Our biggest gun problem

Our biggest gun problem is the one we don't talk about. Most handgun deaths are suicides. Having one in the house just makes it too easy and unrecoverable.

Effective Help For The Homeless

Many homeless folks get trapped by their rap sheets. Utah has found that 
expunging minor infractions from criminal records helps homeless folks get the jobs they need to escape the cycle.

Global warming haitus?

A correction of statistical techniques shows that the purported dampening of global warming from 1998-2013 never actually happened.

Leaked Seattle Audit Concludes Many Mortgage Documents Are Void

Be watching. This story could be going national soon. Banks violated the law by bypassing county records when transferring mortgages. Ton of foreclosures and purchases are about to be declared invalid starting in King County but spreading across the nation.

In Defense of Planned Parenthood

A personal story shows how Planned Parenthood has a positive impact on the health of women.

'Clean' energy not alway so clean

As an example of unexpected and unintended consequences, it has been shown that impoundments for hydroelectric power actually increase the amount of mercury in the biosphere.  At certain depths, microorganisms convert a non-toxic form of available mercury into a form than is readily absorbed by the biosphere. As a result, biologically active mercury levels are higher below dams than above them.

Unsung Concession in Iran Nuclear Deal

Reporters have completely missed that the biggest deal in the Iran nuclear deal is the 
renunciation of plutonium production. Plutonium is the fastest and least expensive path to a nuclear weapon. That's why almost all of the U.S. weapons use it. Having Iran out of the plutonium business is a huge step to keeping them free of nuclear weapons.

CBO and Full Sequestration Relief

In response to a request by Bernie Sanders, the CBO provides
a list of consequences of a full sequestrations relief. At minimum it would mean an increase of 300,000 jobs. At most 1.4 million jobs. Of course, there would be significant budget increases as well. Putting that many people to work seems to be worth it in my mind.

Small, Modular, Efficient Fusion Plant

Advances in superconductors have made a small fusion reactor much more likely and doable. It uses what we have learned from Tokomaks but shows the possibility of large increases in power and efficiency.

War Budget Continues to Grow

This is despite the fact that our troops have been withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Why is this? Basically because Congress is using the Bush-era war contingency budget to fund pet projects without falling under the scrutiny of the budget. This spending is not controlled by our budget process so anti-poverty programs, human welfare efforts, and entitlements are repeatedly threatened while all kinds of money lines the pockets of wealthy campaign donors. It's like trying to budget when one member of the family is free to run up all the bills they want on credit cards.

Trump's Favorable Ratings

If I were a Republican, I would really be worried about what is happening in my electorate. Trump is overwhelmingly unpopular with the general American public as a potential President. But among Republicans it's the other way around. This blazingly shows how out-of-step Republicans have become with the country as a whole. They are clearly a minority party supported by folks with a minority view.

What Entitlements Crisis?

Despite right-wing noise to the contrary, there is no entitlement crisis.

Looking forward, population aging will expand that deficit by a few percent of GDP, but that’s well within the range that could be closed with moderate tax hikes, cuts in pointless military spending, etc.. Nor is there a big rush: nothing terrible will happen if we don’t immediately decide how we’ll pay for projected benefits in the year 2050.

In fact, there never has been an entitlement crisis. Should a conservative-minded friend tell you otherwise, you are completely justified in pointing out that they are just dead wrong.

Why Iran Even Has a Nuclear Program

It isn't part of a good energy strategy. It has cost too much and hurt their economy too much. If it is for the purpose of nuclear weapons, it doesn't make much sense because all of the likely targets are upwind. A nuclear weapon is nothing more than a national suicide bomb. The best answer is that its just a matter of national pride. Other nations have done similar things. It was similar national pride that drove the U.S. to land men on the moon.

Reports of a Bee-pocalypse Have Been Premature

Despite all the headlines to the contrary, the number of bee colonies is actually doing well. It's true that there has been an increase in lost colonies, but the industry has adjusted by putting more energy and money into increasing the number of colonies. As a result, prices for honeybee-based products have gone up, but not terribly so. We are actually experiencing a new normal.

Finland's Euro Problem

Matt O'Brien explains how the euro has been bad for Finland. When Nokia went toes up, 4% of Finland's GDP evaporated. That's a deep hole to dig out of. It points out a fundamental flaw in the EU currency union that has affected many of its constituent states. Some new mechanism needs to exist that somehow allows member states to devalue their economy in order to reset after localized recessions that does not require them to leave the euro completely.

A New Kind of Pride

An evangelical pastor joins a PRIDE parade and shares his experience. Some portions of our world are changing for the better.

The Experience of Prison

An ex-con talks about what people on the outside don't understand about the prison experience and what prisoners have to learn the hard way about returning to society. As a country, we should do better.

Using Guns In Self-Defense Is Rare

When you buy a gun for self-defense, you are much more likely to be providing an offender with a weapon. A study by the Violence Policy Center had some interesting findings.

The study, released Wednesday by the Violence Policy Center, found there were 258 justifiable homicides involving civilians using firearms in 2012, compared with 8,342 murders by gun. Even if a criminal isn't shot down, the study found that civilians rarely use guns to protect themselves. "Intended victims of property crimes engaged in self-protective behavior with a firearm" only 0.1 percent of the times they were targeted by a crook.
 ...
“The NRA has staked its entire agenda on the claim that guns are necessary for self-defense, but this gun industry propaganda has no basis in fact,” the group's executive director, Josh Sugarmann, said in a statement. “Guns are far more likely to be used in a homicide than in a justifiable homicide by a private citizen. In fact, a gun is far more likely to be stolen than used in self-defense.”

Magic Bullet

A molecule that binds well to prostate cancer cells has been used to not only enhance the imaging of prostate metastases but also to deliver target radiation to tumor cells with great effect. It's capabilities greatly exceed those of similar methods used to date.

Clean Water On the Go

Fieldtrate Lite is a plastic bag in a backpack that can filter dirty river water into clean water as fast as the tap flows. It's already saving lives in disaster-stricken areas.