What’s In A Rating?

https://split-ticket.org/2024/05/29/whats-in-a-rating/

When the Cook Political Report declares that a race is “competitive, but one party has an advantage”, at least in their final ratings, what they really mean is “we are very confident this party will win this race. If we weren’t, we would’ve rated it as a Tossup.” Likewise, while the word “tossup” connotes a coin flip, where both sides have similar chances of winning, Cook instead defines it to mean races “either party has a good chance of winning.” As mentioned in the introduction, the absurdly-high accuracy of Cook’s Lean ratings implies that their Tossup races include those where one side does have an advantage, but not one insurmountable enough to make their Lean category.

To be clear, this is a reasonable choice for an organization to make – prioritizing accuracy above all else. However, it’s a choice that deviates from the common meaning of their terminology.

Jimmy Carr on the impossibility of individualism

They Bought a New DC Luxury Condo. It Could Collapse.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/05/23/they-bought-a-new-dc-luxury-condo-it-could-collapse/

When a pair of first-time homeowners moved into a sleek condo in Northwest, they were thrilled. Now they’re afraid their building “could fall over”—and wondering why city inspectors failed to spot its many flaws.

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/

Seeking out a more balanced life is not a women’s issue; balance would be better for us all. Bronnie Ware, an Australian blogger who worked for years in palliative care and is the author of the 2011 book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, writes that the regret she heard most often was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” The second-most-common regret was “I wish I didn’t work so hard.” She writes: “This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.”

Juliette Kayyem, who several years ago left the Department of Homeland Security soon after her husband, David Barron, left a high position in the Justice Department, says their joint decision to leave Washington and return to Boston sprang from their desire to work on the “happiness project,” meaning quality time with their three children. (She borrowed the term from her friend Gretchen Rubin, who wrote a best-selling book and now runs a blog with that name.)

It’s time to embrace a national happiness project. As a daughter of Charlottesville, Virginia, the home of Thomas Jefferson and the university he founded, I grew up with the Declaration of Independence in my blood. Last I checked, he did not declare American independence in the name of life, liberty, and professional success. Let us rediscover the pursuit of happiness, and let us start at home.

The Ones We Sent Away

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/disabled-children-institutionalization-history/674763/

I’m speaking in huge generalities here,” says Kim E. Nielsen, the author of A Disability History of the United States, “but I think that push for social conformity exacerbated the incredible shame folks had about family members with intellectual and physical disabilities.” Institutionalizing such family members often became the most attractive—or viable—option. The stigma associated with having a different sort of child was too great; too often, schools wouldn’t have them, state-subsidized therapies weren’t available to them, and churches wouldn’t come to their aid. “There were no support structures at all,” Nielsen told me. “It was almost the opposite. There were anti-support structures.”

[...]

Adele Halperin. Daughter, sister, aunt. June 30, 1951–May 7, 2023.

Arthur Miller Explains Death of a Salesman

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/arthur-miller-letter-death-of-salesman/677473/

We reward our dealers, our accumulators, our speculators; we penalize with anonymity and low pay our teachers, our scientists, our workers who make and do and build and create. And so the urge that is in all of us to give and to make is turned in upon itself, and we accept the upside-down idea that to take and to accumulate is the great good. And whether we succeed in that or not, we are sooner or later left with the awareness of our emptiness, our inner poverty, and our isolation from mankind. When a man reaches that knowledge and has the sensitivity to feel the loss of his true self deeply, he is a tragic figure; but not unless he tries to find himself despite the world can he raise up in us the actual feeling that something fine and great and precious has been discovered too late. The history of man is his blundering attempt to form a society in which it pays to be good. The tragic figure now, and always, is the man who insists, past even death, that the stultifying combinations of evil give way before the outpouring of humanity and love that is bursting from his heart. This is why tragedy endures, and this is why it has really never changed excepting in its superficial aspects of rank etc.

41yo suboxone patient with lung cancer. I don't mean to keep pestering this sub, but I thought I'd drop in to say good-bye. The cancer is in my heart and central cardiovascular area. It's over.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/ju4mua/41yo_suboxone_patient_with_lung_cancer_i_dont/

I beseech you all to make amends with those you begrudge. Do not go to bed angry or hold hate in your heart. You will be glad that you forgave. I wish I had done so sooner, before I ran out of time. You will run out of time, too, some day in the future. Don't leave any business unfinished, any grudge unmended.

There a nicotine patch on my arm. A reminder of one of the several self destructive habits that brought me here. My smoking habit was not had enough to set things off this quickly, but it clearly did not help. For those of you who smoke, I have but one message: stop it. Please. You think you will wait till you are ready. You will never be ready. You say you will quit tomorrow, but then tomorrow becomes today, and you are never ready today, only tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. Today is the only day in which the decision can be made. You can only quit TODAY. Do so now. Throw your cigarettes in the trash. Do it for me. What a gift it would be that my post would free you of tobacco's golden chains.

As difficult and shocking as these last few weeks have been, I regard them as positive.

Only four weeks ago, I thought that the universe was a cold and cruel place. I experienced physical and mental abuse, chronic pain, and addiction. But my situation has forced a change of perspective. I see now that all our experiences, no matter how horrid, are temporary, and that we will all find the same rest and peace in the end.

I do not mean to give the wrong impression to those struggling with depression. I have tried to kill myself before. The difference between then and now is vast. Death is an old friend waiting to greet you at the end of a long and well lived life. It can not be appreciated properly when sought in darkness. I know there is no magic fix for depression, but I urge you to get up, go out, and live the crazy, wonderful, irrational, beautiful life you want. If only I had done the same. What a gift is life!

Advisory Opinion Issued by the Office of Special Counsel Updating Agency Approach to Enforcement of the Hatch Act as It Relates to Federal Employees

https://osc.gov/Documents/Hatch%20Act/Advisory%20Opinions/Federal/Updating%20Agency%20Approach%20to%20Enforcement%20of%20the%20Hatch%20Act.pdf

Thus, OSC will pursue disciplinary action for Hatch Act violations as expressly provided for by statute. This means OSC will consider all non-PAS political appointees, including those serving in the White House, as subject to disciplinary action proceedings at the MSPB. OSC will continue to be transparent in its enforcement efforts by making the filing of any such MSPB enforcement actions public at the time they are initiated, just as OSC has, in the past, made public reports to the President of alleged Hatch Act violations by White House personnel serious enough to include a request forsanctions and other remedial measures.

Second, because the Hatch Act does not bar enforcement against former employees and because the MSPB has held that an “employee’s post-violation resignation does not eliminate the case or controversy between the employee and the Special Counsel concerning whether the employee violated the Hatch Act and, if so, what penalty is warranted”, OSC will also bring to the MSPB appropriate cases alleging Hatch Act violations by individuals who engaged in material misconduct while a federal employee but who have since left government service. See Special Counsel v. Malone, 84 M.S.P.R. 342, 362 (1999). 

Worse than black? Japan study on heat-beating shirt colors reveals infrared absorbers

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230726/p2a/00m/0sc/014000c

So what color should we wear to stay as cool as we can during these extreme heat days? As you might expect, Ichinose recommends white, yellow, gray and red, and avoiding black, dark green, green, blue and purple duds for log days under the sun.

A Shot in the Dark: The Untold Story of Korean Air Lines flight 007

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-shot-in-the-dark-the-untold-story-of-korean-air-lines-flight-007-a4ae6a4ef734

When Able Archer 83 began in November, it ended up becoming one of the most serious war scares in the history of the Cold War. During the exercise, nervous Soviet leaders placed their nuclear forces in Europe on a higher alert level, and terrified KGB operatives near the front lines began spreading false reports that NATO was moving troops. Fortunately, no further misunderstandings occurred, and no shots were fired. But it was only after this close call that Reagan officials began to understand the true extent to which the USSR’s leaders were afraid of America. [23]

In a way, it was this very fear that caused the shootdown of KAL 007. From beginning to end, fear was the driving force behind the decisions made by Soviet actors. Fear caused the adoption of articles 36 and 53; fear informed the requirement to shoot down intruding aircraft; and fear drove General Kornukov’s determination to prevent the target from escaping. What if this was it — what if this weird, inexplicable event was somehow the opening salvo of the inevitable American attack? And if it wasn’t, then what if next time, it was? Only too late did anyone realize that they were afraid of their own shadows.

How to Build 300,000 Airplanes in Five Years

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-300000-airplanes-in

Producing the aircraft needed to win the war required a complete transformation of the aircraft industry. Between 1939 and 1944, the value of aircraft produced annually in the U.S. increased by a factor of 70, and the total weight of aircraft produced (a common measure of aircraft industry output) increased by a factor of 64. In 1940, the airframe industry employed just 59,000 people; three years later that reached 939,000, with another 339,000 building aircraft engines. Factories of unprecedented size, enclosing millions of square feet were built; by the end of the war aircraft engine factory floor space had increased from 1.7 million square feet to 75 million, and a single large engine factory encompassed more space than had been used by the entire pre-war engine industry.

THE KOOL-AID FACTORY

https://koolaidfactory.com/

THE KOOL-AID FACTORY is a series of zines about the ways organizations coordinate.

How I Got My Brain Back - Using observation, investigation, and productivity methods to understand my depression

https://every.to/superorganizers/how-i-got-my-brain-back

I really want to end things here—a happy ending! But the words are feeling strange again. I wrote this piece to provide a structure for self-discovery. I wrote it with the hope that it might help someone in a dark place find optimism. Like any well-trained operator, I provided clear tactics and linear steps. Like a good storyteller, I gave you a beginning, middle, and end. But the truth is, there is no stopping point when it comes to mental health. I can still feel the depression lurking. And while this particular section of my narrative may end with a life built back up, I am acutely aware that depression mainly serves to break a person down. And that its most powerful and pernicious feature is that it can shift shapes in such a way that allows it to find anyone, anywhere, at any time.

I am not naive enough to think I’m smarter than my depression or anyone else’s. But I am smarter about what goes on in my own head and heart. And, no matter where we are in this story, I think that’s a pretty cool and useful thing to be smart about.

Good stewardship in Slack

https://web.archive.org/web/20221202065224/https://founder-fodder.ghost.io/good-stewardship-in-slack/

The particular insight that helped me understand our magnetic (even when it's maddening) pull to Slack is that if our tribe is talking, we want to know what they're saying. Imagine seeing a crew of your besties chatting in the corner at a cocktail party–how could you not walk over?! With that understanding of the spell Slack puts us all under, no matter how many tricks we have up our sleeves to set our own boundaries with it, here's how I think we can make the best use of Slack in our organizations.

By upholding these norms, and encouraging others stick to these too, I think we can make it more likely that Slack contributes to our productivity, efficiency, feelings of connectedness, and work satisfaction (instead of taking away from it).

Decatur High School’s Mock Trial team achieves national recognition

https://decaturish.com/2024/05/decatur-high-schools-mock-trial-team-achieves-national-recognition/

The team also had substantial outside help in the lead-up to Nationals, with advice provided by the CSD attorneys Bob Wilson and Keri Ware, scrimmages in the Decatur Municipal Court courtroom with Chief Judge Rhathelia Stroud and Chief Clerk Courtney Jackson, one final scrimmage in County Chief Magistrate Judge Berryl Anderson’s courtroom, and assessments and criticisms from rival Georgia coaches and the Georgia Bar.  

Those factors, “the community, the student’s ambition, and a little bit of luck,” were the three pillars of Decatur’s success, according to Axam.

“All of that community support went a long way to preparing the team,” Axam said. “But nothing compares to hungry students who want to win.  And finally, whenever preparation meets opportunity, there is a chance that luck will be on our side, which it was this year.”

UI Density

https://matthewstrom.com/writing/ui-density/#fnref1

Interfaces are becoming less dense.

I’m usually one to be skeptical of nostalgia and “we liked it that way” bias, but comparing websites and applications of 2024 to their 2000s-era counterparts, the spreading out of software is hard to ignore.

To explain this trend, and suggest how we might regain density, I started by asking what, exactly, UI density is. It’s not just the way an interface looks at one moment in time; it’s about the amount of information an interface can provide over a series of moments. It’s about how those moments are connected through design design decisions, and how those decisions are connected to the value the software provides.

I’d like to share what I found. Hopefully this exploration helps you define UI density in concrete and useable terms. If you’re a designer, I’d like you to question the density of the interfaces you’re creating; if you’re not a designer, use the lens of UI density to understand the software you use.

Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe

https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story

Johnson told me, with seeming pride, that one reason he didn’t do more was that he was a “loyal soldier,” committed to protecting 3M from liability. Some of his assignments had come directly from company lawyers, he added, and he couldn’t discuss them with me. “I didn’t even report it to my boss, or anybody,” he said. “There are some things you take to your grave.” At one point, he also told me that, if he were asked to testify in a PFOS-related lawsuit, he would probably be of little help. “I’m an old man, and so I think they would find that I got extremely forgetful all of a sudden,” he said, and chuckled.

Out the windows of IHOP, I watched a light dusting of snow fall on the parking lot. In Johnson’s telling, a tacit rule prevailed at 3M: Not all questions needed to be asked, or answered. His realization that PFOS was in the general public’s blood “wasn’t something anyone cared to hear,” he said. He wasn’t, for instance, putting his research on posters and expecting a warm reception. Over the years, he tried to convince several executives to stop making PFOS altogether, he told me, but they had good reason not to. “These people were selling fluorochemicals,” he said. He retired as the second-highest-­ranked scientist in his division, but he claimed that important business decisions were out of his control. “It wasn’t for me to jump up and start saying, ‘This is bullshit!’” he said, and he was “not really too interested in getting my butt fired.” And so his portion of 3M’s secret stayed in a compartment, both known and not known. [...]

New health effects continue to be discovered. Researchers have found that exposure to PFAS during pregnancy can lead to developmental delays in children. Numerous recent studies have linked the chemicals to diabetes and obesity. This year, a study discovered 13 forever chemicals, including PFOS, in weeks-old fetuses from terminated pregnancies and linked the chemicals to biomarkers associated with liver problems. A team of New York University researchers estimated in 2018 that the costs of just two forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS — in terms of disease burden, disability and health-care expenses — amounted to as much as $62 billion in a single year. This exceeds the current market value of 3M.

Deaths induced by compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first COVID-19 wave: an estimate

 Background: During the first wave of COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was used off-label despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits. Since then, a meta-analysis of randomised trials showed that HCQ use was associated with an 11% increase in the mortality rate. We aimed to estimate the number of HCQ-related deaths worldwide.[...]

Overall, using median estimates of HCQ use in each country, we estimated that 16,990 HCQ-related in-hospital deaths (range 6267-19256) occurred in the countries with available data.

She Campaigned for a Texas School Board Seat as a GOP Hard-Liner. Now She’s Rejecting Her Party’s Extremism.

https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-granbury-isd-school-board-courtney-gore

But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find.

The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”

Twenty Years of Legal Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in the United States

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2912-1.html

The new analyses found no evidence for a retreat from marriage; in fact, there was evidence for a possible "increase" in marriage resulting from legalization of marriage between same-sex partners

New marriages increased by 1 percent to 2 percent among different-sex couples and about 10 percent overall.

The authors found no consistent evidence for an increase in cohabitation by unmarried different-sex couples or an increase in divorce as a consequence of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples.

Among high school seniors, the authors found no evidence of a negative shift in marriage attitudes, and they found some evidence of an improvement.

Bates & Ors v the Post Office Ltd: Judgment (No.6) “Horizon Issues”

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html

249.          Mrs Van Den Bogerd was in the witness box for in excess of one day, the longest period of any of the witnesses of fact for either the claimants or the Post Office. Her cross examination led to a far greater understanding of the Horizon Issues on the part of the court, although her written evidence was, as originally drafted, extraordinarily one-sided. She minimised any reference to problems or issues with Horizon, and reverted to potential user error whenever possible as a potential explanation, an approach which she explained in her written statement as providing “plausible” explanations. Her witness statement also stated, in terms, the exact opposite of what the reality of the situation was, and I have given examples at [221], [223] and [226] above. Witness statements are supposed to be factually accurate, and care must be taken in future rounds of this group litigation that they are drafted in accordance with the rules. Making statements that are the exact opposite of the facts is never helpful, to put it at its mildest. It is also the opposite of what witness statements are supposed to be.[...]

928.          The approach by the Post Office to the evidence of someone such as Mr Latif demonstrates a simple institutional obstinacy or refusal to consider any possible alternatives to their view of Horizon, which was maintained regardless of the weight of factual evidence to the contrary. That approach by the Post Office was continued, even though now there is also considerable expert evidence to the contrary as well (and much of it agreed expert evidence on the existence of numerous bugs).

 

929.          This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21^st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat.

Tennessee woman denied abortion after fetus’ ‘brain not attached’ slams state ban

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tennessee-denied-abortion-ban-lawsuit-b2529144.html

Tennessee woman who was denied an abortion despite a fatal abnormality says the state’s anti-abortion laws resulted in her losing an ovary, a fallopian tube and her hopes for a large family.[...]

The mother-of-one said she has not felt the same since her doctor told her in January 2023 that her fetus was diagnosed with acrania, a fatal condition where the fetus has no skull bones.

Then, 12 weeks pregnant, Ms Cecil was getting her first ultrasound. She attended the appointment alone, so when the doctor told her the fetus was not viable outside the womb, she was left with only asking the doctor what she should do.

However, she was left with few options. The state’s near-total abortion ban prevents anyone from getting an abortion if there is still a heartbeat - which her fetus still had.

A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/lucy-letby-was-found-guilty-of-killing-seven-babies-did-she-do-it

Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.

Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd/index.html

Al-Ran’s account of the forms of punishment he saw were corroborated by the whistleblowers who spoke with CNN. A prisoner who committed an offense such as speaking to another would be ordered to raise his arms above his head for up to an hour. The prisoner’s hands would sometimes be zip-tied to a fence to ensure that he did not come out of the stress position.

For those who repeatedly breached the prohibition on speaking and moving, the punishment became more severe. Israeli guards would sometimes take a prisoner to an area outside the enclosure and beat him aggressively, according to two whistleblowers and al-Ran. A whistleblower who worked as a guard said he saw a man emerge from a beating with his teeth, and some bones, apparently broken.

The Receding Democratic Majority

https://americancompass.org/the-receding-democratic-majority/

Democrats aren’t just losing white working-class voters, then. They’re losing working-class voters, pure and simple. That has undermined the Democrats’ chances of being the majority party. It has also deprived the country of a party that could champion the average American against what Bernie Sanders called “the billionaire class” and bridge the Great Divide between growing metro areas and small-town America.

Instead, with the Republicans steadily losing ground among college-educated voters and in states with high-tech metro centers, the two parties are locked in an unstable stalemate and in culture wars that evade the great issues that will determine the country’s future, while growing numbers of voters express disillusionment with both parties.   

‘No Compromise’: How Crystal Welch Changed The State Flag Debate In 19 Days

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/13560/no-compromise-how-crystal-welch-changed-the-state-flag-debate-in-19-days

On June 28, 2020, the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to retire the 1894 state flag. The bill followed Welch and Hall’s earlier suggestion to establish a commission to select a new state flag design and allow voters to either approve or reject it in a November referendum. [...]

On Sept. 2, the Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag announced its final pick: an updated version of Vaughn’s design that Welch and Hall had originally pitched to lawmakers on June 9, 2020, with design support provided by Sue Anna Joe, Kara Giles and Dominique Pugh. Like Stennis’ flag, the proposal featured red bars. But instead of an inverted Bonnie Blue Star at its center, Vaughn’s featured a magnolia on a blue field encircled by stars. It also incorporated an element from the runner-up flag designed by Micah Whitson: a diamondhead star at the top of the circle to represent Mississippi’s indigenous tribes. [...]

Exactly two months later, 73% of Mississippians voted to approve Vaughn’s design as the new state flag. Crystal Welch’s quest to ensure the new flag would tell the story of Mississippi’s diversity and progress had succeeded.

We ended up with the flag that I think the majority of Mississippians are proud to have represent us,” Welch said.

Why Israel and Hamas Still Do Not Have a Cease-Fire

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-negotiations-rafah-impasse-stalemate.html?via=rss

Many news reports have focused on the disputes over how many Israeli hostages will be freed for how many Palestinian prisoners, during a cease-fire lasting how many days. But these matters are trivial. The crucial, much harder issue to resolve is what happens next.

Hamas is demanding that, in tandem with the exchange of hostages and prisoners, Israeli troops pull out of Gaza entirely and that the cease-fire turns into a permanent truce. Israel is saying it will resume the war after the hostages come home until Hamas is destroyed as a political and military force. Meanwhile, some of the outside powers—mainly the U.S., Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, as well as vocal observers in Europe and the United Nations—are pushing for a peaceful settlement of the wider, long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, preferably through the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will never stand for such a state. The leaders of Hamas don’t want one, either; they want to keep fighting their “war of resistance” until Israel and its 7 million Jews are wiped out.

That’s the problem in a nutshell. Hamas and Israel have opposing war aims. (This is why most wars throughout history begin and keep raging, despite unspeakable carnage and destruction.) And neither side, for different reasons, has any interest in the outside would-be peacemakers’ vision of a postwar settlement.

12 reasons to be skeptical about political journalism

https://www.stopthepresses.news/p/12-reasons-to-be-skeptical-about

I want to say this straight away: Most political journalists try to be fair and serve the public.

But I want to say this, too: Some don’t.

In addition, there are news practices that are not necessarily wrong but are mysterious and poorly understood. So here are a dozen things to keep in mind when you consume political news.

The Effects of ‘Ban the Box’ on the Employment of Black Men

https://econofact.org/the-effects-of-ban-the-box-on-the-employment-of-black-men

The researchers sent job applications on behalf of fictitious applicants that varied their perceived race and felony record status both before and after BTB laws went into effect. They found that when employers were allowed to ask about criminal histories, white applicants had only a slight advantage over similar black applicants who had the same criminal record status. After Ban the Box policies were implemented this gap widened dramatically: White applicants were 43 percent more likely to get a callback than similar black applicants (see chart). While black men with records saw small gains in callbacks after BTB, this was offset by even larger decreases in callbacks to black men without felony convictions.

How Rural America Steals Girls' Futures

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/the-forgotten-girls-monica-potts-book-excerpt/673581/

I returned home to find my whole town in a long, slow decline, on the verge of dying itself. Drug epidemics take root in places that are already sick, already suffering. Momma had been right, it seems, to focus on getting us out, guarding us from boys and early pregnancy and keeping us distant from the people she thought would trap us here. I asked a second cousin of mine about this once, the man who would become the father of Darci’s children. I told him that I wished I’d known his part of my family better, but that my parents had kept me from getting close. “There’s probably a good reason for that!” he said. “This town didn’t suck you down the way it did some of us.”

When I started to investigate why women like those I’d grown up with were dying younger, I thought I was looking for reasons: What was different about their lives, and why? I realize now that I was looking for one person: my friend Darci.

The New Propaganda War

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/

Slowly, though, these autocracies have come together, not around particular stories, but around a set of ideas, or rather in opposition to a set of ideas. Transparency, for example. And rule of law. And democracy. They have heard language about those ideas—which originate in the democratic world—coming from their own dissidents, and have concluded that they are dangerous to their regimes. Their own rhetoric makes this clear. In 2013, as Chinese President Xi Jinping was beginning his rise to power, an internal Chinese memo, known enigmatically as Document No. 9—or, more formally, as the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere—listed “seven perils” faced by the Chinese Communist Party. “Western constitutional democracy” led the list, followed by “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation.” The document concluded that “Western forces hostile to China,” together with dissidents inside the country, “are still constantly infiltrating the ideological sphere,” and instructed party leaders to push back against these ideas wherever they found them, especially online, inside China and around the world.

The Anxiety Behind America’s New Economic Order

https://heatmap.news/economy/china-us-post-neoliberalism#

But policy has played a decisive role, too. China has subsidized its EV industry far more generously than the U.S. or Europe, and its officials have cracked down on internal-combustion vehicles to a degree not seen in the West. Why have China’s leaders leaned so much into EVs? And why has China become so skilled at manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, grid-scale batteries, and other essential decarbonization tech?

The answer lies, in part, in its national security prerogatives. China’s economy depends on oil, of which it has almost no domestic reserves to speak of. It imports more than 10 million barrels of oil a day, and in a hypothetical Sino-American conflict, the U.S. would move to cut off China’s access. So it behooves China to invest in technologies that reduce its dependence on oil and fossil fuels.

Now, is energy security the only reason that China has embraced the energy transition? Of course not. Its political and corporate leaders know that decarbonization presents a massive global market opportunity. They know, too, that climate action is the humanitarianism of the 21st century: It is one of the few things that a country can do that seems to redound to every other country’s benefit.

But note that decarbonization plays virtually the opposite role in the U.S. At least for now, we have vast fossil fuel reserves, while we have to rely on imported minerals and materials to make EVs, many of them from China. Decarbonizing, in other words, does little for our energy security in the short-term — at least until sufficient mining and refining capacity opens in North America.

A baby had no home after a stay in the NICU. Her nurses adopted her.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/04/12/nicu-nurse-baby-adopt-deras/

“You never know who is out there who needs you,” said Drew Deras.

The Derases said they’re open to taking in more children.

“There are children out there that have special needs and need fostering and adopting,” said Taylor Deras.

“They deserve love,” Drew Deras said. 

Why I Ended the University of Chicago Protest Encampment

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-ended-the-university-of-chicago-protest-encampment-7bc59b46?st=a24ev5vbxiomgpk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

So I authorized the opening of dialogue with the protesters, even though that extended the number of days the university was disrupted. I won’t describe the sequence or the content of those discussions, since we agreed that our exchanges would remain private unless and until we reached a favorable conclusion. During our substantive dialogue, there were some very difficult moments, but also moments of progress. The student-protester representatives offered analytical arguments and made powerful statements; their faculty representatives and liaisons also made important contributions. I believe that the administration representatives showed respect for their interlocutors and came to the discussions with genuine openness and a willingness to look for ways to make it work.

Why then didn’t we reach a resolution? Because at the core of the demands was what I believe is a deep disagreement about a principle, one that can’t be papered over with carefully crafted words, creative adjustments to programming, or any other negotiable remedy.

A Russian Influence Campaign Is Exploiting College Campus Protests

https://www.wired.com/story/russian-influence-campaign-exploiting-college-campus-protests/

A Kremlin-aligned network called Doppelganger has used faked versions of real news sites to push both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel disinformation. 

No One Knows What Universities Are For

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/bureaucratic-bloat-eating-american-universities-inside/678324/?gift=otEsSHbRYKNfFYMngVFweCShAGLJMlsc7cgbWtMKXIw&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social

In an email to me, Smith, the Pomona economist, said the biggest factor driving the growth of college admin was a phenomenon he called empire building. Administrators are emotionally and financially rewarded if they can hire more people beneath them, and those administrators, in time, will want to increase their own status by hiring more people underneath them. Before long, a human pyramid of bureaucrats has formed to take on jobs of dubious utility. And this can lead to an explosion of new mandates that push the broader institution toward confusion and incoherence.

The surprise is not that Boeing lost commercial crew but that it finished at all

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/the-surprise-is-not-that-boeing-lost-commercial-crew-but-that-it-finished-at-all/

But at least SpaceX was in its natural environment. Boeing's space division had never won a large fixed-price contract. Its leaders were used to operating in a cost-plus environment, in which Boeing could bill the government for all of its expenses and earn a fee. Cost overruns and delays were not the company's problem—they were NASA's. Now Boeing had to deliver a flyable spacecraft for a firm, fixed price.

Boeing struggled to adjust to this environment. When it came to complicated space projects, Boeing was used to spending other people's money. Now, every penny spent on Starliner meant one less penny in profit (or, ultimately, greater losses). This meant that Boeing allocated fewer resources to Starliner than it needed to thrive.

"The difference between the two company’s cultures, design philosophies, and decision-making structures allowed SpaceX to excel in a fixed-price environment, where Boeing stumbled, even after receiving significantly more funding," said Lori Garver in an interview. She was deputy administrator of NASA from 2009 to 2013 during the formative years of the commercial crew program and is the author of Escaping Gravity.

What Gen Z slang do you use to piss off the kids?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/19anw8d/what_gen_z_slang_do_you_use_to_piss_off_the_kids/

I made a post on r/ask about 'old timey' sayings, and several people mentioned they do the opposite and use Gen Z slang to irritate their kids or the youngins at work.

With a 16 year old son, I try and use his slang everyday just for my own amusement, and it drives him crazy - especially when I say things like "no cap" or "take the L" in public.

I legit have a spreadsheet I keep to them in rotation, and my Gen Z co-workers help me update it.

McDonald’s and other big brands warn that low-income consumers are starting to crack

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/companies-from-mcdonalds-to-3m-warn-inflation-is-squeezing-consumers.html

At McDonald’s, that was evidenced by same-store sales growth coming in slightly below Wall Street expectations. Kempczinski said that the Chicago-based company must be “laser-focused” on affordability to bring in diners as prices push away low-income consumers.

Executives at 3M, the maker of Scotch tape and Post-it Notes that also reported Tuesday, told analysts it’s seeing “continued softness in consumer discretionary spend.” While 3M earnings and revenue topped expectations in the first quarter, management said it anticipates consumer spending this year to be “muted.”

Newell Brands CEO Chris Peterson on April 26 joined the chorus of executives pointing to inflation as the main force bedeviling their businesses. Though the owner of Coleman and Rubbermaid products exceeded analyst forecasts for the first three months of the year, the company issued soft guidance for current-quarter earnings and said revenue is likely to decline.

“The categories we compete in remain under pressure with consumers continuing to carefully manage their discretionary spend as the cumulative impact of inflation on food, energy and housing cost has outpaced wage growth,” Peterson said.

9-year-old's heroic act saves parents after Oklahoma tornado: "Please don't die, I will be back"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/9-year-olds-heroic-act-saves-parents-after-tornado

"The only way he found his way back was with lightning strikes that lit the road. He ran as fast as he could, as hard as he could, he made a mile in 10 minutes. That's pretty impressive for a little kid," said Branson's uncle, Johnny Baker. "The last thing Branson told them was, 'Mom, dad, please don't die, I will be back.'"

Chuck Todd: The race to build a better internet — before it's too late

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/chuck-todd-race-build-better-internet-late-rcna149925

The authors believe many of the current ills in society can be traced to how the internet works. “Information is the lifeblood of any society, and our three-decade-old digital system for distributing it is fatally corrupt at its heart," they write. "It has failed to function as a trusted, neutral exchange of facts and ideas and has therefore catastrophically hindered our ability to gather respectfully to debate, to compromise and to hash out solutions. ... Everything, ultimately, comes down to our ability to communicate openly and truthfully with one another. We have lost that ability — thanks to how the internet has evolved away from its open, decentralized ideals.”

As it currently functions, the internet, they argue, “is the primary cause of a pervasive unease in the United States and other democratic societies. The internet explains why our national arguments seem intractable. It’s why every issue is reduced, in public debate, to the lowest common denominator.”

In some ways, like Paine’s "Common Sense," the book is an attempt to stoke revolution, this time against Big Tech instead of the English monarchy.