Vox: The 3 deadliest drugs in America are all totally legal

Now, this chart isn't a perfect comparison across the board. One driver of tobacco and alcohol deaths is that both substances are legal and easily available. Other substances would likely be far deadlier if they were as available as tobacco and alcohol. And federal data excludes some deaths, such as drugged driving deaths, which is why the chart focuses on direct health complications for all drugs.

Deaths also aren't the only way to compare drugs' harms. Some drugs, such as alcohol and cocaine, may induce dangerous behavior that makes someone more predisposed to violence or crime. Other drugs, like psychedelics, may trigger underlying mental health problems or psychotic episodes. When evaluating the overall harm caused by drugs, all of these factors should be taken into account. [...]

When it comes to deadliness, no single substance comes close to tobacco. To put its risk in perspective, more Americans die from tobacco-caused health problems like lung cancer and heart disease than from reported drug overdoses, traffic accidents, and homicides combined. [...]

The death toll may understate the more general risk of alcohol. A previous analysis, led by British researcher David Nutt and published in The Lancet, took a comprehensive look at 20 of the world's most popular drugs and the risks they pose in the UK. A conference of drug experts measured all the factors involved — mortality, other physical damage, chance of developing dependence, impairment of mental function, effect on crime, and so on — and assigned each drug a score. They concluded alcohol is by far the most dangerous drug to society as a whole. [...]

Marijuana is more widely used, but it's never been definitively linked to direct deaths or even other medical conditions. The research suggests using marijuana during adolescence could lead to some bad outcomes, particularly worse cognitive function. But studies have failed to conclusively link marijuana to lung disease or psychosis and schizophrenia, despite concerns from critics.

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Slate: The Crazy-Ambitious, Maybe-Impossible Plan to Install Free Wi-Fi Across the European Union

The president of the European Union’s executive branch has a vision: free Wi-Fi across the whole of the EU. During his State of the European Union address this week, European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg announced a plan to install wireless internet in the public spaces of “every European village and every city” by 2020. By 2025, he wants to “fully deploy 5G, the fifth generation of mobile communication systems, across the European Union.” [...]

The idea, complete with the super-hip title WiFi4EU, sounds lofty and wonderful and too good to be true. So, obviously, there are some not-insignificant impediments to its realization. First of all, at this point, it’s just a proposal. The plan still needs to pass the European Parliament and national ministers, Newsweek reported. If it does, then the money could be available by the end of next year.

The money. There’s the second catch. The European Union will put €120 million ($135 million) toward the effort, for installing the network infrastructure. The BBC reported that “local bodies will have to cover subscription costs, maintenance and other expenses.” A chief analyst at the telecoms consultancy ConnectivityX, Mark Newman, spoke to the BBC, and questioned “whether frugal councils will really see it as a priority to deliver free wi-fi in all their buildings and squares."

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Salon: Rise of the right and climate catastrophe: Will Trumpism, Brexit and geopolitical exceptionalism sink the planet?

The delegates to that 2015 climate summit were in general accord about the science of climate change and the need to cap global warming at 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius (or 2.6 to 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit) before a planetary catastrophe ensues. They disagreed, however, about much else. Some key countries were in outright conflict with other states (Russia with Ukraine, for example) or deeply hostile to each other (as with India and Pakistan or the United States and Iran). In recognition of such tensions and schisms, the assembled countries crafted a final document that replaced legally binding commitments with the obligation of each signatory state to adopt its own unique plan, or “nationally determined contribution” (NDC), for curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions. [...]

That geopolitics will play a decisive role in determining the success or failure of the Paris Agreement has become self-evident in the short time since its promulgation. While some progress has been made toward its formal adoption — the agreement will enter into force only after no fewer than 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified it — it has also encountered unexpected political hurdles, signaling trouble to come.

On the bright side, in a stunning diplomatic coup, President Obama persuaded Chinese President Xi Jinping to sign the accord with him during a recent meeting of the G-20 group of leading economies in Hangzhou. Together, the two countries are responsible for a striking 40 percent of global emissions. “Despite our differences on other issues,” Obama noted during the signing ceremony, “we hope our willingness to work together on this issue will inspire further ambition and further action around the world.” [...]

On the dark side, however, Great Britain’s astonishing Brexit vote has complicated the task of ensuring the European Union’s approval of the agreement, as European solidarity on the climate issue — a major factor in the success of the Paris negotiations — can no longer be assured. “There is a risk that this could kick EU ratification of the Paris Agreement into the long grass,” suggests Jonathan Grant, director of sustainability at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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Jacobin Magazine: When Humanitarianism Became Imperialism

The legacy of opposition to the Vietnam War combined with the lack of revolutionary progress in the West produced a new kind of ethos among European leftists. Solidarity with suffering people targeted by state repression, whether in right-wing Nigeria during the Biafran War or in newly communist Vietnam during the “Boat People” crisis, came to take precedence over grudging support for either Soviet or Chinese-aligned governments. This was the moment that gave birth to Doctors Without Borders in France and the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan in Sweden.

Both groups opposed Soviet intervention as imperialist and, eventually, supported the Islamist insurgency as a genuine expression of the popular will. Their powerful lobbying in their home countries and the United Nations meshed neatly with US foreign policy priorities, expressed most concisely in Carter national security adviser Zbygnew Brzezinski’s words, “we now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.” But the NGOs also helped the mujahidin directly, providing them with industrial equipment and embedding with them to spread their message to sympathetic Western audiences. [...]

Though the extreme version of the argument  — that we must support any regime that resists US imperialism, no matter how authoritarian, or, increasingly, neoliberal — is uncommon, we are routinely asked to stand in solidarity with Assad and Yanukovych. This echoes all the perversities of the Soviet stance: the defense of sovereignty is held to justify territorial annexation, partition by proxy forces, and the mass killing of civilians.

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FiveThirtyEight: When Does Praying In Public Make Others Uncomfortable?

Christians seemed most likely to underestimate the discomfort of others in response to anything that resembled an invitation to prayer. For David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, these invitations are “an act of religious intolerance.” When a Christian says “I’ll pray for you,” Silverman hears, “You’re different from me and I’ll pray for you to change.”

Even if a religious person isn’t praying for Silverman’s conversion, he feels backed into a corner. “If I say, ‘Thank you,’ I’m legitimizing their religion,” Silverman said. Ideally, he’d prefer religious people to to ask, “May I pray for you?” and to respect a “No,” if they get one. [...]

Christians overestimated how uncomfortable others were with seeing markers of faith. Only 57 percent of Christians thought an observer who spotted their religious clothes or jewelry would be untroubled, but nearly three-quarters of atheists and agnostics were unbothered.

And it looks like I was right to feel OK about praying my rosary on the subway, assuming that, in New York City, it wouldn’t be the oddest thing someone saw that day. Sixty-two percent of atheists and agnostics nationwide felt very or extremely comfortable in these circumstances, but fewer than half (48 percent) of Christians who prayed this way guessed that an observer would feel that comfortable witnessing their prayer.

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