How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled

In a long piece, Paul Krugman summarizes the play-by-play of how the austerity arguments have all fallen apart.  It's sad that they provided political cover for those who seek to dismantle our social safety nets so they could hold on to their excessive wealth.  This era can't come to a close quickly enough if we want to save middle-class America.

Intestinal Bacterium Curbs Obesity

Wouldn't it be nice if just injesting a pill of bacteria could reduce gut inflammation and improve our health?

Physical Strength and Political motivations

In a study that makes some evolutionary sense, it's been shown that males with greater upper-body strength tend to hold political views that oppose the redistribution of wealth.  In other words, "I'm big and strong and I'm going to keep what's mine!"

Bottom Line

A comparison of the cost-overrun plagued Finnish nuclear plant and Germany's solar effort shows that even expensive nuclear power is cheaper than solar.

Abenomics is Working

Japan shows us the way back to the light. .

Japan's economic reform may seem remote from everyday concerns in the United States, but it has important lessons for us. Japan fell into the trap of prolonged high unemployment and zero interest rates long before the United States did. It's in many ways fitting that they now seem to be leading the path forward to recovery. 

Top Ten Republican Myths on Libya

Mideast expert, Juan Cole does a nice take-down of the Republican talking points about Benghazi.  Not only are they wrong, their blathering about it is harming US security and diplomacy.

The Moral Equivalent of Space Aliens

With the double shock of the tsunami and being overtaken by China, Japan has found it's space alien invasion equivalent. In response, it is pursuing aggressive financial stimulation.  For more details and insights, see the Huffington/Abe interview.  Once again, Krugman's vindication is about to be played out by Japan.

If only the U.S. economy could get a similar shock.

Another Hit against Abstinence-only Sex Education

Elizabeth Smart talks about how her abstinence-only sex education made her a more compliant victim.  Once she was raped, she believed that she was "damaged goods" and that no one in the outside world would ever want her.

Immigration and Taxpayers

Immigration reform would add millions of taxpayers to the rolls.  How can that be a bad thing?

Chutzpah Caucus

Paul Krugman debunks the conventional wisdom that stimulus programs are dangerous because they create government spending that doesn't end.  The real fiscal fire-bombers have been the Republicans who have historically expanded the deficit when times have been good.

The funny thing is that right now these same hard-line conservatives declare that we must not run deficits in times of economic crisis. Why? Because, they say, politicians won't do the right thing and pay down the debt in good times. And who are these irresponsible politicians they're talking about? Why, themselves.

To me, it sounds like a fiscal version of the classic definition of chutzpah - namely, killing your parents, then demanding sympathy because you're an orphan. Here we have conservatives telling us that we must tighten our belts despite mass unemployment, because otherwise future conservatives will keep running deficits once times improve

No FEC Oversight

What can you say about campaign finance reform when even the laws we have on the books now are not enforced.  Before we penalize undocumented immigrants for ignoring our laws, let's penalize our own home-grown scofflaws.

Not Enough Inflation

Reviewing for those who don't get it yet, Paul Krugman explains why a small bit of inflation is good for economic growth.  Inflation is so low now that we should be able to boost the economy by pushing it up and thereby stimulate enough growth to get unemployment down.

Robotic Insects Make First Controlled Flight

More than just making tiny, insect-sized robots fly, this is an example of how basic research on concepts with no clear economic justification can result in new techniques that turn out to have broad application.  On their way to making these things, researchers developed many new fabrication and control techniques.

Evolution of Complex Organs

The creationists lose again.  Some 3-D simulations show how more complex structures can arise from natural selection.

Reversing Antibiotic Resistance in Superbugs

Just when it begins to look like microbes can out-adapt the antibiotics, a protein complex found in breast milk is shown to deactivate the resistance they have to penicillin and methicillin.

Inflation Nation Not

FRED reports that inflation remains dead.  And that, ladies and germs, is the problem.  Without a bit of healthy inflation, our economic recovery will remain anemic.

Green Nuclear Power Technology

Professor Peter McIntyre has devised a technique for efficiently burning the transuranics and making good use of the usable uranium. He uses a special strong-focusing cyclotron to generate an intense proton beam to drive noncritical fission in a molten salt in which they are dissolved.  Perhaps something to consider.  It gets rid of the long-lived radioactive wastes for good.  It doesn't just bury them

Ed DeMarco Out...Finally

Mel Watt will replace Ed DeMarco.  DeMarco has single-handedly held back the economic recovery with his housing policies.  He should have gone years ago.

Gaming for Java

Some programmers have developed a video game that teaches players how to program in JAVA.  Interesting idea.  Maybe we can do the same for all kinds of skills.

Hewitt Staffer's Lame Defense

In an attempt to defend Mike Hewitt's support of a bill to legalize discrimination, his staffer says that if a gay person in rural Washington can't get food at the only store for miles around, he should just grow his own food.  These guys wouldn't look so stupid if they didn't keep supporting stupid laws.

Cool...no Hot, gadget

With this thing you can charge your iPhone from a campfire.

Nuclear Waste

A recent paper calls for using thorium to consume nuclear wastes.  A facility rated to handle construct MOX fuel could probably handle the fabrication of thorium/actinide fuel for a conventional reactor.  This could be a Yucca Mountain alternative as will as get thorium into the current nuclear economy.

Stimulus: The way forward.

Matthew Yglesias gives his recommendations for permanent monetary policy changes to stave off future recessions like the current one.

1. We should aim for a long-term inflation rate of four or even five percent so that the Federal Reserve is much less likely to hit the "zero bound" and lose confidence in its own ability to shape the economy-wide demand picture.

2. We should make specific statutory provision for Fed injection of "helicopter money" into the economy. The metaphysics of fiscal vs monetary policy are less important than the fact that the Fed has the right institutional setup to conduct a joint fiscal-monetary action when needed. A Fed that can order money-financed payroll tax cuts that have zero impact on the deficit is never going to "run out of ammunition" in the war on demand shortfalls. 

3. We should beef up automatic stabilizers in the budget by creating some kind of national rainy day fund that automatically releases unrestricted funds to state governments in times of recession. Some elected officials will use the money to avoid pro-cyclical service cuts and furloughs, while others will use it to finance tax cuts and we'll just live with disagreement about the best way to proceed.

Implementing the Affordable Care Act

Ian Morrison has a thoughtful article or best-case and worst-case scenarios on the full implementation of the ACA.

Cleaning Radioactive Material from Water

Graphene oxide has been proven to be effective at cleaning up radioactivity in water.

Chipotle Cancels Sponsorship of Utah Boy Scouts Event

Chipotle walks the walk by withdrawing their support for a Boy Scouts event because the Scouts actively discriminate on sexual preference.

Solar plus natural gas

Our local national lab, PNNL, has developed a process that uses solar power to boost the efficiency of burning natural gas.  The gas is first passed through a catalytic process that converts it to a more energy dense form.  When burned, you get more BTU's per cubic foot.

Attorney General sues Arlene's Flowers

Our local "Christian" who can't bring herself to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding gets sued for discrimination.

Housing up but no jobs

Here's why.  It's called labor hoarding.  Construction companies didn't lay off as many people as they could have because they didn't want to lose the skilled help.

Underage Drinkers Don't Deserve Medical Help

Our own Colonel Klink is more concerned with punishing underage drinkers than helping them avoid poisoning themselves to death.  Nice priorities, Brad.  Very impressive.

Grow Your Own Plastic

Fungi may replace plastics someday.  It can be molded into many shapes and is biodegradable.

Awesome Mars Panorama

High definition 360 from the Curiousity Rover.

Left Wing Budget

The Congressional Progressive Caucus released a genuine budget from a liberal point of view.

It restores Clinton-era marginal income tax rates starting at the $250,000 threshold. It establishes new income tax brackets—45 percent at $1 million, 46 percent at $10 million, 47 percent at $20 million, 48 percent at $100 million, and 49 percent at $1 billion. Capital gains and dividends will be taxed as ordinary income. The deductibility of all itemized deductions will be capped at the 28 percent rate. The estate tax will have a $2.5 million exemption and then a series of progressive marginal rates from 55 to 65 percent. The mortgage-interest tax deduction for second homes is eliminated. There's a financial transactions tax. A couple of corporate income tax deductions are eliminated. There's a kind of too-big-too-fail tax on banks more than $50 billion in assets. There's a $25 per-ton carbon tax.

This should be Obama's starting point.

Clogged Arteries Are Not New

Studies of mummies have shown that neolithic humans suffered from clogged arteries as they aged just like modern humans do.  That means I can put away that cave man diet book now.

Income Tax Doesn't Hurt States

A recent report show that states without a personal income tax grew slower than those with one.  Another conservative canard bites the dust.

Pure Elegance

Newton could accurately calculate the orbits of two bodies around each other, but when a third body was tossed in, mathematical solutions were really, really hard to find.  About the only solution that could be calculated is if the three bodies orbited in a circle.  Finally, some enterprising researchers have come up with sets and sets of possible solutions.  When you solve a problem that has been around for hundreds of years, are you in the running for the Nobel?

Electricity From Salt Water

It's long been known that electricity can be produced from the salinity gradient between bodies of salt water and fresh water. A new material can achieve an increase in efficiency that is 1,000 time higher.

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

From Mother Jones, here are 10 myths that gun proponents use and how they are wrong, dead wrong.  Key points:

1. The government can't take away your guns.  Civilians have the Feds and cops outgunned by 79 to 1.  They simply don't have enough firepower to do that.
2. People with guns tend to kill more people with those guns.  States with the highest gun ownership also have the highest gun murder rates.
3. People with guns are more likely to be belligerent than those without them.  In Texas, those with conceald-carry permits were 4.8 times more likely to be sentenced for threatening with a firearm.
4. The number of mass shootings that have been stopped by an armed civilian in the last 30 years....zero.
5. For every time a gun is used for self-defense in a home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents using guns.
6. Guns don't make you safer. Nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than in trying to stop a crime. 
7. Guns don't make women safer. A woman in a high gun ownership state is 4.9 times more likely to murdered by a gun than a woman in a low gun ownership state.  An abused woman is 7 times more likely to be killed if the abuser has access to a gun.
8. Video games don't cause gun violence.  Japan has a higher video game spending per capita than the US.  Gun homicides in 2008 was 11, in the US 11,030.
9. Fewer people are buying guns but those that do buy more. 
10. Current gun laws are not enough.  Forty percent of prison inmates who used guns got them from private sellers who were not required to do a background check.

The Scary Debt Simply Does Not Exist

It's just figment of a conservative imagination.  But, more to the point, it's just a tool to gain political power.  If were more expedient to spend money without putting it into the budget, they would do that too.  Oh yeah, Bush did.

Coal Without Emissions?

A potential breakthrough in chemical combustion technology is a wet process by which heat can be extracted from coal without greenhouse gas emissions.  This could prove interesting.

Bye-bye Giant Chain Stores?

Has the era of the giant chain store reached its peak?  Can we revitalize a decentralized marketing model in time to save us?

Redistricting didn’t do it

In a previous post, Gerrymandering and the House, it was hypothesized that despite the fact that the popular vote ran the other way, Republicans won the House because of redistricting.  A sharper analysis shows that the power of incumbency had more to do with it.

Today's cool new thing

From 3D-printing to 3D doodling.  Here's a pen that "writes" in three dimensions.  The extruded plastic cools instantly.

A neural basis for benefits of meditation

By examining brain function during meditation it's been discovered that how it helps the brain filter out the sensation of chronic pain.

Missed Opportunity

Israel's success during the recession could have been ours if so many of our political leaders had been able to dial down the crazy a little bit.