Author Archives: jgordon

Schedule F and making the civil service serve Trump: “If judges will consistently accept facially absurd factual claims or facially absurd interpretations of statutes then there is no law”

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-novel-concept-will-judges-start-enforcing-the-law-with-doge

Roe v Wade never made legal sense to me. The judicial interpretation of the 2nd amendment is absurd.

Now it’s going to new extremes. The GOP SCOTUS corruption has old roots.

“boys have always lagged girls in certain areas, yet there has been little focus on their issues, perhaps because men have dominated in so many spheres.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/upshot/boys-falling-behind-data.html

Girls are better at school work and better at modern employment settings. And women do not “marry down” (might change).

We will need boy-oriented school options (open to all), which implies charter schools.

“putting historical knowledge back into the bottle after decades of reckoning with the nation’s racist history will be more difficult than the administration believes”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/politics/trump-censorship-black-history.html

The people who teach these topics are unlikely to obey.

“the Smithsonian issued a statement saying it would do no such thing.”

There is Streisand Effect potential here.

Kickbacks to promote Medicare Advantage scams: “Aetna; Elevance Health, formerly known as Anthem; and Humana”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/health/medicare-kickbacks-private-plans-trump.html

“steer older people and those with disabilities toward coverage that might not offer the best medical care….

… efforts to drive beneficiaries away specifically because their disabilities might make them less profitable”

Anthropology: “People start to tell the tourists – and I found that most Shipibo people did not distinguish tourists from researchers – the stories they think are interesting for them and not what they really live with.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/01/the-ancient-psychedelics-myth-people-tell-tourists-the-stories-they-think-are-interesting-for-them

This is a universal human trait. It is why we had to develop science and falsifiability.

Also, if MAGA somehow revives anthro that will be a silver lining.

NYT review’s consciousness experiments — finds theorists can be a bit whacky.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/science/two-theories-of-consciousness-faced-off-the-ref-took-a-beating.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Dk8.wESo.fpM7BPFp_zui

Reminds me of string theory. Non-falsifiable science is tricky terrain.

I think we will get to AI citizens before we understand consciousness (or whether it exists at all …)

Immunotherapy alone for a small percent of GI solid tumors.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/health/cancer-immunotherapy-solid-tumors.html

“In 49 of the patients, who had rectal cancer, the tumors disappeared and, after five years, have not recurred … 35 of 54 patients who had other cancers, including in the stomach, esophagus, liver, endometrium, urinary tract and prostate. Out of all 103 patients, cancers recurred in only five.”

Only works for mismatch repair mutations that produce weird proteins.

By one ‘quality of life’ metric NYC ranks 17 in world and Minneapolis 30

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https://happy-city-index.com/

It’s NOT a “happiness” study despite the clickbait title. AND there’s no way 25% of MPLS residents have a master’s degree. BUT, for the moment, MPLS is about as good as it gets in the US. Other interesting top 30 cities: Seoul (6), Munich (9), Vancouver (11), Milan (25), London (31).

Also, where is Denver?!

Black Hawk crash – NYT investigation: “her assignment was to navigate the conditions of a scenario in which members of Congress or other senior government officials might need to be carried out of the nation’s capital in the event of an attack”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/us/politics/takeaways-investigation-airport-collision.html

The real answer is probably a year away. Normal safety tech was disabled to better simulate evacuation protocols. Pilot error part of the picture but NYT doesn’t address the big question about how much risk the military should put on civilian air traffic as part of military training. That failure in logic will is far up the chain of command.