The express line conundrum

We are familiar with the ‘express checkout lines’ at supermarkets and elsewhere meant for those with fewer that a certain number of items. People who violate this rule can arouse a great deal of hostility. Some violate the spirit of the rule by claiming that multiple items of the same product should count as one. But there is a difference between ten cans of tuna and ten bananas in a single bunch. Most people would think that the former consists of ten items and the latter one item. But what if you have ten bananas in two bunches? Should that be considered one item or two? Would it matter if the two bunches are weighed and rung up separately or both placed on the scale at once and rung up as a single item.
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Ohio gerrymandering struck down

I have written before about how Ohio congressional districts are so gerrymandered that election after election sees 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats being sent to Congress even though the popular vote is much closer to a 50-50 split. In the statehouse, Republicans won 62% of the seats while getting slightly fewer votes than Democrats

In a major victory today, a three-judge panel of federal judges unanimously ruled that the Ohio congressional map was unconstitutional because of blatant gerrymandering and had to be redrawn by June 14.
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Criticism of excessive CEO compensation

Abigail Disney, the great niece of the famous animator Walt Disney, has added her voice to those who criticize the excessive salaries paid to the CEOs of companies, including Disney CEO Bob Iger. His salary is 1,424 times the median salary of a Disney employee. It is interesting that she too uses the term ‘neoliberal’ as a pejorative, something that I wholeheartedly endorse.
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Drug rehabilitation program or indentured servitude?

Addictions are frighteningly easy to acquire and tremendously difficult to get rid of. While no single treatment method works for everyone, the punitive approaches of harsh penalties such as prison time for possession and use of drugs for what essentially has become an illness seems misguided. But in the US, the heavy hand of the private profit-seeking pharmaceutical sector that benefits from creating drug addicts and the private prison system that benefits from incarcerating large numbers of people prevent more enlightened and humane methods from being widely used.
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Game of Chairs

For those of you like me who do not watch Game of Thrones, here is my favorite Sesame Street character Grover to explain what the story is about and who wins the game.

And here is my least favorite Sesame Street character Elmo trying to play the role of peacemaker.

I am pretty sure there are allusions in both clips that only those who have followed the series closely will get.

Why malign kangaroos?

The sacked defense secretary of the UK Gavin Williamson said that he was the victim of a ‘kangaroo court’ that unfairly blamed him for a leak from the National Security Council. The term ‘kangaroo court’ is so common that its strangeness slipped past me and until now I had never wondered where such unusual turn of phrase might have come from. It is only after I had made that post that the thought occurred to me: Why kangaroo? What has that animal done to become synonymous with an unfair judicial proceeding where the normal procedures of justice are perverted so that the outcome is determined is even before proceedings start?

You would think that the term originated in Australia but its first recorded use in print was in the US back in 1853. The origins are unclear but Merriam Webster has some theories.
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How media leaks can sometimes happen

As if Brexit was not causing enough problems for embattled British prime minister Theresa May, there is a new row from a totally different direction because she has sacked her defense minister Gavin Williamson for being the source of leaks from a meeting of the highly secretive National Security Council. While leaks from cabinet meetings have now become commonplace as party discipline has broken down, leaks from the NSC are considered a step too far. Williamson in turn denies that he was the source of the leaks and says that he was the victim of a biased investigation. This has caused turmoil in the Conservative party between his and her backers.
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Let’s give Occupy Wall Street and young people the props they deserve

In September 2011, hundreds of protesters known as the Occupy Wall Street movement took over Zucotti Park in downtown Manhattan. It gave birth to the powerful and memorable “We Are the 99%” slogan that so succinctly and yet accurately captured the huge and growing income and wealth divide in the US. Emily Stewart looks at what that movement spawned. (Link thanks to Cory Doctorow.)
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Carnivorous plants

There is something fascinatingly contradictory about carnivorous plants. This close up video by the BBC shows how one of them, the Venus Flytrap, works. I have to admit, I was fascinated to learn how the plant captures its prey but saddened by the sight of hapless flies succumbing to its wiles.

The US is supporting a coup in Venezuela

It is quite extraordinary how on the one hand the US political-media class in the US is outraged, absolutely outraged, by alleged Russian attempts to sway US elections while at the same time they are openly calling for a military coup in Venezuela to overthrow president Nicholas Maduro and install Juan Guaidó as president. This is not the first time that the US has done it. The US expressed great joy when Hugo Chavez seemed to have been ousted only to end up with egg on its face when he beat back the coup.
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