Category: Uncategorized

China’s Middle Class Chafes Against Maze of Red Tape

China’s Middle Class Chafes Against Maze of Red Tape

China’s middle class — wired, ambitious and worldly — is increasingly unwilling to tolerate such obstacles, the vestiges of a capricious Mao-era bureaucracy that still holds sway over most of the important aspects of people’s personal lives. For many educated city dwellers, it is red tape, more than news media censorship and heavy-handed propaganda, that serves as a grinding reminder of the Communist Party’s dominion over their lives. “The government isn’t there to make our lives easier,” Ms. Li said. “They’ve set up all those rules so the people are easier to control.”

The venn diagram of oligarchy and police state is pretty much a circle. And Oligarchs only care about restrictions on capital. Now that China is developing a middle class, heavy handed bureaucracy is far more unwelcome.

John Kerry Bashes Florida’s Reported Ban On Term ‘Climate Change’

John Kerry Bashes Florida’s Reported Ban On Term ‘Climate Change’

Numerous former officials from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection told the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting that they were banned from using the terms “climate change,” “global warming” or “sustainability.” They said the unofficial ban was put in place shortly after Gov. Rick Scott ® took office.

The correct description for this is political correctness. I’m guessing its only a matter of time before discussion of climate change requires trigger warnings.

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Rutherford B. Hayes was alive at the same time as John Adams and at the same time as Dwight Eisenhower.

Conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism – The Washington Post

Conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism – The Washington Post

The probability of believing in a link between vaccines and autism is much higher among conservatives than liberals — regardless of whether people identified as Democrats, Republicans or independents. The apparent impact of ideology is most pronounced among political independents. There is no evidence that support for the vaccine-autism link is higher among strong liberals. …That liberals are least likely to believe in a link between vaccines and autism might be surprising given well-publicized reports about low childhood vaccination rates in wealthy, liberal enclaves in states such as California. It may be that anti-vaccination liberals are quite rare and that their existence is mostly anecdotal.

Didn’t expect this at all. I’m thinking that at least some of this is tied to the self-reporting. We don’t actually know their political views, only their claimed identity.

Rudy Giuliani, American Soviet

Rudy Giuliani, American Soviet

in 1990, I went to Leningrad to study. The Soviet empire was in its death throes and most people there, particularly the younger ones, knew it.

But some hadn’t gotten the memo yet, and those folks, usually nice enough, often older — university administrators, check-room attendants, security guards, parents of some of my classmates, others — were constantly challenging me and other exchange students to East-versus-West debates, usually with the aim of proving that “their” way of life was better.

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the problem with exceptionalism is that it can turn unintentionally comic with the drop of a hat. You’re made to believe you’re at the center of an envious universe, but then the world changes just enough and suddenly you’re a punchline clinging to a lot of incoherent emotions. I watched this happen with my own eyes to a lot of people in the former Soviet Union.

Matt Taibbi points out the way Soviet exceptionalism looks embarrassing in retrospect is happening right here to the GOP view of American exceptionalism.

Why Conservatives Suddenly Care About Rightwing Mail-Order Scams

Why Conservatives Suddenly Care About Rightwing Mail-Order Scams

Anyone who follows the conservative movement carefully could tell you that it’s about 25 percent politics and 75 percent mail-order scam. For more than half a century now, charlatans passing themselves off as conservative leaders have exploited ordinary conservatives’ anxiety about a changing America to collect addresses and now email lists in order to sell snake oil and raise funds that followers believe are going to political causes but frequently just line the pockets of the con artists.

Selling outrage and victimhood to conservatives is incredibly profitable. You can literally make millions doing it.

Leading Climate-Denier Caught Accepting Bribes from Fossil-Fuel Corporations

Leading Climate-Denier Caught Accepting Bribes from Fossil-Fuel Corporations

Historians and sociologists of science say that since the tobacco wars of the 1960s, corporations trying to block legislation that hurts their interests have employed a strategy of creating the appearance of scientific doubt, usually with the help of ostensibly independent researchers who accept industry funding.

Yep. If we had a functioning independent media, this would be called Climategate.

Though often described on conservative news programs as a “Harvard astrophysicist,” Dr. Soon is not an astrophysicist and has never been employed by Harvard. He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering.

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Though he has little formal training in climatology, Dr. Soon has for years published papers trying to show that variations in the sun’s energy can explain most recent global warming. His thesis is that human activity has played a relatively small role in causing climate change.

You can make a lot more money being a climate denier than being a climate scientist. You don’t even have to be a climate scientist. Just someone who can be described as credible.

Fast-Evolving Human DNA Leads to Bigger-Brained Mice – Phenomena: Not Exactly Rocket Science

Fast-Evolving Human DNA Leads to Bigger-Brained Mice – Phenomena: Not Exactly Rocket Science

Boyd’s team introduced the human and chimp versions of HARE5 into two separate groups of mice. They also put these enhancers in charge of a gene that makes a blue chemical. As the team watched the embryos of their mice, they would see different body parts turning blue. Those were the bits where HARE5 was active—the areas where the enhancer was enhancing.
Embryonic mice start building their brains on their ninth day of life, and HARE5 becomes active shortly after. The team saw that the human version is more strongly active than the chimp one, over a larger swath of the brain, and from a slightly earlier start.

They’re Pinky and The Brain, Brain, Brain, NARF!