While You Were Sleeping: May 2011

by Samantha Minasi, April 26, 2011

On April 8, the final day of federal budget negotiations, with a government shutdown imminent due to Republican opposition to continued funding for Planned Parenthood, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) stated on the Senate floor that abortion was “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” In reality, less than 5 percent of patient care activities at Planned Parenthood are abortion-related; and by law, the organization is prohibited from using federal money for abortions. Sen. Kyl’s office, when contacted about the factual discrepancy in the senator’s statement, said that “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.”
Sources: Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Washington Post
According to a new study in the Journal of Ornithology, it’s not wind turbines or skyscrapers that kill the most birds each year, but cats. The study, which followed mortality rates of baby catbirds in a Washington suburb, found that 80 percent of the birds were killed by predators—cats being responsible for about half of the avian homicides. Nationwide, the American Bird Conservatory estimates that up to 500 million birds are killed a year by cats, both domestic and feral—a sharp contrast from the estimated 440,000 killed by wind turbines every year, which is expected to rise as wind farms grow.
Source: New York Times

New research shows that frequent religious involvement can almost double the risk of obesity, compared with little or no religious involvement. The study, conducted at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, involved 2,433 people that were tested initially at ages 20-32, and repeated with the same group over the next 25 years. Findings showed mixed results for risk factors like cardiovascular disease and hypertension, but one thing stood out: Those who reported attending church at least once weekly were significantly more likely to have a higher body mass index than those who rarely or never did. Experts point to a few possible explanations: Marriage—which is highly encouraged by the church but tends to lead to weight gain over time, church potluck dinners, the depletion of church-sponsored basketball leagues, and people rewarding themselves for their “good works” with a hearty helping of food.
Source: CNN

During 2010, General Electric, America’s largest corporation, reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, $5.1 billion of that coming from its operations in the US. What did GE pay in taxes? Nothing. GE actually claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion during 2010. This is made possible by a combination of tax breaks and keeping its most lucrative business off American soil. In the last decade, GE has spent millions to try and change tax laws, specifically, ones that allow the company to operate mainly overseas where foreign taxes are low, and where American taxes do not apply. In the past five years, on top of $26 billion in American profits, GE was awarded a net tax benefit from the IRS of $4.1 billion. John Samuels, the head of GE’s tax team, claimed that US workers benefit from the overseas profits, saying: “If US companies aren’t competitive outside of their home market, it will mean fewer, not more, jobs in the United States.” Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its workforce in the US, and increased employment overseas. NBC, which is owned by GE, made no mention of the story.
Source: New York Times

California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut are facing the largest budget holes of any states in the nation. Brad Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state of California, says this is because these states in particular in recent years have depended too heavily on the taxation of the wealthy (the top 1 percent of earners) to support their economies. The problem with taxing the rich is that their incomes are usually linked to financial markets—investments, or stock-based-pay—and are prone to sudden drops. Before the recession, about half of California’s income taxes came from the top 1 percent of its earners; in New York—the top 1 percent paid 41 percent, with similar numbers in other states. To understand just how volatile these incomes can be: Between 2007 and 2008, the incomes of these top 1 percent earners plummeted 16 percent, compared to 4 percent for US earners as a whole. Williams has proposed solutions like flatter income-tax rates and “income averaging,” but an intense bipartisan debate over income taxing looks like it’s going to halt any immediate changes.
Source: Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court ruled 6-2 in a lawsuit Pittsburgh parents filed against the drug company Wyeth. According to the couple, their daughter (then a baby) received the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine in April 1992. Within hours of receiving the shot, the child suffered a series of severe seizures, and continues (now 19 years old) to suffer from a residual seizure disorder. But because of a special Vaccine Act passed in 1986, designed to spare drug companies the costs of defending against parents’ lawsuits, many of these kinds of lawsuits never make it to the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia said that when a vaccine is properly prepared and is accompanied by proper directions and warnings, lawsuits over its side effects are not allowed under this 1986 law. Drug companies were worried they would encounter a flood of lawsuits over side effects had this family won the case, especially from families of autistic children. The American Academy of Pediatrics praised the decision, as did Pfizer. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor took issue with Justice Scalia’s views, stating that the 1986 law was not intended to be used this way.
Source: US News

A new Canadian study finds a significant link between a person’s exposure to media accounts of exceptional morality and virtue and their desire to change the world themselves. The study found that people with a strong sense of “moral identity” felt inspired to do good after reading or viewing media stories about other good samaritans’ acts. Karl Aquino, the lead author of the study, said that if the news media focused on individual stories of kindness, honesty, or sacrifice rather than negativity during times of crisis, people in general might feel more inspired to donate to a cause or otherwise try to help.
Source: Canada British Columbia News

A report released on March 14 shows that the renewable energy market has had a decade of unprecedented growth. Ten years ago, Ron Pernick, the cofounder and managing director of the Clean Edge Inc. market research firm, predicted that solar power would grow to be a $23.5 billion industry by the end of the decade. While critics doubted his prediction, the global solar market last year hit $71.2 billion—a small number compared to the fossil fuel market’s take of $383.2 billion last year, but clean energy has definitely established itself as a dominant market force. Clean Edge predicts that by 2020 the global biofuel market will reach $112.8 billion, wind power sales will reach $122.9 billion, and solar sales will hit $113.6 billion.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Those who want to live to age 100 and over need not obsess over their caloric intake or workout regime, but their attitude. Geriatricians say something called “adaptive competence” can be more powerful then genetics or other factors when helping people maintain longevity. Adaptive competence is the ability to bounce back from biological and psychological stress. In fact, during a study at the Yale School of Public Health testing the longevity of people in their 50s as a function of their perceptions about aging, “glass-half-empty people” died on average 7.5 years sooner than their glass-half-full counterparts.
Source: NPR