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Enough With the Middle-Age Whites, Already

by TiffaniDdr Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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In a Washington Post column over the weekend, Fareed Zakaria wrote this:

In a well-known paper, economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case found that over the past 15 years, one group — middle-age whites in the United States — constitutes an alarming trend. They are dying in increasing numbers.

I suppose I’m tilting at windmills here, but this misconstrual of the Case/Deaton paper really bugs me. It’s not “middle aged” whites who are dying of drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver disease in vastly greater numbers. The chart on the right is taken directly from data in the Case/Deaton paper, and it shows two groups with outsize increases in mortality: 30-34 year olds and 50-59 year olds. So there are three age cohorts here. Roughly speaking, one cohort was born in the early 50s and shows big problems; another was born in the 60s and shows only moderate problems; and the third was born in the early 70s and once again shows big problems.

These cohorts might change if you examine the data using different age buckets, different diseases, and a different timeframe. Who knows? Regardless, if you’re going to put forward an explanation about why this is happening, it better account for all three age groups. You can’t just pretend the data points only to “middle-age” whites and then spin your theories from that.

Oh, and the paper is by Case and Deaton, not Deaton and Case. Either way, though, I sure wish one of them would step in to correct this.

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Enough With the Middle-Age Whites, Already

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The FDA Is Giving New Cancer Treatments a Break

by FinlayDeBoos1 Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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For a variety of reasons, I’ve never spent much time on the internet reading or conversing about multiple myeloma. A few days ago, however, I had reason to think I should educate myself a bit more. Among other things, I discovered that within the space of two weeks in the second half of November, the FDA had approved no fewer than three new treatments. I suppose this can’t be anything but coincidence, but then another coincidence piled on top of that: a New York Times piece about Richard Pazdur, the oncology chief at the FDA. Three years ago, his wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer:

In her struggle with cancer and ultimately her death in November, Ms. Pazdur had a part, her husband and a number of cancer specialists now say, in a profound change at the F.D.A.: a speeding up of the drug approval process. Ms. Pazdur’s three-year battle with cancer was a factor, they say, in Dr. Pazdur’s willingness to swiftly approve risky new treatments and passion to fight the disease that patient advocates thought he lacked.

….Since Ms. Pazdur learned she had ovarian cancer in 2012…the average decision time on drugs by Dr. Pazdur’s oncology group has come down to five months from six months….“I have a much greater sense of urgency these days,” Dr. Pazdur, 63, said in an interview. “I have been on a jihad to streamline the review process and get things out the door faster. I have evolved from regulator to regulator-advocate.”

Many factors are driving him, he continued. “Was Mary’s illness one of them? Yes,” he said. But in 2012, he added, Congress also passed a law that gave the F.D.A. more money and a new pathway to work more closely with drug makers when a medicine may save lives. Another important change in the same period, he said, was a surge in advances in genetic research that made some medications more effective and easier to test.

“The drugs simply got better,” Dr. Pazdur said.

Again, I suppose this is mostly coincidence. But I still wonder if Mary Pazdur’s cancer played a role in all these multiple myeloma treatments getting approved recently? If so, her death may eventually play a role in saving—or extending—my life. A butterfly flaps its wings….

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The FDA Is Giving New Cancer Treatments a Break

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Carly Fiorina Wins 2016 Pandering Championship After Only 11 Hours

by PedroStowers54 Posted on January 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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I wasn’t planning to blog anything today, but this sort of forced my hand:

CAR-LY! CAR-LY! CAR-LY! Let’s all raise a cheer for the golden cornfields of Palo Alto!

What really puts this over the top is the fact that it’s so chuckleheaded. No real Iowa fan would have anything but contempt for a Stanford grad who abandoned her school just for a chance to become president of the United States.

Of course, the game hasn’t started yet. There’s still time to issue an emergency tweet blaming this on an intern who’s been summarily dismissed. Either way, though, I declare the 2016 pandering championship closed. What could possibly beat this?

Originally from – 

Carly Fiorina Wins 2016 Pandering Championship After Only 11 Hours

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New Year’s Catblogging – 1 January 2016

by FatimaRedding Posted on January 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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This article – 

New Year’s Catblogging – 1 January 2016

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Hey, I Like Hillary Clinton Too

by EnriquetaHuonDeK Posted on December 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Sady Doyle:

I’ve come to believe that saying nice things about Hillary Clinton can be a subversive act.

Well, I don’t know about subversive. A little unusual, maybe, but that’s all. So what accounts for Doyle’s affection for Hillary? Basically, the fact that Hillary is still alive and kicking after spending nearly her entire life on the receiving end of attacks that would turn most of us into sobbing wrecks who refuse to answer the doorbell:

It’s almost as if, after a quarter-century of being attacked for her appearance, personality, and every waking move, breath, and word, Hillary Clinton is highly conscious of how she is perceived and portrayed, and is trying really hard to monitor her own behavior and behave in ways people will accept. Which is “disgusting,” of course. We want “authentic” candidates. Remind me: How well did the public and media react the last time she appeared in public without makeup? Or raised her voice? Or laughed? Or went to the goddamn bathroom? Or did any “authentic” thing that a real-life person does every day?

….Honestly, ask yourself: How long would you make it, if people treated you the way you treat Hillary Clinton? Would you not just be furious by now? Would you not have reached levels of blood-vessel-popping rage and despair? She’s been dealing with it for decades, and keeps voluntarily subjecting herself to it, and knows exactly how bad it will get and exactly what we’ll do to her, and yet she is running for president again, and—here’s the part I love, the part that I find hard to wrap my head around—she might actually win. That is awe-inspiring.

Yeah, pretty much. I like Hillary Clinton too,1 and for much the same reason as Doyle. I view her as nearly the exact opposite of her reputation in popular culture. She’s not cunning or devious. In fact, she’s the farthest thing from that. She’s dutiful and always has been. She wants to do good. She’s demanding of herself. She’s not naturally extroverted, but forces herself to do what needs to be done. She’s not naturally brilliant, but she’s a studier and a hard worker. And I imagine that the relentless attacks she’s put up with have indeed wounded her pretty deeply. Unlike her husband, she’s not the kind of person who can brush them off as just part of the game.

Do I like Hillary because of all this? Sure, though not in any deep sense. I don’t really like people I’ve never met. But I sure as hell admire her. She could have ended up like Richard Nixon, but she didn’t. She keeps gutting it out, over and over. For that, she’ll always have my esteem—and maybe even my affection.

1I also like Bernie Sanders. I used to like Martin O’Malley, but not so much anymore.

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Hey, I Like Hillary Clinton Too

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Los Angeles Saw a Huge Crime Increase in 2015. Or Did It?

by RodrickEllwood1 Posted on December 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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You want to talk about cities that have seen an increase in crime? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Los Angeles:

Violent crime in L.A. climbed 19.9% and property crime increased 10.3% through Dec. 26 compared with the same period last year, according to the police data.

….Parts of South Los Angeles saw troubling increases in violent crime this year….LAPD commanders deployed Metro, a squad with a reputation for hard-charging tactics, to some of those hot spots and also partnered with gang intervention workers. By the fall, the homicide numbers in the area had returned to levels comparable to recent years.

….Since the Metro expansion began in July, citywide violent crime figures dropped 1 percentage point, while the property crime rate did not change.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that there was a big scandal last year about the way the LAPD was classifying certain crimes, which led to charges that they were cooking the books. That in turn led to reform, which is partly responsible for the big rise in aggravated assault.

It’s also sort of stunning that apparently violent crime was basically flat in the second half of the year. That means violent crime was up about 40 percent from January-June, and then dropped to 0 percent in July-December. This is…a little hard to believe. And no, the deployment of 200 more Metro cops can’t even remotely account for that.

Anyway, I’ll be curious to see what happens next year. Maybe this whole thing is just an artifact of better crime statistics. Hard to say. In any case, the mayor says LA is safer than at any time since the 1950s. I’m not sure how he figures that, but apparently that means there’s nothing to worry about. Go about your business, citizens.

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Los Angeles Saw a Huge Crime Increase in 2015. Or Did It?

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Star Trek is Now Officially Forever

by FloraWessel254 Posted on December 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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In 2016 the postal service will be honoring Sarah Vaughan, Richard Allen, Shirley Temple, Indiana, the repeal of the Stamp Act, pickup trucks, various holidays, and, of course, the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. Here are the deets:

Star Trek
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the television premiere, the new Star Trek Forever stamps showcase four digital illustrations inspired by classic elements of the television program:

the Starship Enterprise inside the outline of a Starfleet insignia against a gold background;
the silhouette of a crewman in a transporter against a red background;
the silhouette of the Enterprise from above against a green background; and,
the Enterprise inside the outline of the Vulcan statue (Spock’s iconic hand gesture) against a blue background

The words “SPACE… THE FINAL FRONTIER,” from Captain Kirk’s famous voice-over appear beneath the stamps against a background of stars. The stamps were designed by Heads of State under the art direction of Antonio Alcalá.

The Vulcan statue? Oh well. At least they’re trying. So you see? 2016 is already a better year than 2015.

This article – 

Star Trek is Now Officially Forever

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Racists Hate the Idea of Paying College Athletes

by JoesphOGXD Posted on December 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Well, I’ll be damned:

Could racial prejudice also affect attitudes toward paying college athletes? There are good reasons to believe that it could.

….To find out whether racial prejudice influences white opinion on paying college athletes, we conducted a survey of opinions on “pay for play” policies using the 2014 CCES. In a statistical analysis that controlled for a host of other influences, we found this: Negative racial views about blacks were the single most important predictor of white opposition to paying college athletes.

….To check our findings’ validity, we also conducted an experiment. Before we asked white respondents whether college athletes should be paid, we showed one group pictures of young black men with stereotypical African American first and last names. We showed another group no pictures at all. As you can see in the figure on the right, whites who were primed by seeing pictures of young black men were significantly more likely to say they opposed paying college athletes. Support dropped most dramatically among whites who expressed the most resent towards blacks as a group.

Apparently this gap is also visible in ordinary poll results: “In every survey to date, blacks are far more likely to support paying college athletes when compared to whites. For instance, in the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 53 percent of African Americans backed paying college athletes–more than doubling the support expressed by whites (22 percent).”

I’m basically willing to believe that race and racial animus permeate practically everything of significance in America. But I wouldn’t have guessed this. I’m not sure why, but it just never occurred to me to think of big-time college sports as a “black thing,” even though it obviously is. It just goes to show how deeply our racial sickness infests us.

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Racists Hate the Idea of Paying College Athletes

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We Are Astonishingly Safe From Terrorism

by JohnathanMckenne Posted on December 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Steven Rattner has collected ten charts to describe 2015, but the most interesting one is actually for 2014: it shows terrorist deaths in Western nations vs. the rest of the world. For all the fear that terrorism inspires in us, the entire Western world accounted for only 0.1 percent of all terror fatalities in 2014.

That number will go up in 2015, thanks to Paris and San Bernardino, but will still be no more than about 0.5 percent. Bottom line: don’t listen to Donald Trump. Over the last 15 years, those of us who live in rich countries have been astonishingly safe from terrorists.

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We Are Astonishingly Safe From Terrorism

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Ben Carson Wants You to Know That He Has 67 Honorary Degrees. 67!

by EliasSaavedra Posted on December 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is—and no, I’m not kidding—from presidential wannabe Ben Carson:

It’s discouraging to know that we’re at that stage in our country where people don’t care so much about the truth. It’s just what’s sensational, what’s the shiny object. It’s all “Who’s in the football game? Who’s on ‘Dancing With the Stars’? Who’s yelling the loudest?” And I’m not sure that’s what we need right now because we’ve got some real big problems in our country.

Yes, this is from the person who, to this day, has not uttered a single plainly true statement according to Politifact.1 It’s from the person who, along with Donald Trump, has been the ultimate shiny object in the Republican race. Then there’s this:

When I was appointed director of pediatric neurosurgery, pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins wasn’t on the map. By 2008, it was ranked number one by U.S. News & World Report. A weak person doesn’t do that. A weak person isn’t named one of 89 living legends by the Library of Congress on the occasion of its 200th anniversary. A weak person isn’t selected by CNN and Time magazine as one of the 20 foremost physicians and surgeons in America. That was before they discovered that I’m conservative. A weak person doesn’t have all of these honorary degrees. Most people of accomplishment have one, maybe two or three honorary degrees at most. It’s the highest award that a university gives out. I have 67. That’s probably not indicative of a weak person who doesn’t get things done.

Jesus. Does this guy ever listen to himself? He really is Trumpesque, isn’t he? Just substitute honorary degrees for polling reports and lower the voice about ten decibels, and they could be twins. Carson must have an inferiority complex about the size of Mt. Everest.

1Even Donald Trump has one, for chrissake.

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Ben Carson Wants You to Know That He Has 67 Honorary Degrees. 67!

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