Monthly Archives: April 2015

Christine Lepisto on Treehuggers became quite excited when a New York court granted habeas corpus to a pair of research chimpanzees:

The case involves a legal right known as “writ of habeas corpus,” intended to offer protection to people who may have been unlawfully imprisoned or detained. The writ of habeas corpus traditionally applies only to human beings. The judge’s ruling (pdf) requires that the institute “detaining” Hercules and Leo must show cause why the Nonhuman Rights Project should not be granted an order permitting them to take custody of the chimps upon determination that they are being unlawfully detained.

According to the Nonhuman Rights Project press release:

Under the law of New York State, only a “legal person” may have an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus issued in his or her behalf. The Court has therefore implicitly determined that Hercules and Leo are “persons.”

NPR reports that the court has now backpedaled:

The judge in the case has amended her ruling to strike out the term “writ of habeas corpus.” It is now unclear whether Hercules and Leo, the chimps at Stony Brook University, can challenge their detention. You can read our post about the amended order here. …But Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University who opposes personhood for animals, told Science, “It would be quite surprising if the judge intended to make a momentous substantive finding that chimpanzees are legal persons if the judge has not yet heard the other side’s arguments.”

Science magazine has a quick summary (also available through NPR):

The case began as a salvo of lawsuits filed by NhRP in December 2013. The group claimed that four New York chimpanzees—Hercules and Leo at Stony Brook, and two others on private property—were too cognitively and emotionally complex to be held in captivity and should be relocated to an established chimpanzee sanctuary. NhRP petitioned three lower court judges with a writ of habeas corpus, which is traditionally used to prevent people from being unlawfully imprisoned. By granting the writ, the judges would have implicitly acknowledged that chimpanzees were legal people, too—a first step in freeing them.

The judges quickly struck down each case, however, and NhRP has been appealing ever since. Today’s decision is the group’s first major victory. In her ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe orders a representative of Stony Brook University to appear in court on 6 May to respond to NhRP’s petition that Hercules and Leo “are being unlawfully detained” and should be immediately moved to a chimp sanctuary in Florida. Both animals have been used to understand the evolution of human bipedalism. (Stony Brook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Which reminds me of a quote from the venerable Robert A. Heinlein, helpfully found on Wikiquote:

“Soul?” Does a dog have a soul? How about cockroach?

Yes?  Maybe?  So are animals damaged persons?  If you give a lion and a lamb both personhood, and then … well, I trust the thrust of that is obvious, but not the answer.  No doubt this has been thrashed out somewhere, but I don’t happen to know where that might be.  I cannot imagine being savage towards my cats, but they can sure be savage to the rodents crossing their paths.

Perhaps the best way to consider this is related to that old aphorism:

The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.

– many sources

We may not have to make animals into persons (although if this intrigues you, see master writer Cordwainer Smith), but how we treat them may be our measure.  For all that we use them to improve our medicines….

Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics attended the recent annual CPAC meeting (Feb 26) and First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit, where he issued report cards on all of the candidates and would-be candidates who showed up and spoke.  At the latter, his favorite was Marco Rubio:

Style: More confident and focused than even in his well-received announcement speech. Led off with a string of jokes about Clinton, kids, and campaigns. Then turned earnest, keeping the crowd hushed and largely rapt, culminating with a resounding, sustained standing ovation.

Substance: Laid out his agenda on taxes, education, and other issues with more purpose than detail, but made it powerful by fusing it with vivid descriptions of America’s needs.

Best moment: Closed with an extended passage about the nation’s future and the urgency of moving in a new direction immediately.

Worst moment: Rambled a bit at the end of the first third of his remarks—but that’s a quibble.

Overall: Speaks about the American Experience and his own family history like an old pro, making him seem wise and thoughtful beyond his years. Continues to hit his stride, creating believers within the party and the press. When he leverages his youth to make his optimism seem more organic, he stakes a greater claim than Walker, Bush, and the rest of the field to being the right leader for a better future. Enshrined his place in the top tier more solidly than ever before.

Marco’s grades: Style A-, Substsance B, Overall A-.  Who received the lowest grade?  Jim Gilmore, former governor of Virginia:

Style: Talked rapidly, sometimes shouting, perhaps in an effort to seem forceful and driven. Showed little humor (beyond an opening clunker of a Clinton/e-mail joke), and little finesse. Occasionally hugged the side of the lectern, or wandered briefly away, only to return moments later.

Substance: Called for lower individual and corporate tax rates; elimination of the inheritance tax. Offered only generalities during an extended foreign policy section.

Best moment: Brought determination to his presentation, but no moments stood out.

Worst moment: The starkness of the line “President Obama doesn’t believe in America” turned into a downer even with a partisan audience that has little love for the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Overall: Largely unknown, even to many activists and the press; got some attention simply by being on the card. But didn’t give people a true sense of his heart, his history, or his hopes. Too dark and negative to be considered a happy Gilmore. Still, enough buzz in the room to likely encourage him to stay at it in the months ahead.

This approach to appraising candidates has provoked some reactions.  Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium:

So, Mark Halperin went to New Hampshire to watch the GOP presidential field. And then he evaluated them by handing out grades, which I guess is meant to be rigorous. I think these “grades” reveal at least as much about modern political journalism as they do about what happened in the Granite State. …

I think the real bottom line is: if he were a teacher, Mark Halperin would give nearly everybody a B of some kind, except for Marco Rubio, who he thinks is fun.

He also has a nifty graph of the grades.

Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly has similar feelings:

Curious about how this weekend’s mammoth, 17-speaker First in the Nation Republican Leadership Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire, went, I consulted Bloomberg Politics, and sure enough, Mark Halperin had prepared letter grades (actually three, for “style,” “substance” and “overall”) for every one of these birds, yea, even unto Peter King. For the most part, what the reader learned about each candidate or proto-candidate was a murky stew of Halperin’s impressions in Nashua and Halperin’s prejudices about the field and American politics….

Then there’s this assessment of Chris Christie:

Continued his newfound emphasis on entitlement changes to push his record of reform and image of truth teller. Plus: leader, leader, leader. Seems to have found a balance between confidence and brashness. Used his aplomb on the big stage to push his way closer to the top tier, but not a game-changing performance.

Again, the salient fact about Christie is that his standing among Republicans and the general electorate is hovering near elimination levels, and he’s chosen a theme—“entitlement changes”—that may preserve a role for him as a “truth teller” but will more likely make him one of the more reviled figures in American politics.

Worried about your output’s impact on the environment?  Treehugger’s Derek Markham has an alternative for you from France:

Break your paper training with the Tushy bidet attachment, which could help save your rear while saving the Earth.

How many sheets of toilet paper do you use each day? According to Tushy, the average American uses about 57 sheets daily, which adds up to a heck of a lot of trees, water, and chlorine getting flushed down the toilet or pitched into the trash. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and here at TreeHugger, we’ve been advocating for bidets for many years. Lloyd has said before that he thinks everyone should have one.

57 sheets daily?  We need better counting; the ladies surely must use more than the guys.  And just how much chlorine are we talking?

Still, bidets spray out some nice warm water….

A correspondent writes to discuss a chart in this post:

RE:  April 16 post Race 2016:  Marco Rubio, and the chart labeled How Conservative are GOP Presidential Candidates:

Seems to me, this chart is useful on more than one level.  Take note of the folks whose public issue statements widely differ from their congressional voting record.  Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz seem to have the most egregious track record for saying one thing and doing the opposite.

I find that kind of analysis very useful, if the analysis is from a trusted source. Even if you abhor Michelle Bachmann’s or Herman Cain’s platform, at least you know where they stand (relatively speaking).

Hard to argue the point, and those data points are striking.  Here’s the chart again, for reference:

I note that Rick Santorum, a one term Senator, appears to be willing to have a radical mouth but a less than radical voting button.  But how is FiveThirtyEight handling candidates with no Congressional voting record, such as Huckabee, Pawlenty, and other governors?  That’s not entirely clear.

Have you recently run into the terms evidence-based-medicine (EBM) and science-based-medicine (SBM)?  Did you think they’re the same, or at least similar?  Turns out while both seek to improve the general state of medicine, one has a blind spot that lets in the “alternative” therapies that are nearly never efficacious, as discussed in Skeptical Medicine:

Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.” (Sackett et.al.) …

EBM appears to place its emphasis on clinical science (controlled trials) and relegates basic science to the bottom (Level 5 evidence includes claims based on physiology, bench research or “first principles“. It should be noted that practice should never be based solely on basic science because such evidence is insufficient in clinical practice. 

So the complaint here is that the plausibility of the treatment is not considered in EBM.  A treatment that contradicts established scientific principles is not treated as needing extraordinary evidence because of this particular property.

EBM as it stands today can lead to a rabbit hole filled with unlikely and implausible claims.

SBM begins with basic science.

SBM recognizes full well that basic science is not sufficient to justify practices. Indeed, much of pseudoscience stems from this mistake. SBM asks us to consider the basic science plausibility of a claim before committing to a randomized controlled trial. It asks us to consider both basic science and clinical research. There really should be no conflict. Some avid proponents of EBM appear to think that  SBM proponents value basic science over clinical trials. This is not the case. SBM supporters simply want to consider the basic science first, or at least alongside clinical trials. Claims that contradict basic science should require far more evidence from clinical trials than should plausible claims. The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary must be the clinical evidence. 

The piece is not easy; a grasp of statistics, at least, is necessary.  But it does explain why SBM is superior to EBM in that it will recognize extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  So at least remember this: if some snake-oil salesman suggests that one of the many alternative therapies out there is for you, and cites that it’s all evidence-based medicine, ask him if it’s science-based, and if he answers affirmatively, then ask him to explain the difference.  If he gets that right, then ask how he squares the impossible basis of his treatment with it being SBM….

Sami Grover on Treehugger waxes ecstatic over the drop in China coal imports:

If the fact that the decline in coal brings a net growth in jobs is true in China as well as America, Chinese workers may have a lot to cheer about.

Because The Guardian reports that Chinese coal imports were down a whopping 42% for Q1, compared to the year before.

Now I’ve posted several times already about China’s break up with coal and how it is happening sooner and faster than anyone expected. But this single issue is so central to everybody’s wellbeing, we would be wise to continue following closely.

A year would be more impressive, but it’s still encouraging.  China’s coal production appears to also be sinking, albeit a little less than 42%, according to the Guardian:

State media reported on Monday that coal production fell in 2014 for the first time this century, with production totalling 3.5bn tonnes between January and November representing a 2.1% fall on the same period in 2013. …

The industry maintains that it has been hit by a number of one-off factors, such as high rainfall leading to high levels of hydro-electric production that has in turn impacted demand for coal. Similarly, government restrictions on the export of low-quality coal hit a market that was already suffering as coal prices fell by around 20%.

However, Xinhua acknowledged that much of the pressure on the coal industry is the result of demanding new environmental regulations from the Chinese government and increased investment in renewable energy, that has made China the world’s largest investor in clean technologies.

Covering the third leg of the tripod, Chinese consumption of coal is also falling, according to Reuters:

Clean-fuel policies, as well as an economy growing at its slowest pace in 25 years, are driving lower coal use, with power companies using a greater mix of hydro, nuclear and renewable options, especially wind.

Coal still makes up nearly two-thirds of China’s energy mix, but utilisation rates at thermal power plants – nearly all coal-fired – have dropped to 52.2 percent in the first two months of this year, Reuters calculations based on monthly power generation and consumption figures show. If that rate holds for the full year, it would be a new annual low.

This affects coal prices, Reuters also notes:

China’s coal imports fell 11 percent in 2014 compared to the previous year, the first annual decline in at least a decade.

The market is taking note. Australian coal prices – a benchmark for Asia – slumped 30 percent last year and dropped below $60 a tonne this month to the lowest level since May 2007. Producers are now holding back shipments to China amid uncertainty over quality checks under new ash and sulphur restrictions imposed in January.

In this article, the Guardian reports the Chinese are taking climate change seriously:

At the UN climate change summit in New York in September, China said it would start to reduce the nation’s huge carbon emissions “as early as possible”.

[Lauri] Myllyvirta warned that year-to-year fluctuations in energy use and industrial prediction could see coal burning grow again in future. “It may not be the peak yet, but it is a sign that China is moving away from coal.” Climate scientists say that global carbon emissions need to peak by 2020 and rapidly decline to avoid dangerous climate change.

Myllyvirta said the greatest significance of the current drop in coal use was that economic growth had continued at 7.4% at the same time, although that is a lower rate than in recent years. “The Chinese economy is divorcing coal,” he said. By contrast, the tripling of the Chinese economy since 2002 was accompanied by a doubling of coal use.

The American GOP’s refusal to take climate change seriously has led to little progress on the issue despite citizen calls for action.  Still, use of coal may be declining, although solid figures are somewhat hard to come by.  For 2013, though, we have this information (link will eventually go stale) from the Energy Information Administration of the Federal Government:

For the first time in two decades, U.S. coal production fell below one billion short tons to 984.8 million short tons in 2013 from 1,016.5 million short tons in 2012 (3.1% lower than 2012).

However …

U.S. coal consumption increased 4.0% to 924.8 million short tons, an increase of 35.6 million short tons. The electric power sector consumed about 92.8% of the total U.S. coal consumption in 2013.

This table, also from the EIA, gives coal consumption figures from 2008 – 2013, and is not particularly encouraging – we may be dropping consumption, but not by huge numbers.  Index Mundi, a site aggregating data to create country profiles, provides a Flash-chart.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/coal/

Why is coal a big deal?  Greenpeace, amongst many, has an explanation; if you’re offended by Greenpeace, rest assured that far more conservative websites will give similar information.

Coal fired power plants are the biggest source of man made CO2 emissions. This makes coal energy the single greatest threat facing our climate.

[Live in the USA?  Check out the Quit Coal website to join communities around the country organizing to fight coal and demand clean energy.]

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, including widespread drought, flooding and massive population displacement caused by rising sea levels, we need to keep global temperature rise below 2ºC (compared to pre-industrial levels). To do this, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 and from there go down to zero.

A third of all carbon dioxide emissions come from burning coal. It’s used to produce nearly 40 percent of the world’s power, and hundreds of new coal plants are planned over the next years if the industry gets its way.

Apart from climate change, coal also causes irreparable damage to the environment, people’s health and communities around the world. While the coal industry itself isn’t paying for the damage it causes, the world at large is.

And that doesn’t even mention the mercury output of coal fired plants that leads to mercury poisoning in people who enjoy eating fish from the top of the food chain.

So … the United States, rather than being the leader we like to think we are, is instead stuck in squabbling mode and ceding leadership to China. It’ll be interesting to see if democracy continues to be the best political system in the world, or if the obsolete Red Chinese are actually better than us when it comes to reality-based thinking.

Fortunately, it may not matter, as it appears US industry may be preparing to slam a bit of reality into the GOP, according to this article from ThinkProgress:

There’s little question that disaster costs have increased in the last several decades. Since the Stafford Act was passed in 1988, the report notes that disaster declaration have steadily escalated — from 16 declarations in 1988 to 242 declarations in 2011.

Since 1980, the U.S. has increased its yearly spending on disaster relief.

CREDIT: smartersafer.org

The reasons for those increased disaster costs are two-fold, the report says. For one, the economy has grown since 1980, and there’s been more development — meaning there are bigger and more expensive structures to be damaged when extreme events hit. The other reason, it asserts, is climate change, which is increasing the risks that bad storms will occur across the country.

The Lawfare blog recently celebrated the publication of their new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones——Confronting A New Age of Threat.  I haven’t read it; what caught my eye was almost an afterthought in the post:

But as President Barack Obama recently lamented about cybersecurity, “one of the great paradoxes of our time” is that “the very technologies that empower us to do great good can also be used to undermine us and inflict great harm.”

This strikes me as an intellectual error in that attempting to assign moral values to technologies, to mere artifacts (or even intellectual constructs, such as mathematics), is to mistake what makes up morality: our actions in the context of our relationships.  It’s quite easy to think of moral and immoral actions that might be taken with drones, viral research, computers, telephones, cars, dynamite, arrows, armor, spears … see, these are all easy.  Some have more potential, some less; I’ll leave it to the foolhardy to decide if the potentials for evil and good are in balance for each artifact.

It’s not a paradox, it’s been with us from the start.  I recall, many years ago, arguing with an older gentleman as to whether technological progress was good or bad.  For all that he held a degree in physics and worked for a defense contractor, he was fairly dubious about the worth of progress; he seemed to prefer his pre-Vatican II milieu.  I was puzzled then, but contemplating the great good – and great evil – that can be done with many of today’s advances does leave me a little more connected with my friend of decades ago.

I also wonder how society will handle this: society can only bear a certain level of instability before people begin to panic, to constrain choices and whatever is causing the instability.  While the United States hardly ever puts legal restrictions on such research (usually it has to do with munitions advances, in which the inventor gets a patent and $1, and the government takes the exclusive license), socially sometimes limits are sought, such as the Precautionary Principle currently being pushed or implemented by certain organizations.  The problem with limits is that not everyone obeys limits, and there’s rarely a way to enforce it; see the attempts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, for example.  If someone knows something can be accomplished, they’ll take a shot at it.

Dawn

Two squirrels play a game of catch me in the branches of the maple tree.
Exulting in the suppleness of their bodies,
they leap from branch to branch,
catching the tips of twigs too slender to support squirrel weight.
Slim branches sag under sudden load,
then spring back as squirrel hands release
to catch another twig just as reedy as the first.

The sky brightens, shading from indigo to grey,
through mauve to petal pink, then effervescent golden-bright.
The leaves on the trees glow
emerald and chartreuse, viridian and honey gold,
punctuated by the black and grey of fluid trunk and crisscrossing branch.
Birdsong fills the air, as if they who sing
can hardly contain the aria that spills from them.

And through the cacophony of rustling leaf and dancing squirrel feet,
avians’ exultant call and response, the inhalation of the waking day,
still, there is a quiet in the air, a wholesome silence, a completeness.
As if, in this moment, as all is calm and still and bright,
we are all remade, perfect and unbroken, pure and replete.
And for one precious instant, we are whole.

– D.J. White

Reticent Sky by Gyorgy Kepes. See more of his work here

In a followup, a Facebook correspondent reveals another place for Americans to get free college degrees:

Germany has recently offered free college to American students. Too bad that most America high schools don’t have the funding for German language classes. http://www.wtsp.com/…/german-colleges–free…/16658027/

An explanation from a German official, taken from the link:

In explaining why Germany made this move, Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a Hamburg senator, called tuition fees “unjust” and added that “they discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany.”

Actually, German universities were free up until 2006 when they started charging tuition. That triggered such a crush of criticism that German states began phasing out this policy. Lower Saxony was the last holdout.

It’s an interesting remark, since it implies that students require the motivation of an academic family to attend college; is the economic situation such that college, i.e., education, is not really a prerequisite for bettering one’s life in Germany?

Beginning, apparently, in 2013, Andrew Sullivan, editor of the now-dormant Dish blog, became aware of, and detested, a trend in online publications towards what was sometimes called sponsored content and other times native advertising; perhaps more euphemisms for companies hawking products in camouflage have appeared since.  Andrew’s first entry is here; a collection of them, in reverse order, is here.  From his first entry:

Did IBM also provide the art? Then I went to Quartz, the company’s new global business site. Two out of the first ten pieces I saw on the main-page last night were written by corporations, Chevron and Cadillac, presumably in collaboration with the Atlantic. (The Cadillac has now gone, replaced by another identical Chevron “piece”.) I’d like to know as a subscriber and former senior editor who exactly on staff helped write those ads, and how their writing careers are different than that of regular journalists. Jay Lauf, for whom I have immense respect, said this about the strategy of “native ads” – or what I prefer to call enhanced advertorial techniques:

“A lot of people worry about crossing editorial and advertising lines,
but I think it respects readers more. It’s saying, ‘You
know what you’re interested in.’ It’s more respectful of the reader that
way.”

Read this piece and see if you agree.

My own view, for what it’s worth, is that readers do not expect great magazines to be artfully eliding the distinction between editorial and advertorial with boosterish ad campaigns from oil companies. Usually, those advertorials are in very separate sections in magazines – “Sponsored By The Government Of Dubai” or something – but integrating them in almost exactly the same type and in exactly the same format as journalism is not that.

I can understand companies sponsoring real journalism in inventive, dynamic, interactive ways. Magazines need advertizing to survive. I also understand how banner ads are useless for many big companies. I also realize that keeping the Atlantic alive requires herculean efforts in this tough climate. But please, please, please remember that the most important thing you have at the Atlantic is your core integrity as one of the great American magazines. I see no evidence the editorial staff has compromised that in any way and regard their writers and editors as role-models as well as journalists and friends. But there comes a time when the business side of a magazine has to be reminded that a magazine can very gradually lose its integrity in incremental, well-meant steps that nonetheless lead down a hill you do not want to descend. I know they are principled and honorable people there; and I know they understand this. But please know that this stuff makes an Atlantic reader grieve.

Now Skeptical Inquirer, in a print-only article in their May / June 2015 edition, brings to my attention the blunderings of the venerable Science magazine.  David Gorski, MD, in “Science Sells Out: Advertising Traditional Chinese Medicine in Three Supplements,” discusses the myriad holes Science has dug for itself with the publishing of the first two supplements:

… the articles are formatted to appear not as ads but as regular scientific reports. … as not having “been peer-reviewed or assessed by the Editorial staff of the journal Science.”  Rather, “all manuscripts have been critically evaluated by an international editorial team consisitng of experts in traditional medicine research selected by the project editor…

Dr. Gorski continues with identification of the various logical fallacies involved in the justifications given for publishing such a supplement, the lack of evidence for virtually any of the proposed modalities, etc.  The editions were published in very last January and have attracted the malevolent attention of Orac @ ScienceBlogs.com, who rather gleefully skewers Science:

The introductory articles are painful to read, full of the obfuscations and justifications for the pseudoscience that makes up most of TCM, all wrapped up in calls for more tooth fairy science and completed with a bow of argumentum ad populum. Disappointingly, Margaret Chan, MD, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, begins this parade in an article entitled Supporting the integration and modernization of traditional medicine:

TM [traditional medicine] is often seen as more accessible, more affordable, and more acceptable to people and can therefore also represent a tool to help achieve universal health coverage. It is commonly used in large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For many millions of people, often living in rural areas within developing countries, herbal medicines, traditional treatments, and traditional practitioners are the main—and sometimes the only—source of health care. The affordability of most traditional medicines makes them all the more attractive at a time of soaring health care costs and widespread austerity.

Calling Dr. Chan. Calling Dr. Chan. The zombie corpse of Chairman Mao Zedong called. He wants his 1950s-era justification for promoting TCM and “integrating” it with “Western” medicine back, not to mention his “barefoot doctors.”

In a followup post, Orac suggests that the singular importance of evidence-based medicine may be on the ropes:

The scary thing is, the authors might actually be right. “Integrating” quackery with medicine does seem to be the future these days, and universities, the NCCIH, the WHO, Science, and the AAAS appear to be doing their very best to make that future a reality.

Back to Skeptical Inquirer, which published a companion to the Gorski piece: “WHO’s Strategy on Traditional and Complementary Medicine”, by Thomas P.C. Dorlo, Willem Betz, and Cees N.M. Renckens.  In this scathing analysis of World Health Organization’s management of these types of medicine, they suggest this portion of the organization has been captured by the Chinese government, which derives quite the benefit from the export of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM):

Curiously, the focus of the WHO TM Strategy is neither toward rigid proof of efficacy  of the mixed bag of therapies nor toward access to effective therapy but seems to be aimed at the financial and intellectual property (IP) aspects … For China, the Chinese TM therapies are a hugely important export product worth $3.14 billion in 2013.

And they go on to note that China appears to be pursuing the commercialization of a product which will not pass the usual medical high standards, and thus they are pursuing an alternative approach to inserting ineffective, dangerous therapies into the standard medical regimes.  (Dangerous mostly in the sense that it may delay the administration of effective treatment, although some traditional therapies are indeed directly dangerous.)

Perhaps I’m just old, but this seems an almost suicidal strategy, whether it’s occurring at The Atlantic and other such publications, or at the serious science magazines.  Readers read these publications for many reasons, but that, in my memory, doesn’t include camouflaged advertisements for products masquerading as serious articles.  Look: at base level, every honest article is analysis, the unbiased examination of an issue, a product, a public issue, SOMETHING.  It gives you what you hope are relevant facts, connects them together, looks for hidden connections, and delivers a conclusion where transparent reasoning is important.  Publications like Science, Nature, The Atlantic, and thousands of other publications literally are risking their reputations for reputable articles when advertising masquerading as articles is printed in such a way as to mislead readers.  When you get a rep for misleading readers, they’ll just walk away and find someone who still practices Old Fashioned Journalism.  The importance of understanding this distinction, between doing good journalism and just turning into a poorly paid corporate whore, seems paramount to me.

The WHO issue, on the other hand, is a matter of international politics, and encompasses the idea that if you have more votes,  you can ignore reality.

And both Skeptical Inquirer articles deserve a wider audience.  Hopefully SI will publish them online soon.

Today an old post from Mark Sumner @ The Daily Kos came across my virtual desk, decrying the ways of Wal-Mart.  Here’s what caught my attention:

But this isn’t just a Walmart story, it’s an American story. Not so long ago, American corporations accepted the idea that they had obligations to their stockholders, but also to their workers and the communities where they did business. They understood that profit was a tool, a fuel that powered the corporation to achieve its goals. But now profit is the goal. It’s been fetishized beyond all reason. Many people will even tell you that there’s a law requiring companies to generate as much profit as possible. There is no such law. There never was. And the only thing more insane than believing that such a harmful law might exist, is that many seem to think it’s a good idea.

I think we sometimes forget that capitalism is simply the economic system we happen to use (I shan’t say we chose it) as we came of age; it’s a reaction to mercantilism, which as a side effect tended to favor the status quo, thus freezing folks in their initial economic classes; not that movement was impossible, but it was difficult and, more importantly, the reason for freezing out new competitors rarely made sense to the losers.  Capitalism has at least a veneer of meritocracy to it, even though we now recognize that governmental favoritism, monopolistic behaviors, and other behaviors can impede that meritocratic impulse which we find so attractive about capitalism.

In the early days, the only international companies were the trading companies such as the Dutch East India Company; the overwhelming majority of companies were strictly local companies.  This resulted in the owners and the management having to live with the results of their decisions.  If you made a decision to treat your employees poorly, you heard about it: at church, at your office, and, if you were not a monopoly, at the clerk’s counter, as the customers decided to take their business elsewhere.  Communities did not exist to further the fortunes of companies, but to further the fortunes of the citizens, and they realized that betterment of the community resulted in the betterment of the citizens.

As railroads, telegraphs, and other earlier accoutrements of modern Western civilization began to appear, corporations began to lose this accountability factor; as the owners and management became disconnected from the community hosting the company, the era of the robber barons came into being.

These practices included exerting control over national resources, accruing high levels of government influence, paying extremely low wages, squashing competition by acquiring competitors in order to create monopolies and eventually raise prices, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices^[2] to unsuspecting investors in a manner which would eventually destroy the company for which the stock was issued and impoverish investors.^[

(source: Wikipedia)

So, in a way, today’s world is little different from 300 years ago, it’s simply that advancing technology has enabled those incapable of caring for others to … not care.  Perhaps the titular example is the Bhopal Disaster involving a leak of poisonous gas at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.  Union Carbide’s headquarters was half a world away.  Would this have happened if the CEO of Union Carbide had lived in town with the plant?  Of course not.  But one must also consider the conscious lying of tobacco company executives as a strong contender for the title.  (On the other hand, one must empathize with them while considering their alternatives.)

But a capitalist is not necessarily a robber baron.  Conscious capitalism is a website and a term for practicing a responsible form of capitalism:

Conscious Capitalism comes to life as it is applied to business. Conscious Capitalism has four pillars guiding and underlying a business that practices Conscious Capitalism.

Higher Purpose: Recognizing that every business has a purpose that includes, but is more than, making money. By focusing on its Higher Purpose, a business inspires, engages and energizes its stakeholders.

Stakeholder Orientation: Recognizing that the interdependent nature of life and the human foundations of business, a business needs to create value with and for its various stakeholders (customers, employees, vendors, investors, communities, etc.). Like the life forms in an ecosystem, healthy stakeholders lead to a healthy business system.

Conscious Leadership: Human social organizations are created and guided by leaders – people who see a path and inspire others to travel along the path. Conscious Leaders understand and embrace the Higher Purpose of business and focus on creating value for and harmonizing the interests of the business stakeholders. They recognize the integral role of culture and purposefully cultivate Conscious Culture.

Conscious Culture: This is the ethos – the values, principles, practices – underlying the social fabric of a business, which permeates the atmosphere of a business and connects the stakeholders to each other and to the purpose, people and processes that comprise the company.

The Higher Purpose section particularly applies here, because I have to think that running a business has to include more than just counting up your profits at the end of the  year.  If this is all you’re trying to do, then why exist?  You only go through life once (apologies to reincarnationists), and merely attempting to accumulate enough capital to attract a mate (or, worse, build a McMansion) is really a betrayal of life itself; here we are with this marvelous ability to think the oddest thoughts, to achieve, and all you want to do is make money?

But, annoyed rant aside, Conscious Capitalism is an attempt to provide that community pressure on those who must take the responsibility to prevent something from going wrong, whether it be disposal of fracking water causing earthquakes, just any pollution problem.  And, by doing so, it may also be considered an attempt to save capitalism from drowning in its own effluvia.  After all, capitalists must remember that capitalism was brought into existence for the betterment of the citizenry; the profit motive, rather than being primary, is for personal motivation, and as a way to measure how well companies do in competition with each other.  If the practices, side effects, and results of capitalism do not result in the net betterment of the citizenry, then the time may come to discard capitalism.

And I say that as an investor myself.

In the context of battlefield archaeology (previously covered here) and the definition of the Anthropocene (here), we now have a discussion of how the effects of battle shows up, and will show up in the future, in the geology of the work,  “Battle-scarred Earth: How war reshapes the planet“, (print: “Battle Scars”) (paywall) by Jan Zalasiewicz and Mat Zalasiewicz:

The earliest evidence of armed conflict dates back to around 13,000 BC and a mass grave in northern Sudan. Here 59 human skeletons were discovered, many bearing signs of violent death such as spear and arrowheads embedded in their bones.

The wars of the ancients give some guide to how long the marks of war might last. The old battlegrounds were picked over, as the dust and smoke settled, by vultures, rats and human scavengers. Much later, teams of archaeologists moved in, finding smashed human skeletons and the remains of weapons such as flint arrowheads. Could these objects last longer and become geology rather than archaeology?

A few might. The simple materials of the old warriors have good geological analogues. Indeed, some are the essence of geology. There is little that is more hard-wearing than flint: tough and chemically resistant, it is one of the ultimate survivor rocks. A wooden lance can carbonise over time to become a lance-shaped lump of coal. But not everything will last that long: iron weapons, for example, may not fossilise so easily, as iron rusts at the surface and corrodes once buried. …

Bombturbation [the explosive production of a distinctive mass of metres-deep craters and churned earth and rock] can continue even after the guns fall silent. Of the estimated 1.5 billion shells fired in the first world war, perhaps a quarter didn’t explode on impact. Thousands are found every year, and people are still killed by them. Most of this unexploded ordnance lies buried, some 20 metres down. If it stays buried, could it fossilise? This seems likely. Even if the steel eventually dissolves, and the explosive transforms to petroleum, a compressed carbon-impregnated impression will remain, like a crushed and flattened dinosaur skull in a sandstone slab.

Bombturbated mud also contains the bones of fallen soldiers. Of the million killed in the 10-month-long Battle of Verdun, only some 290,000 were ever found. The rest must lie somewhere within that bomb-churned stratum. These layers are akin to bone beds – concentrations of vertebrate fossils found in prehistoric rock. But there is one striking difference: in these human bone beds, the remains are virtually all of young men.

(NewScientist 28 March 2015)

A sobering thought for the humans who knew, or were related to, those humans, isn’t it?  Or even us.  But in 500 years, when future archaeologists are digging up those bones, will they feel the same way?  If hypothetical alien archaeologists were to dig them up, and speculate on why the young males of the herd were forced into the area and then massacred, will they feel any emotion over the uncomprehending misery experienced by those young soldiers?

Not odd enough?  How about this: at Mammoth Site, in Hot Springs, South Dakota, is a paleontological dig of the eponymous creature which we visited a couple of years ago.  Most interestingly, the docent stated that only males had been found in the bone bed, at least so far.  The theory went that the adult males were not part of the herd and wandered about.  At some point, they’d wander into this sinkhole, where the surface would give way beneath them.  They’d scrabble for footing, never find it, and eventually drown.  I tried to visualize that and was rather horrified.

But what if the female mammoths of the herd picked out those young males of which they didn’t approve – perhaps for not being docile enough – and pushed them into the sinkhole, as an object lesson to the other males?  Now how should we feel?

If you drive an electric car, you may also be lowering the temperature of the city in which you drive:

But as well as providing potentially carbon-free driving, electric cars emit almost 20 per cent less heat than conventional cars. This could lower city temperatures, meaning use of air conditioning would also drop, says a team led by Canbing Li from Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Using summer 2012 in the Chinese capital of Beijing as an example, the team estimates that replacing conventional cars with electric ones would reduce the heat by nearly 1 °C. That in turn would result in a reduction in air conditioning use, leading to a drop of 10,686 tonnes per day in carbon dioxide emissions (Scientific Reports, doi.org/23g).

(NewScientist 28 March 2015 – paywall)

Democratic icon Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize winner in Economics) recently gave his view of the upcoming Presidential election:

In any case, there has never been a time in American history when the alleged personal traits of candidates mattered less. As we head into 2016, each party is quite unified on major policy issues — and these unified positions are very far from each other. The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.

He goes on to enumerate certain issues and how the Democratic and Republican nominees will pledge to handle the issue – regardless of the name of the nominee.  If you are a Democrat, you will handle it this way; if you are a Republican, you will handle it that way.  This reasoning can be extended to support the idea of power politics, which is basically “student-body left”, blasting all opposition out of the way without regard, without discussion (with the opposition or within your own organization).

xaxnar @ The Daily Kos explicates:

We are a divided nation because there is a real battle for what kind of country this is going to be – and defeat is not an option. Sitting this one out, or holding out for ideological purity is not an option either. Republicans may be batshit insane, and wrong on every issue – but they keep winning because they all point their guns in the same direction. Democratic disunity (See Pierce here) and a Quixotic fixation on candidates who are not running or can’t possibly win is a luxury that advances no agenda.

Over on the other side, Iowa GOP State Central Committee member David Chung has some similar thoughts:

I hear it every election year from friends and family, “I look at the issues and candidates and always vote for the best person regardless of party.” Sometimes, it is said matter-of-factly, sometimes it is said condescendingly but it is always said sincerely.

The implication is that only the naive or uninformed vote straight ticket. Nothing could be further from the truth. In nearly every election, I have had the opportunity to talk to my party’s candidate for every office from county supervisor to president. Typically I know where they stand on all of the issues I care about.

I hear this from both liberals and conservatives. Many of my conservative friends say that the lesser of two evils is still evil. I am sometimes asked whether I support principle over party or party over principle.

I am sure that I will be accused by some of being an unprincipled party shill. But let me state it as clearly as I possibly can:

Politics is a team sport, and it is precisely because I support principles over party, that I vote a straight Republican ticket every time.

So on the surface, both sides seem to make good arguments for closing your eyes, putting your shoulder to the wheel, and pushing in rhythm to the drummer at the prow of the ship.  But with a little work I can come up with some questions that may throw some sand in the gears.

1. Is that really all there is to politics, the assemblage of political positions?  Whatever happened to competency, the knowledge of how to manage a bureaucracy, or even your own office staff?  The sport of watching the latest scandal coming out of Washington, or for that matter the local political hellhole, may be quite entertaining – I’ll admit to it! – but the dark side of these scandals is opportunities lost.  If some boob is hired by your ideological god and fouls up, then what good was that ideology you were praising?  Looking at the competencies of our candidates may be nearly as important as the ideologies.
2. Power politics reduces the seats up for grabs to simple prizes.  Look, if all you have to do is win the nomination and then be assured of your seat, then any power-mongering sociopath, and I mean that with nary a grin on my face, will be clambering up the pile to get that nomination, and all he has to do is convince the powers-that-be that he will lick their fingers as necessary.  Winning the nomination may or may not be a chore, but most sociopaths can fake being human long enough to get that nomination – ask a psychologist if you doubt it.
3. Power politics reduces the public debate necessary to our nation’s maturity.  True, we have debates today, but how often are those public debates truly useful?  As the political parties become more hierarchically structured, with less dissent tolerated, we also have a greater chance of taking positions that are incorrect because that’s the word coming down from on high.  We’re seeing this right now with such topics as climate change, Iran, ObamaCare, and just about any judicial nominee coming down the pike of either party.  On the left there are fewer examples, as the Democrats & assorted leftists tend to be a more raucous crowd, but single payer systems / socialized health care sometimes pop up as something sacred.  Both sides seem to be inclined to inflate the military budget at any opportunity, so I tend to see that as another example we could do without.  So we can say positions predicated on ideology, rather than reality, come to the fore.  How can we tell?  Conspiracy theories are a sure sign — “a few thousand climate change scientists are conspiring to deprive us of our free market rights!”  That’s a good sign.
4. Power politics and the manner in which we select planks is a toxic combination.  The folks who take the time to go to caucuses, contribute to political discussions, and in general get involved also tend to be the those most zealous partisans, and those with the more extreme positions.  It’s really a matter of human nature colliding with democracy; those of us who’d rather go bowling on Friday night tend to be more moderate and focused on the here and now, while the zealots become fixated on their vision and become convinced of the holiness of their position.  For an example, here is David Chung again:
   

   I am a Republican, I vote a straight Republican ticket—because I believe that it is the best chance in today’s system to effect the changes that I believe are crucial to our nation.

The wars of power politics may have already started as the Democrats seem to be making some real progress against an icon of the Republicans – Rush Limbaugh has been losing audience of late as radio stations drop his show due to advertiser pressure brought about by boycotts.  I have no use for Rush, he seems to be a beautiful voice married to a lust for money and power; but this does look like a metaphorical assassination to me.

So what’s to be done?  There’s a doozy.  In fact, the best thing to do make may be to sit back and wait for the blood bath – metaphorical, of course – to happen.  I expect that at some point the Republican ship will run into the rocks of reality and be forced to reform some of its positions.  I hope it’s nothing violent; instead, the realization that the Party is shrinking, as we may be seeing here, may be enough to cause the party to reform itself, throwing the more fringe types out on their ears.  If we’re unlucky, we may have to suffer through a heatwave that kills a significant number of us.

But don’t lose hope, not all conservatives are “batshit insane” (apologies to Xaxnar, above).  As noted here, the conservative PM of Australia, Tony Abbot, has apparently about-faced on his climate change denial – possibly due to the multiple natural disasters that have rained down on his country over the last few years.

[EDIT:1/2/2017 fixed typo]

Ever wonder why flightless birds evolved?  I doubt this applies to ostriches, given they exist on Africa, but Hawaii once hosted some flightless birds, and ARCHAEOLOGY’s Andrew Lawler covers the work of David Burney and Lida Pigott Burney on paleoecology:

The Burneys’ work suggests that, in contrast to the weedy fields where sugarcane was long cultivated, the area around the sinkhole was wooded, dominated by a species of small palm. The trade winds blew birds to the island chain, and though these ancient Hawaiian birds had no predators, being blown back to sea meant certain death. Wings, therefore, constituted a risk for larger birds, and thus flightless species arose. More than 50 species of finches hopped through the forests, each adapted to a tiny ecological niche. Two sorts of small birds called rails crept along the ground looking for the eggs of other species to snag. The only mammals on the island before humans arrived were small bats. Avians filled the ecological niches that elsewhere were occupied by grazing animals such as wild sheep and cattle, which could not survive the long journey across the ocean. “The mallard duck gets here and suddenly grows 10 times as large, stops flying, develops a beak like a tortoise, and goes out and eats the vegetation,” Burney says, gesturing up through the hole. “It’s a laboratory of evolution.”

The island’s most fearsome predator was a type of long-legged owl that caught what flying birds there were in mid-air during the day—there were no nocturnal rodents to eat—and pierced their skulls with pincer claws. “You can tell by the holes in the skulls of the victims,” says Burney.

My old friend Ward Rubrecht responds to an article by Matt Walsh (with a h/t to Anthony Strafaccia) on The Blaze’s Contribution Channel concerning pay for no-skill work such as burger flipping.  First, Matt:

Dear fast food workers,

It’s come to my attention that many of you, supposedly in 230 cities across the country, are walking out of your jobs today and protesting for $15 an hour. You earnestly believe — indeed, you’ve been led to this conclusion by pandering politicians and liberal pundits who possess neither the slightest grasp of the basic rules of economics nor even the faintest hint of integrity — that your entry level gig pushing buttons on a cash register at Taco Bell ought to earn you double the current federal minimum wage. …

You think the jobs I had when I was 16 should have provided me with the comfortable living I just established in my late 20′s? Frankly, I think you’re delusional.

To understand how delusional, consider that a $15 an hour full time salary would put you in the same ball park as biologists, auto mechanics, biochemists,  teachers, geologists, roofers, and bank tellers.

You’d be making more than some police officers.

You’d easily out earn many firefighters.

He continues on in a vein related to the viewpoint of the fast food worker.  I share Matt’s belief that no-skill workers should not necessarily be able to make a comfortable living, but I’ll approach it from a societal viewpoint.  I think society does not benefit from making it possible to have a comfortable living working a zero-skill job.  Our society has always been predicated on the skills and ambitions of the individual being improved so that they can become wealthier; the flip side is that society then gets the benefits of those skills.  The motivations are several, but most common is an inability to make a living at that job, and thus the scrabble of acquiring skills, whether it be a college education or a trade school.

But make it easy to make a living at entry level jobs may bring about an even greater social inequity – there will be those who will willingly stay in these entry level jobs, and progress no further, flipping burgers from 16 to 76, and not doing any better until their political superiors determine they should do better, and then those who have the ambition to go out and improve themselves – who will be able to earn more without begging for it from the political class, improve themselves further, or do whatever it is they want to do.

Additionally, if the entry level jobs pay is improved, now we’ll have a class of people who will permanently occupy these jobs, to the detriment of the teenagers seeking jobs for the first time.  The teenagers need some way to get their employment underway, and if there’s a class of folks occupying that tier of jobs ordinarily available to them, and a political understanding that all jobs should result in a comfortable living, then I don’t see any hope for them to scratch a living unless it’s under the table.

Ward offers the observation that pay has not kept up with need, the need being the cost of education (but not quite the same as saying you should be able to make a living).  I think this is looking at the wrong end of things; why is the cost of education so high?  Wikipedia covers this topic, including an out of date graph and this section:

Another proposed cause of increased tuition is U.S. Congress’ occasional raising of the ‘loan limits’ of student loans, in which the increased availability of students to take out deeper loans sends a message to colleges and universities that students can ‘afford more,’ and then, in response, institutions of higher education raise tuition to match, leaving the student back where he began, but deeper in debt. Therefore, if the students are able to afford a much higher amount than the free market would otherwise support for students without the ability to take out a loan, then the tuition is ‘bid up’ to the new, higher, level that the student can now afford with loan subsidies.^[15] One rebuttal to that theory is the fact that even in years when loan limits have not risen, tuition has still continued to climb.^[16][17] Keeping tuition increases at the rate of inflation would require the state kick in $128 million more tax dollars between now and 2015.^[18] Public college tuition has jumped 33 percent nationwide since 2000.^[19] College students are facing a roughly $20 billion increase in the cost of their federal loans.^[20]

I have a related, simple (and no doubt simplistic) view – it’s all simple economics.  The seats available are the goods to be bought; the dollars students can bring to bear is the money.  It’s well known that printing more money results in inflation, which is the increase in price of the goods.  In the college scenario, the Federal aid is the equivalent of printing money, as now the students can bring more money to bear on buying access to education.  The institutes notice that the market will bear a price increase, and so boost prices; after all, alumni and governments are currently dicey sources of revenue, and those hard science majors need expensive gear.

Who’s screwed?  Anyone who can’t get a grant or a loan.  Which means buying access means dancing to the tune of the grant and loan providers; the alternative is, what?  I’m not sure about the cost of trade schools these days …

The logical course, then, is to turn off the firehose: a harsh choice if you’re currently dependent.  My suspicion is that prices would start dropping after two – four years of pathetic begging from institutions, warnings of doom and gloom, and that sort of rot.  If government wants to subsidize education, then return to funding the institutions directly.

But right now it’s awfully harsh to be a student, regardless of loans or no loans.

I do not advocate free education, but crippling students and their families for a lifetime is obviously a poor choice.  So keep in mind what Stanford recently did:

Zero Parent Contribution for Parents with Income Below $65,000

Hillary has already had to absorb a couple of shots for apparent mismanagement during her tenure as Secretary of State; now it’s Jeb Bush’s turn, although he’s not yet declared himself a candidate.  The International Business Times reports that certain corporate donors to his gubernatorial campaign received business from the state pension:

An International Business Times analysis of Florida government documents and a list of George W. Bush’s bundlers compiled by Public Citizen found that 11 firms that received new Florida pension investments under Jeb Bush were Pioneers. IBTimes also analyzed data from the Florida Division of Elections and Political Moneyline to determine how much money executives from those firms donated directly to Jeb Bush’s campaigns, George W. Bush’s campaigns, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Florida between 1998 and 2006.

The article contains information concerning the firms and the amounts of money donated. (h/t ericlewis0 @ The Daily Kos)

IBTimes also runs a related story:

As Jeb Bush oversaw the State Board of Administration (SBA) that runs Florida’s massive public pension system, the state shifted billions of dollars into higher-risk, higher-fee alternative investments, benefiting the same sector of the investment industry he would work in upon leaving office. Many of those state deals delivered returns that fell short of projections. Roughly 20 percent of that system’s 53 private investment deals during Bush’s governorship went to companies that employed his brother’s Pioneers. Those financial firms, in turn, delivered more than $5 million of campaign cash to George W. Bush, the Republican National Committee and Jeb Bush’s Republican Party of Florida….

“If not an actual conflict of interest, these examples would provide fodder for apparent conflicts of interest,” said Common Cause Florida’s Peter Butzin. “Those folks who give … expect something in return. And if that something in return is not blatantly sending business their way or resulting in a particular vote, it most certainly is at least providing an opportunity for access, to get the foot in the door, so that they can make the case with that official.”

The balance makes for an interesting peek into the world of campaign finance and the importance of family networking.  Turns out a cousin of the Bushes ran an important division of Goldman Sachs at one time; now he heads up Neuberger Berman:

one of the largest private, independent, employee-controlled investment management firms.

According to Wikipedia.  Prison Planet also runs a story on both Jeb and Hillary.

The fighting, and political maneuvering, involving Yemen continues as CNN reports on the situation in Aden, Yemen’s sea port city currently contested by government forces and their allies, the Saudis, and the rebel Houthis:

Saudi Arabia began airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen three weeks ago Thursday. But Aden remains a city not fully in the hands either of Houthi rebels or forces loyal to the ousted government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

Everyone we spoke to Thursday told us the same thing: Living in Aden these days is terrifying.

We visited a hospital where doctors have given up trying to count the dead and the dying who are brought in. Officials said they believe the toll of the dead runs into the hundreds.

Everywhere, we felt, saw, heard and smelled the desperation.

AL Monitor publishes Bruce Reidel’s report on the details of Pakistan’s refusal to assist their allies, the Saudis.  Mr Reidel is is director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, which Wikpedia classifies as a centrist think tank:

After five days of debate, not one speaker apparently supported sending ground troops. While many praised Saudi Arabia as a friend of Pakistan, almost all called for a political solution and diplomacy to end the crisis. Some even blamed Riyadh for starting the war. Every political party opposed sending troops. The consensus was to stay neutral while reaffirming friendship with the kingdom.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Pakistan during the debate. He met with both Prime Minister Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif. The army has argued that it is stretched too thin with a counterterrorism campaign against the Pakistani Taliban and tensions with India to send troops to Yemen. Sharif said April 13 that he urged Zarif to rein in the Houthis and support a political solution.

It may be true that Pakistan lacks resources to expend; they have certainly been rocked by Taliban attacks, and are wont to worry about the Indians.  But I have to wonder if the Pakistani politicians are watching Iran’s deal with the global powers and are practicing circumspection against the possibility that an Iran free of sanctions could make for a raucous neighbor.  Mr. Reidel expands on this possibility:

The episode also raises concerns about Iran’s clout in the region. Much of the debate in parliament had been about avoiding further sectarian violence in Pakistan (which is 20% Shiite), which intervention in the war in Yemen would stoke (perhaps with Iranian help). Zarif had a big stick behind his back. Without ever mentioning the threat of Iranian meddling in Pakistan’s already fragile domestic stability, Zarif could remind his hosts they don’t want more trouble at home.

[UPDATE: Added missing title 5/2/15)

Disturbed by your medical care?  Try out Russia’s, courtesy The Moscow Times:

According to the State Statistics Service, from 2005 to 2013 the number of health facilities in rural areas fell by 75 percent, from 8,249 to 2,085. That number includes a 95 percent drop in the number of district hospitals, from 2,631 to only 124, and a 65 percent decline in the number of local health clinics, from 7,404 to 2,561. …

But it gets worse.

The Audit Chamber reports that some regions even lack mobile medical teams to provide care in remote areas. When local train service was canceled to many smaller towns in the winter of 2013-14, residents of tiny Novosokolniki, Nevel and Opochka in the southern Pskov region literally lay down on the railroad tracks to force passing trains to stop and carry them to cities with hospitals.

But it gets even worse.

In fact, the “optimization” process has affected not only “unprofitable” medical facilities, but even those with the latest equipment and the most highly qualified personnel. Moscow Cancer Hospital No. 62, one of the best of its kind in Russia, recently had to shutter an entire department even though patients were already waiting in line for weeks to receive treatment.

It’s a depressing report, and it’s certainly not an invitation to move to Russia.  The real question is whether a country as large as Russia can provide an adequate health care system, or if it’s just sloppy carelessness – or if the values of the culture work against a good system.

(h/t WorldPress.org)

Following his initial announcement, the New York Times suggests his chances are low due to competing with fellow Floridian Jeb Bush for the same votes and operatives:

Mr. Bush’s pre-emptive bid to build elite support has denied Mr. Rubio the opportunity to consolidate the center-right wing of the party. Perhaps this wouldn’t be a big problem if Mr. Rubio were a favorite of the conservatives skeptical of Mr. Bush’s candidacy, but the field is full of candidates who are equally good or better fits for many conservative voters.

Scott Walker, who took on unions and won in Wisconsin, is a conservative hero. Ted Cruz is a favorite of the Tea Party. Mike Huckabee is a favorite of evangelical Christians. Then there is a long list of other conservative candidates — like Ben Carson, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal — who might compete for votes.

Harry Enten at the venerable FiveThirtyEight blog disagrees, despite admitting Rubio’s starting off with some low numbers:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign, which officially kicks off Monday, has so far attracted paltry support from Republican voters, according to polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as nationally. He’s down near Chris Christie! Yet, when we talk about him in the FiveThirtyEight office, we usually put Rubio in the top tier, in front of everyone except Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the two candidates at the top of the polls.

Why? Rubio is both electable and conservative, and in optimal proportions. He’s in a position to satisfy the GOP establishment, tea party-aligned voters and social conservatives. In fact, Rubio’s argument for the GOP nomination looks a lot like Walker’s, and Rubio is more of a direct threat to the Wisconsin governor than he is to fellow Floridian Bush.

And he has this lovely chart:

I think the addition of a few historical figures really helps to understand where the current batch lives.

Politico reports that he is most upset about Clinton’s support for the Iraq War:

Chafee has been a prominent critic of the war in Iraq and was the only Republican senator to vote against authorizing it. He describes the war as his primary motivation for challenging Hillary Clinton, telling POLITICO last week, “Anybody who voted for the Iraq war should not be president and certainly anybody who voted for the Iraq war should not lead the Democratic Party into an election.”

He has also criticized Clinton for being too close to Wall Street, but has said he agrees with her on many domestic issues.

Adam Toobin at HuffPo burnishes Lincoln’s liberal credentials:

Today, he is not a Republican, nor is he entirely focused on the Iraq War. He was a national leader on marriage equality in the U.S. Senate, anticipating both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s “evolutions” on the issue, and he pushed Democrats and Republicans in Rhode Island to successfully end the state’s discriminatory marriage practice in 2013.

Toobin likes him:

… the vast majority of us can agree that the presidential election in 2016 is one of the most vital in the nation’s history. Our domestic difficulties are matched only by our international challenges. Lincoln Chafee has a record of making the right decision at the hardest times. We see this in his record and his values. And with an ever-more extreme Republican field headed by the likes of Jeb, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, only the Democrats are in a place to choose a president, not a partisan.

A Realistic Record

After winning his first statewide race for US Senate in 2000 as a Republican, Lincoln Chafee voted against the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, opposed the Medicare Part D expansion and encouraged the reinstatement of the Clinton-era tax rate on the nation’s highest earners in 2006. He was one of the few politicians in Washington who predicted how these huge cuts and added entitlements would bloat the deficit. All politicians stand to gain from lower taxes, but Chafee was unwilling to commit future generations to paying for Bush’s political patronage. Of course, these policies were fundamentally wrong for the country, but it’s essential to know that whoever our president is, they will not sign away tax cuts or entitlement expansions, because it is easier or more politically convenient than vetoing and taking a stand.

Ted Nesi at Chafee’s home state CBS affiliate ran an entry on him of interest:

Lincoln Chafee is not going to be the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, even if for some reason Hillary Clinton isn’t, either. But on paper his résumé is a perfectly respectable one for a presidential aspirant: a former U.S. senator who spoke out on world affairs, a former governor of a blue state, a former Republican who can demonstrate the zeal of the convert for his new party. (The fact that he couldn’t win a second full term as senator or governor, of course, is an issue.) Chafee the candidate will probably get invited to participate in debates against Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and whoever else makes the race – garnering him plenty of publicity and free TV time to expound on his worldview. Remember Mike Gravel stealing the show in 2007? Why couldn’t Chafee play that role this time? It will raise his profile once the race is over, too.

I would definitely be interested in hearing more from him; he seems to be more willing to think ahead rather than just react.

The Junior Senator from Florida has entered himself into the sweepstakes:

The lives of Marco’s parents were forever changed in 1956 when they came to America from Cuba. Early on, Mario and Oria Rubio struggled being in the United States and wondered whether they had made the right decision. But in the decades that followed, America proved to be that shining city on the hill as they worked their way into the middle class and were able to provide opportunities for their children that had previously been out of reach.

Ballotpedia provides the basics, including my favorite map of position:

His only quiz surprises is that he favors stricter limits on political campaign funds, and opposes privatizing Social Security.  He graduated from Miami School of Law cum laude, so he has a basic understanding of law, but his government experience is 5 years service in the State House, and Senator from Florida since 2011; at age 43, it’s a little difficult seeing him having enough experience to run a nation, although Barack Obama had a similar amount of experience at his election.  On many positions I do not agree with him, so I doubt I’d vote for him; I have not heard him speak and so haven’t actually evaluated him for being a lunatic Republican or a reasonable Republican.

The New York Times gives a summation of his prospects:

Running neither as hotly conservative as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas nor as coolly establishment as Mr. Bush, Mr. Rubio could be the right contender to unite the unruly factions of his party. An often inspiring speaker, he starts with high favorability ratings in polls and performs well on the stump. He would look for a breakout performance in the debates, perhaps on foreign policy, a strong suit.

The National Review likes him:

But he has gone above and beyond that, spending the last couple of years churning out a number of innovative, conservative policy proposals on taxes, higher education, health care, and entitlements. Rubio enters the field with a comprehensive plan for individual and corporate tax reform, which he produced alongside Senator Mike Lee of Utah. The plan is not perfect, but it is an excellent starting point for how conservatives should be thinking about tax policy: It reduces distortions in the tax code, cuts rates for almost all Americans and businesses, encourages corporate investment, and provides badly needed tax relief to middle-class families.

Slate doesn’t give him much of a chance: