I left California over a year ago but I'm still fascinated by the HSR project.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21695237-taxpayers-could-pay-dearly-californias-high-speed-dreams-biting-bullet

Boondoggle: "1.work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value."

Shocking! I tell you, Shocking!

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/07/01/woman-who-said-she-fought-off-rapists-after-nyc-pride-made-the-story-up-say-police/

Boondoggle: sufficient opportunities for graft and corruption.

From ev psych conference I'm attending -- one of my tweets.

Hypothesis: anger and depression are alternative bargaining strategies for resolving social conflict. -Edward Hagen #HBES2016

Abstract from talk:

Saturday July 2, 2016 10:00 am - 10:20 am
The sex difference in depression is explained by the sex difference in physical formidability
Edward Hagen (Washington State University), Tom Rosenström
The female bias in depression has yet to be explained. One evolutionary model of depression proposes that loss of interest in virtually all activities is a bargaining strategy to compel reluctant social partners to provide more help in the wake of adversity. An evolutionary model of anger proposes that high upper body strength predisposes individuals to angrily threaten social partners who offer too few benefits or impose too many costs. Here we propose that when social partners provide too few benefits or impose too many costs, the physically strong become angry and the physically weak become depressed. The sexual dimorphism in upper body strength means that men will be more likely to bargain with anger and physical threats and women with depression. We tested this idea using the 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The odds of depression in those with high upper body strength were less than half those with low upper body strength (OR=0.4, p=0.0079), which was not a consequence of confounds with anthropometric, hormonal or socioeconomic variables, but was partially explained by a confound with physical disability. Nevertheless, upper body strength mediated 63% of the effect of sex on depression, whereas physical disability mediated only 11%.

Media pimping Brexit "regret".

Sheep trained to carry cardboard signs fill the streets. Very entertaining.

Everything is bad all the time.

Those white racists reached out from across the sea and assaulted a black woman in Texas by voting to leave the EU.

Meds optional, apparently.

You know things are that bad when Buddhists do it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3671017/Myanmar-mob-torches-mosque-religious-tensions-spike-report.html

The cure for "rape culture."
http://i.imgur.com/FUM92uv.jpg