On the front page of the Tribune today:  “Dan Ryan victim mourned slain friend weeks earlier: ‘Put the guns down‘” — a somewhat cryptic online headline for a story which is, in the print version, titled, “‘I got to bury another child?’ Pregnant mom of 5 is gunned down on Dan Ryan; her brother was slain nearby a year ago.” The article features this particular Chicago South Side victim of gun violence because, by coincidence, a Tribune reporter had interviewed... Read more

On the one hand, what do you say about last night’s 7-1 result, in which Germany defeated Brazil and broke countless records in the process, that the professionals haven’t said already? On the other hand — come on, you want to talk about it, don’t you? A few observations: It does bother me that, in the CNN reporting and in the comments, everyone has to return to Nazis.  The headline:  “World Cup: Brazil dreams destroyed by ruthless Germany” is already... Read more

That is, will the availability of free contraception through health insurance cause women to spend more than they otherwise would, now that it’s Other People’s Money? I had observed the other day that the actual goal of declaring all contraception Free!  Free!  Free! seems to be to move more women onto the IUD and implants because of their lower risk of user failures. Are these methods actually cost-effective, over time?  In principle, if the Mirena IUD costs approximately $1,000, and... Read more

This is what we’re being told about the Central American women and children showing up on our doorstep:  they are, in effect, refugees, driven by desperate conditions in their home countries,including gang warfare and sky-high murder rates, with the countries’ governments wholly unable to, well, govern.  It’s almost remarkable that every single Central American child hasn’t already fled, but based on the reporting we’ve seen, we can expect them to do so.  And, as in any refugee situation, international law... Read more

Last night I read about and wrote about the contraceptive mandate.  It was striking to me that this mandate really was quite different than all other mandatory services, which were focused on screening and counseling, or a small number of specific services for at-risk groups (such as low-dose aspirin).  I read the government’s rationale as expressed in the relevant regulation issued in 2013, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that, so today I’ve gone to the original Institute of Medicine... Read more

So just how many “sky is falling” articles have your socially-liberal friends on facebook shared?  Because you know that, if you tend to read socially-conservative websites, you still get your daily dose of liberal ideology that way, even if you don’t happen on any given day to stop by and see what clickbait Slate has to offer. (Today, George Takei had a picture of two weepy men holding an infant just born to a surrogate they had contracted with; it... Read more

Independent Maps, the group spearheading the proposed fair redistricting amendment to the Illinois constitution, has abandoned its effort after an unfavorable court ruling. This actually occured in the last week of June — see this Eric Zorn blog post which links to news articles and provides commentary.  Essentially, if I understand correctly, the judge ruled that only the specific topics addressed in the constitution may be amended by a constitutional amendment process.  Zorn’s post focuses on the parallel effort to... Read more

(originally written April 11th) This from today’s Tribune: On Thursday, the [Federal Insurance Office in the U.S. Treasury Department] — which is headed by Michael McRaith, the former head of Illinois’ insurance department — announced it was seeking comments and information about the affordability of car insurance and ways to determine whether minority communities have enough access to it.  Not much more detail than that, but this is astonishing.  Car insurance is a consumer product with a great deal of... Read more