Posts Tagged ‘Michele Bachmann’
Some More Tuesday Links
* I wrote a short blog post for HASTAC compiling some recent thoughts and links on “openness” in the university system, which are likely no surprise to anyone who follows this blog but which I include here for the sake of completeness regardless.
* It’s cute that Josh Marshall thinks Bachmann just making sh!t up means her run at the GOP nomination is over. Of course, what this actually means is that it’s now an open question whether Gardasil causes mental retardation in young girls.
* Elizabeth Warren announces for Senate tomorrow.
* Here comes Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.
* The Trash|Track Project asks: Why do we know so much about the supply chain and so little about the removal chain? Via Melody.
* And via longform.org: On Gender-Identity Disorder and the DSM.
The DSM work group assigned to gender identity disorder, a panel of specialized field experts, has already bowed to some external pressures. It has made clear that it intends to change the name of the diagnosis from “disorder” to “dysphoria”—which describes a passing mood rather than a fixed state. The work group has also made public its plans to not only preserve the core GID diagnosis, but to retain an even more controversial entry: GID in children.
… The second argument in favor of keeping GID in the diagnostic manual is where things get ethically murky. The removal of the diagnosis may also remove insurance coverage for transsexual adults who are being treated with hormonal or surgical reassignment. As of now, a diagnosis of mental illness is the only mechanism that transsexuals have for medical insurance to cover mastectomies, testosterone injections, and genital reconstruction surgeries (though very few insurance companies cover any sort of gender reassignment, because it is most often considered “cosmetic”).
Megan Smith, a Nebraska-based psychotherapist and an advocate for the removal of GID from the DSM, claims that the insurance argument is the one she most often encounters. Smith believes keeping the diagnosis for the sake of insurance coverage is “unethical and unscientific.” Smith argues, “I don’t believe it’s our obligation as mental health professionals to change psychiatric evaluations in order to play ball with insurance companies.”
Thursday Roundup
* In sum, nobody — and I mean nobody — was talking about how weak the presidency supposedly is before Barack Obama was inaugurated: neither in the domestic nor foreign policy realm. Greenwald is debating Scott Lemieux from Lawyers, Guns, and Money, whose posts on the subject are here and here.
* Over my friend Traxus’s objections, Elizabeth Warren will run for Senate. Sorry bro.
* In CounterPunch: Who Will Save Libya From Its Western Saviours?
* “The man sitting in front of you is not a so-called statesman, but a completely normal person”: Mikhail Gorbachev at 80.
* Chart of the day: paid vacation in the developed world.
* Never forget: Economic contraction is a policy choice.
* Tom Coburn forgets how dog whistles are supposed to work.
* Peter Singer: The Troubled Life of Nim Chimpsky.
* And two months from now it will have always been appropriate for lawyers to call themselves “Dr.” Looking forward to it.
Monday Links
* Manned space flight after the space shuttle.
* Fascinating user revolt at HuffPo in the comments of their icon design contest.
* Bachmann, Perry, and Christian Dominionism.
* Inconceivable! 23 straight polls say people want to raise taxes to pay off the debt.
* And if liberals say the world is warming, it must really be cooling: Rick Perry’s daft climate change conspiracy theory. 2012 is going to be a long year.
Debt Ceiling Alignment Chart
Earlier today @rortybomb asked for a D&D alignment chart on the debt ceiling fight. I thought this was a pretty great idea, and had some free time. Here goes:
