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Most masks only protect against particulates an you need specific ones for organic vapors. That being said, you'd first need to figure out your exposure levels (esp considering it sounds like simple prep HPLC). The MSDS sheets should give you hints about ACN safety (I do not want to make any recommendation online as I do not know your procedures and your risk of personal exposure).

1) please read the MSDS sheets. In fact, do it for every chemical you are encountering. 2) ACN has a very characteristic smell that is not acidic in any form. 3) masks, other than full-blown chemical respirator will not protect from solvents. 4) check the material of your gloves for the chemicals you are using. 5) I have the feeling that at your place the chemical safety training is inadequate, do you have a safety officer or at least a manual somewhere?

I think this is an overly positive self-view, which is ignoring actual issues. It seems to be prevalent in much of Europe, we do not talk about racism in the open, hence it does not exist. Part of it is that much of the public broadcasters such as BBC and the German equivalent for example have a attenuating effect on public discourse. Economic anxiety has also been put forward as why Trump was voted in. In both cases (Brexit and Trump) subsequent studies have found that xenophobia and racism the actual driving factors. For Brexit check de Zavala et al (2017, Front Psychol). This is misinformation. The European Court of Auditors is the formal independent audit institution, and they publish regular audit reports. The issue is that many folks do not inform themselves how the EU works and are easily swayed by misrepresentation or outright lies by the leave campaign. I do think those folks that think themselves most resilient to this kind of propaganda and racism are among the least likely to notice when they are being influenced by it. And I am talking about subtle misinformation especially in complex issues not outright hatred. One has to recognize that the most common form of racism is not the full on neonazi-type ideology, but rather the subtle feeling of otherness or vague threat of ones own identity, for example. En masse, they can have massive influence on the political landscape as folks like Bannon found out. Almost everyone has some sorts of prejudice and one has to slow down and navigate those in order not to trip oneself up. This is especially relevant when one has some power over others, but also collectively as a society.

Precisely. Anything else implies a directionality that does not exist in evolution.

Amongst other things. I would not necessarily call it a faux pas, considering that he has a history of making nationalistic, racist and revisionist statements (though perhaps at a lower rate than some of his fellow party members, which in itself is sad).

Well and Weidel is the supposedly establishment-friendly front of the AFD. I mean, there is also Gauland who does darndedst to downplay the impact of the Third Reich (among other things).

Sure, the comment was just to highlight that the issue is more than "just" for a cake but could have serious societal impact, as we can see from past implementations. Exploring the legality of these issues is therefore far more than merely a complaint.

Discriminatory practices have historically shown to create communities with divergent access to a variety of services, which still have impact on many aspects, ranging from crime rates to economic success. With regard to intolerance there are studies out there that pretty much everyone is intolerant against those violating their values (Brandt et al. have published a series of papers on this topic). This points to a psychological underpinning that folks want to validate their own values (which seems like an almost trivial observation). However, where differences are obvious are the groups and values at which each groups is willing to discriminate against. Another factor is that liberals were more likely score high on egalitarian scales, which may attenuate discrimination. On the conservative side scoring high on self-reliance attenuated discrimination. There is some evidence that conservative have a broader issue with strong traditional beliefs which increased the range of issues where they score higher in terms of discrimination. It is also interesting to look at the most polarized/discriminated groups. On the conservative side we got (roughly in order) liberals, democrats, radical students, atheists, gays and lesbians, labor unions, illegal aliens, environmentalists, civil right leaders and feminists. On the opposite end we got: conservatives, Republicans, anti-abortionists, Christian Fundamentalists, business people and military.

I think you should be aware that this is not a simply issue of business decision. The bigger question is in case of competing laws (anti-discrimination vs artistic freedom). While the service in this case is relatively inconsequential, it raises the larger question whether services can be denied on that ground. This can have significant impact on numerous levels, if e.g. medical professionals or other semi-essential services can limit access to certain groups. Even not having access to an affordable supermarket within a certain radius can have massive impact, especially for low-income folks. Remember that much of the US is a huge, relatively empty space and it can be difficult simply to go somewhere else.

Hmm, do you think shows should ensure that their material is inoffensive?

I think that is too much a of a generalization. There is pretty good work out there, including folks who have systematically tested the bias in IQ tests, for example. Unfortunately it is the folks with weak data who tend to inflate the importance and accuracy of their results. Ironically that is also a stereotype that has not really a lot substance.

Geez, if you only read one source it is obvious why you won't find inconsistencies. My point is the following. Rushton has stated that there are clear and consistent differences between blacks, whites and Asians for a large set of traits. And he further claims that for all these massively divergent traits (including rather weird ones like temperament) he claims that they all follow the same pattern with black on one end, Asians on the other and whites in the middle. However, everyone working with epidemiological data will be massively surprised that things fall into such neat categories as virtually no other epidemiological data does. The most obvious one that I have mentioned a few times is that indigenous Americans who are usually placed closer to Asian populations score lower rather than higher than white folks. Rushton also propsed that different human popualtions have different fertilty and propagation strategies, with Asians having the longest gestation time and highest IQ. Yet, when looking at the data we find that certain Asian subgroups (including Hmong, Cambodians) are actually placed lower than whites in certain factors. I.e. the sweeping generalization that Rushton made is inconsistent with recent findings and puts the dominant role of genetics into question. But since you have so far ignored even the simple linked article I linked earlier, it is clear that a discussion is not to be had here.

This is not how SCOTUS framed the argument. Or the involved party for that matter. The main argument by the baker (Phillips) is that compelling him to make the cake would violate his first amendment rights. Nowhere was it stated that discrimination was justified (in fact, it was framed that way, the decision would certainly have ended up differently). If you read the ruling you will note that the court decided that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility towards the baker which is surprisingly limited in scope and leaves quite a few things open.

Because you seem to ignore the link above and perhaps think that the value is a fixed measure. However, as we know IQ scores for everyone has changed over years, and the gap has been closing over the last decades (something that Rushton et al. tend to dispute). The fact that you do not see a connection does not mean that you can just dismiss them without informing yourself on that matter. Your quote above also highlighted the fact that the authors overstate their claims, again, by ignoring that among Asian groups these "consistent" differences they found are, in fact not consistent. On top of it, Folks like Wicherts et al. have found serious flaws in the data on African populations. There are a series of papers from them (and book chapters), but I would be honestly (and positively) surprised if you were interested in reading them.

I am pretty sure that the studies in question will be from Rushton and/or Murray. There are a lot of counterpoints, a good overview is here. A major criticism to Rushton et al.'s work is that it does a lot of extrapolation and does not account well for non-genetic factors in his theoretical framework. E.g. he routinely ignored the fact that certain Asian groups from economically challenged regions as well as indigenous Americans have lower IQ scores. One interesting aspect that has come up in the last years are aspects such as the fact that the IQ gap is closing over the last years (essentially the Flynn effect is stronger for the black community than for the white) as well as other aspects including e.g. the role of literacy training. But no, stating the opinions of one research group as hard fact is overselling their results to a large degree. Marks Psychol Rep. 2010 Jun;106(3):643-64:

Considering that you are thinking about industrial jobs, I would work backward from there. Check out job advertisements that interest you and fulfill your criteria and check out what they are looking for.

Here is the thing, though. a) we do not know (yet) the genetic basis that makes many Ethiopians great long-distance runners; b) as such, we do not know how frequent the respective alleles are in different populations, should they exist; and c) we also do not know the contribution of the environment. See, for example Wilber and Pitsiladis (2012): As such, it can make sense to state that Ethiopia has a high number of excellent long-distance runners, but it is difficult to state that it is entirely or even mostly due to genetics. Also, the secondary claim is often that these characteristics are unique to Ethiopians (or Kenyans). But rather obviously, even if we assume that there are such genes, it is very likely to find them also in other populations, albeit perhaps in different frequencies. In other words, one big objections it that such claims as "truths" is usually a strong overstatement of our knowledge. The motivation for that can vary and is often due to ignorance of the scientific literature. Those that actually reject those, however, may have other reasons. Edit: as an interesting side note, there is quite a bit of lit out there focusing on elite runner but relatively recent papers have criticized those. One of the arguments being that looking at the extremes does not inform on population effects.

You are framing it incredibly tight if you think that these are the only members of the community that matter. As a matter of fact it is generally accepted that the first non-pejorative use of "nigger" was used very early on and was used as a self-reference during time of slavery. Rather than conveying inferiority, however, it was associated with being a survivor (see Stuckey: Going through the storms: The influence of African American art in history). Thus, some of original non-pejorative meaning has been circulating in the community. Many civil rights groups condemned the use in either form, but as you mentioned, African Americans are not an uniform block. I find it interesting that you exclude music originating from African American groups such as rap and hip-hop, for example. Clearly, there is more than a simple one-sided element to the use of the term and the African American community has clearly diverse views on them. Kennedy, for example described several instances where the use of the term by African American was described. Examples include the journalist Roi Ottley, who asserted that it was used quite freely out of earshot of whites (1943), Clarence Mayor described it used by black people as "a racial term with undertones of warmth and good will-reflecting ... a tragicomic sensibility that is aware of black history". There are further books and articles that describe the connotations and use of the term among in the African American community. But I think it is quite clear that the African American community has struggled with that word for a very long time and has taken a wide range of stances and approaches to deal with it.

This view implies that that there is no internal agency within black communities and that is clear not correct. First, the music was not created predominantly with a white audience in mind. The history of black music is vibrant and largely internally driven. It is correct that the use is also controversial in black communities. However, there is also considerable acceptance, especially of the use of "nigga" for intragroup references. And it is not a subservience to the use of "nigger" by white folks (or even self hatred as some have suggested). Studies have found several lines of reasoning why the term is still used, including specially assert agency by reclaiming the term that was not only hateful, but also associated with violence and dominance. Investigating use of ethnic terms in comedic data showed that "nigga" is used far more frequently to connotate ethnic meaning compared to therms such as "brother", "sister" or even black. In interviews, it was found that the term "nigga" confers a meaning of solidarity, and being pragmatic survivors, coming from a diasporic background, often in the context of unfair legal or other treatments. It conveys the meaning of struggle that is so often found in Soul music and points back to the historic experience of African Americans. For many, it is therefore a self-referencing term of acknowledgement of their background but used in a matter that is empowering (as survivors) rather than demeaning. This historic background makes it difficult for usage in other context, as it is ultimately derived from the African American community. There is a lot of context for this particular term and some good papers have been published including some compelling reads by Jacquelyn Rahman (on the linguistic side) and Randall Kennedy (on the law side), for example.

I would think it would depend on whether the friend was black or not. The word has a specific connotation and while it is always an expletive (as Ten Oz implies) a lot of context, intentional or not, goes with it. It is probably more confusing in countries which do not have a significant black population as part of their history (or ignored that they have). After all, a lot of these modern uses have been derived from modern black culture from the US and elsewhere the context is easily lost.

Well, rather unfortunately it appears that those days are gone. And if one demands civility or at least a certain standard of discourse, inevitably one would be accused of stifling free speech and being PC. There are comedians of course whose whole shtick is trying to say offensive or shocking things (say Jim Jeffries), and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I am not sure whether that type of joke is common repertoire in Samantha Bee's show. That, btw. is yet another difference. At least theoretically Bee can claim that it was a bit. Unless Barr has a history of making twitter jokes (and it really does not sound like that) is unlikely to be able to claim that.

Moreover: Roseanne Barr had a history of sharing anything from conspiracy stories to racist rants (e.g. calling Susan Rice an ape, claiming that the Clintons run a pedophile ring etc). I am quite sure that the producers already had some words with her and that was just the last straw. Also, even isolation, in one case it was an insulted to a specific person. In the other case it was clearly a racist comparison. To a degree, in fact that even right-wing pundits did not really try to defend it. Also the insult in itself (cunt) can be interpreted at worst as misogynist. But coming from woman it can be considered less severe. So yes, I do not think that a double standard was applied here as there two non-equivalent situations. Also note that earlier Kathy Griffin was fired over a rather tasteless joke.

So Trump has finally committed to actions against the real enemies.

Which is of course the precise point of calculating excess deaths in the the aftermath.

That is one of the provisions of the bill, folks that can be part of a trial are not eligible. Also, the data cannot be used in lieu of a full Phase II. The provisions in the bill apparently aim to increase the willingness of manufacturers to provide medication to terminal patients outside of trials (as manufacturers are rather hesitant to provide drugs for above outlined reasons). Most critics argue that it won't do a thing, so. After all, even in states with Right to Try laws they are barely used (in comparison to FDA expanded access requests). But the single biggest issue of course is the political move to diminish the role of the FDA at the cost of affected individuals.