Tried taking off his collar today

[conuly]

Nothing doing. I think poor Finn might be stuck in that stupid collar until a full ten days has passed, given how he dove right for his stitches and started to nibble.

Edit: Also, he's making a weird noise in his sleep. He's burping or hiccupping, I don't know, but it sounds like the sort of bubbles you'd hear popping in an old video game. It is super adorable.

**************

Learning to read as an adult might change the way your brain works

Evolution Runs Faster on Short Timescales

Reinventing high school

Male Fish Borrows Egg to Clone Itself

Taiwan is closer to being 1st Asian place to allow same-sex marriage

Scientists Have Observed Epigenetic Memories Being Passed Down For 14 Generations

'A Kingdom On Wheels': The Hidden World That Made The Circus Happen

Last show for Ringling: Why it’s not really the end of the circus

Scientists Hunt Hard Evidence On How Cop Cameras Affect Behavior

Hundreds protest over minimum wage at McDonald's stockholder meeting

Why Colleges Already Face Race-Related Challenges In Serving Future Students

How a Professional Climate Change Denier Discovered the Lies and Decided to Fight for Science

8 in 10 people now see climate change as a “catastrophic risk” – survey

Africa is not poor, we are stealing its wealth

Doctors Once Thought Bananas Cured Celiac Disease. They Saved Kids' Lives – At A Cost

There Aren't Enough Slaughterhouses to Support the Farm-to-Table Economy

The struggles of war babies fathered by black GIs

Why Black Lung Disease Is Deadlier Than Ever Before

Border Walls and Biodiversity: New barriers, new horizons

Trump Wants Families On Food Stamps To Get Jobs. The Majority Already Work

How the Right Is Perverting Religious Liberty

Trump's budget means deep cuts for health care safety net

In Trump's America, Infrastructure Is Not for the People

I read Trump's budget with an expert. His take: it's cruel and based on phony assumptions.

SMBC: Marine Biology (This is not a funny comic.)

New police taskforce to target Indonesian gays

Army trucks roll deeper into Philippine city that is under siege while thousands flee

Comments

[mindstalk]

"Africa is rich, but we steal its wealth." His numbers do not support his claim. Taking everything at face value, he gives $300 billion/year leaving or owed (like illegal logging or climate change reparations.) There are 1.2 billion people in Africa, so that's less than $300 a person. Quite a lot for some of them, but that's the difference between very poor and very very poor. Or, using his own numbers again, Africa's GDP is about $3.2 trillion, for a GDP per capita of under $3000, and the amount 'stolen' is about 10% of that. Significant, but not a difference between wealth and poverty.

[conuly]

Except money begets money, which is why wealth always trickles up. If J. Q. African spends an extra $300 this year, then that's more than $300 being put into the economy, by some magic that economists understand and I don't.

[mindstalk]

Multiplier effect, but that only goes so far. Might turn $300 into the effect of $450. That's still not going to make up the difference between $3000/year and $10,000, let alone $50,000.

There's a lot of exploitation in the world, but I think it has far less to do with either wealth or poverty than many fellow lefties want to think.

[zesty_pinto]

Ugh. The Southeast Asias just never get a break. No wonder Dutarte seems so popular despite being... Dutarte. I still remember that Vice doc about people who make guns from scrap there. And Indonesia's got a volatile Muslim community there too, so I can see why they would be so homophobic.

I do enjoy though how Thailand has a love of adorning penises all over their protest signs. It's so oddly crude and yet that makes it colorful.

If we keep exposing climate deniers and their connections with the companies who profit from their words, will critics still refuse to hear it? I can't help but feel that climate and trumpism have at least that in common.

I mentioned it recently elsewhere, but if you're into bitter comics about research like that, I heartily endorse The Upturned Microscope. It's harsh, but oddly funny; the same way Dilbert was (before we realized what a terrible person Scott Adams was) and a lot more Kafka-esque. Given how Michelle also used to work postdoc in a biochem lab, she also found some of what they say to be (unfortunately) accurate.

I'm starting to wonder if there should be a subsidy for workers who earn below a certain minimum, only because I think setting the minimum up too quickly really is drastically showing some issues with business owners. I dunno, I really want to support closing the wage gap, but I keep thinking that someone's eating up all the money that should be going to these hard workers doing what people think is "teenager jobs." Maybe the stock market itself needs a deeper cleaving or something.

[conuly]

I'm starting to wonder if there should be a subsidy for workers who earn below a certain minimum, only because I think setting the minimum up too quickly really is drastically showing some issues with business owners. I dunno, I really want to support closing the wage gap, but I keep thinking that someone's eating up all the money that should be going to these hard workers doing what people think is "teenager jobs." Maybe the stock market itself needs a deeper cleaving or something.

You mean a guaranteed minimum income?

[zesty_pinto]

I'm wondering if it should become a subsidy of some kind, or perhaps a guaranteed maximum income for the people who head these companies; I notice a lot of people like to point out the discrepancy with corporate heads. This, of course, still can be loopholed through gifts or underhanded compensations, but I wonder if at least putting a maximum amount of earning based on that would inspire transparency for at least a few years...

[conuly]

I believe some Scandinavian nations do, in fact, limit how much CEOs and the like can earn - I think it's a multiple of the lowest wage possible? - and it doesn't seem to harm them. But don't quote me.

[isis]

The Jerry Taylor interview was really interesting, thanks.

[kitcatwoman]

Aww, dogs always make the cutest noises when they sleep. :)

[siderea]

Reinventing high school

It's fascinating to me that this is happening in NH. I wish them luck.

[conuly]

What's so special about it being in NH?

[siderea]

I attended public schools in NH, K-9. The Live Free Or Die State isn't really.... into.... education, the way, say, MA is. And it can be challening to do interesting experimental alternative programs there because of the comparative lack of population density.

Also, because I managed to leave NH schools with a strong sense that "competency-based education" was the only honest or honorable path forward, long before it was a buzzword (hell, I just heard it now for the first time). It was just the reciprocal of (some of) what sucked so badly about the schools I went to. Apparently I wasn't the only one to notice?

[smile_n_cuddle]

The Bloomberg article on slaughterhouses was fascinating. I posted it to my Facebook. Thank you for sharing!