Germany’s Climate Goal Struggle

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-germany-emissions/

«The real problem is that Germany is also also trying to phase out nuclear reactors, a response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan. And with the 2020 goals looking like a stretch, there’s increasing concern that tighter goals the country is planning for 2030 will be completely out of reach.»

Headline used the word “failed”, which I disagree with. Setback != failure.

Mike Pence and the Gospel of NASA – The Atlantic

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/mike-pence-nasa-faith-religion/568255/

«Eventually, even Aldrin had second thoughts about partaking in a Christian tradition on the moon. “Perhaps, if I had it to do over again, I would not choose to celebrate communion,” Aldrin wrote in his 2009 memoir. “Although it was a deeply meaningful experience for me, it was a Christian sacrament, and we had come to the moon in the name of all mankind—be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, agnostics, or atheists.”»

 

Need for diversity among healthcare providers

Last of a thread:

https://twitter.com/Oga_DoctorBlue/status/1032971460657201153?s=17

SI6HTS (@Oga_DoctorBlue) Tweeted:
Thanks for all the in depth conversation and support! Happened with a few thousand more people than expected 😂. I do wanna say…my attending wasnt and isnt ignorant or a bigot. He’s very kindhearted. Just misread the patient response. I do it too, hence the need 4 diversity.

On higher education and liberal arts

So, this thread & exchange with @Squiggle_Ds is really interesting to me.

https://twitter.com/YAppelbaum/status/1032615257326411777

Over the centuries, what has been the role of higher education? Did only the scions of wealthy families attend college (Oxford, Leipzig, Bologna) so they could learn Latin, astronomy, rhetoric, metaphysics, and medicine? (I sort of gather that, even then, students tended to be sort of wild.)

And, in the Industrial Age, did colleges start to become trade schools (the various A&Ts)?

Was the (apparently) high ratio of liberal arts majors a post-WWII aberration? Or did it somehow reflects a concentration (still) of the offspring of wealth in colleges?

I went to a good, small liberal arts college (where I majored in Physics) and I feel the better off for it, but is that only because my parents could afford it? What if I had gone to a cheap state school and taken classes in English, religion, and art survey? Would I be just as well off and able to think critically? (Omitting the question of whether I can think critically now.)

No, Venezuela doesn’t prove anything about socialism – The Washington Post

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/08/21/no-venezuela-doesnt-prove-that-socialism-will-bring-about-a-zombie-apocalypse/

«American conservatives won’t acknowledge the rest of South America, because doing so would mean acknowledging that Venezuela-style collapses are the opposite of typical. And because a dispassionate look at the Venezuelan case would conclude that it has been driven by a unique mix of circumstances, in which socialism is just one ingredient.

Far more toxic, in my view, has been the collapse of democracy. Venezuelans can no longer vote out a horrifically misguided government, leaving society helpless. In the rest of the region, democracy held up, so socialists who messed up got term-limited or voted out of office.»

 

If Trump is impeached and removed from office, current GOP policies will continue and some potentially-Dem voters will stay home, thinking the problem has been handled. This is the danger of focusing on one Bad Guy as the problem.

(Of course, I still think he needs to go, because he is that dangerous, but after that, the world will still be on fire.)