are up early.

First this, from a blogpost by David Firestone:

On the most basic level, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is responsible for saving and creating 2.5 million jobs. The majority of economists agree that it helped the economy grow by as much as 3.8 percent, and kept the unemployment rate from reaching 12 percent.

The stimulus is the reason, in fact, that most Americans are better off than they were four years ago, when the economy was in serious danger of shutting down.

But the stimulus did far more than stimulate: it protected the most vulnerable from the recession’s heavy winds. Of the act’s $840 billion final cost, $1.5 billion went to rent subsidies and emergency housing that kept 1.2 million people under roofs. (That’s why the recession didn’t produce rampant homelessness.) It increased spending on food stamps, unemployment benefits and Medicaid, keeping at least seven million Americans from falling below the poverty line.

The book is The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era, by Michael Grunwald.

Skeptically Speaking #182 Science Cinema

Sunday, September 23rd, Skeptically Speaking will record “before a life UStream audience” as per usual:

This week, we’re looking at film and video as an exciting, engaging way to communicate science to the public. Guest host Marie-Claire Shanahan spends the hour with independent film-maker and former BBC video journalist Brady Haran, and artist and filmmaker Henry Reich, creator of the Minute Physics YouTube series. They’ll discuss the promise and pitfalls of telling science stories in moving pictures.

We record live with Brady Haran and Henry Reich on Sunday, September 23 at 6 pm MT. The podcast will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, September 28.

Click here for links and details.