We highlight Policy & Practice
The annual shrimp survey in 2012 revealed the lowest abundance of adults ever recorded in the survey’s thirty-year history. Perhaps most worrying is the fact that juvenile shrimp have not been picked up in a survey since 2010. Northern shrimp live about five years, so the lack of younger shrimp for three years straight may mean empty nets for years to come. [ Ocean acidification from CO2?]
The oceans are in trouble, and setting aside regions of biodiversity, where fishing is strictly limited, if not prohibited, is one of the few effective means of protecting many species at once. But politically, there is nothing simple about creating marine reserves in international waters. Recently, China and Russia succeeded in blocking, yet again, the creation of a large marine reserve in Antarctica.
This post does not argue that the injury to sealife is due to Fukushima or to increased acidification ... we honestly don’t know the cause or causes of the unusual behavior in ocean life, and are only certain of one thing: the U.S. and Canadian governments should fund extensive testing to figure out what’s really going on, and then publicly release the results.
Same Injury, Different Costs:
The cost of treating a cut finger in an emergency room varies widely across the country. Hospital costs, rather than doctor costs, are the largest share: average hospital costs are $566 in New England, but are $1,043 in Pacific states.
Maps of neural circuitry show women's brains are suited to social skills and memory, men's perception and co-ordination
As of now almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, the problem of disposal of growing mounds of petcoke in the U.S. from 2,000 miles away can only increase. If the plaintiffs in the Chicago lawsuit prevail, then Koch subsidiaries and BP may well see a portion of their oversea petcoke sales profits be diverted to tidying up an environmental problem that they themselves caused and declined to clean up.
A major new study finds that methane emissions from the production of shale gas may in fact be higher than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 25, casts into doubt the notion that natural gas produces half as much greenhouse gas pollution as coal. Natural gas has been embraced by many, including President Obama, as a centerpiece of America’s climate change plan.
Tiny particles of waste plastic that are ingested by shoreline "eco-engineer" worms may be negatively affecting biodiversity, a study says.
A.C. THOMPSON and JONATHAN JONES in ProPublica | Ref. Looking at real bills for real patients cuts through the ideological debate over health care policy.
The USA ranks first in the world in health care spending, but only 45th in life expectancy....
Climate change inaction is a leading global cause of death.
If we had the per-person costs of any other OECD country, America’s deficits would vanish....
How Industry Money Reaches (aka 'bribes') Physicians
To remove your appendix in one California hospital costs $180,000, at a different facility the bill is $1,500. [ Who has time to 'shop'?]
Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA: Graphics (Part 2) (Part 1 is here)
Videos of Less Corrupt Health Care Systems
SOURCE: Public Broadcasting System & ABC News | Ref.
Health Care Reform Reality Check
SOURCE: The White House | Ref.
Health Care Reform: An Online Guide
SOURCE: Slate Mag. | Ref.
International Healthcare Systems Primer
SOURCE: The American Medical Student Association | Ref.
Global Warming LinksSOURCE: Readers | Ref.
There is a body of scholarship showing that the collapse of the fertility rate to dangerously low levels across east Asia is the direct consequence of school cramming and "education fever". This is well-known to demographers and those who follow the Far East closely, but less known in the West.
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But unlike the five big oil companies — ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP and Shell, all major contributors to the Republican party — Koch Industries, a conglomerate that has played a major role in pushing Republicans away from action on climate change, is ramping up an already-aggressive campaign against climate policy — specifically against any tax or price on carbon. The divide, between conservative groups that are fighting against government regulation and oil companies that are planning for it as a practical business decision, echoes a deeper rift in the party. [ Beliefs v. Reason]
Hang on. Get Ready. Those are at least two of the takeaways from a new report released by scientists in the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday which says the sudden impacts of climate change this century and beyond are inevitable, warning that far too little has been done to prepare for them.
The emerging category of mobile Bitcoin apps is aimed at making it easier for people to employ the programs for everyday tasks, such as storing digital money in virtual wallets, paying other people and stores for goods and services, and exchanging Bitcoins for dollars and other currencies.
Beliefs of many Republicans have again been shown to be false. A new NBER study shows that access to food stamps in childhood leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of “metabolic syndrome” (obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes) and, for women, an increase in economic self-sufficiency. Overall, our results suggest substantial internal and external benefits of the safety net that have not previously been quantified.
Like for many fast food and retail workers, a new study finds that the public is also subsidizing bank profits by keeping their low-wage workforce out of poverty. Danielle Douglas reports for The Washington Post:
How two alienated, angry geeks broke the story of the year
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You have to be careful to not extrapolate too much from this sort of thing. But Matthew Isabel's visualization—call it the Great American Death Map—does bring a number of morbid realities into sharp relief:... [Note: Does not consider the majority of suicides via shooting to be firearm deaths.]
Analysts at Renesys, a network monitoring firm, said that over several months earlier this year someone [not NSA] diverted Internet traffic using a vulnerability in the so-called Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP, that the two security researchers demonstrated in 2008. The BGP attack, a version of the classic man-in-the-middle exploit, allows hijackers to fool other routers into re-directing data to a system they control. When they finally send it to its correct destination, neither the sender nor recipient is aware that their data has made an unscheduled stop.
Within 48 hours, more than 20,000 people had applied online for 400 jobs. The volume crashed Ikea's computer servers in Spain. Spain's unemployment rate is 26 percent; it's more than double that among people in their 20s. [Reminder: Capitalist greed made banks make bad loans. Then capitalists pressured the EU to force governments to take responsibility for bad private bank loans to save the economic system. Governments were thus forced to sell-off public assets and raise taxes, which punishes an innocent public and businesses to pay (for bad private bank loans) or emigrate. What a system!]
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Opposing views points to the scary ignorance and bible-thumping to which GOP representatives in Congress are appealing in their genocidal stand against quick action on climate change. If you have to have a biblical theology about these things, it should be...
“This country does a great job of creating wealth, but not a great [job] of distributing it.”
President Barack Obama has called for action to remedy profound income inequality and a lack of social mobility in the US. [Getting in front of a mob and trying to call it a parade. Help him out Warren.]
While it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America’s political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.
Google, the tech giant supposedly guided by its “don’t be evil” motto, has been funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch brothers.
With the president revving up the sales campaign and tea partiers still pushing for repeal, this never-ending debate puts the foundational beliefs of each party on the line.
Riding his dramatic Iranian breakthrough, President Obama aims to re-ignite his faltering presidency with a Christmas miracle. Interrupting the White House press briefing, Mr. Obama boldly challenged rightwing nullification, calling for “an urgent summit to resolve the most serious threat to American prosperity: Tea Party Republicans.”
The website's failures and the scramble to correct demonstrate most the president's administrative struggles.
Does it matter that Americans are suspicious of one another? Yes, say worried political and social scientists. What's known as "social trust" brings good things. A society where it's easier to compromise or make a deal. Where people are willing to work with those who are different from them for the common good. Where trust appears to promote economic growth.
Distrust, on the other hand, seems to encourage corruption. At the least, it diverts energy to counting change, drawing up 100-page legal contracts and building gated communities.
Allegedly popular in San Francisco: Investor-backed individuals turning mansions into modern-day communes, in which a couple dozen residents share meals, chores, entrepreneurial ideas, deep discussions, and maybe, one day, babysitters.
Even highly gifted and relatively successful writers, artists and musicians generally are not able to earn a living from their talents.
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The whole eurozone must have a higher inflation rate to lift the South far enough above the deflation line to gain breathing room
“The financial crisis has significantly eroded the concept of the EU and Russia’s influence is growing. There is a redistribution of the balance of power in the world.”
German authorities may have to sharply revise statistics for the number of people killed by right-wing extremists since 1990. The official figure is around 60, but police combing through unsolved cases have identified a further 746 suspicious slayings or attacks.
Already, the Snowden revelations threaten to erode the market share of American technology companies abroad. Forrester Research projected the fallout could cost the so-called cloud computing industry as much as $180 billion — a quarter of its revenue — by 2016.
Several dramatic accusations and events have heightened Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon, as the Syrian Civil War continues to spill over onto Beirut’s politics.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc is paying for lawyers to represent more than 30 of its executives involved in a foreign corruption investigation, according to people familiar with the matter, an unusually high number that shows the depth of the federal probe.
Beijing's recent establishment of a new air defense zone in the East China Sea is exacerbating long-running disputes with its neighbors Japan and Taiwan -- and threatens to draw the US military into a larger regional conflict.
Hans Hoyng, Wieland Wagner and Bernhard Zand in Der SpiegelCountries like Italy and Spain are turning away from the world, with grave consequences for the European project.
Congress will decide if deal first struck by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in April should go through.
Religious belief is a symptom of fear: aware that our lives are precarious and vulnerable, we seek the protection of a powerful deity, to comfort ourselves with an illusion of safety. Fear is also a symptom of religion: in particular, doctrines of punishment in both this life and the next cause ignorant believers to live in fear unnecessarily.
In recognition of the dangers inherent in the consolidation of mainstream corporate media The Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel (formerly a newspaper) advances awareness of important suppressed news and opinion.
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Two operatives from the Washington think tank Third Way put Warren in their crosshairs for daring to suggest that Social Security be strengthened and the rich be taxed more in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday. It’s critical to understand that Third Way presents itself as “centrist” which is code for “oligarchy promoters pretending to be reasonable” and has consistently advocated gutting Social Security and Medicare.
Can anything be done to help these workers, many of whom depend on food stamps and Medicaid? Yes. We can preserve and expand food stamps, not slash the program the way Republicans want. We can make health reform work, despite right-wing efforts to undermine the program. And we can raise the minimum wage.
A SYRIZA win may be the jolt that Europe needs: a victory by a pro-European party committed to keeping the country both in the Eurozone and in the European Union, but a party that, importantly, because of its radical disposition, is prepared to open up the conversation at the level of the European Council so that, at long last, European leaders address the problems they have been ignoring over the past five years.
- Rightwing lobby group appealing to major donors to return
- Internal documents reveal so-called 'Prodigal Son Project'
- Network lost almost 400 state legislators over past two years
Food stamps keep 47 million people from going hungry, so cuts hurt. Congress should focus on where the real abuse happens
Former editors with newspaper News of the World are currently on trial in London, where they are accused of spying on private phone conversations for years. The unfolding testimony against close associates of publisher Rupert Murdoch shows just how far the British tabloid press has been willing to go for a scoop.
An article posted in The National Journal asserts that fracking -- dangerous to the environment, the earth and humans -- has resulted in huge price breaks in natural gas for businesses, but comparatively little for consumers. [ Did enormous Chevron ads in the National Journal influence its reporting?]
Both "conservative" and "liberal" journalists are held to account for unprofessional work.
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