The evidence has been in for some time. Scheduling births may be convenient for physicians, hospitals and expectant parents, but it generally isn’t good for the health of mothers and children. It’s expensive to boot. To get a baby to arrive on schedule, doctors often perform a cesarean section, the most common surgery in the U.S. Since 1996, C-section rates have risen every year to 33 percent of all births in 2009. According to the World Health Organization, the right figure for any country is a

Viewpoints Dec. 9, 2012

New York’s brush with developing-nation status is an even bigger warning for Asia than it is for the U.S. The city could be excused for wondering if it had suddenly been transported to Bangladesh in October. The deadly floods and crippling power outages following Hurricane Sandy made for more than graphic television. They made a mockery of the climate-change deniers. Just ask residents of lower Manhattan as they referred to neighborhoods such as pricey Tribeca as “Little North Korea.” The Asia r

Viewpoints Dec. 9, 2012

I’ve finally figured out why we spend so much time treating our political opponents as implacably evil. It’s because Hollywood, which used to offer us villains we could love reviling, seems to have forgotten how to make its bad guys bad. The other night on “Homeland,” the uber-terrorist the good guys have been chasing for a season and a half finally got to tell his side of the story. As it turns out, he’s not evil. It’s just that his family was blown to bits at the dinner table by a U.S. drone s

Viewpoints Dec. 9, 2012

For most of the past six decades, the U.S. government has taken a lenient approach toward taxing financial wealth. Dividends from stocks and gains on long-term investments are currently taxed at 15 percent, compared with rates on ordinary income as high as 35 percent. The differential treatment has resulted in such attention-grabbing distortions as Warren Buffett paying a smaller share of his income in taxes than his secretary, and Mitt Romney paying an effective federal rate of only 14.1 percen

Viewpoints Dec. 7, 2012

As a cold snap grips the nation, power consumption is increasing rapidly, fueling worries about possible power shortages. On Wednesday, power demand reached 73.02 million kilowatts, leaving only 4.45 million kW in reserve. The previous day, reserve electricity dropped to 4.11 million kW, barely staying above the 4 million kW mark that triggers emergency measures. The government’s emergency response manual identifies four stages in emergency management. It enters emergency mode when backup power

Editorial Dec. 6, 2012

The Senate needs to go back to the future on filibuster reform. Senators should have to stand their ground and raise their voices on the Senate floor, around the clock if necessary, a la Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” to keep legislation from coming to a vote.Back in the day, a minority senator had to have strong personal convictions against legislation to undertake the onerous, sleep-depriving filibuster, talking and talking and talking to block action. Today, a senator, or a

Viewpoints Dec. 6, 2012

Reported incidents of bullying nearly doubled between April and September this year, reaching 144,054 cases, compared with 70,000 cases for the entire previous school year, according to the education ministry.It might sound strange to say, but that increase may signal a certain step forward. The reasons for the huge increase in reported cases may have more to do with increased reporting, not necessarily more incidents.The real number of incidents in the past will remain unknown, but was surely u

Viewpoints Dec. 6, 2012

This may or may not be coincidence, but Xi Jinping’s first meeting with foreigners as general secretary of the Communist Party of China was with foreign experts working in China. That is a great way to highlight the nation’s gratitude to overseas friends who have contributed to its pursuit of prosperity. And an ideal occasion to showcase the desire to befriend the rest of the world. Those who were invited to sit down with the new CPC chief in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday,

Viewpoints Dec. 6, 2012

North Korea recently announced it would launch a long-range ballistic missile between Monday and Dec. 22 under the guise of sending a “satellite” into orbit.However hard Pyongyang insists that its plan is to launch a satellite for peaceful purposes, the mechanism used to launch a missile is the same as that used to launch a satellite. It is a clear violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution prohibiting North Korea from conducting nuclear tests and “any launch using ballistic missile technol

Viewpoints Dec. 6, 2012

The recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas are a chance for the United States to think strategically. Or, better yet, rethink ― specifically the Obama administration’s “pivot to the Pacific.”The challenge was issued ― “respectfully but forcefully” ― by Paul McHale, who has been a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania (1993-99) and an assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense (2003-09), and is a retired Marine colonel whose most recent deployment was to Afghanistan in 2007.At a

Viewpoints Dec. 5, 2012