

Of course, China's murder, drug use, and teen pregnancy rates can't have anything to do with the grinding poverty and lack of education and job opportunities that still exists in China outside the coastal cities. The media are always an easy target for big governments everywhere in the world that want to deflect attention from more important causes. ("It wasn't my kid's fault he got caught with weed! My boy wouldn't do that. Heavy metal must have made him do it!")

And of course you don't have to read far to notice that the state-owned media (which is spreading this story) is apparently just fine, and find out that the focus is on the nefarious influence of foreign video games:

Chinese regulators this year have shut down dozens of online games designed overseas and ordered developers to stop including "lowbrow" content like monster-hunting in games. A struggle between government agencies for the right to regulate online games has further roiled the industry and helped send the hit game World of Warcraft offline for three months earlier this year.

Yet another excuse to censor information from outside China and block foreign competition.

Stop U.K. Courts From Silencing You

It's easier to make libel charges stick in the UK. So guess what people do all over the world when they have high-priced lawyers and something to hide, and people who want to get the truth out on their tails? They drag you into court in the U.K. and sue you for libel there. It's called libel tourism, and it's often an effective method to silence people who don't have the same resources. It boils down to a form of specific censorship.

Make your voice heard to sign the libel reform petition here.

Cornyn: Do You Want to Win or Not?

That's the translation of what John Cornyn said more gently when he told Republicans to accept that a) yes, there will be moderates in the party now and in the future, and b) suck it up.

The tea partiers need to hear tough talk from daddy like this. To be clear, you have two choices:

#1: In the primary, pick the candidate with the best chance of winning the general election (who will sometimes be a - gasp - moderate.)

- or -

#2: Pick the candidate who lines up most exactly with your positions, even if their general electability is poor.


Obama wants you to pick #2. Obama dreams of NY-23 repeated all across the country.

Inside Source: China Torpedoes Climate Deal

There are enough people arguing about climate change so I'm happy to let experts present their data and arguments to the public. However, I do ask this: if other things are equal, wouldn't you like not to keep sending money to Islamic dictatorships? Wouldn't you like to make the U.S. less vulnerable to OPEC by removing our dependence on foreign energy imports?

Aside from that I don't wade in much, but occasionally I do like looking at the arguments to see who takes what positions and why, mostly because they're good at revealing the political tectonic plates that people are standing on.

Any discussion of climate change is anathema to most self-declared conservatives, though I've had difficulty finding out why, other than liberals want it, so it must be evil. (Liberals like pizza. Quick, stop eating pizza, it must be evil! Right?) When the "pieces" of an argument shift, that's a good time to see where people stand. For example: a few months back Saudi Arabia announced that if the rest of the world stopped using oil, that it expected to get international welfare becaues its poor widdle economy is so one-dimensional.

Interestingly, both far-right conservatives and progressives were quiet about that, because it confused both of them. Many progressives seem to hate all energy everywhere, but frequently assume that if anything goes wrong in the world, the U.S. owes somebody money, so they didn't quite know what to do. Conservatives were similarly confounded - quick to applaud anything that weakens Islamic dictatorships, but also in the unfortunate habit of knee-jerk ridiculing any attempt to move away from fossil fuels. There's really no confusion here. The appropriate response? Tell Saudi Arabia "awww, let's have a pity party", and rejoice that it's within our power to turn fortune against an Islamic dictatorship in a way that decreases America's energy vulnerability. It seems to me this is an open-and-shut case!

So now we have news that the climate talks in Copenhagen were torpedoed by China's frustrating craftiness, from someone who was inside the talks:

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

There are several ways an American conservative (whatever that means anymore) can react to this. The two ends of the spectrum are:

1) Hail China. China is the true savior of mankind for stopping Obama's climate change efforts and humiliating him in the process. I hate Obama so much that I'm willing to diminish America's international standing to see him disrespected.

2) I don't like Obama and I disagree with his climate change policies, but China's maneuvering put the U.S. in a bad international position. For the sake of American and democratic interests in the world I wish at least that future American policy initiatives are not seen as fiascos.

A silver lining is that in discussions with pro-climate-change-treaty types, you can point out that it was China that destroyed their hopes and China that they should be considering the bad guy, not the United States. (Extra emphasis for social conservatives: even if any climate change agreement is antithetical to you, it's a good rhetorical point to get liberals away from this idea that it's always the U.S. that's the obstacle to progress.)

The whole article is worth reading, but another choice excerpt is:

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition.

This is why there are many of us in the blogosphere trying to wake people up to the Chinese government's antics. They're smart and they play rough and for keeps, and they won this round soundly.

Chinese Auto-Maker Geely Buying Volvo From Ford

Pretty soon the company that makes the infamous blue-state yuppiemobiles will be owned by a Chinese manufacturing combine. Much like the civilian Hummers already are.

Pragmatism and Dissent in China

Westerners' concerns about a resurgent China boil down to this: a country which shows little interest in democratic values is in a massive economic upswing that will surely lead to its own values being increasingly influential around the world and even within the United States. My own concerns are, additionally, that this is happening while American conservatives, who are normally the watchful eyes of our republic, are distracting themselves with much less important domestic social issues; don't you think Chinese central planners sleep better knowing that we're convulsed in arguments about birth certificates?

It's worth pointing out that somehow, almost half of Americans have gotten it in their heads that the Chinese economy is the biggest in the world (which James Fallows appropriately called "crazy".) While this is way off base, it signals that paying more attention to China could be another big win for conservatives. It's all the more mystifying that this opportunity is being missed (along with other possible conservative big wins).

In any event, it's foolish to think that China's upswing will not continue. It is also foolish to try to slow or stop it. A prosperous China is good not only for Chinese people but for everyone on the planet. What is far better is a prosperous and democratic China, and that's not automatic. To play devil's advocate, a common Chinese attitude toward Western (and especially American) criticisms of China's lack of civil liberties is this: that what's important is economic growth, that China's people aren't ready for full democracy, that the Western obsession with civil liberties is a bit naive, and anyway what has all this freedom and openness gotten us lately? A recession, and a massive deficit that China is financing. So who are we to tell them what works and what doesn't? Ideally, the citizens of the West's liberal democracies should each have a well-thought-out answer for this.

While we shouldn't expect The Nation to contain eloquent defenses of capitalism, one article by Christopher Hayes does contain a very interesting discussion with former Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi:

Xu argued that [the lack of civil liberties] is all part of the plan: "Let's look at our neighboring Asian countries," he said. "South Korea: its peak developing speed was reached using military rule.... Indonesia was successful during the reign of Suharto but recently it faces stalemate and difficulties." The reason that democracy is an obstacle to economic progress, Xu said, is that "the poor people want to divide the property of the rich people.... If we Chinese copied the directly elected situation today, people will say, 'I want everyone to have a good job.' Someone will say, 'I will divide the property of the rich people to poor people,' and he will be elected. It is useless: parity will not solve the problem of economic development. That is why we are taking a gradual and step-by-step approach in reform. As Mr. Deng said, we will cross the river by touching the stones. We will not get ourselves drowned, and we will cross the river."

Modern China is nothing if not rich with irony, and it's hard to overstate the irony of a Chinese Communist Party official arguing that economic growth relies on sustained inequality and silencing the dissent of the proletariat. But once we get past that, the fact remains (no doubt missed by Mr. Hayes) that the U.S., and many other countries, have sustained excellent economic growth with exactly those democratic values. I ask as a friendly challenge, why should China be unable to repeat this feat?

Later in the article Hayes talks about his conversation with Wang Hui, a dissident whose relative openness should be cause for optimism about the growth of dissent and Chinese civil discourse:

A participant in the Tiananmen uprising, Wang spent time in re-education camps before going on to edit an independent journal that criticized the government from, for lack of a better word, the left. We met for lunch in a restaurant on the campus of Beijing's Tsinghua University, and as Wang spoke about politics in China, our two chaperones grew more and more uncomfortable, staring down at their plates in silence as if Wang were sharing graphic details of his sex life. It was a reminder that explicitly political debates are taboo. But Wang's point is that there is a public sphere in China, cramped though it may be, and it's beginning to have an effect: if an issue seizes the public's attention, the government now finds itself forced to respond.

I particularly like the "for lack of a better word" apology for the use of "left"; but frankly, whatever position Wang is arguing from, if he's attacking the legitimacy of a regime that is based on an argument from authority, I really don't care which end of the spectrum he's coming from, and neither should anyone else who holds democratic values. I have to admit that I don't care for the odd allergy American conservatives seem to have to dissidents stirring up trouble for oppressive regimes. The formula seems to be "if it's a tea party, fine, but everyone else is just a damn hippie asking for trouble, even if they're elsewhere in the world protesting a corrupt regime". Ronald Reagan would not be proud of this lack of support for freedom fighters like Wang in an evil empire.

As a final point, the article throws around a figure of 800 million cars eventually being on the road in a developed China. Those will use a lot of gasoline. Another conservative knee-jerk that I'm also finding increasingly inexplicable is the reaction against any energy source but oil. When the oil runs out - and it will, especially because China is now at the pump - wouldn't you rather have America in better shape than China?

I Will Not Be Voting for Tim Pawlenty

Sorry Tim. If you pander to semiliterate fundamentalists, you can't expect moderates to take you seriously:

Let me ask you about social issues your party has been dealing with. In her book, Palin claims that McCain’s handlers wanted her to be silent about her belief in creationism. How would you describe your view?

I can tell you how we handle it in Minnesota. We leave it to the local school districts. We don't mandate a curriculum or an approach. We allow for something called "intelligent design" to be discussed as a comparative theory. It doesn’t have to be in science class.

From Newsweek

Translation: "I, Tim Pawlenty, can't make hard decisions, and I care more about not offending some superstitious grannies than I do about protecting America's technical and business competitiveness."

How about Islamic creationism being taught in schools - would you be okay with that, Tim? I want Islamic creationism to be taught in schools, not this Christian mumbo jumbo. I'm sure there are school districts in LA and Detroit where they'd be happy to interpret any rulings that way.

Note that I am once again registered Republican so I can affect the primary. I understand that 2009 is a tough time to be Republican; it's very difficult not to cave in to the special-interest Christian jihadis who shout loudest in the party. But Pawlenty just removed himself from the list of candidates who could possibly win a general election.

Birthers: If You're Right About Anything You're Saying, I'll Pay You

Can you say "ALL TALK?" The Beck/Malkin birther crowd is a bunch of pouting babies who play too many video games. Unfortunately in their pouting they make dangerous, legally actionable threats and they discredit serious conservatives. One belief that's been propagating through blog comment sections is the idea that the 2010 elections will be canceled (because of course we're living in a communist dictatorship with conspiracies hatching left and right). Do you really believe that? Then that's a prediction that's easily tested, isn't it?

It sure is. So let's pin those predictions to consequences, monetary or otherwise. This is called "betting". Just in case you have a problem with gambling, it doesn't have to be with money (more on that later). So come on guys, you seem pretty damn sure of yourselves. Why waste time huffing and puffing in comment sections? Bet me! Make some money off the sadly-duped-by-liberal-fascists RINOs like myself!

But I have yet to find a real man among the people I've challenged, because (maybe not surprisingly) these yahoos invariably find reasons not to take bets. (Note: if you are one of said yahoos and run across this and you want to bet about the 2010 elections, or any other nonsense, leave a comment and we'll make it happen, big guy.) As soon as there are consequences for the nonsense they're spouting, they back off - exactly the actions of someone who doesn't have the courage of their convictions. But of course they don't announce that they actually don't believe any of their own rantings. Here's how they avoid accountability:

- They don't respond. The coward's way, and the most popular among birthers.

- They quibble over details of the bet, then they back out. The lawyer's way.

- They suddenly discover they have moral problems with gambling.


If the last one is your reason, we don't have a problem; the payout doesn't have to be money. I'm happy to have you issue a public student the day after the 2010 elections to the effect that you were wrong, and that your hyperbole is untrue and harmful. I will do the same if I am wrong. If you still have a problem with that, then what you're really saying is, you don't want to ever be held accountable for anything you say. Just like my five year old cousin.

Any takers? Come on, don't everybody jump at once! I'm not expecting to be rushed with bet offers, because the birther crowd is all clueless cowards that don't really believe what they're saying. Here's your chance to prove me wrong, maybe make a few bucks, and show me there's a single real man among you.

[Added same day: I'm going to start keeping track going forward.]

PERSON	BLOG	RESPONSE
Lawrence Moore	The Wayfarer Philosophy	#3 - "I don't gamble."

If anyone actually has the cajones to stand behind what they believe, I'll put them in a separate list right here. So far there's no one to put in the list. Surprise!

Who Cares About Climate When You Can Weaken the Middle East

I don't post much about climate science if only because the blogosphere is chock full of it already. There seems to be resentment from some quarters that the public allows their opinions to be influenced by experts. To put it bluntly, this is strange. When you're managing your investments or buying property, do you allow experts to influence your opinion? Yes. In fact you might even pay them to do so! Why are other decisions any different?

I do have to admit that I'm puzzled at how passionate anti-anthropogenic-global-warming people are. (To be clear, by "anti" I mean people who don't believe that there is evidence for anthropogenic global warming.) I'm puzzled because I don't understand what people are worried about. In other words, does this faction think global warming conclusions are just misguided groupthink, or is it something more sinister with bigger consequences?

It seems to me the strongest argument related to fossil fuel use has nothing to do with climate, and everything to do with becoming energy independent from theocratic dictators in the Middle East. Do you like sending money to the Islamic kingdoms around the Gulf? Me neither. There are fewer foreign policy goals more conservative than reducing dependence on foreign powers.

When China Rules the World

That's the title of Martin Jacques's book, reviewed in the Washington Post. I have not read the book, but the Post reviwer a) doesn't full share his conclusion and b) doesn't give details on how the author must answer (or ignore) well-informed economists' reasoned arguments that China will not ever see a per capita income like that of currently developed Western nations. Those would be the passages to look for.

My dream is that a vibrant, economically healthy China with free elections and free speech will step up to take its rightful place as one of the world's great nations. The way that the twenty-first century closes will largely depend on the resolution of that problem and the relationship of China and the West. Unfortunately it is not clear that this is the direction the Chinese government is currently taking or has any reason to be interested in, nor that Americans are holding our leaders accountable to make decisions (economically, militarily, strategically) that will put us in a better position in the future to encourage this development.

In American history, typically it's been conservatives who have faced these kinds of unpleasant realities and made the hard decisions, but today's conservatives seem more interested (for example) in applauding the Chinese government for punishing Uighur dissidents who happen to be Muslim, than in confronting a country with the combined military ambitions of the Soviet Union and the economic ambitions of Japan as it makes clear its contempt for individual liberty.

One of the Few Benefits of Bobby Mugabe's Reign

This Brazilian student found a rare bright side: who wants to be a trillionare?

Scientific Basis of Medicine in U.S. Undermined by Healthcare Bill

It seems like a no-brainer, but apparently some politicians, and a frightening number of the electorate, need to be reminded that the basis of medicine is science, and not quackery about chakras, the cures of the ancient Mayans, energy fields, or conspiracy theories about microchips and the number of the beast. (Big clue: there's a reason that medical progress occurred only after the Enlightement.) I highly recommend a visit to Science in Medicine because this is the only organization calling B.S. on superstition masquerading as medical practice.

In particular, there are concerns that the healthcare bill passing Congress at the moment has provisions for ineffective or outright unsafe forms of New Agey nonsense that not only can hurt patients, but drain taxpayers' wallets.