Thursday, July 23rd, 2015
Ginger Thompson , - Atlantic
Stephan: One of the worst things visited upon society by marijuana prohibition has been the creation of the Mexican cartels. This is what it looks like inside that world, and you may find it surprising. As marijuana has been legalized its role in the cartels has declined, even as cocaine, heroin, and meth has exponentially increased. The White suburb and small town heroin epidemic that is sweeping the U.S. is one manifestation. The war on drugs has caused a grievous self-inflicted wound to the health of both the U.S. and Mexico.
El Chapo
Credit:america.aljazeera.com
The slight man at the breakfast table seemed more like an evangelical minister than someone who once brokered deals between Mexican drug lords and state governors. He wore a meticulously pressed button-down, a gold watch, gold-rimmed glasses, and a gold cross around his neck. His dark brown hair was styled in a comb-over. And when his breakfast companions started to tuck into their bowls of oatmeal and plates of salmon benedict, he cleared his throat and asked for a moment of silence.
“Would you mind if I say grace?” he asked.
The gathering last week at Le Peep café in San Antonio would seem unusual almost anywhere except south Texas, where Mexico kind of blends into the United States—and so does the drug trade. Seated next to the cartel operative was a senior Mexican intelligence official. And next to him was a veteran American counternarcotics agent. They bowed their heads for prayer and then proceeded to talk a peculiar kind of shop.
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Thursday, July 23rd, 2015
Katie Valentine, - Think Progress
Stephan: Here is a potential game changing infrastructure technology, once again from the Dutch. And very good news. Road construction and maintenance using recycled plastic is a brilliant idea.
The Dutch recycled plastic rroadway
Credit: VolkerWessels
The Netherlands is already home to the world’s first solar road (or bike lane, technically). Now, the country could soon be the first to use recycled plastic as pavement.
The idea for plastic roads comes from VolkerWessels, a Netherlands-based construction firm. According to the company, plastic roads would be a “virtually maintenance free product” that’s “unaffected by corrosion and the weather.” The roads could handle temperatures as low as -40°F and as high as 176°F. The company says that this hardiness will make the roads’ lifespans three times as long as typical asphalt roads.
According to the company, any type of recycled plastic can be used. The main goal, the company says, is to keep plastic out of the oceans.
The idea for plastic roads came after the company took a look at all the different road-related problems cities face, said Simon Jorritsma from InfraLinq, a subdivision of VolkerWessels and KWS Infra that works specifically with asphalt. Those […]
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Thursday, July 23rd, 2015
Joseph Dussault, - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: One of the most fascinating research areas in science is: seeking to answer how did humans get to the Americas, where did they come from, and when? Here is the latest research.
Deep genetic affinities between Amazonian populations in South America, and Australasians; warmer colors indicate the strongest affinities.
Credit: Pontus Skoglund, Harvard Medical School
Who were the first Americans? Two research papers this week have arrived at contrasting interpretations.
One study, published Tuesday in the journal Science, proposes that the earliest Americans had singularly Siberian origins, crossing into the continent via the Bering land bridge in a single wave. Another, published Tuesday in Nature, suggests that some early Native Americans may have had genetic roots in Australia and its neighboring islands, a region known collectively as Australasia.
The peopling of the Americas is a matter of great anthropological and archaeological interest. We see evidence of unique culture on the continent over 10,000 years ago, but exactly how these populations arrived on the continent, and from where, has been debated for decades. Scientists generally agree that the first […]
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Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015
Jill Hamburg Coplan, - Fortune
Stephan: Here is the truth about the U.S. everyone should know, yet almost nobody does. Certainly you would be hard pressed to learn it from corporate media. Tuesday, when I am writing this, and for most of the preceding week, there has only been one story on news programs, as I am sure you have noticed: Donald Trump.
I find it fascinating, Trump is the personification of the Randian worldview. And part of it is he has enough money to be a candidate simply because he chooses to be. He is a brilliant marketeer and leads in the polls because he appreciates that only about 11 per cent of Americans support and approve of our government. The great majority have nothing but contempt for it, as all polls show, and can appreciate a television character plutocrat come to life, who says what they think.
But while we are lost in this opium dream of the national ego, a deeper uglier truth thrums. This is the America profit as the first social priority has created.As this report makes clear, it is a failing model.
The data is equally clear that we must make wellness at every level our new social priority. We must reorder our world. This is what my friend Rick Ingrasci calls "The Decisive Decade." The 2016 election is going to seal our fate. The decisions made over the next five years are going to set our path into climate change.
This is who we are. It is up to us to decide who we want to be.
Let me also note that this report came out in Fortune, an iconic example of conservative mainstream corporate business media. That's a message by itself.
The United States Capitol – Washington DC
When it comes to a few key indicators, Ireland, the UK, Canada and even Albania and Greece are surpassing America.
America is declining, in large and important measures, yet policymakers aren’t paying attention. So argues a new academic paper, pulling together previously published data.
Consider this:
- America’s child poverty levels are worse than in any developed country anywhere, including Greece, devastated by a euro crisis, and eastern European nations such as Poland, Lithuania and Estonia.
- Median adult wealth in the US ($39,000) is 27th globally, putting it behind Cyprus, Taiwan, and Ireland.
- Even when “life satisfaction” is measured, America ranks #12, behind Israel, Sweden and Australia.
Overall, America’s per capita wealth, health and education measures are mediocre for a highly industrialized nation. Well-being metrics, perceptions of corruption, quality and cost of basic services, are sliding, too. Healthcare and education spending are funding bloated administrations even while human outcomes sink, the authors say.
“We looked at very broad measures, and at individual measures, too,” […]
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Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015
Kyle Potter, - The Huffington Post/The Associated Press
Stephan: Here is additional detail about our children.
I don't know how much clearer it can get that states run on Red values produce societies of notably inferior quality. The Theocratic Right, because it is not fact-based, engages in all kinds of nonsense that degrades the lives of average citizens. And yet they vote for their degradation year after year, and have done so for decades. It is a mystery.
A first-grade class
Credit: Sue Ogrock/AP
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — A new report on child welfare that found more U.S. children living in poverty than before the Great Recession belies the fanfare of the nation’s economic turnaround.
Twenty-two percent of American children were living in poverty in 2013 compared with 18 percent in 2008, according to the latest Kids Count Data Book, with poverty rates nearly double among African-Americans and American Indians and problems most severe in South and Southwest.
The report, released Tuesday from the child advocacy group the Annie E. Casey Foundation, showed some signs of slight improvement, including high school graduation rates at an all-time high and a falling percentage of uninsured children. But the bright spots weren’t enough to offset a picture that many children have been left behind amid the nation’s economic recovery.
Here are some things to know about the report:
DIFFERING CAUSES
The foundation’s studies cover 16 different measures, delving into economic well-being, health care, education and […]
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