7/30/14 Today's Inquiries

You've got a long link list today.

The Links:

A brief New York Times profile of Osteopathic Medicine reports that almost 1/3 of medical students are graduating from DO programs. I had no idea it was that many. I also didn't know that there were no new MD schools between 1980 and 2002. It's a good primer on the difference between DO and MD, which is basically zero. Less than 10% of practicing DOs utilize the manipulative therapy described in the article.

McDonald's could be liable for it's labor practices. The NLRB changed the category of employer McDonald's falls under. No more unpaid over time. No more clocking out but still working. Sometimes unilateral executive action can have benefits.

WaPo reports that 1/3 of people with a credit report had debt collection in the past year. Which means they weren't even able to make minimum payments on some kind of borrowed money. Which means the sub-prime car loans linked a while back and other returning predatory lending practices are going in the same direction as the housing crisis.

Worldwide water shortage by 2040. Back when I was in early high school, my family visited a family friend for Thanksgiving. He was the director of the Naval War College or some such position. His summary of the future: most of the world will be at war over securing drinking water. This was probably 10 years ago.

Speaking of bleak futures, the Hungarian Prime Minister says he would like to end liberal democracy. I can't wait to see how that turns out. Maybe he can cozy up with Putin. I'm sure the Hungarian people just love the Russians.

Vox wants to know: What would happen in Ebola came to the US? I'd imagine it'd be pretty scary. A lot of the coverage right now focuses on how rural communities in the affected nations are deeply suspicious of WHO, MSF, and others. We like to think we're different from a bunch of tent-dwelling tribal Africans but we're not. People will panic.

The Anti-vaccine movement is not only growing, it's branching out into other kinds of healthcare. Numerous parents are now opting not to give their kids vitamin K shots shortly after birth. This means they are prone to bleeds. So yeah, you'll feel better about not giving your kid autism despite the total lack of evidence connecting vitamin K to autism but your kid is going to be hypotonic, have a blown pupil, and be shitting blood. Good job mom!

David Frum accused Reuters and the New York Times of staging photos of the Gaza crisis. There's a lot to the context of this story so definitely read on if you're at all interested. Warning: These are graphic photos.

The Decline of Milk. I wonder what's replacing it? Mountain Dew? Red Bull? Purple Drank?

A presentation from Open Source Conference about how techies should check their privilege:



This handy chart will tell you when a woman owes you sex. Apparently sex spreadsheets are a thing.

So, maybe it's appropriate that Wired takes a look a Tech's Ugly Gender Problem. Ugly indeed.

Richard Dawkins: You're not helping!

And, The Dark Side of ComicCon: Harassment amid the fantasy. But wait!? Aren't nerds magically immune to harassment because they were a 'marginalized' community and therefore open and accepting?

Andrew Sullivan looks at #Feminism and how feminism is becoming separated form it's cultural and historical context.

Also, two Dish posts about Conservatism: Montaigne and Conservatism and Toward a Conservatism of Joy. Posts like these remind me why I read Andrew Sullivan so much. He has a refreshing and enlightened view of conservatism which is almost completely absent from the fake libertarian leaning GOP and Fox News set.

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7/29/14 Today's Inquiries

Links 'n stuff!

The Links:

Today's Storyline theme: Bullying. As an educator I saw lots of low-grade bullying but you definitely have to put a hard stop to that sort of thing early in the year or the kids will learn it's okay.

Today's chart porn shows 5 decades of middle class wages and productivity.

Greenpeace says that by exporting coal, Obama is exporting climate change. I like the little rhetorical flourish that one could export a global problem.

David Sirota insists that there are huge differences between Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton. I think these differences are easy when you're talking about stated positions and hard when you're talking about governing. In that sense, Hillary's stated positions are probably closer to what her realistic policy goals would be and she stands a greater chance of being a successful executor.

LeMonde figures out that the US army is only part of the way we blow billions of dollars on imperialist wars of occupation without any hope of accountability. Oh, contractors, how did we ever believe that you'd be more efficient than keeping it in-house?

Speaking of armies:



Williiam Gibson's Neuromancer is 30 years old. A prime example of life imitating art.

It looks like Comic Con's attendees are fighting to stem the tide of sexual harassment at nerd mecca. Still, there's bound to be plenty of people crossing the line. It shouldn't just be on the attendees to get in the face of creeps. The Con needs to have a more stringent code of conduct.

What do Chinese Dumplings Have to Do With Global Warming? Everything, apparently.

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia and officially kicks off WWI.

Tyler Cowen asks, Why does the US economy do better under Democratic Presidents? Well obviously they're just skating along on the great economic policies created by Republican predecessors. Just like Obama's been doing.

An interview about prison reform with the real woman behind Orange is the New Black.

OkCupid seems to be experimenting on it's users by sending incompatible people on dates. I've said it before: they need to keep people from having successful long term relationships in order maintain user base.

Womens' brains saw a huge boost form things like sanitation, healthcare, and nutrition. Another series of fantastic 20th century achievements that the GOP is rapidly working to undo.

Michelle Nunn's campaign accidentally published it's strategy. I don't know how much this will damage her chances since we're still several months out but she'd better get some better staffers.

And The Upshot questions pay for performance as a model for improving healthcare. The way we're talking about healthcare increasingly reminds me of the way we're talking about schools. All the policy is focused on providers (teachers) and hospitals (schools) but nothing focuses on the patients (students). I'm sorry, but we have a very unhealthy public. 1/3 of the country is literally poisoning themselves with sugar. The chronic problems associated with diabetes are not going away just because you change the compensation structure for physicians. Same for heart disease, obesity, and all the other chronic-yet-preventable illnesses out there.

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7/28/14 Today's Inquiries

Garfield hates Mondays.

The links:

Minecraft is 5 years old and is still going strong. I can't say I've played much recently but that's not to say I won't play in the future. I need to find a way to merge all of the maps I've ever played into one super map.

XKCD speculates that Tommy Wiseau is actually DB Cooper. It's as good a theory as any.

New Mad Max


The New York Times goes to the beach and has a sad. Maybe it's because the 6th great extinction is upon us and we're to blame.

Or maybe they should have had better summer reading material. iO9 rounds up 21 important SciFi books.

Tolkein wouldn't be happy about this: 1/2 of Britain to be opened up for fracking. Maybe his chapters about the Shire becoming an industrial wasteland will become true again.

Tyler Cowen shares a fact about Germany. Apparently they've thrown open their borders and are keen to train immigrants for jobs and teach them German. Not a bad idea and the US is looking more and more a mess these days.

For example, the new GOP outrage of the moment is secret Obama inflation. I've totally been on the right's side with this issue before. Then I saw no inflation for about 10 years despite loose Fed policy.

And, Midterm Calculus now gives republicans better chances this fall than last week. I should stop following the polls.

Andrew Sullivan asks if the Christian Left is capable of gaining traction. I doubt it but I live in east Kentucky. I find it more likely that Christians become less political. Or at least less political because of their religion. 3-ish decades of the Moral Majority didn't stop the gay or any other perceived scourge on society.

How doctors think about healthcare vs how management think about health care. Allow me to summarize: Managers want to bring Common Core into hospitals. Physicians want to be left alone to practice medicine as they see fit. The managers will win.

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7/27/14 Today's Inquiries

The best thing about my job on sundays is all the people who are "overwhelmed by the spirit" while at church.

The links:

The New York Times contrasts the implied fictional violence of Comic Con weapons with the generally rule-following nature of it's attendees. I think the article is far more negative than the accompanying video. I'm beginning to be more inclined to agree with the anti-weapon critics. Perhaps it's because I don't think that nerd culture is open or accepting. Marginalized? Yeah, in the past, sure. But I see little evidence of nerds willingness to embrace outsiders.

NYT profiles Doc McStuffins, a female black doctor doll! We need so many more toys like this. A black male president is not enough.

More New York Times. A study finds that households are worth a third less now than they were prior to the recession. But the Times also has an article about how yacht owners see themselves as job creators. These ships aren't going to sail themselves!

How much would Paul Ryan's anti-poverty plan cost?

And, the New York Times is in favor of legalizing weed.

More investment advice for Millenials from Patrick O'Shaughnessy.

The first book about Millenials as a generation was, apparently, very bad at making predictions.

Barry Ritholtz, meanwhile, encourages you not to let your emotions ruin your investing decisions.

And Zero Hedge calls anyone who invests in Indexed funds a socialist. Which pretty much doesn't make sense because you're literally buying a piece of the entire stock market. I think I'm going to remove Zero Hedge from my news rotation because they're just getting dumb.

Meanwhile Elite Colleges are becoming less and less friendly to anyone but the rich.

In 1985, 46 percent of incoming freshmen at the 250 most selective colleges came from the top quarter of the income distribution. By 2000, it was 55 percent. As of 2006, only about 15 percent of students at the most competitive schools came from the bottom half. The more prestigious the school, the more unequal its student body is apt to be. And public institutions are not much better than private ones. As of 2004, 40 percent of first-year students at the most selective state campuses came from families with incomes of more than $100,000, up from 32 percent just five years earlier.

The author advises sending your kids to non-ivies. As an Oligarch-American, I agree with this advice. College doesn't really matter so long as you go. Obviously it's your family connections and educational signaling that get you the job.

There is a ton of competition between Tech companies and Fashion companies for the best talent.  Given that technology and fashion are industries completely devoid of meritocracy and only serve to enrich a small number of people while numerous others toil in substandard conditions, I think this competition over talent makes perfect sense.

Facebook is now the most powerful newsreader. I'm doing just fine without it but I get where the article is going. If Facebook decided what kind of news it will let you see, then it can seriously manipulate your perception of the world.

Andrew Sullivan notes Kimberly Winston who notes the growing interest in the theological foundations of WWI. Very interesting indeed. The quoted portions touch a little on the link between masculinity and Christianity and warmongering. I have admit that while reading some Virginia Woolf essays I was always confused by her connection of masculinity and fascism. Maybe some more reading is required.

Andrew also looks at professional gaming. I want it to catch on but at the same time, I don't want to watch competitive gaming. I want to watch people play Skyrim. Or The Last of Us. Or The Wlaking Dead.

Vox gives us a map made by reddit of common surnames from the 1881 census of England and Wales. Joneses are from Wales, apparently.

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7/26/14 Today's Inquiries

Fresh from the series of tubes and in no particular order, links:

Google is aggregating lots of health data so they can make tons and tons of money. Although they says it's to better understand healthcare and health in general. But really it's money.

Dean Baker wants to end protectionism in the medical field. He notes that people decrying the doctor shortage don't usually mention bringing in more foreign doctors. 

Thinking about Social Security is problematic because there's so much confusing information out there. For example, my post about retirement a few months back. Tim Stuhldreher points out that the lost economic activity of the great recession is enough to pay for all the shortfalls. Just a reminder of how much those bankers ruined the world.

More on the recession. A recent study broke down recent graduates' employment outcomes. I especially like that they took the time to figure out whether or not the employed were in positions requiring college degrees. I also like that liberal arts and business are pretty much the same. Fuck business school students. I hate those guys. 

WaPo posts 5 myths about the gender pay gap. I found that I believed most of these at some point in time and two of them currently. I need to do more research!

Bill Moyers reports on the Center for Community Change report released this week. One big thing was how poor people are not willing to call themselves poor and prefer to say they can't make ends meet. I wonder how the dislike for that pejorative makes people think and vote about poverty programs. 

Brendan Nyhan thinks we're likely to see more 'worst' presidents. I found myself thinking about impeachment recently. What if we start seeing every president get impeached? There was talk of doing it to Bush. Obama might get impeached. We're already clearly at a point where having effective governance is unimportant to politicians. They've figured out how to stay in office through outrage alone. I mean, is impeachment going to become like repealing Obamacare? Is it just something every conservative votes for dozens and dozens of times because that's what their base wants to hear?

More evidence that only white people are Americans. 

And, an asshole gets lunch:

There is nothing more annoying than trying to enjoy a meal, cigar or just some quiet time and have people come up to ask for money. And since the City-County Council Democrats continue to block any meaningful proposal to get these guys off the streets, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to turn the tables on the panhandlers and start asking them for money.

Long time conservative, Andrew Sullivan, explains why he seems to be moving left. No, Andrew, it's just that politics is moving right.

Apparently Hamas didn't kidnap those kids and murder them kicking off this recent war. Is it bad that I don't care? Like. At. All. Not from a humanitarian standpoint. I definitely sympathize with any human suffering. But I couldn't care less about the conflict. It's never going away. Both sides are shitty murderous thugs. It's like watching a gang war. Why should I care who wins?

I didn't know this: Corporations used to pay 1/3 of federal taxes. I thought it had alwas been a lower portion. I'm glad the government is no longer stealing their hard earned incomes and distributing it to the takers. Let the job creators keep their money (in banks overseas).

Grow your hair out and paint pixels on your face to defeat facial recognition software.

And, the South finally gets it's revenge on those damned yankees as climate change allows Kudzu to spread north. The end game is finally in sight. Or, you know, buy some goats.

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7/25/14 Today's Inquiries

Links I liked from around the web presented in no particular order.

The links:

Today Storyline peeks in at a town that blocked child immigrants. Also, the site seems to be featuring more story lines today which gives me a sad.

The NY Times asks, Why Do Americans Stink at Math? To which it's editorial page responds, Don't Teach Math, Coach It. I blame the lack of computer programming courses in our elementary skills - kids don't know how to think!

iO9 wants to know how Christians would deal with extraterrestrial life if it were discovered. It's especially problematic if it's intelligent life. Although I suppose about 30% of Christians would just deny extraterrestrial life exists citing a lack of biblical evidence.

Speaking of Christians who would have no problems with extraterrestrial life, Jason Jones reviews The Fifth Element and remembers to bring his multi-pass. Did I say reviews? Well, offers some constructive criticism may be more accurate. Read it anyway. And then all his other movie and game reviews.

The Daily Dish's book club this month is a book about the essays of Montaigne. Andrew Sullivan posts some reader feedback, specifically about the fear of dying. You can find the book club archive here.

Children don't like to eat healthy things. I'm pretty sure this has been know sine forever. Listen up parents! Your the boss of your children. Don't let them eat shitty food. You have that control. Fight them! Yes, I know they're genetically programmed to seek fat, salt, and sugar. Yes, I know you're genetically programmed to love them and make them happy. But you have to make them healthy too.

Andrew Prokop was at The Christian Science Monitor breakfast. A White House aid was genuinely worried that the House may impeach the president.

Pay - for - performance is a myth in corporate America. It really makes the gender-wage gap less defensible. Also, if people aren't paid more for being smarter and better than everyone else, how will we know who's best? Last, if this is the case, why do we want to emulate pay-for-performance in schools?

In the journal Personality and Individual Differences, a study looks at internet trolls.

In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting styles. Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity, pointing to a common construct underlying the measures. Both studies revealed similar patterns of relations between trolling and the Dark Tetrad of personality: trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, using both enjoyment ratings and identity scores. Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism. Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism. 

Newsweek covers Valdimir Putin's life. The dude is pretty cool in a shirtless crazy power mad dictator kind of way. Also, how are these guys a superpower?

How Big of a Problem is Harassment at Comic Conventions? Very Big.

Why Captain America Should Stay Black Forever. Because a Black President isn't enough.

John Oliver and Clickhole. Fake news in opposite directions. I highly recommend pirating Oliver's show if you can't afford a $60 + $15 per month cable and HBO subscription. He's really come into is own and is far more biting than Stewart.

The New Yorker tells a 'guy walks into a bar' joke. Archives are fun.

I'm not saying Reason magazine published a Holocaust denial issue in 1976, but Reason magazine published a Holocaust denial issue in 1976. Also, they're super racist.

How many molecules of ink are used to print a single 12pt numeral?

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7/24/14 Today's Inquiries

Howdy partner, mosey on down to the links today.

In no particular order, the links:

Paul Kurgman asks, How's California Doing? I suppose it's best seen when in contrast to states like Kansas and Wisconsin but most accurately measured against Texas and New York.

Catherine Rampell provides an overview of the supposedly shrinking workweek. Many people have argued for such a thing from Keynes to Carlos Slim. The reality looks a little bit different.

The NY Times created a tool to search for word frequency through it's entire print history. I searched for Old Grey Lady. Very cool.

Eduardo Porter asks, Why aren't voters angrier about economic inequality? As far as I can tell, it's more about the poor and disenfranchised not voting than about them not being angry. Also, people don't understand inequality because they don't get how awesome the rich really have it. We Oligrch-Americans inhabit different world from the poors.

Storyline is all about energy policy today. Here's The (possibly) Slow Death of Coal. I hope they stick with the daily themes.

Noah Smith thinks Wall St. skipped economics class back in the 70s and 80s. What did those bankers miss while they were doing quaaludes and blow? Well, the entirety of economics abandoned Structural Economic Modeling in favor of approaches which sought to model individuals within the economy. This matters because SEM methods can only ever find correlations while modeled behaviors get closer to causation,

Monkey Cage's Andrew Gelman takes issue with the idea that meritocracy somehow excludes the elite passing on their fortunes to family.

Speaking of meritocracy and bootstrapping, Valleywag gives us, If TaskRabbit Is the Future of Employment, the Employed are Fucked. But I seem to remember Silicon Valley types saying that services like this, Uber, AirB&B, and other 'sharing economy' apps are democratizing work?

WSJ looks at Millennial views on housing and thinks they're not that different after all. I guess, because, umm, they're likely to consider being married and living in a house ideal? I dunno, you figure it out.

The Providence Journal tried to figure out how the hedge funds that Rhode Island State Pensions are performing. They got their asses slapped down in court. That's right! In state after state, the public is being denied, in court, the right to know how their public pensions are performing. No more retirement.

Andrew Sullivan points to Strategic Counter-trolling on the internet. Western government hire people to go around and challenge terrorists' points of view on the internet. I think it's really more about surveillance. Maybe you convince some people not to agree with the terrorists but you also see who is 'engaged' with their posts.

He also looks at The Left's Elizabeth Warren Fantasy. Oh how I can dream.

Our poor mental health coverage basically means the mentally ill go to jail.

The Pacific Standard has an article about how time is racist. More accurately, African Americans suffer from more degenerative aging than other races. Limited access to healthcare, education, good communities, and good jobs means you live a shorter and more painful life. That's why we need reparations.

Why are people Malnourished in the Richest County on Earth? An interactive media experience from The National Geographic.

Vox gives us a trendy post on food trendsetters. I think it's interesting to see how they are really only targeting one market over and over again.

Vox provides an overview of Paul Ryan's new budget. It's mostly what you'd expect plus a proposal to expand the EITC.

But what Paul Ryan doesn't do is provide better public transit, which is proven to help ameliorate poverty.

XKCD presents Snake Facts.

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