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Rudy v. Wade

By Michael WeissPosted Friday, May 11, 2007, at 5:43 PM ET

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Bel, a Thatcher-nostalgic Tory at Bel is thinking, listened to Brown's speech and "was hoping for a journalist to ask why he equated more spending with better services. I wanted someone to make the point that rather than boasting about the amounts spent, as if he should somehow be congratulated for devising new ways of parting us from our money, perhaps Brown should be hanging his head in shame that despite all this money being spent, there is so little to show for it."

Read more about Brown's announcement.

Not-so-safe sex: A new Johns Hopkins study has concluded that the sexually transmitted HPV virus is a greater cause of throat cancer than smoking or drinking. That means oral sex gets added the ever-mounting list of things that are bad for you.

Bio-technology writer Ronald Bailey at libertarian Reason's Hit & Run wants to know if boys should be inoculated against HPV too: "Last year, some anti-HPV vaccine folks worried that vaccination might encourage female promiscuity. If HPV vaccination becomes mandatory for both boys and girls will this exacerbate the oral sex craze among teens?"

Shelley Batts at science blog Retrospectacle notes that "drinking and smoking did not exacerbate the risk of throat cancer in these patients---it was really *just* the virus. Despite this increased risk, the overall risk even for people who carried HPV, was very low. Its also important to note that the number of patients in the study was low (100 cancer patients, 200 normal controls) so the results should be replicated before you make...er....adjustments in your lifestyle."

Read more about the oral-sex/throat-cancer study.