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...success, especially in science, is relative. Yes, as media reports immediately crowed, the vaccine was 31% effective at reducing the risk of HIV infection among the 16,000 healthy volunteers in the study. But that's nowhere near the 70%-to-80% rate that most public-health experts say is the minimum needed for an immunization to be judged worthwhile. Consider also that circumcision can cut the risk of HIV infection nearly twice as effectively...
...placebo for troubled minds. But the oily sadist Gervais played on The Office is not the movie Ricky (seen here and in last year's Ghost Town), who'd rather have a hug than a slap in the face. Mark, getting in deeper before he has to make a public declaration of his sins, may deserve both, but ultimately he could be the hero of a Frank Capra fable, if Capra had been an atheist. The Invention of Lying is likely to leave people, believers or not, with a smile. You're pretty cute, Ricky, they...
Social change may happen fast, but no one stops polluting unless an Indian cries on TV. My point isn't that activists and advocates don't shift the way we think; public opinion shifts in various ways, the prolonged explanation of each of which has made Malcolm Gladwell millions of dollars. My point is simply that, everything being equal, a dictator can make an Indian cry fastest...
...forms of paternalism, but we also quickly accept them: laws requiring seat belts and motorcycle helmets, forced retirement savings through Social Security, waiting periods for marriage and gun licenses. Though you're not hurting anyone else, you can't commit suicide, have sex with your dog, drink in public, do drugs, be a prostitute, swim at a beach without a lifeguard, eat unpasteurized cheese or do most things that are crucial to the plot of independent movies. (See the 10 worst-dressed world leaders...
...that, there is no doubt. Nearly 1 in 5 Catholic schools in the U.S. has closed its doors this decade. To non-Catholics, this may not appear to be something worth worrying about. But parochial schools are one of the largest (if not the largest) alternatives to the American public-education system, and their steady decline inordinately affects urban low-income minorities who would otherwise be left at the mercy of public schools that have proven incapable of educating them. (See pictures of the Pope...