I’m interrupting my blog hiatus to discuss direct-to-consumer (or DTC) genetic testing, an issue that has recently become a cause célèbre (at least among the relatively small group of people concerned about it) and that I think deserves wider attention, as it’s an early indicator of some of the disruption that will occur around health care in the 21st century. In recent years the cost of sequencing human genomes (i.e., the DNA information that makes you you) has been dropping like a rock. While getting your complete personal genomic data is still relatively expensive (thousands of dollars), the cost of getting less complete data is now at the point where it’s almost an impulse purchase; for example, the startup company 23andme offers a service for $199 plus $5 per month that provides information on various places where your genome might differ from other peoples (“single nucleotide polymorphisms” or “SNPs,” pronounced “snips”) and some interpretation on what such differences might mean. ...

just a quick note for those of you wondering what’s happened to the blog: Due to being very busy with both home and work stuff, I haven’t had time to do any blog posts recently, and most likely won’t be able to do any posts for the foreseeable future. Perhaps in a few weeks I’ll have some spare time again, but no guarantees. JessieX - 2011-02-09 04:17 At least we’ll see you at the upcoming blogger party. :-) Thank you for your support of the blogger parties… especially and even when we were a small group gathering. Your belief in us helped me keep going … Invite your fans. :-) http://hocoblogs-ramshead.eventbrite.com/ ...

After posting lots of information it’s time for me to turn around and ask my few readers a question: I’m currently considering establishing a new bank account—not replacing my current account but supplementing it as a dedicated account out of which to pay recurring expenses. Those of you who’ve traveled Route 40 west of US 29 know that there a lot of banks on that stretch, and there must be one for me. (I’d like to bank with a bank that has a local physical presence.) ...

I hadn’t seen this mentioned in any other local blogs, so I thought I’d note it here for the benefit of all you political anoraks out there: The folks who brought you OpenCongress.org, a site to keep track of the activities of your Congressional representations, have just launched a beta version of OpenGovernment.org to fill the same role for state legislators, and Maryland is one of the five states they’re starting with (along with California, Louisiana, Texas, and Wisconsin). ...

Quick, guess in which year the following events occurred in Howard County: Republicans had high hopes of improving on their performance in the previous county elections, but faced in a major hurdle in the significant Democratic edge in registered voters. The Democratic candidate for county executive, a seasoned and successful county-wide campaigner, easily defeated by a 63%-37% margin a Republican candidate who had never before run for political office. Democrats also won four out of five seats on the county council (excepting only western Howard). The incumbent council chair, an African-American Democrat and teacher at Morgan State University, won the council seat for east Columbia with two-thirds of the vote. In west Columbia a female Democratic incumbent council member faced a strong primary challenge from her outspoken (but less well-funded) male opponent, who accused her of being too cozy with developers. She managed to hold him to less than 40% of the vote in the Democratic primary, and then went on to win the general election by an overwhelming margin over her male Republican challenger. In western Howard an experienced male Republican candidate easily defeated by a 2-1 margin a female Democratic challenger making her first run for political office. In a relatively conservative Ellicott City district, a female Democratic candidate making her second run for county council touted her support from Republicans, and ended up defeating her male Republican challenger by the smallest margin of any council race that year (not much over 50% of the vote). In the Savage and North Laurel district a female Democratic candidate easily defeated her male Republican opponent (himself a former council member), as he managed to capture only around a third of the vote. In the courthouse races Democrats won the sheriff and state’s attorney positions, Margaret Rappaport won election, Kay Hartleb ran for Register of Wills, and Democrats succeeded in capturing that office as well as the three Judge of the Orphans’ Court positions. Beyond the county races, Howard County elected Democrat Edward Kasemeyer to the Maryland State Senate and sent a Kittleman back to Annapolis, and Democrat Barbara Mikulski cruised to victory in the US Senate race with more than 60% of the vote. If you guessed 2010, congratulations, you were paying attention to last year’s elections. If you guessed 1986 you were also right, and have a better memory than most of us. ...

In the previous part 9 of this series we reviewed the Howard County Council races of 1986 up to the time of the party primaries. In this part we continue the story with the 1986 primary and general elections:1 September–October 1986. Right before the primary election C. Vernon Gray again faces questions about his eligibility to run, as an anonymous letter writer (whom Gray intimates is connected with his opponent, Michael P. Hickey) claims to election officials that Gray’s position as a professor at Morgan State University makes him a state government employee and therefore barred as a candidate under the Howard County charter. Once again the Board of Elections rules in Gray’s favor. ...

Part 8 of this series covered the Howard County Council’s first exercise in drawing council district lines. We now turn to how that effort affected the 1986 council elections, the first in which council members were elected by districts:1 February–April 1986. The council once again approves the final district lines, this time via a council resolution rather than a bill, limiting the effect of any petition drive to put the plan to a referendum and ensuring that the 1986 elections will be held on a district basis. Council member Lloyd Knowles calls it “the worst vote ever taken by the council” and walks out of the meeting.2 ...

My last two posts were all about me, so I wanted to switch gears and wish a Happy New Year to all of the local Howard County bloggers and other local media mavens it’s been my privilege to read and (in many cases) meet: To 53 Beers on Tap: May your blog overflow with comments, none of which need to be deleted. To Child Psych: May your diagnoses be perceptive and your treatments efficacious. ...

In my previous post I reviewed my Howard County-related blog posts in 2010. Now it’s time for a sneak preview of 2011. First, I will definitely continue doing Howard County blogging in the coming year (though I can’t guarantee any particular frequency), if for no other reason than to be able to go to local blogger events and not shame myself as a lazy imposter. The size of my audience is irrelevant, as I’m taking the advice of Nathan Marz: “you should blog even if you have no readers.” In particular I’m a big fan of “learning by writing,” so I’ll probably be doing a fair amount of blogging where I’ll have no idea what I’m talking about at the beginning of a post (but hopefully not by the end). ...

This is the week for everyone to do “looking back at 2010” reviews, and I’m no exception. I thought this would be a good time to review my past year (really, past seven months) of blogging on Howard County topics, including presenting some site statistics and gathering in one place links to the various multi-part series of posts I’ve done. In 2010 I did a total of 60 blog posts (not counting this one), of which 57 were focused on Howard County (more or less). I didn’t actually post anything Howard County-related until May 19 (day 139), so in reality I did 57 Howard County posts over 226 days, or one post every four days. Obviously I’m never going to be a post-per-day (much less multiple-posts-per-day) blogger in the mold of HoCo Rising or Wordbones; however given that I write pretty long posts and do a fair amount of research for each one, one post every four days is actually much better that I thought I’d do. ...