Stable Genius Liberal

Secret Deficit Lovers

Deficit scolds actually love big budget deficits, and hate it when those deficits get smaller. Why? Because fears of a fiscal crisis — fears that they feed assiduously — are their best hope of getting what they really want: big cuts in social programs. A few years ago they almost managed to bully the nation into cutting Social Security and/or raising the Medicare eligibility age; they even had hopes of turning Medicare into an underfinanced voucher program. Now that window of opportunity is closing fast.

Dropbox Dudes Tried to Kick Children Off a Soccer Field

The argument started over a Mission District field, which Mission Local says has been popular with “mainly Spanish-speaking soccer players” for decades. The location has traditionally been used for pick-up games. But Dropbox-uniformed players that rented the field through a controversial new city process insisted it was their turn to play.

Best story about gentrification in years.

Z machine makes progress toward nuclear fusion

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the lab’s Z machine, a colossal electric pulse generator capable of producing currents of tens of millions of amperes, say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons—byproducts of fusion reactions—coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.

We’ve been 10 years away for 50 years now, but this time it might be true. There are three projects that all show promise of huge returns. If this works out we are looking at a 100x improvement in generating electric power.

How to Reduce Global Warming for Fun and Profit

We’re not actually so far off from turning emissions into commodities, it turns out. In the United States alone, a number of companies aim to convert waste carbon dioxide into chemicals that can be used to make products we buy every day

The only people who think regulating CO2 will end capitalism are Libertarians and Marxists. Anyone who has an understanding of economics that doesn’t begin and end in the 19th century understands that markets react to regulations in the exact same way they react to everything else. Incentives change, prices adjust, people come up with new ideas that make money.

California Will Allow Family Members to Seek Seizure of Guns

The law will allow law enforcement officials, family members and some others to seek a gun restraining order from a judge. That order would authorize officials to temporarily seize any firearm owned by someone deemed potentially violent, who would also be placed on a list of people prohibited from purchasing weapons.

I think this is a good idea but I can already hear the crazy slippery slope arguments coming.

Talking white: Black people’s disdain for proper English and academic achievement is a myth.

By contrast, “acting white” accusations were least common at the most segregated schools, a finding echoed by a 2006 study from Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who found “no evidence at all that getting good grades adversely affects students’ popularity” in predominantly black schools. Across schools, the general pattern was this: “Acting white” accusations weren’t attached to academic performance and rather were a function of specific behaviors. If you hung out with white kids and adopted white fashions, you were accused of “acting white.” Smart kids were teased, but no more than you’d see in any other group.

Worth a read.

New study shows that the savings from ‘tort reform’ are mythical

“Tort reform,” which is usually billed as the answer to “frivolous malpractice lawsuits,” has been a central plank in the Republican program for healthcare reform for decades. The notion has lived on despite copious evidence that that the so-called defensive medicine practiced by doctors merely to stave off lawsuits accounts for, at best, 2% to 3% of U.S. healthcare costs. As for “frivolous lawsuits,” they’re a problem that exists mostly in the minds of conservatives and the medical establishment. A new study led by Michael B. Rothberg of the Cleveland Clinic and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association aimed to measure how much defensive medicine there is, really, and how much it costs. The researchers’ conclusion is that defensive medicine accounts for about 2.9% of healthcare spending. In other words, out of the estimated $2.7-trillion U.S. healthcare bill, defensive medicine accounts for $78 billion.

Justice Antonin Scalia: Constitution allows religion to be favored over secularism

I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non-religion

The American Taliban in action.

Scalia told the group, which included lawmakers and other public officials, that Americans honored God in the pledge of allegiance and in “all our public ceremonies.”

That was added in 1954. The pledge wasn’t even in common use until the 1920s and wasn’t official until the 1940s. And there is nothing in the Constitution about pledges and oaths for citizens, only for elected and appointed government officials.

Trainer gains 70 pounds, then loses it all

Manning says he didn’t realize the effects of his weight gain would be more than physical. It altered his relationships and his self-confidence. Returning to the gym after the Fit2Fat portion of his journey made him nervous. The fact that he had to do push-ups on his knees was almost humiliating. “The biggest thing [I learned] is that it’s not just about the physical. It’s not just about the meal plan and the workouts and those things. The key is the mental and the emotional issues. I realized those issues are real.”

The goal of fat acceptance should be to help people feel comfortable enough that they able to make changes without feeling overwhelmed, shamed or hopeless. It shouldn’t be about being ok with what isn’t ok.

Denying Climate Change ‘Will Cost Us Billions Of Dollars,’ U.S. Budget Director Warns

“From where I sit, climate action is a must do; climate inaction is a can’t do; and climate denial scores – and I don’t mean scoring points on the board,” Donovan said. “I mean that it scores in the budget. Climate denial will cost us billions of dollars.”