“There’s a very big difference between association and causation. Every person diagnosed with colon cancer used a signficant amount of toilet paper throughout his or her lifetime. Does this mean that toilet paper CAUSES colon cancer, or is just associated with colon cancer?” — “Broccoli has more protein than steak”—and other crap « Eathropology
“The Wildlife Restoration Program, prescribed by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, distributes excise-tax revenues collected in the previous year to state wildlife agencies. The money goes toward programs for hunter training and wildlife conservation, paying for the upkeep of nature preserves, and providing capital to buy and protect new parcels of undeveloped land. Funds distributed by the program, which also draw on a tax on archery equipment, are expected to rise 38 percent this year to $534 million, up from $388 million in 2012, according to the report. That total, though, does not account for sequestration, which could shave $21 million from this year’s disbursements.
Much of the uptick in gun-buying appears motivated by long-simmering fears that the Obama administration will institute tough gun-control measures. Revenues from the 10 to 11 percent firearms tax jumped 45 percent in fiscal 2009, which began just before his election.
…
The money from the program has provided MacCallum’s agency with financial stability as revenues from hunting and fishing licenses have decreased dramatically. Young people in the state, he said, spend less time outside.”
— Hunters, Guns, and Money: Firearms Boom Sparks a Boon for Wildlife - NationalJournal.com
“The NYU faculty itself is less of a united front than a sprawling United Nations, ranging from the Tisch School of the Arts to the Stern School of Business to the College of Arts and Sciences. An issue that irritates the more classically left-leaning faculty of arts and sciences may not trouble the faculty of the business school or the medical school at all.” — As Growth Shifts Into Overdrive, NYU Faces a Rebellion From Within - - News - New York - Village Voice
“Some novels are almost impossible to review, either because they’re deeply ambiguous or because they contain big surprises the reviewer doesn’t wish to give away. In the case of “The Accursed,” both strictures apply. What I wish I could say is simply this: “Joyce Carol Oates has written what may be the world’s first postmodern Gothic novel: E. L. Doctorow’s ‘Ragtime’ set in Dracula’s castle. It’s dense, challenging, problematic, horrifying, funny, prolix and full of crazy people. You should read it. I wish I could tell you more.” — ‘The Accursed,’ by Joyce Carol Oates - NYTimes.com Review by Stephen Kink
“Even if you don’t use an RSS reader, you still use RSS. If you subscribe to any podcasts, you use RSS. Flipboard and Twitter are RSS readers, even if it’s not obvious and they do other things besides. Lots of apps on the various app stores use RSS in at least some way. They just don’t tell you — because why should they?” — inessential.com: Why I love RSS and You Do Too
“Nearly every mobile and desktop RSS client syncs with Google Reader today, often as the only option. Getting widespread client support for any other service will be difficult since it’s probably going to be a while before there’s a clear “winner” to switch to. The last thing we need is a format war — with Reader’s shutdown in July, we don’t have time for one. An obvious idea that many have proposed (or already implemented) is to make a new service mirror the (never-officially-documented) Google Reader API.” — Baby steps toward replacing Google Reader – Marco.org
“If you (like many of us at Engadget) are in a state of shock facing the end of Google Reader this summer, there may be an easy replacement. RSS app/service Feedly posts on its blog that it has been anticipating the shutdown of Google’s service for some time, and invested in building its own backend. Dubbed “Normandy” it is intended to be a clone of the Google API running on Google’s own App Engine, set to swap in on July 1st when the service ends. Even better, in the comments Feedly states it will open the API for other 3rd party clients once everything is stable. The only bad news?” — Feedly promises ‘seamless’ transition after Google Reader to its own backend
“Last night, I went to meet a group of friends for dinner in San Francisco after work. As I sat down at the table, two of my dining companions asked in unison, with eye-opening looks on their faces, “Did you hear the news?” “Yes,” I replied as I shuffled my chair in and unfurled my napkin. “They picked a new pope, from Latin America.” “No, not that,” they responded. “Google is shutting down Google Reader on July 1.” — The End of Google Reader Sends Internet Into an Uproar - NYTimes.com
“
“I admit that on the night of December 30th 2012, I was beginning to feel the dizzying preliminary effects of influenza (A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)-like, perhaps, or A/Victoria/361/2011 (H3N2)-like), and therefore was prone to have religious-like out-of-body thoughts, as well as shaking and sweats, and I admit that the friend who accompanied me went slightly crazy that night, too, because of the guy with the gigantic head who was sitting in front of us and who made it impossible to see the They Might Be Giants gig at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
But, whatever was the cause, by the time the band got to the last song that night I was in some kind of Tigris-Euphrates prophetic condition, which was the perfectly receptive condition for one of the band’s more recent compositions, namely “The Mesopotamians,” from The Else (2007).”
- Rick Moody
“Yesterday…
Is done. Over. Finished.
Cannot be changed, unless you have a hot tub time machine or DeLorean.
Shouldn’t be forgotten, but learned from. What went right? What went wrong?
Was composed of all the habits and choices you’ve made in the past.
Might have been the best day of your life. Remember it fondly, but don’t live in the past.
Might have been the worst day of your life. Move on.”
— Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today. | Nerd Fitness
“If Roman Catholicism was capable of learning Greek while it was speaking Aramaic, of learning Celtic while it was speaking Latin, now it either has to learn Chinese or ‘ciao,’” — Cardinals Elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina as New Pope - NYTimes.com
“Most of these kids are going to have a step down in lifestyle when they have to enter the working-world environment after they graduate,” says John E. Vawter, principal of Capstone Collegiate Communities, which developed the Cottages.” — Resort Living Comes to Campus - WSJ.com
“When Clarence Thomas led the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, he fought to make it handicapped accessible. “I firmly believed, how can we talk about all these theoretical issues when there are people who can’t even get in the door of the building?” he explained to an audience at Harvard Law School, having been asked about the subject. “One of my best friends was a quadriplegic, and I watched how a two-inch curb was like The Great Wall of China for him.” Then a pause. “I think we do that with the opinions we write,” he said. “We write them in a way that they’re inaccessible to the average person.” With that fascinating segue, he explained the logic behind his writing: What I tell my law clerks is that we write these so that they are accessible to regular people. That doesn’t mean that there’s no law in it. But there are simple ways to put important things in language that’s accessible. As I say to them, the beauty, the genius is not to write a 5 cent idea in a ten dollar sentence. It’s to put a ten dollar idea in a 5 cent sentence. That’s beauty. That’s editing. That’s writing.” — Why Clarence Thomas Uses Simple Words in His Opinions - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic
“Since taking office in 1999, Hugo Chavez has spread his socialist revolution in Venezuela by seizing more than 1,000 companies. For bondholders that stuck by him, he’s also delivered returns that are double the emerging- market average. The 681 percent advance, equal to 14.7 percent annually, has enriched investors from OppenheimerFunds Inc. to Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP that counted on Chavez’s willingness to siphon the country’s oil wealth to pay its creditors in the face of start-stop growth and falling reserves. While his policies drove away enough investors to keep Venezuela’s borrowing costs over 12 percent on average during his tenure, or 4 percentage points higher than those of developing nations, he’s never missed a bond payment.” — Chavez’s 681% Returns Mean Socialism Buoys Goldman: Andes Credit - Bloomberg