More crappy news, various kinds

Oil gushing into the Gulf...

• Obama's Oil Spill Speech: What Was The Point? Would sure be nice to see some concrete leadership rather than sentimental reassurances coming out of the White House.
  (via a Medley tweet)
  
  
• And the ever-apt Onion offers Massive Flow Of Bullshit Continues To Gush From BP Headquarters

On women, men, and roles thereof...

• Sunday shows offer excuses, not reasons, for male-dominated guest lists. Because they like talking to the folks they already know.
  
  
• More and less humorously, What Disney Princesses teach girls -- they are just props in their own life stories!
  
  
• Imagine! Encouraging/expecting men to take parental leave changes both its acceptance and how masculinity itself is viewed. Gives one hope (although we hate to learn anything from Sweden!)...

On economic and planning tomfoolery...

• Paul Krugman appears to be a lone voice in the wilderness these days, pointing out that faux fears about inflation are leading to foolhardy recommendations to trim stimulus spending and other measures that are needed to get us out of this economic mess. The illogic is truly befuddling -- more on the austerity craziness here.
  
  
• Also in the crazy arithmetic department, the Conventional Wisdom that there won't be enough workers to support the elderly in a few years, whether via Social Security or whatever other tax-derived programs, can be shown to be baseless. Not that such frames are amenable to evidence...
  
  
• Policy versus no policy as roulette wheels -- an inspired way to look at long-term risks that can't be exactly calculated. Ok, we don't know *precisely* how much the Earth will warm if we don't do anything about greenhouse gasses, but we know that the likely range is much higher than the likely range if we intervene. A graphic that conveys a lot.

Update: Should also include here these Things We Do To Ourselves...

• Terrorists figure out how to get America to attack itself: leave harmless, "suspicious" bags around. I only wish it were the Onion, but it's clearly the sad fact. Every time I travel, I see how thoroughly the terrorists have "won"...
  
  
• Bottled and Sold, a book about the bottled water industry, reveals yet again the stupidity that is our choosing (unregulated, often filthy) bottled water over (closely regulated, generally good) tap water, just because we're so susceptible to marketing/fads. Grrrrr!
  
  
• We now schedule so many CT scans that they've become our major radiation exposure source, and may be adding up to a significant cancer risk for a portion of the US population. Apparently doctors never think to see how many of these things you've had -- keep track for yourself!!
  (via a Medley tweet)