Containing Ebola is a no-brainer, and not that expensive. If we fail at this, when we know exactly what to do, how are we going to tackle the really complex problems we face?
Climate Change? Resource depletion? Other pandemics?
The UNC fake class investigation and the ‘myth’ of the student-athlete →
Anyone else think we take sports too seriously?
The numbers alone are surprising. At the University of North Carolina, more than 3,100 students, many of whom were athletes, took phantom classes in a “shadow curriculum,” netting high marks despite the fact that the classes never met and there wasn’t any work beyond a final paper no one read. The scheme ran for years, between 1993 and 2011, and the athletes “didn’t have to take notes, have to stay awake … they didn’t have to meet with professors … they didn’t have to pay attention or necessarily engage with the material.”
Did Michael Brown have his hands up when he was shot? →
If we want justice, this must go to trial.
As Jamelle Bouie writes, in commentary on the linked article:
That the autopsy is consistent with Wilson’s account is a godsend for the police officer. And to that end, there’s speculation that the autopsy was leaked as a prelude to news that Wilson would escape an indictment from the grand jury.
At the same time, it’s important to note the extent to which this autopsy agrees with one conducted in August by Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for New York City. According to his autopsy, Brown was shot six times, including twice in the head. “This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, referring to the wound at the top of Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”
And both autopsies fit the opposing accounts from other witnesses. “[Wilson] reached out the window and tried to choke my friend. We were trying to get away, and he tried to pull my friend into the car,” said Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown, saw the whole encounter, and never claimed there wasn’t a fight at the police vehicle. The question, rather, is what precisely happened. Later, we learned of two witnesses who saw the shooting and filmed their near-instant reaction. “He had his f-ckin’ hands up,” said one of the men, echoing other reports.
New Freedoms in Tunisia Drive Support for ISIS →
A recurring theme of revolutions is an "intellectual vanguard"
Unemployed college graduates — a large group in Tunisia, where education is inexpensive but jobs remain scarce — are prime candidates for jihad, their friends and Tunisian analysts say.
The article mentions a host of reasons this particular demographic may be joining ISIS.
Six Reasons an Ebola Travel Ban Makes Us No Safer — and No Sense →
But here’s why a travel ban is pointless—or could even make us less safe...
POPPY CULTIVATION IN AFGHANISTAN: AFTER A DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION AND OVER $7 BILLION IN COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS, POPPY CULTIVATION LEVELS ARE AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH [PDF] →
The war on drugs!
These Two Maps Explain ISIS's Chokehold Over Iraq →
Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS's predecessor, had been defeated when the US pulled the last of its troops out of Iraq in December of 2011. The US troop "surge" that began in 2007 helped secure the gains made by an American-supported Sunni Arab uprising against AQI — the "Sahwa," or Anbar Awakening campaign that decisively shifted grassroots Sunni support away from Al Qaeda and towards the US and its partners.
But as these maps illustrate, the reach of the Sahwa by the end of the American campaign against AQI has an unnerving correspondence with the parts of Iraq now under ISIS's control...
Natural Gas Is Leaking And Warming The Climate — And You’re Paying For It →
The leaks mentioned here are the hard-to-reach ones. We've known for years that companies aren't responsive in fixing the easy ones, even when it would save them money.