This is an excellent series of lectures on spotting BS in the media. I highly recommend watching it all the way through. I particularly liked this episode, though; training yourself to detect BS is hard, but calling it out in a way that's actually likely to convince someone who believes BS is way harder.
Over 2,000 Cities with Higher Lead Levels than Flint →
From the transcript:
EUGENE PURYEAR: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s pretty stunning, when you look at it. Many people forget, but shortly after the Flint crisis broke, USA Today actually did a study and found over 2000 localities that had low levels of lead in the water that were actually higher than Flint. That was in early 2017 they did that study. Reuters did subsequently, later in that year, did a similar study where they looked at about 3000 census tracks- they actually looked at more than that, but they found about 3000 census tracks around the country that also had higher lead levels in water, and also in terms of the lead blood level than what we were finding of people in Flint.
What We Know About Voter ID Laws →
A good overview of the research on voter ID laws. They seem to have had little impact on the outcome of most elections, but they primarily affect people of color and the elderly. And the intent behind passing them has been very clear, because those trying to pass them tend to target specific areas, right before certain elections...
In 2012, a Republican legislative leader in Pennsylvania made headlines by saying that the state’s voter ID law — which was later overturned by the courts — was “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” But even when the law’s authors are more circumspect about their motivations, the evidence is clear: It’s Republican legislatures and legislators that tend to pass them. There’s also a racial dynamic: Seth McKee found that Republican legislators are more likely to back voter ID laws — and Democratic legislators less so — as their districts have more black voters. It’s also no accident that the states whose voter ID laws make headlines — Wisconsin, North Carolina, Virginia — are often swing states with diverse electorates.
It’s important, too, to underscore that Trump promoted voter ID laws for a reason: They tend to poll reasonably well, especially among Republicans. A 2016 AP-NORC poll found that 79 percent of those surveyed favored requiring all voters to provide photo ID, with Republicans especially supportive.
It’s certainly not a consensus, but the weight of recent research suggests that even if voter ID laws have limited effects on which party wins specific elections, they still affect tens of thousands of voters in larger states, particularly black, Latino, Democratic and elderly voters. And importantly, these laws’ long-term impacts may well differ from their immediate effects upon implementation. So as politicians, lawyers and social scientists continue to debate these laws, the very effects themselves are likely to change beneath our feet.
The Modern Automobile Must Die →
We're nearing the point past which we may not be able to control global climate change without really drastic measures. E.g., there are serious proposals for flying planes all over the world that release microscopic reflective particles into the upper atmosphere in order to block sunlight; these are desperate attempts which will have further consequences we can't easily predict.
We need to do everything we can to control greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the biggest changes necessary is to how we get around (and the energy infrastructure vehicles rely on). We'd probably be a lot happier with more public transportation and less smog, too.
The most effective solution would be to combine these policies. Governments would require drastic improvements in fuel efficiency for gas-powered vehicles, while investing in renewable-powered electric car infrastructure. At the same time, cities would overhaul their public transportation systems, adding more bikes, trains, buses and ride-shares. Fewer people would own cars.
Elizabeth Warren Unveils Radical Anti-Corruption Platform →
Power is so concentrated that most legislation is now authored by big-money lobbying firms instead of by individual members of Congress. If we want to get money out of politics, we need laws like the one Warren's proposed, and the sooner the better.
In a major speech at the National Press Club, she laid out the parameters of what she is calling the “Anti-Corruption Act.” If just half of it were implemented, it could transform the political economy of Washington and fundamentally upend the lawmaking process as it currently exists.
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In broad strokes, Warren is attempting to take the profit motive out of public service by making it extremely difficult for former lawmakers and government officials to cash in on their government experience, while simultaneously giving Congress and federal agencies the resources needed to effectively govern without the motivated assistance of K Street.
In 1995, when Newt Gingrich and the “Republican Revolution” took over Congress, he systematically dismantled the intellectual infrastructure of the institution, defunding major functions of Congress and slashing budgets for staff. The public-facing explanation was to cut back on wasteful spending, but the true intent was to effectively privatize lawmaking, forcing Congress to outsource much of the work of crafting legislation to K Street. What followed was an explosion in the lobbying industry in Washington.
Warren proposes much stricter restrictions on the revolving door between public service and lobbying, but, more fundamentally, flat-out bans on any lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, an industry that has come under increased scrutiny as a result of the trial of Paul Manafort, who made his fortune carrying water for foreign governments in Washington, often whose interests ran against those of the U.S.
What Michael Cohen’s Plea and Paul Manafort’s Conviction Mean for Trump and the Mueller Investigation →
...On Tuesday afternoon, Manafort was found guilty on eight felony counts of tax evasion and bank fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts after the jury deadlocked. Shortly thereafter, in the Southern District of New York, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felonies of his own: five counts of tax evasion, one count of bank fraud, and two counts of campaign finance violations involving hush-money payments to the actress Stormy Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) and to Karen McDougal.
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We didn’t need a raft of criminal convictions to answer this question. The consistent incompetence of Trump’s inner circle is all the answer one needs. That said, the starting place in this conversation must be the degree to which close associates of the president of the United States keep turning out to be felons. Yes, only one portion of Cohen’s criminal conduct and none of the charges on which Manafort was convicted connect directly to President Trump. But the parade of greed and the continuous criminal conduct on the part of two people closely associated with Trump and his campaign sheds disturbing light on who the president regards as appropriate top aides and associates. That Trump himself continues to express sympathy with Manafort, not outrage at his conduct, further undermines confidence in his judgment of character.Here are seven questions and some related observations pointed up by Tuesday’s events.
Does Donald Trump choose the “best people”?
Presidential judgment matters. In a week dominated by headlines about the president’s real and threatened revocation of security clearances of current and former officials who have criticized him, take a moment to consider the individuals the president has favored with trust and confidence, as well as those to whom he has denied it...
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How big a deal is the Cohen plea agreement?
Very big.
The president’s former lawyer has not only confessed to criminal campaign finance violations, but he has also said under oath that he was doing so at the direction of the president himself. It’s hard to say yet what precisely this means. But it is not a small thing...
Adjusting to Autonomous Trucking →
Some enthusiastic tech pundits have been speculating that we could see fleets of self-driving trucks in the next 5-10 years(!). And that's the most common profession in the vast majority of central states in the US. As Shane Greenstein explains, though, it's not likely to be the armageddon we're worried about, (instead more likely a slow displacement which our society will hopefully figure out how to cope with):
Trials in long-haul trucking involve training the vehicles for trips between depots adjacent to high-ways. At those depots, the trucks are handed off to drivers, who take them into cities for short-haul delivery. Judging from recent prototypes, humans are not disappearing anytime soon. Nobody is talking about installing robots in trucks to do the loading and unloading. The hard work today focuses on other high-value propositions, such as reducing safety issues from things like inattentive driving. A little automation can go a long way for that purpose—it can stop vehicles sooner, issue warnings to drivers, and relay information to dispatchers for use by others in a fleet. The prototypes also continue trends that began with the introduction of electronics into trucking long ago. Partial automation can enable longer continuous vehicle operation, better fuel consumption, and reduced maintenance expenses.
So what limits progress? Like many applications in machine learning, there are too many “edge cases” that the software cannot yet satisfactorily handle—such as road construction, a vehicle stopped at the side of the road, unexpected detours, pedestrians unexpectedly on the side of the highway, a dead animal carcass in the road, and so on. AI researchers know this problem well. Routine work is not as routine as it seems. Humans are pretty good at handling millions of variants of the little unexpected aspects of road work, police stops, bad weather, poor drivers, and break-downs.
The statistics of edge cases are quite demanding. Software can be trained to handle much of this, perhaps 99 percent of the issues in a typical drive. But 99 percent is not anywhere near good enough. If, say, 1 percent is still left for humans, that translates into more than half a minute every hour in which a human needs to intervene. It is necessary to do much better than that to justify removing constant human awareness, and much better performance is required to get a sufficient return on the investment in the equipment to make it all work. In the lingo of the industry, partial or conditional automation is the most ambitious goal for the next several years. Full automation is a long way off.
The Whole Republican Party Seems to Be Going to Jail Now →
I hope Trump's administration is what this country needs in order to wake up and get serious about reforming.... well, everything: the justice system, racism/sexism, money in politics, etc. Too few have paid attention to the slow erosion of freedom and justice, and good efforts have been quashed by increasingly-concentrated economic and political force.
Trump's administration will go down as one of the most corrupt in US history, but it's unique in degree, not in type. There has been a decades-long buildup to this point. Nearly everyone close to him is enriching themselves through their offices at public expense—a new level of graft—but this is the result of increasing impunity for the wealthy, the result of 40+ years of declining justice, coupled with increasing inequality and a party that decided to embrace (predominantly white) racism in order to keep a hold on the (mostly white) middle class.
We need to treat the Trump administration like the unique threat it is to a healthy society, but we can't kid ourselves that everything's fine if only we could go back to Obama (or earlier). Obama refused to prosecute any of the banks that blew up the economy, in spite of overwhelming, direct evidence of fraud. Bush gave us an illegal war of aggression against Iraq, likely in order to control Middle Eastern oil, while giving sweetheart contracts to Cheney's former company and ramping up the use of private contractors instead of paying for military and other publicly-accountable personnel. Clinton's NAFTA "free trade" deal was designed to benefit wealthy financiers over nearly everyone else (and especially small manufacturers and farmers). And his "entitlement" and criminal justice "reform" were a legitimation of racist and classist stereotypes. And if we go back even farther, there are Nixon and Reagan committing treason in order to win the presidency (the latter with the help of Bush Sr as CIA director at the time). Trump's behavior is unique only in that he's openly crass and willing to commit any number of former presidential crimes all at once instead of just one here or there. And he doesn't care what his cronies do, as long as they get away with it or don't harm his own schemes. E.g., as Jonathan Chait lists:
The entire Trump era has been a festering pit of barely disguised ongoing corruption. But the whole sordid era has not had a 24-hour period quite like the orgy of criminality which we have just experienced. The events of the last day alone include:
(1) The trial of Paul Manafort, which has featured the accusation that President Trump’s campaign manager had embezzled funds, failed to report income, and falsified documents. His partner and fellow Trump campaign aide, Rick Gates, confessed to participating in all these crimes, as well as to stealing from Manafort.
(2) Yesterday, Forbes reported that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross may have stolen $120 million from his partners and customers. Meanwhile Ross has maintained foreign holdings in his investment portfolio that present a major conflict of interest with his public office. (The “Don’t worry, Wilbur Ross would never do anything unethical just to pad his bottom line” defense is likely to be, uh, unconvincing to the many people filing suit against Ross for allegedly doing exactly that.)
(3) Also yesterday, ProPublica reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs is being effectively run by three Trump cronies, none of whom have any official government title or public accountability. The three, reports the story, have “used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests.”
(4) And then, this morning, Representative Chris Collins was arrested for insider trading. Collins had been known to openly boast about making millions of dollars for his colleagues with his insider knowledge. He is charged with learning of an adverse FDA trial, and immediately calling his son — from the White House! — urging him to sell his holdings.