Big Sunday morning roundup

Did the New York Times eliminate its fact-checking budget? Take this article about the International Criminal Court. Yes, like almost every other international institution, it's reach is hampered by the P5. But sloppy claims like the following can only keep the Court from getting stronger:

The United States never agreed to be subject to the International Criminal Court because of constitutional issues and worries that its citizens, especially soldiers and spies, could be brought before the tribunal. This is no idle fear, given the human rights scandals that have exploded in Iraq and Afghanistan involving United States personnel.

The constitutional issues are imagined, and so are the worries. It is indeed an idle fear, because the Court can only investigate and try crimes against citizens whose countries are unable and unwilling to to try the cases themselves. In the case of the Iraq and Afghanistan human rights scandals, the US has tried those cases.

Hu Jia sees change in China as inevitable. Argentina is attracting drug traffickers. Malian refugees have plenty to be resentful and angry about.

Kathleen Parker notes a political and interpersonal truth: "Comments offered in jest or offhandedly nonetheless can be wounding."

Scientists with PhDs are facing a tough job market.

Is uncertainty actually good for the economy?

As when I saw "Be Careful or the Sharks Will Eat You," I am amazed at the determination and resourcefulness of refugees:

In August 1967, when Col. Rustan was 20 and a student at the University of Oriente-Santiago in Cuba, he looked up from his desk in the college library one evening to see his father standing before him.

“This night we’re leaving,” said his father, who had escaped from prison through a ruse.

Col. Rustan left his textbook open on the table and fled. With his father, two sisters and a brother-in-law, he climbed inside a railroad boxcar carrying sugar cane.
They jumped from the moving train as it approached the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo and waded waist-deep through a snake-infested swamp before reaching a tall security fence topped with barbed wire. Col. Rustan carried his younger sister on his back over the fence, then scaled a second fence inside the perimeter of the naval base. After they were picked up by U.S. forces, the Rustans asked for political asylum.

Col. Rustan went on to do this:

In the early 1980s, the Air Force adopted Col. Rustan’s ideas for protecting aircraft from lightning with the installation of special strips that deflected electrical current. Since then, not a single plane has crashed after a lightning strike. 

Barney Frank gets married. This is so sweet:

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they began to see changes in their usually cantankerous colleague. “I should’ve known you were here,” said one leading House Republican after bumping into Mr. Ready in a hallway. “Barney was nice to me today.”

The Post's 'derecho' coverage underwhelmed. For those without power, officials' and politicians' directing people to web sites for more information added insult to injury. Here's a graphic depiction of power outages (and restorations) over the last week. See also the pretty chart of how f*ing hot it is.


This article about organic creep addresses two very different issues: to what extent are certified organic foods (1) actually organic and./or (2) marketed by small businesses rather than Big Food. I appreciate both issues, but Big Food can still produce organic food. I am more concerned about the first--the easing of standards to accommodate producers: organic should mean organic; I'll leave scientists to fight it out over things like carrageenan, but synthetic herbicides have no place in organic food. The second issue is less salient for me and others who don't by a lot of processed food; I have little risk of regularly supporting Coca-Cola, Cargill, ConAgra, Kraft, or M&M Mars because I very rarely buy packaged products. Earthbound is sort-of in the middle: do I care that it's a big, corporate entity? As for Organic Valley, it goes to show that you just can't go right with milk. And here's an example of why I just gave up on eggs:

Ms. Fuldwider has also voted to let organic egg producers give their chickens just two square feet of living space, when Cropp requires its own farmers to provide five.

Speaking of milk, Mark Bittman cured his life-long heartburn by giving it up. He writes,

But the bucolic cow and family farm barely exist: “Given the Kafkaesque federal milk marketing order system, it’s impossible for anyone to make a living producing and selling milk,” says Anne Mendelson, author of “Milk.” “The exceptions are the very largest dairy farms, factory operations with anything from 10,000 to 30,000 cows, which can exploit the system, and the few small farmers who can opt out of it and sell directly to an assured market, and who can afford the luxury of treating the animals decently.”

Osteoporosis? You don’t need milk, or large amounts of calcium, for bone integrity. In fact, the rate of fractures is highest in milk-drinking countries, and it turns out that the keys to bone strength are lifelong exercise and vitamin D, which you can get from sunshine.

It took me a minute to see that these summer safety tips were a joke--largely because only half of them are.

I could give a shit about Kate Upton but this thinspiration bile is disgusting.

Is Takoma Park post-hippie?