Month: June 2012

The latest from SCOTUSBlog:

The fact that the orders list does not mention the Health Care cases does not mean anything about when the Court will issue its decision. The opinions are announced from the bench, not through the orders list.

Why have Berlin apartments historically been so cheap?

Consider, for instance, that the average rent in London recently broke £1,000 (over €1,200) per month, or that a studio apartment without a doorman in Manhattan fetches an average $2,200 per month (€1,697) and a one-bedroom just short of $3,000 (€2,315). Meanwhile, an average-sized apartment, measuring 70 m² (about 750 square feet), at the average Berlin priceof €7.38/m² (compared to upwards of €20/m² in Paris) would ring up at €516.60. The difference is obviously staggering. 

Short answer? WWII.

Nicole Pasulka provides a primer on HIV transmission laws:

According to the Center for HIV Law and Policy, 32 states and two US territories have some sort of HIV-specific criminal transmission statute. 45 states have laws against HIV-positive people not disclosing their status during sex, acts of prostitution, needle exchanges, or when making organ, blood or semen donations or have prosecuted people for these behaviors under general felony laws. In 13 of those states, there are laws against HIV-positive people spitting on or biting someone, neither of which has ever been proven to transmit HIV.

One issue here is whether other comparably transmissable diseases – like Hepatitis C for example – are treated the same way. I suspect not, but I don't know the answer.

Tattoos were popular among British aristocrats, of all people:

The playboy prince [Prince Bertie, later Edward VII] was first tattooed in 1862 in the Holy Land with the ‘Jerusalem Cross’ design. … Indeed between 1870 and 1890 larger intricate tattoos were very much the preserve of the upper classes – even women joined in. The New York Times in 1879 noted:

… that in England it is regarded as a customary and proper thing to tattoo the youthful feminine leg.

Members of the social elite gathered in drawing rooms to disrobe partially and show off their expensive and painfully acquired body art. Skilled artists were hard to find. Winston Churchill’s mother Jennie had a dainty snake etched strategically on her wrist; she could cover it up with a diamond bracelet. Rumour has it that her son followed suit with an anchor on his forearm.

And why we sometimes can't stop:

The areas that control laughing lie deep in the subcortex, and in terms of evolutionary development these parts of the brain are ancient, responsible for primal behaviours such as breathing and controlling basic reflexes. This means laughter control mechanisms are located a long way away from brain regions that developed later and control higher functions such as language or even memory. Perhaps this explains why it is so hard to suppress a laugh, even if we know it is inappropriate. Once a laugh is kindled deep within our brains these ‘higher function’ brain regions have trouble intervening. 

Katherine Sharpe believes that "a conservative approach to medication is best":

[For people who start medication as teens or even younger,] using medication is often not their choice or not their idea. … So for some of the people who start young, the narrative ends up not being one like Maura Kelly’s, of ‘I had a problem, and then I used my own agency to find a solution, and it was wonderful.’ It’s more like, ‘Someone thought I had a problem, and this thing was given to me, and maybe it helped me or maybe it didn’t, sometimes it’s hard to tell, and if I stayed on it for years then I’ll never be quite sure, either what was the matter in the first place, or how I would have developed if I hadn’t taken this drug.’ 

Whoa:

What you're seeing:

If a slinky is hung by one end such that its own weight extends it, and that slinky is then released, the lower end of the slinky will not fall or rise, but will remain briefly suspended in air as though levitating.

Explained:

[T]he best thing is to think of the slinky as a system. When it is let [go], the center of mass certainly accelerates downward (like any falling object). However, at the same time, the slinky (spring) is compressing to its relaxed length. This means that top and bottom are accelerating towards the center of mass of the slinky at the same time the center of mass is accelerating downward.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

Fred Clark proposes giving the unemployed preference for jury duty:

First, it reduces the frequency of jury duty for those with employment. They’d still be called to serve, but less often, thus reducing the total level of inconvenience and hassle due to missing days at work. And it would channel more of those tiny, inadequate stipends to unemployed people who could use even such trivial sums.

His vision doesn't end there:

I want to repurpose all that mostly wasted time prospective jurors now spend sitting around and waiting and put it to use trying to find jobs for jurors. The idea is to turn jury duty into an ongoing job fair, to turn the waiting room for prospective jurors into an employment office. Job-seekers called for jury duty wouldn’t just bring a good book to read, they’d bring their résumés. The time now mostly squandered sitting around would instead be used to try to connect the unemployed with potential employers. 

Romney graduates from Day One to his "first 100 days" as president in state-specific ads running in key swing states. Here's Virginia: 

North Carolina here and Ohio here. Alex Burns has more:

The frame for the commercials is a variation on Romney's "Day One" theme — a way of trying to give voters a concrete sense of how life would be different under a new president. In Ohio, that means standing "up to China, demand[ing] a level playing field for our businesses and workers."In Iowa, it's debt reduction and "fewer worries about their future and their children's future."

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign highlights Romney's lingering non-response to the president's DREAM initiative:

 

Romney's evasive rebuttal: 

Meanwhile, Obama's Super PAC continues its series on Bain Capital: 

Previous Ad War Updates: June 21, June 20, June 19, June 18, June 15, June 14, June 13, June 12, June 11, June 8, June 6, June 5, June 4, June 1, May 31, May 30, May 29, May 24, May 23, May 22, May 21, May 18, May 17, May 16, May 15, May 14, May 10, May 9, May 8,  May 7, May 3, May 2, May 1, Apr 30, Apr 27, Apr 26, Apr 25, Apr 24, Apr 23, Apr 18, Apr 17, Apr 16, Apr 13, Apr 11, Apr 10, Apr 9, Apr 5, Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

Michael Chabon would rather not hear about them:

Dreams are effluvia, bodily information, to be shared only with intimates and doctors. At the breakfast table, in my house, an inflexible law compels all recountings of dreams to be compressed into a sentence or, better still, half a sentence, like the paraphrasings of epic films listed in TV Guide: "Rogue Samurai saves peasant village." The recounting of a dream is—ought to be—a source of embarrassment to the dreamer, sitting there naked in fading tatters of Jungian couture. Whatever stuff dreams are made on, it isn’t words.