Why Are Rates of Suicide Soaring Across the Planet? (alternet.org).
Wikileaks is offering a $100K bounty for a complete copy of the top-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement (reuters.com). This is the trade agreement with terms so controversial, it can't be negotiated in public.
In Canada this week, tobacco companies were ordered to pay $15 billion in damages (cbc.ca). They'll appeal, of course. But they have to pay out $1 billion in the meantime.
The baloney detection kit (brainpickings.org): Carl Sagan's rules for bullshit detection.
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| United Arab Emirates reportedly planning a Mars mission. |
Hillary begins to feel the heat (politico.com). "Insiders familiar with the thinking of the Clinton campaign described it as 'frightened' of Sanders — not that he would win the nomination, but that he could damage her with the activist base by challenging her on core progressive positions in debates and making her look like a centrist or corporatist."
The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (PDF), by Guy Standing, outlines the political dimensions of job crapification, sounding a warning for neo-liberals. Grab the free download while it lasts.Another great free book: The State of Working America (Economic Policy Institute). Easy to read, with graphs and data showing what has happened to the American economy. (Hint: It ain't pretty.) Read this book and decide for yourself whether the rosy picture of the current economic "recovery" painted by the Fed and others might, in fact, be bullshit.
U.S. millionaires don't feel financially secure (valuewalk.com).
Police misconduct costs billions (huffingtonpost.com).
Almost 50% of restaurant workers' families in the U.S. (attn.com) are on public assistance of some kind. Taxpayers get the bill when businesses don't pay a proper wage.
Why the U.S. is butting heads with China in the South China Sea (counterpunch.org). Useful for understanding the sabre-rattling.
Working with an Elegant Idea in a Messy and Chaotic World: Thoughts on Real-World Implementation of Basic Income (usbig.net). Small PDF. Big ideas. Many variations now being discussed; some of the newer monikers are "QE for the people" and helicopter money. More on this in a future post.
Join us here every Friday for under-the-radar news of the weird and wonkish!
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Have you checked out my free book Mental Health Myths Debunked?
Tons of info, tons of live links, lots of straight talk about
depression, meds, therapy, psychiatry, mental health trends, statistics,
and more (documented, with links to sources). And you know me, I call bullshit on bogus ideas (then give
URLs to the actual data). The idea that antidepressants take weeks to do
anything? Myth. Most people benefit from antidepressants? Myth.
Antidepressants separate from placebo in clinical trials? Largely myth.
(Half the trials show separation. Half don't.) Electroshock therapy is
safe and effective? Bigtime myth. But don't take my
word for it: Read the science for yourself. It's all laid out (with
references) in the book. Download ePub or PDF now at NoiseTrade. Tell a friend.
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