Thursday Reads

Posted: February 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Egypt, Federal Budget, fetus fetishists, Foreign Affairs, fundamentalist Christians, morning reads, Psychopaths in charge, Reproductive Rights, torture, U.S. Politics, Wikileaks, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Good Morning!!

I’m going to start out with a feel-good story this morning. I can’t find a print story about it, but you can watch video at the Weather Channel website.

A mother was driving in icy weather in Iowa, and ended up crashing. The car rolled over a couple of times and the woman was stuck, unable to check on her two children, ages one and four. Avery, the four-year-old girl got out of the car and walked up the road to a house where she found help. All three are OK now. Isn’t that an amazing and wonderful story? Watch the video and you’ll start the day with a smile.

Have you heard that President Reagan Obama plans to cut billions from the program that provides energy assistance to poor people?

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget will cut several billion dollars from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people, officials briefed on the subject told National Journal.

It’s the biggest domestic spending cut disclosed so far, and one that will likely generate the most heat from the president’s traditional political allies. Such complaints might satisfy the White House, which has a vested interest in convincing Americans that it is serious about budget discipline.

One White House friend, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier today that a Republican proposal to cut home heating oil counted as an “extreme idea” that would “set the country backwards.” Schumer has not yet reacted to Obama’s proposed cut. On Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., declared: “The President’s reported proposal to drastically slash LIHEAP funds by more than half would have a severe impact on many of New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens and I strongly oppose it.” A spokesman for Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., declared similarly: “If these cuts are real, it would be a very disappointing development for millions of families still struggling through a harsh winter.”

In a letter to Obama, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote, “We simply cannot afford to cut LIHEAP funding during one of the most brutal winters in history. Families across Massachusetts, and the country, depend on these monies to heat their homes and survive the season.”

No matter how bad you think this President is, he can always get worse. I don’t know how we’re going to survive his incompetent administration.

Here’s another bill to eliminate abortion for all practical purposes. This time it’s in Ohio.

Republican lawmakers in Ohio unveiled legislation Wednesday that would ban abortions of any fetus found to have a heartbeat, a move that could ban most abortions in the state.

Under legislation sponsored by State Representative Lynn Wachtmann, doctors would be forbidden from performing an abortion the moment a heartbeat is detected in the fetus. Fetuses generally develop a heartbeat within six weeks of conception, and in some pregnant women a heartbeat can be detected within 18 days.

The Youngstown Vindicator describes the bill as “the most restrictive abortion ban in the country” and potentially “a precedent for other states eyeing comparable restrictions.”

Robyn Marty at Alternet reports that the “heartbeat bill” amounts to an almost total ban on abortion.

Republicans are determined to turn women into forced breeders with no control over their own bodies. It’s an outrage.

Newly leaked cables from Wikileaks suggest that peak oil is a lot closer than most people think.

The documents, dated between 2007 and 2009, point to a phenomenon known to many as “peak oil,” or the point of production where you cannot continue producing more, leading to a decline in availability and a spike in prices.

But far from being a mad prophet of doom, the US cables’ source is not someone whose credibility is easily questioned.

His name is Dr. Sadad al-Husseini, the former head geologist in charge of exploration for the Saudi oil firm Aramco. He retired in 2004, but stayed in touch with US officials.

According to al-Husseini, Saudi Arabian reserves may be smaller than thought, even though the Saudis are on a growth cycle aimed at pumping out over 12 million barrels a day over the next several years. But, al-Husseini warned, global output would likely peak before then, and potentially starting in 2012

That will coordinate perfectly with Obama’s cuts in aid to poor people who can’t afford to heat their homes.

Dakinikat link to this story in comments yesterday, but it bears repeating. Cables released by Wikileaks show that Egyptian secret police were trained in torture methods by the FBI at Quantico.

Egypt’s secret police, long accused of torturing suspects and intimidating political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak, received training at the FBI’s facility in Quantico, Virginia, even as US diplomats compiled allegations of brutality against them, according to US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.

Why am I not surprised?

In a 2007 report, Amnesty International accused the Egyptian government of turning the country into a “torture center” for war on terror suspects.

“We are now uncovering evidence of Egypt being a destination of choice for third-party or contracted-out torture in the ‘war on terror’,” Amnesty’s Kate Allen said at the time.

The Egyptian government acknowledged in 2005 that the US had transferred 60 to 70 detainees to Egypt since 2001.

Here is one of the cables linked in the story, posted by the Daily Telegraph.

I’ll end with some links to the latest news from Egypt.

From The New York Times: Wired and Shrewd, Young Egyptians Guide Revolt

They are the young professionals, mostly doctors and lawyers, who touched off and then guided the revolt shaking Egypt, members of the Facebook generation who have remained mostly faceless — very deliberately so, given the threat of arrest or abduction by the secret police.

Now, however, as the Egyptian government has sought to splinter their movement by claiming that officials were negotiating with some of its leaders, they have stepped forward publicly for the first time to describe their hidden role.

There were only about 15 of them, including Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who was detained for 12 days but emerged this week as the movement’s most potent spokesman.

From the Wall Street Journal: Rallies Fan Out as Regime Closes Ranks

Protest organizers say they aim to slowly extend the swath of real estate they control downtown, and to pull in the support of labor unions, which are historically Egypt’s most effective protesters.

Protesters set up camp outside the iron gate of the parliament building, and blocked the street; the occupation forced the relocation of a cabinet meeting from the Council of Ministers, on the same street, to the outskirts of Cairo, state television reported.

State television also showed footage of angry workers in the health, telecommunications and power sectors protesting at a number of locations across Cairo. Many were contract workers or part-timers demanding full-time work and benefits.

From Politico: White House, State Department move to end Egypt confusion

The White House is moving to stamp out reports that top officials — including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — are sending conflicting signals about how best to resolve the crisis in Egypt.

On Wednesday, the White House and the State Department staged a 50-minute conference call for reporters Wednesday to insist that the administration’s messages on the standoff between embattled President Hosni Mubarak and demonstrators demanding his ouster have been consistent both in public — and private.

Uh huh. That must be why there is so much “confusion.”

The Daily Telegraph: Egypt crisis: protesters reject smooth transition

On the 16th day of protests, street leaders were emboldened to take a more militant line against the regime than the opposition parties that have entered talks with Hosni Mubarak’s vice President Omar Suleiman.

Mr Suleiman, who held more talks on constitutional reforms yesterday, has increasingly emerged as the focus of popular anger. He enraged demonstrators yesterday by warning that the regime would not tolerate prolonged demonstrations, stating that the options were either “dialogue” or “coup”.

“He is threatening to impose martial law, which means everybody in the square will be smashed,” said Abdul-Rahman Samir, a Tahrir Square spokesman. “But what would he do with the rest of the 70 million Egyptians who will follow us afterward.”

Asia One: Google exec’s role in Egypt a corporate dilemma

Business experts said Ghonim’s high-profile role in the protests poses a dilemma for management, even for a company like Google that has not hesitated to take on countries such as China in the past.

“I’m sure Google is very nervous about having their employees publicly associated with politics,” said Charles Skuba, an international business professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

“It’s a slippery slope,” Skuba told AFP. “Whenever an employee of a company becomes publicly associated with a political situation there’s often more peril for the company than there is advantage.”

Google campaigned vigorously for the release of Ghonim, a 30-year-old Egyptian who is the company’s marketing chief for the Middle East and North Africa, after he went missing in Cairo on January 27.

Sooooo…What are you reading and blogging about today?

Tuesday Reads

Posted: February 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Middle East, morning reads, Patriot Act, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 73 Comments

Good Morning! It looks like New England will dodge a bullet this week. There was talk of another storm on Wednesday, but now we are only expecting 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow. That is manageable and won’t prevent me from getting to work on Wednesday, thank goodness. But the lower plains states are going to get more snow later this week, I hear. That storm isn’t headed my way though. What a relief!

Still, The Boston Globe reports that roofs are still collapsing around New England.

Problems with roofs overloaded by heavy layers of snow continued today around the region, as public safety officials raced to sagging or collapsed structures reported in Boston, Bellingham, Littleton, Dedham, and Norwood. Meanwhile, a relatively small storm for this unusually snowy season was expected to dump up to 3 inches on some areas of the state.

A roof collapse was reported at 1:45 p.m. at the Unity Tabernacle of Holiness Church, a storefront church at 2 Greendale Road in Mattapan, the Boston Fire Department said. Firefighters found the roof had partially collapsed. No one was in the building at the time; no one was injured, and a building inspector was summoned to examine the scene, the department said in an official tweet.

In Bellingham, the corrugated metal roof of the Popular Precast Products building at 26 North Main St. collapsed this morning from the heavy snow, and one wall caved in; the entire building will have to be demolished, Building Inspector Stuart LeClaire said.

The owner had been inside just before the collapse, but heard the walls cracking and made it out in time, LeClaire said.

That’s just the beginning of a long list. I hope my back porch roof holds up. It already leaks. I can’t get out in the back yard to pull the snow down, because there are several feet of snow on the ground.

The Washington Post has a report on President Obama’s speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce {gag}.

“We can, and we must, work together,” Obama told an audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, his most overt effort yet to mend ties with the nation’s business community. “Whatever differences we may have, I know that all of us share a deep, abiding belief in this country, a belief in our people, a belief in the principles that have made America’s economy the envy of the world.”

His administration will “help lay the foundation for you to grow and innovate,” Obama said, vowing new investment in infrastructure and education and a focus on removing “barriers that make it harder for you to compete – from the tax code to the regulatory system.”

But even as he vowed to push hard on initiatives ranging from trade deals to corporate tax reform, Obama challenged business leaders to ramp up their hiring, bring jobs back from overseas and quit sitting on such large stockpiles of cash.

Bla, bla, bla. He might as well be talking to a brick wall. What a loser.

NPR’s Talk of the Nation had an interesting segment on football today. The guest was Buzz Bissinger of The Daily Beast, who wrote a post explaining why football is inherently violent. He argues that there is no way to take the violence out of the game–then it would no longer be football. If we’re really concerned about the concussions, arthritis, and other serious side effects, we should ban football entirely. Bissinger:

Violence is not only embedded in football; it is the very celebration of it. It is why we like it. Take it away, continue efforts to curtail the savagery, and the game will be nothing, regardless of age or skill.

Much has been reported, especially by The New York Times, about the potential dangers of head injuries in the game. I know the reporter who has done virtually all the stories, Alan Schwarz, and to say he is assiduous is ridiculous understatement. His work has truly been exemplary. But after what seems like a million stories, it may be time for the Times to move on. The overall point has been hammered to bits.

The game doesn’t simply cause injury. It is injury. It is an occupational hazard that, yes, can turn into tragedy. The inherent danger can never be strained out, except at the margins. Nor should it be.

I have to agree. I admit that I like watching football, but I wouldn’t be heartbroken if it were banned. But that will never happen, at least at the professional level. But when I was listening to the discussion on NPR, it occurred me that there is never this kind of concern about on-the-job injuries and hazards in blue-color work.

No one suggests that coal mining should be banned because the work cuts miners’ lives short. Construction workers take risks too, and so do people in many other jobs. I worked as a secretary for years, and I now have terrible arthritis in my hands and fingers. I’m sure typing for so many years contributed to that.

It’s just another example of the ways in which some people seen as more important than others. If someone chooses to play football–or baseball or basketball–they should know the risks and possible consequences. But there is risk in everything in life. There is no way to remove all risk. That kind of thinking about terrorism is what got us where we are now–broke and with very few rights left.

Congress is about to pull a fast one, by voting to reauthorize the Patriot Act in the House today. From the EFF

Tell your Congressperson to vote NO on the USA PATRIOT Act in tomorrow’s vote! The PATRIOT reauthorization bill being fast-tracked to the House floor contains NO reforms to the law, and will be voted upon with NO debate and NO opportunity for amendments to add oversight and accountability. Help stop this sneak attack on your civil liberties: there are only hours left to visit our Action Center and tell your Representative to vote “NO” on H.R. 514, the PATRIOT extension bill.

In late 2009, when PATRIOT reauthorization was originally being considered by Congress, many important PATRIOT reform measures were proposed and debated, and a bill filled with powerful new checks and balances was reported favorably out of the House Judiciary Committee. But, as Congress ran up against the renewal deadline, it decided that there was not enough time to fully consider those reforms. So, in February 2010, Congress instead extended the “sunsetting” sections of the law until the end of this February, with a promise to fully consider the issues before the next deadline.

But Congress is breaking its promise to consider reforms to the PATRIOT Act. In a legislative sneak attack, the new Republican leadership in the House is trying push Representatives to rubber-stamp another PATRIOT renewal. The House leaders just announced on Friday that they’ll be “suspending the rules” so that a bill introduced by Rep. Sensenbrenner to extend the expiring PATRIOT provisions until December 8, 2011 will go to the House floor for a vote TOMORROW, without any debate and without any opportunity for anyone to offer amendments to improve the bill.

Please call or fax your congressperson.

The following story is shocking and heartbreaking, and concerns rape and cruel death of a young girl; if you don’t think you can handle it, feel free to skip over the section of the post. But I think this is an important story, so I’m going to share it even though it’s hard for me to even think about.

From BBC News:

Four people including a Muslim cleric have been arrested in Bangladesh in connection with the death of 14-year-old girl who was publicly lashed.

The teenager was accused of having an affair with a married man, police say, and the punishment was given under Islamic Sharia law.

Henna Begum

An affair? She was 14. He was 40. She was raped, and then she was publicly flogged. BBC News:

The family members of the married man [Henna’s cousin, age 40] also allegedly beat the girl up a day before the village court passed the sentence in the district of Shariatpur.

Hena Begum died after being taken to hospital “Her family members said she was admitted to a hospital after the incident and she died six days later. The village elders also asked the girl’s father to pay a fine of about 50,000 Taka (£430; $700),” district superintendent of police, AKM Shahidur Rahman, told the BBC.

He said it had not been established yet whether she died because of the punishment she received or another reason.

Another reason? WTF?! Universe, give me strength! BTW, these Sharia law punishments have been outlawed in Bangladesh. You’d think the district superintendent could have stopped the beatings and floggings instead of waiting until Henna was dead to “investigate.”

People in Bangladesh are asking the same question:

The High Court yesterday ordered district officials in Shariatpur to explain why they failed to protect 14-year-old rape victim Hena from being whipped to death as per a fatwa on Monday.

The deputy commissioner, the superintendent of police of Shariatpur and the thana nirbahi officer of Naria upazila — where the incident took place–will have to report to the HC in 15 days how it happened although the court (HC) had eight months ago declared fatwa illegal and a punishable offence.

In a suo moto rule, the HC directed them also to report what steps they have taken in this regard.

An HC bench comprised of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain issued the rule following press reports on the killing of Hena.

I’ll end with just a few links on the situation in Egypt.

At the Socialist Worker, there is a statement from “radical Egyptian socialists.”

From the World Socialist Website: Imperialism and Egypt’s “democratic transition”

From Siun at FDL: Concessions Meaningless Say Tahrir Protesters: “We Want a New System”

Slate: UN: 300 Dead in Egyptian Protests

The NYT Lede Blog has “the latest updates” from Egypt

What are you reading and blogging about today?

Monday Reads

Posted: February 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, morning reads, psychology | Tags: , , , , , | 31 Comments

Good Morning!!!

Breaking NEWS update:

Rep. Jane Harman of California to resign

Democrat Jane Harman, who represents a Los Angeles-area district, is expected to leave Congress to lead the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a congressional source says.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), a leading congressional voice on anti-terrorism issues, plans to resign from Congress to head up the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a senior congressional source confirmed Monday, setting up a special election to choose her successor in a coastal district that stretches from Venice into the South Bay.

There’s plenty of news to share today so grab a big mug of whatever it is that you drink and join in!!

First, some big news in business and the blogosphere.  AOL Is Buying The Huffington Post.

The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.

The deal will allow AOL to greatly expand its news gathering and original content creation, areas that its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, views as vital to reversing a decade-long decline.

Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

I’m not sure if any of you caught the O’Reilly interview of Obama, but President Obama is insisting that he’s not moving to the center.  The one thing I keep hearing about this interview is that O’Reilly couldn’t stop interrupting the President.  I can only imagine how large that studio had to be to contain those big heads.

President Obama on Sunday dismissed the notion that his administration in recent weeks has pivoted toward the political center to raise his approval ratings as the 2012 campaign nears.

After ushering through Congress measures to throw a lifeline to troubled U.S. corporations, stimulate the economy and dramatically overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, Obama has since cut a deal with congressional Republicans on taxes and called for a freeze on most federal spending.

But when pressed Sunday during a live interview with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly on what political analysts say is a clear sprint toward the center, Obama dismissed the notion with a “no.”

“I haven’t — I didn’t move to… I’m the same guy,” he said.

When O’Reilly said the president’s critics call him “a big government liberal,” Obama replied that he inherited a nation on the brink of an economic crisis. That situation required his administration to take a number of “extraordinary steps” to avoid a severe economic depression, Obama said.

I wrote on the role of speculation in high food prices a few days ago .  Paul Krugman believes it’s a supply problem and wrote about it Sunday on the NYT.   He also considers climate change to be a factor. You may want to check it out.

Overall grain production is down — and it’s down substantially more when you take account of a growing world population. Wheat production (this time not per capita) is way down.

You might ask why a production shortfall of 5 percent leads to a doubling of prices. Part of the answer is that some kinds of demand are growing faster than population — in particular, China is becoming a growing importer of feed to meet the demand for meat. But the main point is that the demand for grain is highly price-inelastic: it takes big price rises to induce people to consume less, yet collectively that’s what they must do given the shortfall in production.

Why is production down? Most of the decline in world wheat production, and about half of the total decline in grain production, has taken place in the former Soviet Union — mainly Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. And we know what that’s about: an incredible, unprecedented heat wave.

Here‘s a wonky link to VOXEU that discusses financial contagion. It’s pretty interesting.  The article deals with contagion in the market for European Sovereign bonds but you can extrapolate the basic intuition to other assets.  Here’s one surprising insight.  It seems that many stocks that performed well during the financial crisis were frequently the one’s most likely to be subjected to ‘fire sales’ later on. That’s a tidbit worth remembering.

First, the fire sale discount is most pronounced for stocks which performed best during the crisis. Figure 2 illustrates this aspect by depicting the relative performance of non-exposed and exposed stocks as a function of the stocks overall return from July 2007 to July 2008. Most of the return shortfall of exposed stocks is concentrated among the stocks with the highest returns. This somewhat counterintuitive result can be explained by fund discretion about which asset positions to liquidate. Faced with funding constraints and investor redemption requests, distressed equity funds liquidated the best performing stocks rather than stocks with recent large capital losses. Thus, fire sales were more pronounced for stocks among the 10% best performing stocks. For these stocks we find average fire sale discounts above 75%.

President Obama addresses the US Chamber of Commerce today.  You can watch it on CSpan.

Picking up on the themes expressed in his State of the Union Address, President Obama will reaffirm his commitment to invest in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure during a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today.

During that address before Congress, the President identified innovation, education, and infrastructure as the keys to stimulate the economy by increasing job growth and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Here’s a post for our BostonBoomer from Psychology today. Okay, it’s also for me. It’s called  Buddhism and Neuroscience: Neuroscience finds a friend in Buddhism. Here’s an interesting scientific view of a practice we Buddhists do to realize that there is no “soul”.

When a Buddhist applies the idea of constant change to the self and the soul, he gains an insight that other religions lack.  What we call a mind (or a self, or a soul) is actually something that changes so much and is so uncertain, that our terms for it do not find meaning.  The Buddhist word for self is anatta and it means ‘no self.’   It is used to refer to oneself, while cleverly reminding the user of the word that there is such thing.

Within this framework, one is immediately struck by the disconnect between perception and religious teaching.  All is endlessly changing, but I feel unified and unchanged from moment to moment, year to year.  The way things feel becomes suspect, just as it does in modern neuroscience.  Broadly, both Buddhism and neuroscience converge on similar points of view: the way it feels to be you isn’t how it is, that even our language about ourselves is to be distrusted (witness the tortured negation of anatta), and there is no permanent, constant soul in the background.

Despite saying there is no self, Buddhism does posit an immaterial thing that survives the brain’s death.  Through life there is a consciousness, always changing like the world, one mental state rising like a wave to crash on the beach, then another and another.  After a person’s death, the consciousness re-incarnates.  This isn’t much of a trick, since even during a Buddhist life, each moment can be considered a re-incarnation from the moment before.  The waves still lap, the beach shifted.  If you’re good, they might lap at a higher organism.  If you’re not, well, insects clearly have consciousness and someone’s waves need to supply it.

So how does Buddhism do?  Pretty well.  Buddhism lays out the concept that there is no mind the way we tend to consider them (as we consider our self).  In broad strokes, neuroscience and neurology agree.

Kinda cool hmm?

So, what’s on you reading and blogging list today?

Saturday: a time for prayers

Posted: February 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Egypt, Hillary Clinton: Her Campaign for All of Us, morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 66 Comments

Click Image to go to Al Jazeera Live Blog on Egypt for Feb. 5th

Photo: A wounded antigovernment protester joined fellow demonstraters for Friday prayer at Tahrir square in Cairo. Tens of thousands of Egyptians gathered for sweeping “Day of Departure” demonstrations to try to force President Hosni Mubarak to quit. (Mohammed Abed/AFP-Getty)

Good morning, news junkies!

So the story this week is still Egypt, and I thought I’d start off with a first-person account that Bloomberg ran yesterday from reporter Maram Mazen:

A policeman looked me in the eye and said: “You will be lynched today,” running his finger across his neck.

But, that wasn’t Mazen’s most frightening moment on Thursday in Cairo. Click over to find out what it was.

Next up, a youtube of the protesters in Tahrir square breaking into song yesterday, led by a guitarist off-camera, amidst cries for Mubarak’s immediate exit during Friday’s ‘Day of Departure’ demonstrations. It’s almost at a 100,000 views already. Please go give it another. It’s just plain enjoyable music too. Rough translation of what they’re singing, from the comments:

Let’s make Mubarak hear our voices. We all, one hand, requested one thing, leave leave leave … Down Down Hosni Mubarak, Down Down Hosni Mubarak … The people want to dismantle the regime …. He is to go, we are not going … He is to go, we won’t leave … We all, one hand, ask one thing, leave leave.

Click Image to see more pictures of the day for Feb. 4th from the NYT Lens

Photo: Iranian women participated in Friday prayer outside Tehran University (Behrouz Mehri/AFP-Getty)

Here’s the latest word from Secretary Clinton on Egypt, speaking at a Munich security conference this Saturday — Hillary characterizes the unrest that the Mideast is facing as a “perfect storm of powerful trends” and says:

This is what has driven demonstrators into the streets of Tunis, Cairo, and cities throughout the region. The status quo is simply not sustainable.

Al Jazeera English also reports that she said there must be clear progress toward “open, transparent, fair and accountable systems” across the region not to risk even greater instability.

While we’re on the Middle East, did you hear? Rand Paul wants to end “welfare to Israel.” Hey, don’t shoot, I’m just relaying the news here. And, before anyone on the other side of that issue goes goo goo over Paul following in his father’s isolationist footsteps, remember the libertarian catch that it comes with–Paul is also calling for dramatic education cuts.

There’s an interesting blog piece on Egypt, Obama, and Indonesia at the New Statesman that I’m still thinking on, but I thought I’d put it out there for Saturday reading. I have to say, I have yet to see any indication that Obama has much of a plan when it comes to Egypt. The deer-in-the-headlights look coming from this White House has been hard to miss.

This next item didn’t seem to generate much buzz, but I thought I’d put it in here and get your reactions… a Mississippi federal judge threw out a challenge to HCR on Thursday.

Here’s a story I’d been meaning to cover last week but didn’t get to, and there’s an update on it this weekend too. You may or may not know but Indian human rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen is facing life imprisonment. Here is the report Democracy Now’s Anjali Kamat filed from Chhattisgarh in advance of the global day of protest calling for Binayak’s release last Sunday. And, here is the update on Binayak’s wife, Ilina Sen, who has been under a witchhunt by the Maharasthra Police. An FIR against her has been reportedly thrown out:

Illina was named as an accused for her alleged failure to inform the police of the participation of foreign delegates at a conference of the Indian Association for Woman Studies ( IAWS) in Wardha.

Illina, who had termed the FIR an vindictive act of the state, told Mail Today on Thursday that she was unaware of the development. ” But if it is happening, it is a welcome step,” she said.

” The home ministry has intervened in the matter… Illina’s name will be dropped from the FIR,” a government source said.

Looks like a bit of good news we can hang our hats on as the rest of the world spins out of control. Speaking of women’s studies…

This Saturday in Women’s and Children’s Health headlines

BYU School of Family Life researchers Sarah Coyne and Laura Padilla-Walker find that teen girls who play video games with their parents are less depressed (Truthdig), as part of the Flourishing Families project that began in 2007. Here’s the pdf to the actual study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health this month for anyone who is interested. According to Coyne, et al. (2011), for girls there is a link between playing age-appropriate games with parents and lowered internalizing (anxiety/depression) and aggression. There is no correlation for boys, and further studies are still needed to determine causality and long term effects for girls. Two years ago, the larger study that this research is a part of found a link between frequent gaming and relationship difficulties. This summer the project led to research that found having a sister may counter depression. Let’s hear it for sisterhood! Which brings me to…

Cinematherapy…in Feminist Perspective

Click poster to go to missprepresentation.org

A great op-ed last week on Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary Missrepresentation, by Ashley Chappo in The Cavalier Daily — “Showgirls.” Here’s a teaser of Chappo’s piece:

As the American activist Marian Wright Edelman once said, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Our national misconceptions about the value of women have contributed to the fact that the United States currently ranks 90th world-wide when it comes to women’s representation in politics. This year, Newsom’s documentary is a must-see because it challenges all Americans to reconsider their values and confront institutions that perpetuated inferior images of female capability.

Another film featured last month at the Sundance festival that you might want to take a look at is Lynn Hershmann’s !Women Art Revolution. Also, if you have a chance, check out: “Global Girls Go Sundance.”

This last one is really a review of a review of a book, but I’m sticking it here because it goes with feminist reads. Historiann: “Rebecca Traister on Stephanie Coontz’s A Strange Stirring.”

This day in history (February 5)

1871: Mary Sewall Garnder, pioneer of public health nursing, was born.

(If you click on Mary’s name, the link will take you to more women’s history trivia for February 5th.)

Closing thought

With all the upheaval going on in the world these days, I thought I’d share the Gayatri mantra before I go… I grew up on it, and though I’m agnostic and don’t believe in a “creator god,” this one stuck for me, perhaps because Gayatri is a girl goddess and the prayer is about asking her to dispel the darkness of ignorance. I like this translation:

Om Bhur Bhuva Swaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dheemahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat

Mother who subsists as all three Kalas, in all three Lokas, and all three Gunas, I pray to you to illuminate my intellect and dispel my ignorance, just as the splendorous sunlight dispels all darkness. I pray to you to make my intellect serene and bright.

And, to make this roundup even more cross-cultural…

La fin and merci beaucoup if you made it to the end. Let’s hear what you’re reading this Saturday in the comments.

[originally posted at Let Them Listen; crossposted at Taylor Marsh and Liberal Rapture]

Friday Reads

Posted: February 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Feminists, Festivities, fetus fetishists, Food, morning reads, Reproductive Rights, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Good Morning and Happy Lunar New Year

The Egyptian revolution continues to be the top story around the world. We will continue to run live blog updates to give you the latest reliable news sources on the subject.  There’s a few stories on the economy that I’d like to share this morning beyond that topic.

First, Happy Lunar New Year!!

2011 is the Year of the Metal Rabbit.

Chinese astrologer Alvin Ang of Bazi Destiny foresees “the global situation may be affected by serious political change and global calamities.”

Hong Kong-based feng shui master Joseph Wong gives a different take. “This coming year everything will be better than last year,” he told CNN’s Pauline Chiou. “They will see business go upwards mostly, but take care with the shares and stocks. There will be some fluctuations in August and September.”

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke gave a speech at the National Press Club yesterday that indicated continuing concern about the ability of the current recovery to sustain any reasonable decrease in the unemployment rate.  He also indicated the need for a long term plan to deal with the Federal deficit.  There were a few mentions of the continuing need for QE and statements that the monetary policy to date had worked given the recovery of the equity markets.  He did sound a bit more upbeat than the last time we heard from him and while he acted like the recovery was slower than any one would wish, he did state that he felt it was becoming ‘self-sustaining’.

Here’s some analysis on our unemployment vis a vis the Bernanke Statements from The Economist.

The Fed’s forecast range for the unemployment rate in 2012 is 7.7% to 8.2%, and the Congressional Budget Office  forecasts an unemployment rate of 8.4% (this forecast dates to after the announcement of QE2, but isn’t meaningfully different from its forecasts from the summer of 2010). This would suggest that with QE2 in place, American unemployment is likely to be between 6% and 7% in 2012. That’s not full employment, but it’s pretty close. You can argue that more needs to be done (indeed, I think the Fed itself could do more). But it is worth noting that the Fed has put the American economy on a substantially better recovery path than it faced before (Scott Sumner would say it has returned the economy to the path off which it previously led it).A big risk is that the Fed will back away from its policy too quickly, thinking all is going well and worrying premptively about inflation. As Karl Smith says, today’s speech is somewhat reassuring on that front.

The NYT had an op ed up on Trade indicating that Republicans are trying to remove some provisions that now help workers retrain should they lose their jobs to overseas locations.  It’s worth reading just to see how truly Dickensian the Republicans seem to be these days.

Most Republican lawmakers claim they are pro-trade. Their principled position is evidently no match for parochialism and politics. Last month, a conflict over imported sleeping bags between a company in Alabama and a rival in Kentucky led Senate Republicans to block the extension of the Generalized System of Preferences, or G.S.P., which has granted preferential access to some $20 billion worth of imports from developing countries.

Now Senator Jon Kyl and his colleagues in the Finance Committee are threatening to block the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides income and training for American workers whose employers can’t compete with rising imports. It is due to expire on Feb. 12, and Mr. Kyl and company are refusing to extend it unless the White House promises to advance the long-pending trade deal with Colombia.

Speaking of Dickensian Republican policy, the GOP dropped the ‘forcible rape’ language from HR3.  The Hyde Amendment has long entertained the idiocy of letting one loud and obnoxious group of zealots deny Federal  funding of their personal pet peeve while the rest of us continue to fund all kinds of abominable projects. Tops on my opt out list  are renditions for torture and bail outs of Investment banks.  But, American Fetus Fetishists get special treatment.  At least this attempt at narrowing rape definitions is gone now.

House Republicans plan to sidestep a charged debate over the distinction between “forcible rape” and “rape” by altering the language of a bill banning taxpayer subsidies for abortions.

The provision in question, written as an exemption from the ban for women who become pregnant as a result of “forcible rape,” touched off a firestorm of criticism from women’s groups, and it gained enough attention to become the subject of a satirical segment on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

But a spokesman for the bill’s author, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), says the modifier “forcible” will be dropped so that the exemption covers all forms of rape, as well as cases of incest and the endangerment of the life of the mother.“The word forcible will be replaced with the original language from the Hyde Amendment,” Smith spokesman Jeff Sagnip told POLITICO, referring to the long-standing ban on direct use of taxpayer dollars for abortion services.

A real Democratic congress and president would’ve gotten rid of this stupid provision by now. However, here is something that if true will make me do the Snoopy dance.

The Obama administration is examining whether the new health care law can be used to require insurance plans to offer contraceptives and other family planning services to women free of charge.

Such a requirement could remove cost as a barrier to birth control, a longtime goal of advocates for women’s rights and experts on women’s health. But it is likely to reignite debate over the federal role in health care, especially reproductive health, at a time when Republicans in Congress have vowed to repeal the law or dismantle it piece by piece. It is also raising objections from the Roman Catholic Church and is expected to generate a robust debate about privacy.

The law says insurers must cover “preventive health services” and cannot charge for them. The administration has asked a panel of outside experts to help identify the specific preventive services that must be covered for women.

Administration officials said they expected the list to include contraception and family planning because a large body of scientific evidence showed the effectiveness of those services. But the officials said they preferred to have the panel of independent experts make the initial recommendations so the public would see them as based on science, not politics.

Many obstetricians, gynecologists, pediatricians and public health experts have called for coverage of family planning services, including contraceptives, without co-payments, deductibles or other cost-sharing requirements.

Will the Cult of the Angry Sky God get the ultimate veto on this too?

Well, back to the exercise equipment folks!  Bloomberg.com says ‘American Waistlines Expand Fastest Among Rich Nations’,

Americans grew fatter at a faster pace than residents of any other wealthy nation since 1980, during a period when obesity worldwide nearly doubled, researchers found.

Almost 10 percent of the world’s population was obese in 2008, according to studies published today by the medical journal The Lancet. The percentage of people with uncontrolled hypertension, or high blood pressure, fell, with high-income countries showing a larger drop. Cholesterol levels declined in North America, Australia and Europe, but increased in East and Southeast Asia as well as the Pacific region, researchers said.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Happy New Year!!!

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