The Angry Bear

Debra A. Pinals The Pew Charitable Trusts It has been a while since I talked about prisons. I have been in each level, up to a level 4 as a visitor. Spend hours talking to a prisoner. Eight hours out and 16 locked down at that level. They remain in their seats and you go to the canteen machines to buy the candy. It is not pretty and it never was to be a solution for their being there. The author touches upon those with mental illness who most...

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog For the last 8 months, initial and continuing claims have been remarkably consistent. Initial claims have varied between 194,000 and 228,000, and continuing claims have with the exception of three weeks right at the new year varied between 1.787 million and 1.829 million. That rangebound trend continued this week as initial claims were unchanged at 212,000, and the four week average was also unchanged...

Atlanta USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Centers crashes on launch by Steve Hutkins Save the Post Office This is a long post. It is the only way Steve can get it across the issues created by Louis Dejoy’s incompetence. Look out 2024 Presidential Election, we will have a battle on our hands. Think of SCOTUS. With the botched-up implementation of the new USPS Processing and Distribution Centers going on the way they are, we will...

SWI swissinfo.ch Switzerland exceeded its voluntary gas savings target this winter. Compared to average consumption between 2017 and 2022, the target was to reduce gas consumption by 15%. However, according to provisional government figures, it was 23% less. ______________________________________________ Keystone-SDA The target was 3,997 gigawatt hours (GWh) of gas savings, regardless of the weather, over the winter half-year, i.e. from...

‘Tears me up’ Wesley Stenzel Kareem Abdul-Jabbar It was either talk about the dumb-ass state of Arizona where I now live. Or Kareem talking about why Dwayne he is not endorsing Joe Biden again. SUMMARY: Dwayne Johnson endorsed Joe Biden during his 2020 election campaign — but now he says he regrets that decision, and won’t be making political endorsements again anytime soon. The Black Adam star expressed remorse about his political...

BBC and unknown author msn.com/BBC This kind of kool and interesting. An ancient lone wych elm whose remote Highland location has protected it from Dutch elm disease has been joined by dozens of seedlings for the first time in hundreds of years. The elm – dubbed the Last Ent of Glen Affric – was Scotland’s Tree of the Year in 2019. Ents are mythological tree creatures from fantasy writer JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. They were the...

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog Industrial production, one of the premier series the NBER has historically used to declare recessions vs. expansions, has faded in importance since China was admitted to regular trading status in 1999. As you can see in the first graph below, both total and manufacturing production peaked in 2007. Further, manufacturing has continued to fade, as its post-pandemic peak has not equaled its 2010’s peak...

by Clare Pastore The Conversation A small city in Oregon with one homeless shelter is enforcing a local anti-camping law. Enforcing it against people sleeping in public using a blanket or any other rudimentary protection against the weather. Enforcing it even if there was nowhere else to go. By taking up City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, SCOTUS will decide whether it is unconstitutional to punish homeless people for doing in public the things...

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog There was a big decline in housing starts last month, and a smaller but significant decline in permits. Whether that signifies a change in trend or just noise is the issue. I lean towards the latter. To wit, in reaction to both January and Februarys’ housing construction report I wrote, “To signify a likely recession, units under construction would have to decline at least -10%, and needless to say,...

Most students who attend medical school in the US do so with student loans. Yes, some have military scholarships and some have wealthy parents, but most don’t. I’m guessing that most students reckon they’ll easily pay off the loans with the income that an MD or DO degree commands, and so far, they’ll be right.But the immensity of these loans has negative externalities. Here are two:1. It affects the residency choices of graduates. Students with large...