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Young Bonobo Shows Signs of Autism
Brain Imaging Reveals Moving Images — Researchers develop an fMRI-based model to reconstruct moving images that people are seeing. Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Intensely cool and a bit spooky.
How Automation Leads to More Aviation Accidents
The $300m cable that will save traders milliseconds — Wow. (Via David Goldman.)
Roll over Einstein: Law of physics challenged — Speed of light broken? Or experimental error? The Bad Astronomer critiques.
The Needle and the Damage Done — Some legal analysis on the execution of Troy Davis. Sobering. Ta-Nehisi Coates with an account of events.
Using plastic to pay Anthem bill? Prepare to lose your coverage — Notice of cancellation was a shock to one policyholder who had been making automatic payments with her credit card. It’s just one case involving a policy switch at the health insurer. Yep. Best healthcare system in the world. No need for reform here. Move along, citizen.
Breaking News: The Civil War Is Over — States’ rights and Federal HCR. I liked this thought: I can describe the legal arguments and the judicial conclusions, but on a fundamental level, I just don’t get the attack on the federal law. I don’t understand people who voluntarily, without claiming poverty, let their children go uninsured. I don’t understand the moral compass of the owner of the fancy car I saw the other day that sported the bumper sticker: “Repeal Obamacare.” I suppose that the self-satisfied and oh-so-secure car owner never met anyone like the healthy 27-year-old man profiled the other day in USA Today who was denied insurance in the private market because his doctor four years ago had ordered a particular heart-monitoring test – which found nothing wrong with his heart. I do know such people. So do you.
Bill O’Reilly’s Civil War — The Fox News host thinks America is in dire straits—and what it needs is a history lesson. In this week’s Newsweek, he tells Peter J. Boyer about his new book and why he likes Obama. I never liked O’Reilly’s politics, but ever since the “shut up” incident, I’ve had no respect for him in any capacity. (Not to mention the whole falafel thing, from this conservative guardian of America’s moral rectitude.)
Obama and Perry, geese and ganders — This in turn reminds me of the conservative outrage over the photo of Obama with his feet on the desk of the Oval office, as compared to their dead silence over a virtually identical photo of Bush43. What possible difference could there be? I cannot even begin to imagine.
FACT CHECK: Slippery assertions in GOP debate — I especially like this one: BACHMANN: “President Obama has the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern time.” THE FACTS: That’s true, if you leave out Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford. All of them at some point in their terms dipped lower than Obama’s low point of 38 percent job approval, according to Gallup’s comparison. Of course, GOP voters everywhere will believe her over the facts. It’s what conservatives have been taught to do by the “liberal media” meme — to assume any facts they’re presented contrary to their worldview with have been cooked.
?otD: How’s your immune system today?
9/23/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (goofing off/post-novel ennui)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (fitful)
Weight: 221.6
Currently reading: Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there.