Odds and ends (pt. 1)

This is the periodic odds and ends entry I write when my bookmark of articles to blog about gets too long...

RACE AND ECONOMICS: In the wake of Sen. Barack Obama's much-discussed speech on skin color, Shankar Vedantam wrote a fanastic op-ed piece in the Washington Post about the topic. He points out that while many whites feel that black complaints about inequality are rooted in past injustices, the most troubling inequalities are in the present. The average black person in America is 447 percent more likely to be imprisoned than the average white person, and 521 percent more likely to be murdered. Blacks earn 60 cents to the dollar compared with whites who have the same education levels and marital status. The black poverty rate is nearly twice the white poverty rate. Blacks tend to die five years earlier than whites; the infant mortality rate among black babies is nearly 1 1/2 times the rate among white babies. And because of long-standing patterns of inheritance, blacks and whites begin life with substantial disparities in family wealth.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: WAMC Northeast Public Radio had a story on the problem of human trafficking in New York's Hudson Valley.

CENSORSHIP: In another skirmish in the Bush administration's ongoing battle against science and knowledge (a part of its wider war against reality), a US Agency for International Development-funded organization is now blocking searches on the word 'abortion' from its massive database. It's one thing to ban government funding for abortions themselves. But to use funding to intimidate medical organizations into banning any discussion of the practice is pretty brazen, even by the standards of the day.

CAFFEINE ADDICTS UNITE!: You know how some coffee-addicted people get crazy when they don't get there daily fix? Turns out there might be a medical reason why.

HEROIC RAPISTS: This op-ed piece originally from The Los Angeles Times illuminates the rather disturbing statistic that female US soldiers are more likely to be raped by a 'comrade' than killed by enemy fire in Iraq. Doctors at a Veterans' clinic in West Los Angeles reported that 41 percent of their patients were victims of sexual assault and 29 percent raped... while serving in the US military. Could someone please remind me how gays would ruin the military...

HOW PREDICTABLE IS CONFLICT?: Can computers predict wars? A Radio Netherlands report explores the matter.

HILLARY'S WAL-MART YEARS (cont.): Sen. Hillary Clinton has based her campaign against Barack Obama on her supposed edge in experience. The non-partisan Center for Public Integrity has a closer look at the much-touted experience of a woman that blue collar unions are inexplicably falling over themselves to endorse.

HYBRIDS IN THE MOUNTAINS: Adirondack Almanack blog hosts a good discussion (both in the original essay and in the comments) of hybrid cars and their use in the Adirondacks.

TOP TEN SIGNS OF THE IMMINENT APOCALYPSE: Number seven.