Thursday, April 23rd, 2015
Andrew Dugan, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: This is one of the most important and alarming polls I have ever read. How is a democracy to survive, how are we to make correct decisions that affect our ability to survive as a civilization, when one of our two major political parties has decided facts are not dispositive, are not necessary in making policy? Holding strong beliefs is enough, and they have very strong beliefs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — While notable majorities of all other political party/ideology groups say the effects of global warming will happen within their lifetime, fewer than four in 10 conservative Republicans (37%) agree, a sign of that political identity’s strident skepticism on this issue.
Conservative Republicans not only decisively reject the notion that the effects of global warming will happen in this lifetime — a position in sharp contrast to all other political identities — but another 40% say global warming will never happen. This is significantly higher than the percentages of moderate/liberal Republicans (16%), non-leaning independents (14%), conservative/moderate Democrats (5%) and liberal Democrats (3%) who say the same. (emphasis added)
These results are based on an aggregate of more than 6,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup’s annual Environment poll each March from 2010 to 2015. Both party affiliation and ideological association are self-reported. The party definitions take into account both respondents’ initial party preference — as Democratic, Republican or independent — and independents’ leanings toward either party, which are ascertained in a follow-up question. Therefore, the group of “Republicans” reported here includes Republican identifiers and Republican-leaning independents. “Democrats” […]
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Thursday, April 23rd, 2015
David Cyranoski and Sara Reardon, - Nature
Stephan: Note this date in your diary. The taboo has been crossed. Do you think the new global aristocracy won't want to use this technology? Will the military resist? Will governments? Why yes, I'd like to order up 100,000 genetically modified "Unsullied". Thank you for asking. Homo Superior will be on the scene within a generation.
Source:Nature
doi:10.1038/nature.2015.17378
A human embryo
Credit: Dr. Yorgos Nikas/SPL
In a world first, Chinese scientists have reported editing the genomes of human embryos. The results are published1 in the online journal Protein & Cell and confirm widespread rumours that such experiments had been conducted—rumours that sparked a high-profile debate last month2, 3 about the ethical implications of such work.
In the paper, researchers led by Junjiu Huang, a gene-function researcher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, tried to head off such concerns by using ‘non-viable’ embryos, which cannot result in a live birth, that were obtained from local fertility clinics. The team attempted to modify the gene responsible for β-thalassaemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder, using a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR/Cas9. The researchers say that their results reveal serious obstacles to using the […]
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Thursday, April 23rd, 2015
Joan Shipps, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is the latest on Kansas, where Theocratic Rightist Governor Sam Brownback, and a rabid cheerleading Republican dominated legislature are busy creating a Randian dystopia. And here's the kicker: the people voted for it, the majority of the state, at least those willing to vote, are in support of their self-destruction. States are the laboratories of social policies for sure.
Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback
Credit: Shutterstock
Let’s say you’re the Governor of Kansas. The tax cuts for the rich you pushed through a couple years ago mean you’re in a world of budgetary hurt, and you’re not sure how you’re going to pay for basic expenses like roads and schools this year. What do you do? Repeal tax cuts? Absolutely not. You’re Sam Brownback. You balance your books on the backs of the poor, and cite fiscal prudence as a moral justification.
The Washington Post reports that Republican officials in Kansas are pursuing increases in sales and excise taxes – which have the ultimate effect of making it more expensive to be poor. People who have less money can’t afford to invest money like rich people; poor people have to spend their paychecks just to make it through the week. Consequently, sales taxes – as a matter of policy – proportionally punish people at the lower end of income spectrum.
And in Kansas, unlike many states, there […]
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Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015
Stephen Wolf , - Alternet (U.S.)
Stephan: Welcome to the oligarchy where a handful of people generously offer to buy the election, while permitting the kabuki theater of democracy to continue unabated.
You think the people who put up 42 per cent of the money have any kind of agenda in mind? That this is little more than open bribery. Of course not, how silly of me, they are just patriotic Americans.
Forget the top one percent, the top 0.01 percent of Americans gave nearly 42 percent of all political donation dollars in the 2012 election cycle. Just over 30,000 individuals contributed nearly half of all money. It is no coincidence that this proportion has increased steadily as economic inequality has increased. In 1990 when I was born, the figure was just under 13 percent. If we expanded the scope to the full one percent, you can be damn sure they gave the overwhelming majority of dollars in recent years.
Candidates devote 80 percent of their time to begging rich people for money. Any extremist Republican can get a billionaire sugar daddy. The world’s eighth richest man can summon the entire Republican primary field to kiss his ring. Millionaires are now complaining about being ignored in favor of billionaires. The average member of Congress is a millionaire.
It should come as no surprise that policymakers look after the ultra-wealthy instead of the rest of us. This trend of increasing economic and political inequality shows no sign of abating. […]
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Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015
Scott Roxborough, - The Hollywood Reporter
Stephan: This is a early datapoint on a major new trend — the end of FM. Imagine that FM radio is headed the way of the analog phone.
Local fans of Norwegian pop band A-ha will have to go digital to hear them in the future.
In what will likely be the opening move in a global transition to digital radio, Norway has announced it will shut down its FM band. Norway will start turning off FM radio on Jan. 11, 2017, and plans to stop transmission of the last FM signal to the country’s northernmost regions by Dec. 13 of that year.
The announcement, made by their Ministry of Culture, makes Norway the first country to do away entirely with FM radio. The move is intended to save money and allow a full transition to digital radio, which Norway argues will give listeners “access to more diverse and pluralistic radio content and enjoy better sound quality and new functionality.”
In its statement, the Norwegian government said the cost of transmitting national radio channels through the FM network is eight times higher than via the Digital […]
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