HPHWD

2004: Songwriter Melissa Etheridge has breast cancer. That’s bad news. But there’s good news too, Bachmann tells the conservative education group EdWatch: maybe the cancer will give her time to reflect on her sinful lifestyle: “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers. This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.” In the same speech, she alleges that “almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female.

Britain’s Tory-led coalition government has undergone a reshuffle. Among the changes: Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary who tried to rubberstamp Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the rest of Sky TV, is now minister of health; which is somewhat troubling given his outspoken beliefs in homeopathy, and statements defending the NHS’s funding of homeopathic “medicine” (which had, in the past, been roundly denounced in Parliament).

Despite the near-panic that broke out in Democratic circles a few weeks ago when Romney drew even in some national polls, Obama has remained the betting market’s choice. At Intrade, the online prediction site, the implied probability of an Obama victory is about fifty-six per cent. Interestingly, at Ladbrokes, the British bookie, he is a firmer favorite: the odds on him winning are 8-15. (Bet a hundred and fifty dollars to win eighty dollars.)

Among those who favored health care repeal, support for judicial review increased markedly with increasing political knowledge. This is not an unexpected pattern. Political scientists have long recognized that “Democratic beliefs and habits are obviously not ‘natural’ but must be learned,” as Herbert McClosky put it in a classic 1964 article on “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics.” They are more likely to have been learned by people who are sufficiently attentive to public affairs to know, for example, that John Roberts is a judge rather than a representative, senator, or cabinet member (54% of the YouGov sample).

Le chef de l’État a également nommé le Pr Olivier Lyon-Caen comme conseiller sur la santé et la recherche médicale. Chef du service de neurologie à l’hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière de Paris, coordinateur du pôle des maladies nerveuses, il a déjà occupé le poste de conseiller médical au cabinet de Lionel Jospin, Premier ministre. Le Pr Lyon-Caen avait cosigné l’an dernier un « manifeste pour une santé égalitaire et solidaire » avec notamment André Grimaldi et Didier Tabuteau.

La santé occupe une place assez secondaire dans tous les programmes, alors même que la santé est perçue comme une préoccupation majeure, arrivant souvent en deuxième position après l’emploi dans les sondages.