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October 2014

Posted by Amy Miller on October 15, 2014 11 Comments
Tech giants Facebook and Apple have come up with a plan to keep their female employees happy and on the job---subsidized egg freezing. Both companies have a reputation for offering posh work environments and cadillac health care plans, but the new program seeks to invest up to $20,000 in benefits to help their employees pay for fertility treatments, sperm donation, and most controversially, egg freezing. Reactions have been mixed, and there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus as to is on board with egg freezing as an option for young professional women: Via AP's Big Story:
"Anything that gives women more control over the timing of fertility is going to be helpful to professional women," said Shelley Correll, a sociology professor and director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. "It potentially addresses the conflicts between the biological clock and the clockwork of women's careers: The time that's most important in work, for getting your career established, often coincides with normal fertility time for women. This can potentially help resolve that by pushing women's fertility into the future." ... As more women wait longer to have their first child, the number of women choosing to freeze their eggs has grown "exponentially," said Dr. Alan Copperman, a fertility specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital. They are also doing it at a younger age, which means healthier and more viable eggs.
Interviews conducted by the Daily Mail tell a different story, and raise concerns about the message this could be sending to women who want both a career and a family:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2014 76 Comments
We previously wrote about the deer sterilization program run by the Village of Cayuga Heights, NY, which borders the Cornell University campus and has large deer and faculty populations. After years of bitter debate, Cayuga Heights decided that the deer population would be controlled through sterilization at enormous expense: The Cayuga Heights deer control was mostly a failure because, you know, deer move around, so sterilizing deer in Cayuga Heights didn't prevent new deer from coming into the area.  And so on. As far as I know, no plans were made to control the faculty population. I was not aware that Cornell had its own sterilization program.  I was aware that deer are all over campus. The Cornell sterilization program combined on-campus sterilization with off-campus/regional hunting. What possibly could go wrong? As the Washington Post reports (via Ithaca Voice), just about everything, Trying to limit the number of deer, with surprising results:

Posted by Casey Breznick on October 15, 2014 1 Comment
Down in Florida’s 26th district, Republican candidate Carlos Curbelo and incumbent Democrat Joe Garcia are waging fierce campaigns in one of the most competitive and important House races this year. Objective polling data is scarce for this race. One commissioned by the Curbelo campaign found the Republican in the lead 44% to 40% with the remaining undecided. The margin of error was 4.9%. Another poll, this one commissioned by the Garcia campaign, found the Democrat in the lead 45% to 40% with the remaining undecided. This poll had a margin of error of 4.8%. Clearly, polling data here is pretty uninformative, except that they show there is a sizeable group of undecided voters who will determine the election’s outcome. A Curbelo victory under these circumstances could have good or bad implications. Good, if it means Curbelo’s conservatism appealed to the undecided and Independent voters in this heavily Hispanic district, but bad if it means Curbelo has to pander in order to win those votes.

Posted by David Gerstman on October 15, 2014 6 Comments
Few publications were more enthusiastic about last year's election of "moderate" Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran than The New York Times. Perhaps some of that enthusiasm stemmed from the possibility of engaging in commercial enterprises with the regime in Tehran. Ira Stoll editor of SmarterTimes noted the other day that The New York Times is promoting a tour of Iran accompanied by one of its journalists, Elaine Sciolino. After noting some of the peculiarities of the deal, Stoll writes:
There's no mention at all in the Times promotional language about the tour of Iran's status as a state supporter of terrorism, of its pursuit of nuclear weapons, or of its human rights abuses. For information about those abuses, anyone considering plunking down nearly $7,000 for the pleasure of accompanying a Times journalist on a "relaxing evening and dinner" after antique shopping in Iran may want to consider, first, browsing the State Department's latest human rights report on Iran. It reports that under Iranian law, "a woman who appears in public without an appropriate headscarf (hijab) may be sentenced to lashings and fined." It also says that "The law criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity, which may be punishable by death or flogging."

Posted by Andrew Branca on October 15, 2014 66 Comments
ABC news and many other sources are reporting that Vonderrit Myers -- the St. Louis black man shot dead by a white police officer after he allegedly pointed a gun at them -- tested positive for numerous tests of gunshot residue.  (PDF embedded below.) The shooting reignited racial strife in St. Louis in MO, also ground central for looting and arson after the shooting of black Mike Brown by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, MO. This would be the same Vonerrit Myers whose mother claimed he was "armed" only with a sandwich when he was shot and killed by police, as reported here:  "Off-Duty Police Officer Kills Sandwich Wielding Teen In Saint Louis" This would be the same Vonerrit Myers who was apparently captured posing with what appears to be a 1911 pistol on the right of the image above (courtesy of Gateway Pundit).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2014 36 Comments
A press release issued today by the Texas Department of State Health Services:
Second Health Care Worker Tests Positive for Ebola News Release Oct. 15, 2014 A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States has tested positive for the disease. The health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated at the hospital. Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored. The type of monitoring depends on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus. The worker was among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan after he was diagnosed with Ebola. The preliminary Ebola test was run late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and results were received at about midnight. Confirmatory testing on a separate specimen will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure to contaminated objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop.
Officials continue to suggest worker error, something the nurses union denies, via CNN:

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 15, 2014 19 Comments
Remember the pink sneakers and progressives promising to stand with Wendy? Remember how sure liberals were that Wendy Davis would turn Texas blue? Remember when people at CNN and MSNBC were falling all over themselves to talk about the exciting candidacy of Wendy Davis? Those days are gone. Once a rising star in the Democratic Party, Wendy Davis is now about as popular as a plane seat next to someone from Liberia. Even Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC was questioning the decision to run the now viral "wheelchair ad" when she interviewed Davis yesterday. If you listen carefully, you'll notice a strange comment from Mitchell at the 4:30 mark. Mitchell refers to Greg Abbott’s "supposed" disability. Supposed? Really? Noah Rothman of Hot Air is calling game over:

Posted by Amy Miller on October 15, 2014 18 Comments
The Supreme Court has issued an unsigned order blocking key provisions of sweeping new health care regulations from being enforced against Texas abortion providers. Via Fox News:
In an unsigned order, the justices sided with abortion rights advocates and health care providers in suspending an Oct. 2 ruling by a panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that Texas could immediately apply a rule making abortion clinics statewide spend millions of dollars on hospital-level upgrades. The court also put on hold a separate provision of the law only as it applies to clinics in McAllen and El Paso that requires doctors at the facilities to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The admitting privileges remains in effect elsewhere in Texas. Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have ruled against the clinics in all respects.
This decision temporarily set aside provisions that require abortion clinics to follow the same health and safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers; this means thirteen abortion clinics that closed after the law took effect will be allowed to reopen. It also exempted practitioners operating clinics in El Paso and McAllen (larger cities in the Rio Grande Valley) from having to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Pro-choice organizations are, of course, gloating; but keep in mind that this was an emergency ruling. Advocates for abortion providers asked for the Supreme Court's ruling because the Fifth Circuit allowed the restrictive new laws to be enforced during the appeals process.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 14, 2014 12 Comments
An en banc ruling of the Fifth Circuit has issued a stay against last Friday's order striking down Texas voter identification laws. The Court looked at four key factors when deciding whether or not to grant a stay pending appeal: (1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies. The first two factors are the most important, and the court focused on them when deciding to issue the stay. First, the court looked to the Supreme Court's tendency to preserve the status quo on the eve of an election in order to protect the process from confusion and misapplication of the rules.
Here, the district court’s decision on October 11, 2014 presents similar logistical problems because it will “be extremely difficult, if not impossible,” for the State to adequately train its 25,000 polling workers at 8,000 polling places about the injunction’s new requirements in time for the start of early voting on October 20 or even election day on November 4. The State represents that it began training poll workers in mid-September, and at least some of them have already completed their training. The State also represents that it will be unable to reprint the “election manuals that poll workers use for guidance,” and so the election laws “will be conveyed by word of mouth alone.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 14, 2014 41 Comments
I was talking with biologists yesterday, as part of a work project, and we all were becoming increasingly alarmed at the bureaucratic response to the reports that nurses in Dallas and Spain were stricken with Ebola. I stated that the "tipping point" would be reached if one of the nurses spread the disease to someone else outside of the hospital setting. Presently, 76 Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital workers being monitored for potential infection with Ebola. Once someone outside the healthcare setting was infected, then the chances of this being a more serious health threat to the nation escalate. We are coming perilously close to the tipping point, as it looks like an Alcon employee who is "closely associated" with the Dallas nurse, Nina Pham, is in isolation and under observation to determine if he displays "Ebola symptoms". The CBS Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate offers a video report and post.
Dallas nurse Nina Pham tested positive for the Ebola virus over the weekend. Pham was one of the medical workers who administered treatment to Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, who died from the virus last week. Pham first noticed that she had some of the symptoms on Friday, and her diagnosis was confirmed on Sunday.

Posted by Andrew Branca on October 14, 2014 10 Comments
Dr, John Lott, head of the Crime Prevention Research Center and long-time researcher and perhaps best known as the author of the seminal book, "More Guns, Less Crime," has taken a thorough look at a recent report issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and found it severely flawed. The report, entitled "A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013," (embedded below) purports to show that "mass shootings" have increased at an average annual rate of more than 16% over that time period.  Dr. Lott demonstrates that this figure can be arrived at only by a tortuous methodology that is rational only if showing a large increase in "mass shooting" is the actual goal of the report. Sadly, we live in an era in which "science" is routinely twisted in pursuit of purely political ends, and it appears that the authors of this FBI report may have adopted this approach. Dr. Lott's formal analysis is embedded under the FBI report below, I do encourage you to read the whole thing.  As a taste, the paper's abstract reads:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2014 11 Comments
We have covered extensively the anti-Israel academic boycott passed by the American Studies Association, including yesterday when Doron Ben-Atar, a Fordham University History Professor, revealed that he had been subjected to "religious discrimination" charges by the pro-boycott head of Fordham's American Studies Department, Micki McKnee, after he called the boycott anti-Semitic. Ben-Atar was cleared of that charge but faces administrative threats for vowing to "fight" the ASA boycott. The ASA is having its annual meeting in Los Angeles in early November at the Westin Bonaventure. The ASA has stated that it will apply its boycott rules to exclude from the conference Israeli academic institutions and any individual Israeli academics who are there on behalf of their institutions or who hold administrative capacity (e.g. Dean). Only individual Israelis who pass the test of not being there in a representative capacity will be allowed to attend. These rules are unique to Israelis, and constitute national origin discrimination and potentially religious discrimination in violation of California's expansive anti-discrimination and public accommodation laws. That puts the Westin Bonaventure at legal risk, because those discriminatory rules are being applied at a conference on its premises. The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by Jay Sekulow, has sent a letter to the Westin Bonaventure, its owner and operating management, alerting them to the Westin Bonaventure's legal risk and obligations. The letter is posted on the ACLJ website and press release, and reads in part:

Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on October 14, 2014 7 Comments

"A better tomorrow is ahead -- I have absolutely no doubt -- but it's going to require a significant change in how we operate in Washington, D.C."...

Posted by Amy Miller on October 14, 2014 5 Comments
Any reasonable person keeping up with the news cycle knows that Democratic leadership doesn't inspire much confidence in the American people. Legislation dies in the Senate at the hands of a petulant majority leader; both the IRS and the DOJ have come under fire for targeting Americans based on political affiliation; our President golfs while the Middle East burns. In fact, one might say the only thing Democrats are really good at is riling up the base over token "hot button" issues that never go anywhere in Congress, but make for good primetime talkathon fodder. A new poll released by Gallup yesterday has quantified the skepticism of the American people, and shows empirical proof that the games Democrats play have serious consequences when it comes to the level of trust voters have in their ability to lead on the major issues. In late September, Gallup asked registered voters to rate the importance of 13 preselected issues, and then to identify which party they believed would do a better job handling those issues. The results looked like this: h7fjmcrciu6d7y5yx_-zjq

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 14, 2014 44 Comments
A progressive organization called the Agenda Project Action Fund has produced a new ad which attempts to politicize Ebola by blaming its spread on Republicans and budget cuts. Sahil Kapur of TPM reports:
Brutal New Ad Blames GOP Spending Cuts For Ebola Deaths (VIDEO) The one minute ad, called "Republican Cuts Kill," splices grueling images of body bags and workers in hazmat suits with footage of top Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (OH) calling for spending cuts. It also features 2014 Republican Senate candidates Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Pat Roberts of Kansas. The spot was produced by the Agenda Project Action Fund, the same progressive group that has made controversial anti-Republican ads such as "Granny Off the Cliff." The group's spokeswoman, Erica Payne, said Monday the ad would air in Kentucky, North Carolina, South Dakota and Kansas — all of which feature competitive Senate races that could swing the majority.
Here's the ad: Oh, where to begin?
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