Dredging crews tear up remnants of British fort in New York state | World news | guardian.co.uk

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk
Friday 14 August 2009 15.50 EDT

Dredging crews tear up remnants of British fort

Crews dredging chemicals damage remnants of what was once Britain's largest fort in colonial America

Crews dredging polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) from the Hudson river today ripped away remnants of what was once Britain's largest fort in colonial America, a mistake that incensed local officials who had feared the cleanup project would damage such relics in the area.

Neal Orsini said he was awoken this morning by the sound of dredging along his riverside property in Fort Edward, New York. Orsini said he later discovered that the dredgers had torn out the riverbank, along with two wooden beams that had been part of the original fort's waterfront bastion. A third beam was later found still buried at the site. Orsini said crews were supposed to stay away from that stretch of riverbank because of its archaeological significance.

... US dredging crews tear up remnants of British fort in New York state | World news | guardian.co.uk

3-year-old in CPS' care overprescribed psychotropic drugs - Houston weather, traffic, news | FOX 26 | MyFoxHouston

My Fox Houston

3-year-old in CPS' care overprescribed psychotropic drugs

Posted: May 16, 2012 6:40 PM PDT Updated: May 16, 2012 7:39 PM PDT

By Randy Wallace, Investigative Reporter - bio

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Here's 4-year-old Rachel Harrison before Child Protective Services took her away from her parents.

Once CPS takes over, you can see the drastic changes for yourself.

"And as a parent it's very hard to deal with because your baby's in trouble and you can't do anything to help," said Rachel's mother Christina Harrison. 
...
3-year-old in CPS' care overprescribed psychotropic drugs - Houston weather, traffic, news | FOX 26 | MyFoxHouston

How the KKK got beat by 1 black guy - YouTube

How one black man beat the KKK

How the KKK got beat by 1 black guy - YouTube

WashPost: Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept.

E-mail

This page was sent to you by: washingtonpost@randallbart.com

Message from sender:

Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept.

By Spencer S. Hsu

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people nationwide, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

Do you love D.C.? Get the insider's guide to where to stay, what to do and where to eat. Go to www.washingtonpost.com/gog for your guide to D.C. now.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company | Privacy Policy

The Vortex Cannon - Student Science - YouTube

The Vortex Cannon - Student Science - YouTube

Why Nations Fail - NYTimes.com

Why Nations Fail

By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: March 13, 2012

By his own admission, Daron Acemoglu is a slightly pudgy and fairly nerdy guy with an unpronounceable last name. But when I mentioned that I was interviewing him to two econ buffs, they each gasped and said, “I love Daron Acemoglu,” as if I were talking about Keith Richards. The Turkish M.I.T. professor — who, right now, is about as hot as economists get — acquired his renown for serious advances in answering the single most important question in his profession, the same one that compelled Adam Smith to write “The Wealth of Nations”: why are some countries rich while others are poor?

Over the centuries, proposed answers have varied greatly. Smith declared that the difference between wealth and poverty resulted from the relative freedom of the markets; Thomas Malthus said poverty comes from overpopulation; and John Maynard Keynes claimed it was a byproduct of a lack of technocrats. (Of course, everyone knows that politicians love listening to wonky bureaucrats!) Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s most famous economists, asserts that poor soil, lack of navigable rivers and tropical diseases are, in part, to blame. Others point to culture, geography, climate, colonization and military might. The list goes on. 

But through a series of legendary — and somewhat controversial — academic papers published over the past decade, Acemoglu has persuasively challenged many of the previous theories. (If poverty were primarily the result of geography, say, or an unfortunate history, how can we account for the successes of Botswana, Costa Rica or Thailand?) Now, in their new book, “Why Nations Fail,” Acemoglu and his collaborator, James Robinson, argue that the wealth of a country is most closely correlated with the degree to which the average person shares in the overall growth of its economy. It’s an idea that was first raised by Smith but was then largely ignored for centuries as economics became focused on theoretical models of ideal economies rather than the not-at-all-ideal problems of real nations.

.... Why Some Countries Go Bust - NYTimes.com
Why Nations Fail website

No More Reds in the Union as sung by The Diggers

This is one of my favorite songs. This is a modern performance, because the original record from the 1940s is tied up with "rights issues". Riiiiight.

No More Reds in the Union - YouTube

The Torture Report (if you care)

Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,

US may use CIA cloak to hide Afghan presence — RT

RT 

US may use CIA cloak to hide Afghan presence

Published: 05 March, 2012, 01:01

The Pentagon is reportedly deliberating over putting elite troops and Special Forces in Afghanistan under CIA control. The move would reduce official US presence with a view to meeting Obama’s promise of total withdrawal from the country by 2014.

Top US military sources told Agence France-Presse that the idea had been circulated by senior defense intelligence as a way to reduce US presence in Afghanistan before the 2014 deadline.

It is one of several initiatives currently under discussion in the Pentagon, according to AFP sources. The proposals have not yet been presented to US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

.... US may use CIA cloak to hide Afghan presence — RT

‘The New Jim Crow’ by Michelle Alexander’ Raises Drug Law Debates - NYTimes.com

Drug Policy as Race Policy: Best Seller Galvanizes the Debate

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

Published: March 6, 2012

Garry McCarthy, a 30-year veteran of law enforcement, did not expect to hear anything too startling when he appeared at a conference on drug policy organized last year by an African-American minister in Newark, where he was the police director.

But then a law professor named Michelle Alexander took the stage and delivered an impassioned speech attacking the war on drugs as a system of racial control comparable to slavery and Jim Crow — and received a two-minute standing ovation from the 500 people in the audience.

“These were not young people living in high-crime neighborhoods,” Mr. McCarthy, now police superintendent in Chicago, recalled in telephone interview. “This was the black middle class.”

“I don’t believe in the government conspiracy, but what you have to accept is that that narrative exists in the community and has to be addressed,” he said. “That was my real a-ha moment.”

.... Michelle Alexander’s ‘New Jim Crow’ Raises Drug Law Debates - NYTimes.com

Pay Only for Drugs That Help You - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor

Pay Only for Drugs That Help You

By SAMUEL D. WAKSAL

Published: March 6, 2012

IT’S hard not to be outraged by the fact that the United States spends $2.6 trillion per year on health care, far more than any other country, and has no better medical outcomes to show for it. Everyone agrees that we need to cut waste from the system. And it’s understandable that, with reports of individuals taking $100,000 cancer drugs only to prolong survival by a few months, the high cost of drugs is one of the first targets.

But simply capping or slashing the price of drugs is not the answer. Individuals and insurance companies should be willing to pay — and pay a lot — for drugs when they work. The problem is we’re also paying for drugs when they don’t. To cut costs from the system and create an incentive for drug developers to deliver more innovative new drugs, this is what has to change.

All drugs have different effects on different people, particularly cancer drugs. There are many more genetic forms of cancer than simple categories like lung cancer or breast cancer denote. Drugs like Herceptin, Avastin and Erbitux (which my former company, ImClone Systems, developed) produce impressive results in patients whose cancers are genetically matched to their treatment — they can live years longer, returning to work and productive lives. But on a large group of patients, these drugs have no effect whatsoever. That’s why a drug’s “median overall survival benefit” — an average that is used to obtain Food and Drug Administration approval for cancer drugs, and a figure that critics of expensive drugs often point to — is actually very misleading.

Instead, we need to separate out those who benefit from a drug and those who don’t. When a drug works, patients and insurance companies should pay the full price. When it doesn’t, they should pay nothing.

.... Pay Only for Drugs That Help You - NYTimes.com

Japan Considered Evacuating Tokyo During Nuclear Crisis, Report Says - NYTimes.com

Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: February 27, 2012

TOKYO — In the darkest moments of last year’s nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.

The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japan’s response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plant’s cooling systems.

The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organization’s founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japan’s most respected public intellectuals.

.... Japan Considered Evacuating Tokyo During Nuclear Crisis, Report Says - NYTimes.com

Congressman Pete Hoekstra On His Controversial Super Bowl Ad - FoxNews - YouTube

I'll let Pete Hoekstra speak for himself:

Congressman Pete Hoekstra On His Controversial Super Bowl Ad - FoxNews - YouTube

San Francisco county Audit Finds Broad Irregularities in Foreclosures - NYTimes.com

San Francisco county Audit Finds Broad Irregularities in Foreclosures

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Published: February 15, 2012

An audit by San Francisco county officials of about 400 recent foreclosures there determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation, according to a report released Wednesday.

Anecdotal evidence indicating foreclosure abuse has been plentiful since the mortgage boom turned to bust in 2008. But the detailed and comprehensive nature of the San Francisco findings suggest how pervasive foreclosure irregularities may be across the nation.

The improprieties range from the basic — a failure to warn borrowers that they were in default on their loans as required by law — to the arcane. For example, transfers of many loans in the foreclosure files were made by entities that had no right to assign them and institutions took back properties in auctions even though they had not proved ownership.

.... California Audit Finds Broad Irregularities in Foreclosures - NYTimes.com

Rachel Maddow: Romney's yawning favorability gap leaves opening for Santorum

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow: Romneys yawning favorability gap leaves opening for Santorum

Outsourcing death - NYTimes.com

Outsourcing death

By ROD NORDLAND

Published: February 11, 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan — Even dying is being outsourced here.

This is a war where traditional military jobs, from mess hall cooks to base guards and convoy drivers, have increasingly been shifted to the private sector. Many American generals and diplomats have private contractors for their personal bodyguards. And along with the risks have come the consequences: More civilian contractors working for American companies than American soldiers died in Afghanistan last year for the first time during the war.

American employers here are under no obligation to publicly report the deaths of their employees and frequently do not. While the military announces the names of all its war dead, private companies routinely notify only family members. Most of the contractors die unheralded and uncounted — and in some cases, leave their survivors uncompensated.

... Afghan War Risks Are Shifting to Contractors - NYTimes.com

Jewish societies to help immigrants -- MyJewishLearning.com

A century ago, when the banksters turned their backs on us, we had

Jewish societies to help immigrants

Modern Tzedakah

A group of Jewish women from Seattle began Hebrew free loan societies.

Chapters in American Jewish History are provided by the American Jewish Historical Society, collecting, preserving, fostering scholarship and providing access to the continuity of Jewish life in America for more than 350 years (and counting). Visit www.ajhs.org.

In 1909, a group of Seattle Jewish women formed a whist and sewing club with dues of 25 cents per month. When they had accumulated $64, they offered to purchase a gift for their local synagogue. Because the rabbi knew that the women raised the money by playing cards, he refused the gift. Undaunted, the women started the Hebrew Ladies’ Free Loan Society of Seattle. Their thoughtfulness helped some of Seattle’s first Jewish entrepreneurs get started in business.
Jewish societies to help immigrants

Why Islamism Is Winning - NYTimes.com

NYTimes Op-Ed Contributor

Why Islamism Is Winning

By JOHN M. OWEN IV

Published: January 6, 2012

Charlottesville, Va.

EGYPT’S final round of parliamentary elections won’t end until next week, but the outcome is becoming clear. The Muslim Brotherhood will most likely win half the lower house of Parliament, and more extreme Islamists will occupy a quarter. Secular parties will be left with just 25 percent of the seats.

Islamism did not cause the Arab Spring. The region’s authoritarian governments had simply failed to deliver on their promises. Though Arab authoritarianism had a good run from the 1950s until the 1980s, economies eventually stagnated, debts mounted and growing, well-educated populations saw the prosperous egalitarian societies they had been promised receding over the horizon, aggrieving virtually everyone, secularists and Islamists alike.

The last few weeks, however, have confirmed that a revolution’s consequences need not follow from its causes. Rather than bringing secular revolutionaries to power, the Arab Spring is producing flowers of a decidedly Islamist hue. More unsettling to many, Islamists are winning fairly: religious parties are placing first in free, open elections in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. So why are so many Arabs voting for parties that seem politically regressive to Westerners?

.... Why Islamism Is Winning - NYTimes.com

Boogeyman: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer

New York Times series on Derek Boogard -- Three videos and three articles

Derek Boogaard: An Enforcer’s Story — Video 1: Learning to Brawl - NYTimes.com
Derek Boogaard: An Enforcer’s Story — Video 2: Fight Club - NYTimes.com
Derek Boogaard: An Enforcer’s Story — Video 3: Punch Drunk - NYTimes.com
Derek Boogaard - A Boy Learns to Brawl - NYTimes.com
Derek Boogaard - Blood on the Ice - NYTimes.com
Derek Boogaard - A Brain ‘Going Bad’ - NYTimes.com

"Mickey Mouse" and D-Day

Clarification of the usual "Mickey Mouse" and D-Day story:

... a very brief United Press item, datelined London, on June 8, 1944. The exact wording in the three papers differs, thanks presumably to editing, but the substance in each is the same. Here's the UP item as it appeared in the Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail:

Mickey Mouse played a part in the invasion of northern France, it was revealed today.
Naval officers gathering for invasion briefing at a southern port approached the sentry at the door and furtively whispered into his ear the password of admission: "Mickey Mouse."

MichaelBarrier.com -- "What's New" "Mickey Mouse" and D-Day