Undue Burden

Three years after Wendy Davis' 11-hour filibuster to try to stop it, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law "requiring that doctors who perform abortions maintain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and that all abortions be performed in hospital-like surgical centers." Justice Ginsburg was particularly forceful in her concurring opinion stating that the court will continue to reject laws like this.

[I]t is beyond rational belief that [this law] could genuinely protect the health of women.

Red Snow

Blooms of red algae in melting snow produce a pink color. A study published in Nature Communications shows how this algae has a significant positive feedback.

Turns out, red snow algae have a non-trivial effect on the albedo of the snowy surfaces they colonize, reducing it by as much as 13 percent.

Update (August 27):  Algae is contributing to Greenland's ice loss.

European Union

In a move largely tied to views on immigration, the United Kingdom has narrowly voted to leave the European Union. The country is quite polarized between Northern Ireland, Scotland and large cities versus Wales and the rest of England. Tom Hamilton voted to remain.

That this campaign departed so completely from fact-based policies and disregarded the opinions of economists and business leaders or ‘so-called experts’ is mind-boggling.

Orlando

On Sunday, 49 people were killed and 53 injured in a gay nightclub by a man firing an "AR-15-style" rifle. The worst in recent U.S. history.

Congress will do what it does best. Senator Chris Murphy:

This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America — nowhere else. Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. This doesn’t have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing — again.

Update (June 15):  Senator Murphy and many Democratic colleagues are holding the floor of the Senate talking about gun violence.

Update (June 16):  After nearly 15 hours, Murphy has won an agreement to hold two votes.

One is an amendment that would bar people who are on terrorist watchlists from buying guns. Another would crack down on online and private gun sales that evade background checks.

Update (June 19):  Mark Sumner describes the Orlando killer as a domestic terrorist who "was simply, terribly a violent man who turned his hate and conflict outward".

[The Republican nominee] has his magic words of “radical Islamic extremist,” and a lot of people are finding them very handy. Handy for cutting off those who want to discuss the motivations behind [the killer's] actions or the ease with which he was able to kill so many people so quickly. They find the phrase convenient, because labeling [the killer] as a radical Islamic extremist gives them permission to do nothing. Or to do something they wanted to do in the first place, even if had nothing to do with the murders in Orlando.

Update (June 20):  As expected, the Senate failed to reach cloture on any modest gun control proposals, even ones sponsored by Republicans. But the Supreme Court declined to review lower court rulings upholding assault weapon bans in New York and Connecticut.

This perfectly encapsulates the modern Republican Party.

Update (June 22):  Led by Rep. John Lewis, at least 60 Democratic Senators and Members of Congress are staging a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives demanding votes on gun control legislation. Representative Lewis:

Not next month! Not next year! But now! Today! Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you have to make a way out of no way. We have been too quiet for too long. There comes a time when you have to say something, when you have to make a little noise. When you have to move your feet. This is the time. Now is the time to get in the way. The time to act is now. We will be silent no more.

Update (June 23):  The sit-in is over for now.  Amanda Marcotte responds to criticism of "no fly, no buy". It was known from the outset that nothing would pass Congress. Marcotte:

So why offer up a bill that was destined always to fail? Two reasons: 1) To kickstart political momentum for more comprehensive gun control and 2) To cause political problems for Republicans in a year when they are already in disarray due to the [Republican nominee]. On both counts, this bill did what it was intended to do.

Update (July 7):  Ghost guns.

Update (October 2, 2017):  I guess we can't be surprised anymore, but that doesn't make it any less awful.

At least 59 people were killed and 527 wounded after a gunman unleashed a storm of bullets on an outdoor country music concert in Las Vegas late Sunday. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Carbon Dioxide into Rock

A report in Science discusses an advancement in carbon sequestration. Instead of storing carbon dioxide gas in sedimentary rock, the gas is mixed with water and injected into basalt. Almost all the gas formed carbonate minerals within two years. The issue, as usual, is being able to do enough to make a difference. Chris Mooney:

The researchers are enthusiastic about their possible solution, although they caution that they are still in the process of scaling up to be able to handle anything approaching the enormous amounts of carbon dioxide that are being emitted around the globe — and that transporting carbon dioxide to locations featuring basalt, and injecting it in large volumes along with even bigger amounts of water, would be a complex affair.

Neoliberal Failure

A report from the International Monetary Fund reviews the impact of the "neoliberal agenda".

Our assessment of the agenda is confined to the effects of two policies: removing restrictions on the movement of capital across a country’s borders (so-called capital account liberalization); and fiscal consolidation, sometimes called “austerity,” which is shorthand for policies to reduce fiscal deficits and debt levels. An assessment of these specific policies (rather than the broad neoliberal agenda) reaches three disquieting conclusions: 

•The benefits in terms of increased growth seem fairly difficult to establish when looking at a broad group of countries.­ 

•The costs in terms of increased inequality are prominent. Such costs epitomize the trade-off between the growth and equity effects of some aspects of the neoliberal agenda.­ 

•Increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth. Even if growth is the sole or main purpose of the neoliberal agenda, advocates of that agenda still need to pay attention to the distributional effects.­

The report further states:

The increase in inequality engendered by financial openness and austerity might itself undercut growth, the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting. There is now strong evidence that inequality can significantly lower both the level and the durability of growth.

Ben Norton puts it more bluntly.

The IMF essentially admitted that many of the policies that it demanded countries implement for decades only made things worse.