College to Save Money by Switching Email Font

Slashdot: "The school expects to use 30% less ink by switching from Arial to Century Gothic."

Republicans and anti-health care LAW tactics

The bill passed and the Party of No lost. But they've already sworn they will repeal the law, and state-based Republicans (legislators, attorneys generals) are threatening to sue on the basis that the health care bill somehow violates the 10th Amendment (powers not reserved for the feds reside with the states).

Unfortunately, the Republicans have uphill sledding in the repeal and legal world.

• On repealing, Republicans have to either take over the House and get 60 seats in the Senate (mathematically impossible, I'm told) OR wait until 2013 and get control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.  Good luck with that.
• On the legal appeals, Republicans are working against legal precedent when it comes to mandatory taxes, because the government already collects direct taxes (taxes such as Social Security and unemployment already exist).
• Republicans are also going to have trouble with the insurance mandate itself, which can be seen as part of the broad reaching "interstate commerce" regulatory powers of the federal government.  And given that most insurance companies operate across state lines, good luck with that.

A nice quote from a story by Eric Black on the legal challenge:

Lucinda Jesson of Hamline Law School, said...“I would be surprised if it was taken seriously by the courts.”

The one thing I found worrying in Black's piece is that the federal government has been using the interstate commerce clause in some ways that seem like overreaching.  In California, for example, the Supreme Court struck down a medical marijuana law even though the law required it to be marijuana grown in California and not crossing state lines.  Even someone who grew there own, the Court said, could be subject to federal drug laws. 

The other interesting issue, he notes, is that states have become largely dependent on federal aid for many areas of spending (transportation, health care, etc) and that state discretion has largely vanished because the courts give broad latitude to the federal government to tie strings to its aid.  (Example // you want federal highway money, raise the legal drinking age...)  In an era of state dependence, the 10th amendment becomes almost meaningless.

I think that the health care bill is a very good thing for society, and I'm glad it's likely to stand against the legal challenges.  But it's interesting to consider how important states rights are in this era...

The Story of Bottled Water

Why pay 2000 times more for water?

Health care reform passes

The House passed the Senate version of health care reform last night 219-212, with every single Republican voting against the measure.  The Senate bill goes to Obama's desk for his signature (a guarantee) and we finally join the ranks of every other industrialized country in providing health care for nearly every citizen.

Here's what's in the bill.

The process isn't completely played out yet, because the House also passed a reconciliation bill that adds a few improvements to the Senate's health care bill.  This reconciliation will have to be approved by the Senate, and then (if amended) go back to the House before hitting Obama's desk.  This bill includes:

• A smaller price tag
• More generous subsidies to low-income Americans
• A new 3.8 percent tax on unearned income (things like interest, dividends and royalties)
• A higher Medicare tax for families making more than $250,000 (and individuals with incomes over $200,000).
• The "Cadillac tax" on very good health insurance plans would have a higher cutoff and be implemented later (2018). 
• Closes the Medicare prescription drug donut hole
• Several provisions to reduce Medicare fraud and waste

You can also see a 7-page summary of the reconciliation bill here.

Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment

The Supremes will soon be ruling on a Chicago ban on handguns, but this thoughtful and thorough piece on the issue notes that the big legal test is yet to come:

But the ultimate showdown over gun control in America will be waged in a future legal case not yet on the high court's radar, analysts say. At issue in that case: Are Second Amendment rights as fundamental as freedom of speech and religion, or will gun rights be subject to lesser constitutional protection?

For example, in the 2008 case striking down the DC handgun ban, Justice Scalia noted:

The majority justices addressed this issue briefly in the Washington decision. "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms," Justice Scalia said. (For Monitor coverage of the Washington decision, click here.)

What may make the difference is how state judges have decided on gun control laws

In assessing the constitutionality of gun-control laws, Mr. Henigan said, state judges have placed significant weight on the government's interest in regulating firearms as a means to protect public safety. The Supreme Court should adopt the same rationale, he said.

It will certainly be an interesting time.

Why Digital Rights Management (copyright protection) Doesn’t Work

The Brads: "Why DRM Doesn’t Work", a sister post to "Why People Pirate Movies" earlier this month.

Click through to see the full size image

You know you are a liberal when...

...a smackdown from Sen. Harry Reid to Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gets your blood moving:

As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree.

Thanks to Paul Krugman for the link and for passing along the summary: reconcile this!

We Dwell in Darkness

Well, we'd be better off if we did.

I bet the International Dark Sky Association will like this.

Antibiotics are for people, not healthy cows

And if we don't stop using them on healthy animals, we will keep developing diseases for which we have no treatment.

There is a bill in Congress to fix this, but it's stalled in this committee.  If you see your Rep. in this list, time to make a phone call.

I've written on this subject several times since 2006, so get your fill here.

Taxing the bad beats subsidizing the good

Grist:

In a recent study using food subsidies and taxes to encourage healthier food purchases, researchers at SUNY learned something interesting:

• If you use subsidies to make healthy food cheaper, people buy more healthy food, but they use the savings to buy junk food.
• On the other hand, if you tax junk food, people buy healthy food instead.

The funny thing is, this was a psychology study, but an economist could have told you this would happen. When you lower the price of a good (healthy food), it creates an "income effect." People have more money and they will allocate it according to what goods will maximize their happiness. Since they can already afford more healthy food, it's not hard to imagine that the savings from cheaper health food goes to junk.

By solely taxing junk food, however, you don't have an income effect, but instead a substitution effect. People shift from junk food to healthy food because they can get more (and more happiness) per dollar that way.

The same concept applies to energy policy, and is why making renewable energy cheap (with tax credits) will not be sufficient to shift people away from dirty energy (coal, natural gas, fuel oil, etc). Instead, we need ways to increase the price of bad things, such as a carbon tax.

And there's another dilemma. Do you impose a carbon tax or price ALONE which will shift people away from dirty energy AND encourage conservation, or do you give the revenues back? A cap-and-dividend policy, for example, is much more politically palatable because most people get a bigger dividend than they will expend in higher energy consumption, but it also means there's only an incentive to shift consumption to clean energy, and not to reduce it.

If journalism were like health care

A satirical look by Nicholas Kristof
.

Two columns on the deficit

I'm not a deficit hawk, only a structural deficit hawk.  I only care about deficits when idiot policy makers make them permanent by cutting revenue without spending (Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is a big winner here). 

So here are a couple interesting columns on deficits and their political causes:

• Paul Krugman notes that Republicans have tried for years to run the federal fiscal ship aground so that they could "drown government in a bathtub."  Well, the ship ran aground, are they cutting government?  Nope, defending Medicare.  And opposing cost controls for the health care bill.  And a climate bill that would reduce the deficit.  Read more 
• Stephen Cohen discusses how the state of American infrastructure is a clear indication we are under-taxed.  Roads, bridges, schools, they need cash to operate smoothly.  Read more 
• .

Why People Pirate Movies

Dealing with Climate Change Deniers at the Office

Presidential Approval Tracker (back to 1945!)

This is what makes the web great:
The Gallup Presidential Approval Tracker shows approval ratings back to 1945 and lets you compare presidents over the same time frame in their terms. Who knew that the first George Bush was so popular?

And who knew that Obama really is the second coming of Reagan? (at least by this metric)

Knowledge is power, but is it happiness?

Oh, all the games I could have won...

Conservatives say stupid things about snow; media dutifully reports that they say them | Grist

Grist: "snow disproves climate change...This is obviously something that only extremely ill-informed (or stupid) people would say."

But if you're a media reporter, you apparently can't point that out (unless you're a satirist). It's killing reasonable political discourse, and it's just downright sad that you can get away with it.

Demand Question Time

America can benefit from an "unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives." In the same room, talking to each other. If you think this is a good idea, too, check out Demand Question Time.

How Coca-Cola fought for our right to be obese

MinnPost: "How Coca-Cola fought for our right to be obese"

1. Fund studies attempting to debunk soda pop/fat link
2. Give money to low-income advocacy groups, since low-income folks drink more pop and are disproportionately impacted by concepts like a sugared drink tax (unless they cut back, of course)
3. Profit!

Primary study linking autism to vaccines has been retracted

The myth of the vaccine-autism connection has been dealt a severe blow, thanks to actions by the British medical Journal, The Lancet. Although the study authors had already retracted the original 1998 findings by 2004, the journal has published a full-blown retraction of the original study, excoriating the unethical practices of the doctor who led the "research."

A nice examination of the filibuster issue in the Senate

MinnPost:

I think I agree with Black that the filibuster should simply be dumped. When the parties had moderates, it could work. But right now, it's a barrier to basic governance.

How Google has changed everything

Four recommendations for Obama, from a liberal

MinnPost - The cries and whispers of liberals:

• "Don't get totally preoccuped with health care. Go after strong financial system reforms.
• Embrace real populism
• Don't tolerate the filibuster
• "Be less like JFK and more like LBJ."

Turn Down the Heat When You're Out

Some folks I've talked to were under the impression that turning the heat down when you leave doesn't net much energy savings because the house has to warm back up. This guy's got the scoop on why lowering the temperature nets you more savings despite having to warm/cool the house again.

Ask Pablo: Turn Down The Heat! : TreeHugger: "Dear Pablo: I have heard that using a programmable thermostat to lower the temperature while you are out saves energy but isn't the same amount of energy used to bring the temperature back up when you come home?

The short answer is no. Because the rate of heat transfer through an insulated (or uninsulated for that matter) floor, ceiling, or wall is dependent on the temperature difference between the inside and outside air, less energy is lost to the outside when the inside air is cooler."

Bees like a varied diet

I wrote a fair amount about colony collapse disorder and bees when it first hit the news last year. Research has continued and one big finding is that species diversity (of pollinating plants) is crucial to bee health. The more varied the diet, the more robust the bee, and the more able to resist pathogens.

TreeHugger: "Apparently bees' immune systems are healthier when they are fed pollen from a wider variety of plants than when they eat only one thing."

So in addition to not whacking bees with neurotoxins, it may be better to let bees sample a lot of different pollen sources, not just eat what they get on the road.

What Democrats Stand For

This was an anonymous note from a Capitol Hill staffer in response to the victory of Scott Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat, narrowing the Democratic margin to 59-41 in the Senate.

Talking Points Memo: "The worst is that I can't help but feel like the main emotion people in the [Democratic] caucus are feeling is relief at this turn of events. Now they have a ready excuse for not getting anything done...This is my life and I simply can't answer the fundamental question: "what do Democrats stand for?""

I'm so angry at this note I can't express it. Citizens did not elect Democrats to look for excuses, we wanted things done. And if it's hard to figure out what those things are, then let me remind you why we are Democrats.

We are Democrats because we believe:
1) Everyone should have an opportunity in life.
Thus, we support free public education, universal health insurance, and all of the other crucial building blocks for equal opportunity.

2) Everyone should pay their fair share
Rich folks get rich because the "socialist" government enforces rules that make markets work, builds the infrastructure crucial for market operation. That's why rich folks - who have received greater benefit - should pay more. Warren Buffet should not, as he does, pay a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. He should pay more.

3) The process must be fair
We use government to ensure opportunity and fair shares because it's the only institution that is created by and for the people. We elect it and we don't have to own stock to have a vote.

When we elect a lot of Democrats (like 59 of them in the Senate), it means there's a mandate to create opportunity and fairness by enacting health care reform, disciplining financial "innovators", and transforming America to clean energy to save the planet and our economy.

So dry your tears, get off your ass (pardon the pun) and deliver. You've got 11 months.

Post-Partisanship Epic Fail?

FiveThirtyEight: "the Democrats, from the White House on downward, have gotten a remarkably poor return on the investment of their political capital. The failures are more tactical than strategic."

In response to some Democrats who suggest that the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts changes things, I say, "yes."

We know that a Democrat who runs a shitty campaign in a Blue state will lose. We know that Republicans will absolutely, universally oppose anything that gives you any bit of political victory. We know that we don't need the minority party to come along when we have policy that is popular with the public.

It's time to run right at those fuckers.

Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate - New York News - Runnin' Scared

New York News - Runnin' Scared: "The lesson, as always, is that when Democrats win, they lose, and when they lose, they are obliterated."

This is great satire, and an indictment of Democrats for refusing to ram some good policy through when they own Congress and the White House. As Jon Stewart said, Democrats have a larger majority in Congress than Republicans have had since 1923. If Bush got stuff done, then Dems damn well better do it.

Socialism is awful

Found by friend CM in an online forum:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by socialist electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the socialist clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the socialist radio to one  of the FCC regulated channels to hear what the socialist National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using socialist satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of socialist US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the socialist drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as kept accurate by the socialist National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my socialist National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and get out to work on the socialist roads build by the socialist local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the socialist Environmental Protection Agency, using socialist legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.  On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the socialist US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the socialist public school. If I get lost, I can use my socialist GPS navigation technology developed by the United States Department of Defense and made available to the public in 1996 by President Bill Clinton who issued a policy directive declaring socialist GPS to be a dual use military civilian system to be managed as a national socialist asset.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the socialist workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the socialist USDA, I drive my socialist NHTSA car back home on the socialist DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the socialist state and local building codes and socialist fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the socialist local police department.

I then get on my computer and use the socialist Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and browse the socialist World Wide Web using my graphical web browser, both made possible by Al Gore’s socialist High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. I then post on freerepublic.com <http://freerepublic.com>  and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

Do we need Flintstone's vitamins?

MinnPost: "But is there any truth to that widely held prescription for health? Does the typical American really need vitamin and mineral supplements?"

I always took my vitamins as a kid and for a while as an adult, believing that it was a key part of having a healthy diet. But I've been coming across more discussion recently that the jury is out on regular use of multivitamins as general dietary supplements.

The issue is a big one, of course, because if there aren't significant health effects, then people are paying for an expensive placebo.

In some ways, I like giving up vitamins, because it makes me feel more responsible for getting proper nutrition from the food I eat.

A Democratic Exodus, or a Little Media Spin?

The two high-profile retirement announcements of CT Senator Dodd and ND Senator Dorgan have got the Washington media establishment all aflutter about a Democratic exodus. But the Washington Monthly is one of the few media outlets providing context:

The Washington Monthly: "Quick quiz: which party has more Senate retirements so far this campaign cycle, Democrats or Republicans? Follow-up question: which party has more House retirements so far this campaign cycle, Democrats or Republicans?"

ANSWER
Senate: 6 Rs, 2 Ds
House: 14 Rs, 10 Ds

Who has an exodus?

Summary of NPR coverage of new airport security restrictions

• There are some new rules, but nobody knows what they are, and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano actually said they are "designed to be unpredictable."
  
• Women sometimes have to throw away cosmetics, which they didn't have to do before
• Women subject to pat down searches that would have "found explosives in my bra"
• Israeli passengers are sanguine, because they always have had tight restrictions

Questions they might have missed:

1. What are the new rules?
2. No, really.  What are the rules?  
3. Isn't transparency important so that airline passengers can prepare (and avoid having play-doh confiscated)?
4. Isn't transparency important so that policies are enforced consistently across all airports? 
   
5. How do the new rules ensure that another "underwear bomber" would not be able to bring explosives on a plane?  (since it seems that nothing has changed in certain international airports and many terrorists have not come from the 14 countries targeted)

Let's try asking some tougher questions, eh?

Common Disinfectants Create Mutant Superbugs

TreeHugger: "While it is important that hospitals be virtually bacteria-free, at home it's important to clean regularly, but 'not the chair you sit in every day or the telephone or the doorknobs if you're a reasonably healthy person,' according to Fleming."

Climate change in 2 photos (update: or not)

Update 12:50pm: Reader rick notes that this comparison is unfair. From the original article on iceboating:

The Toronto Harbour Commission, a five-man committee set up by the city and federal government in 1911, was tasked with modernizing the harbour to accommodate the largest commercial ships. Among the wide array of improvements undertaken, the Western Gap, the narrow western entrance to the harbour long unpopular with larger ships because it was difficult to keep dredged to an adequate depth, was altered. A new channel was dredged just to the south (and the old gap was filled in). As a result of the shifting currents caused by these changes, along with the increasing necessity for grain-storage ships to shift from slip to slip in the winter months, ice no longer formed as regularly or as thickly as before.

TreeHugger: "Two local blogs show two very different views of people using Toronto's waterfront"

Early 1900s: iceboating
Early 2000s: swimming

Cool chart: health care spending v. life expectancy

FiveThirtyEight: Chart

Finding airport security that works

Schneier on Security:

"Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."

This week, the second one worked over Detroit. Security succeeded.

EDITED TO ADD (12/26): Only one carry on? No electronics for the first hour of flight? I wish that, just once, some terrorist would try something that you can only foil by upgrading the passengers to first class and giving them free drinks."

Read the original article for more on how the TSA response to this failed terrorist attack would do little to prevent THE SAME EXACT THING.

More inconvenience for honest passengers with no additional security. Stupid.

The Odds of Airborne Terror

FiveThirtyEight:

"Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning."

Why I read Paul Krugman's blog

He's a Nobel prize winning economist, excellent writer, and defender of all things progressive.  But really, you should read his NY Times blog because he embeds Monty Python video clips into his posts.

New research: Sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup alter human metabolism, digestion

Grist: "Scientists have proved for the first time that a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks [high fructose corn syrup] can damage human metabolism and is fueling the obesity crisis."

A soda a day = 10 lbs fat per year

Don’t watch NYC’s new anti-soda video on a full stomach:

Can we believe the published results of studies sponsored by drug companies?

MinnPost: In a meta-study of drug company studies on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), this was what an independent researcher found:

"[The analysis] found all the studies that had ever been published where one NSAID was compared to another. In every single trial, the sponsoring company’s drug was either equivalent to, or better than, the drug it was compared to: All the drugs were better than all the other drugs. Such a result is plainly impossible." [emphasis mine]

O, ye of little faith. Drug companies clearly hail from Lake Wobegon, where all the drugs are above average.

Can we believe the published results of studies sponsored by drug companies?

MinnPost: In a meta-study of drug company studies on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), this was what an independent researcher found:

"[The analysis] found all the studies that had ever been published where one NSAID was compared to another. In every single trial, the sponsoring company’s drug was either equivalent to, or better than, the drug it was compared to: All the drugs were better than all the other drugs. Such a result is plainly impossible." [emphasis mine]

O, ye of little faith. Drug companies clearly hail from Lake Wobegon, where all the drugs are above average.

Get your facts straight on climate

Are you a climate skeptic? The BBC provides a point-by-point rebuttal of most of your sacred cows:
BBC News - The arguments made by climate change sceptics

Everyone in the U.S. should have to take a con law class

Or at least read this post on Constitutional Chicanery

Afghan War 2: Escalate Education, not Troops

Op-Ed Columnist - Johnson, Gorbachev, Obama - NYTimes.com:

Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned in his report on the situation in Afghanistan that “new resources are not the crux” of the problem. Rather, he said, the key is a new approach that emphasizes winning hearts and minds: “Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent troops; our objective must be the population.”

So why wasn’t the Afghan population more directly consulted?

Estate tax debate reveals loads about values

The estate tax says that when a rich dude dies, a portion of his estate returns to the commons and the rest goes to his descendants.

Due to a provision signed by President GW Bush (a beneficiary of aristocracy), the estate tax rate had been decreasing (from 55% to 45%) and the threshold increasing since 2001 (from $1 million to $3.5 million). It was set to expire next year, and then come back at 2001 levels in 2011. Republicans want to repeal it completely.

Read about the current legislative battle here: latimes.com, but the entire estate tax issue can be boiled down to this quote from Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas):

"We need to reward people who work the hardest and work the smartest in the hope of handing their nest eggs down to their children." [emphasis mine]

I'm liberal and therefore I subscribe to the notion that Americans should start on a level playing field and have an equal opportunity to exploit their innate talent. You can't have equal opportunity when folks who get rich from talent and hardwork get to pass all their money to their descendants (because then you can be rich and lazy).

If rich parents want to pass their kids a legacy, how about the values of working hard and getting smart, rather than a trust fund and a Beemer.



Note: rich folks still get to pass on half of their estate. We're not talking about making paupers of princes, but keeping princes out of American democracy.

Escalating the Afghan War is a mistake

I thought that a new president, made popular in his own party by his opposition to a dumb foreign war, would be more likely to tread carefully with foreign entanglements. There were hints that he would not be so careful, in his proposal to increase the size of the standing Army and Marines (to do what, get involved in more military morasses?).

But the play in Afghanistan is a sad repetition of history, and the last superpower to make this move left on the eve of their fall. This Star Tribune opinion piece highlights it:

StarTribune.com: "It is fitting that President Obama announced his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan on the 30th anniversary of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's decision to do the same. The two events are joined at the hip."

Let's hope these conjoined decisions can be separated before the end.

This is one tax we should all like

NYTimes.com:
It's called the financial transactions tax, and it would add a tiny fee to each stock trade or currency exchange processed. For the typical American, it'd be negligible - pennies.

But for firms that make their money on the daily ups and downs of foreign currency exchange or stock prices (and accomplish nothing of social value in doing so), it would end the waste. After financial firms started the worst economic downturn since the Depression with speculation with mortgage derivatives, this seems like a gimme.

Don't make a baby during corn growing season

Twin Cities Daily Planet: "Not to get too personal, but if you're thinking of making a baby anytime soon, you might not want to wait until spring. That's the conclusion one could draw from a recent analysis that correlates atrazine contamination spikes with the time of year a baby is conceived and increased rates of birth defects."

his is a much better argument for opposing corn ethanol than the utterly ridiculous assertions about food prices. We don't eat feed corn.

The Industrial Lawn

This is a term I've learned from a distance learning course called the Sustainable Lawn.  It refers to the industrialization of the modern lawn, from sod production, to chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to powered lawn care equipment. 

Americans spend $40 billion a year on 41 million acres of lawn.  This video, Gimme Green, explores some of the externalities of this fascination.

Tacoma Suspect Is Killed by Police Officer in Seattle

NYTimes.com: "SEATTLE — A man suspected of fatally shooting four uniformed police officers was shot and killed early Tuesday by a Seattle police officer who chanced upon him during a routine patrol."

No surprise here. There was no way that he was going to live to get a trial after shooting four police officers in cold blood.

Industrial Thanksgiving

A fascinating piece on Wired.com about the impact of industrial food processing on your Thanksgiving food:

"A 1990 patent secured by food processor Swift-Eckrich (now Armour Swift-Eckrich) describes a method for freezing turkeys faster than traditional air-chilling. Salt, water and propolyene glycol — a major and generally nontoxic component of airplane de-icers — are cooled down to less than minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Because the propylene glycol and salt lower the freezing point of the water, the liquid remains unfrozen. The turkeys are either sprayed with the solution or immersed in it, in a tank like the one below."

Two thoughts on health care

First, where do people get the notion that America has the best health care system?  I suspect that they really mean it's the best one they know.  And they should know better:

The United States ranks 31st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile), according to the latest World Health Organization figures. We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland.

As my friend RL notes, we have to be careful of cherry-picking our rankings.  But whether or not we're the best in a select group of industrial nations, we are definitely not number 1.

Then there's the hyperbole of health care opponents.  A selection:

Critics storm that health care reform is “a cruel hoax and a delusion.” Ads in 100 newspapers thunder that reform would mean “the beginning of socialized medicine.”

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page predicts that the legislation will lead to “deteriorating service.” Business groups warn that Washington bureaucrats will invade “the privacy of the examination room,” that we are on the road to rationed care and that patients will lose the “freedom to choose their own doctor.”

Oops, wrong debate.  As the Times' Kristof points out, these are statements from the Medicare debate in the 1960s.  They were wrong about Medicare and they're wrong about the current health care bill. 

Of course, they do illustrate a third point: hyperbole is not a new tactic in politics.  Something we should all keep in mind.

When I die, burn me and use the heat

Clean Break: "The amount of natural gas and electricity used to cremate one body is the equivalent of driving a car from coast to coast...Given this post-humus environmental footprint — and given our concern about climate change — innovation in this area is on the rise. In Denmark and Sweden, some municipalities are taking the waste heat from their local crematoriums and using it as part of their district heating systems."

Where Should I Eat? A Fast Food flowchart

Fast Food Edition (Flowchart): "With this simple to follow flowchart you will never have to decide which to listen to, your brain or your stomach. Now you can save those precious braincells for better decisions…like plaid or argyle…"

Click through to see a hilarious step-by-step process to select your next meal in a hurry.

Amazon.com: Laptop Steering Wheel Desk: Electronics

Amazon.com: "Wow is this thing great! I use it as a 'mini-bar' when the friends and I go out to the bars. I can quickly fix multiple shots of tequila for myself and the friends as we drive from one bar to the next."

You should definitely check this out, especially the product images and reviews...

Deficit spending moralism

NYTimes.com: "I’d be a little more forgiving of the nonsense if all the people screaming about the deficit were sincere. And some are. But many, if not most, are perfectly happy to incur huge unfunded liabilities for the wars they want to fight, and/or to eliminate inheritance taxes for the heirs of multimillionaires. It’s only deficits incurred to help working Americans that get them all moralistic."

Ditto.

Baby Einstein Videos make Baby DumbStein

There's a reason people call it an idiot box.

MinnPost: "a 2007 study involving children (some in Minnesota) aged 8 to 16 months found that for every hour a child spent watching a Baby Einstein or other type of baby-oriented DVD or video, the child understood six to eight fewer words than same-aged babies who didn’t watch them." [emphasis mine]

Einstein didn't watch TV when he was a kid.

Social Isolation is not a technology problem

The conventional wisdom is that people who spend too much time on the web or their phone increase their social isolation. Turns out it isn't that simple. In fact, technology-connected folks are actually more socially connected (as measured by metrics such as visiting parks and cafes, and volunteering for local organizations).

But the tradeoff seems to be social connectedness outside your geographic area:

NYTimes.com: "People who use social networks like Facebook or Linkedin are 30 percent less likely to know their neighbors and 26 percent less likely to provide them support."

What about neighbors who you also know on Facebook?

CDC says sick people should stay home, but in the U.S. that means giving up a paycheck

Wonk Room: "Actually, almost 50 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. have no paid sick days. A survey last year by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that “68 percent of those not eligible for paid sick days said they had gone to work with a contagious illness like the flu.”" [emphasis mine]

And once again, when it comes to health care, "The U.S. is the only developed country without a policy mandating some form of paid sick leave."

This is just embarrassing.

The British Go Bank-Busting — Is There A Lesson For The U.S.?

Wonk Room: "Indeed, as Felix Salmon put it, for these companies to be successful, they need to be boring"

I think that collateralized debt obligations serve no useful social purpose. Holding money and lending money do. Let's make banking boring again.

What exactly is Fox "News"?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
For Fox Sake!
www.thedailyshow.com
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Liberalism watered down

Liberalism circa 1936

Franklin Delano Roosevelt. October 31, 1936. Speaking at Madison Square Garden to people who got in free. “We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”

Liberalism circa 2009

Barack Obama. October 20, 2009. Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser that cost $30,400 to get in. “If there are members of the financial industry in the audience today, I would ask that you join us in passing what are necessary reforms. Don’t fight them.”


Thanks to DM for the quotes.

Vaccination should be mandatory

There are a lot of people opting out of children's vaccination these days, mostly because the greater fear is the unknown rather than the devastating illnesses (now largely eradicated) that vaccines protect against.

It's sad, because it shows that widespread information (via the internet) does not always mean truth floats to the surface. As described in a Wired article about this anti-vaccine movement...

An Epidemic of Fear: "The bottom line: Pseudo-science preys on well-intentioned people who, motivated by love for their kids, become vulnerable to one of the world’s oldest professions. Enter the snake-oil salesman."

How do you address the myths this salesman creates? After all, vaccines (with or without the thimerosal preservative) are not linked with autism.

To be clear, there is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that has largely been removed from vaccines since 2001¹) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems.

The science is clear, but the public debate is far from it, no thanks to a media establishment more interested in controversy than truth.

And the big losers are the children, who are now being needlessly exposed to completely preventable diseases.  That's why vaccination should be required.  Because it's irresponsible of government to allow people to risk their children's lives based on pseudoscience. 

We mandate seatbelt use and car seats.  This is no different.

Sen. Franken nails the problem of medical bankruptcy

This is brilliant commentary from Minnesota's junior senator:

What will your refrigerator reveal about you?

From Smart Grid to Big Brother? : TreeHugger: "Smarts grids and smart appliances are gaining a lot of mindshare these days. The main stated benefits are: A more efficient use of energy, and a higher capacity to handle intermittent renewable power sources (such as wind and solar). But there is another important issue that gets shoved under the rug: Privacy."

'Daily Show' Destroys CNN Fact-Checking

Daily Show: As usual, a humorous but yet deeply insightful examination of network news and its inability to find fact.

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Let Congress Go Without Insurance

Kristof: "In January 1917, Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance.' More than 90 years later, we still have that distinction."

A final chat with the Metrodome

ESPN's Jim Caple calls it the most underrated building in the game, and he gets it right:

"Why, just look at the past three days here. A sold-out baseball game Sunday. A sold-out 'Monday Night Football' game. A sold-out baseball game this afternoon. Three sellouts and two sports in three days? Beat that, Wrigley Field. The only thing I'm missing is a tractor pull."

Twins win game, AL Central

This says it all:

Using Firefox to maximize productivity

I'm on the web constantly for work, so I'm always on the lookout for add-ons and tools to smooth my work day. Here's a few of my favorites:

• Adblock Plus - faster browsing, period.
  
• Table2Clipboard - copies any HTML table into Excel, perfectly.  Alleluia!
  
• FaviconizeTab - shrink Firefox tabs to the size of that little logo.  Great for Gmail and Calendar and leaves more room for working tabs.

• Better Gmail - that little logo on Gmail shows my unread message count.  And changes color.  It has a few other slick interface improvements, too.
  
• Google Gears - lets me get my Gmail and Calendar without an internet connection.  Brilliant.
  
• TinyURL Generator - right click a link and get a short version.  Brilliant.

• Greasemonkey - enables everything else via Userscripts: takes down Facebook ads, cleans up RTM, adds download links to Youtube videos. 

Dad’s Life or Yours?

Their dad dying of kidney failure, his two sons can't donate to save him because they'll lose their insurance. And that means...

NYTimes.com: "After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent"

TruStone Financial gets it right

Two weeks ago I blogged my frustration with my credit union's ATM locator, since it only had a text list of machines that accepted deposits.  I had already solved their problem (using a nice free service called MapAList) and had tried to share it with customer service reps by phone and email, to no avail.

Well, within 24 hours of posting my problem and solution, a TruStone VP had responded to my post:

I have seen your blog post about how we display the...ATM locations that accept deposits, and I couldn't agree with you more. Your map makes it easy to see everything at a glance.

We created the list format in an attempt to save people time so that they did not have to access the maps available on two different ATM network sites (NYCE and Co-op). But you're right, we should have created a map too.

We appreciate the suggestion and we’ll update our website to include a map. We’re sure other members will appreciate it, too.

And now?  There's a map of ATMs accepting deposits in my town. 

Nice.

Fox News Polling: The question was okay (but only alone)

Fox has been asking about Obama's health care plan, with a very unbiased question. But they've led up to it with Republican talking points, and this biases responses. A nice lesson in objective opinion polling for the "fair and balanced" news network.

FiveThirtyEight: "when you ask biased questions first, they are infectious, potentially poisoning everything that comes below. I don't particularly care if Fox News wants to ask leading or even outrightly biased questions -- but they have to ask them after any questions they expect the policymaking community to take seriously."

Are we subsidizing big banks over smaller, better competitors?

Big banks lent out money at higher interest rates during the credit crisis, even as they sucked up federal subsidies. The analysis by Dean Baker might just be a coincidence of the credit crunch, but it could also be a $34 billion subsidy to big banks at the expense of small ones.

NYTimes.com:"AMID all the talk about systemic risk regulators, consumer protection and other fixes to our fractured financial system, there is a troubling silence on what may be the single most important reform: how to rid ourselves of banks that are so big and interconnected that their very existence threatens the world"

Chamber of Commerce going out of business

National Journal Online: The Chamber has spent a lot of money denying that climate change has human origins and that we should do anything about it. Well, not so many businesses agree:

"Apple Computer is the latest company to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the group's stance on climate change legislation, highlighting the ongoing internal dissension within the business lobbying group on its advocacy approach to legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gases."

This is (literally) bull shit

NYTimes.com:

There are regular outbreaks of food-borne illness, and one of the prime causes is E. coli in ground beef. And why is there bacteria from cow feces in our hamburgers?

"The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings [for E. coli] a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. So we don’t do that.”"

Sales is our first priority. Safety's a close second.

Some things you think you know about Iran (but for which evidence is shaky)

Informed Comment: here's one excerpt:

Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.

Actuality: Iran announced Monday a week ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun work on a second, civilian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom. There are no nuclear materials at the site and it has not gone hot, so technically Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it did break its word to the IAEA that it would immediately inform the UN of any work on a new facility. Iran has pledged to allow the site to be inspected regularly by the IAEA, and if it honors the pledge, as it largely has at the Natanz plant, then Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons at the site, since that would be detected by the inspectors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted on Sunday that Iran could not produce nuclear weapons at Natanz precisely because it is being inspected. Yet American hawks have repeatedly demanded a strike on Natanz.

How not to talk to your kids

The worst thing for your child's self-esteem might just be all that generalized praise.  This amazing essay looks at the psychology of praise and the importance of letting kids know that it's the effort that matters, not looking smart.

Is it time for cellphones on planes?

NYTimes.com: Foreign airlines have moved ahead and offer connectivity for mobile phone users, should the U.S. too?

"Despite dire warnings that cellphone use on planes would unleash social turbulence and possibly even violence in the cabin, there have been remarkably few complaints so far, industry executives and passengers say."

The menace of the public option

SF Chronicle: "Of all the current assaults on our noble republic, perhaps none is more dangerous than the public option - specifically, the public library option."

As good an argument as you will read for why there's nothing for the private sector to fear from a public health care option.

TruStone Financial Deposit ATMs in Minneapolis

If you don't bank here, you don't care, but I can't stand that my credit union only has a text list and not a map of it's ATMs that accept deposits.  Here, TruStone, I did it for you:

JFF uncovers soup scandal

This soup is about 40% of my diet right now, so I went out and bought what I thought were two varieties of noodle soup today. Think again.

Here's the front of the box. Notice that the one on the left has 40% more noodles!

Seems great, right? Let's look a little closer:

Hmm, that seems odd. Why would you get fewer servings from the "more noodle" variety?

AHA! You get 40% more noodles because you make the soup with 25% less water.

Okay, it's not just that. Package 1 (on the left) actually weighs 176g to the 141g of the original noodle soup (Package 2).

So, instead of a pure marketing scam, we also get a fun math question (in multiple parts, as are all good math questions). You may work with others, but please do your own work or you won't learn anything.

Souper Math Question #1

Part a) How much of the package weight is the noodles (for Package 1 and Package 2)?

Part b) If an individual noodle weighs 0.5g, how many noodles are there in each package? Per cup of soup if prepared according to the directions?

Part c) What is the actual % increase in noodle density from Package 2 to Package 1, if both packages were prepared with 4 cups of water?

What better way to out yourself

Ahmadinejad defended the recent Iranian "election" at the U.N. yesterday, calling it "glorious and democratic." If he'd ever experienced a democratic election, he'd know they are not glorious.

TV ads are louder by design

They compress the dynamic range of sound to make the average sound wave louder to the human ear. And digital television makes it worse. Awesome.

Hyper partisanship in the U.S. House

Apparently each day starts with both sides launching minute-long invectives at one another. To both parties: this is really, really dumb.

Summing up health care reform as only Will Ferrell can

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Looking to Healthy Banks to Lend to the F.D.I.C. - NYTimes.com

NYTimes.com:

This is what we call irony. The FDIC, protector of your bank deposits and banks alike, has been drained by all the bank failures and now wants to borrow from banks to keep going rather than assessing the banks. Reason #1 this is a bad idea:

"Bankers worry that a special assessment of $5 billion to $10 billion over the next six months would crimp their profits..."

Cry me a river. This fund exists to protect depositors, not banks with poor decision making. Plus, what happens if the banks lend to FDIC? They get interest!

The only possible reason that borrowing from healthy banks seems like a good idea is that it's fairer to the good banks, who are otherwise assessed along with the failing banks.

Thoughts?

Friedman: Real Men Tax Gas

NYTimes.com:

When almost every other developed nation has taken greater strides to pursue renewable energy and reduce dependence on foreign oil, Friedman's final question has an uncomfortable answer:

"Who are the real cheese-eating surrender monkeys in this picture?"

'Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin' made some people really mad. Why is that?

MinnPost: "As Gary Taubes, author of 'Good Calories, Bad Calories,' put it in New York magazine, back in 1932 Mayo Clinic counseled the obese to rest more, given that the energy they expended through added activity wasn’t likely to compensate for the extra energy they would go on to consume afterwards."

Pee here for better tomatoes

MinnPost:

"The results suggest that urine with [or] without wood ash can be used as a substitute for mineral fertilizer to increase the yields of tomato without posing any microbial or chemical risks,"

Behaviors are contagious

NYTimes.com: "as Christakis and Fowler put it in “Connected,” their coming book on their findings: “You may not know him personally, but your friend’s husband’s co-worker can make you fat. And your sister’s friend’s boyfriend can make you thin.”"

Toxic Waters - A Series on (not so) Clean Water

New York Times: "Almost four decades after Congress passed the Clean Water Act, the rate of water pollution violations is rising steadily. In the past five years, companies and workplaces have violated pollution laws more than 500,000 times. But the vast majority of polluters have escaped punishment."

Pawlenty backtracks further on his states rights argument

Of course he does, because it was a calculated political shout-out to the South, having little to do with law or reason.

MinnPost: "STEPHANOPOULOS: So just to be clear, are you suggesting that any parts of the plan as the president has laid it out are unconstitutional?

PAWLENTY: Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a legal issue."

This is not health care to be proud of

The Body Count at Home: "After Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans, eight years ago on Friday, we went to war and spent hundreds of billions of dollars ensuring that this would not happen again. Yet every two months, that many people die because of our failure to provide universal insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?"

Actually, it is in the bill

MinnPost: Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is helping spread the old lie about health reform and illegal immigrants. Not in the bill, Tim? Let's check the text:

"H.R. 3200, Section 246 is TITLED: NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS. And it states:

'Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.'"

QED. And STFU.

Pigeon Faster Than S. African Net

Slashdot: "'The results are in: it's faster to send your data via an airborne carrier than it is through the pipes."

Why?

FiveThirtyEight: "The regression line finds that, for every point's worth of increase in the unemployment rate, approval of labor unions goes down by 2.6 points."

Financial regulators are turds

What happens now:
Coffee, donut, and tank of gas: $40
Overdraft fees: $105
Getting shafted by your financial institution: priceless

Oh, but we're getting bold now that banks are making $27 billion a year on the Card Game. With growing bank abuse of overdraft fees:

"regulators plan to introduce new protections before year’s end. The proposals do not seek to ban overdraft fees altogether. Rather, regulators and lawmakers say they hope to curb abuses and make the fees more fair."

Fair? Banks are reordering transaction postings to maximize overdraft fees. No shit!

But let's not be hasty and ban these wankers (after all, they do put up $37 million in campaign contributions in 2008 alone - thanks opensecrets.org).

So here's your compromise regulation: "a bank shall deny all transactions that cause a customer's account to be overdrawn without the express consent of the customer for each transaction, with the customer being informed of the cost of the fees at the time of consent."

Seem hard? We have cell phones. Call me. Give me a chance to tell you what I think of that overdraft fee at the time of charge. And stop fucking with my check register.

People like government health care better

NYTimes.com: "Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high."

So, why don't we want an option for public insurance?