interesting things
Tina Daunt
The president’s recent revelation has the industry’s gay elite, including Bryan Lourd and Ryan Murphy, ready to spend, spend, spend.
via Hollywood Reporter http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/obama-gay-marriage-support-hollywood-325699?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Fnews+%28The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Top+Stories%29
@joshtpm: Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Likely Barred From Re-Entering U.S. http://t.co/TYrhxYzk via @TPM
Since the company operates with implicit government backing, its recent trading losses demand an independent inquiry on five specific questions, an economist writes.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/investigating-jpmorgan-chase/
A judge has ordered the release of Eliot Spitzer’s trove of missives from a private e-mail account that he used as New York attorney general to conduct official business in secret.
The undisclosed e-mails relate to his Wall Street crackdown in 2005, when he extracted hundreds of millions in…
via NY Post: Business http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/secret_spitzer_mails_to_be_public_jnOt8O2NYhtFYxsbUh6VSP?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Business
The new pastor at St. John United Church of Christ in the eastern Missouri town of St. Clair doesn’t play softball, but members of his church do. Or at least they did until their pastor’s sexuality prompted a boycott within their church league.
The feds may be conducting a criminal probe of the bad bet placed by Jamie Dimon’s bank. But the track record suggests he has no worries. By Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer.
via The Daily Beast – Latest Articles http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/17/why-jpmorgan-chase-should-not-fear-fbi-probe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
@stegersaurus: “When they do appear together, Merkel can sometimes seem to forget Sauer (her husband) is with her” #sadfirstspouses http://t.co/km71ypPS
@daveweigel: EVERYBODY PANIC RT @freddoso: This can’t be good. http://t.co/UK888cl9
Americans
have been wringing their hands about the problem of obesity for decades
(for some of us, while munching on snacks), but never before has the problem
been attacked from the perspective of … math!
In 2004, mathematician and physicist Carson Chow was tasked with figuring
out why more and more Americans are getting fatter. When he started, Carson
said that “[he] knew almost nothing of obesity. [He] didn’t even
know what a calorie was.”
But he could clearly see a trend: Since 1975, the average weight of Americans
jumped by about 20 pounds and the national obesity rate went from 20%
to 30%. So what gives?
Claudie Dreifus interviewed the math whiz for The New York Times:
Did you ever solve the question posed to you when you were
first hired — what caused the obesity epidemic?We think so. And it’s something very simple, very obvious,
something that few want to hear: The epidemic was caused by the overproduction
of food in the United States.Beginning in the 1970s, there was a change in national agricultural
policy. Instead of the government paying farmers not to engage in full
production, as was the practice, they were encouraged to grow as much
food as they could. At the same time, technological changes and the
“green revolution†made our farms much more productive.
The price of food plummeted, while the number of calories available
to the average American grew by about 1,000 a day.Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat
it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However,
the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase
in weight.
Link
(Photo: Michael Temchine/NY Times)
Adam Serwer is filling in while Kevin is on vacation.
Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland, a former Navy fighter pilot, had his nomination to a state judgeship in Virginia rejected early Tuesday morning. Democrats say it’s because he’s gay; Republicans say it’s complicated:
“He holds himself out as being married,” said Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), who is running for U.S. Senate. Noting that gay marriage is not legal in Virginia, he said that Thorne-Begland’s “life is a contradiction to the requirement of submission to the constitution.”
[…]
Marshall, the Family Foundation of Virginia and others who raised concerns about Thorne-Begland’s nomination said they did not object to him because he is gay, but because of his outspokenness on the subject of gay rights.
Thorne-Begland also supported the repeal of the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. So it’s not, strictly speaking, correct to say Thorne-Begland was rejected because he was gay. He was rejected because he believes being gay entitles him to the same rights as people who aren’t. If Thorne-Begland had lived a life of closeted celibacy and talked like Tony Perkins, Marshall would have thought he was qualified to serve as a judge. This is coming from a guy who tried to install a state-level DADT policy for the Virginia National Guard because “If I needed a blood transfusion and the guy next to me had committed sodomy 14 times in the last month, I’d be worried.”Â
Virginia Republicans didn’t reject Thorne-Begland because he’s gay, but because he supports gay rights. The closet magically eliminates sexually transmitted diseases, which are never contracted by heterosexuals. Some voters in Virginia apparently find this kind of logic compelling enough to keep Marshall in office.
via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/05/virginia-gop-tries-explain-why-vote-against-gay-judge-wasnt-bigotry