| | | | The Big Thing Missing from the Gun Debate | | | There is something important missing from the debate over how to respond to last week's school shooting in Florida, which claimed 17 lives, writes Mark L. Rosenberg for Politico Magazine. Science. "In the 1960s, Congress saw that young people were being killed on our highways at unacceptably high rates and appropriated $200 million annually for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to conduct research that led to safer cars, safer roads and safer drivers. This research has saved more than 350,000 lives, according to NHTSA—and none of this involved confiscating automobiles," he writes. One of the main problems, suggests Rosenberg, is "the so-called Dickey amendment, which declared that none of the federal funds for the CDC's injury center could be used 'to promote or advocate gun control,'" a move he says had a "chilling" effect on research. "It would not take much to restart the CDC's gun-related research efforts, and such research could yield results that are every bit as impressive [as the research over traffic safety]…Many of the studies that are needed require large-scale, multi-jurisdictional and intricately designed evaluations that run over a period of several years to generate enough high-quality data." "The rate of mental illness in the United States is not 40 times the rate in Britain, but the rate of gun death is 40 times higher here than in Britain. Now, America does have about 15 times as many guns as Britain per capita, and far fewer restrictions on their ownership and use."
| | Did Russia Want to Get Caught? | | | It's hardly surprising that the Justice Department's document targeting 13 Russians over interference in the US presidential election finds that Donald Trump was Russia's favored candidate, writes Julian Sanchez in The New York Times. What also shouldn't be a surprise? That Russia was just fine getting caught in the act. "If we run with the hypothesis that Russia's core goal was to sow doubt about the integrity and fairness of American elections — and, by implication, erode the credibility of any criticism aimed at Russia's — then the ultimate exposure of their interference may well have been viewed not as frustrating that aim but as one more perverse way of advancing it," Sanchez writes. "Russia has long resented United States criticism of the country's repressive approach to online speech. Their use of online platforms to tamper with our presidential race reads not only as an attack, but as an implicit argument: 'The freedoms you trumpet so loudly, your unwillingness to regulate political speech on the internet, your tolerance for anonymity — all these are weaknesses, which we'll prove by exploiting them.' "Urgent as it is for the United States to take measures to prevent similar meddling in the next election, we should be careful that our response doesn't constitute a tacit agreement." | | Additive Manufacturing CONTENT BY  A new study of global executives finds real excitement about 3D printing with 63% saying it will have a positive impact in their country. That said, only 53% believe it has reached its full potential. Learn more about the potential of tech like additive manufacturing. | | | A Radical Proposal for the Olympics: Ioffe | | | As the PyeongChang Olympics enters its final week, it might be time to consider something radical for future Games, writes Julia Ioffe in The Atlantic: Stop holding them altogether. "The vast sums of money it takes to pay for the Olympics don't come from nowhere. They usually come from taxpayer funds that could be paying for something vital. While it was paying for preparations for the Sydney games, for instance, the local government of New South Wales also saw declines in its health and education budgets," Ioffe writes. "Then there are the naked displays of politics and nationalistic one-upmanship. Despite the Olympic Charter's repeated and explicit ban on political propaganda at the Games, the Olympics have always been as much a political event as an athletic one." "The 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi served [to show] the world that the Chinese and Russian regimes had arrived as new geopolitical and economic powerhouses. This time, in Pyeongchang, Kim Jong Un is using his cheerleaders and figure skaters in much the same way he uses his ICBMs: to show the world he has arrived, and is a serious leader not to be messed with. (That, and trying to peel South Korea away from its historic alliance with the United States.)" | | One Country Gets Serious About Fake News | | | The US might not have decided how to protect its electoral systems from Russian meddling, but one country has already learned some lessons from the American experience, writes Rick Noack for the Washington Post. Ahead of elections next month, Italy has "launched a scheme at 8,000 schools to teach students about how to distinguish between fake and real news in an experiment supported by social networks such as Facebook," Noack writes. "Some of the lessons Italian high school students are learning are simple but could turn out to be effective. Their assignments include distinguishing between real URLs of news sites and modified URLs linking to fakes, designed to trick users into believing they're on more well-known websites, for instance." "As Italy's government has made the fight against foreign election meddling a priority, other authorities have also stepped up their efforts to combat the phenomenon. Italians can report alleged fake news through an online service, which is directly connected with the country's police. Analysts then evaluate the authenticity of the reported posts or websites and can pursue possible criminal charges. The idea has come under criticism, however, as some fear a threat to the freedom of expression." | | The Best President Ever Is… | | | The United States is marking Presidents' Day today. The best commander-in-chief in modern US history? John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, finds a new poll from Ipsos and the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "Kennedy took the top spot in these ratings thanks to the strongest bipartisan support of any modern president," the Center for Politics finds. "Naturally, he had a high rating among Democrats (7.09), but he also received top marks from independents — 6.62, the highest any president earned from that group — and from Republicans (6.20). Kennedy's rating among Republicans was the highest rating the opposite-party identifiers gave to any modern president." How did the incumbent fare? Extremely well – among Republicans. "That Democrats give the lowest ratings to Trump — lower even than Nixon — is remarkable, but so is the high evaluation of Trump among Republicans. This may be further evidence that the Trump brand and the Republican Party are increasingly synonymous, though Trump does not rate as highly among Republicans as Obama does among Democrats." | | | President Trump is scheduled to meet with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Washington on Friday. Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr warns in the South China Morning Post that Turnbull will be "able to tell Americans that in 12 months he has positioned Australia as the most anti-Chinese of all America's allies. In fact, he can boast that, under his leadership, Australia has jettisoned a consensus on China policy that stretched from diplomatic recognition in 1972 to the decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015." The closing ceremony for the PyeongChang Olympics takes place Sunday. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday that America is open to talks with North Korea. "My job as chief diplomat is to ensure that the North Koreans know we keep our channels open, I'm listening. I'm not sending a [lot of] messages back [because] there's nothing to say to them at this point. So I'm listening for you to tell me you're ready to talk." | | | | | | |
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