Tree Splooge

All the trees here in Chicago are budding and it’s slightly rainy and a bit windy.  That means tree splooge is everywhere.  Those of us who are unlucky enough to have parked outside need a tree splooge towel to wipe off our cars.  Budding trees will have distinctive bud/pollen rings around them come morning.  It’s a little disgusting but it’s all part of the normal cycle.

Spring is kind of amazing.  The world takes on this sickly sweet smell wherever you go.  With all of the trees coming out of hibernation, the carbon dioxide in the air actually precipitously drops.  The earth has a breath rhythm and that breath rhythm is increasing:

co2_data_mlo

Source

Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to increased temperatures.  Increased temperatures leads to more erratic weather.  More erratic weather leads to more disasters.

Increased carbon dioxide is only good for plants up to a point just like increased oxygen is only good for humans up to a point.  If oxygen were increasing the way carbon dioxide is we’d be terrified.  Too much oxygen in the air and someone lights a cigarette and the entire world explodes.  Carbon dioxide isn’t as dramatic.  It’s a creeper.  There are so many places to store the excess heat that carbon dioxide creates that people don’t realize there’s something wrong.  But there is something wrong and special interests have hijacked rational debate.

97% of climate scientists say there is something wrong but the 3% that say there isn’t anything wrong get equal (or even more) time in the media.  This creates a dynamic where people believe there is a vigorous scientific debate going on where there really isn’t.

The ice caps are melting dramatically.  Air temperatures are slowly rising.  The ocean is incomprehensibly vast and has the ability to absorb a lot of the generated heat.  At some point, that will end and the air temperature will rise precipitously.  It may already be too late to stop this.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act.

Movie Review: Ironman 3

Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

It’s the Tony Stark Show with special guest, Ironman!

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Depression Is Funny!

Ok, not really.  Depression is a serious mental health issue that is horribly misunderstood and stigmatized in our society, but Hyperbole and a Half explains depression in a lighthearted way that both entertains and informs.  I wish Allie Brosh, the creator of the web comic, would write more.  Her work is truly inspiring.

Cool Website Of The Day

Today’s cool website of the day is courtesy of Google.  I present to you the YouTube Trends website!  Not only does it tell you what people are currently watching but it also tells you what regions are watching what and what males and females are watching and what specific age groups are watching.  Why are so many females checking out Grand Theft Auto and why don’t I know any of them?

Movie Review: The Company You Keep

Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars Sometimes, somebody else’s past comes back to haunt you.

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Department Of Completely Missing The Point

Oregon, for the past two years, has massively increased access to Medicaid.  (Correction: It wasn’t a massive increase, it was a drastic reduction and then more money was found to support 10,000 more participants when 90,000 were still eligible.)  Participants in the expansion were chosen by lottery.  This has led to a unique opportunity to study the effects of wider access to healthcare on the poor.  The results of that study were recently released.

The study is seen as a presage of what things will look like for poor people under Obamacare.  And, besides the ridiculous lottery aspect of it, it is.

The study shows that those added to Medicaid have no better medical outcomes than those that weren’t added to Medicaid.  This has led to a large amount of gloating from people who oppose Obamacare.   Oh noes!  Obamacare is a failure!  We told you it was a giant boondoggle!

Not quite.  First and foremost, Obamacare, like Medicaid, is insurance.  Plain and simple.  Insurance protects you financially.  Period.  And the study shows much better financial outcomes for those on Medicaid.  Expecting better health outcomes because you suddenly have health insurance is like expecting not to get into a car accident because you have car insurance.  It’s ridiculous.

There were also many other benefits associated with being on Medicaid.  These include drastically lowered rates of depression, better diagnosis and management of diabetes, and increased use of health services.

The mental health aspect of the study is enormous.  This cannot be understated.  Those in the Medicaid group had a 30% reduction in the rates of depression.  Depression leads to all sorts of other issues that don’t show up on a health screen.  Economic and social outcomes can be greatly affected by depression.  Being poor is bad enough.  Being poor and depressed can be disastrous.  If the only thing that Obamacare succeeds at is reducing depression by 30%, it will be well worth the money spent.

All in all, the Oregon Experiment is a good study for Obamacare.  Opponents, of course, will continue to pick any little nit they can find and there are certainly plenty of nits worth picking.  But, like I’m fond of saying, Obamacare is a bag of doggie poo left on the doorstep of America, but what was there before was a flaming bag of doggie poo.  Baby steps.

Doing Science While Black

Most of you are probably familiar with driving while black; being pulled over not because you did something wrong but because of the color of your skin.  Here may be the first case of doing science while black.

A 16 year old black girl, Kiera Wilmot,  performed a simple science experiment (mixing toilet bowl cleaner with strips of aluminum foil) that caused a small noise and a bit of smoke and was expelled from school.  School administrators issued a statement saying that Kiera needed to learn that actions have consequences.  Not only that, she has been charged by the district attorney with a felony as an adult for performing this incredibly common experiment.  Talk about a gross overreaction!

The same district attorney recently declined to press charges against a white boy who deliberately pointed a BB gun at his brother and pulled the trigger killing his brother.  The boy thought the BB gun wasn’t loaded.  This, in the mind of the DA was just a tragic accident.  Which it certainly was.  That boy is going to have to live with the fact that he killed his brother for the rest of his life.  Not filing charges was absolutely the correct call.

But why the disparity?  Why charge a 16 year old black girl with a felony when no one was injured when a 13 year old white boy actually killed someone and was not charged?  Is a three years difference in age grounds for handling these two cases differently?  If he did the same thing when he was 16 would he have been charged with murder?

Was Kiera’s experiment dangerous?  Very mildly.  Should she have performed this experiment without supervision?  Definitely not.  But now she’s going to be scarred for life for the simple act of having a bit of inquisitiveness.

Lesson learned?  Experimenting bad!  Doing exactly as you’re told at all times and draconian results if you don’t, good!

Kids do stupid things.  This is a feature, not a bug.  Overreacting to their stupidness dulls their curiosity.  Show me a kid that isn’t allowed to do stupid things and I’ll show you a boring adult.

Happy National Day Of Reason!

The American Humanist Association has declared the first Thursday of May to be a National Day of Reason.  That’s today!  It’s the Humanist answer to the National Day of Prayer.  They are trying to get it recognized by the Federal Government and you can sign their petition if you so choose.  The idea behind the National Day of Reason is to get people to recognize that good works are not tied to faith and is meant to include all Americans in a way that the National Day of Prayer does not.

This year, the National Day of Reason has some Congresscritter support.  My favorite non-voting member of Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Michael Honda (D-CA) have issued statements praising the National Day of Reason.  So yeah, not so much support.  Yet.

To celebrate National Day of Reason, I think it’s important to list a few “controversial” but true statements.

  • Vaccines save millions more lives than they harm and they are most effective when the entire population is vaccinated.  To rail against vaccines is to put our most vulnerable in danger.
  • Evolution does not have all of the answers, but it is the only theory that is based on rigorous scientific study.  It explains what we’ve seen and it has predicted what we’ve discovered.  To actively disbelieve evolution is to be willfully ignorant of how science works.
  • Homeopathy is a scam that feeds on the fears of people looking for an easy cure.  To take homeopathic medicine is to drink tap water.  Literally.
  • Critical thinking skills are the most important skills to have if your goal is to make reality based decisions.
  • Being able to check your cognitive biases is the penultimate skill to have to make sure your critical thinking is sound.

Spread the Reason!

Commutageddon II: The Re-Commutening

There has been little to no communication about it from the CTA, but this weekend starts phase two of the Wells St. bridge replacement project.  It’s the same plan as the last time.  Brown Line trains won’t be going into the Loop.  Purple Lines won’t be leaving Evanston.  The Red Line or bus is the only choice for the North Side to get into the Loop.

Even though phase one was a breeze, I predict disaster this time around.  At least on Monday.  While the CTA didn’t do a great communication job last time, they at least had people out the week before telling riders about the upcoming construction.  Nothing this time.  Beware!