Couldn’t Help But Notice (040308)

This could be the day’s second BizzyBlog Positivity post — Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has news from Africa, reported by the Catholic News Agency:

Speaking on Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in support of a 2008 bill that would renew the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the congressman said recent reports showed the effectiveness of African HIV/AIDS prevention program based on promoting positive behavioral change.

“Five years after PEPFAR first began, the efficacy and importance of promoting abstinence and ‘be faithful’ initiatives have been demonstrated. The evidence is compelling,” Smith said.

PEPFAR, he said, relies on the ABC model, which stands for “Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms.” Smith cited comments about PEPFAR from the U.S. State Department, USAID, and the Department of Health and Human Services that said the ABC model “is now recognized as the most effective strategy to prevent HIV in generalized epidemics… The legislation’s emphasis on ‘AB’ activities has been an important factor in the fundamental and needed shift in USG (Unitied States Global) prevention strategy from a primarily ‘C’ approach prior to PEPFAR to the balanced ABC strategy.”

Rep. Smith added that a “growing body of data” validates the behavioral changes encouraged by ABC programs. Data from Zimbabwe and Kenya “mirrors the earlier success of Uganda’s ABC approach to preventing HIV,” he noted.

….. Smith also referred to the September, 2007 testimony of Dr. Norman Hearst before the Foreign Affairs Committee. Hearst said, “Five years ago, I was commissioned by UNAIDS to conduct a technical review of how well condoms have worked for AIDS prevention in the developing world.” After he and his associates collected “mountains of data,” he said, “we then looked for evidence of public health impact for condoms in generalized epidemics. To our surprise, we couldn’t find any. No generalized HIV epidemic has ever been rolled back by a prevention strategy primarily based on condoms.”

The Bush behavior-based initiative has helped slow down AIDS in Africa. That’s how a President not obsessed with a legacy, or whether Old Media thinks his legacy is, creates a real one. (Update: Bleep — It’s obvious from reading press coverage elsewhere that the amounts being spent have gotten out of control, and are probably enriching a bunch of totally undeserving NGO types and corrupt bureaucrats/kleptocrats. That, unfortunately, will be a damning element of the Bush legacy.)

Read the whole thing. I will be surprised if you see the abstinence data reported anywhere else.

Posted in longer and revised form at NewsBusters.org.

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This bears watching — The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the employment situations in individual states shows that Oklahoma’s unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted) has dropped from 4.1% in December, to 3.7% in January, to 3.1% in February.

The Sooner State’s not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (i.e., based on the raw data) went from 4.2% in January to 3.5% in February. The number of unemployed dropped from 72,900 to 59,700 in one month.

These results have potential national significance, because Oklahoma enacted tough illegal-immigrant enforcement legislation that took effect in November 2007.

Correlation, anyone? If it weren’t for the politically incorrect nature of the possible reason for the improvement, Old Media would be all over this story.

Maybe Ohio, where February’s unemployment rate was 5.3%, should emulate Oklahoma.

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Stuff I don’t have time to comment on (much), but which deserves notice:

• Captain Ed at Hot Air — “Oil-for-Food exec a Russian spy”
• Steven Spruiell (HT TIB All-Stars post at Weapons of Mass Discussion) — “Factory-sized Deception” (the truth about the saturation “corporations like Delphi are cruel, and we’ve gotta stop ‘em” ads run by the Obama campaign during the Ohio Primary in late February and early March); with an interesting sidebar on the ad’s spokesperson.
• Michelle Malkin — “MoveOn: Stop Fox News from taking over the world!”
• Weapons of Mass Discussion — “Ohio Just Raised Your Grandkids’ Taxes.” True, unless your kids vote with their feet.