by Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern Homelessness is a housing problem Somewhat of a writeup on homelessness using a review and the author’s introduction to the economic problem. Amazon published review of the book, “Homelessness Is a Housing Problem.” Authors Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many...
Read More »Retail Shoplifting
I believe I have seen one boy walk out of a Frys with something in his arms. He did not pass through the cashier line but waited for the gates to open to the store and walked through the opposite way. Did the need whatever he had? I don’t know. The only thing this false narrative does is change the priorities from working on real issues to false issues. The author is correct. Stores should have more staff on hand to help customers, stock...
Read More »Manafort Returns and Walks the Floor of the Republican National Convention
If you have not been watching, Manafort returns to Trump’s side. Forty-seven months in prison was too short for Manafort. And Trump reveals his ways by having him there. Convicted criminals’ side by side. And Democrats are in disarray over Biden or . . . “July 18, 2024,” Walking the floor of the Republican National Convention by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Letters from and American Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the...
Read More »Direct-to-consumer MRIs and the democratization of health care information
Several years ago, I got my genome sequenced and obtained my variant call files, the tabulation of all differences between my gene sequences and the annotated human genome. Although my primary care physician was aware, I didn’t require his intermediation to obtain or interpret my genomics data. How I might react to adverse information was up to me. I’ve referred to my variant spreadsheet many times since then, whenever I’ve read about a new variant...
Read More »The New Math Textbook (Oklahoma)
The following was a comment posted at Crooks and Liars. One respondent suggested that question #5 was a trick question noting that God and not Moses did the deed. AJ Jacobs Hallelujah! Thank you to my creative friends for all these great Biblical math problems. They’ll really help the Oklahoma school superintendent’s goal of inserting biblical content into math and science! I’ve collected a multitude of the problems into one post for ease of...
Read More »The Courts, the actual subject that the campaign and election should be about.
There is a lot going on with SCOTUS this year. The death of Chevron diverts decision making from agencies which have an expertise in particular situations to the courts who lack the technical expertise. So now we have Thomas looking back in his crystal ball to see what they were doing in the 18th Century. Roberts believes the justices know more than the scientists and engineers know. This was done in Chevron which agency experts criticized. And...
Read More »Hey, this is Not Short. A Ten minute Read. The History of Originalism. Dahlia Lithwick
One of my favs for legal stuff. Supreme Court rulings on guns, abortion, Constitution: How originalism ate the law. (slate.com) by Dahlia Lithwick SLATE America is being led astray by a small handful of folks who are drunk-driving on originalism—and not in a funny Marx Brothers, spin-around-in-circles-and-all-fall-down sort of way. No, it’s in a children-murdered-in-their-classrooms, women-hemorrhaging-in-parking-lots,...
Read More »Supreme Court altered the way our federal government functions
Elena Kagan Is Horrified by What the Supreme Court Just Did. You Should Be Too. by Mark Stern SLATE Jurisprudence This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. Alongside Amicus, we kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The Supreme Court fundamentally altered the way that our federal government functions on Friday, transferring an almost...
Read More »The Robert’s Supreme Court flips Chevron
What Chief Justice Roberts is saying is the justices know more than the scientists and engineers know. This was done in a decision which the agency experts immediately criticized. The issue being potentially undermining decisions by scientists and the very same agency experts. The 6-3 and 6-2 decisions brought by fishing operators in New Jersey and Rhode Island challenged a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule. The court’s ruling...
Read More »Recent Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Decisions
Recent end-of-session SCOTUS Decisions. In no particular order. Still, some are left to be decided. SCOTUS Decisions by Amy Howe SCOTUS Blog (except where cited from elsewhere) Are there no Union workhouses? The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor? Compliments to Scrooge . . . Grants Pass v. Johnson was decided in favor of Grants Pass. Besides several trips to jail and fines, there does not appear to be an alternative other...
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