Why are economists so skinny?

The Wall Street Journal has a chart of the rates of obesity by classes of professions. Kevin Drum looked at the chart and noted that the category that includes economists, scientists, and psychologists have the lowest rates of 14.2%, well below the national average of 27.7% and far, far below the highest category of police officers, firefighters, and security guards which is 40.7% He is puzzled why this should be so and asks why it might be that economists are so low in weight.
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Where did the Earth get its water?

It was thought that one source of the water that is found on Earth was that it arrived via comets. But the Rosetta probe that has been orbiting comet 67P since August (and whose lander Philae came to rest on the surface in November) had remote sensing devices and found signs of water there but scientists who studied the data say that this water seems to be from a different source than the water on Earth.
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Farewell to The Colbert Report

Here are the two final clips from Stephen Colbert’s final episode. I thought it was a good ending, somewhat sentimental but avoiding the trap of being sappy. And you can amuse yourself by seeing how many people you can identify. The list unfortunately includes some of the dregs of politics and journalism and at least one war criminal. You can see a comprehensive list here.
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More fallout from the Hobby Lobby decision

Religious groups are feeling their oats following their success in the Hobby Lobby case to carve out a religious exemption for themselves from following the law if it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Now comes word that legislators in some states are seeking to expand that practice and allow businesses to not serve gay people if they disapprove of homosexuality on religious grounds.
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Is Dick Cheney deranged?

I am not a psychiatrist but I am not being facetious when I pose this question. It is quite incredible to watch Dick Cheney defend the torture that he and George W. Bush authorized and encouraged and to see someone who is dead wrong and yet be dead certain that he is dead right. His defenses of the indefensible are so bizarre that I honestly think that he shows signs of being detached from reality because the things he says seem to go well beyond mere attempts at self-justification and well into delusional territory. There is a deranged quality to the way he calmly and matter-of-factly says the most appalling things.
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A bridge too far for Obama?

Jonathan Cook has a good analysis of the upcoming Israeli elections to be held on March 17, 2015 and the role that US-Israeli relations are playing in it. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be hoping to win by pandering even more than he does presently to the right wing, religious, settler, racist elements in the country. Meanwhile Cook says that European opinion is rapidly shifting towards the Palestinians.
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The US government vs. Barrett Brown

Many people may not have heard of Barrett Brown. He is a 33-year old journalist who has been hounded by the US government because he exposed its wrongdoings using documents that had been obtained by the hacktivist group Anonymous. He seemed to have informal links to Anonymous and was willing to publicly engage with reporters about what they were doing. As a result, he was sometimes referred to as their spokesperson though he and they denied it. In some ways, he was a precursor to Edward Snowden. Kevin M. Gallagher gives us the back story.
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