Senators Introduce Bill To End Federal Curbs On Medical Marijuana →

This bill may be less controversial than I realized:

But in 23 states and District of Columbia, where medical marijuana is permitted, patients have been using whole herb and extracts to manage the nausea, vomiting, and wasting syndrome of cancer, the painful spasticity of multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain, and other disorders. In addition, 12 states have active or pending laws that permit the use of marijuana derived cannabidiol (CBD) oil for children with epilepsy. This non-psychotropic component of marijuana has both anti-anxiety and anti-seizure activity.

Islamic State appears to be fraying from within →

Some potentially very good news here:

The Islamic State ­appears to be starting to fray from within, as dissent, defections and setbacks on the battlefield sap the group’s strength and erode its aura of invincibility among those living under its despotic rule.

Reports of rising tensions between foreign and local fighters, aggressive and increasingly unsuccessful attempts to recruit local citizens for the front lines, and a growing incidence of guerrilla attacks against Islamic State targets suggest the militants are struggling to sustain their carefully cultivated image as a fearsome fighting force drawing Muslims together under the umbrella of a utopian Islamic state.

The anecdotal reports, drawn from activists and residents of areas under Islamic State control, don’t offer any indication that the group faces an immediate challenge to its stranglehold over the mostly Sunni provinces of eastern Syria and western Iraq that form the backbone of its self-proclaimed caliphate. Battlefield reversals have come mostly on the fringes of its territory, while organized opposition remains unlikely as long as viable alternatives are lacking and the fear of vicious retribution remains high, Syrians, Iraqis and analysts say.

The bigger threat to the Islamic State’s capacity to endure, however, may come from within, as its grandiose promises collide with realities on the ground, said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple’s Secrets →

What would you call a targeted attack on one of America’s most successful and beloved companies in history in order to break security protections, spy on millions of citizens, intercept their communications, and steal their data?
Unpatriotic? Absolutely. Terrorism? Maybe. But those don’t quite capture what this really is: war.

There's an increasingly necessary debate here about security and privacy on one end, and the ability of law enforcement to do their job on the other. I don't think we've found the right balance yet...

Slandering the 70s →

...Yes, the US economy was troubled in that era. But the performance wasn’t nearly as bad as later legend had it, especially when we consider the incomes of middle-class families. Furthermore, the preferred right-wing narrative about why the 70s were worse than the 60s has absolutely no empirical support.
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What you can see, however, is that this pattern of recessions followed by disappointing recoveries has been the norm for the past 40 years; it began in the 1970s, but it didn’t end then...
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The 73-79 cycle was lousy by pre-73 standards, but real median income did end up notably higher despite sharply rising oil prices. Perhaps surprisingly given the legend, “morning in America” didn’t do much better, despite a sharp fall in oil prices — in fact, the annual growth rate was almost exactly the same. And the “Bush boom” was much worse, with essentially no gain in incomes even before the financial crisis struck. The only halfway convincing boom, at least as far as middle-class families are concerned, took place in the 1990s. 
So whence the impression that the 70s were completely horrible, while Reaganomics was a triumph? Part of the answer is inflation, which did feel out of control even if it was largely matched by wage increases. But one suspects that the trashing of the 70s also reflects the reality that those doing the trashing don’t really care about ordinary families; what they care about is this...

What would change if there were more women in Congress? More than you think. →

...Although male and female members of the House once voted in at least somewhat different ways, this was no longer true as of the mid-2000s.

However...

But “congressional action” involves a lot more than roll call voting. And here’s where larger differences between male and female legislators emerge — differences that could affect Congress as a whole if the representation of women were increased.
For one, women are more likely than men to advocate for issues often associated with women’s interests — child care, women’s health, abortion, pay equity and the like. There are many studies, but see Michele Swers’s two books to start with. This shows up, for example, in in floor speeches and legislative debates, where women are more likely to discuss issues in terms of women’s interests. (Women are also more likely than men to give floor speeches, period.)
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Other research suggests that women may be more effective legislators than men. Craig Volden, Alan Wiseman and Dana Wittmer find that, within the minority party, women are able to get their sponsored bills further through the legislative process.  Sarah Anzia and Christopher Berry have shown that women sponsor and co-sponsor more bills than men do, and deliver about 9 percent more funding to their districts.

This broken 700-ton generator demonstrates everything that went wrong with the reconstruction of Iraq →

Almost immediately after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the country faced persistent energy problems. Rolling blackouts were common and Iraqis could count on a scarce few hours of power a day. To rectify this, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) bought a $50 million Siemens V94 generator which was designated for a new power plant in Kirkuk. It was supposed to single-handed increase Iraq's power generation by six 6%.
But the program encountered programs from the get go...

The Few Oil "Spills" We Hear About

Two last week:

EPA: Illinois oil train derailment threatens Mississippi River

An oil train derailment and spill in northwest Illinois poses an “imminent and substantial danger” of contaminating the Mississippi River, the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday. 
The spill from the derailment, which occurred Thursday, also threatens the Galena River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and the  Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, one of the most complex ecosystems in North America.

Train carrying crude oil derails near Gogama, Ont.

This is the 4th train derailment in northern Ontario this year
...Police said the train was 30 to 40 cars in length and 10 cars went off the track four kilometres northwest of Gogama, Ont. There were no reports of injuries.
Some of the rail cars that caught fire entered the Mattagami River System, CN and police said.

Occasionally severe damage to our homes and environments are the price we must pay for an oil-based economy. We seem to be willing to do so, as a society, yet most "spills"/"accidents" receive little, if any, news coverage.

Data and Goliath's Big Idea →

But there's a big idea here too, and that's the balance between group interest and self-interest. Data about us is individually private, and at the same time valuable to all us collectively. How do we decide between the two? If President Obama tells us that we have to sacrifice the privacy of our data to keep our society safe from terrorism, how do we decide if that's a good trade-off? If Google and Facebook offer us free services in exchange for allowing them to build intimate dossiers on us, how do know whether to take the deal?

There are a lot of these sorts of deals on offer. Waze gives us real-time traffic information, but does it by collecting the location data of everyone using the service. The medical community wants our detailed health data to perform all sorts of health studies and to get early warning of pandemics. The government wants to know all about you to better deliver social services. Google wants to know everything about you for marketing purposes, but will "pay" you with free search, free e-mail, and the like.

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Again and again, it's the same trade-off: individual value versus group value.

I believe this is the fundamental issue of the information age, and solving it means careful thinking about the specific issues and a moral analysis of how they affect our core values.

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When possible, we need to figure out how to get the best of both: how to design systems that make use of our data collectively to benefit society as a whole, while at the same time protecting people individually.

The world isn't waiting; decisions about surveillance are being made for us­--often in secret. If we don't figure this out for ourselves, others will decide what they want to do with us and our data. And we don't want that.