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December 08 2009

mathias
17:14

Condom Law: NSFW

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is lobbying California to require the use of condoms in porn movies. Their argument is that this is an employee safety issue--like requiring workers to wear hard hats--and so should fall under the Cal/OSHA laws.

But in an op-ed at Forbes.com Alex Padilla points out that to fall under the law will require classifying porn stars as employees rather than as performers and that has surprising consequences. 

...the adult film industry would have to make every performer an employee to satisfy the California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal/OSHA, laws. This would be detrimental: California's anti-discrimination laws prohibit requiring an HIV test as a condition of employment; therefore the adult film industry's current testing process, in which every performer is tested for HIV monthly, would be illegal. Nor would adult film producers be allowed to "discriminate" by refusing employment to HIV-positive performers. As a result, untested and HIV-positive performers would be able to work in the industry, raising the risks of HIV outbreaks--particularly since condom breakage or slippage can occur.

My suspicion is that the AIDS lobbyists are not really so concerned with the performers but they do want to increase condom use by the general public and they think seeing more condoms in porn movies will help with that goal.  A legitimate goal perhaps, but more likely the industry will move to Nevada or will further go online amateur.

Hat tip to Ed Lopez at Division of Labor.

Tags: Economics Education Film
Reposted byhairinmycoloredgrayscalemondkroetealviond

November 25 2009

mathias
18:58

Start Healthier Living by Bike Commuting

Everyone that reads this site knows the benefits of commuting by bike.  Not only for the enviroment, saving money, less gas, air pollution and such, but also the health benefits.  You lose weight, while saving money.  There are other health benefits too, I’m certainly much happier when I ride my bike to work or the grocery store then driving.

Over at Good.is there is an study that shows the obvious benefits of going by bike and how it would effect the U.S obesity rate.

The average American is both overweight and spends more than 100 hours per year commuting, that vast majority of those hours being spent in a car. Are those numbers correlated? Could we help reduce our societal weight gain by encouraging more commutes by bike or foot? Our latest Transparency is a look at the number of active commutes in several countries, as compared to those countries obesity rates.

Make sure to the rest, and also check out the very nice graphic of various countries commuting by bike compared to their obesity levels.

Online : Good.is

Tags: Advocacy Education Musings bikecommuters commute by bike commuting by bike obesity

November 10 2009

mathias
18:35

Caplan on Education

How much does increasing college-going rates matter to our economy and society?
Caplan: College attendance, in my view, is usually a drain on our economy and society. Encouraging talented people to spend many years in wasteful status contests deprives the economy of millions of man-years of output. If this were really an "investment," of course, it might be worth it. But I see little connection between the skills that students acquire in college and the skills they'll need later in life.
Much more here, including answers from Charles Murray, Richard Vedder and others. Hat tip to Arnold Kling.
Tags: Economics Education
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