The Lopsided Law of Wall Street

The lopsided law of immigration vs. Wall Street, humans actually do make it rain, and Glenn Beck goes after Google. These discoveries and more after the jump.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

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Humans Make it Rain, Literally Now, scientists have for the first time linked an increase in torrential rains and severe snowstorms over the past half-century to human tinkering with the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, reports the AP.

Undocumented Immigrants: 393K, Wall Street: 0 Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Thus far, no bankers or Wall Street executives have been tried, let alone put behind bars. Not a single one.

Glenn Beck Goes After Google What does Glenn Beck want you to be scared of this week? Google! The former rodeo clown told viewers Wednesday that he’s afraid the search giant is in cahoots with governments (except the governments it’s trying to overthrow) and really just shouldn’t be trusted, no matter how good its search algorithm is.

Noam Chomsky on the World Chomsky Talks on Wisconsin¹s Resistance to Assault on Public Sector, the Obama-Sanctioned Crackdown on Activists, and the Distorted Legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Why Students Want to Go to Harvard Applications for the class of 2015 at elite colleges are soaring—up 15 percent at Harvard, and up 17, 11, 10, and 7 percent at Penn, Northwestern, Duke and Stanford, respectively. Why, amidst sluggish economic growth and high unemployment, are applications soaring at expensive elite schools, far more so than at mid-quality state universities and liberal-arts colleges?

China Cracks Down on Smoking China is ordering makers of films and TV shows to limit the amount of smoking depicted on-screen, the latest effort to curb rampant tobacco use in the country with the largest number of smokers in the world.

Social Security Is Not Going Broke The Economist’s Erica Grieder counters the argument that the program is a Ponzi scheme and unsustainable.

How to Build a Progressive Tea Party Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind. Enraged citizens gather in every city, week after week—to demand the government finally regulate the behavior of corporations and the superrich, and force them to start paying taxes