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From the final column of Arthur S. Brisbane, the New York Times‘ outgoing public editor:

I also noted two years ago that I had taken up the public editor duties believing “there is no conspiracy” and that The Times’s output was too vast and complex to be dictated by any Wizard of Oz-like individual or cabal. I still believe that, but also see that the hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.

When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.

As GetReligion, where I found this at, notes "It is to the New York Times’ credit that it publishes critiques such as this." That's one of the reasons why I tend to like that paper even if I don't always agree with its views - although it's annoying enough at times to be one of the primary reasons that I haven't bothered to actually subscribe.

I'd argue that some the NYT's political leanings should be fairly obvious given the slew of war-of-women articles the paper has run when the New York Time own polling data shows women as a whole support seems supportive of many of the policies that supposedly constitute war on them. (They did publish that polling data but as basically nothing more than a graph).

The whole GetReligion piece, which includes details of some of the reactions to this article, is really worth the read BTW. As their piece notes, the following rebuttal from the NYT's executive editor Jill Abramson really seems to prove Brisbane's point:

In our newsroom we are always conscious that the way we view an issue in New York is not necessarily the way it is viewed in the rest of the country or world. I disagree with Mr. Brisbane's sweeping conclusions

Poor in India Starve as Politicians Steal $14.5B of Food

"This scam, like many others involving politicians in India, remains unpunished. A state police force beholden to corrupt lawmakers, an underfunded federal anti-graft agency and a sluggish court system have resulted in five overlapping investigations over seven years -- and zero convictions. ... Even after accounting for the wastage, only 41 percent of the food set aside for feeding the poor reached households nationwide in 2005, according to a World Bank study commissioned by the government and released last year." In some Indian states more than 80% of aid was diverted.

Despite Drought, 2012 Most Profitable for Farmers in 40 Years

As previously noted, as a percentage of GDP this year's US drought appears to far better than a couple of droughts in the 1980s. And in Canada, grain crop yields seem much higher than normal.

"The World Is Sliding Backwards," Hillary Clinton Says Of International Religious Freedom Report

"State Department's annual summary indicates that oppression of religious minorities is on the rise."

Americans Having Fewer Babies Crimping Consumer Spending

Which is the bigger risk: overpopulation or population implosion? In related news, Singapore is cranking up taxation due to an aging population.

Writing about the topic of circumcision recently netted me a somewhat surprising number of replies (though, as seems typical for this blog none appearing on the blog itself). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also released an update on the topic, probably best summarized in the following statement (although you can read the long tech report if you've got the time):

the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend universal newborn circumcision.

If you look elsewhere you can find some significant evidence of flaws in the AAP report and the composition of the task force, and it's conclusions seem to be at odds with those of most other medical societies. Here, for example, is a 2009 statement from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia:

Infant male circumcision was once considered a preventive health measure and was therefore adopted extensively in Western countries. Current understanding of the benefits, risks and potential harm of this procedure, however, no longer supports this practice for prophylactic
health benefit. Routine infant male circumcision performed on a healthy infant is now considered a non-therapeutic and medically unnecessary intervention.

Consider another article forwarded my way which claimed that "Declining rates of US infant male circumcision could add billions to health care costs". the primary impact of circumcision supposedly playing out in the realm of STDs (with other effects like uninary tract infections significantly reduced by breastfeeding and treatable by antibiotics). Note that STDs aren't something a child would have to deal, barring sexual abuse, meaning that this could be left to the individual later in life instead of in infancy. This particular article asserted that

steadily declining rates of U.S. infant male circumcision could add more than $4.4 billion in avoidable health care costs if rates over the next decade drop to levels now seen in Europe.

The most obvious idea would be to thus compare the situation of North America to Europe. How do the figures compare? As far as curable STDs are concerned, the rates of STDs in the population seem basically the same in Europe and North American (differences in the fraction of the population infected [favoring North America] and the number of new cases in the population [favoring Europe] could both be due to rounding-related issues). How about HIV? Look up the infection rate statistics, and the US had a significantly higher rate of HIV infections than each of the 5 or 6 Europe countries I looked up. Thus this study seems more reminiscent of scare tactics than anything substantive

Interestingly I also discovered that the correlation between HIV and circumcision in Africa is even worse than presented last time. Here's a statement from a 2009 US Agency for International Development report:

There appears no clear pattern of association between male circumcision and HIV prevalence—in 8 of 18 countries with data, HIV prevalence is lower among circumcised men, while in the remaining 10 countries it is higher.

i.e. in a majority of countries HIV prevalence was higher amongst circumcised men. It's African data that the AAP seems fairly dependent on (despite the flaws previously noted in such studies, and with more studies also documenting such flaws).

The Rebirth of Recess

"Every schoolchild who’s ever squirmed in his seat, anxious for recess to arrive, can sympathize with students in Chicago. This year, many public schools in that city are scheduled to have recess for the first time in three decades. ... The new science of recess says that recess isn’t a waste of time at all. 'Having recess is much, much, much better than not having recess,' says Anthony Pellegrini, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota who’s written extensively on the subject. ... recess in many schools is now a very different beast. It’s more structured and sports-focused, less dreamy and aimless. Whether it leads to the same cognitive and social benefits is an open question. "

Armchair discovery a ‘godsend’ for struggling B.C. church

How liberal christianity in Canada survives. The article notes that this church lost "its longtime clerical team and about 95 per cent of its former congregation" to the Anglican Network in Canada.

Relax, Finding Gigantic Undetonated Bombs from WWII Is Totally Normal

"So this is where it gets crazy. Spiegel reported in 2011 that in Germany "thousands of bombs are found each year, 15 a day as a statistical average." 15. Per. Day. They add that 5,500 bombs in Germany have to be defused each year."

As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up

"Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock. Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing."