Tuesday Reads

Posted: August 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic Policy, income inequality, jobs, morning reads, New Orleans, Regulation, the blogosphere | Tags: , , , , , , | 31 Comments

Good Morning!

I’ll be attending Rising Tide 6 at Xavier on Saturday morning and will try to live blog as many of the seminars I’ll be attending as possible. Last year, I enjoyed the politics and criminal justice panels best.  This year, there will be two session running simultaneously including some technical stuff on blogging and fun stuff on brass bands, food, and the HBO series Treme.  The conference is a way for activists and bloggers in New Orleans to continue to see that New Orleans makes some progress post-Katrina and that information gets out to the public.  Conference attendance has been growing each year.

Alright, so I choose the cute dog picture for a reason.  Turns out they are some of our best friends and diagnosticians!!  Check this headline out from Forbes:  How Dogs Beat Doctors in Identifying Early-Stage Lung Cancer.

A new study in the European Respitory Journal shows that dogs are better at sniffing out the early markers of lung cancer than the latest medical technologies at our disposal.  Lung cancer is the second most frequent form of cancer in men and women across the United States and Europe, accounting for approximately 500,000 deaths per year.

Part of the reason for the high mortality rate is that lung cancer is notoriously difficult to identify early. In many cases, the patient doesn’t show any symptoms and detection of the disease happens by chance. If someone isn’t that lucky, the cancer is likely to have already progressed by the time it is found.

The study investigated whether dogs could be trained to reliably identify specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are linked to the presence of lung cancer.  The latest medical methods for identifying lung cancer VOCs are generally unreliable because there is a high risk of interference in the results, especially from the residuals of tobacco smoke, and the results can take a long time to process.

Trained dogs were asked to sniff out a study group that included lung cancer patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, and healthy volunteers.  The dogs successfully identified 71 samples of lung cancer out of a possible 100.  They also correctly detected 372 samples that did not have lung cancer out of a possible 400 –  a 93% success rate.

As impressive, the dogs were able to detect lung cancer markers independently from COPD and tobacco smoke – showing that Fido, unlike our latest technologies, can separate out lung cancer markers from the most confounding variables.

My friend Michelle swears that my late golden lab, Honey, saved her life.  Honey kept jumping on her and putting her paws up on her breast until one day, her breast implant popped.  We soon discovered it was leaking and she went to the doctor who discovered a tumor underneath the implant.  Honey had some other amazing tricks too.  She had an uncanny sense of who were criminals and cornered two of them when we lived in the quarter.  I’d frequently walk Karma and Honey down to Pirate’s Alley after my gigs to rest and have a bit of wine with friends.  Kids and tourists use to pet her, feed her, and roll all over her all the time.  She was like a big stuffed toy.  Only twice did I here her growl and found out she was nothing to be messed with.  Both times she pushed young gutter punks up against the Cathedral until the security guard came around the corner to figure out why she was barking.  Both of them were were wanted by the police.  One had been stealing tip jars from the local street entertainers and the other was wanted for grabbing plates of food from tourists dining on the street.  After that, Honey became one spoiled dog.  Every time she would walk by the galleries or restaurants all the business owners would see her, come out, and give her treats.  The restaurant in Pirate’s alley always kept a big serving of pate for her.  Honey died suddenly about 8 months after Katrina from a brain aneurysm.  She was one heckuva dog. Karma and I miss her lots!! She was blind in one eye as you can see from her picture there to the right.

Politico reports that the FCC has finally killed off the fairness doctrine.

The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules.

Earlier this summer FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agreed to erase the post WWII-era rule, but the action Monday puts the last nail into the coffin for the regulation that sought to ensure discussion over the airwaves of controversial issues did not exclude any particular point of view. A broadcaster that violated the rule risked losing its license.

While the commission voted in 1987 to do away with the rule — a legacy to a time when broadcasting was a much more dominant voice than it is today — the language implementing it was never removed. The move Monday, once published in the federal register, effectively erases the rule.

Monday’s move is part of the commission’s response to a White House executive order directing a “government-wide review of regulations already on the books” designed to eliminate unnecessary regulations.

Also consigned to the regulatory dustbin are the “broadcast flag” digital copy protection rule that was struck down by the courts and the cable programming service tier rate. Altogether, the agency tossed 83 rules and regs.

The NY City prosecutor has asked the court to drop all sexual assault  charges against Dominic Strauss-Kahn.

“The nature and number of the complainant’s falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter between the complainant and the defendant,” the papers state. “If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so.”

At about the same time as the papers were filed, the lawyer for Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel housekeeper who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, emerged from a brief meeting with prosecutors to offer harsh criticism of Mr. Vance.

“The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, has denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case,” the lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, said. “He has not only turned his back on this victim but he has also turned his back on the forensic, medical and other physical evidence in this case. If the Manhattan district attorney, who is elected to protect our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our wives and our loved ones, is not going to stand up for them when they’re raped or sexually assaulted, who will?”

Ms. Diallo stood by his side, but said nothing.

There’s an extremely interesting article up at VoxEU by Economist Dr. Robert Gordan of Northwestern University.  It talks in detail about our persistently jobless recovery.  One important question is how and why did our economy destroy over 10 million jobs?  Basically, we are now a nation of disposable workers.

When the economy begins to sink—like the Titanic after the iceberg struck—firms begin to cut costs any way they can; tossing employees overboard is the most direct way. For every worker tossed overboard in a sinking economy prior to 1986, about 1.5 are now tossed overboard. Why are firms so much more aggressive in cutting employment costs? My “disposable worker hypothesis” (Gordon 2010) attributes this shift of behaviour to a complementary set of factors that amounts to “workers are weak and management is strong.” The weakened bargaining position of workers is explained by the same set of four factors that underlie higher inequality among the bottom 90% of the American income distribution since the 1970s—weaker unions, a lower real minimum wage, competition from imports, and competition from low-skilled immigrants.

But the rise of inequality has also boosted the income share of the top 1% relative to the rest of the top 10%. In the 1990s corporate management values shifted toward more emphasis on shareholder value and executive compensation, with less importance placed on the welfare of workers, and a key driver of this change in attitudes was the sharply higher role of stock options in executive compensation. When stock market values plunged by 50% in 2000–02, corporate managers, seeing their compensation collapse with profits and the stock market, turned with all guns blazing to every type of costs, laying off employees in unprecedented numbers. This hypothesis was validated by Steven Oliner et al (2007), who showed using cross-sectional data that industries experiencing the steepest declines in profits in 2000–02 had the largest declines in employment and largest increases in productivity.

Why was employment cut by so much in 2008–09? Again, as in 2000–02, profits collapsed and the stock market fell by half. Beyond that was the psychological trauma of the crisis; fear was evident in risk spreads on junk bonds, and the market for many types of securities dried up. Firms naturally feared for their own survival and tossed many workers overboard.

So, that will give you some things to think about today!!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Monday Reads

Posted: August 22, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: education, Foreign Affairs, Libya, morning reads, religion, religious extremists, The Bonus Class, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Good Morning!! Yesterday was an exciting day for the Libyan rebels, who have taken over the capital city, Tripoli. From the NYT:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed on Monday as rebels marched into the capital and arrested two of his sons, while residents raucously celebrated the prospective end of his four-decade-old rule.

In the city’s central Green Square, the site of many manufactured rallies in support of Colonel Qaddafi, jubilant Libyans tore down green flags and posters of Colonel Qaddafi and stomped on them. The leadership announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered and that they controlled many parts of the city, but not Colonel Qaddafi’s leadership compound.

The National Transitional Council, the rebel governing body, issued a mass text message saying, “We congratulate the Libyan people for the fall of Muammar Qaddafi and call on the Libyan people to go into the street to protect the public property. Long live free Libya.”

Officials loyal to Colonel Qaddafi insisted that the fight was not over, and there were clashes between rebels and government troops early on Monday morning. But NATO and American officials said that the Qaddafi government’s control of Tripoli, which had been its final stronghold, was now in doubt.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens next. I hope it will mean the U.S. pulling out of there, but that’s probably a vain hope. After all, Libya has oil and gold.

Business Insider: AFTER QADDAFI: Oil Prices Will Tank, Stock Prices Will Soar

Watch what happens to oil prices if and when the Qaddafis lose and leave.

In short order, Libyan oil production will ramp up. As it does, oil prices in world markets will fall and oil futures markets will reflect the expected increase in production of oil from Libya. The key prices to watch are those trading in Europe, like Brent. US oil prices (WTI) are no longer the leading indicator of world prices intersecting with world supply/demand. Excess inventory at Cushing, OK is complicating the pricing structure.

We expect oil prices to fall when highly desirable, sweet Libyan crude production is fully resumed and enters the pipeline. Maybe, they are going to fall by a lot. This will come as a much-needed boost to the US economy and to others in the world.

Remember: the oil price acts like a sales tax on consumption. To clarify this relationship we convert crude oil prices to gasoline prices and then estimate what a change in gas price will mean for the American consumer. Roughly, a penny drop in the gas price per gallon gives Americans 1.4 billion more dollars a year to spend on other than gasoline. That is a huge stimulant to the economy. The ratio is different in Europe because the gas taxes are so much higher there. Nevertheless, it is still significant.

In other news, President Obama is still on vacation, and unemployment is still soaring. From the SF Chronicle: Obama keeps full vacation day after Libya briefing

In between briefings on Libya, President Barack Obama packed golf, beach time, a stop at a seafood restaurant and a visit to a wealthy friend’s seaside compound into his Martha’s Vineyard vacation Sunday….

Then Obama and his family headed to dinner at the house where White House adviser Valerie Jarrett is staying.

Earlier, Obama spent about an hour at the home of Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts after playing golf with some buddies. The golf foursome included Obama’s Chicago pal Eric Whitaker, UBS America executive Robert Wolf and a White House aide. Obama spent the morning at the beach with his wife, Michelle, and daughters Sasha and Malia.

From the LA Times: Congresswomen hear economic, unemployment woes at Inglewood event

…hundreds of people from Los Angeles-area communities…gathered Saturday to share their stories of hardship and to urge local members of Congress to push corporations to help fix the economy and devise ways to put people back to work. Three Democratic U.S. representatives attended the event: Maxine Waters and Karen Bass of Los Angeles and Laura Richardson of Long Beach….
The recession has slammed Los Angeles County, where 1 in 4 workers are jobless or underemployed, according to Good Jobs LA. This summer, L.A. businesses announced 5,700 layoffs, the jobs advocacy group said.

At the same time, corporations are hoarding almost $2 trillion in cash but failing to invest in jobs, the advocacy group said. The group also cited skyrocketing bonuses for many chief executives and big tax breaks for some of the nation’s largest companies.

Warren Buffet recently asked President Obama to raise taxes on the rich for the good of all. Another multi-billionaire, David Koch, disagrees with Buffet that rich Americans should sacrifice anything for their country.

America’s current tax system forces people making $50,000 a year to pay a higher rate than hedge fund managers making $2.4 million an hour. Warren Buffett penned an op-ed last week declaring that America’s super-rich have been “coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.” Lamenting the numerous tax loopholes and special breaks afforded to billionaire investors, Buffett noted that in his entire career, even when capital gains rates were as high as 39.9 percent, he never saw anyone “shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.”

Charles Koch, head of the massive petrochemical, manufacturing, and commodity speculating Koch Industries corporation, has responded to Warren’s call for shared sacrifice: “No Thanks.” In a statement to right-wing media, Koch states:

Much of what the government spends money on does more harm than good; this is particularly true over the past several years with the massive uncontrolled increase in government spending. I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington.

Yeah, like supporting wingnuts like Scott Walker and Paul Ryan is good for our country. I’d like to see Koch’s fortune confiscated. Maybe we need to bring back the guillotine?

Romney's home in La Jolla, CA

Speaking of rich A$$holes, Mitt Romney has decided that his $12 million mansion in La Jolla must be enlarged–he wants the already huge house to be four times as big.

LA JOLLA — GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, scheduled to attend a series of fundraisers this weekend in San Diego, is also working on plans to nearly quadruple the size of his $12 million oceanfront manse in La Jolla.

Romney has filed an application with the city to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot, single-story home at 311 Dunemere Dr. and replace it with a two-story, 11,062-square-foot structure. No date has been set to consider the proposed coastal development and site development permits, which must be approved by the city.

The former governor of Massachusetts purchased the home three years ago. According to a description from the listing agent, the Spanish-style residence at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac is sophisticated and understated in its décor, “offering complete privacy and unsurpassed elegance.”

Tentative plans call for new retaining walls and a relocated driveway, but would retain the existing lap pool and spa.

Just how many homes does this man own anyway? Slate Magazine says “just” two. He had a huge house in Massachusetts, not too far from where I live, but he sold it in 2009 for $3.5 million.

I guess after he used (screwed) our state to set up his run for President, he decided to clear out and move his con man act to California. He also sold a “$5.25 million, 9,500-square-foot ski villa in Deer Valley, Utah,” according to Slate. Time calls that “the new frugality.” He’s hanging onto a home in New Hampshire apparently. Where’s that guillotine?

In science news, from Clive Cookson at the Financial Times: Life on earth came from space

The existence of amino acids in space has already been proved by the analysis of meteorites that have struck earth, and comet samples collected in space during Nasa’s Stardust mission. It has been harder to prove that traces of nucleobases found in meteorites were not the result of contamination after they arrived – but the new study seems to do so, while showing that nucleobases reach earth from space in greater diversity and quantity than scientists had thought.

The Nasa team analysed samples of 12 carbon-rich meteorites, including nine found in Antarctica (a rich collecting ground), and detected guanine and adenine, two of the four nucleobases that make up DNA. They also found three related molecules known as nucleobase analogues, a discovery which provides confirmation that the organic compounds in meteorites come from space.

“You would not expect to see these nucleobase analogues if contamination from terrestrial life was the source, because they’re not used in biology,” says Michael Callahan, lead author of the study, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “However, if asteroids are cranking out prebiotic material, you would expect them to produce many variants of nucleobases, not just the biological ones, because of the wide variety of ingredients and conditions in each asteroid.”

Further confirmation came from an analysis of Antarctic ice, taken from near where the meteorites were collected, which showed no trace of the compounds.

Wait…. you mean life didn’t originate in the Garden of Eden?

In related news, a court has ruled that a teacher who made fun of creationism and Christianity cannot be sued for expressing her opinions.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a California teacher could not be sued for criticizing Christianity and Creationism during a college-level European history course.

“This was a really important ruling for academic freedom,” University of California constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, who took on the case pro bono, told The Orange County Register. “There has never been a precedent set for something like this before. Teachers should be able to criticize religion just like they can criticize government, business and similar groups without the fear of being sued.”

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a lower court’s decision, which held that teacher James Corbett violated a student’s First Amendment rights by making comments during class that were hostile to religion in general, and to Christianity in particular….

Corbett said during his class that serfs opposed social, political and economic [sic] that were in their best interest because of religion, compared Creationism to “magic,” and made twenty other comments that then-sophomore Chad Farnan alleged were disparaging to Christians.

Oh, did I mention this was a college course? Good grief!!

That’s all I have for today. What are you reading and blogging about?

Saturday Reads: a little readin’ and writin’ and rhythmetric

Posted: August 20, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because, morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

So, I’m still fascinated about how much history, science, and just plain reason seems to have gone out the window this political season.  It undoubtedly has something to do with the caliber of candidates that are out stumping about right now. So bad are they that John Huntsmen felt the need to tweet out to people that he wasn’t crazy!!! So, I’m gonna have a little salute today to knowledge, literacy, history, economics, science, and just  plain ol’ rationale thought.

First, some history.  On August 22, 1950, Althea Gibson became the first African American on the US Tennis Tour. Gibson paved the way for today’s Williams sisters who are tennis super stars.

Growing up in Harlem, the young Gibson was a natural athlete. She started playing tennis at the age of 14 and the very next year won her first tournament, the New York State girls’ championship, sponsored by the American Tennis Association (ATA), which was organized in 1916 by black players as an alternative to the exclusively white USLTA. After prominent doctors and tennis enthusiasts Hubert Eaton and R. Walter Johnson took Gibson under their wing, she won her first of what would be 10 straight ATA championships in 1947.

In 1949, Gibson attempted to gain entry into the USLTA’s National Grass Court Championships at Forest Hills, the precursor of the U.S. Open. When the USLTA failed to invite her to any qualifying tournaments, Alice Marble–a four-time winner at Forest Hills–wrote a letter on Gibson’s behalf to the editor of American Lawn Tennis magazine. Marble criticized the “bigotry” of her fellow USLTA members, suggesting that if Gibson posed a challenge to current tour players, “it’s only fair that they meet this challenge on the courts.” Gibson was subsequently invited to participate in a New Jersey qualifying event, where she earned a berth at Forest Hills.

On August 28, 1950, Gibson beat Barbara Knapp 6-2, 6-2 in her first USLTA tournament match. She lost a tight match in the second round to Louise Brough, three-time defending Wimbledon champion. Gibson struggled over her first several years on tour but finally won her first major victory in 1956, at the French Open in Paris. She came into her own the following year, winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Open at the relatively advanced age of 30.

Gibson repeated at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open the next year but soon decided to retire from the amateur ranks and go pro. At the time, the pro tennis league was poorly developed, and Gibson at one point went on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters, playing tennis during halftime of their basketball games.

Next up, a little anthropology and biology!  The National Geographic reports on how an ancient dog skull shows how early  humans paired up with some of their first pets.

It took 33,000 years, but one Russian dog is finally having its day.

The fossilized remains of a canine found in the 1970s in southern Siberia’s Altay Mountains (see map) is the earliest well-preserved pet dog, new research shows.

Dogs—the oldest domesticated animals—are common in the fossil record up to 14,000 years ago. But specimens from before about 26,500 years ago are very rare. This is likely due to the onset of the last glacial maximum, when the ice sheets are at their farthest extent during an ice age.

With such a sparse historical record, scientists have been mostly in the dark as to how and when wolves evolved into dogs, a process that could have happened in about 50 to a hundred years.

“That’s why our find is very important—we have a very lucky case,” said study co-author Yaroslav Kuzmin, a scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk.

In the case of the Russian specimen, the animal was just on the cusp of becoming a fully domesticated dog when its breed died out.

So, it wouldn’t be me without some economics.  Economist Greg Ip has a great post up at the WP on how Republicans’ new voodoo economics is worse than the old brand because the new brand isn’t based in economics at all. It’s a nice common sense essay on how fiscal and monetary policy work and how today’s crop of Republicans ignore about 90 years of economic theory and empirical studies

The new GOP views actually have a much longer pedigree: They are rooted in an intellectual contest that raged during the 1930s and 1940s, and had long been settled by the opposing side.

Before then, orthodox economics held that the economy was self-correcting. Just as the price of wheat or the wages of carpenters would always adjust to eliminate surpluses or shortages of either, so would wages throughout the economy adjust to eliminate temporary bouts of high unemployment.

The Great Depression shattered that orthodoxy, as high unemployment became entrenched in the United States and around the world. British economist John Maynard Keynes convincingly argued that when interest rates were zero — a condition he termed a “liquidity trap” — the economy’s self-correcting properties did not operate. The best solution, he argued, was a burst of public spending to restore demand and employment.

Ip goes on to explain how the competing view–Hayek’s Austrian school–was long discredited but has now made some kind of zombie comeback.  This is especially true with Tea Party zealots and Ron Paul fans.  What these folks talk about is not even taken seriously among any of the world’s economists.  The Hayek-style alternatives were tried in South America and led to disaster. No main stream university teaches anything remotely resembling Austrian school “economics” and no serious peer-reviewed journals accept their work because it’s empirical evidence-free.

So, I couldn’t be remiss and leave out some climate science!  Climate change has animals heading for the hills! That goes for plants too!

Regardless of what Rick Perry and the rest of Republican presidential candidate field believe (except for you, Jon Huntsman), climate change is real and it’s happening. The questions for the 98% of climate researchers who accept the consensus on man-made global warming is how fast the climate is changing, and what impact it will have on humanity and the planet.

Here’s one effect of warming scientists are already seeing: plants and animals migrating to cooler climates to escape hotter temperatures. In a study published in the August 18 Science, researchers in Britain and Taiwan found that species are moving in response to global warming up to three times faster than previously believed. Analyzing studies covering over 2,000 responses from plants and animals, the scientists found that on average, species have moved to higher elevations to escape warmer temperatures at 40 ft per decade, and moved to higher latitudes (ie, further away from the equator) at 11 miles per decade.

So, here’s a real shocker and it’s from a DKos diary.   Today’s lesson in journalism shows us that we have a very uniformed commenteriat.  Evidently Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty had never heard of dominionisim until just recently.  That’s the extreme christian belief that’s overtaking a lot of republican circles these days.  Michelle Bachmann oozes it out of every pore.  We’ve discussed it here considerably and Bostonboomer and I have written several posts on it.

You could probably hear my dropping jaw hitting the floor when I heard Jack Cafferty and Wolf Blitzer say they had never heard of dominionism until they read Michelle Goldberg’s article on The Daily Beast.  They apparently had never heard of Christian Reconstructionism or the New Apostolic Reformation either.  Goldberg’s article on Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann’s relationship to all of this was certainly well done. But it is amazing that no other journalist of any prominence had looked into it before Goldberg’s revelations.  There are many, and ever-more prominent pols with similar ties.  And the failure of our national media and political culture to come to grips with this has been astounding.  At least to me.  As someone who has written about the Religious Right in its various dimensions for about 30 years, I’ve watched with horror as too many (but not all) mainstream media missed or misreported the stories of one of the most significant political movements of our time.

Blitzer and Cafferty et al have had plenty of opportunities to learn about dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism.  They could have read Michelle Goldberg’s New York Times best-selling book Kingdom Coming:  The Rise of Christian Nationalism, in 2006.  They could have read my 1997 book, Eternal Hostility:  The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, or Sara Diamond’s 1989 classic, Spiritual Warfare:  The Politics of the Christian Right. — to name but a few that deal specifically with dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism. We were all widely in the media, including national broadcasts talking about this stuff.  They could also read material from such well established and well known organizations that study and counter the American right, as Americans United for Separation of Church & State and People for the American Way, and Political Research Associates. (PRA published my studyof Christian Reconstructionism in 1994.)  Religion Dispatches reports on these things all the time as well.  They have been discussed in wider context in books by such scholarly best selling authors as Gary Wills, Harvey Cox, Jeff Sharlet and Kevin Phillips, to also name but a few, and in major articles in magazines as diverse as Reason and Mother Jones.  (I even discuss Christian Reconstructionism on camera in the 2007 Hollywood film documentary on the politics of abortion, Lake of Fire. Watch it for free, here.)

You really cannot have been awake in American public life for the past few decades and not have encountered dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism.  Blitzer and Cafferty are far from alone in snoozing comfortably through this part of our national life. They are just more startlingly honest that this is no dream.

Now for a little SciFi lit.  What if E.T. thinks we’re evil?

A study that reviews a host of sci-fi scenarios for contact with extraterrestrials stirred up such a ruckus today that NASA had to step in and distance itself from the research. The controversy focuses on the idea that E.T. could well decide that we’re a threat to interstellar order, and therefore we have to be stopped before we spread.

The report itself, published in the journal Acta Astronautica, covers ground that’s familiar to dedicated fans of E.T. lore. For example, the premise of the 1951 sci-fi classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is that universalist-minded aliens see our civilization as so rooted in violence that it’s better to snuff us out than let us ruin the neighborhood. (The 2008 remake, starring Keanu Reeves, recycled that idea with an environmental theme.)

Then there’s the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” scenario, in which Earth is destroyed merely to make way for a new stretch of intergalactic infrastructure.

“At the heart of these scenarios is the possibility that intrinsic value may be more efficiently produced in our absence,” the researchers write.

The most familiar sci-fi scenario is the one in which the aliens are as selfish and territorial as we are, and want to wipe us out or enslave us and take our stuff. Think “War of the Worlds” or “Independence Day.” In such cases, the researchers note that there’s the potential for big payoffs … if we prevail.

Last up is our music lesson and ABCs rolled into one with this great song from kidhood by the Jackson five!  Have a great Saturday and be sure to share what’s on your blogging and reading list today!!!

Friday Reads

Posted: August 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, John Birch Society in Charge, morning reads, Team Obama | 15 Comments

Good Morning!

Well, another campaign day, another choice set of lies out there in the face of the public.  Let’s see.  Michelle Bachmann thinks we’re all frightened of the rising power of the Soviet Union.  Has she suddenly done the time warp or did she just never read a newspaper back in the day and some how forgot about that entire Boris Yeltsin, Mikhael Gorbachev, and  fall of the Berlin Wall thing?  Kinda makes you worry about her poor homeschooled children, doesn’t it?

Rick Perry seems to think that Texas illegally teaches the biblical creation myth along with actual science.  Steven Benen had a wildly funny tongue-in-cheek up wondering aloud if Perry actually has any idea about the age of the world after he answered this little boy’s question in New Hampshire.   Seems Perry doesn’t know his biology, his geology or his US Constitution either.

ABC News has a video up today showing Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry answering a question from a young boy in New Hampshire. “How old do you think the Earth is?” the kid said. Given Perry’s larger worldview, it seems like a reasonable question. The Texas governor replied, “I don’t have any idea; I know it’s pretty old. So, it goes back a long, long way.”

We can hope Perry doesn’t think 6,000 years is “pretty old.”

At this point, the boy’s mother pushed him to ask Perry about evolution. The candidate explained:

“Your mom is asking about evolution. You know, that’s a theory that’s out there; it’s got some gaps in it. In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools — because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

This is important for a couple of reasons. First, Perry may have no idea what goes on in Texas’ public schools, but if they’re teaching “both creationism and evolution,” they’re violating the law. It’s not even a gray area — the Supreme Court has already struck down a law that called for “balanced treatment for creation-science and evolution-science in public school instruction,” concluding that the law violated the separation of church and state. Teaching religion in science class is illegal under the First Amendment.

Some one should ask Perry if he believes in the Theory of Gravity.  I’m thinking his hair may not. John Huntsman, the Republican underdog candidate, actually tweeted this yesterday: ‘Call me crazy,’ I believe in evolution, global warming.  He may not be crazy, but there obviously are a lot of people out there voting in Republican primaries that sure are which is why his campaign is pretty dead in the water.  Evidently fact denial is part of conservative bona fides these days.

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman took to Twitter Thursday to offer his support for evolution.

Huntsman made the tweet shortly after Texas Gov. Rick Perry offered comments that cast doubt on evolution — his comments can be interpreted as criticism of Perry.

“To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy,” tweeted Huntsman, the former ambassador to China.

Perry has also raised questions about whether humans are contributing to global warming.

Huntsman’s tweet will raise questions about whether he has the conservative bona fides to win the Republican presidential nomination. Huntsman has carved out a niche in the primary fight as a centrist, but it is unclear whether GOP voters are looking for that in a candidate this year.

So, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a jobs plan that actually is a budget deficit reduction plan in disguise.  I’m just getting so cynical these days that I”m ready to move to the Channel Islands and pledge allegiance to HRH Queen Elizabeth.  At least the Brit monarchs these days read books and go to university.

The jobs package that President Obama plans to unveil shortly after Labor Day could include tens of billions of dollars to renovate thousands of dilapidated public schools and a tax break to encourage businesses to hire new workers, according to people familiar with White House deliberations.

As aides work to put together the proposal, they are also hammering out a companion plan to reduce federal budget deficits over the next decade, which Obama would share with the 12-member congressional “super committee” charged with finding long-term fixes for the growing national debt.

The deficit reduction plan would rely on some of the ideas Obama worked on in private negotiations with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) this summer, aides said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a proposal that is still taking shape.

The two-phase plan would probably require Obama to argue for spending more money in the short term while reducing the federal deficit over a longer period. Many economists support that combination, saying cuts in spending should wait until the economy is stronger. But political strategists say it has been difficult to communicate that idea to voters.

I’d rather not live in a country where policy decisions are based on if  ideas considered too “difficult to communicate” to voters personally.  Given that Michelle Bachman thinks that the Soviet Union still exists, Rick Perry isn’t aware the constitution forbids teaching specific religious doctrines in Public Schools, and John Huntsmen has to tweet to people that he’s not one of the “crazy people”,  I’ll take small wealthy, monarchy–like Monaco–for $1000 Alex.

Okay, I’ve decided that Science News and education is a priority now.  Here’s a few items to consider.  NASA is trying to figure out how to predict space weather.  Hope it’s easier than predicting earth weather.

NASA scientists for the first time can track the effects of a solar storm on Earth, offering new advancements in our ability to predict space weather and how it will impact our satellites, emergency systems, power grid, air traffic control equipment, and more.

New observations from NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft have allowed researchers to observe the sun throwing off immense clouds of material, see how the material interacts with solar wind, and monitor the result as it hurtles toward Earth’s magnetosphere.

The result: a first-ever view, end-to-end and in three dimensions, of the impact of a solar storm on Earth.

“With stereoscopic telescopes, we are actually witnessing the solar wind and solar storm blowing all the way from sun to Earth,” said Madhulika Guhathakurta, STEREO program scientist, during a press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., today.

Here’s another kewl thing from NASA:  Mapping Antarctic Ice in Motion. Don’t tell Rick Perry, it’s more of those scientist trying to confuse us about climate change and global warming!

Put the arguments over how fast Antarctic ice is melting to one side for the moment. The latest study of the southern continent, by a group of scientists led by Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, shows how fast the ice rivers are moving and where they are going.

The map of ice in motion, which traces parts of the eastern Antarctic region that have previously been hard to see, offers a new and powerful tool for the study of the dynamics of ice melting into the southern seas.

The data used in the map was obtained from satellites in polar orbit. Dr. Rignot said in an interview that 3,000 different orbital tracks were studied, then combined into a mosaic of the continent.

The study was published on Thursday in Science Express. The work was done in conjunction with NASA, which said in a press release that the map, showing glaciers moving from the deep interior to its coast, “will be critical for tracking future sea-level increases from climate change.”

One last thing and I’ll turn the thread over to you for you to share what you’re reading today.  Roman artifacts are being used to study how better nuclear storage waste receptacles might last over time.

Scientists are experimenting with 1,800-year-old glass to better understand how nuclear waste storage will hold up for millennia to come.

Long ago a ship set sail in the Adriatic sea, possibly heading toward the ancient seaport of Aquileia. But it never made it. For 1,800 years the ship’s wreckage sat on the sea floor, exposed to the elements.

Denis Strachan, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory fellow, traveled to Italy last summer in search of the corroded glass to study how modern-day glass will hold up when storing nuclear waste. As a fan cools his lab at in Richland, Wash., he sounds almost as excited about the history as the science.

“These are experiments done by our ancient fathers for us – free.”

Modern scientists wanted to find out:

  • How much corrosion happened over the last 1,800 years
  • How water reacted with the glass
  • What the ancient glass turned into

Senior scientist Joseph Ryan holds up a blue piece of glass found at the bottom of the sea. Most likely it’s a part of a goblet and its handle. The corrosion looks iridescent, and there’s not much of it.

“You can still see on this material, all of the neat little ridges and decorations that are present on this glass, and its been buried for 1,800 years in just sea water – not really the world’s best repository situation.”

Ryan says they can use the chemistry behind the unintentionally durable Roman glass to make sure what’s used to hold nuclear waste will not fail.

Alright then!  Tag you’re it!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?  Please share!!!

Thursday Reads: Molly Ivins, Governor Goodhair, Corporate Crime, and Heroes

Posted: August 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Corporate Crime, George W. Bush, morning reads, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 45 Comments

Good Morning!! I’m going to be leaving for a two-day drive to Indiana either today or tomorrow, so I’m a bit meshugge this morning. Please be patient with me. Let’s see what’s in the news.

From what I can see, it’s mostly Rick Perry. And I must say, I find “Governor Goodhair” endlessly fascinating. He’s more of a gaffe-machine than Joe Biden–and that’s really saying something. Molly Ivins gave Perry that nickname. I miss her so much. So I was thrilled when I cam across this article in the Sacramento Bee:
Molly can’t say that about Rick Perry, can she? It’s a collection of quotes on Perry from Ivins. Here’s one:

June 24, 2001

First, we Texans would like to salute the only governor we’ve got, Rick “Goodhair” Perry, the Ken Doll, for vetoing the bill to outlaw executing the mentally retarded.

We are Texas Proud.

Such a brilliant decision – not only is Texas now globally recognized for barbaric cruelty, but a strong majority of Texans themselves (73 percent) would prefer not to off the retarded.

Gov. Goodhair’s decision – in the face of popular opinion, the Supreme Court and George W. Bush’s recent conversion on this subject – is a testament to his strength of character.

Or something.

His Perryness announced, anent the veto, that Texas does not execute the retarded. I beg your pardon, Governor. Johnny Paul Penry, now on Death Row for a heart-breaking murder and the subject of two Supreme Court decisions, has an IQ between 51 and 60, believes in Santa Claus and likes coloring books.

We will never have another political writer like Molly.

Yesterday Perry “challenged” Obama on border security.

Perry, who was on his second trip to New Hampshire as a presidential candidate, criticized President Obama for his assertion during a speech in El Paso, Tex. in May that his administration had “strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible.”

“Six weeks ago the President went to El Paso and said the border is safer than it’s ever been,” Perry said. “I have no idea, maybe he was talking about the Canadian border.”

Perry thinks we should use Predator Drones to deal with illegal immigration.

“I mean, we know that there are Predator drones being flown for practice every day because we’re seeing them, we’re preparing these young people to fly missions in these war zones that we have. But some of those, they have all the equipment, they’re obviously unarmed, they’ve got the downward-looking radar, they’ve got the ability to do night work and through clouds. Why not be flying those missions and using (that) real-time information to help our law-enforcement? Becuase if we will commit to that, I will suggest to you that we will be able to drive the drug cartels away from our border.”

Apparently the Governor of Texas did not know that the Department of Homeland Security has already been using Drones to patrol the Mexican border for years.

I’m not that up on Texas politics, but I’m beginning to get the idea that the Bush crowd doesn’t care much for Rick Perry. According to Elspeth Reeve at The Atlantic, Bush’s Crew Is Gunning for Rick Perry

Is Rick Perry “another George W. Bush”? In reality, Bush was more of a fake Perry, the Texas version of a studio gangster, clearing brush in his cowboy boots despite his prep school background. It helps explain why Bush’s allies and Perry’s allies don’t like each other very much: the Bush-loving Republican establishment sees Perry as “the low-rent country cousin,” the Los Angeles Times reports. And it explains why Karl Rove (who once worked for Perry, before helping Bush become president) went on Fox News to criticize Perry for calling the Federal Reserve treasonous — and to wish for more candidates to enter the 2012 race.

You’ll need to go to the link to read all about the Bush-Perry feud. In addition, Howard Dean told The Hill that the “Bush camp will take Perry out.”

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean predicted that prominent political supporters of former President George W. Bush will deal a critical blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) presidential campaign.

“The Bush people don’t fool around, as you know,” Dean said Tuesday night on MSNBC. “You can say a lot of things about Bush’s presidency and his failures as president, but one thing nobody should say [anything] bad about [is] his political team. They know what they’re doing, and they are ruthless, and they are going to take Perry out.”

Here’s Bill Clinton’s opinion on Rick Perry’s presidential ambitions:

—————————————————-

Do you have a Citi credit card? Better watch out

TANGERANG, Indonesia — Irzen Octa, a down-on-his-luck Indonesian businessman, suffered a torment familiar to millions of Americans struggling with debts racked up in better times: He feared losing his home.

In the end, he managed to keep the ramshackle two-story house where he and his wife raised their two now-teenage daughters. Instead, Octa, pursued by Citibank over a $5,700 debt on his platinum credit card, lost his life.

The 50-year-old businessman, invited to a Citibank office in Jakarta in late March, collapsed in a tiny room set aside by the U.S. bank for questioning of deadbeat debtors. He died shortly afterward — a casualty of a “harsh interrogation,” said Jakarta police spokesman Baharudin Djafar.

Whoa!

Noting that Indonesian debt collectors have a reputation for sometimes aggressive persistence, Johansyah, the central bank official, said: “The best thing to do is just pay.”

Octa’s widow said she first discovered that her husband had money problems when five men showed up uninvited at their Tangerang home one night in October and said they had come to get money. Unable to collect, they slept on a terrace outside the front door.

In the following months, debt collectors kept calling — and Octa’s debts kept rising because of hefty interest.

Sounds like a Mafia movie! Will that start happening here after the Republicans remove all regulations?

Matt Taibbi has a new article at Rolling Stone: Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – “Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?” No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record.

That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back. For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – “18,000 … including Madoff,” as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history.

Under a deal the SEC worked out with the National Archives and Records Administration, all of the agency’s records – “including case files relating to preliminary investigations” – are supposed to be maintained for at least 25 years. But the SEC, using history-altering practices that for once actually deserve the overused and usually hysterical term “Orwellian,” devised an elaborate and possibly illegal system under which staffers were directed to dispose of the documents from any preliminary inquiry that did not receive approval from senior staff to become a full-blown, formal investigation. Amazingly, the wholesale destruction of the cases – known as MUIs, or “Matters Under Inquiry” – was not something done on the sly, in secret. The enforcement division of the SEC even spelled out the procedure in writing, on the commission’s internal website. “After you have closed a MUI that has not become an investigation,” the site advised staffers, “you should dispose of any documents obtained in connection with the MUI.”

I haven’t finished the article yet, but it sounds like an important story.

I’m going to end with a couple of feel-good stories.

Father of 2 becomes hero in abducted girl’s rescue

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The timing was just right for saving the life of a 6-year-old girl and for turning a 24-year-old mechanic and father of two young daughters into a hero.

It was coincidence that Antonio Diaz Chacon had come home from work early to spend time with his family Monday afternoon. It was also a coincidence that the family’s washing machine had just gone out, forcing them to do laundry a block down the road at a relative’s home.

Had it not been for that, Diaz Chacon wouldn’t have been there to see the girl thrown into a van as another neighbor yelled for the would-be kidnapper to let the child go.

Diaz Chacon is credited with saving the girl after chasing the van through a maze of neighborhoods to the edge of where Albuquerque’s sprawling housing developments meet the desert. It was there where the van crashed into a pole, the suspect fled and Diaz Chacon was able to rescue the girl and take her home.

Go read the whole thing. It’s good to know there are still brave and generous people out there who act selflessly just because someone needs help. And here’s another story about a heroic rescue–by an 8-year-old boy.

Just 8 years old and a novice swimmer, Jesus [Lara] reacted quickly last weekend to save a drowning infant from the bottom of a pool. On Thursday morning, the Plano Fire Department recognized his life-saving actions and explained how grateful they were for his quick reaction.

[….]

Jesus has only been swimming for two months. His father Henry began teaching him to swim in the pool at the Estancia Apartments where they live. Henry said after a long day of work Friday, Aug. 5, he kept his promise to take his son to the pool that night.

While Jesus was swimming, he noticed some bubbles coming from an object under the water.

Jesus Lara being honored by fire department

The bubbles were coming from a 21-month-old toddler who had stumbled into the water.

“I grabbed a quick breath, and I dove under,” he said.

Jesus resurfaced holding a 21-month-old boy and arms outstretched, he yelled for his father to help.

“It was what he said that spoke volumes to me,” Henry said, remembering the boy’s words, “I found him at the bottom of the pool.”

Jesus’ father knew CPR and was able to resuscitate the child, who is now “doing fine.”

Those are my recommended reads for today. What are you reading and blogging about?

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