December 12, 2020

Polarization increases with economic decline, becoming cripplingly contagious

(If you wanted to know just where those 70 million stupid people came from)

The rise of populist movements is changing political systems around the world. As support for these "anti-elite" movements intensifies, many are scrambling to understand whether economic decline and intensifying inter-group conflict are playing a role.

A model developed by a team of researchers—including Nolan McCarty of Princeton University—shows how group polarization, rising inequality, and economic decline may be strongly connected.

The model develops a theory that group polarization tends to soar in times of economic duress and rising inequality. Yet, even after financial conditions improve, these divisions may remain deeply rooted.
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"Rather than continue the unproductive debate over whether 'economic anxiety' or group conflict is most responsible for our deeply divided politics, scholars should spend more effort considering the debilitating feedback between economics and identity," said McCarty.

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-polarization-economic-decline-cripplingly-contagious.html

Medium sized article, 3 videos, and a link to the original paper.

December 9, 2020

Men with COVID-19 three times more likely to need intensive care: study

Researchers analyzed over three million confirmed coronavirus cases from 46 countries and 44 states in the US between January 1 and June 1, 2020.

They found that the risk of SARS-Cov-2 infection was the same for women and men, as "exactly half" of the confirmed cases were male patients.

But men are almost three times more likely than women to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit and are 39 percent more likely to die from the virus, the study said.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-men-covid-intensive.html

This is a large scale study that confirmed the results of sporadic, small studies in late spring.

December 1, 2020

New from KKK-Tel, the GOP Christmas Album

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November 23, 2020

Song for 2020: "THIS IS SHIT"

NSFW, obviously.

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November 21, 2020

This is how you skewer a malignant narcissist, Brian Williams does it right

in perfect deadpan style.

November 11, 2020

They'll scream about fraud in Chicago. This is what it's based on and they're wrong

Massive nerd alert, it's about numbers.

November 11, 2020

Biden's strategy to avoid the transition trap

(Sorry if this has been posted before, I did look but my eyes are shit)

November 8, 2020

Send him to Finalnd!

Made in Finland at Noin Vilko Studios.

November 4, 2020

Pascal Comelade- Haikus de Pianos (full)

Comelade has composed a lot of music for toy piano. Here it's a duet, the pieces oddly soothing while the discordance between instruments appropriate to the day.

November 3, 2020

Orange Faced Prison Blues (well done)

Never heard of this guy but he does a great Johnny Cash.

ETA: His hame is Deke Dickerson.