By Feargus O'Sullivan, The Atlantic Cities, Aug. 6, 2013

European capitals may draw tourists like moths to a candle, but people who arrive in London, Paris or Berlin expecting only flawless cityscapes of ancient monuments and sidewalk cafés not uncommonly end up in a state of disappointed shock. Even beautiful Paris has its bad skyscrapers and beltway from hell, while striking Berlin can still recall a gorgeous smile with half the teeth knocked out and historic London sometimes does a passable impression of Dubai on Thames. That’s not to deny any of these cities their great charm – but it does help to explain the current popularity of websites that record the seamier, more humdrum side of European city life [....]

Continues with links to and reviews of several such sites.

By Josh Rubin & Matt Smith, CNN, August 6, 2013

Fort Hood, Texas -- The Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 comrades and wounding more than 30 delivered his own opening statement in his court-martial Tuesday, declaring, "I am the shooter."

Maj. Nidal Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in the 2009 massacre at Ford Hood, the largest U.S. Army installation. Testimony in his long-delayed court-martial began Tuesday morning at the post, with Hasan representing himself.

"The evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter," Hasan told the panel that will decide his fate. "The evidence presented with this trial will show one side. The evidence will also show that I was on the wrong side. I then switched sides." [.....]

Hasan told the panel, "We mujahedeen are trying to establish the perfect religion." But, he added, "I apologize for the mistakes I made in this endeavor." [.....]

You have to read between the lines here and realize that the article is really a finely worded complaint piece by conservatives about the inclusiveness of modern universities - which racist WASPs apparently see as "political correctness." 

However, there is a question worth asking about the validity of universities. I told a friend who taught at Berkeley that I didn't feel like I learned anything vital when I was in school - nothing I couldn't have learned anywhere else. He didn't argue at all - just said, "How do you think that makes me feel?"

I have met not one but two graduates of Seattle University, a prestigious, private Jesuit university, who ended up either homeless or living in their car. One couldn't seem to find a job despite all that education. I remember going through all sorts of Math and Science prereqs - there was never a "Searching For A Job 101."

Modern education needs to be seriously reevaluated or possibly just evaluated for the first time.

By Edward Wong, New York Times Sunday Review, Aug. 3/4, 2013

BEIJING —[...] China is the world’s second largest economy, but the enormous costs of its growth are becoming apparent. Residents of its boom cities and a growing number of rural regions question the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. It is as if they were living in the Chinese equivalent of the Chernobyl or Fukushima nuclear disaster areas.

Before this assignment, I spent three and a half years reporting in Iraq, where foreign correspondents talked endlessly of the variety of ways in which one could die — car bombs, firefights, being abducted and then beheaded. I survived those threats, only now to find myself wondering: Is China doing irreparable harm to me and my family?

The environmental hazards here are legion, and the consequences might not manifest themselves for years or even decades. The risks are magnified for young children. Expatriate workers confronted with the decision of whether to live in Beijing weigh these factors, perhaps more than at any time in recent decades [....]

A month after ace programmer Sergey Aleynikov left Goldman Sachs, he was arrested. Exactly what he’d done neither the F.B.I., which interrogated him, nor the jury, which convicted him a year later, seemed to understand. But Goldman had accused him of stealing computer code, and the 41-year-old father of three was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Investigating Aleynikov’s case, Michael Lewis holds a second trial.

By Hashmat Baktash and Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An attack by militants Saturday on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad left at least 10 Afghans dead and raised new concerns about Afghanistan's security once foreign troops depart next year.

Many of those killed were children in school in a nearby mosque, according to authorities. At least 20 civilians were wounded, along with an Afghan police officer. There were no casualties among the Indian consulate employees, officials said.

The Taliban denied it was responsible for the violence that occurred when three suicide bombers in a Toyota Corolla were halted by officers at the first checkpoint leading to the consulate, authorities said. Two of the perpetrators jumped from the car, one of whom detonated his explosive vest. A third militant detonated explosives inside the vehicle.

India condemned the attack, blaming “outside forces” without naming a specific party [....]

The link is to an NYTs article about the obstacles facing those wishing to move forward with the ACA in Missouri, and is paired with a second article about the different situation in Colorado.

Capitalist economics is supposed to be a virtuous circle: companies generate profits which generate reinvestment, which generates employment, which boosts demand, which in turn generates higher profits. But what if profits don't generate reinvestment and companies simply hold onto the loot? What if "reinvestment" takes the form of financialization rather than real product development? What if boosting productivity means mechanization that leads to job losses, rather than job gains? What if the few job gains that do accrue, happen in countries with such depressed wages that middle-class workers in advanced economies (the ones who create the demand for high-cost, profitable products) simply cannot compete?

And what if, in order to disguise this phenomenon, policy makers attempted to bribe the public with free trade agreements that lowered the cost of imported electronics and plastic toys while quietly destroying domestic jobs? What if policy makers' next step in a failing wage environment was to boost asset prices like housing so that the currently middle-class homeowner could feel artificially wealthy, all while obliterating any prospect that the next generation could afford even a modest home in areas with strong job markets without help from their parents? What if the low-skill job market deteriorated to such an extent that young people needed an outrageously expensive college education or more--and only in the "right" fields--to attain any sort of job security, all while policymakers refused to lift a finger to help make that education more affordable? And what if policy makers made it easier for underwater Americans with failing wages to take on debt via credit cards, while doing nothing to prevent predatory lenders from taking advantage of them?

By Alexander Abad-Santos, The Atlantic Wire, Aug. 1, 2013

[....] "Shirtless guys ... on top of one another ... clutching a giant pole ... in pink shorts and those guys are protesting gay marriage? This has to be some kind of joke," your brain is probably telling you. But we kid you not. Those men are holding the logo La Manif Pour Tous , an anti-gay group in France, and are featured on the group's Facebook page. And while those boys look like an ad for a gay adult summer camp, this trend of homoerotic homophobia is actually going on in France [....]

Jonathan Cohn, writing in the The New Republic, gives six reasons for his belief that a sufficient number of young and healthy adults will buy health insurance once the ACA "obligation" goes into effect.  I really recommend reading the whole article, but I've copied the highlights below:

1. The penalty will get bigger than it is next year. It’s true that the penalty for carrying no insurance is just $95 in the first year, which is a lot less than the full price of health insurance. But the penalty actually gets larger in 2015 and 2016, so that’s eventually $695 a year for a single adult, up to $2,085 a year for a family, or 2.5 percent of household income (whichever is greater). That won’t make much difference in the law’s first year, but it will make a difference afterwards—and insurers calculating their premiums can plan based on that increase.

2. The difference between the penalty and premiums isn't the only thing that matters. “A simple comparison of premium versus penalty is not the accurate way to look at this,” says Linda Blumberg of the Urban Institute points out. She's right. Insurance premiums cost a lot more than the penalty, but if you pay those premiums you are also getting something for the money you spend: Financial protection in case of illness or injury. 

. . . .

3. Young people worry about getting sick and paying the bills. Everybody puts a different value on financial security and access to medical care. But two new surveys tell us something about how young people, as a whole, think about insurance.

One survey, published on Wednesday, came from the online newsletter Morning Consult. The poll measured interest in buying health insurance through Obamacare’s exchanges and, conveniently, the pollsters broke down responses by age. In the survey, about 40 percent of young people said they were “about certain” or “very likely” to buy insurance, while another 40 percent said they were “about 50-50.” Only about a quarter of respondents said they were “not too likely” or “not likely at all” to get insurance.

The other poll, published in June, is from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Eighty-seven percent of young people surveyed said they considered it “personally important” to get insurance, 88 percent said “insurance is something I need,” and 66 percent said they worried about paying medical bills in case of injury or illness.

. . . .

4. Most young people aren’t making $32,000. If you’ve followed the debate about “rate shock,” then you’ve read a lot about young people making around $30,000 or $35,000—people who have insurance now, but will end up paying more for it because they’ll no longer get the same preferential pricing insurers offer today. But young people making less than that will almost always qualify for subsidies that discount the price of insurance. And for those who earn a lot less, the discounts will be pretty big. According to the Kaiser Foundation’s subsidy calculator, a 25-year-old making $20,000 a year can expect to pay about $503 a year for a bronze plan. That's just $42 a month.

Obamacare critics frequently dismiss the impact of these subsidies, saying that they will benefit only a “narrow slice” of the population. But the slice isn't narrow! Median income for a 25-year-old is right around $25,000. And about a third have incomes below $23,000 a year, according to an analysis by health policy researchers Adrianna McIntyre and Josh Fangmeier.

. . . .

5. Outreach can make a real difference. Precisely because many currently uninsured people can't even think about getting insurance, many won't think about it under Obamacare—unless somebody tells them about the insurance options and federal subsidies available to them. This is why the Obama Administration and its allies are investing so much time and energy into outreach, with a particular focus on young people. 

. . . .

6. Not every young person needs to sign up in the first year. Critics looking for counter-arguments to each of the factors above won't struggle to find them. Some young people won’t qualify for subsidies, they'll say, and some who do will decide the coverage still isn't good enough to justify the expense. Marketing will help, they'll acknowledge, but advertising and community outreach can do only so much. And you know what? They're right. Plenty of young people will act exactly the way the skeptics predict—they’ll check out the insurance options, decide they’re not worth the expense, and pay the penalty instead.

But that’s hardly the death blow that the skeptics seem to think. In order to work as intended, Obamacare doesn’t need every eligible young person to sign up. It doesn’t even need a majority. The Administration estimates it needs only about 2.7 million young people to enroll. Exactly how they calculated that number is unclear, but it’s not a precise, make-or-break figure anyway. It’s a simply a goal that reflects a rough sense that about a quarter to a third of all people signing up for Obamacare should be relatively young, or at least relatively healthy. (McIntyre broke down these numbers recently at the Incidental Economist blog.)

By Dean Meninger, NY1.com, July 31, 2013

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced in City Hall Wednesday that new data shows that 90 percent of guns used to commit crimes in New York City in 2011 came from outside of the state.

The percentage of weapons recovered from out of state was an increase from 2009, when 85 percent of guns used in city crimes came from outside New York State.

The state that was the top source for the illegal guns was Virginia, with 322 guns. Virginia was followed by North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Alabama, Texas and West Virginia [.....]