The Angry Bear

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is everywhere—salad dressings, catsup, carbonated beverages. Fructose is sweeter, per unit mass, than cane sugar (sucrose), and apparently keeps better, so is a favored sweetener by the food industry. Unlike glucose, fructose in converted to free fatty acid in the liver and thus can contribute to hyperlipidemia, diabetes and heart disease.I’ve avoided high fructose corn syrup mostly because ever since I stopped eating...

R. J. Sigmund September 29, 2024 The major Covid demographic metrics we track continued to trend lower this past week, but we have a new recombinant mutant out there that is multiplying quite rapidly and is forecast to become the dominant strain, probably just in time for the annual winter holidays infection wave. Among the CDC’s “early indicators” “test positivity”, or the percentage of tests for Covid that were positive, fell to 11.6%...

by Lloyd Alter Carbon Upfront Scope 4 emissions help me justify my flight to New Zealand and compensate for its carbon footprint. I apologize for my posts not showing up at the usual times; I got back from Australia and New Zealand with a crushing jet lag that I still haven’t recovered from, with a cold thrown in as well. I hope to be back to my usual programming shortly. Everyone is talking about “Scope 4” and “avoided emissions” these...

Partisan Divide? Per the poll discussed below, only 48 percent of Trump supporters got raises while 72 percent of Biden supporters got raises.  27 percent of Trump supporters had changed jobs while 43 percent of Biden supporters had changed. Data and Reporting Again today Paul Krugman said “the average worker’s purchasing power is higher than it was five years ago.”  Dean Baker has also made the same observation, saying “workers in the...

 – by New Deal democrat Especially in view of the relative weakness in the jobs report for the past few months, my focus continues to be on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether there is further decline towards a recession.  For this month at least, the verdict was clear: both the Establishment and Household Surveys pointed to “soft landing.” Below is my in depth synopsis....

I was married by the time I started graduate school. I suspect that being in a committed relationship, and in particular with someone who was also a grad student, kept me centered during the stressful times. Perhaps these were different times, but a recent study shows that today’s PhD students are struggling with mental health issues: “The researchers compared the rate at which PhD students, people with master’s degrees and a sample of the...

Interesting read as written by Attorney Joyce Vance. by Joyce Vance Civil Discourse On Wednesday, Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a redacted version of Jack Smith’s immunity motion. Now we have a clear view of what Smith believes is still on the table after the Supreme Court’s decision. The short version: just about everything. Smith acknowledges that the Court took Trump’s interactions with DOJ officials out of the case, but he argues that...

Running on Empty tonight. VA sent me a letter asking for all the information I believe was already sent to them. Some I have found rather quickly by exploring U of M records. Platelet counts for certain periods when they just almost disappeared. I need to talk to them tomorrow and see what the issue is or was. I have been in some of the little towns near Switzerland Rietheim-Weilheim, Germany comes to mind. Nice read . . . enjoy. Villages...

– by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims will be up against some very challenging comparisons for the next 6 months or so, due to some unresolved post-COVID seasonality. Which means that the headline numbers this week, which look very benign at the surface, are not quite so good as they have been for the past year. For the week, initial claims rose 6,000 to 225,000. The four week moving average declined -750 to 224,250. Continuing claims,...

Somewhere, there is a correlation between the two . . . The Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico dockworker strikes are over. The strike by tens of thousands of dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts has been called off, after the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, representing ocean carriers and port operators, reached a tentative agreement on wages. The two sides also agreed to extend the existing contract...