Tag Archives: slideshows

Americans Are Doing OK, But America Is Going to Hell

by BettieCrouse Posted on December 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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I don’t suppose I really have a lot to say about this, but perhaps we can file it under the widespread belief that “America is going to hell but things are OK in my neck of the woods.”

It’s from the AP/Times Square Alliance poll, which is primarily interested in whether you plan to watch the Times Square ball drop on New Year’s Eve. However, they also asked how things went in 2015. Answer: Personally, more people thought it was better than 2014 than thought it was worse. But for the country, way more people thought it was worse than 2014.

This dynamic—I’m doing OK but the rest of the country is going to hell—is so widespread that it’s hard not to blame the media for it. Is that fair? Or is it just something about human nature? In either case, it’s kind of crazy. Not only was 2015 as good or better than 2014 for a huge majority, but optimism was high too: an even bigger majority thought 2016 would be better yet. But for America as a whole, far more people thought 2015 was worse than thought it was better. It’s hard for me to think of any important metric by which 2015 was worse than 2014, but apparently mass shootings and terrorist attacks weighed heavily on everyone. Those were, by far, the news stories that everyone rated the most important.

So how was your 2015?

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Americans Are Doing OK, But America Is Going to Hell

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Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Is Far More Sensational Then Jeb Bush’s

by TressaLowin Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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The folks at the Tax Policy Center have spurned my advice to spend more time with their families, instead spending their holiday weekends beavering away on an analysis of Donald Trump’s tax plan. And the important news is that it’s bigger, more energetic, and altogether more taxerrific than Jeb Bush’s weak-tea excuse for a tax plan. Bush would increase the national debt by 28 percentage points over the next decade. Trump kills it with a 39 point increase in red ink. Bush raises the federal deficit by $1 trillion in 2026. Trump goes big and increases it by $1.6 trillion. Bush’s plan costs $6.8 trillion over ten years. Trump’s plan clocks in at a budget-busting $9.5 trillion. And Bush reduces the tax rate of the super-rich by a meager 7.6 percent. Trump buries him by slashing tax rates for the Wall Street set by 12.5 percent.

Once again, Bush has brought a knife to a gun fight, and Trump has slapped him silly. This is why Trump is a winner. Merry Christmas, billionaires!

Link:  

Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Is Far More Sensational Then Jeb Bush’s

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Obamacare Continues to Do Pretty Well

by Archie26Euwfzre Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Shorter Charles Gaba: For now, it still looks like Obamacare enrollment this year will end up at around 14.7 million. That’s not bad, especially considering that fewer people are dropping out of employer plans than expected.

For everyone except die-hard conservatives who are driven mad by the thought of poor people getting decent health care, this is a pretty good Christmas present. Enjoy it.

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Obamacare Continues to Do Pretty Well

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Soon You Will Be Able To Listen to "Rocky Raccoon" on Spotify

by CarrolHargis Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Our long national nightmare is nearly over:

Happy holidays from the Beatles: As of 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 24, the band’s music will finally be available on streaming services worldwide.

…The surviving members of the group, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Universal Music Group, which controls the band’s recorded music, made no statements other than the fact that the Beatles’ catalog — 13 original albums and four compilations — will now be playable on nine subscription streaming music services.

Maybe I need to try one of these newfangled streaming thingies someday. I’ve heard rumors that music has continued to be produced over the past 30 years, and I suppose I should investigate that.

So: Beatles or Stones? Which are you?

Source:

Soon You Will Be Able To Listen to "Rocky Raccoon" on Spotify

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New Paper Suggests More Smog = More Crime

by FloySiebenhaar0 Posted on December 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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A reader draws my attention to some “@kdrum bait” by Chris Mooney in the Washington Post today. Mooney writes about a new study that investigates violent crime upwind and downwind of interstate highways in Chicago. The study’s conclusion: higher rates of tailpipe pollution (measured via carbon monoxide levels) lead to higher violent crime rates:

Moving from the median CO day to the 90th percentile (0.5 ppb increase) is associated with nearly 5% more violent crime. The analogous effect on property crime is statistically insignificant and small. This discrepancy across crime types may suggest that the primary mechanism is physiological; that is, the pollution might make people more irritable and impulsive, thus leading to more violent crime. As a point of comparison, the 5% increase in violent crime from a high-CO day is comparable to the estimated effect of moving from the 25-30°C (77-86°F) maximum temperature bin to the 30-35°C (86-95°F) bin (7% increase in violent crime). That is, the increase in violent crime when moving from a typical CO day to a high-CO day is comparable to the increase associated with moving from a warm day to a hot day.

….We estimate that the downwind side of interstates experience 2.2 percent more violent crimes than when the wind is blowing in the opposite direction. Although we estimate that the effect of pollution on crime is modest in magnitude, our conservative back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the cost of mobile pollution-induced crime in the United States is on the order of $100-200 million annually.

Of course, this isn’t really Kevin bait. Needless to say, I would expect higher crime rates downwind of urban highways because of lead emissions. However, this is an effect over the very long term. If you were born in a high-emission area during the era between 1950-1980 or so, you’re likely to suffer from lead poisoning that leads to a greater propensity for crime when you grow up. This explains the long-term rise and fall of violent crime over the past five or six decades.

However, this paper literally looks at violent crime rates from day to day. The authors conclude that, just as crime goes up during hot weather, it also goes up when pollution levels are higher. If this is true, it suggests that exposure to tailpipe pollutants has some kind of immediate, transient effect.

Why? The authors suggest several mechanisms. Pollution may have a direct effect on brain chemistry. Or it may simply be unpleasant and annoying, which can trigger aggressive behavior. Or it may have an effect on how many people are outdoors, which might indirectly affect the crime rate in some way. Since this is a brand new finding, it’s hard to say. Obviously it needs to be confirmed, and more research is needed before we understand the causal mechanism.

But interesting nonetheless.

From:  

New Paper Suggests More Smog = More Crime

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No Debate Liveblogging Tonight

by epxxatlw Posted on December 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Sorry. I’m debated out. If anything interesting happens, I’ll write about it afterward. In the meantime, consider this an open debate thread.

See more here – 

No Debate Liveblogging Tonight

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How Old Should Kids Be Before They’re Allowed to Play in the Front Yard on Their Own?

by MahaliaGruner Posted on December 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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Pew Research routinely comes out with long, detailed surveys of interesting things, and I usually thumb through them looking for intriguing tidbits. Today it’s “Parenting in America,” and you’ll be unsurprised to learn that middle-class parents generally have a more positive view of things than poor parents. I may have more to say about this later, but in the meantime here’s a tidbit that answers a question I’ve pondered more than once: how old should kids be before they’re allowed to do stuff on their own?

I don’t know how this has changed over time, but these figures sure seem strange. I played on my own in front of my house when I was five,1 but today’s parents think you need to be 10—and a substantial fraction think you need to be over 12 to play in front of the house unsupervised.

Ditto for the others. I suppose 12 isn’t unreasonable for staying home alone, but again, a substantial fraction think you need to be 14 or 15 or even 18.

As for public parks, holy cow. The average age for allowing kids to play in a park without adult supervision is 14, and there’s a substantial fraction who think you literally have to be an adult yourself before you should be allowed to go to a park on your own.

Unsurprisingly, Pew says that the answers are correlated with income, which is correlated with the kind of neighborhood you live in. If you live in a safe neighborhood, the average age for playing in front of the house is 9. If you live in a poor neighborhood, it’s 11. This makes sense.

Still, the overall numbers sure strike me as high. Of course, I’ve led a sheltered existence, so maybe I just don’t get it. But the world is a safer place than it was 30 years ago. Do kids really need to be ten just to play in the front yard these days?

1I called my mother to confirm this. She did.

Credit – 

How Old Should Kids Be Before They’re Allowed to Play in the Front Yard on Their Own?

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Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 11 December 2015

by WilfordBroger Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Don’t worry: catblogging isn’t being ditched today. But first, I’m going to make you read about our year-end fundraising pitch. Why? Because Monika and Clara have written a piece that breaks down our entire operation in chart form. Be still my heart! As you can see, two-thirds of our operating budget comes from readers:

From our beginning almost 40 years ago, we have made a bet that you would support a newsroom that tells the stories no one else will. And you did. Today, two-thirds of our annual budget comes from readers; some 40,000 of you contribute, more than at any other nonprofit news organization outside public radio and TV.

….Some of you—about 175,000, to be exact—subscribe to our magazine. Another 12,000 folks buy individual issues on the newsstand. About 10 percent of our subscribers also become donors—they tack on an extra $20, $50, or even (hooray!) a five- or six-figure gift. Then there are donations in response to specific appeals: For example, about 6,000 people have pitched in online to help us fight the billionaire who sued us for covering his political giving and anti-gay activism. What’s critical for the long haul is that our base is broad and deep enough to ensure that we’re not dependent on any single check or revenue stream.

Click the link if you want all the gory details of how we operate. Or, if you’re one of the brainy ones and you already get it, just click the button below:

And now for catblogging. Because you guys deserve it. This week is a classic: a cat in a box. Lots of Christmas stuff comes in boxes, and that means the house is full of cat toys this time of year. And cat chew toys, since Hopper likes to gnaw boxes to shreds. She’s no pussycat about it, either. (Wait. Am I allowed to say that?) I tell you, she goes after boxes with a will. Every time she bites off a piece, she spits it out and makes a yucky face, but it doesn’t stop her. She may not like the taste, but she really likes to shred cardboard. She also likes to stick her furry little snout into the camera, which gives you a picture like this—taken early in the week when the box was still relatively intact.

See original article here – 

Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 11 December 2015

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How Sharp is Justice Scalia These Days?

by MistyBlesing422 Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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During Wednesday’s oral arguments in the University of Texas affirmative action case, Justice Antonin Scalia said this:

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.

As many people have pointed out, what Scalia was haltingly trying to describe is “mismatch theory.” I’ll let a conservative explain this:

The argument is that students who are (1) not up to a college’s usual admissions standards and (2) nonetheless admitted for reasons wholly unrelated to their academic backgrounds are less likely to have good educational outcomes than if they had gone to a college for which they were more properly prepared and qualified. It’s not a new argument.

No indeed. In fact, several amicus briefs were filed making exactly this argument.

When I first read about Scalia’s remarks, I wasn’t surprised that he had brought this up. There’s considerable debate about mismatch theory, but it’s a respectable argument. What I was surprised about is the way he brought it up. Scalia had read the briefs. He has a famously keen mind. And yet, he sputtered and searched for words, and eventually described mismatch theory in the crudest, most insulting way possible.

I don’t think that was deliberate. I think he was just having trouble searching his brain for the right words. He’s also seems even more prone to outbursts of temper than usual lately. I wonder if Scalia is still as sharp as he used to be?

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How Sharp is Justice Scalia These Days?

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"Happy Birthday" Finally Slogs to an End

by IlanaOcasio Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Exciting news! The trial over the copyright to “Happy Birthday” has been canceled and all parties have signed on to a settlement. This might mean that commercial use of the century-old song will finally be allowed royalty-free.

Then again, it might not. It’s possible that the copyright will simply be transferred to a different owner. We’ll find out when the settlement is made public.

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"Happy Birthday" Finally Slogs to an End

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