Climate Change

• A website dedicated to getting 100% renewable, clean energy.  It was built by engineers.

Ethics

• Paul Bloom argues that imagining the lives of others (what he considers as empathy) is harder than “if we rely instead on more abstract principles of justice and fairness, along with a more diffuse compassion.”  In other words, rational thoughts about ethics is better than emotional empathy.
• Stephen Hawking: “I would consider assisted suicide only if I were in great pain or felt I had nothing more to contribute but was just a burden to those around me.”

Gender

• Part 6 of Reilly-Cooper’s “what I believe about sex and gender.”
• An interesting proposal to reduce gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation to quantitative theory.

Health

• Earning a college degree before, but not after, getting married protects against obesity.

Incarceration

• “A new study finds that inmates in private prisons are likely to serve as many as two to three more months behind bars than those assigned to public prisons and are equally likely to commit more crimes after release, despite industry claims to lower recidivism rates through high-quality and innovative rehabilitation programs.”

Politics

• Hillary Clinton is the same as Barack Obama “only more militant.”  That’s Noam Chomsky in an interview about politics, Israel, drone strikes, and that Osama bin Laden had two of his books.

Race

• Rachel Dolezal, president of the N.A.A.C.P., is sparking a national debate about race.  She was born Caucasian, but she identifies as black.  Now race is not a biological concept, but a sociological one.  There’s some discussion about whether this is comparable to transgender issues.  Here’s is a great post about what is considered “passing.”

Sexuality

• A great podcast I found about sexuality and the law.
• To get yourself familiar with queer theory in one week, read these sources.
• The first fraction of ejaculate is the most effective for contraception and it contains other properties to protect the sperm from harm.  The last fraction contains elements that can damage sperm so that no other male competitor can take over.
• Men Ejaculate Larger Volumes of Semen, More Motile Sperm, and More Quickly when Exposed to Images of Novel Women

War

• For those who are interested, you can see what was on Osama bin Laden’s bookshelf in his compound right before the US’s operation in taking him out.