Tuesday, July 28, 2015

'Jaw-dropping': Medicare deaths, hospitalizations AND costs reduced

Check out this article from USA TODAY:

'Jaw-dropping': Medicare deaths, hospitalizations AND costs reduced

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/27/medicare-mortality-costs-study/30757669/


---Steve

Monday, July 27, 2015

Honore: America's in denial about gun culture

Check out this article from USA TODAY:

Honore: America's in denial about gun culture

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/27/honore-americas-denial-gun-culture/30764255/


---Steve

The reckless plot to overthrow Africa's most absurd dictator | Andrew Rice | World news | The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/how-former-us-army-officer-launched-disastrous-coup-the-gambia

charged five Gambians with violating the Neutrality Act, a seldom-invoked 1794 law that makes it illegal to mount a military expedition against "any foreign prince or state" with whom the US is at peace.

---Steve

The Evidence Supports Artificial Sweeteners Over Sugar - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/upshot/the-evidence-supports-artificial-sweeteners-over-sugar.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&abt=0002&abg=1


---Steve

Ta-Nehisi Coates woke me up: Lessons on race, atheism and my white privilege - Salon.com

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/27/ta_nehisi_coates_woke_me_up_lessons_on_race_atheism_and_my_white_privilege/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

godless though I am, the fact of being human, the fact of possessing the gift of study, and thus being remarkable among all the matter floating through the cosmos, still awes me."
---Steve

Gardasil safe

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/07/27/gardasil_new_study_shows_it_s_safe.html


---Steve

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Favorites

http://sfspiritscomp.com/pdf/S15-BestInShowWinnerList.pdf

Tweet by Finger Taints on Twitter

Finger Taints (@ArtIsMyPorn)
Chicken pot pie sounds like such a good idea. If you add commas.

Download the Twitter app


---Steve

In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me. - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-i-raided-insurgents-in-virginia-the-police-raided-me/2015/07/24/2e114e54-2b02-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html

personal safety can't always come first. That is why it's service. That's why it's sacrifice.

---Steve

A Rocky First Review for a Climate Paper Warning of a Stormy Coastal Crisis - The New York Times

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/a-rocky-first-review-for-a-climate-paper-warning-of-a-stormy-coastal-crisis/?_r=1


---Steve

A Rocky First Review for a Climate Paper Warning of a Stormy Coastal Crisis - The New York Times

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/a-rocky-first-review-for-a-climate-paper-warning-of-a-stormy-coastal-crisis/?_r=1

Science by its very nature celebrates attempts to overthrow established results, which unavoidably makes our work look "noisy" and confusing to a non-specialist, obscuring for those outside a field what is actually well-founded inside the field. To overcome this difficulty, governments and the broader society have established assessment mechanisms in which the full range of scientists, volunteering in the public eye for the public good, provide up-to-date information on what is solid, what speculative, and what silly. The assessment results are inefficient at generating headlines, he-said/she-saids, and "clicks" on web pages, but the assessment results are far better than the latest press releases at generating reliable, useful, policy-relevant understanding.

---Steve

The Singular Mind of Terry Tao - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/magazine/the-singular-mind-of-terry-tao.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1


---Steve

The Matterhorn for hikers - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activityandadventure/11737062/The-Matterhorn-for-hikers.html


---Steve

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Lindsey Graham Destroys Cellphone After Donald Trump Discloses His Number - First Draft. Political News, Now. - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/22/lindsey-graham-destroys-cellphone-after-donald-trump-discloses-his-number/?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0


---Steve

Virtue ethics and abortion

http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp17_crome.pdf

Do Fetuses Feel Pain? - Reason.com

http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/12/do-fetuses-feel-pain

In reviewing the neuroanatomical and physiological evidence in the
fetus, it was apparent that connections from the periphery to the
cortex are not intact before 24 weeks of gestation and, as most
neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain
perception,
---Steve

Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It | WIRED

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

And thanks to one vulnerable element, which Miller and Valasek won't identify until their Black Hat talk, Uconnect's cellular connection also lets anyone who knows the car's IP address gain access from anywhere in the country. "From an attacker's perspective, it's a super nice vulnerability," Miller says.

---Steve

The 8 Biggest Disasters in U.S. Military History

http://io9.com/the-8-biggest-disasters-in-u-s-military-history-1719489858


---Steve

Provision in Iran Accord Is Challenged by Some Nuclear Experts - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/middleeast/provision-in-iran-accord-is-challenged-by-some-nuclear-experts.html?_r=1


---Steve

Saturday, July 18, 2015

The ear of David Brooks


This "American dream" is a lie. It's propaganda spawned in the Gilded Age, when plutocrats wanted warm bodies to throw into the bonfires of foreign wars. It's a lie that was whipped into a fervent froth in the 1950s, when we were told to consume, to feed the capitalist beast, or the Communists would eat us. The apotheosis of the American dream were the suburban communities that metastasized at that time…communities built from white flight, communities that were often sundown towns, communities that would rise up in outrage at the idea of desegregation. It is a lie that the already comfortable tell themselves, and try to pawn off on the rest of us. Apparently, our reality is too excessive for a sinecured apologist for the American right.




---Steve

ACLU Report: Know Your Right to Protest in Chicago « American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois

http://www.aclu-il.org/aclu-report-know-your-right-to-protest-in-chicago/


---Steve

Saturday, July 11, 2015

23 things that will give you extreme Italia 90 feelings · The42

We prepared properly. We had a little bit of sun. We ate well. And we drank very little. We're gonna change that tonight.


---Steve

The Secret Startup That Saved the Worst Website in America - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/


---Steve

In Conversation With… Steven Pinker

http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/03/in-conversation-with-steven-pinker/

Human nature or no human nature," Pinker says, "it's just a brute fact that we don't throw virgins into volcanoes any more. We don't execute people for shoplifting a cabbage. And we used to."

---Steve

Ethical Failures « Science-Based Medicine


The opposite of good is not evil. The opposite of good is good intentions.

– Kurt Tucholsky

---Steve

Sorry, Your Gut Bacteria Are Not the Answer to All Your Health Problems | Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/10/microbiome-health-gut-bacteria&


---Steve

Sorry, Your Gut Bacteria Are Not the Answer to All Your Health Problems | Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/10/microbiome-health-gut-bacteria&


---Steve

Frank Hill: Future sunspot drop, but no new ice age | Space | EarthSky

http://earthsky.org/space/frank-hill-sees-future-sunspot-drop-no-new-ice-age


---Steve

Solar activity predicted to fall 60% in 2030s, to 'mini ice age' levels: Sun driven by double dynamo -- ScienceDaily

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150709092955.htm


---Steve

Drive-by shooting in Germany, one of the world's strictest on gun control - CSMonitor.com

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/0710/Drive-by-shooting-in-Germany-one-of-the-world-s-strictest-on-gun-control


---Steve

Understanding Thresholds: It's More than Under- or Over- | Suzanne Clothier

http://suzanneclothier.com/the-articles/understanding-thresholds-its-more-under-or-over


---Steve

Friday, July 10, 2015

Glitches Galore: A Brief History Of Technical Problems On Wall Street : The Two-Way : NPR

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421234619/glitches-galore-a-brief-history-of-technical-problems-on-wall-street


---Steve

Virtue Ethics - By Branch / Doctrine - The Basics of Philosophy

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_virtue_ethics.html


---Steve

http://scientiasalon.org/


applied ethics rarely takes up the softer, more nuanced normative concepts that one finds in, say, virtue theory, favoring instead the hard, black and white language of obligation — and more often than not, the lens is either Utilitarian or Kantian, which means that the approach is maximally black and white, un-nuanced, and abstract
---Steve

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Cosby

Jones: How Bill Cosby betrayed black community
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/08/opinions/jones-bill-cosby/index.html


---Steve

Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images ... - Susan D. Greenbaum - Google Books

https://books.google.com/books?id=LXoACgAAQBAJ&pg=PT3&lpg=PT3&dq=susan+d+greenbaum&source=bl&ots=fuWpMD3czS&sig=-Bs51i2kUyeqAxBrVtwL07caiOc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LVydVdGoFtf_yQTj9ruoBg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwBjge#v=onepage&q=susan%20d%20greenbaum&f=false


---Steve

These Are the Largest Employers in Your State | TIME


Wal-Mart is the only company to claim the top employer spot in more than one state. In fact, the nation's largest retailer employed the most people in 20 states.


---Steve

Understanding Out-of-Wedlock Births in Black America - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/understanding-out-of-wedlock-births-in-black-america/277084/

But while the number of unmarried black women has substantially grown, the actual birthrate (measured by births per 1000) for black women is it the lowest point that its ever documented.*

---Steve

Race, Culture, and Poverty: The Path Forward - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/race-culture-and-poverty-the-path-forward/360081/


---Steve

Other People's Pathologies - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/other-peoples-pathologies/359841/
Confronting the black experience means confronting the limits of America, and perhaps, humanity itself. That is the confrontation that graduates us out of the ranks of national cheerleading and into the school of hard students.

---Steve

Why Dads Matter - The Atlantic

There is a great deal of evidence that children from single-parent homes have worse outcomes on both academic and economic measures than children from two-parent families," wrote scholar Elaine C. Kamarck and Third Way president Jonathan Cowan in the introduction to Wayward Sons, a report produced for Washington think tank Third Way. "There is a vast inequality of both financial resources and parental time and attention between one- and two-parent families."

---Steve

The Aftermath Of Bill Cosby's Admission? That's Rape Culture.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/07/bill-cosby-rape-culture-_n_7743528.html?utm_hp_ref=tw


---Steve

‘This Is How We Lost to the White Man’ - The Atlantic


The accepted wisdom is that such studies are a comfort to black people, allowing them to wallow in their misery. In fact, the opposite is true—the liberal notion that blacks are still, after a century of struggle, victims of pervasive discrimination is the ultimate collective buzz-kill. It effectively means that African Americans must, on some level, accept that their children will be "less than" until some point in the future when white racism miraculously abates. That's not the sort of future that any black person eagerly awaits, nor does it make for particularly motivating talking points.

Last summer, I watched Cosby give a moving commencement speech to a group of Connecticut inmates who'd just received their GEDs. Before the speech, at eight in the morning, Cosby quizzed correctional officials on the conditions and characteristics of their inmate population. I wished, then, that my 7-year-old son could have seen Cosby there, to take in the same basic message that I endeavor to serve him every day—that manhood means more than virility and strut, that it calls for discipline and dutiful stewardship. That the ultimate fate of black people lies in their own hands, not in the hands of their antagonists. That as an African American, he has a duty to his family, his community, and his ancestors.

If Cosby's call-outs simply ended at that—a personal and communal creed—there'd be little to oppose. But Cosby often pits the rhetoric of personal responsibility against the legitimate claims of American citizens for their rights. He chides activists for pushing to reform the criminal-justice system, despite solid evidence that the criminal-justice system needs reform. His historical amnesia—his assertion that many of the problems that pervade black America are of a recent vintage—is simply wrong, as is his contention that today's young African Americans are somehow weaker, that they've dropped the ball. And for all its positive energy, his language of uplift has its limitations. After the Million Man March, black men embraced a sense of hope and promise. We were supposed to return to our communities and families inspired by a new feeling of responsibility. Yet here we are again, almost 15 years later, with seemingly little tangible change. I'd take my son to see Bill Cosby, to hear his message, to revel in its promise and optimism. But afterward, he and I would have a very long talk.

---Steve

Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images ... - Susan D. Greenbaum - Google Books

https://books.google.com/books?id=LXoACgAAQBAJ&pg=PT3&lpg=PT3&dq=susan+d+greenbaum&source=bl&ots=fuWpMD3czS&sig=-Bs51i2kUyeqAxBrVtwL07caiOc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LVydVdGoFtf_yQTj9ruoBg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwBjge#v=onepage&q=susan%20d%20greenbaum&f=false


---Steve

The Moynihan Report at Fifty | Boston Review

http://bostonreview.net/us/stephen-steinberg-moynihan-report-black-families-nathan-glazer


---Steve

The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Summer 2005

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_3_black_family.html


---Steve

Favorites

http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/412839-The-Moynihan-Report-Revisited.PDF

Evaluating the Moynihan Report on the Negro Family 50 Years Later - Online Library of Law & Liberty

http://www.libertylawsite.org/liberty-forum/evaluating-the-moynihan-report-on-the-negro-family-50-years-later/

Moynihan proceeded to a sweeping historical and sociological analysis of the African American family. The strain of chattel slavery in this country was uniquely dehumanizing, destroying the families that labored under it. Jim Crow was equally degrading, especially to male pride. The result was a matriarchal structure out of sync with a broader society dominated by male authority.

---Steve

Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Sedona 4x4 map

http://www.sedonaaz.gov/Sedonacms/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=26399

No, Polygamy Isn’t the Next Gay Marriage - Jonathan Rauch - POLITICO Magazine


I'm not just making this up. There's an extensive literature on polygamy.

Here's a 2012 study, for example, that discovered "significantly higher levels of rape, kidnapping, murder, assault robbery and fraud in polygynous cultures." According to the research, "monogamy's main cultural evolutionary advantage over polygyny is the more egalitarian distribution of women, which reduces male competition and social problems."



Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/polygamy-not-next-gay-marriage-119614.html#ixzz3eef2cBKO

---Steve

Moral progress

We can beam with pride over the progress our country has now made with marriage equality.

A quick internet search on the humanities sweep of moral arc toward Justice:

Five countries still have a statutory death penalty for homosexuality, while a further 71 countries punish same-sex couples with lesser sentences of imprisonment or corporal punishment.

While women represent half the global population and one-third of the labor force, they receive only one-tenth of the world income

At least 20.9 million adults and children are bought and sold worldwide into commercial sexual servitude, forced labor and bonded labor.

Atheists living in 13 countries risk being condemned to death, just for their non-beliefs

Thank god I'm a member of only the last of these....

---Steve