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Archive for 2017
June 30, 2017
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Sexual Harassment Is Pervasive and Under-Reported in Gay Bars.
THE POWER OF PROSECUTORS: My Dentist’s Murder Trial.
FEMINIST AUTHOR: ‘Have You Killed Any Men Today? And if Not, Why Not?’
NO SHOCKED FACES WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF THIS COLUMN: I’m shocked, shocked to find that Trump tweeting is going on in here!
DIG, BABY, DIG: Elon Musk’s first tunnel should be up and running next week.
Elon Musk recently announced that his tunnel-digging operation, The Boring Company, is done carving out its first segment. He bundled the announcement with a declaration of love for tunnels — which he totally loves more than floors, by the way — but didn’t talk about the first tunnel portion’s location. Musk’s latest tweets, however, are rife with clues about its location, and by the looks of things, The Boring Company’s Godot machine has begun digging right across from the SpaceX building in Hawthorne, LA County.
The location makes sense, considering the company transported Godot to SpaceX’s Hawthorne offices in April. Musk even submitted plans to local officials, asking permission to build a pedestrian tunnel from the SpaceX building to its parking lot across the road. By that time, The Boring Company was already done digging a vertical shaft for it.
Musk’s main goal is to dig tunnels under all of LA that can be used to transport cars, bikes and even people in order to reduce traffic congestion above ground.
The smartest minds agree that you can’t just dig your way to lower traffic congestion.
IN PRAISE OF GUY FIERI.
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WHAT IS FAKE NEWS? Andrew Klavan explains for PragerU.
SURVEY: Pain patients overwhelmingly prefer medical marijuana over opioids.
Though the survey, involving 2,897 medical cannabis patients, didn’t track actual drug use or efficacy, the findings fits with previous data. Decades of research suggest marijuana is effective for pain treatment. And recent studies have found that in states with medical marijuana availability, there are fewer opioid overdose deaths and doctors fill fewer opioid prescriptions.
The authors of the new survey, led by Amanda Reiman of the University of California, Berkeley, say the data furthers the need to examine marijuana as a “viable substitute for pain treatment,” particularly in light of the devastating opioid epidemic now gripping the country.
It’s only one study, but THC would seem to be less harmful longterm than opioids, particularly if ingested orally rather than smoked.
THE PROBLEM OF ORTHOSTATIC HYPOTENSION.
LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS: New York Times staffers stage walkout in support of copy editors.
SMALLER, PLEASE: Carbon Nanotubes Reduce Transistor Footprint to Forty Nanometers.
DOCTOR: Most Opioid Overdoses Not a Result of Addicted Patients.
Though the U.S. recorded 33,000 opioid-related overdose deaths (including heroin) in 2015, Singer said that the vast majority of those deaths can be attributed to people mixing narcotics with other substances. New York City reported in 2013 that 94 percent of its residents who died from heroin or opioid abuse had multiple drugs in their system.
“It’s not like doctors are prescribing a painkiller for a patient in pain, who then gets hooked and becomes a heroin addict. That’s not the usual way,” Singer said.
While lawmakers like Sens. Joe Mancin (D-W.Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) grapple with skyrocketing overdose rates in their states and potential policies to address the issue, Singer had a piece of advice: Let doctors prescribe pain medication at their discretion, without strict oversight from regulators.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: Robot furniture wants to make your apartment feel bigger.
RESQ FOAM: This Foam Could Save Your Life. “Made by Arsenal Medical and fittingly dubbed ResQ Foam, this remarkable innovation rapidly expands inside the body and seals off the wound. Bleeding to death is the leading cause of fatalities on the battlefield, according to the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research. So the US military has long been searching for a solution that would let combat medics stabilize patients for transport to field hospitals. The foam has enormous potential for civilians as well. EMTs responding to a gunshot wound to the abdomen, for example, could immediately apply the foam to help buy time to get the victim to surgical care.”
ASHE SCHOW: Trump Administration Signals End To Campus Star Chambers.
For years, college campuses across the country have been conducting witch hunts to expel or punish men accused of sexual assault. Those may soon be coming to an end, thanks to the Trump administration.
Colleges and universities have conducted these witch hunts at the order of the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which during the Obama administration issued a “Dear Colleague” letter and additional guidance that all but assured students accused of sexual assault would not get a fair hearing.
These campus star chambers, conducted behind closed doors and hidden by federal privacy laws, have resulted in an unknown number of expulsions. More than 100 of these punished students have sued or are now suing their universities for violating their due process rights and discriminating against them because of their sex.
At a National Association of College and University Attorneys conference in Chicago this week, acting assistant secretary of OCR, Candice Jackson, said the Trump administration would take a less confrontational approach to the way the department handles accusations that schools do not properly address sexual assault complaints.
Matters for the police and the courts should be left to the police and the courts.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-MONOPOLY CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF VIOLENCE? How Liberal Portland Became America’s Most Politically Violent City.
Portland’s last Republican mayor left office in 1980.
THE CAUSE OF YOUR STOMACH PROBLEMS? It’s not always the last thing you ate.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: The 6 Best Movies of 2017 (So Far).
Wonder Woman made the cut, and I’m glad to see that Baby Driver lives up to its impressive trailer.
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Treasury to Run Out of Cash in Next 3 Months, Leading to Default or Delay of Payments.
On March 15, 2017, the suspension of the debt limit expired and since then the Treasury has been able to borrow additional funds without violating the debt ceiling.
“The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the debt limit remains unchanged, those measures will be exhausted and the Treasury will most likely run out of cash in early to mid-October,” the report states. “The government would then be unable to pay its obligations fully, so it would have to delay making payments for its programs and activities, default on its debt obligations, or both.”
The amount of money the government spends on programs and the amount it collects in taxes could change from the budget office projections, so the office warns that the Treasury could run out of funds even earlier.
Currently, the federal deficit stands at $693 billion, which is an increase of $134 billion than what it projected in January. The federal government has an outstanding debt of $19.8 trillion, which includes $14.3 trillion in public debt and $5.5 trillion held by government accounts.
That’s a nearly $700 billion deficit, absent a major war or economic downturn — and without serious entitlement reform, the situation only gets worse from here.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: The Army is flight testing helicopter-mounted laser weapons.
SURROUNDED: Syrian US-backed forces seize last route into Raqqa.
A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition told The Associated Press that the Syrian Democratic Forces are now in control of all high-speed routes into Raqqa from the south. The Kurdish-led fighters had been advancing from the city’s east after they seized a major stronghold in May, and from the west and north.
“South of the Euphrates river the SDF now control all high-speed routes into Raqqa,” Col. Joe Scrocca, spokesman for the U.S-led coalition, said in emails to the AP. Moving toward the Euphrates from the east “would completely encircle the city and has been the SDF plan from the start.”
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a unit of the SDF has seized villages across the river, moving through the Kasret al-Faraj area. The Observatory described it as a “strategic” advance that completes the siege around Raqqa.
“IS has no other choice now but to surrender or fight to the end,” said the Observatory director, Rami Abdurrahman.
Perfect. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has a plan to kill them all.