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I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How.

John Bohannon io9
If a study doesn’t even list how many people took part in it, or makes a bold diet claim that’s “statistically significant” but doesn’t say how big the effect size is, you should wonder why. But for the most part, we don’t. Which is a pity, because journalists are becoming the de facto peer review system. And when we fail, the world is awash in junk science.

The Cheapest Way to End Homelessness ... Build Homes, Says New Study

Drake Baer Business Insider
"Close to half of all county expenditures were spent on just five percent of the homeless population, who came into frequent contact with police, hospitals, and other service agencies, racking up an average of $100,000 in costs per person annually." That's a ton of money. And it's why the simplest solution to ending homelessness — giving them homes — makes so much sense.

GE Begins Union Contract Talks

Business Wire
Representatives of 11 different unions have begun negotiations with General Electric Co. This will be the first round of negotiations since GE announced their return to being a manufacturing company and the selling off of GE's financial companies.

Our Aquarium

Bonnie S Kaplan Cultural Weekly
Los Angeles poet Bonnie S Kaplan works with former prisoners and parolees, easing the transition back to the community. Her poem Our Aquarium hints at the difficulties of adjustment.

Europe at a Crossroads; Greece Puts Off IMF Payment; Call for Solidarity by European Left

Alex Tsipras Le Monde Diplomatique
Europe is at a crossroads..the decision is now not in the hands of the institutions...but rather in the hands of Europe's leaders. Which strategy will prevail? The one that calls for a Europe of solidarity, equality and democracy, or the one that calls for rupture and division? If some think or want to believe that this decision concerns only Greece, they are making a grave mistake. I would suggest that they re-read Hemingway's masterpiece, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

6 Lessons for the U.S. from Spain's Democratic Revolution

Erica Sagrans In These Times
How Spain's 15M movement went from occupying city squares to city halls-without compromising its independence. An important part of progressives' recent electoral success can be traced to a strong network of locally organized 'social centers' across Spain. These are spaces where community members can interact and share ideas, whether that means organizing a demonstration, taking Zumba classes or checking out library book.

Daniel Barenboim on Music, Israel and Playing in Gaza

Jon Snow Channel 4 News (Ireland)
Conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim talks to Jon Snow about music's power to bring people together, and says Israelis and Palestinians should live together or side by side - but not back to back.

Spotlighting the Work of Women in the Civil Rights Movement's Freedom Rides

Anna Holmes The Washington Post
The Freedom Rides originated with a woman. Her name was Irene Morgan, and she was a 27-year-old wartime factory worker and mother of two traveling from Virginia to her home town of Baltimore on a July morning in 1944. Morgan, recovering from a miscarriage and unable to stand for any significant period of time, was sitting in the colored section of a Greyhound bus. At some point, she and her seatmate were asked to give up their seats to a white couple. She refused...

Tidbits - June 4, 2015 - Korean War End?; Spanish elections; Puerto Rico; Oscar López Rivera; Emmy Noether; Gaza Peace Concert; Tiananmen Square; Angela Acquitted; more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Can Women End Korean War?; Countess vs. Communist-Battle to Become Madrid's Mayor; How the United States Strangled Puerto Rico; Obama's Human and Moral Challenge: Oscar López Rivera; The Press and Bernie Sanders; The Female Mathematician Who Changed the Course of Physics; Appeal by Dr. Kristin Neuhaus, successor to Dr. George Tiller; Cross Borders Concert at the Gaza Strip border; Today in History - Tiananmen Square Massacre; Angela Davis Acquitted

Harvey on Harvey: The Most Dangerous Book I Ever Wrote

David Harvey Reading Marx's Capital With David Harvey
In defining a clear and comprehensive anti-capitalist politics and offering rational and compelling reasons for operating as anti-capitalists, highly readable Marxian scholar David Harvey goes beyond listing contradictions of capital to engage in a systematic account of the web of 17 relationships for what are usually treated as isolated aspects of crisis. Many of the contradictions are manageable, but some in combination also contain the seeds of systemic catastrophe.