Thursday, January 19th, 2017
MATT GERTZ, - Media Matters
Stephan: One of the hallmarks of Fascist government is its obsessive effort to control media and to foster disinformation and fake news. Breitbart News, Daily Caller, Fox News, Alex Jones being instructive examples of what I mean. Fascists recognize what many in democracies take for granted: the key to successful democracy is a free and robust media. In this interview with Newt Gingrich, a man so ethically scummy he was driven out of the Speakership and Congressional office entirely, we see the vulgar Fascist view of media clearly on display. Like much that is coming Friday only citizen push back and support for the media is going to assure that this institution of democracy continues to function properly.
Newt Gingrich Trump surrogate
Newt Gingrich, a prominent supporter of President-elect Donald Trump and a Fox News contributor, would like to shatter the influence of an “adversarial” press. And he thinks Trump’s press conference confrontation with CNN reporter Jim Acosta has given the incoming administration the opportunity to dramatically reshape White House press interactions to favor journalists who will treat the president-elect more favorably.
During Trump’s January 11 presser, he lashed out at CNN and demanded the network apologize for a recent report on his alleged ties to Russia, and Acosta repeatedly called out, seeking to ask a question in response. Trump replied by calling CNN “terrible,” castigating Acosta for being “rude,” and declaring, “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!” Sean Spicer, who will serve as Trump’s White House press secretary, subsequently told Acosta that he would be removed if he continued to press for a question, and Spicer later demanded that the reporter apologize to the president-elect.
Team Trump’s efforts seem intended to both damage the credibility of […]
1 Comment
Thursday, January 19th, 2017
Kyle Pope/The Washington Press Corps, 17 January 2017 - Columbia Journalism Review
Stephan: Several readers who are part of Washington media sent me this, and asked me to put it in SR, and I am glad to do so because a robust media is essential to democracy. As Benjamin Franklin said, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
In these final days before your inauguration, we thought it might be helpful to clarify how we see the relationship between your administration and the American press corps.
It will come as no surprise to you that we see the relationship as strained. Reports over the last few days that your press secretary is considering pulling news media offices out of the White House are the latest in a pattern of behavior that has persisted throughout the campaign: You’ve banned news organizations from covering you. You’ve taken to Twitter to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same. You’ve advocated for looser libel laws and threatened numerous lawsuits of your own, none of which has materialized. You’ve avoided the press when you could and flouted the norms of pool reporting and regular press conferences. You’ve ridiculed a reporter who wrote something you didn’t like because he has a disability.
All of this, of course, is your choice and, in a way, your right. While the Constitution protects the […]
1 Comment
Thursday, January 19th, 2017
Nina Agrawal, - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: Want to reduce abortion rates? The answer is pretty simple: good sex-education classes. Every developed nation in the world that has done that has seen the effect. But of course Red value states governed by Theocratic Rightists hate sex ed, and will only prat on about abstinence. And although those states have higher unplanned pregnancies than Blue value states with good sex-ed, even they have seen decreases, probably because social media is doing the job the schools should be doing.
As experts in the field say, “We don’t think it’s because people are having less sex,” said Dr. Diane Horvath-Cosper, an obstetrician with the New York-based group Physicians for Reproductive Health who was not involved in the study. “It’s because people are protecting from pregnancy better than they used to.”
It is another proof of the Theorem of wellbeing.
The U.S. abortion rate has hit its lowest point since the procedure became legal nationwide in 1973, according to a new study.
The researchers estimated that there were 926,200 abortions in 2014, or 14.6 abortions for every 1,000 women of reproductive age. That was down 14% from three years earlier.
“We saw declines in abortion in almost every single state,” said Jenna Jerman, a public health researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank in New York, and a coauthor of the study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
Though the study did not look at the reasons for the decline, the authors and other experts suggested that improved access to contraception played the biggest role by preventing unintended pregnancies.
“We don’t think it’s because people are having less sex,” said Dr. Diane Horvath-Cosper, an obstetrician with the New York-based group Physicians for Reproductive Health who was not involved in the study. “It’s because people are protecting from pregnancy better than they used to.”
Research has shown a large increase in the use of IUDs and implants that release hormones — highly effective, long-acting methods that in recent years have become more affordable and been deemed safe […]
1 Comment
Wednesday, January 18th, 2017
Jane Miller and Amy Adkins, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: This Gallup survey as well as others I have seen suggest that American corporate employment policies are increasingly dysfunctional for women. It's not just differences in pay between men and women doing the same jobs. It also has to do with things like daycare for children, the culture of corporate workplaces, and health policies. This is just another area where we are falling behind the rest of the developed world.
Labor force participation among U.S. women rose from 1975 to 2000- Slow, steady exodus calls into question the appeal of workplaces
- Women seek synergy between career and life
From 1975 to 2000, the labor force participation rate — the percentage of the population that is either employed or unemployed and actively seeking work — among U.S. women rose dramatically. But at the turn of the millennium, it began to decline and has been falling ever since.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 59.9% of women aged 15-16 and older were in the labor force in 2000. By 2010, that figure fell to 58.6%, and at the end of 2015, it was even lower, at 56.7%.
Retiring female baby boomers account for a percentage of the shrinking labor force, as does the increasing number of young women enrolling in college. But these demographics don’t tell the whole story. A study conducted by Maximiliano Dvorkin and Hannah Shell for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis also discovered a decrease in labor force participation among women in their “prime age” — between […]
2 Comments
Wednesday, January 18th, 2017
Stephan: Here is another account about the cutting edge of quantum physics research.
Trapped Ytterbium ions were used as one of the most advanced laboratory quantum systems for this study.
Credit: University of Sydney
Scientists at the University of Sydney have demonstrated the ability to “see” the future of quantum systems, and used that knowledge to preempt their demise, in a major achievement that could help bring the strange and powerful world of quantum technology closer to reality.
The applications of quantum-enabled technologies are compelling and already demonstrating significant impacts – especially in the realm of sensing and metrology. And the potential to build exceptionally powerful quantum computers using quantum bits, or qubits, is driving investment from the world’s largest companies.
However a significant obstacle to building reliable quantum technologies has been the randomisation of quantum systems by their environments, or decoherence, which effectively destroys the useful quantum character.
The physicists have taken a technical quantum leap in addressing this, using techniques from big data to predict how quantum systems will change and then preventing the system’s breakdown from occurring.
The research is published today in Nature Communications.
“Much the way the individual components in mobile phones will eventually fail, so too […]
1 Comment
