As no. 2 LSU prepares to play no. 1 Alabama on Saturday night, this video provides a glimpse at another big LSU game — the 1959 battle between no. 1 LSU and no. 3 Ole Miss that propelled LSU legend Billy Cannon to a Heisman Trophy and a rich professional contract with the Houston Oilers.
Since Steve Jobs’ death almost a month ago, much has been written about his approach to dealing with his pancreatic cancer.
However, David Gorski over at Respectful Insolence here and here has provided the most level-headed analysis of Jobs’ ordeal that I’ve read anywhere to date.
The bottom line is that we simply do not know enough about Jobs’ circumstances with this particularly pernicious form of cancer to know whether his nine-month flirtation with quacks before submitting to the Whipple surgical procedure made any difference in his death. The Whipple procedure can save the lives of a very small percentage of pancreatic cancer patients, but we do not know if Jobs’ tumor was of the specific type that can be effectively eradicated through that procedure. About the only sure thing that can be said about Jobs’ foray into the ephemeral field of “alternative medicine” is that it didn’t help his situation.
The optimistic view of therapeutic intervention in medicine that post-World War II doctors embraced has resulted in enormous advances in our understanding on how to cure, or mollify the effects of, disease.
But the real lesson of Steve Jobs’ cancer is that there remains much more that we simply do not know.
The futile and damaging nature of drug prohibition is a frequent topic on this blog, so check out this Nick Gillespie interview of Ken Burns on the unintended consequences of prohibition and then review this Radley Balko/Freedom Daily article on the enormous collateral damage of drug prohibition.
A truly civil society would find a better way.
Stephen Colbert provides his amusing spin on the corruption of big-time college sports by interviewing Taylor Branch, author of the e-book The Cartel, which is an expanded version of Branch’s cover story from the October issue of The Atlantic, The Shame of College Sports (H/T Jay Christensen).
In less than ten minutes, Clear Thinkers favorite Richard Epstein lucidly explains the societal benefits of providing economic incentives that produce inequality in a market economy (H/T Bart Bentley).
Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
So, former Enron Task Force director Andrew Weissmann has found his way back into government service, this time as general counsel to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
This is the fellow who – among other outrageous tactics — is primarily responsible for prosecuting Arthur Andersen out of business and for destroying the careers of several innocent Merrill Lynch executives in the notoriously misguided Nigerian Barge case.
And now he is the primary counselor to the federal government’s primary investigative force.
Weissmann’s track record of abuse of power should be grounds to preclude him from such a position. But in this day and age, it is viewed as sound preparation.
Not a particularly pleasant thought to have if the Devil ever turns on you.
Dr. Eric J. Ahlskog of The Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neurology discusses his article appearing in the September 2011 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings on the effect of physical exercise as a disease-modifying treatment for dementia and the aging brain (H/T Art DeVany).