LAS VEGAS — ON the first day of the fall semester, I left campus from an afternoon of teaching anxious college freshmen and headed to my second job, serving at a chain restaurant off Las Vegas Boulevard. The switch from my professional attire to a white dress shirt, black apron and tie reflected the separation I attempt to maintain between my two jobs. Naturally, sitting at the first table in my section was one of my new students, dining with her parents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your-professor.html?_r=0

Doctors Will Get Less Money for Treating Medicaid Patients Starting in January

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-18/more-medicaid-patients-less-money-for-doctors

NY Governor Bans Fracking In His State (Evan K.)

The state of New York will ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, because of the potential it holds for creating a public health risk and its questionable economic benefits. Gov. Andrew Cuomo essentially had removed himself from the decision-making process, saying he would rely solely on aides with expertise on the issue, including Environmental Commissioner Joe Martens and Acting Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. “I don’t think I even have a role here,” Cuomo said at a news conference. At an open cabinet meeting in Albany, the state’s capital, Zucker said he based his decision to ban frackin on a single question: “Would I let my child play in a school field nearby or my family drink the water from the tap or grow their vegetables in the soil? After looking at the plethora of reports as you see behind me and the others that I have in my office, my answer is no.”

New York’s Fracking Ban Is About Politics, Not Science. And That’s Just Fine. (jdargis)

Cuomo has promised all along to base his fracking decisions on scientific evidence. But, as is often the case with controversial new technologies, the scientific evidence points in both directions. We know there are risks, benefits, and uncertainties. We just can’t agree on how to weigh them. That’s why, as Adam Briggle argued convincingly in Future Tense last year, the fracking debate cannot be settled by science alone. It can only be settled by appeals to values, priorities, and interests—which is to say, politics.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/dailydigest/90035/daily-digest-1219-fracking-banned-ny-state-life-could-lurk-deep-beneath-earth?utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_158&utm_source=newsletter_2014-12-19&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_title_90035

Courtesy of the Cronybus(sic) last minute passage, government was provided a quid-pro-quo $1.1 trillion spending allowance with Wall Street’s blessing in exchange for assuring banks that taxpayers would be on the hook for yet another bailout, as a result of the swaps push-out provision, after incorporating explicit Citigroup language that allows financial institutions to trade certain financial derivatives from subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, explicitly putting taxpayers on the hook for losses caused by these contracts. Recall:

Continued:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-12/presenting-303-trillion-derivatives-us-taxpayers-are-now-hook

Published on Dec 11, 2014

A very unsexy-sounding piece of technology could mean that the police know where you go, with whom, and when: the automatic license plate reader. These cameras are innocuously placed all across small-town America to catch known criminals, but as lawyer and TED Fellow Catherine Crump shows, the data they collect in aggregate could have disastrous consequences for everyone the world over.

via Catherine Crump: The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you – YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai8lHVqKjDg