Wells

Who's the big jerk today? Wells Fargo!

On a different note, I'm supremely irritated by the double standard in Trump and Clinton scandal coverage. In the primaries, the media generally correctly observed that the Republican primary was a food fight, while the Democratic primary was actual adults discussing policy differences. But (predictably), the media now would much rather invent a horse race than actually, you know, report. (This list of nine crazy Trump statements in 24 minutes is impressive.)

Guest Post - America: Not as racist as you think

Mossy character writes: Washington Post report on research:

we conducted an online survey of non-Hispanic white voters in California [...] asked whether a particular illegal immigrant should be included in the legalization program. About one-third of respondents were asked about a Mexican immigrant named "Juan." Another third were asked about a Chinese immigrant named "Yuan." The rest were asked about a German immigrant named "Johan."
When respondents learned nothing about the immigrant's language skills or job status, they were indeed biased against the Latino. [...] But that gap disappeared when we told our respondents that Juan spoke English and had been working for two years. The anti-Latino bias simply evaporated leaving those supporting legalization for all three immigrants statistically indistinguishable

Hopeful! I'd like to know just where those white Californians lived though. I hear it's a big place.

Heebie's take: The result, then, is that people are quick to shed their stereotypes in the face of new evidence. Which is not as great as when people are self-critical of their stereotypes at the outset, but better than if they never shed their stereotypes? If I had to rank them, from best to worst, I mean.

I've often mused that I transmit "cold, math-astute woman" very well. I think this functions like being told Juan speaks English - people quickly recategorize me, and it protects me from a lot of the bias where women are treated as less smart than men. A corollary of this is that I have to be very self-critical of that bias in myself, because otherwise I am inclined to mistake a fuzzy, warm nature for being less smart.

I Abstain

There's a "controversy" in the world of javascript, where Doug Crockford, grumpy old man, and the closest thing to an eminence in the community, was just uninvited from a conference on "inclusivity" grounds. This is a recap. Sometimes it's hard not to be Principal Skinner. But there's a large, demonstrable problem with sexism in tech, so I keep my mouth shut about these things nowadays.

In The Toilet

Holy moly:

ITT Educational Services Inc. has abruptly shut down its eponymous for-profit technical schools, closing more than 130 campuses and leaving as many as 40,000 students stranded in one of the largest college closures in American history. The company blamed the Department of Education for its downfall in a statement released on Tuesday. Last month, the feds demanded the company produce an additional $153 million in collateral--nearly double its $78 million in cash on hand--to cover possible losses that the government might incur if the company were to suddenly fail. ITT said it terminated the "overwhelming majority" of its more than 8,000 employees.

I think ITT Tech is so old - I remember seeing commercials for it, growing up - that I assumed it wasn't the worst of the grifters. That they were actually producing vo-tech degrees for people who then were able to support themselves in trades jobs.

Anyway, that's a lot of students left adrift. I hope they're better off for it?

Guest Post - DNDi

Lw writes: here's something interesting -- small successes so far, but huge potential. Identifying compounds to treat neglected diseases potentially generates a process to find cheaper compounds for 1st world diseases as well.

DNDi kills candidate compounds only if they fail on safety or efficacy -- it doesn't have to worry about marketability. By contrast, a few for-profit companies froze candidate drugs for hepatitis C after Gilead Sciences of Foster City, California, brought powerful drugs to the market. "A lot of R&D failures in pharma are commercial rather than scientific," says Don. "We keep going until it gets to market or scientifically fails."

Heebie's take: If I had written that article, I would have not been able to restrain my contempt for mainstream pharmaceutical companies as well as the author does.

Cranks

If you had to put a number on it, what is a reasonable percent of time to be cranky, and when does it start to impose unfairly on those around you? Some crankiness is certainly okay - we're all allowed to be in a bad mood, and expressing it by being cranky is a way of saying, "I need indulgence and care-taking." But too much is too much, and there are better ways of getting the help you need. (Obviously there are mitigating factors under which anyone would reasonably be extra cranky. But at a certain point, there are better ways to get help than being extra cranky.)

For the record: I am thinking primarily about critiquing myself here, not making a passive-aggressive slam on the adults I live with. They are both reasonably cranky people.

Freebies

One of the central arguments of Ghettoside is that in places where murder isn't punished, it not only persists, but becomes part of a self-perpetuating cycle of rough justice, standing in for the state's absent concern.

Debate over Chicago violence often focuses on gun laws or sentencing laws, not 4% arrest rate for nonfatal shootings https://t.co/eKB1pBPpLx

— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) September 5, 2016

National clearance rate for murder: 65%
Chicago gun murder clearance rate: 16%
Nonfatal shooting clearance rate: 4% https://t.co/O5YLEEOZ6k

— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) September 4, 2016

The Crown Is Ours

We've talked about "rolling coal" before. The Times takes a look. Between that and the obvious effects of global warming--vehemently denied by the usual suspects--it's hard not to think we live in the dumbest country on earth.