Newtown Tragedy May Soften Hearts in Washington - NYTimes.com

Memo From Washington

Newtown Shooting May Cool Washington’s Partisan Passions 

By JACKIE CALMES

Published: December 17, 2012 

WASHINGTON — To the extent that Americans have diverted their attention since Friday from the horror in Connecticut toward their capital, it has been to wonder whether the school shooting would provoke the first serious gun control debate in years. But the tragedy could have an impact on another crucial legislative issue: the current contest over taxes and spending. 

While seemingly unrelated — the emotionally wrenching holiday-season massacre of 20 first graders and six of their guardians, and Washington’s mind-numbing fiscal fight to reduce deficits — the first cannot fail to have a salutary effect on the latter, say veterans of Washington’s partisan wars from both parties.

“Members of Congress, when you get down to it, are just people,” said Mickey Edwards, a former House Republican leader. “There are those things that, at least momentarily, trump ideology.”
...  Newtown Tragedy May Soften Hearts in Washington - NYTimes.com

Paper Links Nerve Agents in ’91 Gulf War and Ailments - NYTimes.com

Paper Links Nerve Agents in ’91 Gulf War and Ailments

By JAMES DAO

Published: December 13, 2012

Reviving a 20-year debate over illnesses of veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a new scientific paper presents evidence that nerve agents released by the bombing of Iraqi chemical weapons depots just before the ground war began could have carried downwind and fallen on American troops staged in Saudi Arabia.

The paper, published in the journal Neuroepidemiology, tries to rebut the longstanding Pentagon position, supported by many scientists, that neurotoxins, particularly sarin gas, could not have carried far enough to sicken American forces. 

The authors are James J. Tuite and Dr. Robert Haley, who has written several papers asserting links between chemical exposures and gulf war illnesses. They assembled data from meteorological and intelligence reports to support their thesis that American bombs were powerful enough to propel sarin from depots in Muthanna and Falluja high into the atmosphere, where winds whisked it hundreds of miles south to the Saudi border.

 .... Paper Links Nerve Agents in ’91 Gulf War and Ailments - NYTimes.com

The Heart Grows Smarter - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist

The Heart Grows Smarter

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 5, 2012

If you go back and read a bunch of biographies of people born 100 to 150 years ago, you notice a few things that were more common then than now.

First, many more families suffered the loss of a child, which had a devastating and historically underappreciated impact on their overall worldviews. 

Second, and maybe related, many more children grew up in cold and emotionally distant homes, where fathers, in particular, barely knew their children and found it impossible to express their love for them.

 .... The Heart Grows Smarter - NYTimes.com

1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second Photography - Ramesh Raskar - YouTube

1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second Photography - Ramesh Raskar - YouTube

How Prisoners Make Us Look Good - NYTimes.com

How Prisoners are Skewing the Stats

News Analysis

By SAM ROBERTS

Published: October 27, 2012

A FEW years ago, the sociologists Becky Pettit and Bryan Sykes tried to quantify a worrisome phenomenon: the growing proportion of black men imprisoned by age 20. Focusing on those born between 1975 and 1979 who later dropped out of high school, they noticed an anomaly. “Our initial efforts,” Dr. Pettit recalls, “implied that more young, black, low-skill men had been to prison than were alive.” 

It took her no time to resolve the inconsistency: corrections officials count actual prisoners, a captive audience; sociologists and census-takers typically undercount prisoners and former inmates living on the edge of society.

The real problem, as Dr. Pettit sees it, is that imprisoned black men aren’t figured into statistics about the standing of African-Americans. The consequence, she says, is an overstatement of black progress in education, employment, wages and voting participation.

.... How Prisoners Make Us Look Good - NYTimes.com

Top Finishers of Tour de France Tainted by Doping - Graphic - NYTimes.com

How dirty is the Tour de France

Did you notice that the International Cycling Union has vacated Lance Armstrong's titles, without awarding a win to the second place cyclist. Why? Look at this NYTimes graphic:
Top Finishers of Tour de France Tainted by Doping - Graphic - NYTimes.com

For About $20, Cardboard Bicycle Could 'Change The World,' Inventor Says : The Two-Way : NPR

$20 Cardboard Bicycle

For About $20, Cardboard Bicycle Could 'Change The World,' Inventor Says : The Two-Way : NPR

In Interview, the Rev. Benedict Groeschel Says Abuse Victims Can Be Seducers - NYTimes.com

Priest Puts Blame on Some Victims of Sexual Abuse

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: August 30, 2012 

 A prominent Roman Catholic spiritual leader who has spent decades counseling wayward priests for the archdiocese provoked shock and outrage on Thursday as word spread of a recent interview he did with a Catholic newspaper during which he said that “youngsters” were often to blame when priests sexually abused them and that priests should not be jailed for such abuse on their first offense.

The Rev. Benedict Groeschel, who made the remarks, is a beloved figure among many Catholics and a founder of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a conservative priestly order based in New York. He hosts a weekly show on the Eternal Word Television Network and has written 45 books.  

The comments were published on Monday by The National Catholic Register, which is owned by EWTN, a religious broadcaster based in Alabama.

.... In Interview, the Rev. Benedict Groeschel Says Abuse Victims Can Be Seducers - NYTimes.com

Destroying Precious Land to Drill for Gas - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor

Destroying Precious Land for Gas

By SEAN LENNON

Published: August 27, 2012

 ON the northern tip of Delaware County, N.Y., where the Catskill Mountains curl up into little kitten hills, and Ouleout Creek slithers north into the Susquehanna River, there is a farm my parents bought before I was born. My earliest memories there are of skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk. There are bald eagles and majestic pines, honeybees and raspberries. My mother even planted a ring of white birch trees around the property for protection.

 A few months ago I was asked by a neighbor near our farm to attend a town meeting at the local high school. Some gas companies at the meeting were trying very hard to sell us on a plan to tear through our wilderness and make room for a new pipeline: infrastructure for hydraulic fracturing. Most of the residents at the meeting, many of them organic farmers, were openly defiant. The gas companies didn’t seem to care. They gave us the feeling that whether we liked it or not, they were going to fracture our little town.

.... Destroying Precious Land to Drill for Gas - NYTimes.com

Kitty army protects museum from mice

Kitty army protects museum from mice

Congressional rules on trading had their start in 1789 - The Washington Post

Washington Post

Congress has been doing it since 1789

By Kimberly Kindy, Published: June 23

....
It was 1789, and state-backed revolutionary war bonds had become virtually worthless. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton moved in to shore up the investments.
 
Before word spread, members of Congress secretly scooped up thousands of the bonds from unsuspecting farmers and war veterans, paying pennies on the dollar.
....

In response to the scandal, lawmakers prohibited Hamilton and future Treasury secretaries from buying or selling government bonds while in office.
But members of Congress did not extend the ban to themselves, a pattern that persists to this day.

.... Congressional rules on trading had their start in 1789 - The Washington Post

U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say - The Washington Post

The Washington Post

>U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say

By Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Julie TateTuesday, June 19, 12:07 PM

The United States and Israel jointly developed a sophisticated computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected critical intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage attacks aimed at slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials with knowledge of the effort.

The massive piece of malware was designed to secretly map Iran’s computer networks and monitor the computers of Iranian officials, sending back a steady stream of intelligence used to enable an ongoing cyberwarfare campaign, according to the officials.

.... U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say - The Washington Post

Sioux Group Asks Officials to Reopen ’70s Cases - NYTimes.com

Tribe Seeks Reopening of Inquiries in ’70s Deaths 

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

Published: June 15, 2012

PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. — Forty years after the siege at Wounded Knee by members of the American Indian Movement, the Oglala Sioux tribe has demanded that the federal government reopen dozens of cases it says the F.B.I. may have mishandled decades ago.

Tribal leaders say that as many as 75 people were killed on Pine Ridge during a three-year period of internecine violence that followed the 71-day Wounded Knee standoff with federal troops in 1973, a time that came to be known on the reservation as the “reign of terror.” 

The federal government has declined so far to re-examine the cases.

.... Sioux Group Asks Officials to Reopen ’70s Cases - NYTimes.com

'English Person' C-Word was NOT a Google Bomb - Explained

By Marcos – June 17, 2012

 The Google Bomb

A Google Bomb happens when people put links on websites with the intention of matching words with  a specific page which is not relevant. This is usually done as a joke or out of spite.

Why This Was Not A Google Bomb

No one was linking the words english person to the wikipedia entry.

.... 'English Person' C-Word was NOT a Google Bomb - Explained

Face distortion illusion

Start the video and stare at the cross in the middle. The faces to the left and right look distorted. But if you look directly at the faces, they are all normal.


RESEARCH | MATTHEW B. THOMPSON

Proper English - Stephen Fry

Proper English

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language - YouTube

This web page really blows:

Blow Job by TADAO CERN | Bored Panda

20 Incredible LEGO Artworks by Nathan Sawaya | Bored Panda

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

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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.

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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