Archive for 2015
September 6, 2015
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Remove Your House From Google Street View.
PETER HITCHENS WARNS BRITAIN: We won’t save refugees by destroying our own country. “Thanks to a thousand years of uninvaded peace, we have developed astonishing levels of trust, safety and freedom. I have visited nearly 60 countries and lived in the USSR, Russia and the USA, and I have never experienced anything as good as what we have. Only in the Anglosphere countries – the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – is there anything comparable. I am amazed at how relaxed we are about giving this away. . . . It may not be ideal, but the definition of a refugee is that he is fleeing from danger, not fleeing towards a higher standard of living. . . . You really think these crowds of tough young men chanting ‘Germany!’ in the heart of Budapest are ‘asylum-seekers’ or ‘refugees’? Refugees don’t confront the police of the countries in which they seek sanctuary. They don’t chant orchestrated slogans or lie across the train tracks.”
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STUDY: Regular doses of Truvada extremely effective in preventing HIV infection. But there’s a downside:
All but four of the 657 participants in the Kaiser study were gay men, and 84 percent of them reported multiple sexual partners.
After starting PrEP, half of them became infected with syphilis, gonorrhea or chlamydia within a year. . . .
Although it is possible that PrEP contributed to higher rates of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia, rates of those infections had begun climbing among gay men even before PrEP became available, Dr. Volk said.
One step at a time.
I BLAME DUMB HR RULES AND THE ATMOSPHERE OF TERROR THEY CREATE: The Decline of Workplace Friendships. “In 1985, about half of Americans said they had a close friend at work; by 2004, this was true for only 30 percent. And in nationally representative surveys of American high school seniors, the proportion who said it was very important to find a job where they could make friends dropped from 54 percent in 1976, to 48 percent in 1991, to 41 percent in 2006. . . . Focusing our friendship efforts outside work isn’t the norm around the world. In surveys across three countries, Americans reported inviting 32 percent of their closest colleagues to their homes, compared with 66 percent in Poland and 71 percent in India. Americans have gone on vacation with 6 percent of their closest co-workers, versus 25 percent in Poland and 45 percent in India. It’s not that Americans are less concerned with relationships overall. We’re social creatures outside work, yet the office interaction norm tends to be polite but impersonal.”
TYLER O’NEILL: Forget What You’ve Heard: Republicans Have the Demographic Edge for 2016.
Contrary to many media reports, the Hispanic vote won’t necessarily give Democrats the election next year. In fact, a closer study of past elections and current trends shows that the the GOP has a slight advantage going into 2016.
Political outlets have repeated the idea that Democrats have an edge in the Electoral College based on previous election results and the growing number of Hispanics, who have a left-of-center voting pattern. Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the six last presidential elections — but signs show this electoral lead may not continue.
The “inevitable Democrat” hypothesis only makes sense if you consider Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 a starting point from which the Democratic Party may gain even further. The whole calculation shifts once you factor in the fact that the First Black President can’t run for a third term. . . . Hispanics make a large difference when it comes to the popular vote, but their impact on the Electoral college is minimal.
Read the whole thing.
ONLY ONE CANDIDATE HAS THE COURAGE TO SLAM OBAMA OVER THE MAN-CESSION: Bernie Sanders.
COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Why Human Population May Explode.
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A LECTURE FROM THE CLEMSON INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF CAPITALISM: Living Without Lies: On The Nature Of A Liberal Arts Education.
THAT’S SILLY. WHY WOULD DIVINE WRATH FOCUS ON KENTUCKY, OF ALL PLACES? Firenado! 800,000 gallons of Jim Beam accidentally released into a Kentucky lake bursts into flames after being hit by lightning… before a tornado sucks the flaming liquid 100 feet up into the air. Video at the link.
STEPHEN L. CARTER: BigLaw Associates Need A Nap. To be fair, doesn’t everybody?
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nanotechnology provides sensors for liver-on-chip drug testing.
OBAMA SUPPORTER Damon Wayans Defends Bill Cosby, Calls Accusers “Bitches” and “Unrapeable.” “I believe he was in relationships with all of them and then he’s like, ‘You know what? [I’m] 78. It don’t work like that no more. I can’t get it up for any of y’all. Bye, bitches,’ and then they’re like, ‘Oh, really? Rape!’” I mean, he is an Obama supporter, right?
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, a telling correction: