Controversy over discrimination by Christian Legal Society at Hastings Law

Here's an interesting attempt by a Christian campus group at Hastings Law (Berkeley, CA) to try to get taxpayer money to fund their organization.  These are law students at one of the top law schools in the country, yet they cannot understand the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  If I were the Dean, I would throw them out of school for being unable to understand a well-established legal principle.  They are wasting taxpayer money by bringing suit, and should be forced to pay for the costs of the lawsuit.

Here's the link for Americans United for Separation of Church and State's Amicus Curiae brief.

An odd thing happened when I called Hastings Law to get a statement from the school about this issue.  The young woman in charge of press relations (who shall remain nameless) actually laughed at me when I was explaining why this issue was important to me.  How inappropriate for someone who works in press relations!  Especially when you consider that she works for one of the top law schools in the country, which of course means she will be dealing with numerous controversies as that is what the law is about, determining what the law says in the context of disputes between opposing parties.  I am still a little in shock.  And more than a little dismayed.  Is this the level of competency and maturity to be found in our one of our most prestitious public institutions?  How very sad.

Who'd a thunk? How you eat affects your health.

I am very excited to see that economic hardship and healthcare costs are finally driving large corporations to consider offering better food choices for their employees.  Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/health/policy/29diet.html

Congressional Budget Office says healthcare reform plan won't increase premiums

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/health/policy/01health.html


Check it out. This is very good news from some very brainy and conservative bean counters.

Insomnia? Exercise day, you'll fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer

According to an article I read in the NY Times today, several sleep studies have proven the assumed connection not only between exercising and falling asleep more easily but also between exercise and sleeping longer.  Walking my big dog twice a day isn't enough to end insomnia.  Tom (my sweetheart), you were right.  I'm hitting the gym every day from now on.  I WANT TO SLEEP BETTER!

Clin Sports Med. 2005 Apr;24(2):355-65, xi.

Effects of exercise on sleep.

Youngstedt SD.

Department of Exercise Science, Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, 1300 Wheat Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. syoungstedt@sc.edu

Historically, perhaps no daytime behavior has been more closely associated with better sleep than exercise. The assumption that exercise promotes sleep has also been central to various hypotheses about the functions of sleep. Hypotheses that sleep serves an energy conservation function, a body tissue restitution function, or a temperature down-regulation function all have predicted a uniquely potent effect of exercise on sleep because no other stimulus elicits greater depletion of energy stores, tissue breakdown, or elevation of body temperature, respectively. Exercise offers a potentially attractive alternative or adjuvant treatment for insomnia. Sleeping pills have a number of adverse side effects and are not recommended for long-term use, partly on the basis of a significant epidemiologic association of chronic hypnotic use with mortality. Other behavioral/cognitive treatments are more effective for chronic insomnia treatment, but difficult and costly to deliver. By contrast, exercise could be a healthy, safe, inexpensive, and simple means of improving sleep.

PMID: 15892929 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]