Anti-choice laws running rampant

State after state, including Ohio, are passing extremely restrictive laws on abortion, hoping that at least one of them will lead to the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Here is what Georgia’s law says .

The law, which bans abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy—or just a week or two after a woman discovers her period is late, let alone that she is pregnant—was enacted Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and will surely be challenged in court.

Calling it a “draconian bill,” Oliver explained that the legislation gives a fetus “natural person” status, allowing it to be entitled to child support, claimed as a dependent on tax returns, and included in Georgia’s population. And the only exceptions to the bill—or the only cases where people would be allowed to have abortions—are due to fatal deformity, if the mother’s life is in jeopardy, or cases of rape and incest (corroborated by police report).

John Oliver brings us up to date on these developments. (If you can’t see the embedded video, click on the above link.)

Why and how birds fly in V-formations

We have all seen migrating birds traveling in a V-formation. It has long been speculated that this pattern is chosen because it reduces the energy required for flight in the birds that are at the back. But so much fine-tuning of positions was required to save energy by this method that some researchers doubted that this could be the reason and suggested alternatives, such as that the better navigators were in the front for others to follow or that this formation reduced the risk from predators.

But scientists were able to attach devices to a flock of birds and noticed that the birds were not just locating themselves precisely with respect to the lead birds as predicted by the aerodynamics of fixed wing aircraft, but that they were even synchronizing the flapping of their wings to achieve maximum energy savings.
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The law must be free for everyone

Nations are, or at least should be, governed by laws and people are expected to follow those laws. That assumes that people have free access to the laws so that they know what is expected of them. But there arose a weird situation in the US where some laws were copyrighted and others who had to follow the laws were expected to pay to find out what the laws were that they were bound by.

How could this happen? It originated in Georgia, a state notorious for its utterly reactionary attitudes. What they did was declare that the annotations to its laws could be copyrighted because they were created by a private party. Cory Doctorow explains what this is all about.
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Great moments in union busting

The compensation for the CEO of Delta airlines is $22 million but for some its employees, such as those who work to load and unload baggage, can be as low as $9 per hour. So naturally employees are considering forming a union. But in an effort to thwart those moves, Delta has put out posters telling workers that they would do better to use their union dues to purchase video games and alcohol.

In its latest offensive to beat back unionization, Delta Air Lines displays total contempt for labor unions and an astonishing ignorance about what unions have accomplished to lift American workers.

Delta has a new anti-union poster that tells employees, “A new video game system with the latest hits sounds like fun. Put your money towards that instead of paying dues to the union.” Another Delta poster estimates that union dues cost $700 a year and says, “Nothing’s more enjoyable than a night out watching football with your buddies. All those union dues you pay every year could buy a few rounds.”
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The narrowness of the US political spectrum

In the US, many people think that the Republican and Democratic parties represent widely different ideologies when in reality, they are very much in agreement except for a few, mainly social, issues. This is not a new development. In the British comedy sketch review Beyond the Fringe from 1961, Dudley Moore tells his friends that he is going to the US and asks them to fill him in on what to expect. You can see that sketch below and the comments about America hold up depressingly well.

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Wealthy people never realize how much luck played in their ‘success’

Jason England, former admissions dean at Carnegie Mellon University, has drawn from his own experiences to add to what the recent college admissions scandal tells us about the attitudes of the elites. He provides the other bookend of the view provided by Caitlin Flanagan, a counselor at an elite prep school, where the process begins. He points out what should be obvious to everyone about the ways in which the system operates to provide an immense advantage to the already privileged. It is an are excellent article that is well worth reading in full because it exposes from the inside how the system is so heavily rigged in favor of wealthy white males from private schools. The true genius of the system is that the levers of privilege operate so smoothly and invisibly that they seem natural and neutral in their application.
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The sex life of nuns

The Catholic church requires celibacy for its priests and nuns. But many find it hard to do so. While some are coerced into it, many of the sexual relations they have are voluntary and with both priests and parishioners.

Celibacy is seen as one of the most important sacrifices a priest or nun makes for the church. Nuns consider themselves married to Christ. Rather than taking a human spouse, they devote themselves to God. But many nuns face a daily challenge trying to keep their vows and their faith.
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According to a study conducted by Margaret Halstead and Lauro Halstead entitled “A Sexual Intimacy Survey of Former Nuns and Priests,” which was first carried out in 1978 and which has consistently confirmed results, including an update in 2018, more than half of all nuns say they knew of sexual activity going on in their convents. Some 44 percent of the most recently surveyed say they knew of sex between sisters, while 54 percent say they knew of sexual relationships between nuns and male members of the clergy. Just over a third say the nuns they knew were fooling around were doing so with lay people, including married men in the congregation.

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Future slack

One of the most valuable things I learned early on from psychologist Robert Boice who studied academic productivity was that a writer must write, every day. But most people find writing to not be appealing and it is easy to find excuses to not write because pretty much anything can seem more urgent and appealing (doing the laundry, cutting the grass, sorting paper clips) when compared to writing. Some also feel that inspiration has to strike for them to write.
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