UNC

I just saw that research done by Dr. Myron Cohen, an infectious disease doc at UNC-CH, was dubbed the top scientific breakthrough of 2011 by the prestigious journal, Science. Dr. Cohen and his team discovered that early treatment with antiviral drugs cuts the risk that the infected person will transmit HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This discovery may help slow the spread of this awful disease. This is a BIG deal!

I've been living in Maryland for the past three months, and will be heading back shortly. I had to come back for a quick visit, though. For a very good reason.

Suffering from free market flu:

Aetna and the UNC Health Care System are fighting over how much the insurer will pay for services. About 8,000 Aetna members are caught in the middle.

Unless there's a last-minute settlement, the dispute will force Aetna members to switch to a non-UNC doctor or facility, or pay much higher "out-of-network" costs.

As you can imagine, several of the commenters blame this on Obamacare, even though this kind of thing has been going on for years. But I see at least two facets of the new law that would help patients in this situation: The removal of pre-existing conditions and exchange shopping. What say you?

Hi everyone!

This is a bit last minute, but I wanted to remind everyone that Elaine Marshall will be on UNC-Chapel Hill's campus tomorrow evening, speaking about her campaign.

Here's the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125040134219282

It is in Gardener 105 starting at 7:45PM, so come out and show Elaine some lovin!

Parking on campus is free after 5PM in most lots, just make sure to read the signs...

Last Friday, September 24, I attended a lecture by Neal Caren, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill, at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies. The PowerPoint lecture and discussion were advertised as “Online Activist Communities: the case of white supremacists.” I imagined it would be about the techniques used by white supremacists that have proven successful. I was even hoping to pick up some pointers that could be applied to work in the favor of the progressive movement. I was more than happy to have my preconceived notions crushed.

Karl Rove will speak at UNC on September 20th:

Karl Rove, the chief political advisor to Republican President George W. Bush, will speak at UNC-Chapel Hill on September 20th.

Rove, now a political analyst for Fox News, will give a talk at 5 p.m. at Memorial Hall, Rob Christensen reports. The speech is being sponsored by the UNC College Republicans as well as other conservative groups.

Note to the N&O: at least some of your readers might be interested in finding out who those "other conservative groups" are. You owe me 2 1/2 hours of my life back.

You never know these days whether leaders will cave to hysterical demands of right-wing misogynists, so I was pleased to see how President Bowles handled the latest assault on women.

The Wall Street Journal today has an interesting, if not outdated, view of the green economy, with a focus on cities in the hunt to become employment centers for green jobs.

"Every community in the country will benefit from the green-jobs movement," said Jose Beceiro, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce's director of clean energy. "But there are only a handful of cities that will probably emerge as a clean-technology capital."

A narrow focus on a few cities as hubs for clean-technology is misguided. A better framework is both hubs and spokes - the good old network effect - through which a broader regional economy can flourish. Here in North Carolina, with our top-drawer universities, our strong history of manufacturing, and our multimodal transportation system, you'd think we'd be on the fast track. Except, as Steve Harrison suggested yesterday, we're missing one thing: a coherent economic development policy that puts a premium on green.

Making North Carolina first in the entire nation with the vision to move forward:

In August 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly established standards for a renewable energy portfolio in the state, and in 2009, the legislature passed a bill that required UNC to develop a wind demonstration project.

A partnership between Duke Energy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the project would place up to three large wind turbines in the sound about seven miles west of Avon, nine miles north of Frisco and eight miles from Buxton.