From a new paper (via Chris Blattman) by Marcella M. Alsan and David M. Cutler:

Among young women, who experienced the greatest decline in HIV prevalence, the most important component was delaying sexual debut, accounting for 57 percent of the drop in HIV prevalence. Condom use by high risk males and to a lesser extent death (of older males) also played a significant role, accounting for 30 and 16 percent respectively. However, for older women, the trend is reversed, with death being more important than abstinence or condom usage.

All told, we explain 86 percent of the reduction in AIDS in Uganda.

According to the Environmental Law Institute, the majority of federal energy subsidies support fossil fuels, not renewable or new alternative technologies. “Subsidies to fossil fuels—a mature, developed industry that has enjoyed government support for many years—totaled approximately $72 billion over the study period, representing a direct cost to taxpayers,” the report notes. “Subsidies for renewable fuels, a relatively young and developing industry, totaled $29 billion over the same period.”

Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t support subsidies for either of the two. But I don’t think many people support higher subsides for fossil fuels than renewable fuels.

The Wall Street Journal sounds off on socialized medicine and the IRS:

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency’s new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already “greatly taxed”—pun intended?—”by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public,” like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for “the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.” And without “sufficient funding” it won’t be able to discharge these new duties.

That wouldn’t be tragic, given that those new duties include audits to determine who has the insurance “as required by law” and collecting penalties from Americans who don’t. Companies that don’t sponsor health plans will also be punished. This crackdown will “involve nearly every division and function of the IRS,” Ms. Olson reports.

So we finally have health care for all, and the government’s leading wealth confiscators receive additional power. Who didn’t see that coming? President Obama seems absolutely intent on driving our economy into the ground.

President Obama’s clear antagonism towards proponents of individual liberty has caused a rise in tax revenues from the sale of firearms and ammunition. Catherine Rampell reports:

Federal tax revenue on the sales of firearms and ammunition rose 45 percent in the last fiscal year. That is the highest annual increase on record, according to a new report from the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

By comparison, the annual average increase for fiscal years 1993 to 2008 was 6 percent.

These went up because people were simply buying more guns and ammunition, apparently because they feared Barack Obama would curb their access to deadly weapons upon taking office.

“Retail sales analysis indicates that gun sales strongly correlate to changes in the political landscape in the United States,” the report says. “Specifically, gun sales rise when citizens perceive an oncoming challenge to their Second Amendment right to bear arms.”

Sadly, the logic behind the increased sale of firearms and ammunition is sound. Any leader whose agenda includes such a rapid expansion of government at the cost of individual liberty must, at some point, either restrict the right to bear arms or curb the expansion of governmental power. I would not put any hope in the possibility that President Obama will choose the latter.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents and teachers of a new drug: sounds. According to Wired, kids have discovered binaural beats which can be used for “physiological effects.” According to the article, “it could be a gateway drug leading teens to real-world narcotics.”

“Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places,” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs spokesman Mark Woodward told News 9.

I-dosing involves donning headphones and listening to “music” — largely a droning noise — which the sites peddling the sounds promise will get you high. Teens are listening to such tracks as “Gates of Hades,” which is available on YouTube gratis (yes, the first one is always free).

Those who want to get addicted to the “drugs” can purchase tracks that will purportedly bring about the same effects of marijuana, cocaine, opium and peyote. While street drugs rarely come with instruction manuals, potential digital drug users are advised to buy a 40-page guide so that they learn how to properly get high on MP3s.

Does this sound absurd to anyone else?

Mark Perry provides us with the lengths of other milestones in financial legislation:

1. Federal Reserve Act (1913) – 31 pages.

2. Glass-Steagall Act (1933) – 37 pages.

3. Interstate Banking Efficiency Act (1994) – 61 pages.

4. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) – 145 pages.

5. Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) – 66 pages.

This is the last thing our economy needs. More productivity-strangling legislation to shackle businesses, making them even more unable to provide the necessary spending for our economy to recover.  As Ayn Rand once said:

One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.