News digest / Catching up on news (10.11.2014)

I've been busy lately for personal reasons, but also my laptop was out of commission for a week thanks to my 2-year-old (see photo), so below are some stories that deserved more attention than I was able to give them. If you've read these then you know (some of) what I do. Enjoy!

It took her about 2 minutes to do that. God love her, the little s--t.

"Scott Walker lost his fight for voter ID. He's still everything that's wrong with the GOP," By Arvina Martin, October 10, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/42a3m  ANOTHER MAD TEA PARTY EXPERIMENT BLOWING UP IN THEIR FACES... CONTAINED AT THE STATE LEVEL, THANKFULLY.

"The War Nerd: Technology, culture wars & jihad," By Gary Brecher, October 9, 2014, Pando Daily. URL:http://pando.com/2014/10/09/the-war-nerd-technology-culture-wars-jihad/

"Bill de Blasio: From Education to Poverty, Leadership by Example," By Richard (RJ) Eskow, October 9, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/1vR5knB

"Millennials Are Blue Now, But Party Allegiance Could Be Up For Grabs," By Mara Liasson, October 9, 2014, NPR. URL:http://n.pr/1vRcyIo

"Will China Spark a Currency War?" By William Pesek, October 8, 2014, Bloomberg. URL: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-08/will-china-spark-a-currency-war

"Time for a Guaranteed Income?" By Veronique de Rugy, March 2014 issue, Reason. URL: http://reason.com/archives/2014/02/19/time-for-a-guaranteed-income  WATCH OUT, THE LIBERTARIANS ARE TALKING SOCIALIST REDISTRIBUTION!

"Voter Registration Rises In Ferguson Since Death Of Michael Brown (UPDATE)," By Igor Bobic, October 7, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/1rPw4FO

"Some Americans Boosted Charitable Giving In Recession; The Rich Did Not," By Bill Chappell, October 6, 2014, NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1CPvxHk  CHARITY WORKS THE LEAST WHEN IT'S NEEDED MOST -- TIME TO STOP RELYING ON IT, IT'S JUST A FEEL-GOOD OUTLET FOR THE FORTUNATE.

"Why would anyone want to talk on the phone ever again?" By Jess Zimmerman, October 6, 2014, Guardian. URL:http://gu.com/p/426qh  AGREED: PHONES ARE ANNOYING AND INTRUSIVE.

"Firestone Did What Governments Have Not: Stopped Ebola In Its Tracks," By Jason Beaubien, October 6, 2014., NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1COVoPL  UMM... NOT SURE WHAT TO THINK ABOUT THIS ONE. KUDOS TO THE COMPANY FOR WANTING ITS WORKERS NOT TO DIE?  WELL OK THEN.

"How the Russian Orthodox Church answers Putin's prayers in Ukraine," By Gabriela Baczynska and Tom Heneghan, October 6, 2014, Reuters. URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0HV0MH20141006   KBG AND NOW FSB COLLABORATORS.

"Voodoo Economics, the Next Generation," By Paul Krugman, October 5, 2014, New York Times. URL: http://huff.to/1s49pG2  DYNAMICALLY SCORE THIS!

"Oceans Getting Hotter Than Anybody Realized," By John Upton, October 5, 2014, Climate Central. URL:http://www.climatecentral.org/oceans

"Vatican Synod Tests The Pope's Vision Of A More Merciful Church," By Sylvia Poggioli, October 5, 2014, NPR. URL:http://n.pr/Z3PBqc

"Ten Reasons Why Russia Could Invade Ukraine Before Winter – Thoughts from Kiev," By Mychailo Wynnyckyj, October 3, 2014, Circus Bazaar. URL: http://www.circusbazaar.com/ten-reasons-why-russia-could-invade-ukraine-before-winter/

"Even if we defeat the Islamic State, we’ll still lose the bigger war," By Andrew J. Bacevich, October 3, 2014, Washington Post. URL: 

http://wapo.st/1vlnuxk    NOBODY GETS THIS.  IT'S LIKE TALKING TO A BRICK WALL.

"Regarding political differences, just blame biology," By Cynthia M. Allen, October 3, 2014, McClatchy DC. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/03/242055/cynthia-m-allen-regarding-political.html   KIND OF DEPRESSING, ACTUALLY. WHY DO I BOTHER?

"Can US Support for Ukraine Help Prevent a New Russian Invasion?" By James Rupert, October 3, 2014, Atlantic Council. URL: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/can-us-support-for-ukraine-help-deter-a-new-russian-invasion

"China’s explanation for the Hong Kong protests? Blame America," By Anne Applebaum, October 3, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://wapo.st/1py9Y5S   JUST LIKE PUTIN DOES, BLAME AMERICA.  GEE, WHO KNEW WE WERE SO POWERFUL?? (YET WE CAN'T TAKE OUT A BUNCH OF YAHOOS IN THE DESERT??...)

"The US is slipping into a disastrous engagement against the Islamic State," By Marvin Zonis, October 3, 2014, Chicago Tribune. URL: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/03/241997/the-us-is-slipping-into-a-disastrous.html

"Big Food more effective than Big Government in tackling obesity," By Richard Williams, October 3, 2014, McClatchy-Tribune. URL: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/03/242079/big-food-more-effective-than-big.html   I'LL RAISE MY DIET COKE AND OLESTRA CHIPS TO THAT!

"Sentiment divided at haj pilgrimage over role of Islamist militants," By Amena Bakr, October 3, 2014, Reuters. URL:http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0HS14420141003   RAGHEADS. ALL RAGHEADS.

"Russia ends US student exchange in part over 'friendly relations' of gay men," By Alec Luhn, October 2, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/42568  WELL IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR KIDS TO BE GAY THEN DON'T SEND THEM TO THE U.S. OBVIOUSLY. JEEZ.

"Europe, facing common jihadi threat, has no common security policy," By Matthew Schofield, October 2, 2014, McClatchy DC. URL: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/02/241856/europe-facing-common-jihadi-threat.html   EUROPE IS INFURIATING IN ITS SLOWNESS AND DIVISION IN THE MIDST OF SO-CALLED UNITY.

"Your baby looks like your ex? This research is scarier than Alien," By Daisy Buchanan, October 2, 2014, Guardian. URL:http://gu.com/p/424kt    YES INDEED, DAISY, YOUR BABY WITH TOM LOOKS JUST LIKE GATSBY!

"Who will win the ridesharing war? Probably not consumers," By Catherine Rampell, October 2, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-consumers-likely-to-lose-the-uber-lyft-ride-share-war/2014/10/02/f4810f74-4a6c-11e4-a046-120a8a855cca_story.html?hpid=z6   TAXIS GOT REGULATED FOR A REASON, FOLKS. WE'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO REMEMBER WHY.

"The War Nerd: Islamic State is sulking on the edge of Baghdad," By Gary Brecher, October 2, 2014, Pando Daily. URL:http://pando.com/2014/10/02/the-war-nerd-islamic-state-is-sulking-on-the-edge-of-baghdad/ 

"Putin Supports Project to ‘Secure' Russia Internet," By Andrew E. Kramer, October 2, 2014. New York Times. URL:http://huff.to/1rPXsUi

"We all know about jihadists, but what about those waging an ‘anti-jihad’?" By Karima Bennoune, October 1, 2014, Reuters. URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS191691981520141001

"The White House Could Be Made A Fortress, But Should It Be?" By Ron Elving, October 1, 2014, NPR. URL:http://n.pr/1oAUG01   THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION USED TO BE AN OPEN HOUSE PARTY... WHO COULD IMAGINE IT NOWADAYS?!

"The 9 Biggest Myths About ISIS Debunked," By Andrew Hart, October 1, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/YH0xKH

"Putin’s view of power was formed watching East Germany collapse," By Mary Elise Sarotte, October 1, 2014, Guardian. URL: 

http://gu.com/p/4249a   DAS IST KAPUT!

"Is The New AP U.S. History Really Anti-American?" By Emmanuel Felton, October 1, 2014, Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/1rM7XrO  CRITICAL THINKING IS INHERENTLY ANTI-AMERICAN, DUH.

"Obamacare's First Year: How'd It Go?" By John Ydstie, October 1, 2014, NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1ozUXR2   IT WENT PRETTY F-ING WELL: I GOT HEALTH INSURANCE AND SO DID MY REPUBLICAN UNCLE T.  'NUF SAID.

"Is America on the ISIS Hit List?," By Graham Allison, September 30, 2014, The National Interest. URL:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-the-isis-hit-list-11372   I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: THERE'S NO BETTER LOCATION TO STAGE A TERRORIST INVASION OF AMERICA THAN THE SYRIAN DESERT, NO SIR.

"Federalization as a ’Terrorist’ Act," By Halya Coynash, September 30, 2014, Human Rights in Ukraine. URL:http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1411869882   WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE WILL GET THE GOOSE COOKED, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT....

"Embracing Assad Is a Better Strategy for the U.S. Than Supporting the Least Bad Jihadis," By Graham E. Fuller, September 29, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/1rGasf4

"Earth lost 50% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF," By Damian Carrington, September 29, 2014, Guardian. URL:http://gu.com/p/42vvx  SCARY. SCARY.  DID I SAY SCARY?

"Income Inequality 2014: Ahead Of Midterm Elections, Harvard Study Says Americans Grossly Underestimate Inequality," By David Sirota, September 29, 2014, International Business Times. URL: http://www.ibtimes.com/income-inequality-2014-ahead-midterm-elections-harvard-study-says-americans-grossly-1696476?utm_content=bufferd3b86&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

"Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us," By Paul Verhaeghe, September 29, 2014, Guardian. URL:http://gu.com/p/42v9g

"When income growth hits a brick wall: From 1949 to 1979 over 60 percent of all income growth went to the bottom 90 percent. After that, things changed for the middle class," By MB 360, September 29, 2014. URL:http://www.mybudget360.com/income-growth-history-middle-class-data-income-history/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mybudget360%2FQePx+%28My+Budget+360%29

"Europe’s Austerity Zombies," By Joseph E. Stiglitz, September 26, 2014, Project Syndicate. URL: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/joseph-e--stiglitz-wonders-why-eu-leaders-are-nursing-a-dead-theory   EUROPE IS WEIRD.

"The Economic Case for Paternity Leave," By Gwynn Guilford, September 24, 2014, The Atlantic. URL:http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/the-economic-case-for-paternity-leave/380716/   THE WORLD MUST BE PEOPLED! 

Studies: Student athletes less likely to exercise as adults

Here's yet another reason why organized sports should be banned from our public schools: they actually set up "athletes" for inactivity and health problems like obesity later in life. You may recall how the women's college Spellman abolished its sports programs and used the money instead to have fitness classes for all students.

Like so many things for kids nowadays, athletic training is over-structured and requires very little thought, creativity or free will by the participants: parents and coaches organize it all.  

So when there are no more adults around to tell athletes what to do and when, or to hand out awards and ribbons, these athletes lose interest and motivation.

As I've said before, our schools should re-institute recess and gym class, and teach our kids good fitness and healthy eating -- skills that will serve them well throughout life -- and not how to chase balls around, since most of them will stop playing their sport in adulthood.

Couch potato athletes: Why it’s hard to stay active after competition ends

By Shawn C. Sorenson

July 25, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/1jZeEEK

Bold black college drops NCAA athletics

Kudos to Spelman College in Atlanta for acknowledging the NCAA for the expensive, anti-educational scam its is, and instead investing its resources in health and fitness programs for all its students.

"We have to ask ourselves: What is the cost of the program and who is benefiting? How many people are benefiting? Is the benefit worth the cost?" asked the college's perspicacious President Beverly Tatum. Exactly. Schools have limited resources and have to make tough, cost-benefit-based decisions about how to use them.

It's no surprise, however, that the school's basketball coach isn't happy about the change:

"It teaches you a level of sacrifice that is so hard to explain," she said. "Unless you are an athlete or a former athlete, you don't understand what tools and gifts and things that you learn that carry you throughout your entire life."

But as I've argued before, all the lessons learned in sports -- like teamwork, commitment, determination, competitiveness, etc. -- can be learned in an academic or work-study setting, where they better conform to the mission and context of an educational institution.

Now, if we could only do the same at the high school level, and get rid of school-sponsored sports and get all our high schoolers moving, every day!....

To Trim Down, Spelman Trades Sports For Fitness

By Kathy Lohr

December 6, 2012 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/THqEM7

Fitness clubs went from a fad to a con

I bet this op-ed will make a lot of people, especially Americans, angry. But there's a lot of truthful reminders in here, as many of us make our New Year's health resolutions. Just like we Americans and Britons do not understand what food to put in our bodies anymore, (best advice: eat all the stuff your grandmother did), we also don't understand what kind of physical activity our bodies need. Driving to the gym every day to exercise for an hour only to spend the rest of the day inert and eating a lot of junk food is not productive. Indeed, that 1 hour at the gym may stimulate an unhealthy appetite.

Our bodies evolved to walk, stand, and crouch for most of the day; when we sit or recline for longer than an hour, our ancient metabolism declines to nearly nothing -- because our ancestors had to work for every calorie, and then conserve each calorie as long as possible. So I'd bet that doing no exercise but having a standing work station would be more healthy -- and burn more calories -- than going to the gym for an hour every day only to spend the other 23 hours sitting or lying down.

The gym is a genius con we should be ashamed to fall for

By Zoe Williams

January 5, 2010 | Guardian

It's January and everybody's on a diet, except that diets are undignified and nobody will admit to them, so instead they're going to the gym. It's an unimpeachable activity, sound from every angle. It is entirely logical: calories out exceed calories in (it's so simple, fatty. Can't you even count?) It is socially beneficial: think how much you save the NHS, with that cocktail of sweat, determination and foresight. It's not vanity, it's self-improvement. It's not a hobby, it's a moral act.

Except that all this is a total swindle. The gym is so much greater a capitalist con than the casino, and yet so much more acceptable, so legitimate. How do they get away with it?

Outdoor pursuits, from ladies jumping in Hampstead pond to adolescents running off their primal urges – anything that could be filed under "fresh air" – have always had exponents. But the bizarre fascinations of the gym – the airless, repetitive flexing and relaxing, the determined pointlessness, the feverish generation of sweat – none of this was even conceived of until the 60s. It was a fad. By the 80s, sensible people played racquet sports, and the only people who wore Lycra and star-jumped at random were fast-living young women who wanted to be Jane Fonda. Bill Clinton's treadmill habit was weird in 1992; now, imagine how weird it would be if Barack Obama didn't go to the gym.

It has taken fewer than 20 years for aerobic (or, if you prefer to sound less girly, cardio) exercise to go from an urban fad to the very core of medical orthodoxy. Fruit, vegetables, gym: these are now the musketeers of good health. The fitness market was worth £682m in 1996, £1.6bn in 2001 and is now stable at £2.5bn (these are Mintel figures). In the UK, 5.2 million adults have membership of a private gym. That market penetration is phenomenal. I don't want to labour the point about how this correlates with obesity, because some people – myself, for instance – have membership and don't use it. But put it this way: whether we're using the gym or not, as a cohort, it's not making us any thinner.

One of the reasons for this is that vigorous exercise stimulates your appetite. So a 20-minute run might use up 200 calories, but your hunger won't necessarily – indeed, almost certainly won't – restrain itself to that amount of extra food. Well then, use willpower to overcome the appetite. That might work, except that willpower is like a muscle (or, as Oliver Burkeman described it, "a unitary, depletable resource"). You've already used your day's determination going to the gym in the first place: your ability to resist the temptations of your appetite is already diminished, even before that appetite has increased. Some doctors happily bandy about the importance of rigorous exercise, but experts on the obesity "epidemic" have been questioning this advice for ages, and rarely recommend anything more demanding than walking and cycling.

This vexed area yields my favourite anti-capitalist conspiracy from a mainstream source. Steven Gortmaker, who heads the Harvard Prevention Research Centre on nutrition and physical activity, said this about playgrounds at fast-food restaurants: "Why would they build those? … if a kid plays five minutes and burns 50 calories, he might then go inside and consume 500 calories."

Studies come out all the time showing that exercise doesn't make you thin. But gyms have become so central to our idea of what it means to take responsibility for oneself that sensible people write this evidence off as crank stuff emanating from academic troublemakers. In fact, sensible people should never even see the word "gym" without mentally ending the sentence "stimulates appetite". They are a good answer for elite athletes with specific muscular needs. Everybody else should just go for a walk, or – if that too seems pointless – take a walk to a particular destination.

In one way, it doesn't matter. It is possible to be fit but fat, and exercise improves health – it's good for your heart, it has a prophylactic effect against a number of cancers. And yet the raison d'être of the private health club is the body beautiful. These places would have got nowhere had they flogged themselves as a long-term preventative measure against future heart attack. They had to appeal to vanity: the genius of gym culture was to dress up personal vanity in the sackcloth of good health, and thereby overcome all the natural, decent reservations we would have had about blowing 94 quid a month on a beauty regime that didn't even work.

We should really be ashamed. There is no more obvious profligacy than spending money to pump out energy on treadmills, just to force us to consume more energy, none of which has any result that couldn't be replicated by taking a turn around the block. Never mind the Earth's resources, we should have more respect for our own resources. We ought to see the waste of our toil in the same terms as wasting food. As we set off for the gym, we should be able to hear the echo of our mums shouting: "There are children in Africa who have to jog five miles up an incline every day!"

I hope they don't revoke my membership for saying this. I still like the sauna.

U.S. youth too fat & dumb to get hit by IEDs in Afghan. & Iraq

They're supposed to be crippled and brain damaged after their term of service, not before.


Nearly 1 in 4 fails military exam
December 22, 2010 | AP

URL: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmflKFlGubkYUuLnntRO-rOuuNRw?docId=c90a31f788054427ab6f7176f6c1d4c9

Fat America: More to love?

What, they don't have fast food in Colorado or something? This map of adult obesity is like something out of Red Dawn: the entire nation is crimson, red, or purple, and there sits blue Colorado, a lone outpost in the middle. "Pack up the car, honey, we're headed for Colorado where they're still free!..."

The South and Oklahoma are particularly fat. I wonder why that is? And why Oklahoma too? Is that like fatness by association? Actually, this social epidemic is scarier than a viral epidemic, as research has shown that obesity can spread and infect others across non-physical social networks via vectors like e-mail, phones, and computers.




The map of childhood obesity is also heavily weighted toward the South (har-har). Fat kids are nothing to laugh at though. I mean, they used to be, back when there was like 1 or 2 fat kids in the whole class, but now 1 out of every 5 or 6 American kids is obese. Pretty soon the fatty majority will be making fun of the healthy-weight kids: "Hey, bean pole, are your parents too poor to afford the Super Size Menu or what?" and "Did you make yourself throw up after lunch again, Lohan?" or "You have to do extra situps in gym class for all of us, lightweight!" Oh wait, I forgot: American kids don't have gym class anymore....

At the bottom of the report, you can click on your state a more in-depth look at its fatness: "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010."

Below are two states of interest. So is Ohio 1.5% skinnier than Kentucky or just 1.5% less fat? Semantics, I guess.

New Report: Kentucky Ranks Seventh Most Obese State in the Nation

June 29, 2010 Trust for America's Health

Kentucky was named the seventh most obese state in the country, according to the seventh annual F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010 report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The state's adult obesity rate is 30.5 percent, and, in Kentucky men are more obese than women at 31.4 percent. Now more than two-thirds of states (38) have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.


New Report: Ohio Ranks 13th Most Obese State in the Nation
June 29, 2010 Trust for America's Health

Ohio was named the 13th most obese state in the country, according to the seventh annual F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010 report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The state's adult obesity rate is 29 percent, and, in Ohio men are more obese than women at 30.2 percent. Now more than two-thirds of states (38) have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.

7 most heinous fast foods of 2009

This article made me tear up with pride. Only in America can you find such superb, super-calorific fast-food innovation. What geniuses thought to combine an Oreo cookie and a pizza, or replace the two slices of bread in a sandwich with breaded chicken fillets!?

Nobody can out-fat us, baby! USA! USA!

The Fast Food Industry's 7 Most Heinous Concoctions

By Brad Reed

Posted August 27, 2009 | Alternet

One of AlterNet's most popular articles of 2009: Some of America's favorite chains offer some thoroughly repellent dishes.

URL: http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/142237/the_fast_food_industry's_7_most_heinous_concoctions_