The Week End Economist: To Be or Not to Be, that is the Idiocracy. Feb 27-28, 2016.

[Hugin]

I am FINALLY able to have a WEE dedicated to what I consider a documentary of the caliber of anything Ken Burns ever made...

"Idiocracy" (2006)



(or How I learned to stop worrying and accept that it may be too late.)

'Idiocracy' writer: I never expected my movie 'to become a documentary'

The man behind the 2006 cult sci-fi film “Idiocracy” is lamenting that his fictional movie appears to have become reality.

"I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary,” tweeted screenwriter Etan Cohen in an apparent jab at the 2016 presidential race.

Together with "Beavis & Butt-head" creator Mike Judge, Cohen co-wrote the time-travel comedy. The plot revolves around the misadventures of a man who wakes up in a futuristic America only to discover that everyone around him, including lawmakers and government officials, is an idiot.
"I thought the worst thing that would come true was everyone wearing Crocs,” Cohen told his Twitter followers.

“Idiocracy" star Terry Crews, famous for his role as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, also used the satirical film to take a shot at the surreal election cycle.

“All y’all need to stop tripping,” Crews tweeted in character. "Chill the F out, ‘Merica.”

From The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/270642-idiocracy-writer-i-never-expected-my-movie-to-become-a

?itok=PgXHH7dE


I'll second that Mr. Crews.







Prescient in most things, Idiocracy did miss one societal ill. The malignity of the Smart Phone.

[Gungnir]

1. What's nature worth? Study helps put a price on groundwater and other natural capital

Source: phys.org

A Yale-led research team has adapted traditional asset valuation approaches to measure the value of such natural capital assets, linking economic measurements of ecosystem services with models of natural dynamics and human behavior.

This innovation will enable policymakers to better evaluate conservation and natural resource management programs, make apples-to-apples comparisons between investing in conversation of natural capital and other investments, and provides a component critical to measuring sustainability.

...
The authors say that the framework is applicable to the full range of natural capital assets, and are currently working to apply it other forms of natural capital such as fish and forests. It can also be utilized at the project, regional, state, national, and international levels.

"I'm not saying it will be easy or that we're going to be able to measure natural capital prices for everything, everywhere in the world," Fenichel said. "But I think we're showing that it's feasible. And I think we're laying the foundations for others to go out, collect data, and do the calculations to measure the wealth stored in other natural capital assets."



Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-price-nature-literally.html#jCp

[Hotler]

28. Welcome to WEE.......

[Gungnir]

2. The $100,000 job: Garbage workers

Source: CNN

Not everyone makes six figures, but most trash workers are doing better than high school dropouts and even graduates.

Nationwide, the annual salary for a garbage truck driver is $40,000, according to the Labor Department. Across all professions, high school dropouts earn about $24,000, while high school graduates make $30,000 annually, according to the U.S. Education Department.
...
Not only do they earn a good salary, their wages are growing faster than the average too. Nationwide, wages for trash workers have grown 18%, which is a lot faster than the 14% average for all workers since the recession ended in June 2009.

That's because it's not easy to find workers in the business. Employers can't find qualified truck drivers, landfill operators or mechanics.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/24/news/economy/trash-workers-high-pay/

Decline of the oil patch should fill the vacancy's

[Fuddnik]

14. Most Garbage workers are union workers.

[Warpy]

26. They're worth every single dime they get

since we'd soon poison ourselves with our own waste were they to cease to exist. Anybody who's ever been through a garbage strike knows just how important they are to the continued functioning of any city.

I've also noticed that there are fewer homeless men on the street around here thanks to curbside recycling and the day jobs it creates for sorters. They're worth their weight in gold, too, since they decrease pressure on the landfill and the energy supply at the same time.

[Gungnir]

3. Why Americans are Angry: The Minimum Wage Trap

Source: juancole.com

Don’t forget: any minimum wage figure mentioned is before taxes. Brackets vary, but let’s knock an even 10% off that hourly wage just as a reasonable guess about what is taken out of a minimum-wage worker’s salary. And there are expenses to consider, too. My round-trip bus fare every day, for instance, was $5.50. That meant I worked most of my first hour for bus fare and taxes. Keep in mind that some workers have to pay for childcare as well, which means that it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which someone could actually come close to losing money by going to work for short shifts at minimum wage.

In addition to the fundamental problem of simply not paying people enough, there’s the additional problem of not giving them enough hours to work. The two unfortunately go together, which means that raising the minimum rate is only part of any solution to improving life in the low-wage world.
...
Economics Is About People

It seems wrong in a society as wealthy as ours that a person working full-time can’t get above the poverty line. It seems no less wrong that someone who is willing to work for the lowest wage legally payable must also give up so much of his or her self-respect and dignity as a kind of tariff. Holding a job should not be a test of how to manage life as one of the working poor.

I didn’t actually get fired for my time theft. Instead, I quit on the spot. Whatever the price is for my sense of self-worth, it isn’t 30 cents. Unlike most of this country’s working poor, I could afford to make such a decision. My life didn’t depend on it. When the manager told a handful of my coworkers watching the scene to get back to work, they did. They couldn’t afford not to.

http://www.juancole.com/2016/02/why-americans-are-angry-the-minimum-wage-trap.html

[Gungnir]

4. MH370 lawsuits start rolling in [ Malaysian air already looted ]

Nothing like good old legal corruption

Source: news.com.au

Others complained that lawyers for the national carrier were threatening to have some cases struck out on grounds that a state-orchestrated rescue plan for the airline last year dissolved its previous holding company, Malaysia Air Systems (MAS).

A successor holding company claims no liability for MH370.

Voice 370, an international next-of-kin network, this week called the move a “despicable act” to frustrate claims.

In a statement written by lawyer Grace Nathan, daughter of passenger Anne Catherine Daisy, the group accused the Malaysian government of deliberately destroying MAS as a way of evading compensation payments.


much more:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/mh370-lawsuits-start-rolling-in-as-second-anniversary-of-planes-disappearance-approaches/news-story/9689f2336151773e838a40293a9d125e

[Gungnir]

5. Idiocracy abounds[climate attacks]: Job cuts, funding slashes prompt questions about future of CSIRO

Its not like CISRO has provided any moneymaking technology...


Source: news.com.au

FOR decades it has been considered the jewel in Australia’s crown of science and innovation.

Researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have brought to the world such marvels as Wi-Fi technology and polymer bank notes, helped beam the moon landing around the globe, and protected millions of people from deadly diseases with their groundbreaking research.

But now the CSIRO is dogged by crippling job cuts and slashes to funding that have left people contemplating a bleak future for Australian scientific research — and for Australia generally.

Today, about 120 scientists, students and unionists have rallied in Canberra to protest against a new wave of job cuts at the CSIRO, which includes a cull of 100 scientists from the climate science division.



http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/job-cuts-funding-slashes-prompt-questions-about-future-of-csiro/news-story/477272463cbbb519ba5118815a920dc8

[Gungnir]

6. The New Shadow Banks: Private Equity Becomes Private Credit

Idiocracy or just too few of the best and brightest in regulatory positions (as noted in the Big Short)?

Source: Nakedcapitalism.com

As regulators have sought to curb bank instability, in many cases, the result hasn’t been risk reduction, but merely the transfer of the same risks to different players. Increasingly, the new risk takers are investors. One place this has occurred on a large scale, yet gotten very little notice, is how private equity funds, whose business model depends on high levels of borrowing, have gone into the shadow banking business to supplant banks as their debt suppliers.

A combination of regulatory intervention and residual memory of the 2007-2008 buyout frenzy has restrained some of the worst behavior. The Volcker Rule forced the banks that were active in private equity to shed most of these assets. Globally, annual buyout fundraising amounts remain a quarter below their peaks of 2007 and 2008. In Europe the total value of buyout transactions in 2015, although up a quarter on prior year according to the Centre for Management Buyout Research, was still half that recorded in 2007. Extreme behaviours such as quick flips and repeat dividend recaps have been partly curtailed by the European Union’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive. US bank regulators have guidelines for banks to limit leverage assigned to LBOs to 6 times EBITDA. And the worst performing fund managers have been shunned by LPs – natural selection has operated as intended by preventing incompetent managers from gorging themselves on fees for another ten-year vintage. No doubt it will take a little while for these zombie funds to disappear, but if LPs remain disciplined and strong-willed, disappear they shall.

Yet a new source of risk, that of PE groups “diversifying” their fee-earning activities by building private debt businesses, is now almost entirely outside regulatory reach. Whilst several of these investors had arguably been very active on the credit side for years and can claim real expertise, others piled on opportunistically as their levered portfolio companies were in dire need of balance-sheet restructuring. And frankly the initial nibbling quickly turned into a feast, so discounted were some of these companies’ LBO loans. In 2009 and 2010, a vast array of mega-buyout debt tranches were trading well below par, with high-profile transactions like Caesars and TXU seeing their unsecured loans hit 20 cents on the dollar or less. It was too tempting an occasion for some PE groups to resist.
...
Of course, we could always wait to see what comes out of this sudden surge of shadow lending before ‘overreacting’ and regulating for the sake of it. Historically, the financial services industry has demonstrated that it is not capable of self-regulating. So if you are a government official, legislator, watchdog or central banker, you can choose to let the rise of private debt run its course, or you can start taking a closer look straight away, before it all gets out of hand.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/02/the-new-shadow-banks-private-equity-becomes-private-credit.html

[Gungnir]

7. Harvesting model rescues castoff food to feed the hungry

Not-so-idiocracy. Timing and logistics for perishable foods is a huge issue for food hubs. Frosts/hard freeze can wipe out tons of food if it can't be picked/ transported/ stored. And its a downer for everyone involved when produce has to go on the compost pile or left in the field.

source: phys.org

Applying traditional industrial engineering and programming models to gleaning, the ancient practice of gathering produce left in the fields after the main harvest, Miguel Gómez, associate professor in Cornell's Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and his co-authors have developed an algorithm that tells a food bank the optimum number of days to schedule gleaning. His colleagues are Erkut Sönmez and Deishin Lee of Boston College and Xiaoli Fan, a Cornell doctoral candidate in the field of applied economics and management.

"You have food waste on one hand and malnutrition on the other. The food banks can make this link, but there's a logistical problem here. Our program contributes to a solution," said Gómez.
...
The study ties together three food-related problems. First, people are going hungry. More than 14 percent of U.S. households faced food insecurity in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
...
Gómez sees gleaning as a win-win-win equation. "With your local communities, you develop social capital. Farmers and volunteers get satisfaction from the good that they do, and recipients of food aid may consume more fruits and vegetables," he said. "There are benefits for everybody: better nutrition, reducing waste, developing community.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-harvesting-castoff-food-hungry.html#jCp

[Gungnir]

8. Remember When Scott Walker's Reforms Were Going to Deliver a Booming Economy? - See more at: http://

Source: Center for Media and Democracy

A story in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Poverty across Wisconsin reaches highest level in 30 years, caught our eye. It details a new study showing that poverty is growing rapidly in almost half the counties in the state.

"Poverty in Wisconsin hit its highest level in 30 years during the five-year period ending in 2014, even as the nation's economy was recovering from the Great Recession, according to a trend analysis of U.S. census data just released by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers. The number of Wisconsin residents living in poverty averaged 13% across that post-recession time frame--the highest since 1984, according to the analysis by UW-Madison's Applied Population Laboratory. In 1984, the poverty rate peaked at 15.5% as the nation was recovering from a double-dip recession," writes Karen Herzog for the state's largest newspaper.

According to one expert, the study shows: "Poverty's not a Milwaukee issue; it's a Wisconsin issue," said Charles McLimans, president and CEO of Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, which works with a network of pantries, soup kitchens, meal programs, and homeless shelters to distribute food in 36 counties in eastern Wisconsin.

New punitive rules on food stamps, signed by Governor Scott Walker last year, will certainly make the situation much worse for the state's most vulnerable citizens. Already, 15,000 people lost access to food stamps before Thanksgiving last year.


- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13050/remember-when-scott-walkers-reforms-were-going-deliver-booming-economy#sthash.O46yEreX.dpuf

Damn liberal/socialist policies of Walker destroying the economy of WI.

[Gungnir]

9. Warren Blasts "Back-Slapping" Wall Street Insiders

Source: Common Dreams

Wall Street insiders are trying to write their own rules and Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants them stopped, according to a letter (pdf) by the senator published Thursday.

In the Massachusetts Democrat's letter, a response to a report (pdf) criticizing trading restrictions known as "position limits," she accused a government advisory committee of reflecting "the highest hopes of industry."

The report by the Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee (EEMAC), an advisory committee to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), recommended doing away with plans to impose limits on excessive speculation. "Such a reversal on so-called position-limits rules," the New York Times observed, "if ultimately adopted by the agency, would hand a big victory to Wall Street."

"This report, which bears the official stamp of a CFTC committee," the senator wrote, "is nothing more than a recitation of industry talking points, and it should be treated as such."


Warren and her staff go on to shine a very bright light under this rock.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/26/warren-blasts-back-slapping-wall-street-insiders

[Gungnir]

10. Idiocracy exposed: How to Get Rich From Public Schools (Without Actually Educating)

Source: Common Dreams

But I’ve got it on good authority that there’s $1.3 trillion available for someone who knows how to take it.

That someone is Harold Levy, an expert on how to get rich through school privatization.

The former chancellor of the New York City School System has begun a second career managing an investment company.
...
To put it in context, that’s more than 10 times the amount the federal government spends on education per year. And it’s all yummy profit!

So, education is going to cost the taxpayers 10x more than they currently pay, but through indirect taxes so its not obvious to the taxpayer.
The Damning indictment continues:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/26/how-get-rich-public-schools-without-actually-educating

PS, There's got to be some good lawyers/ legislators out there who can set this up for public schools to fund themselves.

[Gungnir]

11. Banks Turned Account Overdraft Fees Into $11.16B In Revenue Last Year

Source: The consumerist

Banks with more than $1 billion in assets now need to report on how much revenue they bring in from overdraft fees and other charges. The first report on those numbers shows that banks made $11.6 billion last year from customers who overdrew their accounts.
...
According to the CFPB, the 594 banks subject to the new reporting requirement the entire year, on average, received 8% of their revenue from overdraft fees.
...
Under federal law, banks are required to get a customer’s approval to process debit and ATM transaction that exceed the amount of funds currently available in an account. If a customer doesn’t opt-in to the overdraft program their transaction is simply declined.

While that requirement has been in the books since 2010, a Pew Charitable Trusts report and video released earlier this year found that many account holders were unaware of the opt-in rule and several were never given the option.


http://consumerist.com/2016/02/25/banks-turned-account-overdraft-fees-into-11-16b-in-revenue-last-year/

[DemReadingDU]

12. Gungnir

This was Odin’s own spear. It was created by the Dwarven mastersmiths – the sons of Ivaldi. Its main ability, and this was a hugely popular ability among Norse magic weapons, was that it hit whatever you threw it at. It didn’t matter how strong or how skilled you were, whatever you threw Gungnir at, you hit.
http://markneumayer.com/2012/07/24/five-magical-weapons-from-norse-mythology/comment-page-1/

[DemReadingDU]

13. Clash Of The Gods: It's Odin Versus Allah In Norway

2/27/16 Clash Of The Gods: It's Odin Versus Allah In Norway Where Social Upheaval Looms Large

Last month, we introduced you to “The Soldiers of Odin.” The “soldiers” are Nordic patriots dedicated to keeping the streets of Finland, Sweden, and Norway safe from the threat posed by marauding gangs of Mid-East migrants hell bent on accosting women.

Well that, or they’re the Nordic equivalent of a biker gang set to capitalize on a groundswell of nationalistic fervor drummed up by the far-right in the wake of Europe’s worsening migrant crisis.

more...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-27/clash-gods-its-odin-versus-allah-norway-where-social-upheaval-looms-large

[Fuddnik]

15. Idiocracy:

See Trump, American electorate.

[westerebus]

16. I'm thinking we will see way too much of him.

America elects Trump. Not a headline I'm looking forward to.

[Gungnir]

17. Small businesses for Trump: ‘Just get somebody different in there’

Source: Center for Public Integrity

Excluding retirees, the most identifiable contributions to the billionaire businessman have come from owners, presidents and CEOs, in that order, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of Federal Election Commission data through January.

But they’re hardly corporate titans. They’re owners and operators of mostly small to mid-sized businesses. And while the companies themselves vary, the proprietors share a common trait.

...
“I don’t agree with everything [Trump] does, but what I do like about him, he’s not being bought by anybody else,” Joyce said. “When I see establishment people petrified, I’m interested.”

Plenty of establishment people are petrified — particularly Republican establishment people. And despite constant predictions of a flame-out, prompted by a steady stream of outrageous comments from the candidate, Trump is winning. On Saturday, for example, he obliterated his South Carolina primary competition, capturing every one of the state’s 50 delegates.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/02/25/19366/small-businesses-trump-just-get-somebody-different-there

[Gungnir]

18. Idiocracy:because legal fictions are people too!Giant title loan companies argue they are people too

Source: Center for Public Integrity

Though they operate thousands of branches across the country, the nation’s three biggest auto title lenders want Virginia officials to treat them as private citizens and afford them the same right to keep their financial records out of public view.

The three lenders — TitleMax of Virginia Inc.; Anderson Financial Services LLC, doing business as Loan Max; and Fast Auto Loans Inc. — have filed legal arguments asking Virginia officials to prevent financial reports they submitted to the state from being disclosed to the Center for Public Integrity.
...
The House Joint Resolution sponsored by Del. Mark D. Sickles, a Fairfax Democrat, argued that the General Assembly “does not have access to data that would enable it to consider whether the costs of such loans are excessive or unreasonable.”
...
Getting a complete picture of the full costs of title loans — both in fees paid and vehicles lost — can be challenging. Regulators in many states either don’t require lenders to file detailed financial figures, including interest and default rates, or they keep the information confidential. Yet in Missouri, where all three of the Virginia title lenders also operate, annual financial reports are public records and anyone can request copies.

[Gungnir]

19. The Rubio/Romney Vulture Connection

Source: Greg Palast

HuffPo reports that former Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney will endorse Senator Marco Rubio. Why? The answer is: the financier known as The Vulture, Paul Singer—donor Number One to the GOP—and top sugar daddy to the Rubio campaign.

Back in 2012, we broke The Nation cover story exposing how Singer, Mitt Romney's finance chair, secretly stuffed the "blind trust" of Ann Romney with up to $115 million. For $115 million, a politician will wash your car — with his tongue. So, of course, Mrs. Romney’s husband will endorse the Vulture’s choice. Blind trust=blind endorsement.

...

More to come on Singer candidate shopping spree in our upcoming movie: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.


http://www.gregpalast.com/the-romneyrubio-vulture-connection/

Kudos to all those who shine a bright light on idiocracy! Whoever and wherever they are.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard P. Feynman

[Fuddnik]

21. Singer and Romney go way back.

They partnered in looting GM-Delphi and closing all their US plants (34, I think) and moving them to China, along with a big tax bonanza to boot.

[Gungnir]

20. Making of an Idiocracy: Science for Sale project names the merchants of doubt

Science is the father of knowledge but opinion breeds ignorance.
-Hippocrates

Source: Center for Public Integrity

David Heath on the Environment team gave birth this week a story more than a year in the making and based on analysis of tens of thousands of documents. Like tobacco litigation, his work on the health risks in chemicals and the impact on communities, workers and consumers takes time and patience. Smoking guns — as it were — aren’t easy to find. A big issue for him has been the perversion of scientific fact by well-placed doubt.

“Meet the ‘rented white coats’ who defend toxic chemicals” was the first piece in the series to show just how extraordinary the path can be between a lawyer keen to defend his chemical company clients and the readiness of a commercial scientist to find evidence to match. It would be funny if it didn’t then prejudice true science and affect important decisions on litigation and regulation. It’s a good, even amusing (in places) read.

Close to the heart of the work is an amazing database the Center for Public Integrity created in partnership with the City University of New York and Columbia University. The latest investigation adds 7,000 once-confidential documents to a database of 200,000 already in the “Chemical Archives”. Scroll down this story on cancer clusters and see how it works. It’s one way in which our investigative work lasts. The Center’s Chris Zubak-Skees developed it with others.
...
There’s a widespread sense in Washington that with a gridlocked Congress that lobbying energy and money has moved to the states. Now we have quantified it and shown it in a way that allows any state reporter or citizen to see just how true it is and who is behind that money from Big Pharma, to Uber, to trade unions.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/02/23/19354/science-sale-project-names-merchants-doubt

[Fuddnik]

23. Definitely bookmarked that link!

And someone should (you?) should make that quote from Hippocrates their sig line.

[Gungnir]

25. Done!

Thanks for the suggestion

[Gungnir]

22. Legislation To End Money Bail Introduced In Congress

Anti-Idiocracy award goes to Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) sponsor, Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Brenda Lawrence (D-MI), and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) co-sponsors

Source: Shadow Proof

Congressman Ted Lieu introduced the No Money Bail Act of 2016, which prohibits the payment of money as a condition of pretrial release in federal criminal cases, and bars vital federal funding from going to states that impose money bail. If enacted, the legislation could potentially abolish money bail in the United States.

Co-sponsored by Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Brenda Lawrence and Ruben Gallego, the bill is most notable for its efforts to curb the use of money bail in the states, whose jurisdictions oversee the vast majority of inmates in America. Nearly 500,000 of the 2.2 million incarcerated people in America are in local jails and have not been convicted, and many of them are still in jail simply because they can’t afford bail.

The bill prohibits states that impose money bail from receiving funds through federal Justice Assistance Grants (JAG). The JAG program provides state and local governments with critical funding for law enforcement, the courts, corrections, drug treatment, victim and witness initiatives, and a lot more–essentially, it helps pay for a significant portion of non-federal criminal justice activities. Last year the U.S. government made over $255.7 million available to non-federal jurisdictions under JAGs.
...
What makes the threat to withhold JAG funding powerful is that it would force a more uniform policy change, and likely inspire action in the places that need it the most.

https://shadowproof.com/2016/02/26/legislation-end-money-bail-introduced-congress/

[Gungnir]

24. Flint Whistleblowers Who Exposed Their Poisoned Water: We’re Just Getting Started

The Second Anti-Idiocy award goes to: Flint, Michigan whistle-blowers: Rev. Alfred Harris, mother Melissa Mays, Trachelle Young, a former Flint city attorney; Honorable mention: Flint Residents Melissa and Michael Mays, Erin Brockovich, Marc Edwards a Virginia Tech environmental engineering professor, ACLU reporter Curt Guyette, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Hurley Medical Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, and any person, Natural or not who is helping resolve the water crisis.

Source: Yes! magazine

The actions of a small group of dedicated activists in the Coalition for Clean Water led to the revelation that Flint, Michigan, residents were being poisoned by lead-contaminated water. The activists had been living with the yellow, brown, and red water flowing from their taps even as government officials denied it and the same poisoned water flowed from the taps at government buildings.

The activists, whose different organizations came together to form the coalition, organized, strategized, did water research and testing to expose the government’s lies. Coalition activists included Flint residents Rev. Alfred Harris of the Concerned Pastors for Social Action; Melissa Mays, a mother of three who co-founded the group Water You Fighting For; and Trachelle Young, a former Flint city attorney.
...
Mays and her husband, Michael Mays, began meeting with other concerned residents and formed the group Water You Fighting For. Michael, a web designer, put together a website to share information. That immediately got the attention of others, including environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who sent a representative to Flint to help bring more attention to the crisis.
...
Virginia Tech’s Edwards has been appointed to the newly created Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee, which is tasked with finding a way to fix the water crisis. Hanna-Attisha is also on the committee.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/flint-whistleblowers-who-exposed-their-poisoned-water-were-just-getting-started-20160202

[Gungnir]

27. Detecting Pseudo-profound BS (and how to create it (not Onion; scientific study ))

Source: Data Skeptic (podcast)

A recent paper in the journal of Judgment and Decision Making titled On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit explores empirical questions around a reader's ability to detect statements which may sound profound but are actually a collection of buzzwords that fail to contain adequate meaning or truth. These statements are definitively different from lies and nonesense, as we discuss in the episode.

This paper proposes the Bullshit Receptivity scale (BSR) and empirically demonstrates that it correlates with existing metrics like the Cognitive Reflection Test, building confidence that this can be a useful, repeatable, empirical measure of a person's ability to detect pseudo-profound statements as being different from genuinely profound statements. Additionally, the correlative results provide some insight into possible root causes for why individuals might find great profundity in these statements based on other beliefs or cognitive measures.
...
If you'd like some examples of pseudo-profound bullshit, you can randomly generate some based on Deepak Chopra's twitter feed.

To read other work from Gordon, check out his Google Scholar page and find him on twitter via @GordonPennycook.

http://dataskeptic.com/epnotes/detecting-pseudo-profound-bs.php