WHAT BASEBALL, POKER AND THE STOCK MARKET CAN TEACH US ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Sam Smith

One thing is clear as the climate change debate chugs along: we need to teach math better in our schools. And it wouldn't hurt if journalism schools taught some math as well. 

For example, it is apparent that those who argue that one good snow storm destroys the case for climate change never got a good introduction to odds and averages.

An exception seems to be baseball. I have never heard a critic of ecological theory argue that a good hitter's failure to get to base in a particular game  indicates that he should be immediately traded. Sometimes it's because he swings badly and sometimes because the pitch is low and outside, but nobody says that's proof he's a bad hitter.

Yet, have one cold winter and they want to dump climate change.

I'm mystified by this. How can a culture that understand formulas like

have such a hard time with temperature variations?

My only explanation is that sports writers have done a far better job getting people to understand (or just accept) things like odds and averages than scientists or journalists. The unfortunate thing is that too many seem to think they only apply to sports.

Maybe we should forget about Copenhagen and have a Monday Night Climate Countdown.

There are some other people good at figuring out odds and averages, such as poker players.

Over a decade ago, I offered a poker player's guide to environmental risk assessment. Key points included:

1. Figure the stakes as well as the odds.

2. The odds of something happening at any moment are not the same as the odds of something ever happening. In ecological calculations - especially ones in which the downside could ruin your whole millennium - it is the latter odds that are important.

3. When confronted with conflicting odds, ask what happens if each projection is wrong. Temporary job loss because of environmental restrictions may come and go, but the loss of the ozone layer is something you can have forever.

4. When confronted with conflicting odds, remember that you don't have to play the game. There are other things to do with your time - or with the economy or with the environment - that may produce better results. Thus, instead of playing poker you could be making love. Or instead of getting jobs from some air or water degrading activity, the same jobs could come from more benign industry such as retrofitting a whole city for solar energy.

5. Don't let anyone - in industry, government, or the media - define an "acceptable level of risk" for your own death or disease. They may not have the same vested interest in the right answer as you do.

6. If the stakes are too high, the game is not worth it. If you can't stand the pain, don't attempt the gain.

Lately I've been wondering how a successful stock market investor might figure out whether global warming was a good investment.

Most stock market charts look much like climate records kept by NASA - an awful lot of detail in a small space that is hard for the impatient or untrained to figure out.

But there is one kind of chart that addresses the key issue: which way a stock really headed. It's called a point and figure chart. It consists of columns of Xs and Os - the former indicating a rising stock, the latter a falling one.

The neat trick is that you only change directions if the stock moves a certain amount - typically three points. What this does is to eliminate minor fluctuations and emphasizes the important stuff.

For example, let's say you bought a stock for 20 and it went up to 22. You would do nothing, but when it hit 23 you would show three Xs in a column.

Now let's say the stock goes down to 21 and then back to 23. You would do nothing because it hasn't moved three points. But let's say it goes down to 18. Then you would show five Os.

A normal chart of such things shows change in neatly divided time frames. Point & figure charts don't care much about time - mostly about movement.

I tried this approach on global temperatures since 1880 as reported by NASA. Using as the basis the average temperature for 1951-1980, here's what resulted:

Note the consistency in the patterns until 1981. Then suddenly there is a breakout combined with rising peaks. This is known as an ascending triple top breakout - and in the stock market it's a really good thing. The stock continues to rise and fall but the peaks keep getting higher. If this is a stock you may well want to buy it, but if it's climate change you don't want it at all.

Note also that the temperature has bounced up and down 3-6 points about a dozen times since 1880 just like the stock market. And just like the rest of life, come to think of it.

Of course, to those who think climate change is a purely ideological or theological issue, none of this means much.

Still, if someone tells you that the snow outside proves there's no global warming, remind them that in 2009 Albert Pujols only got a hit 33% of the time.  

OUR BETA CHART OF IMPORTANT SEX SCANDALS

The sex life of politicians and other public officials has become so complicated that we have tried to reduce it all to an easy to read chart. This is only the beta version and we welcome any additions or corrections.

ABOUT A QUARTER OF MODIFIED HOME LOANS STILL FALLING BEHIND

LA Times - About 25% of borrowers helped under the administration's massive foreclosure prevention plan have already fallen behind on their new mortgage payments, according to government data that raise new questions about the program's effectiveness.

The delinquency figures reflect the latest troubles of the program, known as Making Home Affordable. Treasury Department officials this week announced a campaign to put new pressure on lenders to do more to move struggling homeowners into loans with easier terms.

So far, more than 650,000 borrowers have been enrolled into the initial or trial phase of the program and have seen their payments lowered by an average of $640 a month, or 40%. But a recent survey of large mortgage servicers published by the Treasury Department found that more than 25% of borrowers in the program were not current on their trial payments.

Moving homeowners from the trial phase into a permanent modification has become the program's latest stumbling block. Borrowers must make three payments and submit documents proving that they qualify for the program to move forward, but a bottleneck has emerged, with few homeowners making it through. JPMorgan Chase & Co., which signed up more than 178,000 homeowners, noted last month that 22% of borrowers helped didn't make their first payment.

If borrowers struggle to keep up with their modified mortgage payments, housing experts said, it could diminish the effectiveness of the program, which the administration hopes will help as many as 4 million borrowers.

GREAT THOUGHTS OF MAYOR RUSSELL WISEMAN

Commercial Appeal, TN - In the opinion of Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the "Peanuts" television Christmas special.

Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page. . .

"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load. . . try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it. . . w. . . hen the answer should simply be 'yes'. . . "

In Wiseman's extensive thread that attacked the president, his supporters and Muslims, he stated ". . . you obama people need to move to a muslim country. . . oh wait, that's America. . . pitiful."

At another point he said, "you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different. . . "

YOU CAN'T RECOGNIZE A RECOVERY IF YOU USE THE WRONG INDICATORS

Jonathan Rowe, Yes Magazine - One reason that the nation has not made more progress toward an economic "recovery" is that the people in charge really don't know what one would look like. The top economists in Washington don't appear to have asked the obvious question, "Recovery of what-and for what?" Instead they have followed the old drill, tried to rekindle the old flame, and remained wedded to the old guideposts that leave them looking at yesterday and trying to see tomorrow.

Just recently, the president of France realized the stupidity. He has decided that his nation's measures of economic health need to change to account for today's challenges instead of yesterday's. As Washington gears up to spend billions in more "stimulus," it would help to ask exactly what it is trying to stimulate-and most importantly, exactly what would constitute success.

Economic indicators are our national psyche's main gauges, the mirror into which we look to see how things are going. In a market culture-which is to say, a money culture-the prospects for money become the prospects for ourselves. Such metrics as the Gross Domestic Product have an oracular status; reporters watch them obsessively, policy experts steer by them, and politicians march to their command.

Yet for the most part the indicators are a crock and testimony to the grip of yesterday upon the expert economic mind. The prime example is the GDP, the anachronism of which is a secret, it seems, only within the media and policy establishments that invoke it constantly. Any measure that portrays an increase in car crashes, cancer, marital breakdown, kinky mortgages, oil use, and gambling as evidence of advance-as the GDP does-simply because they occasion the expenditure of money has a tenuous claim to being reality-based discourse. Metrics are silent rulers, in both senses of the word. In defining the task, they also define the steps we must take to carry it out. . .

Another example is "productivity," which, if anything, is even more totemic. An increase in output per hour worked-which is the reigning definition-is deemed the stairway to economic heaven, and the goal most devoutly to be sought, no further questions asked. Thus the excitement recently when the Commerce Department reported that productivity had increased at an annual rate of 9.5 percent during the third quarter of 2009.

But exactly why is this such good news? "Generally, when U.S. workers are more productive that's a really good thing for the economy," observed a writer on the Atlantic's website. "It means a higher GDP will result." The statement is standard issue, and remarkable only in its circularity (and that the ratio of fallacy to sentence is one to one. . .

HOW I WISH THE CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS WERE RIGHT

Johann Hari, Independent, UK - Every day, I pine for the global warming deniers to be proved right. I loved the old world - of flying to beaches wherever we want, growing to the skies, and burning whatever source of energy came our way. I hate the world to come that I've seen in my reporting from continent after continent - of falling Arctic ice shelves, of countries being swallowed by the sea, of vicious wars for the water and land that remains. When I read the works of global warming deniers like Nigel Lawson or Ian Plimer, I feel a sense of calm washing over me. The nightmare is gone; nothing has to change; the world can stay as it was.

But then I go back to the facts. However much I want them to be different, they sit there, hard and immovable. Nobody disputes that greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, like a blanket holding in the Sun's rays. Nobody disputes that we are increasing the amount of those greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And nobody disputes that the world has become considerably hotter over the past century. . . .

Yet half our [British] fellow citizens are choosing to believe the deniers who say there must be gaps between these statements big enough to fit an excuse for carrying on as we are. Shrieking at them is not going to succeed.

Our first response has to be to accept that this denial is an entirely natural phenomenon. The facts of global warming are inherently weird, and they run contrary to our evolved instincts. . .

It's tempting to allow this first response to harden into a dogma, and use it to cover your eyes. . .  But the basic science isn't actually very complicated, or hard to grasp. As more carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere, the world gets warmer. Every single year since 1917 has been hotter than 1917. Every single year since 1956 has been hotter than 1956. Every single year since 1992 has been hotter than 1992. And on, and on. If we dramatically increase the carbon dioxide even more - as we are - we will dramatically increase the warming. Many parts of the world will dry up or flood or burn.

This is such an uncomfortable claim that I too I have tried to grasp at any straw that suggests it is wrong. One of the most tempting has come in the past few weeks, when the emails of the Hadley Centre at the University of East Anglia were hacked into, and seem on an initial reading to show that a few of their scientists were misrepresenting their research to suggest the problem is slightly worse than it is. Some people have seized on it as a fatal blow - a Pentagon Papers for global warming.

But then I looked at the facts. It was discovered more than a century ago that burning fossil fuels would release warming gases and therefore increase global temperatures, and since then, hundreds of thousands of scientists have independently reached the conclusion that it will have terrible consequences. It would be very surprising if, somewhere among them, there wasn't a charlatan or two who over-hyped their work. Such people exist in every single field of science (and they are deplorable).

So let's knock out the Hadley Centre's evidence. Here are just a fraction of the major scientific organisations that have independently verified the evidence that man-made global warming is real, and dangerous: Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, L'Academie des Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, the UK's Royal Society, the Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the US Environmental Protection Agency. . .  I could fill this entire article with these names. . .

AND THE WINNER IN THE TIGER WOODS AFFAIR IS. . . .

Guardian - It's been a terrible week for Tiger Woods, but the golf star's moment of madness at the steering wheel has brought a surge in sales for a book written by a science writer teaching at Sussex University.

A series of pictures released by Florida police of Woods's wrecked SUV includes a shot of the back seat, complete with waterbottle, towel and furled umbrella. But there among the shards of tinted glass in the footwell sits a well-thumbed copy of a paperback with the golf-appropriate title clearly visible: Get a Grip on Physics.

This incidental role in Woods's domestic drama has been enough to create a rush to get hold of the book, with the title's sales rank on Amazon.com jumping from 396,224 earlier in the week to a high spotted yesterday by the Wall Street Journal of 2,268.

Speaking in a break between lectures this morning, the author, John Gribbin, said he was "delighted that anybody's reading my books. I just wish it was one that's still in print."

Part of a planned series on subject areas which was cancelled after poor sales, Get a Grip on Physics is an illustrated introduction to modern physics first published in 1999 which tells the story of developments in physics since the 1950s, charting the discovery of the four forces of nature, the search for grand unified theories and the beginnings of string theory.

"It's not a book you sit down and read from cover to cover," said Gribbin, "you can dip in and out of it. Tiger Woods is absolutely my target audience. He's busy, hasn't got a lot of time, but wants to catch up on what's happening in physics."

BOLIVIAN CAPITAL MAY FACE WATER SHORTAGE

BBC - Fears are growing for the future of water supplies in one of Latin America's fastest-growing urban areas - Bolivia's sprawling capital of La Paz and its twin El Alto.

Scientists monitoring the glaciers high in the Andes mountains - a key source of water - say the ice is showing signs of shrinking faster than previously forecast.

Faced with a booming population and a combination of glacial retreat and reduced rainfall, the governor of the La Paz region is even contemplating moving people to other parts of Bolivia.

Water is already in short supply among the poorest communities and has become a cause of tension. It's a problem that begins now but will become more serious as other, much larger glaciers melt as well.

AF-PAK WAR COULD TURN INTO THE WAR AGAINST WHEREVER

CNN - Pakistan's prime minister rejected claims al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding within his country amid mounting global pressure on Islamabad to tackle terrorists linked to escalating conflict in neighboring Afghanistan.

"In fact Pakistan is fighting a war on terrorism," Yousaf Raza Gilani told reporters at a joint press conference with his British counterpart Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street.

"We have good defense and intelligence cooperation with the U.S.. I don't think Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan."

Pakistan has regularly been identified as the suspected hiding place of bin Laden since a major military offensive in Afghanistan in the wake of the 2001 al Qaeda attacks in the United States failed to uncover his whereabouts.

CATHOLIC CHURCH TAKES CHARGE OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

NPR - Pope Benedict XVI is known for his conservative theology, but it's his predecessor's legacy that is playing out in U.S. politics today. A generation of U.S. Catholic bishops who were selected by John Paul II is conservative on social issues, and they are willing to mix it up in the public square to push their views.

Exhibit A: the health care overhaul. On Nov. 6, the night before the House of Representatives voted on heath care, Speaker Nancy Pelosi received some visitors. One was Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, an anti-abortion Democrat, who wanted to amend the House bill to permanently strip federal funding for abortion. Critics say that would make it harder for all women to pay for abortions. Stupak brought with him two representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said they would not support any bill without that amendment.

As Stupak later put it, "We want to send a message: If you start messing with abortion and health care, you've got a problem."

The meeting was a turning point. Pelosi allowed a vote on the amendment the next day. It passed.

Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, a pro-choice Catholic, says she was dismayed that the bishops seemed to be elevating abortion over every other issue, including the health care needs of the poor.

"In their quest to push on the issue of abortion," she says, "they failed in the church's mission. They really act like a bunch of lawyers who are instructing members how to vote on arcane House rules."

DeLauro says the bishops are rejecting the tradition established by John F. Kennedy that Catholic politicians vote according to their conscience, not the dictates of Rome.

"The activity that the Catholic bishops have engaged in implies that the church will determine and dictate public policy," DeLauro says. . .

And then there is the battle between Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, R.I., and his parishioner, Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Because of Kennedy's support of abortion rights, Tobin suggested to him, privately, that he refrain from taking Holy Communion. After Kennedy made the exchange public, the bishop took to the airwaves.

"The point is that for any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith," Tobin told MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "Not just for a Catholic, but for a member of any religious community. No commitment is more important than your commitment to your faith, because it involves your relationship with God."

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE BIBLE 

This appeared in the Progressive Review during the Reagan Administration. 

Sam Smith, Progressive Review  - The ultimate irony of the conservatives is that they pretend to be a bastion of Christian politics when, in fact, they are comprised in no small part of despoilers, usurers, war-mongers, hypocrites, idolaters and groupies of false prophets - all of whom are frowned upon by the book they profess to follow. And their opponents, who are more faithful to the words that the conservatives only quote, are often such good Christians that they never say a mumblin' word about it all.

A TIMELINE OF INCONSISTENT BUT INCREASINGLY CRUEL CERTAINTY

Conscience, 1996 - Most people believe that the Roman Catholic church's position on abortion has remained unchanged for two thousand years. Not true. Church teaching on abortion has varied continually over the course of its history. There has been no unanimous opinion on abortion at any time. While there has been constant general agreement that abortion is almost always evil and sinful, the church has had difficulty in defining the nature of that evil. Members of the Catholic hierarchy have opposed abortion consistently as evidence of sexual sin, but they have not always seen early abortion as homicide. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the "right-to-life" argument is a relatively recent development in church teaching. The debate continues today.

Also contrary to popular belief, no pope has proclaimed the prohibition of abortion an "infallible" teaching. This fact leaves much more room for discussion on abortion than is usually thought, with opinions among theologians and the laity differing widely. In any case, Catholic theology tells individuals to follow their personal conscience in moral matters, even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT ABORTION?

Freedom from Religion Foundation - The word "abortion" does not appear in any translation of the bible. Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, none comments on abortion. One Mosaic law about miscarriage specifically contradicts the claim that the bible is antiabortion, clearly stating that miscarriage does not involve the death of a human being. If a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should be fined. If the woman dies, however, the culprit must be killed:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . ."--Ex. 21:22-25

According to the bible, life begins at birth--when a baby draws its first breath. The bible defines life as "breath" in several significant passages, including the story of Adam's creation in Genesis 2:7, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Jewish law traditionally considers that personhood begins at birth. . .

An honest reader must admit that the bible contradicts itself. "Thou shalt not kill" did not apply to many living, breathing human beings, including children, who are routinely massacred in the bible. The Mosaic law orders "Thou shalt kill" people for committing such "crimes" as cursing one's father or mother (Ex. 21:17), for being a "stubborn son" (Deut. 21:18-21), for being a homosexual (Lev. 20:13), or even for picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-35)! Far from protecting the sanctity of life, the bible promotes capital punishment for conduct which no civilized person or nation would regard as criminal.

Mass killings were routinely ordered, committed or approved by the God of the bible. One typical example is Numbers 25:4-9, when the Lord casually orders Moses to massacre 24,000 Israelites: "Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun." Clearly, the bible is not pro-life.

Most scholars and translators agree that the injunction against killing forbade only the murder of (already born) Hebrews. It was open season on everyone else, including children, pregnant women and newborn babies.

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."--Psalm 137:9

The bible is not pro-child. Why did God set a bear upon 42 children just for teasing a prophet (2 Kings 2:23-24)? Far from demonstrating a "pro-life" attitude, the bible decimates innocent babies and pregnant women in passage after gory passage, starting with the flood and the wanton destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, progressing to the murder of the firstborn child of every household in Egypt (Ex. 12:29), and the New Testament threats of annihilation. .
Then there are the dire warnings of Jesus in the New Testament:

"For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the womb that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck."--Luke 23:29

The teachings and contradictions of the bible show that antiabortionists do not have a "scriptural base" for their claim that their deity is "pro-life." Spontaneous abortions occur far more often than medical abortions. Gynecology textbooks conservatively cite a 15% miscarriage rate. . .

The bible is neither antiabortion nor pro-life, but does provide a biblical basis for the real motivation behind the antiabortion religious crusade: hatred of women. The bible is anti-woman, blaming women for sin, demanding subservience, mandating a slave/master relationship to men, and demonstrating contempt and lack of compassion:

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."--Genesis 3:16

What self-respecting woman today would submit willingly to such tyranny?

The antiabortion position does not demonstrate love for humanity, or compassion for real human beings. Worldwatch Institute statistics show that 50% of abortions worldwide are illegal, and that at least 200,000 women die every year--and thousands more are hurt and maimed--from illegal or self-induced abortions. Unwanted pregnancies and complications from multiple pregnancies are a leading killer of women. . . ?

Numerous Christian denominations and religious groups agree that the bible does not condemn abortion and that abortion should continue to be legal. These include:

- American Baptist Churches-USA - American Ethical Union - American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee - American Jewish Congress - Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - Episcopal Church - Lutheran Women's Caucus - Moravian Church in America-Northern Province - Presbyterian Church (USA) - Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Union of American Hebrew Congregations - Unitarian Universalist Association - United Church of Christ - United Methodist Church - United Synagogue of America - Women's Caucus Church of the Brethren - YWCA - Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice - Catholics for Free Choice - Evangelicals for Choice

TIMELINE

Compiled from Conscience journal and Religious Tolerance. Note that all these decisions were made by men.


100 AD: One of the earliest church documents, the Didache, condemns abortion but asks two critical questions: 1) Is abortion being used to conceal the sins of fornication and adultery? and 2) Does the fetus have a rational soul from the moment of conception, or does it become an "ensouled human" at a later point? The matter of "hominization" - the point at which a developing embryo or fetus becomes a human being - would become one of the cornerstones of debate about abortion, and it remains a subject of debate even today.

Prior to 380 CE: Many Christian leaders issued unqualified condemnations of abortion. So did two church synods in the early 4th century.

Circa 380 CE: The Apostolic Constitutions allowed abortion if it was done early enough in pregnancy. But it condemned abortion if the fetus was of human shape and contained a soul.

St. Augustine (354-430) condemned abortion because it breaks the connection between sex and procreation. However, in the Enchiridion, he says, "But who is not rather disposed to think that unformed fetuses perish like seeds which have not fructified" - clearly seeing hominization as beginning or occurring at some point after the fetus has begun to grow. He held that abortion was not an act of homicide. Most theologians of his era agreed with him. In a disciplinary sense, the general agreement at this time was that abortion was a sin requiring penance if it was intended to conceal fornication and adultery.

Circa 675: The Irish Canons place the penance for "destruction of the embryo of a child in the mother's womb [at] three and one half years," while the "penance of one who has intercourse with a woman, seven years on bread and water."

Circa 8th Century: In the Penitential Ascribed by Albers to Bede, the idea of delayed hominization is again supported, and women's circumstances acknowledged: "A mother who kills her child before the fortieth day shall do penance for one year. If it is after the child has become alive, [she shall do penance] as a murderess. But it makes a great difference whether a poor woman does it on account of the difficulty of supporting [the child] or a harlot for the sake of concealing her wickedness."

In 1140, Gratian compiled the first collection of canon law that was accepted as authoritative within the church. Gratian's code included the canon Aliquando, which concluded that "abortion was homicide only when the fetus was formed." If the fetus was not yet a formed human being, abortion was not homicide.

Pope Innocent III (1161-1216):He determined that a monk who had arranged for his lover to have an abortion was not guilty of murder if the fetus was not "animated" at the time.

Early in the 13th century,he stated that the soul enters the body of the fetus at the time of "quickening" - when the woman first feels movement of the fetus. Before that time, abortion was a less serious sin, because it terminated only potential human person, not an actual human person.

1312: The Council of Vienne, still very influential in Catholic hierarchical teaching, confirmed the conception of man put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas. While Aquinas had opposed abortion - as a form of contraception and a sin against marriage - he had maintained that the sin in abortion was not homicide unless the fetus was ensouled, and thus, a human being. Aquinas had said the fetus is first endowed with a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, and then - when its body is developed - a rational soul. This theory of "delayed hominization" is the most consistent thread throughout church history on abortion.

1588: Concerned about prostitution in Rome, Pope Sixtus V issued the bull Effraenatam (Without Restraint) and applied to both contraception and abortion, at any stage of pregnancy, the penalty designated for homicide: excommunication. There was no exception for therapeutic abortion.6

1591: Only three years after Pope Sixtus V issued Effraenatam, he died. His successor, Gregory XIV, felt Sixtus's stand was too harsh and was in conflict with penitential practices and theological views on ensoulment. He issued Sedes Apostolica, which advised church officials, "where no homicide or no animated fetus is involved, not to punish more strictly than the sacred canons or civil legislation does." This papal pronouncement lasted until 1869. . . Pope Gregory XIV (1591) reinstated the "quickening" test, which he determined happened 116 days into pregnancy.

1679: Consistently, abortion had been considered wrong if used to conceal sexual sins. Taking this idea to its extreme, Pope Innocent XI declared abortion impermissible even when a girl's parents were likely to murder her for having become pregnant. The church was still teaching delayed hominization, sure only that hominization occurred some time before birth.

Pope Pius IX (1869) dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus." The soul was believed to have entered the pre-embryo at conception . . . Completely ignoring the question of hominization, Pope Pius IX wrote in Apostolicae Sedis in 1869 that excommunication is the required penalty for abortion at any stage of pregnancy. He said all abortion was homicide. His statement was an implicit endorsement -- the church's first -- of immediate hominization.

Leo XIII (1878-1903):He Issued a decree in 1884 that prohibited craniotomies. This is an unusual form of abortion used under crisis situations late in pregnancy. It is occasionally needed to save the life of the pregnant woman.


He issued a second decree in 1886 that prohitied all procedures that directly killed the fetus, even if done to save the woman's life.


The 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first new edition since Gratian's code in 1140, required excommunication both for a woman who aborts and for any others, such as doctors and nurses, who take part in an abortion.


1930: In his encyclical Casti Connubii (Of Chaste Spouses), Pope Pius XI condemned abortion in general, and specifically in three instances: in the case of therapeutic abortion, which he called the killing of an innocent; in marriage to prevent offspring; and on social and eugenic grounds, as practiced by some governments.

1965: The Second Vatican Council, in Gaudium et Spes (section 51), declared: "Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes." Here, abortion is now condemned on the basis of protecting life, not as a concealment of sexual sin.

In 1974, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith issued the "Declaration on Procured Abortion," which opposes abortion on the grounds that "one can never claim freedom of opinion as a pretext for attacking the rights of others, most especially the right to life." The key to this position is that the fetus is human life from the moment of conception, if not necessarily a full human being. With this position, the church has fully changed the terms of its argument.

Canon law was revised in 1983 to refer simply to "the fetus." The church penalty for abortions at any stage of pregnancy was, and remains, excommunication.

Today: The Catholic church hierarchy today does not permit abortion in any instance, not even in case of rape or as a direct way of saving the life of a pregnant woma

BREVITAS

Afghanistan

Sue Sturgis, Facing South - According to the Center for Responsive Politics' Open Secrets database, the top recipient of defense industry money in the 2008 election cycle was Barack Obama, whose haul of $1,029,997 far surpassed Republican contender Sen. John McCain's $696,948.

War Department

McClatchy Newspapers - There are 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 from other countries in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army's recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops.

Schools

The Denver School Board has hired a marriage counselor to help it work out internal disputes. They will meet at the five-star Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, which should help as well.

Drug busts

Change - It costs $48,000 a year to keep an addict in prison, compared to $4,000 to $5,000 for outpatient treatment. . . A Washington Post report demonstrated that the alternative courts -- which funnel people charged with drug crimes to specific judges and courtrooms equipped to handle their cases wisely and offer a range of alternatives to incarceration -- are working, if you can get into them. Only 10% of drug cases nationwide find their way into drug courts.

GREAT MOMENTS WITH SARAH PALIN

Raw Story - Authorities turned away reporters who didn't speak English from a Palin event in Minnesota this week, demanding that reporters address the former Alaska governor only in English and refer to her only as "governor."

Event planners at the Mall of Americas now say it was only a "misunderstanding." Palin was scheduled to appear as part of her book-signing tour.

"Officials at the Minnesota mega-mall this week told reporters planning to cover the Minneapolis-area stop on Palin's Going Rogue book tour they must address the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate who resigned as governor last summer by her old title - a common honor, actually, which normally is accorded to former governors," the Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva wrote.

"But the mall also was banning foreign reporters," he added, "permitting 'only English speaking press.' That's not a common requirement."

Mall officials apologized have since apologized for distributing the guidelines, calling the move "an internal communication."

But they went a step further, perhaps showing a few too many of their cards -- instead of just leaving at an apology, they added that the problem was that the guidelines were "inadvertently distributed."

"In other words," Silva quips, "it got out."

VERIZON GETS 'TENS OF THOUSANDS' OF LAW ENFORCEMENT REQUESTS TO SPY ON CUSTOMERS

Wired - Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?

That's the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.

Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it "to 'shame' Yahoo! and other companies - and to 'shock' their customers."

"Therefore, release of Yahoo!'s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies," the company writes.

Verizon took a different stance. It objected to the release of its Law Enforcement Legal Compliance Guide because it might "confuse" customers and lead them to think that records and surveillance capabilities available only to law enforcement would be available to them as well - resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company asking for trap and trace orders.

"Customers may see a listing of records, information or assistance that is available only to law enforcement," Verizon writes in its letter, "but call in to Verizon and seek those same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources, especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement emergencies."

Other customers, upon seeing the types of surveillance law enforcement can do, might "become unnecessarily afraid that their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer)."

Verizon does disclose a little tidbit in its letter, saying that the company receives "tens of thousands" of requests annually for customer records and information from law enforcement agencies.

NEWSPAPER FINDS SOLUTION TO ARCHAIC MEDIA'S PROBLEMS: LET BUSINESS DEPARTMENT DECIDE WHAT'S NEWS

Dallas Observer - Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong and senior vice president of sales Cyndy Carr sent [a memo] to everyone at A.H. Belo Corp. Wednesday afternoon outlining what they call a "business/news integration." Which means? As of yesterday, some section editors at all of the company's papers, including The News, will now report directly to Carr's team of sales managers, now referred to as general managers. In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo's products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo's products, which is a radical departure from the way newspapers have been run since, oh, forever.

Those sections mentioned in the memo include sports, entertainment, real estate, automotive and travel, among others. . . Says the memo, Carr's sales force will "be working closely with news leadership in product and content development." Executive sports editor Bob Yates and Lifestyles deputy managing editor Lisa Kresl are quoted in the memo enthusiastically signing off on the unconventional marriage; says Kresl, "I'm excited about the idea of working with a business partner on an arts and entertainment segment."

SPEAKERS KNOW EVIL

Josh Goodman, Governing - Glenn Richardson, the speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, seems likely to resign at any moment. Richardson's tragic tale involves a suicide attempt last month after a bout with depression. The proximate cause of his political downfall, though, is his ex-wife's allegations that he had an extramarital affair with a lobbyist while sponsoring legislation to benefit the utility for which she worked.
Richardson's troubles culminate quite a bad year for speakers.

In Florida, Ray Sansom lost his job as speaker in a community college scandal. He remains under investigation.

Sal DiMasi, the former speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, faces federal corruption charges. He resigned in January.

And, Pennsylvania officials recently charged one-time speaker John Perzel with theft, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. In all he faces 82 counts.

AMERICANS WASTE 40% OF THEIR FOOD

Greg Plotkin, Change - A new study has found that Americans waste 1,400 calories per person per day, or nearly 40% of county's entire food supply. But that's not even the most disturbing statistic.

In order to produce the 1,400 calories that Americans toss into the trash everyday, we use one-fourth of the country's supply of fresh water. In addition, three hundred million barrels of oil are used each year to produce food that eventually just gets thrown away. . .

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE COULD PRODUCE DRASTICALLY COLD WEATHER

We have argued since the 1990s that climate change was a more accurate term than global warming. Here's one reason why:

Live Science - In the film, "The Day After Tomorrow," the world gets gripped in ice within the span of just a few weeks. Now research now suggests an eerily similar event might indeed have occurred in the past.

Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn't happen again - and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say.

Starting roughly 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was gripped by a chill that lasted some 1,300 years. Known by scientists as the Younger Dryas and nicknamed the "Big Freeze," geological evidence suggests it was brought on when a vast pulse of fresh water - a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined - poured into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

This abrupt influx, caused when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks, diluted the circulation of warmer water in the North Atlantic, bringing this "conveyer belt" to a halt. Without this warming influence, evidence shows that temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere plummeted.

Previous evidence from Greenland ice samples had suggested this abrupt shift in climate happened over the span of a decade or so. Now researchers say it surprisingly may have taken place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.

"That the climate system can turn on and off that quickly is extremely important," said earth system scientist Henry Mullins at Syracuse University, who did not take part in this research. "Once the tipping point is reached, there would be essentially no opportunity for humans to react."

Looking ahead to the future, [isotope biogeochemist William Patterson] said there was no reason why a big freeze shouldn't happen again.

"If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic," he said.

This kind of scenario would not discount evidence pointing toward global warming - after all, it leans on the Greenland ice sheet melting.

"We could say that global warming could lead to a dramatic cooling," Patterson told Live Science. "This should serve as a further warning rather than a pass."

HOW IT HAPPENED

POLICE REPORT

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: MOVING ON WITHOUT OBAMA

Sam Smith

With his expansion of the Af-Pak war, Barack Obama has now fully established himself as the Bernie Madoff of change and hope. He had been well on his way, what with all those billions for banks and so little for troubled homeowners and small businesses; his continuation of Bushic unconstitutional assaults on civil liberties; and the convoluted corruption of the health care issue. But a war that he can not explain or defend with any modicum of logic pretty well seals the deal.

While those of us who thought he was a con man from the start no longer find ourselves so lonely, there remains the problem of what to do about it.

My sense is that the infatuation over Obama was based on much larger problems including the iconization of politics, an excessive infatuation with words over deeds, as well as naive assumptions of what having the first black president would be like. Few recognized that true equality among ethnicities includes a balanced dispersal of sins and weakness as well as virtues.

Most of all, however, Obama represented a triumph of a generation of liberals dramatically different from their predecessors, most markedly in their general indifference to issues of economic as well as ethnic equality.

This heavily professional liberal class never once - in the manner of their predecessors of the New Deal and Great Society - took the lead in pressing for economic reforms. It wasn’t that they opposed them; they just never seemed to occur to them.

They, after all, had risen in status even as much of the rest of the country was slipping. Over a quarter of a century passed and the best the liberal Democrats could come up with was to slash welfare and raise the age for Social Security.

Obama was the epitome of this new generation: well educated, well connected and well toned in rhetoric. But far distant from the concerns of so many.

So it is small wonder that the O'Reilly, Becks and Palins rose to the fore. They simply hijacked the populist tradition of the Democrats and turned it into a rhetorical toy with which they could play in any manner they desired.

It wasn't the first time it had happened. Germany's willingness to accept Hitler was the product of many cultural characteristics specific to that country, to the anger and frustrations in the wake of the World War I defeat, to extraordinary inflation and particular dumb reactions to it, and, of course, to the appeal of anti-Semitism. But, bearing in mind all the foregoing, there was also:

- A collapse of conventional liberal and conservative politics that bears uncomfortable similarities to what we are now experiencing.

- The gross mismanagement of the economy and of such key worker concerns as wages, inflation, pensions, layoffs, and rising property taxes. Many of the actions were taken in the name of efficiency, an improved economy and the "rationalization of production." There were also bankruptcies, negative trade balance, major decline in national production, large national debt rise compensated for by foreign investment. In other words, a hyped version of what America and its workers are experiencing today.

- The collapse of the country's self image. Thomas Childers points out that Germany had been a world leader in education, industry, science, and literacy. Much of the madness that we see today stems from attempts to compensate for our own battered self-image.

This is only a caution, not a prediction. But without a strong populist progressive movement, based on the economic and social well being of all Americans, we run a serious risk of further disintegration.

The first thing that needs to happen is for there to be a clear distinction between smug, self-serving liberalism contemptuous of so many Americans and a populist progressive movement that seeks unity with those many liberals prefer simply to condemn.

The magnets for this unity are such obvious yet ignored issues as the creation of jobs, the preservation of pensions, decent treatment of endangered homeowners, an end to credit card usury, respect for local decision-making, and, yes, a healthcare plan based on providing financial assistance, not bureaucratic nightmares.

Such a movement would have to be formed issue by issue. It can not rely on empty icons or over-packed ideology. If one agrees on how to handle foreclosures but disagrees on abortion, leave the latter for another day. It is by working together on the things upon which we agree that both respect and power are gained.

Such principles were almost a given in much of the best organizing of the 1960s and 70s, but they have become obscured in a time when one's political identity is so tied to the ego and so indifferent to real progress.

We need to return to issue politics. To get out of the comfortable church of our own ideology and on the street with reality and real people. In the words of one populist of long ago, "we need to raise less corn and more hell."

Obama has had his chance. He blew it. It's our turn now. If we don't take it, we'll have far more than Afghanistan to worry about.

GALLERY

MIKE FLUGENNOCK

GENERAL MCCHRYSTAL'S TORTURE PRISONS STILL GOING STRONG IN AFGHANISTAN

Tom Eley, World Socialist - Recent media reports reveal that the US military continues to carry on torture and illegal detention in Afghanistan at a dungeon known to inmates as "the black prison." The jail, located on the Bagram Air Base next to the notorious Bagram prison north of Kabul, operates under the executive order of President Obama. After entering office, Obama ordered the closure of Central Intelligence Agency prison "black sites"-which were in fact no longer active-but exempted those prisons run by the military's Special Operations, which was headed from 2003 until 2008 by General Stanley McChrystal, now US commander of the Af-Pak theater.

US military officials recently said they had no plans to close the Afghan jail and another like it at the Balad Air Base in Iraq, which they claimed were needed to interrogate "high-value detainees."

Two teenage Afghan boys told the Washington Post that they were beaten, photographed naked, sexually humiliated, denied sleep, and held in solitary confinement by American guards at the prison this year. Interviewed at a juvenile detention center in Kabul, where they have been transferred, "the teenagers presented a detailed, consistent portrait" of the abuse they experienced, the newspaper reported. Their descriptions of the prison were confirmed by two other former prisoners.

In addition to being punched and slapped, Rashid, who the Post describes as "younger than 16," said he was forced to view pornography "alongside a photograph of his mother." He was also forced to strip naked in front of about a half-dozen US soldiers. "They touched me all over my body," he said. "They took pictures, and they were laughing and laughing. They were doing everything."

"That was the hardest time I have ever had in my life," said Rashid, who was arrested this spring. "It was better to just kill me. But they would not kill me. ... I was just crying and crying. I was too young."

On Saturday, the New York Times published interviews with three former inmates who also spoke of the black prison near Bagram. Each informant "was interviewed separately and described similar conditions," the Times notes, and "their descriptions also matched those obtained by two human rights workers who had interviewed other former detainees at the site." One of the three men was arrested months after Obama's inauguration as US president, as were the two teenage boys interviewed by the Post.

All of those interviewed by the Times and the Post maintained that they were not "Taliban." Without being charged with a crime, they were seized by US soldiers, then bound, gagged, and hooded, and taken to the "black prison."

The jail, according to the Times' sources, "consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day." The cells are small; one prisoner said his was only slightly longer than the length of his body. US soldiers throw food into the cells through slots in the door.

Prisoners are exposed to extreme cold and sleep deprivation. The teenage boys told the Post that when they attempted to sleep on the hard floor, US soldiers "shouted at them and hammered on their cells." Prisoners' only respite from this extreme solitary confinement are twice-a-day interrogations, during which some are beaten or humiliated. . .

VIRGINIA DOESN'T TRUST YOGA TEACHERS

Reason - The Richmond Times-Dispatch had a great op-ed detailing the Institute for Justice's latest legal battle against arbitrary state interference with the right to earn an honest living. Believe it or not, Virginia requires yoga instructors to jump through a series of expensive and unnecessary hoops before they can open up shop:

"Among other things, the state requires a $2,500 application fee for mandated certification -- as well as annual renewal fees ranging from $500 to $2,500. That's a big nut for studios that often have only a handful of students in the course of a year. On top of that you can add detailed financial reporting requirements, a mound of paperwork (e.g., required written policies on grievances and 'faculty accessibility'), and penalties for failure to comply that start at $1,000 a pop.

"Fees and regulations like that would present a heavy burden for small studio owners in the best of times. In the current economic circumstances, they could be ruinous. Under any circumstances, they're unnecessary -- and perhaps unconstitutional."

GREAT MOMENTS IN TRANSPARENCY

Health Journalism - Eleven major journalism organizations, representing thousands of journalists, are demanding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration end requirements that journalists and FDA employees notify or obtain permission from an agency official in order to conduct an interview. . . The journalists also object to public information officers listening in on interviews. . .

The groups wrote to the FDA's Transparency Task Force, which was created under the new administration, asking that it end these restrictions and set an example for other parts of the federal government.

The letter emphasized that although these restrictions have increased greatly in recent years, nearly all prior administrations allowed open, unfettered communication between agency employees and the media.

It has been during approximately the last two administrations that the rules have been implemented and grown steadily more constraining, according to journalists who have been reporting over that period.

"

BABIES EXPOSED TO 100 OR MORE CHEMICALS BEFORE BIRTH

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DECLARES PETA A TERRORIST THREAT

Tree Hugger - PETA is one of the most controversial activist groups operating today. The group's contentious media campaigns, undercover operations, infamous advertising, and high profile demonstrations have made them perhaps the most infamous--and most polarizing--nonprofit organization there is. But are they terrorists? According to the US Department of Agriculture, they are now. . .

The USDA has just released a new security profile form, which it distributes to animal experimentation facilities. The form reveals that PETA has been classified as a terrorist threat by the US government--potentially opening up its members to prosecution as terrorists. According to Green is the New Red, an eco-activist rights website, the document was given to all facilities that conduct experiments on animals. They were asked to disclose whether they were the target of attacks or harassment from a list of terrorist groups--one of which, evidently, is PETA.

Here's an excerpt from the form:

B. Terrorist Threat. What terrorist activities have occurred in or around your building/facility in the past 5 years (documented cases)? Please check all that apply.

[ ] Attack from international terrorists

[ ] Attack from domestic special interest terrorists

[ ] Earth Liberation Front (ELF)

[ ] Animal Liberation Front (ALF)

[ ] People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

[ ] Animal Defense League (ADL)

[ ] Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)

[ ] Formal hate group(s) (please specify):

[ ] Other (please specify):

[ ] Cyber Attack from a known or unknown source.

WHY IS WATER FEMINIZING FISH AND ARE WE NEXT?

ORWELLANDIA: CAREFULLY VETTED MANDATORY VOLUNTEERS

Telegraph, UK - The Government has pledged that all 16 to 18 year olds will complete 50 hours of community work as part of its move to raise the school leaving age.

In the speech announcing the plan, which will be a Labour manifesto pledge, Gordon Brown specifically mentioned that teenagers would make a difference by "helping in an old people's home or tutoring younger pupils".

But under the Government's strict new vetting regime, anyone over the age of 16 working with children or vulnerable adults will have to start registering with the new Independent Safeguarding Authority from November next year.

Critics of the reach of the controversial new vetting and barring scheme said half a million teenagers a year could be forced to undergo criminal checks.

Whilst those whose voluntary work does not involve children or vulnerable adults could in theory escape vetting, in practice it is likely that schools and organizations hosting volunteers will find it easier to take a blanket approach and vet everyone. . .

More than 11 million people are expected to be vetted by 2015. . . Parents who ferry children to football matches, adults who sit in with their youngsters at Sunday school and parents who occasionally help out at Scouts have all fallen victim to the zealous imposition of the checks. . .

STILL LOOKING FOR A JOB?

University of Leeds, UK - Research Officer: The rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy (Job reference: 316199 ) (Full-time, fixed term 12 months from March 2010) You will work on an ESRC funded study on the rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy. The post will involve qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. It is based in Leeds, although some travel to other cities may be necessary.

STUPID HEALTH COMMISSION TRICKS

Boston Public Health Commission - The next time you're ready to download that song from iTunes, you may want to check out how healthy it is for you. Just as a nutritional label allows you to count the calories in a fast food hamburger, the Boston Public Health Commission's Start Strong Initiative has made it easier to measure what's in the songs you listen to. Today, the Initiative announced the Sound Relationships Nutritional Label, a new tool to help music lovers evaluate how healthy - or unhealthy - songs are.

"Music, like food, can feed our brains and give us energy," said Casey Corcoran, director of the Commission's Start Strong Initiative. "But songs can affect our health and the health of our relationships."

The tool, patterned after common food nutritional labels, invites consumers to become song lyric nutritionists by helping them identify relationship ingredients that make up a song. Using printed song lyrics as a guide, users can tally the number of healthy relationship themes, such as respect, equality, and trust, which are present in the song. And, like fattening calories, unhealthy relationship themes - possession, disrespect, and manipulation - are also counted. The number of times these themes are mentioned also factor into to the song's total nutritional value. Corcoran recommends consuming lots of 'healthy relationship' ingredients for a balanced media diet.

The model was developed by 14 peer leaders in the Commission's Start Strong Initiative. The teens, who range in age from 15 to 19 years old, attended a seven-week "Healthy Relationship Institute" where they were trained in teen dating violence prevention and healthy relationship promotion. They also learned to look at media critically, breaking it down to better understand the healthy or unhealthy relationship messages it may contain, such as power, control, equality, and gender roles. . .

The new tool is being unveiled as the Recording Academy is poised to announce its annual Grammy nominations later this week. Using the Sound Relationships label, peer leaders released their own musical nods - top ten lists of songs with unhealthy and healthy relationship themes. The teens analyzed songs from the Billboard "Hot 100" chart, a record of the top 100 songs purchased, played on the radio, streamed online across all music genres. Topping the list of unhealthy songs is Break Up, featuring Gucci Mane and Sean Garrett. Lady Gaga, one of the biggest breakout artists of 2009, had two songs on the unhealthy list: Paparazzi and Bad Romance.

"We aren't telling people what they should or should not be listening to," said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the Commission's executive director. "We are giving them a tool that will help them make an informed choice about what they put in their bodies."

Top dangerous songs to listen to

1. Break Up Mario 45
2. Blame It (feat. T‐Pain) Jamie Foxx 32
3. Paparazzi Lady Gaga 27
4. You’re a Jerk New Boyz 26
5. Baby By Me 50 Cent 25
6. Best I Ever Drake 24
7. One More Drink (feat. T‐Pain) Ludacris 23
8. Be On You (feat. Ne‐yo) Flo Rida 22
9. Hotel Room Service Pitbull 21.5
10. Bad Romance Lady Gaga 20

GOING AFTER A DRY WELLSPRING OF ISLAMIC EXTREMISM

Djelloul Marbrook - CNN asked Denis McDonough, chief of staff of the President's National Security Council, a simple question. Is getting Osama bin Laden at the top of our priority list? His response was so tortured as to single-handedly discredit the President's policy.

Not only did he refuse to man up a straight answer, but in the course of a contortionary explanation he called Afghanistan the "wellspring" of Islamic extremism. And so, he concluded, sending more troops and spending money we don't have is imperative.

What is the man talking about? Even if you believe the government's official account of the 9/11 attacks on the United States you can't get around the fact that most of the attackers were Saudi Arabians.

The President himself made matters worst later in the day by referring to Afghanistan as the "epicenter" of Al Qaeda's projection of power throughout the world. Never mind all the other iterations of Al Qaeda in other parts of the world. . .

Islamic extremism is pervasive throughout the Muslim world. Its roots are many. The reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, whose teachings form the basis of the Saudi state, is a major influence. Salafi thinking-a strict interpretation of the origins and meaning of Islam-is an even more important influence on extremist thinking. Salafist groups are numerous on the Arabian peninsula, throughout North Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

But neither Abd al Wahhab nor Salafism can be said of themselves to be the cause of terrorism. Rather, it is the interpretation of such teachings by mullahs and imams and instructors in madrasahs that has inspired jihadist terrorism. It can't even be said that the concept of jihad by itself is the cause of terrorism. And in most cases the money behind these madrasahs is Saudi.

Poverty, hopelessness and social injustice in Muslim countries, coupled with imperialist policies in Israel and here, all have combined to incite terrorist responses. . .

If a man like McDonough can be so dead wrong, so blinkered, so waffling, how can this Bush Redux policy be trusted? If we truly believe that Islamic fundamentalism is rooted in Afghanistan, that Afghanistan is its wellspring, God help us. Salafists threaten every government in North Africa. Algeria is locked in a protracted civil war with its fundamentalists. Iran and Saudi Arabia are run by fundamentalists, and Pakistan has its own homegrown Taliban.

If McDonough believes what he told CNN, he's a dangerous man-to us, not to our enemies.

The Afghani picture is far more complicated than Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and President Obama have made out. It involves the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan, it involves their dispute over Kashmir, it involves the opium trade, tribalism, corruption, and Iranian connivance. . .

The real value of war is debt, and the real beneficiary of war is the holder of that debt, meaning banks. Is this a concept so subtle and elusive that an honest government should find itself unable to discuss it with its people? Either a government serves us or it serves the banks, and given our experience in the last 18 months it's no wonder the government doesn't want to discuss the real beneficiary of war.

Afghanistan is the playground of conspirators, each with his own agenda. And we're there to do what? To straighten everything out? To correct thousands of years of history? To resolve the Pakistani-Indian dispute, to settle the Kashmiri issue, to help Pakistan quell its own Taliban, to make a pot of tribes a modern state? What?

The concentrated efforts of Russia, China and the United States together couldn't do that, and we're going to try it alone? . . .

THE CAUSES OF RISING INEQUALITY IN AMERICA

PLACES NOT TO HAVE LUNCH

NAVY SAFETY CENTER

LOCAL HEROES

Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Tired of school uniforms, more than 1,500 Clayton County high school students came to school on Friday in what school officials called "non-appropriate dress."

Now the students are facing suspensions, detentions and other punishments. . .

The students at the county's nine high schools organized online by sending messages urging their friends to "buck the system," White said.

The uniform boycott, called "Protest As One," was also discussed among 782 members of a public Facebook group called "Clayton County high school students against required uniforms."

One student organizer wrote, "they can't suspend you all and you will be making a stand for yourself.". . .

Last school year, Clayton ordered all elementary and middle school students to wear uniform dress, including khaki pants, skirts, polo shirts and sweaters of the same color. This year, the policy spread to the district's nine high schools.

AN INVOCATION FOR OBAMA'S SPEECH ON AFGHANISTAN

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.- Dwight Eisenhower

AETNA TO RAISE FEES, CUT MEMBERSHIP

Emily Berry, American Medical News - Back when it was the largest private health plan in the country, Aetna downsized its membership by millions but boosted profits during an overhaul of its business several years ago.

Now it looks to be making a similar - but smaller - move with a planned price increase for many of its customers in 2010.

The company figures it will lose between 600,000 and 650,000 members next year because of the price hikes.

In a conference call with investment analysts to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings, Chair and CEO Ron Williams told analysts, "The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering."

Aetna President Mark Bertolini laid out how the company planned to raise prices to improve the company's profit margin. He said the firm had "implemented a combination of underwriting enhancements, pricing actions and plan design changes, intended to ensure that each customer is priced to an appropriate margin."

Laying out specific expected membership losses is "pretty candid," said David Gibbs, a retired health insurance industry consultant from San Luis Obispo, Calif. He worked for and consulted with health insurers, including Aetna, for 25 years.

He said Aetna's decision comes from a system that encourages insurers to drive away sicker members - a strategy not unique to one insurer. "They're running a business, and their obligation is a very singular one: to increase shareholder profits."

Gibbs said simply raising prices probably would not get Aetna what it wants. That actually tends to result in sick people who are more "desperate" for coverage to keep it, and healthier groups to drop it. Instead, Aetna might change benefit designs, scaling back prescription drug coverage, for example, which sicker populations tend to value but healthier ones don't notice as much.

Physicians for a National Health Plan - This act by Aetna indicates the level of sincerity the insurance industry has in its alleged new effort to cooperate in ensuring that everyone has the health care coverage that they need. Aetna is redesigning and repricing its products in order to dump over 600,000 of its less profitable members. They need to be sure that "each customer is priced to an appropriate margin." And, above all, they owe it to their shareholders "to drive away sicker members.". . .

Once Aetna dumps these members, what private insurer is going to jump in to capture this higher cost population? None you say? And under reform? The higher cost individuals buy into the weak public option driving premiums up through adverse selection to even more unaffordable levels?

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS AREN’T EVEN EFFICIENT

The Review has been a rare voice pointed out the major threat to patient privacy in Obama's quietly passed electronic medical records legislation. But there's another problem: it won't work anywhere the way Obama and others claim:

Computer World - A Harvard Medical School study that looked at some of the nation's "most wired" hospital facilities found that computerization of those facilities hasn't saved them any money or improved administrative efficiency.

The recently released study evaluated data on 4,000 hospitals in the U.S over a four-year period and found that the immense cost of installing and running hospital IT systems is greater than any expected cost savings. And much of the software being written for use in clinics is aimed at administrators, not doctors, nurses and lab workers.

The study comes as the federal government prepares to begin dispensing $19 billion in incentives for the health industry to roll out electronic health records systems. Beginning in 2011, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act will provide incentive payments of up to $64,000 for each physician who deploys an electronic health records system and uses it effectively.

The problem "is mainly that computer systems are built for the accountants and managers and not built to help doctors, nurses and patients," the report's lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, said in an interview with Computerworld.

Himmelstein, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said that in its current state, hospital computing might modestly improve the quality of health care processes, but it does not reduce overall administrative costs. "First, you spend $25 million dollars on the system itself and hire anywhere from a couple-dozen to a thousand people to run the system," he said. "And for doctors, generally, it increases time they spend [inputting data]."

Himmelstein said that only a handful of hospitals and clinics realized even modest savings and increased efficiency -- and those hospitals custom-built their systems after computer system architects conducted months of research.

THE BANKERS' BAG OF NEW DIRTY TRICKS

Nomi Prins, Daily Beast - Enron was the financial scandal that kicked off the decade: a giant energy trading company that appeared to be doing brilliantly-until we finally noticed that it wasn't. It's largely been forgotten given the wreckage that followed, and that's too bad: we may be repeating those mistakes, on a far larger scale.

Specifically, as the largest Wall Street banks return to profitability-in some cases, breaking records-they say everything is rosy. They're lining up to pay back their TARP money and asking Washington to back off. But why are they doing so well? Remember that Enron got away with their illegalities so long because their financials were so complicated that not even the analysts paid to monitor the Houston-based trading giant could cogently explain how they were making so much money.

The nation's biggest banks, plumped up on government capital and risk-infused trading profits, have been moving stuff around their balance sheets like a multi-billion dollar musical chairs game.

After two weeks sifting through over one thousand pages of SEC filings for the largest banks, I have the same concerns. While Washington ponders what to do, or not do, about reforming Wall Street, the nation's biggest banks, plumped up on government capital and risk-infused trading profits, have been moving stuff around their balance sheets like a multi-billion dollar musical chairs game.

I was trying to answer the simple question that you'd think regulators should want to know: how much of each bank's revenue is derived from trading (taking risk) vs. other businesses? And how can you compare it across the industry-so you can contain all that systemic risk? Only, there's no uniformity across books. And, given the complexity of these mega-merged firms, those questions aren't easy to answer.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, for example, altered their year-end reporting dates, orphaning the month of December, thus making comparison to past quarterly statements more difficult. In the cases of Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, the preferred tactic is re-classification and opaqueness. These moves make it virtually impossible to get an accurate, or consistent picture of banks 'real money' (from commercial or customer services) vs. their 'play money' (used for trading purposes, and most risky to the overall financial system, particularly since much of the required trading capital was federally subsidized). . .

With taxpayers now on the hook, we need an objective, consistent evaluation of bank balance sheets complete with probing questions about trading and speculative revenues, allowing for comparisons across the banking industry. This lack of transparency leaves room to misrepresent risk and trading revenue.

The long-term solution is bringing back Glass-Steagall. Being big doesn't just risk bringing down a financial system-it means you can also more easily hide things. Remember the lesson from the Enron saga: when things look too good to be true, they usually are.

WORD

The war is not meant to be won, but it is meant to be continuous -- George Orwell

DEMOCRATS CAN'T EVEN FIND FUNDS TO EXTEND COBRA

LA Times - The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February, launched a temporary government program to subsidize the often crippling cost of buying health insurance through a former employer's plan after a layoff.

However, the so-called COBRA subsidy was designed to last no more than nine months for each person who was unemployed. Hundreds of thousands who got this subsidy when it was first made available in March are slated to roll off the program today.

The insurance subsidy will also no longer be available for Americans who lose their jobs starting today.

If the subsidy is not extended, hundreds of thousands will lose the subsidy each month, forcing them to pay health insurance premiums that are three times higher than what they're currently paying.

The White House wants to extend the subsidies, an Obama administration spokeswoman said. And some Democratic lawmakers are pushing to include an extension in legislation that party leaders are developing to boost job growth. . .

The stimulus bill committed $25 billion for just nine months of COBRA subsidies.

And few believe that Congress will be able to pass a jobs bill before the end of the year, in large part because the Senate is locked in a debate on broader healthcare legislation. There is no indication yet of whether any extension would be retroactive, helping people who lose the subsidy.

TRYING 9/11 ATTACKERS IN MILITARY COURT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Andrew P. Napolitano, LA Times - In the uproar caused by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.'s announcement that the alleged planners of the 9/11 attacks are to be tried in U.S. District Court in New York City, and the suspects in the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole will go on trial before military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the public discourse has lost sight of the fundamental principles that guide the government when it makes such decisions. Unfortunately, the government has lost sight of the principles as well.

When President George W. Bush spoke to Congress shortly after 9/11, he did not ask for a declaration of war. Instead, Republican leaders offered and Congress enacted an Authorization for the Use of Military Force. The authorization was open-ended as to its targets and its conclusion, and basically told the president and his successors that they could pursue whomever they wanted, wherever their pursuits took them, so long as they believed that the people they pursued had engaged in acts of terrorism against the United States. Thus was born the "war" on terror.

Tellingly, and perhaps because we did not know at the time precisely who had planned the 9/11 attacks, Congress did not declare war. But the use of the word "war" persisted nonetheless. Even after he learned what countries had sponsored terrorism against us and our allies with governmental assistance, Bush did not seek a declaration of war against them. Since 9/11, American agents have captured and seized nearly 800 people from all over the globe in connection with the attacks, and now five have been charged with planning them.

Virtually all of those seized who survived interrogation have been held at Guantanamo Bay. Bush initially ordered that no law or treaty applied to these detainees and that no judge could hear their cases, and thus he could detain whoever he decided was too risky to release and whoever he was satisfied had participated in terrorist attacks against the U.S. He made these extra-constitutional claims based, he said, on the inherent powers of the commander in chief in wartime. But in the Supreme Court, he lost all five substantive challenges to his authority brought by detainees. As a result, some detainees had to be freed, and he and Congress eventually settled for trying some before military tribunals under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and subsequent legislation. . .

The last time the government used a military tribunal in this country to try foreigners who violated the rules of war involved Nazi saboteurs during World War II. They came ashore in Amagansett, N.Y., and Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and donned civilian clothes, with plans to blow up strategic U.S. targets. They were tried before a military tribunal, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt based his order to do so on the existence of a formal congressional declaration of war against Germany.

In Ex Parte Quirin, the Supreme Court case that eventually upheld the military trial of these Germans -- after they had been tried and after six of the eight defendants had been executed -- the court declared that a formal declaration of war is the legal prerequisite to the government's use of the tools of war. The federal government adhered to this principle of law from World War II until Bush's understanding of the Constitution animated government policy.

JROTC INSTRUCTOR BULLIES PEACE ACTIVIST OUT OF CHARTER SCHOOL

One of the many problems with charter schools is that they are able to escape the visibility of publicly owned and operated schools. Long time DC peace activist John Judge experienced this recently.

Vietnam combat veteran, Michael Marceau is a long-time member of CHOICES and has put in many class appearances with me in the DC high schools over the last years. He tells the story of his Vietnam war experience and wounds, and explains the difference between recruiter sales pitches and reality. I had to fly to Dallas on November 19th, and asked Mike to fill in at Washington Math, Science and Technology Charter High School in DC. We had attended a Career Day there last year and were appreciated, and we were invited back this year. Mike was put into a classroom for both morning periods, he was told. During the first one, an Air Force JROTC instructor, a Colonel, leaned in the doorway and began to interrupt the presentation with hostile questions. Near the end of the class a second uniformed instructor showed up and asked Mike to gather his materials and come with him. He took Mike to the office of the principal, who told him that he would have to leave the school since they only wanted "positive" messages for the students. Mike left, though he had not caused any sort of disturbance. This is even worse since we had visited before and were invited that day.

CHOICES has gone into DC public and charter high schools relying on a decision by the DC Board of Education in 1980 that if JROTC or military recruiters were allowed into a school someone had to be allowed to give another point of view. We began those visits in 1985 with veterans and military family members and alternatives to enlistment. Technically, Charter schools fall under a separate Board and have independent rules at each school. However there are general rules and guidelines in effect from the Board as well for all the Charter schools. . .

While not under the DCPS authority or the Chancellor's office, Charter schools are subject to the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, as are all DC schools who take any federal funding. I am relying on a section that concerns military recruiter access to schools, stating that they should have "essentially the same access as other career paths and institutions of higher learning". While I believe in practice they have an unequal access to students, far more than any other career option, the requirement that they have essentially the same as other options implies those options also have access. Therefore the military cannot have exclusive access or deny access to other options in the school.

RECOVERED HISTORY: THE LAST HEALTHCARE FIGHT

Sam Smith, Shadows of Hope, 1994 - During the first months of the Clinton administration, one of the biggest national policy changes of the past fifty years was being forged by a secret committee led by Mrs. Clinton under procedures that periodically defied the courts and the Government Accounting Office and whose public manifestations consisted of highly contrived media opportunities, carefully staged "town meetings," and similar artifices.

Despite the contrary evidence of public opinion polls, the concept of Canadian-style single-payer insurance was dismissed early. Tom Hamburger and Ted Marmor in the Washington Monthly tell of a single-payer proponent being invited to the White House in February 1993. It was, he said, a "pseudo-consultation;" the doctor was quickly informed that "single payer is not politically feasible." When Dr. David Himmelstein of the Harvard Medical School pressed Mrs. Clinton on single payer, she replied, "Tell me something interesting, David."

In other words, write Hamburger and Marmor:

"Fewer than six weeks into the Clinton presidency, the White House had made its key policy decision: Before the Health Care Task Force wrote a single page of its 22-volume report to the President, the single payer idea was written off, and "managed competition" was in."

If there was any popular, grassroots demand for "managed competition" it never appeared. Managed competition had not been tested anywhere.

Nonetheless, reported Thomas Bodenehimer in Nation:

"Around Hillary Rodham Clinton's health reform table sit the managed-competition winners: big business, hospitals, large (but not small) commercial insurers, the Blues, budget-worried government leaders and the 'Jackson Hole Group,' the chief intellectual honchos of the managed competition movement. . . Adherence to the mantra of managed competition appears to be the price of a ticket of admission to this gathering."

What was finally proposed involved a massive transfer of the American health industry -- by some accounts now larger than the military-industrial complex -- to a small number of the largest insurance companies and other major corporations. These were companies that had the assets to play the game being offered -- a medical oligopoly that would dispense health-care under the rules of the Fortune 500 rather than according to those of Hipprocrates.

Clinton's position on health care had bounced around in the early months of the campaign, finally settling on a policy that would leave the big health insurers largely unscathed. It was not particularly surprising. Max Brantley, columnist for the Arkansas Times, noted that "Blue Cross owns Arkansas, and [Clinton] never did much to fight them."

The stakes would eventually become so high that a number of the biggest insurers -- including CIGNA, Aetna and Metropolitan Life -- would leave the industry-wide Health Insurance Association of America. Five of the largest insurance companies formed something called the Alliance for Managed Competition. In this new game one of the first targets of 'managed competition' was the smaller insurance companies that now account for nearly half of the health underwriting business. Said managed competition advocate Lynn Etheridge, "Ninety-nine percent of the insurance companies are going to be wiped out because they're only prepared to be insurance companies."

Mrs. Clinton, sounding like a 1980s takeover lawyer, said, "It's going to be a Darwinian struggle. Only the best and fittest of them will survive." Similarly, when asked how small businesses were meant to cope with the added costs of her plan, Mrs. Clinton replied, "I can't go out and save every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America."

Her interest lay with the largest companies, i.e. the ones with the ability to purchase or create the health maintenance organizations that would become de rigeur under the Clinton scheme. The new HMOs would be major profit-centers for companies, simultaneously subsidized by federal payments for the ailments of the poor, elderly and those without conventional insurance.

Not everyone shared the Clintons' enthusiasm for the plan. Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser wrote:

"I'm sorry if I sound like a snob, but over the years I've developed fairly good relationships with a few doctors, and I have a feeling that if [the Clinton plan] goes into effect, I'll never see them again. I fear I'll end up in the teeming waiting room of an HMO, sitting on a cold folding chair, wearing those hideous paper slippers and a hospital gown that exposes your behind, shuffling down a bleak hallway, waiting to see the one doctor on call. We'll all be milling around, holding numbers in our hands, just like at an Eastern European fish market."

HEALTH CARE: OF LIVES AND PRINCIPLE

Sam Smith

The pending health care legislation is as corrupt, cynical and contemptuous of simple decency as any bill I've seen in over a half century of covering national politics. Which still leaves the question of what to do about it.

After all, living in the Mafia neighborhood that contemporary America has become, survival can easily, and wisely, take precedence over principle.

For example the Institute of Medicine estimates that around 18,000 Americans die because of a lack of health insurance. A study in the December issue of American Journal of Public Health puts the figure for those 18-64 at 45,000 lives lost a year. Does one ignore such numbers in order to stand on principle against an indefensible payoff to the health insurance industry?

Or consider these assets of the pending legislation as outlined by Joshua Holland for Alternet:

[] According to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicaid expansion alone would offer public insurance to more than 10 million low-income Americans who would otherwise be without. . . More than nine in ten people who lack insurance in America fall beneath 400 percent of the poverty line, and every one of them will get some help getting coverage. . .

"The House legislation is a watered-down bill that would do little to contain America's overall health-care costs, but would help contain the family health-care expenses of tens of millions of real working people, while covering 36 million who would otherwise be uninsured." []

But now look at another side of the story. How many people will die or become ill because of provisions in the measure?

For example, the Medicare cost-cutting raises a serious threat to elderly. How big a threat one can't tell right now, but you can get a sense of the problem by considering the recent report favoring a drastic reduction in mammograms. Thanks to the strength of the women's movement, this suggestion was quickly squashed, but what about similar cuts in examinations or services to those under Medicare who are less likely to cause a fuss?

Further, we are looking at a system in which the standards for care will be judged for both health benefit and budgetary efficiency by the same government agencies. The conflict of interest is enormous and will especially affect those whose illnesses and response do not match the government-approved average. How many people will die or suffer continued bad health as a result? To what degree is there a submerged bias in the bills against older patients suffering what might be called statistical deficit disorder? What will be the death rate as a result of seniors giving up Medicare Advantage? What will be the health effects of the mandatory mandate on a family that is about to have their house foreclosed and simultaneously faces criminal charges for not paying protection money to the insurance industry? We seem to have forgotten that beyond the poor are a huge number who need only be slightly pushed to go over the edge.

It is useful to recall that Obama's original point man in this sick game was Tom Daschle who said that health care reform "will not be pain free" and that seniors should accept more of that pain rather than treating it.

Daschle pushed for a federal review body modeled after the one in Britain that distinguished itself by such things as a rule that elderly patients couldn't get an expensive eye drug until one of their eyes went blind. It took three years of protest to reverse that decision.

Now, quietly snuck into the stimulus package, we have something called the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which consists of 15 government officials and no outside experts. This body will be making purportedly unbiased evaluations of treatments but every official on it will be actually serving two gods: health and the budget.

In short, we are moving from a de facto triage system based on income to one based on appropriations.

And on age.

The silent and widespread acceptance of huge cuts in Medicare as part of "health reform" is an indicator of where the elderly really stand in current political priorities. As Cecil Connolly of the Washington Post noted last summer, "It appears seniors are the net losers under bills" then pending in the House.

No small part of the reason for this is that our health "reform" is being designed on an economic rather than a medical or moral basis. Since seniors are less productive than younger people, their lifespan simply isn't that important to a government so fiscally obsessed.

You can get a sense of how this works from an article in the Boston Globe by Linda Bilmes of the Harvard Kennedy School and Rosemarie Day of Massaschusetts' health insurance authority:

"The premature death of thousands of Americans can be translated into monetary terms using the economic "value of a statistical life.'' . . . A recent study by Stanford economists has demonstrated that the average economic value of a year of human life is about $129,000. Most insurance companies, and many countries around the world, already use a variant of this concept. They implicitly ascribe the value of an additional year of human life at $50,000 by setting that as the threshold for approving treatments. (Any treatment that costs $50,000 will be reimbursed if it is predicted to add another year of life for the patient)."

Significantly, no figures were given for the elderly, retired or infirm but it is clear from the subtext of the current debate that those in charge know whose lives they want to save and it ain't your grandmother.

There are other problems lurking behind the teleprompters. For example, the National Committee to Preserve Medicare and Social Security notes:

[] The health care reform bills now before Congress contain an unpleasant surprise for older Americans: Age-based increases in health insurance premiums for those under 65. This is nothing more than a giveaway to the private insurance industry.

At first blush, it might appear that this is justified assuming that as we age, we cost the health care system more. In fact, age is far from an entirely reliable predictor of health care costs, accounting for less than 20% of the variation in costs across age groups. A healthy 55-year-old may well consume fewer health care dollars than a 35-year-old who is obese or has diabetes.

Both the House and Senate bills include provisions to eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, which clearly serves the public interest.

Permitting premiums to rise with age contradicts the intent, if not the letter, of that regulation as aging can reasonably be considered an immutable, pre-existing condition. Moreover, the new regulation disproportionately affects Americans between 55 and 64, who already shoulder a financial burden for health care that is higher than any other age group, regardless of insurance status. . .

Here's a question for policymakers and the public to consider: Will the proposed age-rating of premiums, coupled with the absence of a robust, affordable public option, push more older Americans into the pool of people unable to afford health coverage?. . .

A recent Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that American adults under 65 who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage. Ailing and uninsured people in their 50s and 60s will likely add to the strain on Medicare's budget as they seek care for neglected health problems as soon as they become eligible for this entitlement.

The private insurance industry stands to make big profits from the millions of new customers it will pick up through health care reform. Adding to its bounty by putting the squeeze on the finances of older Americans is not only unjust, it is poor economic policy. []

Add to this the efforts by a powerful coalition that wishes to gut both Social Security and Medicare, epitomized by the insidious Concord Coalition and Peterson Foundation, as well as a development reported recently by Chris Bowers in Open Left:

"Of all the various blocs and gangs that have been formed in Congress this year, Senators Bayh, Conrad, Feinstein, Lieberman and Warner have managed to form the most regressive one yet. Currently, these five Democrats are demanding that Speaker Pelosi hand over all relevant Congressional power to an independent commission that will be allowed to slash and partially privatize Social Security and Medicare, or else they will allow the United States to default on its debt."

Writing in Global Research, Shamus Cooke gives rare attention to still other hidden ills of the healthcare legislation:

[] And although the final bill has yet to be crafted, there exists general agreements as to what the end version will look like. Americans will be forced to buy shoddy corporate insurance with no limit to the cost, no guarantee of quality, with large premiums and other tricks to further gouge consumers. If a public option emerges in the final bill - by no means a guarantee - it will be shrunken enough to insure very few people (2 percent of the U.S. population).

But it gets worse. How this health care "reform" will be paid for has implications that dwarf the above atrocities. . .

The two biggest cost saving schemes are the most damaging. The first is the enormous attack on Medicare. Since its inception, the corporate elite wanted this program struck down. Now they have their man for the job - a Republican could never get away with such obvious treachery. . .

One way that both Congressional health care bills will gut Medicare is referred to as "forced productivity gains" - cost saving measures essentially; trimming the fat.

What are these savings? The most mentioned device - by politicians and media alike - is the reduction of "wasteful tests" and procedures that doctors routinely perform, an idea that the health care mega-corporations love. It will save them billions, while having catastrophic effects on the health care of millions of people. . .

Another piece of Medicare that's being trimmed is Medicare Advantage, a favorite program of the elderly because of its comprehensive services. . .

Finally, The Senate health care bill attacks Medicare by reducing payments to doctors by 25 percent. If doctors receive such a drastic reduction in pay, they will simply refuse to see Medicare or Medicaid patients; people will thus be insured only on paper. The newly insured Medicaid patients under any new congressional bill will be sorely disappointed.

Once Medicare is undermined in the above ways, the corporate sponsored right-wing will make a very convincing argument that "Medicare doesn't work", leading to future cuts that will further destroy the program.

The second hidden disaster in financing a congressional health care bill is the tax on so-called "gold-plated" or "Cadillac" health insurance policies that some employers offer their workers. This tax is supposedly meant to apply to the health care policies that "elite" employees receive. . .

As it turns out, many, if not most workers in unions will be included in this tax, which, under the Senate version, will include any plan worth more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Hardly elite, considering the still-soaring costs for health care.

If this provision were to pass - and it's very popular in Congress - the immediate reaction would be very predictable: employers would immediately drop their health care plans, forcing workers into the now-forced purchasing of inadequate health care. . . []

But facts have never been important in this debate. For example, the Democrats have done their best to conceal how long it will be before provisions actually go into effect - such as the much touted ban on denial due to preexisting provisions. Nor will anyone admit the truth that a real advantage of the mandatory mandate is that the administration can claim - dishonestly to be sure - that it is not raising taxes. It is. The affected are just sending their checks to an insurance company rather than to the IRS.

In the end, the legislation will save lives while simultaneously causing other deaths. Not only does no one know the real numbers, but no one that I can find has even tried to come up with such figures. How do the saved uninsured match up against those driven out of existing plans (such as Medicare Advantage and so-called "Cadillac" programs) and how many seniors will die prematurely because of added costs or efficiency measures that claim their tests to treatment aren't worth it? I suspect there will be a net saving of life but that's not what all of us being created equal and with inalienable rights was meant to be about. None of our founders mentioned cost effectiveness as a precondition of human decency.

It's all a sad example of America's cultural and political collapse. This crowd - from Obama on down - could never have gotten Social Security, a minimum wage or Medicare passed. And it probably wouldn't have bothered them all that much, since today's politics has no higher goal than next quarter's campaign contributions.

Still, in reacting to it, this is a different situation than, say, being a conscientious objector in which one refuses to join in the killing and where virtue and effect are in sync. If, as I suppose, more lives will be saved than lost under the healthcare bill, then it is worth backing however cruel the choice - because you can't stand on principle in this instance without contributing to the damage. It seem that we have to pay the protection money to the insurance mob, save some lives and then turn to fighting the struggle on better ground.

BREVITAS

Articles

A diplomat who actually resigned on principle

Books

Last Words: A Memoir George Carlin with Tony Hendra

The Battle of the Story of the "Battle of Seattle"

Film

The Garden: An LA community tries to save its 14 acre garden from politicians and developers

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers"

Politics

Windham County Liberal Examiner, CT - The former third-party candidate for President and Connecticut native Ralph Nader is considering a run to challenge embattled Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) for his U.S. Senate seat. However, Nader announced that he is gauging the reactions from those around him and the state's disapproval of Dodd's job before he makes any formal announcement. . . At a recent promotional book signing for his new manuscript, "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!" residents held signs pleading, "Run Ralph, Run" for the once national political scapegoat. The state's Green Party is also eager to convince Nader to challenge Dodd as the best chance for the party to claim a Senate seat in Connecticut in the foreseeable future.

Cities and transportation

Context Sensitive Solutions - Shuttle buses equipped with front bicycle racks bring visitors to Zion National Park from parking lots in neighboring Springdale, Utah, and from the park's visitor center. Shuttle buses equipped with front bicycle racks bring visitors to Zion National Park from parking lots in neighboring Springdale, Utah, and from the park's visitor center. With almost three million visitors every year, by the early 1990s, traffic congestion and illegal parking were taking their toll on the park and its gateway town. In 1993, the National Park Service recommended a mandatory shuttle system to transport visitors to Zion's inner canyon. They held public meetings in the surrounding communities.

Springdale residents, led by Mayor Phillip Bimstein, suggested that the park extend the shuttle system into town. Park visitors could be encouraged to leave their cars in Springdale and take a free shuttle service to the park; reducing traffic and, at the same time, allowing visitors to explore the town. . . The heart of the project is the free shuttle-bus system that runs through town, picks up and drops off passengers at parking facilities, hotels and major areas, and ends at a new visitor center located within Zion National Park. . . Route 9 was narrowed from 40 feet to 32 feet at four locations, where pedestrian crossings and bus shelters that match those in the park were installed. The roadbed, curbs, and sidewalks were colored red to minimize the visual impact on the natural landscape. In the shuttle's first week of operation, residents of Springdale were seen using it for daily errands, to go to church, and, of course, to visit the park.

Cyber notes

Boing Boing - New Zealand's National Business Review stuck a pay wall in front of its website back in mid-July, betting that enough readers would stick around and pay for "quality" that it would make up for the stupendous drop in readership. Looks like they bet wrong. Their traffic plummeted, and traffic to their free competitors skyrocketed. On every metric, NBR is failing: page views, session duration, unique readers, and total time on site. NBR has a high pay wall price, so maybe they've got enough money from corporate subscribers to make up for the advertising losses -- but how long will they keep them for, with all the links, visits, and attention going to their competitors?

Ecology

Portland Press Herald - At 1,165 feet, Mount Harris is little more than a broad hill in a small town along Route 9, southwest of Bangor. And as residents debated an ordinance to regulate wind power development here, it seemed like a local matter. That changed Nov. 19. By a wide margin - 229-78 - voters approved an ordinance that's being called one of the most restrictive in New England. It requires a one-mile setback between turbines and homes, a standard that likely will have the effect of banning grid-scale wind power on Mount Harris and other wooded ridges in town. Now developers, environmentalists and state officials are wondering whether growing public backlash against wind power will prompt more towns to use ordinances similar to Dixmont's to restrict similar proposals. Mainers have a long history of craving economic development in general, but fighting it in their backyards. Does Dixmont's vote signal that the apparent public support for renewable energy extends only to wind projects that are very far from where people live?

Swine flu

Las Vegas Review Journal - Two months after H1N1 flu vaccine was first distributed to public health districts around the country, people 65 and older with serious medical conditions still can't get vaccinated. . . The evidence has shown that, as a group, seniors need the vaccine less than younger age groups, according to Dr. Anthony Fiore with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And when there is a vaccine shortage, he said, you must prioritize. Public health authorities admit they have been inundated with calls from the elderly who want to know when they can receive vaccinations. Many seniors have called the Review-Journal to complain. Some refrain from giving their names because they fear their complaints could cause their Social Security benefits to be cut off. . . And private physicians who have enrolled in the H1N1 vaccine provider program aren't supposed to bypass public health regulations. They sign documents saying they will abide by the program's designated priorities if given vaccine to distribute.

Local heroes

Salem News, MA - In defiance of the ban on the word "meep," at least two Danvers High seniors wore blue "Free meep" T-shirts to school, saying they would like to sell these shirts to raise money for a scholarship or grant. Seniors Mike Spiewak, 17, and Matt LaFleur, 18, wore their "Free meep" shirts to school yesterday despite a ban on the word that was broadcast to parents in an automated call about two weeks ago. The school's principal has said "meep" was being used to disrupt the school. . . The students spoke outside the school on Cabot Road and said they were not suspended for wearing the shirts yesterday, though some teachers asked them to cover them up. LaFleur said he has already been suspended twice for meeping, including once for creating a Facebook page asking about making shirts "to show how stupid it is we are getting banned from saying 'meep.'" Spiewak and LaFleur said meep was not used to harass a teacher but was an inside joke and a greeting.

SUMMERS HANDLED HARVARD'S FUNDS AS BADLY AS OURS

Beth Healy, Boston Globe - It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard's endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school's president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds.

Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with the endowment's risky mix of stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and private equity. Meyer's successor, Mohamed El-Erian, would later sound the same warnings to Summers, and to Harvard financial staff and board members.

"Mohamed was having a heart attack,'' said one former financial executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering Harvard and Summers. He considered the cash investment a "doubling up'' of the university's investment risk.

But the warnings fell on deaf ears, under Summers's regime and beyond. And when the market crashed in the fall of 2008, Harvard would pay dearly, as $1.8 billion in cash simply vanished. Indeed, it is still paying, in the form of tighter budgets, deferred expansion plans, and big interest payments on bonds issued to cover the losses. . .

"Investing cash alongside the endowment was a long-held strategy that we didn't decide to change until early 2008,'' said James F. Rothenberg, Harvard's treasurer - a part-time, unpaid role. He said the biggest mistake was not to have taken some of the cash off the table, and placed it in safer accounts, as trouble started brewing in the markets and the economy. "We all can look back now and say we wish we did something different,'' he said.

In the Summers years, from 2001 to 2006, nothing was on auto-pilot. He was the unquestioned commander, a dominating personality with the talent to move a balkanized institution like Harvard, but also a man unafflicted, former colleagues say, with self-doubt in matters of finance.

Certainly, when it came to handling Harvard's cash account, the former US Treasury secretary had no doubts. Widely considered one of the most brilliant economists of his generation, Summers pushed to invest 100 percent of Harvard's cash with the endowment and had to be argued down to 80 percent, financial executives say. The cash account grew to $5.1 billion during his tenure, more than the entire endowment of all but a dozen or so colleges and universities.

TENNESSEE STYLE TRANSPARENCY

Herald Tribune, Colombia TN - Spring Hill's mayor wanted the results of a drug test the town's police chief failed kept "highly confidential" and threatened to terminate any employee who "leaked" the information to the media, according to an e-mail obtained by The Daily Herald.

Earlier this month, Police Chief John Smith tested positive for codeine during a random drug screening of city employees. The chief said he took the last two pills of an 8-year-old Tylenol 3 prescription to alleviate a sore back a day before taking the random test Nov. 9.

Smith said he threw away the pill bottle and was unable to find a record of the prescription from a doctor's office or pharmacy.

On Nov. 19, Mayor Mike Dinwiddie responded to an e-mail about the incident from the city administrator with a stern warning for city employees with loose lips.

"It goes without saying that this should be kept highly confidential," Dinwiddie wrote. "Any city employee leaking this info publicly will be considered for immediate termination. IF the media does get wind of this, please forward their inquiries to me."

The e-mail was addressed to City Administrator Victor Lay and the town's aldermen. It was carbon-copied to the city attorney, the finance director and the police chief.

Dinwiddie said there has been no attempt to hide information from the public. At the same time, the mayor said he didn't think the city needed to "broadcast" something that would paint the chief and the city in a bad light.

"We don't need to go out and broadcast what happens to every employee in the city," he said. "If anybody has a question about an employee, they are certainly free to come into City Hall and look at the personnel file."

Dinwiddie said he didn't think it was in the public's interest to know about the chief's drug test because there was no evidence that the chief was addicted to drugs or did anything wrong.

"He was just trying to relieve a back ache," the mayor said. "So why do we need to drag him and his family through the mud - and the city through the mud - over something as little as that?"

Spring Hill Alderman Jonathan Duda, however, raised questions about the mayor's e-mail in an interview with a Nashville newspaper, saying that it "went against the role of a city official."

Because of the violation, the chief will be required to attend an evaluation session with a drug counselor. He must also take six more drug tests as outlined in the town's substance abuse policy.

City administrator Lay said the chief was not given any special treatment and was treated the same as any other employee would be.

WHY PALIN, DOBBS AND BECK AREN'T POPULISTS

Jonathan Alter, Newsweek - Populism has been expanded to include anyone on the side of the people against the elites. But the word once had a more particular meaning. The anger had content. Populists of the past like Bryan in the 1890s, Huey Long and Father Coughlin in the 1930s, and even Pat Buchanan in the 1990s were angry about East Coast capitalists who were hurting the little guy in the heartland. They were anti-Wall Street, strongly protectionist, and committed to economic justice, even when some of them descended into racism and anti-Semitism.

Today's faux populists also feast on emotions-anxiety, anger, resentment-that intensify in hard times. But they are more accurately described as plain old reactionaries, a wonderfully precise word that has gone out of common usage. They're reacting against the pace of change and feeding right-wing nostalgia for a bygone era when a liberal black man wouldn't dare run for president. Palin might try to echo Bryan, but she would consider Bryan's Populist Party platform of 1896 communistic were she to add it to her famous reading list. Dobbs, once corporate America's biggest apologist, still has no use for labor unions, which might make it tough to forge a connection with working people. Beck said recently that his reading of history suggested it was in the progressive era that the United States first started going to hell. He wants to make the country safe for the 1880s.

BILLIONS FOR BANKS, BUT SMALL FUND FOR SMALL BUSINESSES RUNS OUT

Reuters - The Small Business Administration said that supplemental economic stimulus funds for its two most popular loan programs have run out and new loan volumes could fall if funds are not extended.

The SBA said $375 million in Recovery Act funds for use in loan programs were exhausted, leaving thousands of struggling but viable small businesses in limbo unless new resources can be found.

The money was used to temporarily reduce fees on SBA-backed loans and raise SBA's guarantee percentage on some loans to 90 percent from 75 percent. This saved small businesses up to $60,000 in fees, made lenders more willing to extend credit and helped lure investors back into the market for securities backed by SBA loans.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SAFETY RESEARCH

Daily Mail, UK - It's a peril that only a crack team of health and safety experts could have uncovered.

After two years and L250,000, they found that ten-pin bowling alleys up and down the country could be a 'very dangerous' environment for families.

They concluded that it was too easy for children or teenagers to run down lanes and get trapped in machinery that sets up the pins - even though there was no record of any such accident having happened.

The bizarre Health and Safety Executive report found that members of the public would be at risk if they walked along the 60-foot lanes to knock over pins by hand.

Its authors even considered ordering every bowling alley to put barriers across lanes. But they were forced to admit defeat - after realizing that bowlers must be able to see what they are aiming at.

Their report said: 'Because customers need to see the pins and bowling balls entering the machine, managing the risk of access into the machine from the lanes is more difficult.'

Instead they have told operators to fit photoelectric beams to lanes so that pin-setting machines will cut off automatically if anyone trespasses.

John Ashbridge, of The Ten-Pin Bowling Proprietors Association, said: 'I have been in this industry for 40 years and I have never known any member of the public injured by a bowling pinsetter. I have never heard of anybody going near the pins.'

Mr Ashbridge said he had watched HSE inspectors examining a bowling centre and he found their attempts to detect possible dangers 'hilarious'.

He added: 'Some operators have now fitted photoelectric beams. They don't cause any problems - they don't stop the machines because nobody ever goes near the pins.'

[We thought this was a joke, but here's the report]

BRITISH TOWN WORKING TOWARDS FOOD SELF SUFFICIENCY

Tree Hugger - In Todmorden in West Yorkshire, Great Britain, a grass-roots effort to put the land to work has grown into a project drawing national media attention, Incredible Edible. The brains and energy behind Incredible Edible is Pam Warhurst, who combines insight gained as a former leader of Calderdale Council with the commitment that comes from being involved in a just cause. The principle is simple: food unites us, all peoples regardless of social rank or means, can communicate in the language of food. . .

Incredible Edible has planted two orchards and many veggie gardens. They work with authorities to use public space, like the fire stations and railway lands, for common gardens. Getting the social housing landlords involved reaches out to those who live in apartments without access to their own land.

School children in Todmorden eat locally grown meat and produce at every meal. Children learn from agricultural projects and participate in farms run by the schools. The Todmorden High School is now seeking funding for an aquaponics installation, which will grow fish and recycle the nutrient rich water for growing water-intensive plants, for scientific study of the environmentally-friendly food production options for the future.

It does not stop at growing food. Incredible Edible holds workshops, like how to kill and prep a chicken, how to forage for edible plants, and skills for canning and preserving. Blogs and a Twitter presence tell the ongoing story.

The Incredible Edible project is on track to meet their goal to make the town self-sufficient by 2018. A third more people grow their own vegetables, seventy percent buy locally grown produce at least once a week and 15 times more citizens tend their own chickens, compared with a year and a half ago.

DEPARTMENT OF DEJA VU

US troop levels the Afghan war - 2003 through the planned increase - laid alongside
US troop levels in Vietnam during 1960-1965

WHAT THE PENTAGON COSTS YOU

David Sirota, Seattle Times - The 2010 Pentagon budget means "every man, woman and child in the United States will spend more than $2,700 on (defense) programs and agencies next year," reports the Cato Institute. "By way of comparison, the average Japanese spends less than $330; the average German about $520; China's per capita spending is less than $100."

"(The Pentagon budget) dwarfs the combined defense budgets of U.S. allies and potential U.S. enemies alike," reports Hearst Newspapers.

"President (Obama) is on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since World War II," reports National Journal's Government Executive magazine.

In 2000, the Pentagon admitted it has lost - yes, lost - $2.3 trillion. In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a subsequent Department of Defense study said it was only $1 trillion. To put such numbers in perspective, contemplate what those sums could finance. $1 trillion, for instance, could pay the total cost of universal health care for the long haul. $2.3 trillion would cover universal health care plus the bank bailout plus the stimulus package.

PALIN FLEW IN PRIVATE JET WHILE PRETENDING TO BE ON BUS TOUR

The Daily Beast - On her book tour, Sarah Barracuda pretends to be one of the people. But she's really winging across the country on a private jet.

As much of her entourage, including HarperCollins publicist Tina Andreadis, risked a collective case of White Line Fever, covering more than 3,000 road miles during the book tour's first week, Sarah Palin herself seems to have remained above it all, apparently cosseted in the luxury of a Gulfstream II 12-passenger jet rented from Universal Jet Aviation of Boca Raton, Florida, at a cost of more than $4,000 per hour.

More than two weeks ago, quoting Andreadis, USA Today reported that Palin would be "making two and sometimes three stops a day, traveling in a bus painted with the cover of her book." And just before the tour started, Palin herself said on her Facebook page: "I'll post our progress from the road." To further the illusion, the populist heroine gave televised interviews from the bus, including one to Greta Van Susteren en route to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

To further the illusion, the populist heroine gave televised interviews from the bus, including one to Greta Van Susteren en route to Fort Bragg. . .

It seems now that Palin hasn't been on the bus, except for short hops between local airports and hotels and book-signing sites. Instead, as first reported by the Alaskan blog Palingates, she's apparently been aboard UJT750, the Gulfstream American twin-jet that she first boarded at Westchester County airport shortly after noon on November 18, bound for Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the first stop on her tour. . .

WORD

Organic planning does not begin with a preconceived goal; it moves from need to need, from opportunity to opportunity, in a series of adaptations that themselves become increasingly coherent and purposeful, so that they generate a complex final design, hardly less unified than a pre-formed geometric pattern. - Lewis Mumford

DEPARTMENT OF HMM. . .

The Canadian Free Press came up with this pix from Polo Contacts in November 2008. Caption reads: "From Left to Right is: Randy Jackson, better known as a Judge on American Idol - his previous life he was a bass player for the Rock band JOURNEY, which also performed at the America's Polo Cup. Others pictured are Black Eyed Peas Rock Band, Tareq Salahi the President of the America's Polo Cup, President Elect Obama, Fergie from Black Eyed Peas and Michaele Salahi a former Miss USA and SuperModel

FOOD STAMP USAGE IN YOUR COUNTY

NOT EVERYTHING IS GOING EXTINCT

Washington Post - Because the history of Washington has been written by humans, nobody has paid much attention to the fact that 18 Canadian squirrels were released at the National Zoo during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

But, if the capital's story were ever told by its rodents, few events would be more prominent than this one.

That's because those 18 squirrels -- whose coats of lustrous black set them apart from the native animals -- were the beginning of a shift that has changed the complexion of Washington's backyard critters. Now, probably because of a slight evolutionary advantage conveyed with a black coat, the descendants of these squirrels have spread all the way into Rockville and Prince William County. . .

Scientists say it's a real-life example of natural selection at work, which has rolled on for a century here without much public notice.

"It shows the spread of a gene within a population," said Richard W. Thorington Jr., a Smithsonian Institution researcher working on a book that includes a history of the District's black squirrels. "That is evolutionary change before your eyes.". . .

Some have been spotted in a forest 35 miles from their origins in Washington.

STAR FISH THREATENED IN UNUSUAL WAY BY CLIMATE CHANGE

Tree Hugger - It was assumed that sea stars, also known as star fish, where at the mercy of the sun during periods of low tide. A new study, however, has uncovered a secret adaptation, one that has never before been seen in the animal kingdom, which allows sea stars to regulate their temperature in the changing tides.

During periods of high tide, when the sea star's perch is flooded, the echinoderms soak up cold ocean water. This extra water is then used as a buffer when the sea star is exposed to direct sunlight and warm water during periods of low tide.

Researchers explained that: "It would be as if humans were able to look at a weather forecast, decide it was going to be hot tomorrow, and then in preparation suck up 15 or more pounds of water into our bodies."

But this unique strategy for coping with highly-variable temperatures may be rendered ineffective by global warming. For the sea star's buffer to work, the ocean water must be sufficiently cold during periods of high tide. If it is not, the sea stars will either absorb warm water, or not get the cue they need to begin the process.

Eric Sanford, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the study said that "there are likely limits to how much this mechanism can buffer this animal against global change."

Indeed, the sea star's novel cooling strategy will be insufficient to deal with the challenge of a warming ocean.

DEMAND FOR EXTENDED SEASON GREEN HOUSES GROWING

GAY DOCUMENTARIES ONLINE

YAWNING IS GREAT FOR YOU

Andrew Newburg, University of Pennsylvania - Several recent brain-scan studies have shown that yawning evokes a unique neural activity in the areas of the brain that are directly involved in generating social awareness and creating feelings of empathy. One of those areas is the precuneus, a tiny structure hidden within the folds of the parietal lobe. According to researchers at the Institute of Neurology in London, the precuneus appears to play a central role in consciousness, self-reflection, and memory retrieval. The precuneus is also stimulated by yogic breathing, which helps explain why different forms of meditation contribute to an increased sense of self-awareness. It is also one of the areas hardest hit by age-related diseases and attention deficit problems, so it's possible that deliberate yawning may actually strengthen this important part of the brain. . .

If I were to ask you to put this magazine down right now and yawn 10 times to experience this fabulous technique, you probably won't do it. Even at seminars, after presenting the overwhelmingly positive evidence, when I ask people to yawn, half of the audience will hesitate. I have to coax them so they can feel the immediate relaxing effects. There's an unexplained stigma in our society implying that it's rude to yawn, and most of us were taught this when we were young.

But yawning doesn't just relax you-it quickly brings you into a heightened state of cognitive awareness. Students yawn in class, not because the teacher is boring (although that will make you yawn as well, as you try to stay focused on the monotonous speech), but because it rids the brain of sleepiness, thus helping you stay focused on important concepts and ideas. It regulates consciousness and our sense of self, and helps us become more introspective and self-aware. Of course, if you happen to find yourself trapped in a room with a dull, boring, monotonous teacher, yawning will help keep you awake.

Yawning will relax you and bring you into a state of alertness faster than any other meditation technique I know of, and because it is neurologically contagious, it's particularly easy to teach in a group setting. One of my former students used yawning to bring her argumentative board of directors back to order in less than 60 seconds. Why? Because it helps people synchronize their behavior with others.

Yawning, as a mechanism for alertness, begins within the first 20 weeks after conception. It helps regulate the circadian rhythms of newborns, and this adds to the evidence that yawning is involved in the regulation of wakefulness and sleep. Since circadian rhythms become asynchronous when a person's normal sleep cycle is disturbed, yawning should help the late-night partygoer reset the brain's internal clock. Yawning may also ward off the effects of jet lag and ease the discomfort caused by high altitudes. . .

Dogs yawn before attacking, Olympic athletes yawn before performing, and fish yawn before they change activities. Evidence even exists that yawning helps individuals on military assignment perform their tasks with greater accuracy and ease. Indeed, yawning may be one of the most important mechanisms for regulating the survival-related behaviors in mammals. So if you want to maintain an optimally healthy brain, it is essential that you yawn. It is true that excessive yawning can be a sign that an underlying neurological disorder (such as migraine, multiple sclerosis, stroke, or drug reaction) is occurring. However, I and other researchers suspect that yawning may be the brain's attempt to eliminate symptoms by readjusting neural functioning.

Yawn as many times a day as possible: when you wake up, when you're confronting a difficult problem at work, when you prepare to go to sleep, and whenever you feel anger, anxiety, or stress. Yawn before giving an important talk, yawn before you take a test, and yawn while you meditate or pray because it will intensify your spiritual experience.

Conscious yawning takes a little practice and discipline to get over the unconscious social inhibitions, but people often come up with three other excuses not to yawn: "I don't feel like it,"� "I'm not tired,"� and my favorite, "I can't."� Of course you can. All you have to do to trigger a deep yawn is to fake it six or seven times. Try it right now, and you should discover by the fifth false yawn, a real one will begin to emerge. But don't stop there, because by the tenth or twelfth yawn, you'll feel the power of this seductive little trick. Your eyes may start watering and your nose may begin to run, but you'll also feel utterly present, incredibly relaxed, and highly alert. Not bad for something that takes less than a minute to do. And if you find that you can't stop yawning-I've seen some people yawn for thirty minutes-you'll know that you've been depriving yourself of an important neurological treat.

HOW TO CONTROL HEALTH COSTS

Jon Walker, Fire Dog Lake

1. A minimum medical loss ratio for insurance companies mandating that they spend at least 90 cents of every dollar they take in as premiums on health care. This is based on the crazy idea that health insurance should insure people’s health instead of corporate profits.

2. Turn all health insurances companies into non-profits. Most countries that are not single payer (Switzerland, Germany, Belgium) require all basic health insurance plans to be non-profits.

3. On the new exchanges, create a much stronger risk adjustment mechanism, like in the Netherlands, to encourage competition on quality and cost effectiveness, instead of the cherry picking of healthy customers.

4. Allow undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance on the new exchange with their own money. It will increase the size of the risk pool and reduce the cost of uncompensated care in this country.

5. On the new exchanges, use more tightly defined benefit packages, and define plan levels based on deductible and co-pay size, instead of actuarial value. This will simplify comparison shopping and encourage the selection of more cost-effective HMO’s, instead of PPO’s

6. Allow for drug re-importation. People in every other first world country pay much less for the same prescription drugs. Let Americans buy these cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe.

7. Allow Medicare to directly negotiate lower drug prices. Medicare Part D was one of the biggest corporate giveaways in American history. Allow Medicare to use its size (as the VA system does) to directly negotiate for lower drug prices for seniors.

8. Eliminate direct-to-consumer drug advertising. It only increases the unnecessary use of medicine.

9. Follow the FTC recommendation by providing shorter exclusivity periods for biosimilars. The current bills create an extremely long 12-year exclusivity period. Going with the FTC recommendations will increase the availability of much cheaper generic versions of life saving biologics.

10. Create a robust public option that can use Medicare rates and Medicare’s provider network.

11. Create a single provider reimbursement negotiator like basically every other industrialized nation. The lack of this is the single biggest reason why, as a nation, we pay several times what other countries do for the same procedure.

12. Create a fully integrated, government-run health care HMO, based on the VA health care system, which would be an insurance option for all Americans.

13. Finally, adopt a Medicare-for-all single-payer system for everyone in the country.

These ideas are not radical or untested. All of them (except the exclusionary period for biosimilars) are being used in this country and/or other countries to reduce cost. These are all proven cost control solutions. Implementing all or most of these ideas would save our country trillions on health care over the next decade.

I know the Obama administration is aware of these cost saving ideas because several of them (drug reimportation, direct Medicare drug price negotiation, robust public option) where part of his campaign’s health care plan. Obama traded away most of these cost saving reforms to PhRMA and other industry lobbies in exchange for campaign ads. If you trade away most of the cost controlling reforms to bring the different industries on board, you have no right to go around complaining when people say your reform plan does not do enough to control cost.

TONY BLAIR WARNED BY TOP LEGAL ADVISOR THAT IRAQ INVASION WAS ILLEGAL

Independent, UK - Tony Blair will be quizzed over a devastating official memo warning him that war on Iraq would be illegal eight months before he sent troops into Baghdad. . .

The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war will consider a letter from Lord Goldsmith, then Mr Blair's top law officer, advising him that deposing Saddam would be in breach of international law, according to a report in The Mail on Sunday.

But Mr Blair refused to accept Lord Goldsmith's advice and instead issued instructions for his long-term friend to be "gagged" and barred from cabinet meetings, the newspaper claimed. Lord Goldsmith apparently lost three stone, and complained he was "more or less pinned to the wall" in a No 10 showdown with two of Mr Blair's most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan. Mr Blair also allegedly failed to inform the Cabinet of the warning, fearing an "anti-war revolt.". . .

Lord Goldsmith allegedly threatened to resign over the issue, but was "bullied" into backing down. He eventually issued carefully drafted qualified backing for the invasion.

But according to The Mail on Sunday, his advice was radically different in July 2002, when ministers were allegedly told the US and UK planned "regime change" in Iraq. Then Lord Goldsmith reportedly wrote a letter to Mr Blair on 29 July, flagging up the legal difficulties of the plan of campaign he had apparently thrashed out with President George Bush. The letter pointed out: (1) Although UN rules permitted "military intervention on the basis of self-defense, they did not apply in this case as Britain was not under threat from Iraq; (2) While the UN allowed "humanitarian intervention" in certain cases, that too was not relevant to Iraq; (3) It would be very hard to rely on earlier UN resolutions in the Nineties approving the use of force against Saddam.

Lord Goldsmith ended by saying "the situation might change" – although, in legal terms, it never did. The advice, and the decision to commit it to an official record, reportedly caused great friction between the two men, as it was feared publication of the details could undermine the case for war and damage Mr Blair's credibility.

TIME FOR FREE MASS TRANSIT?

Josh Stephens, In Transition - As the nation's transit agencies ponder massive deficits, some advocates are noting that the current crisis differs little from business as usual. Transit agencies typically recover 20-40 percent of their costs from user fees (fares and passes) while the rest comes from local and state subsidies. Therefore, they always operate at a deficit"¹the only question, then, is how much deficit, and, conversely, how much subsidy, is acceptable in the pursuit of the public good.

A distinct chorus, however, is saying that the best way to balance transit agencies' books is to end the charade and throw out the books.

Just as websites have attracted millions of users by offering services for free and public schools have long waived tuitions in favor of the ability to offer guaranteed universal education, some contend that by opening up turnstiles and getting rid of the fare box, transit agencies could serve legions of new riders for whom the typical fare presents just enough of a financial or psychic barrier to keep them in their cars.

"It's a very small gain for a very huge hurdle if your goal is to get people on public transit," said Dave Olsen, a Vancouver, B.C.-based transit consultant and outspoken proponent of fare-free transit. . .

Proponents argue that free transit's ability to remove cars from the road and therefore decrease congestion, curb pollution and foster more livable cities would more than justify the added burden on public coffers. It would even reduce insurance claims, since cars that stay in garages don't get into accidents. Olsen also argues that fare-free transit would save money because it would eliminate what he considers an unacceptably costly infrastructure to collect fares.

"Almost every transit agency I've ever known does not know how much it costs to collect fares," said Olsen, who said he polled 30 transit agencies to inquire about their fare-collection costs. "A huge proportion of the fare revenue is eaten up by the fare collection."

[A] potential trouble with fare-free transit is that cars may not be the only thing taken off the street.

"That's very altruistic," said Los Angeles County Metro CFO Terry Matsumoto. "But what you would have in a practical sense, buses would become mobile homeless shelters and rail stations would be permanent homeless shelters."

CHILD ABUSE: TEST PESTS GOING AFTER 3-4 YEAR OLD MARKET

NY Times - Test preparation has long been a big business catering to students taking SATs and admissions exams for law, medical and other graduate schools. But the new clientele is quite a bit younger: 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance - costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions - will help them win coveted spots in the city's gifted and talented public kindergarten classes.

Motivated by a recession putting private schools out of reach and concern about the state of regular public education, parents - some wealthy, some not - are signing up at companies like Bright Kids NYC. Bright Kids, which opened this spring in the financial district, has some 200 students receiving tutoring, most of them for the gifted exams, for up to $145 a session and 80 children on a waiting list for a weekend "boot camp" program.

These types of businesses have popped up around the country, but took off in New York City when it made the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, or Olsat, a reasoning exam, and the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, a knowledge test, the universal tests for gifted admissions beginning in 2008. . .

Private schools warn that they will look negatively on children they suspect of being prepped for the tests they use to select students, like the Educational Records Bureau exam, or E.R.B., even though parents and admissions officers say it quietly takes place. (Bright Kids, for example, also offers E.R.B. tutoring.)

"It's unethical," said Dr. Elisabeth Krents, director of admissions at the Dalton School on the Upper East Side. "It completely negates the reason for giving the test, which is to provide a snapshot of their aptitudes, and it doesn't correlate with their future success in school.". . .

No similar message, however, has come from the public schools. In fact, the city distributes 16 Olsat practice questions to "level the playing field," said Anna Commitante, the head of gifted and talented programs for the city's Department of Education.

As for parents doing more - like hiring a tutor - Ms. Commitante said she finds "anything else a little too stressful for young kids" but that "we can't dictate what parents choose to do.". . .

Children often have to be trained to listen to questions from strangers and to sit still for about an hour, the time it takes to complete the two tests.

"If their mind isn't keyed into listening, the whole question can fly over their heads," said one tutor, a retired teacher in gifted programs.

She spoke on condition of anonymity because she has administered the test for the city and wants to do so again.

"Some kids can do well without preparation, but children who are familiar have an edge," the tutor said. From an equity perspective, she said, "it's ridiculous.". . .

TWO WORDS TO BURY

Edward Skidelsky, Prospect Magazine, UK - No words are more typical of our moral culture than "inappropriate" and "unacceptable." They seem bland, gentle even, yet they carry the full force of official power. When you hear them, you feel that you are being tied up with little pieces of soft string.

Inappropriate and unacceptable began their modern careers in the 1980s as part of the jargon of political correctness. They have more or less replaced a number of older, more exact terms: coarse, tactless, vulgar, lewd. They encompass most of what would formerly have been called "improper" or "indecent." An affair between a teacher and a pupil that was once improper is now inappropriate; a once indecent joke is now unacceptable.

This linguistic shift is revealing. Improper and indecent express moral judgments, whereas inappropriate and unacceptable suggest breaches of some purely social or professional convention. Such "non-judgmental" forms of speech are tailored to a society wary of explicit moral language. As liberal pluralists, we seek only adherence to rules of the game, not agreement on fundamentals. What was once an offence against decency must be recast as something akin to a faux pas.

But this new, neutralized language does not spell any increase in freedom. When I call your action indecent, I state a fact that can be controverted. When I call it inappropriate, I invoke an institutional context—one which, by implication, I know better than you. Who can gainsay the Lord Chamberlain when he pronounces it "inappropriate" to wear jeans to the Queen's garden party? This is what makes the new idiom so sinister. Calling your action indecent appeals to you as a human being; calling it inappropriate asserts official power.

The point can be generalized. As a society, we strive to eradicate moral language, hoping to eliminate the intolerance that often accompanies it. But intolerance has not been eliminated, merely thrust underground. "Inappropriate" and "unacceptable" are the catchwords of a moralism that dare not speak its name. They hide all measure of righteous fury behind the mask of bureaucratic neutrality. For the sake of our own humanity, we should strike them from our vocabulary.

GEORGIA GREEN PARTY MAKES PRISON REFORM MAJOR PRIORITY

Black Agenda Report - Georgia's Green Party. . . will announce that its major focus for the coming two years, including the 2010 election cycle, will be making a political issue out of black mass incarceration. The Green Party of GA intends to do this by running candidates for the state legislature and for district attorney and sheriff, not just in metro Atlanta, but in Augusta, Macon, Columbus, Savannah and elsewhere. Georgia's Green party will expect its candidates to put the fact of black mass incarceration squarely on the political table by advocating positions including but not limited to:

- opposing in principle the trials of or incarceration of juveniles as or with adults;

- repealing all mandatory sentencing legislation;

- an end to all privatized prisons and jails, and the swift phasing out of piecemeal privatization of inmate health, food services and other functions;

- an end to all privatized probation services

- ceasing the incarceration of juveniles for most or all nonviolent offenses and reexamining the "zero-tolerance" policies forced upon many school districts;

- immediate cancellation of all the private contracts enabling well-connected corporations and corrupt politicians to collect exorbitant tolls on the money sent to and phone calls made to inmates and persons in custody;

- the extension of meaningful educational opportunities beyond G.E.D. to people in the state's jails and prisons and its extensive community corrections networks;

GREAT MOMENTS IN POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC has spent $102 million of his own money buying his way into a third term. That's the most personal funds any candidate has used in the United States. It is also over ten times as much as his Democratic opponent has spent.

RECOVERED HISTORY: BEFORE ROSA PARKS THERE WAS CLAUDETTE COLVIN

BRITS DRASTICALLY CUT FLU DEATH PREDICTION

Financial Times - Just 1 million of the 10 million doses of the swine flu vaccine distributed to immunize the general public have so far been used, indicating slow progress in fighting the current pandemic.

David Salisbury, director of immunization at the Department of Health, said yesterday he remained "hopeful" that more than 11 million people judged at high risk would be vaccinated "well before Christmas".

The low uptake appears to confirm opinion polls suggesting considerable skepticism about the benefits of vaccination, with the H1N1 flu virus less severe for most people than originally feared and an intense debate on the potential side- effects of vaccination.

The figures may stoke debate on the amount paid by the government for measures to counter the pandemic, including total orders of 90 million doses of vaccine. Revised planning assumptions have cut the likely number of deaths caused by the virus to 1,000, from as high as 65,000 mooted in July . So far 242 have died across the UK, with infections only slightly higher this week at 46,000.

FOUR THINGS THAT WOULD TRULY HELP THE ECONOMY

Stephen Herzenberg, Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Roosevelt attacked the root cause of The Depression -- the failure of middle-class purchasing power to grow, which caused income inequality to spike in the 1920s while speculation by the well-to-do generated a stock market bubble. Sound familiar?

It should. In the current decade, U.S. income inequality reached the levels of the late 1920s. In recent years, the richest 1 percent of Pennsylvanians have been taking home 68 cents of every dollar increase in income.

To get middle-class consumption going again in the 1930s, Roosevelt championed the "Big Four" social policies:

- a minimum wage to lift purchasing power at the bottom;

- a law strengthening workers' rights to unionize, laying the basis for the emergence of America's middle class through manufacturing unions;

- unemployment insurance, which enabled jobless workers to feed their families; and

- Social Security, which enabled the elderly poor to avoid destitution and increase their consumption.

So far, what is Washington offering as the Great Recession's Big Four? The Big Zero. . .

There are some ideas kicking around the margins that can help shape what today's Big Four might look like. Three of the best ideas would update elements of the New Deal.

First, the minimum wage should rise again with the overall wage level. Though long forgotten, between 1938 and 1968, the purchasing power of the minimum wage more than doubled. Let's put minimum-wage earners on that same track today.

Unionization is another important tool to rebuild the middle class, starting in the service sectors that pay too poorly -- in offices, health care and child care, supermarkets and retail stores, hotels and restaurants, and building services.

Unionization won't cause these local jobs to disappear; you can't outsource a nurse's aide job at the local hospital to Tijuana. If these workers earned $15 per hour plus benefits -- instead of $10 per hour with no benefits -- the American middle class would come back. Empowering workers to achieve this specific change is why Congress must pass a proposed federal law that restores workers' freedom to create a union -- the Employee Free Choice Act.

We also need to update our unemployment insurance system. Today's unemployed workers don't just need income to tide them over until the assembly line starts moving again. Unemployed -- and many employed -- workers also need more access to job training that is linked to credentials and career pathways.

The final piece of today's Big Four would be a massive investment in an environmentally sustainable low-carbon economy, implemented in a way that rebuilds our fragile manufacturing base and expands the number of family- sustaining jobs.

BRIT NUKE SAFETY BODY SAYS PLANNED PLANTS AREN'T SAFE

Guardian, UK - Britain's main safety regulator threw the government's energy plans into chaos by damning the nuclear industry's leading designs for new plants. The Health and Safety Executive said it could not recommend plans for new reactors because of wide-ranging concerns about their safety.

The leading French and American reactors are central to plans for a nuclear renaissance aimed at keeping the lights on and helping to cut carbon emissions. The government needs to build a number of nuclear power stations in the next 10 years to replace old atomic and coal plants.

But the HSE has to approve the safety of the designs before they can be built. "We have identified a significant number of issues with the safety features of the design that would first have to be progressed. If these are not progressed satisfactorily then we would not issue a design acceptance confirmation," the agency concluded following a study of the latest French EPR and US AP1000 reactor designs. . .

The HSE's public report expresses "significant concerns" about the lack of separation between the safety protection and control systems on the EPR reactor design promoted by Areva and EDF of France. The safety body says another part of the reactor is "not entirely in alignment with international good practice".

The report says it has raised a number of issues with EDF and Areva relating to the structural integrity of the EPR and it concludes: "It is too early to say whether they can be resolved solely with additional safety case changes or whether they may result in design modifications being necessary."

The design put forward by Westinghouse, the American firm now owned by Toshiba of Japan, is also criticized, with the HSE saying the safety case on internal hazards has "significant shortfalls".

It criticizes the company for a "lack of detailed claims and arguments" to support various assertions, while questioning aspects of the civil and mechanical engineering plans as well as the structural integrity and "human factors".

FEEDBACK

REPORT: OBAMA USING BLACKWATER FOR PAKISTAN ASSASSINATIONS

We have entered a new epoch. One where freedom, democracy, fairness and due process are publicly touted, but here reality is just the opposite. We should be worried, very worried. Right now, these assassination operations are being perpetrated abroad. How long before our clever leaders determine that these measures need to be applied right here at home? Of course that will happen - as surely as God made little green apples. Here's a parallel: at one time, only the largest cities in the country had (or even needed) SWAT teams. Now every podunk burg that can afford one has a SWAT team. All the "forces" want riot gear and be outfitted like military black ops. They are using military-speak too. Such as "deploying assets" and other inane, revolting military jargon. There are simply an insufficient number of real enemies to feed this Moloch. Too many eager players and too few legitmate targets. So you and I and our neighbors will eventually be pressed into service in the role of the "enemy". Bet on it.

Obama was talking about escalating the war in Afghanistan and killing people in Pakistan before the primaries started. No surprise there. What's surprising is how 'progressives' are dropping their opposition to the war -- first it was 'Code Pink', now comes the 'Network of Spiritual Progressives':
"Of course, we recognize that effective development needs security, and when we have massively intervened in a country as much as the U.S. has in Afghanistan, we can't responsibly just walk away."

A FIFTH GRADE TEACHER TAKES ON 'FORMATIVE' ASSESSMENTS

My fifth grade health and home room teacher sang in the Metropolitan Opera. He read episodes from Huckleberry Finn aloud after lunch. He produced two operas at our school, H.M.S. Pinnafore and Hansel and Gretel (in which I sang Hansel). Good teacher; I'm sure he'd be crucified today.

DON'T LOOK THE WRONG WAY AT THE AIRPORT THIS WEEK

Just the fact that the nation of Jefferson and Lincoln now has "Behavior Detection Officers" is amazing.

In 1775, Patrick Henry's speech of 'give me liberty or give me death' led to the British royal governor sending out the royal marines.

In 2009, an American citizen shouting 'Give me liberty or give me death' in an American airport would most certainly be detained by these 'Behavior Detection Officers'.

King George III would be proud. And he's also probably satisfied that some 230 years later, its clear that he won the war.

WHY HELPING LOWER INCOME PEOPLE HELPS REVIVE THE ECONOMY

Too bad Bush and Obama already gave all the money to the bankers.

BISHOP BANS CATHOLIC CONGRESS MEMBER FROM COMMUNION

Yes, time for the Kennedys to seek a new church. Renounce the church of pedophilia and mass murder.

The Kennedys have been transparent frauds since the early 20th century, but they've met their match with Pedophile Central. To preserve self-respect, Paaahtrick needs to either publicly break with the church or introduce some legislation to strip tax-exempt status. . . which means it will never happen.

Seems it is OK to bash Catholics wherever you find them, but everyone else should be a protected group, like Buddhists and Muslims, for example. They are really just misunderstood. . .

Weird that it comes into the public light right before the debate on the health care bill in the Senate with the Stupak Amendment still attached. Weird that it would come up now after the bishops are in the news for continuing to stand up for their religion, which earns them nothing but scorn from the 1st Amendment crowd. What happened to the idea, from Mencken (one of Sam's favorite authors) that you have to defend First Amendment freedoms for everyone? Or, "I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

And to the 'church of pedophilia and mass murder' comment, I can only assume you are referring to Buddhism, as there are many documented cases of Buddhist priests sexually abusing young men trying to join their ranks and the tradition of the fighting monks. No? Maybe you mean Islam and the many victims worldwide of Jihad and Mohammed's consummation of a marriage with a nine-year old?

Maybe you are referring to secular humanism and the rampant sexual abuse apparent in public schools and wars fought over controlling every inch of the globe? No? Perhaps you are too cynical my friend. That may just be the case as the hypocrisy that is on display here is just astounding.

Lessee. . . a religious official inflicting intentional harm on an elected legislator in order to coerce the legislator into a particular public policy position compatible with some sect's dogma -- how is this anything but terrorism? And, the Vatican being recognized as a city-state, state-sponsored terrorism at that? - vemene

INTERNET GLEANINGS: KID STANDS UP FOR GAY MARRIAGE

West Fork, Arkansas is a small community adjacent to Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas. As such, it is viewed by much of the state as an hotbed of communism and radicalism. You'll find people with PHDs and MAs waiting tables because they don't want to leave. I wouldn't say it was your typical Arkansas town, but the kid makes me proud to be a Razorback. - Hog Wild

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: A BRIEF GUIDE TO AVOIDING SOCIALISM

That's a 20th-century US liberal's definition of socialism, not a socialist's definition.

Having economic life controlled by a small number of government bureaucrats who are only nominally and indirectly accountable to the people is not "socialism" in any meaningful way.

It's similar to other definitions by the ruling class that liberals embrace, like "democracy" and "freedom".

"Democracy" does not mean being allowed to choose between 2 political rulers chosen by slightly different factions of the ruling class.

"Freedom" does not mean being allowed to choose which members of the owner class we will maintain in luxury by our labor.

I thought you were more radical than that, Sam. It's a real disappointment.

FIFTEEN PERCENT OF EUROPE'S ELECTRICITY COULD COME MID EAST

How do you protect your power supply if it's located on another continent? Madness upon madness upon lies.

So instead of taking others' oil we'll now be taking up the land that they could otherwise be using to produce their own power? Wonderful. - Lars

MAINE CITY TAKES ON FEMA'S CYA FLOOD MAPPING

At least Portland has the resources to hire a consultant to rebut FEMA's modelling assumptions. Other small coastal communities in Maine do not have the money to question the draft flood mapping. The economic impact of this low resolution science will be severe

ALL IN THE FAMILY: HOW EVAN BAYH IS BOUGHT

Back in the 60s and 70s, the two Senators from Indiana were Birch Bayh and Vance Hartke. They were known as "Bayh and Bought." Now it appears that Bayh the younger has consolidated the title.

From a distance the brouhaha over the "public option" doesn't make much sense. If it is as rotten as opponents say then it will die a deserved death because no one will sign up. If people do sign up and like it then it will be doing something right. One suspects that this is the real worry, no? - JR

CATHOLIC GENDER SEGREGATIONISTS STRIKE AGAIN

Well, the churches always claim that it is the sin they hate and not the sinner. This article shows what a huge load of bullshit that is. If they meant such statements, they would have no problem with employing sinners in the hope of turning them away from sin.

The city is trying to force a religion to perform an act contrary to the religious beliefs. Like instituting a ham day in New York and forcing Jewish and Muslim business owners to eat ham. Or, say, forcing a Buddhist to own property, a Hindu to eat beef, and so on. In prison, these beliefs are given their latitude, why should anyone expect differently here? Odds are this would make its way to the legal system, and DC gets egg on its face for being knuckleheads about excluding religious institutions. - David

COPS STEALING FROM THE INNOCENT

In St. Louis, cops translated their usual incestuous relationship with towing companies into megabucks and free cars. My dad always said you had to wash out as a pimp and a cabdriver before you could be a cop.

GREAT MOMENTS IN REGULATION

I just got another note from my state senator. In it he gives me a count of the new laws that he has helped to pass. Nothing much said about the cost, benefits or effectiveness of those laws, just how many as a demonstration of hard he is working. - M

SWINE FLU STATS

The reason the pandemic H1N1/09 vaccine is in short supply is that pharmaceutical companies were reluctant to produce it because it isn't very profitable. Flu vaccines in general are not profit-makers, and many companies have quit manufacturing them because of the very real risk of losing money if any year's flu turns out to be milder than expected. They are hardly a likely culprit if the danger has been overplayed. I'm not defending them, just saying they are more likely to try to stir up a panic to sell cash-cow drugs like Viagra than flu vaccine.

And certainly, pandemic H1N1/09 does not kill as many total people as seasonal flu, but most of those who die from seasonal flu are elderly or immune-compromised. H1N1/09 is unusual in that it kills or causes major complications for otherwise-healthy young people. The real lesson from all this isn't whether the danger of H1N1/09 is being over-hyped, but rather that the danger of seasonal flu tends to be seriously underestimated.

STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING ANGST

There's nothing wrong, of course, with strategic planning. Proper strategic planning, of course. What wrong, and what you obviously object to is the bullshit that surrounds it.

Was watching Ghandi the other day. I was struck by one scene, I think when he was first marching to the seashore to launch his salt campaign. He made a couple of points very clearly to the reporter he was walking with, or at least Ben Kingsley made this plain to Martin Sheen.

One was that he was in control. He held the initiative. . .

"The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are."

In the same sequence, he made it clear that this was a campaign that he had thought through. He made it clear that no matter how the British reacted, then he had a counter-move ready.

That's proper strategic planning. And not a word of bullshit coming out of Ghandi's mouth. Or at least not out of Ben Kingsley's mouth.

The problem is that most groups that do strategic planning don't know what they are doing. They don't have a strategy, but someone told them they need one. They don't have a clue as to how to create a proper strategy, so they hold long meetings hoping someone else in the room will give them the answer. At the end, they don't want to admit they just wasted three days in bullshit meetings, so they come up with a long, incomprehensible statement that pretends to be a strategic vision, but which is instead just bullshit.

Or, like in my ex-corporate job, they simply don't want to tell the employees that American employees are a thing of the past and are to be replaced by cheaper labor whenever possible. Can't come right out and say that, so they spin mountains of bullshit that doesn't say a thing instead.

But there's nothing wrong with a strategic plan. In fact, to me, the contrast between Ghandi's action and the typical leftist protest or action these days was striking. Typically these days, we see a protest or an action planned on its own without any reference to any larger strategic plan. The action becomes the thing. And nothing is thought beyond that. Thus we get anti-war demonstration that march through the empty streets of a city on a weekend and thus accomplish nothing. All because someone said a protest was the thing to do. And because the city would only give a permit to march through empty streets on a weekend. Thus, the organizers accept this, because the whole goal is to pull off a protest, any protest, and the fact that any real significance of the protest has already been lost during the planning stages when they agreed to march through empty streets on a weekend eludes them.

What we do not see at all on the left these days is any protests, actions, or political campaigns that seem rooted in a larger, sensible strategy.

Here's a proper strategic plan.

1) Goal? We want to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

2) What pressure can we apply to obtain the goal? We may or may not be a majority, but we most certainly have the power to sink most Democratic campaigns by mounting independent anti-war campaigns that take votes from the Democrats.

3) How do we use that pressure? We run independent anti-war, pro-peace candidates in the closest elections. We threaten first the Democratic majority in the House in 2010, and by 2012 we are building to both threaten the Senate majority and also threaten to make Obama a one-term President.

4) Result? When the Democrats are faced with losing power, they'll come to us and ask us what we want. Do not give away our hard-earned power for nothing at this point. But if you want the Democrats to commit to ending the wars, put them into a position where they have to do so to stay in power.

What do we do if it doesn't work as planned? Keep building, keep organizing, and come back even stronger and more threatening to Democratic power in the next election. Enjoy your retreat! - Marc Schuler Denver, CO

Sam, during your meetings to develop a "strategic plan" to keep your mind occupied I suggest you play Bullshit Bingo. I won't take the space here to explain how it works - just Google it.

NURSING HOME PATIENTS GIVEN DRUGS WITHOUT CAUSE

As someone who spent four years living in a nursing home, I can tell you that if you aren't alert, in full possession of your mental faculties and able to advocate for yourself or have family that will do so, it is very easy to be given the wrong drugs or incorrect doses of the right drugs. So you can just imagine what must happen to those nursing home residents that are mentally challenged in any way. Although I personally have never seen any one of my fellow inhabitants being forcibly administered drugs, some of the nurses could be very intimidating if you attempted to challenge what drugs they were giving you.

SHARP DECLINE IN NUMBER OF AMERICANS WHO SEE GLOBAL WARMING AS A PROBLEM

Most people have never understood "global warming" very well, they seem to think that any time there is cold weather that there can't be any global warming. They fail to understand that warmer temperatures create more extremes of weather which means a very cold winter could be because of global warming.

But spring does come about 2-3 weeks earlier in the winter then it did when I was a kid, I know this because I've lived in the same area all my life. I watch flowers bloom before the native pollinators are ready to get to work in the spring. Flowers that used to be thick with native bees in mid March are now empty while they bloom in late February and early March. Pollinators out of sync with their food sources is the sort of problem that will over time lead to food shortage.

Even if the problem isn't "global warming", and "excess CO2", the truth is human activity has steeped the planet in a toxic stew that causes all sorts of human misery, and will, unless we take action, poison the planet until it is too toxic for human life. Why that is so hard to grasp for people is beyond me.

COULD SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THE INTERNET TO RUPERT MUROCH?

Murdoch would prefer to only have right-wing nut-job readers who are willing to pay a premium in order to avoid objective journalism and only read stories that are slanted toward their particular prejudices and misperceptions. This could also have the side effect of making it harder for those who oppose this sort of slanted journalism to even know what News Corp is reporting because few will want to financially support such propaganda.

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: POLITICS IN A TIME OF MYTH

Climate change is natural. Study the Sun cycles and you will find its now waning and thus its getting cooler. The politics behind this are all designed to give more regulatory power over every single fact of human life. Its people control and ultimately population control. Let's address the real pollution causes - of which there are no controversies - PCB's, prescription drugs and rocket fuel in drinking supplies, factory farms, loss of coral reefs, etc. I just can't fathom why people don't see through this scam by bureaucrats and paid off, herd=like scientists who go along.

SOY'S HEALTH BENEFITS BEGINNING TO BE QUESTIONED

Alternet - In 2000 the American Heart Association gave soy the thumbs up and the FDA proclaimed: "Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease." Over the course of the last decade medical professionals have touted its benefits in fighting not just cardiovascular disease, but cancers, osteoporosis and diabetes.

But soy's glory days may be coming to an end. New research is questioning its health benefits and even pointing out some potential risks. Although definitive evidence may be many years down the road, the American Heart Association has quietly withdrawn its support. And some groups are waging an all-out war, warning that soy can lead to certain kinds of cancers, lowered testosterone levels, and early-onset puberty in girls.

Most of the soy eaten today is also genetically modified, which may pose another set of health risks. The environmental implications of soy production, including massive deforestation, increased use of pesticides and threats to water and soil, are providing more fodder for soy's detractors. . .

It's been cultivated, starting in China, for 3,000 years. While Asian diets have generally included soy it has been in small amounts eaten fermented -- primarily via miso, natto and tempeh. "Fermenting soy creates health-promoting probiotics, the good bacteria our bodies need to maintain digestive and overall wellness," wrote Vance. "By contrast, in the United States, processed soy food snacks or shakes can contain over 20 grams of non-fermented soy protein in one serving."

It's not that all soy is bad; in fact, eating it in small doses can be quite healthy, if it's fermented. But when it's not, that's where the problems begin.

BOOKSHELF

YOUTH IN A SUSPECT SOCIETY

Henry A. Giroux

Detention Slip - In the past week alone, we've seen students arrested for a food fight. We've seen over 200 suspended for dress code violations at one school. We've even seen students suspended for bringing in McDonald's to lunch. In a new book by Henry A Giroux, the author explores how our youth seem to be constantly under attack and criminalized. Youth in a Suspect Society argues that school children are no longer viewed as an investment, but rather disposable. As the title suggests, our students have in fact become "suspects."

One chapter explores some of the side effects since zero tolerance has been instituted. "One major effect can be seen in the increasingly popular practice of organizing schools through disciplinary practices that closely resemble the culture of prisons."

He sums it up perfectly by stating, "forms of punishment that were once applied to adults now apply to first graders." We've had to begin splurging on safety and security measures, and rather than having the principal handle discipline, we send kids off to juvenile correction centers for minor infractions. The book digs deep into the ways our youth are being affected by current political and economic situations and is a recommended read for anyone interested in examining what has happened to our schools.

Interview with Giroux

UMBERTO ECO ON THE VIRTUES OF LISTS

From an interview by Spiegel with Umberto Eco

SPIEGEL: Mr. Eco, you are considered one of the world's great scholars, and now you are opening an exhibition at the Louvre, one of the world's most important museums. The subjects of your exhibition sound a little commonplace, though: the essential nature of lists, poets who list things in their works and painters who accumulate things in their paintings. Why did you choose these subjects?

Umberto Eco: The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists -- the shopping list, the will, the menu -- that are also cultural achievements in their own right.

SPIEGEL: Should the cultured person be understood as a custodian looking to impose order on places where chaos prevails?

Eco: The list doesn't destroy culture; it creates it. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists. In fact, there is a dizzying array: lists of saints, armies and medicinal plants, or of treasures and book titles. Think of the nature collections of the 16th century. My novels, by the way, are full of lists.

SPIEGEL: Accountants make lists, but you also find them in the works of Homer, James Joyce and Thomas Mann.

Eco: Yes. But they, of course, aren't accountants. In "Ulysses," James Joyce describes how his protagonist, Leopold Bloom, opens his drawers and all the things he finds in them. I see this as a literary list, and it says a lot about Bloom. Or take Homer, for example. In the "Iliad," he tries to convey an impression of the size of the Greek army. At first he uses similes: "As when some great forest fire is raging upon a mountain top and its light is seen afar, even so, as they marched, the gleam of their armour flashed up into the firmament of heaven." But he isn't satisfied. He cannot find the right metaphor, and so he begs the muses to help him. Then he hits upon the idea of naming many, many generals and their ships. . .

SPIEGEL: Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can't be realistically completed?

Eco: We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That's why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It's a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don't want to die. . .

OBAMA QUIETLY BACKS PATRIOT ACT PROVISIONS

BREVITAS

Drugs

Washington Post - A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana -- a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, "the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years." A 53 percent majority already does so in the West, according to the survey.

The world

Obama has followed Bush's lead again and is refusing to join 150 countries in agreeing to a ban on land mines. Senator Patrick Leahy descried the decision as "cursory and halfhearted. . . The United States took some of the earliest and most effective steps to restrict the use of land mines. We should be leading this effort, not sitting on the sidelines."

Furthermore. . .

New words from Word Spy: Palintologist n. A person who studies or is fascinated by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

RECOVERED HISTORY: CLINTON STARTED RENDITIONS

AFP, 2005 - The US Central Intelligence Agency's controversial "rendition" program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper.

Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, has told Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system.

"President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al Qaeda," Mr Scheuer said.

"We asked the president what we should do with the people we capture. Clinton said 'That's up to you'."

Mr Scheuer, who headed the CIA unit that tracked Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, says he developed and led the "renditions" program.

He says the program includes moving prisoners without due legal process to countries without strict human rights protections.

OBAMA TRIES TO UNDERMINE FOURTH AMENDMENT AGAIN

Wired - The Obama administration is seeking to reverse a federal appeals court decision that dramatically narrows the government's search-and-seizure powers in the digital age.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Justice Department officials are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its August ruling that federal prosecutors went too far when seizing 104 professional baseball players' drug results when they had a warrant for just 10.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 9-2 decision offered Miranda-style guidelines to prosecutors and judges on how to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights while conducting computer searches.

Kagan, appointed solicitor general by President Barack Obama, joined several U.S. attorneys in telling the San Francisco-based court Monday that the guidelines are complicating federal prosecutions in the West. . . .

"In some districts, computer searches have ground to a complete halt," the authorities wrote. "Many United States Attorney's Offices have been chilled from seeking any new warrants to search computers."

HOW THE MEDIA BLEW THE ACORN STORY

Christopher R. Martin & Peter Dreier, Editor and Publisher - How is it that after laboring in relative obscurity as a community organizer for almost 40 years, ACORN was so falsely framed in news stories that many Americans believed the absurd and alarming notion that it stole a presidential election? The answer is a tale of not only how the Republican Party and conservative news media framed ACORN, but also how most mainstream journalism organizations were negligent by repeating rather than fact-checking the spurious allegations.

During its four decades of community organizing, ACORN has earned the ire of certain business groups (who oppose ACORN's efforts to raise wages for the working poor), banks and pay-day lenders (who have been the target of ACORN organizing campaigns), and the Republican Party (which dislikes ACORN's success at registering urban minority voters, who are more likely to vote for Democrats). Their attack on ACORN is part of a broader conservative effort to discredit Barack Obama -- first as a candidate, then as President. . .

The attacks continued in the summer of 2009, when two young conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute (and sometimes as other characters, like a potential candidate for Congress) walked into at least 10 ACORN offices around the country, asking for advice on taxes and a business venture that involved underage illegal immigrant girls from El Salvador. In some offices, ACORN employees asked them to leave; at least two offices called the police. In at least one office, a staffer, concerned that the couple was engaged in illegal child sex trafficking, used a cell phone to record video of them.

But, from a video camera the pair had concealed, we also know that several ACORN employees, in offices in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Brooklyn, and San Diego, took the bait and behaved inexcusably. Because the videos have been doctored, it isn't entirely clear what actually occurred, but it appears that ACORN staffers offered the couple advice about buying a home and doing their taxes, although none of them actually filled out any paperwork for the pair.

The embarrassing videos were soon posted to the Internet, and in short order became a national story. Starting at the conservative Web site biggovernment.com, the videos quickly became the top story at Fox News and conservative talk radio, moved to CNN's Lou Dobbs Show, then proved irresistible for the mainstream news media.

ACORN responded by firing the employees involved and initiating an internal review by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger. Washington responded to the incidents with outrage, with Congress quickly voting to rescind ACORN's federal funding, primarily for homeownership counseling. Although ACORN received no funds from the IRS or the Census Bureau, both agencies also removed ACORN as "partners" in their efforts to help the working poor qualify for tax rebates and to encourage low-income households to fill out census forms. . .

This dramatic spike in public attention led us to conduct a study of how the media covered the ACORN controversy. We analyzed all stories about ACORN (647 total) from 2007 and 2008 by 15 news organizations. . .

Despite ACORN's diverse community organizing work in cities across the country, in 2007-2008, 55% of the stories about the organization dealt with voter fraud. (In the month before the election, during October 2008, the frame intensified; 76 percent of the ACORN stories focused on allegations of voter fraud.)

The problems with the voter fraud story began with an often-ignored but crucial distinction on semantics: the troubles with ACORN in 2008 were instances of voter registration fraud, not voter fraud, which is the casting of fraudulent votes. . . But, while the distinction between registration and voting was absent from many reports, there were even more problems of negligence in reporting on ACORN:

- 83% of the stories about ACORN's alleged involvement in voter fraud failed to mention that actual voter fraud is very rare . . .

- 80% of the stories about ACORN's alleged involvement in voter fraud failed to mention that ACORN was reporting registration irregularities to authorities, as required by law.

- 85% of the stories about ACORN's alleged involvement in voter fraud failed to note that ACORN was acting to stop incidents of registration problems by its (mostly temporary) employees when it became aware of these problems.

- 96% of the stories about ACORN's alleged involvement in voter fraud failed to provide deeper context, especially efforts by Republican Party officials to use allegations of "voter fraud" to dampen voting by low-income and minority Americans that were already documented at the time. . .

The mainstream news stories usually lacked the partisan hyperbole of the opinion entrepreneurs and conservative media. But in a vast majority of instances, the mainstream acted more like stenographers than reporters, repeating the accusations with trying to verify the facts. At best, they simply engaged in the typical he said/she said formula, balancing the conservative allegations of voter fraud with ACORN's denials, without providing any context. With little or no fact-checking, and no alternative narratives, the mainstream media unwittingly legitimized the original conservative narrative.

One of the rare reporters who does cover community organizing is National Public Radio's Pam Fessler. Fessler was perhaps the best qualified reporter in the country to report on the allegations of voter fraud. Her beat includes poverty, philanthropy, and nonprofit groups, and she has also covered voting issues since 2000. Her NPR reports were the best fact-checked of all of the reports we studied. . .

For example, a report for Morning Edition involved field work in Columbus, Ohio, with Fessler walking for hours with young ACORN voter registration employees to see firsthand how they did their work-something other reporters rarely did. "Most of them are kids-they hire 19- and 20-year-old kids," Fessler said. And, instead of portraying ACORN as an organization intent on perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history, Fessler instead found young adults, most of them excited to be doing a summer job. "Most kids took it seriously, but they made mistakes in the process."

Those mistakes, Fessler said, weren't exclusive to ACORN, but are symptomatic of the system of voter registration in America in which registrations are gathered in the community by third party organizations. (The nation's crazy-quilt registration laws which different from state to state - varying registration deadlines, requiring people to re-register when they move, and other rules - make mistakes inevitable. Most other democracies make voting much easier.) Fessler said she sees Republican concerns about voting problems as legitimate, but that "Until we fix the election voter registration system, this will still be controversial. Third party registration is not the smartest thing."

As we document in our study, the national news media has virtually ignored ACORN's everyday work. As a result, what most Americans know about ACORN involves phony allegations of "voter fraud," misleading reports of helping a pimp and a prostitute violate tax laws, and a misguided conviction by some that ACORN stole the election for Obama. Although this has been a bad story for ACORN, it hasn't been a good one for the news media, either.

Christopher R. Martin is professor of journalism and communication studies at the University of Northern Iowa, and Peter Dreier, a professor of politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College. Dreier has advised ACORN on policy matters but says he has never been paid by the group or any of its affiliates. Study

AF-PAK MATH

Just over 100,000 US and allied European troops plus 200,000 Afghan security forces and police have not been able to defeat 25,000 Taliban. Why adding another 30,000 will make any difference is not clear. Incidentally, the administration's other target, Al Qaeda, is a force too small to be shown on this chart. There are less than 100 of them in Afghanistan according to retired general James Jones.

HUMANS WOULD NEED FIVE EARTHS IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE AMERICANS

Independent, UK - Humanity would need five Earths to produce the resources needed if everyone lived as profligately as Americans, according to a report.

As it is, humanity each year uses resources equivalent to nearly one-and-a-half Earths to meet its needs, said the report by Global Footprint Network, an international think tank.

"We are demanding nature's services - using resources and creating CO2 emissions - at a rate 44 percent faster than what nature can regenerate and reabsorb," the document said.

"That means it takes the Earth just under 18 months to produce the ecological services humanity needs in one year," it said. . .

Today, 80 percent of countries use more biocapacity than is available within their borders. They import resources from abroad, deplete their own stocks and fill "waste sinks," such as the atmosphere and ocean, with carbon dioxide.

GREAT MOMENTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT

Bucks County Courier Times - A Harry S Truman High School senior was found not guilty of disorderly conduct in connection with his run across the school football field while dressed up as a cow during a game timeout.

Bristol Township police arrested Frank Novak, 18, after he ran from the stadium's visitors' side to the main entrance during the last minute of the Tigers' homecoming game Oct. 17 against William Tennent High School.

Novak has said he was tackled from behind by a Truman staff member at the same time he was willingly surrendering to two township police officers.

The honor student has said he tried the risky move to promote school spirit.

After hearing testimony from the prosecution and Novak, Bucks County District Judge Joanne Kline handed down the not guilty ruling Monday, according to court records.

HOW TO COOK A TURKEY

From a collection of recipes created by kindergartners:

Go to Costco. The one near Home Depot is good. Pick out a fat turkey. Cook it with crumbled Doritos and some Oreos. Cook it for 14 days. Put salt on it. Eat it.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS OVERTAKE ILLEGALS AS KILLERS

USA Today - Addiction to prescription painkillers - which kill thousands of Americans a year - has become a largely unrecognized epidemic, experts say. In fact, prescription drugs cause most of the more than 26,000 fatal overdoses each year, says Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers - opium-like drugs that include morphine and codeine - more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year, according to CDC statistics released Wednesday.

In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin, with most deaths in big cities. Prescription painkillers have now surpassed heroin and cocaine, however, as the leading cause of fatal overdoses, Paulozzi says. And the rate of fatal overdoses is now about as high in rural areas - 7.8 deaths per 100,000 people - as in cities, where the rate is 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to a paper he published last year in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.

"The biggest and fastest-growing part of America's drug problem is prescription drug abuse," says Robert DuPont, a former White House drug czar and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The statistics are unmistakable."

About 120,000 Americans a year go to the emergency room after overdosing on opioid painkillers, says Laxmaiah Manchikanti, chief executive officer and board chairman for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.

GROUP CAMPAIGNS FOR CLOTHESLINES

Reuters - Widespread adoption of clotheslines could significantly reduce U.S. energy consumption, argued [Alexander Lee of Project Laundry List], who said dryer use accounts for about 6 percent of U.S. residential electricity use.

Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado, and Hawaii have passed laws restricting the rights of local authorities to stop residents using clotheslines. Another five states are considering similar measures. . .

Principal opponents are the housing associations such as condominiums and townhouse communities that are home to an estimated 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population. About half of those organizations have 'no hanging' rules, Lee said, and enforce them with fines.

NSA HELPED DEVELOP WINDOWS 7

Computer World - "Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector," Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security yesterday as part of a prepared statement.

"All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later during the product lifecycle," Schaeffer added. "This will improve the adoption of security advice, as it can be implemented during installation and then later managed through the emerging SCAP standards."

This is not the first time that the NSA has partnered with Microsoft during Windows development. In 2007, the agency confirmed that it had a hand in Windows Vista as part of an initiative to ensure that the operating system was secure from attack and would work with other government software. Before that, the NSA provided guidance on how best to secure Windows XP and Windows 2000.

According to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center, the NSA's involvement with operating system development goes back even farther. "This battle goes back to at least the crypto wars of the early '90s," said Rotenberg, who remembered testifying about the agency's role in private sector computer security standards in 1989.

But when the NSA puts hands on Windows, that raises a red flag for Rotenberg, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based public interest research center. "When NSA offers to help the private sector on computer security, the obvious concern is that it will also build in backdoors that enables tracking users and intercepting user communications," Rotenberg said in an e-mail. "And private sector firms are reluctant to oppose these 'suggestions' since the US government is also their biggest customer and opposition to the NSA could mean to loss of sales.". . .

RENTAL UNITS BECOMING VICTIMS OF FORECLOSURES

Washington Post - In the first three quarters of 2009, 475 foreclosure proceedings were begun against multifamily rental or cooperative homes in the District, according to Neighborhood Info DC. . .

In Chicago's Cook County, 328 multifamily rental buildings were in foreclosure by the second quarter of this year, compared with 185 last year, according to a yet-unreleased study by the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University.

In Los Angeles, foreclosures for buildings with five or more units totaled 78 -- encompassing 1,344 units -- in the first three quarters of 2009, compared with 49 buildings and 432 units over the same period last year, and 13 buildings and 239 units in the same period of 2007, according to the city's housing department.

In New York, housing analysts estimate that the number of apartment units in buildings at risk of default because of upside-down loans -- in which the property is worth less than is owed on the loan -- could range from 50,000 to 100,000.

And through the first nine months of this year, across the country, Fannie Mae had 74 foreclosed multifamily properties on the books, compared with 25 through the first nine months of last year.

A LOCAL LESSON IN RAPID DESCENT

Adrian Fenty, the black mayor of Washington, took every precinct when he was elected three years ago. He had certain similarities to Barack Obama - well educated, young, attractive and a voice for change.

After his election, however, a combination of tin ear, chrome plated ego, indifference to ordinary citizens and loyalty to special interests has dramatically changed things. According to Washington City Paper:

"A poll of 501 registered voters finds that D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray leads Fenty, 41 to 37 percent, in the first publicly released head-to-head polling. Asked whether they approve or disapprove of Fenty, poll respondents were negative on Fenty, 49 percent to 43."

More striking was that the poll found that "Fifty-one percent of all white voters polled said they would like to see Fenty re-elected but only 22 percent of all African American voters polled would - a 29–point difference."

Unlike Obama, however, Fenty's leading alternative is also black. Still the poll does show that even ethnic loyalty can vanish when it's not reciprocated by the office holder.

GREAT MOMENTS IN TRANSPARENCY

Michigan Messenger, Lansing - City Attorney Brigham Smith wants a working group being put together to develop new Freedom of Information Act policies for the city in the wake of a series of incidents earlier this year where he was criticized for being careless with private information. But the details of the capital city's information disclosure guidelines will be hammered out in private.

"I actually think it's better if we don't [open the meetings] for the reason we can probably be more candid that way," Smith said late last week when asked if the meetings would be open to the public.

Omar Chaudhary, a lawyer from Butzel Long, which runs a legal hotline in conjunction with the Michigan Press Association, said Smith can argue the group is creating a legal opinion, which would be protected by attorney-client privilege. That, he said, means the group can meet in closed session and with no public input.

"They're trying to be very clever with the law," Chaudary said. . .

Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope, also a working group member, said he doesn't have a problem with the group meeting behind closed doors. "I think it's not a body covered by the Open Meetings Act," Swope said. . .

MORE EVIDENCE THAT RED LIGHT CAMERAS DON'T WORK

Chicago Tribune - Cars and trucks slammed into each other 28 times at Western Avenue and 63rd Street in 2006, the year before the Daley administration installed red-light cameras there in the name of safety. In 2008, the year after cameras went in, accidents at the Southwest Side intersection soared to 42, according to state data.

It was not an aberration. Cameras are said to reduce accidents, but collision records compiled by the Illinois Department of Transportation indicate that accidents increased at many city intersections the year after red-light cameras were installed. In fact slightly more intersections saw an increase than a decrease, the data show.

NPR OMITS HILLARY CLINTON'S TIES TO THE FAMILY

NPR joins a number of media that have reported on the religious extremist refuge on Capitol Hill known as The Family - but without ever mentioning Hillary Clinton's ties to the group. NPR even cited the work of Jeff Sharlet - who wrote about the Clinton connection - but left that part out. Here's some of the story NPR and other media choose not run:

Huffington Post, 2008 - There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. . .

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone. . .

At the heart of the Family's American branch is a collection of powerful rightwing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe, and Rick Santorum. . .

Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.". . .

A Democracy Now interview this year:

AMY GOODMAN: And again, we should say, this is not just a Republican organization. Democrats are also a part. In fact, you talk about Hillary Clinton-

JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Praying with them.

JEFF SHARLET: I think that's one of the most important aspects of this. I think, too often, progressives tend to see the Christian right as simply an auxiliary of the Republican Party, whereas the movement, especially through the Family, has recognized that you stay in power not by aligning yourself too closely with one faction, but by having lots of friends. So, Hillary Clinton, Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who was, of course, instrumental in fighting against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made unionization much, much easier. He explained to me the Family's approach to Democratic bipartisanship. He said, "Jesus didn't come to take sides; He came to take over." That's a Democrat speaking. So, Republicans and Democrats working together.

MILITARY TAKES RECRUITING TO KINDERGARTEN

Jon Letman, Truth Out - Last week at the dinner table, my five-year-old son announced blithely, "Soldiers came to school today." He then added, "They only kill bad people. They don't kill good people."

He made the announcement with the same levity he uses in recalling the plot line of Frog and Toad or a Nemo video.

My wife and I looked at each other incredulously.

"Soldiers came to school? What do you mean?" I asked.

He repeated himself and then I remembered - it was "Career Day" at school. My son mentioned a bus driver too, but it was the soldier who stuck out in his mind. When my wife asked if the soldier was cool, he nodded yes.

The soldier had given my five-year-old a gift. From his yellow backpack, he produced a six-inch, white, plastic ruler with big, bold, red letters reading "ARMY NATIONAL GUARD" next to a waving American flag and below that www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com.

Kindergarteners - children with Dora the Explorer and Spiderman backpacks and bedrooms full of stuffed animals who are still working to master their A-B-C's - are now targets for early conditioning by the US military. . .

FIFTEEN DEMOCRATIC SENATORS PLOTTING TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE

REPORT: OBAMA USING BLACKWATER FOR PAKISTAN ASSASSINATIONS

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill
Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story - The Obama administration is using mercenaries with the firm formerly known as Blackwater to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan, according to a published report.

The program, operated out of the US Joint Special Operations Command, "is so 'compartmentalized' that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence," an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the program told The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill.

Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is also allegedly involved in intelligence collection for a drone bombing campaign in the country. . .

A Blackwater spokesman told The Nation that none of its forces are operating in Pakistan. However, a "former senior executive at Blackwater" told Scahill that Xe's mercs are indeed working in Pakistan, sometimes employed by the country's government to operate alongside soldiers. The arrangement allows the Pakistani government to deny any U.S. military presence in the country, while allowing them to tap former U.S. special forces members for high-risk missions. Scahill added that the CIA is also employing the firm in parallel operations.

"Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," Scahill's source reportedly said. "Contractors and especially [Joint Special Operations Command] personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality. They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"

During the Bush administration, the JSOC was reportedly being commanded by the vice president's office, effectively making them Dick Cheney's own "executive assassination squad," according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

President Obama's top official on the occupation of Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, oversaw the JSOC from September 2003 to August 2008.

ANOTHER GRIMM ECO PREDICTION

ABC News - There's even less time for humanity to try to curb global warming than recently thought, according to a new in-depth scientific assessment by 26 scientists from eight countries.

Sea level rise, ocean acidification and the rapid melting of massive ice sheets are among the significantly increased effects of human-induced global warming assessed in the survey, which also examines the emissions of heat-trapping gases that are causing the climate change.

"Many indicators are currently tracking near or above the worst-case projections" made three years ago by the world's scientists, the new Copenhagen Diagnosis said. . .

This is the first comprehensive update of leading peer-reviewed climate science in the three years since the last report of the intentionally thorough and slow-paced Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was finalized.

That report is now widely recognized to be out of date in important ways.

This is because over the past three years, hundreds of new scientific field accounts of global warming's impacts, as well as improved peer-reviewed analyses of global warming itself in both the deep past and the very near future, have depicted earth's atmosphere as far more "sensitive" to the invisible CO2, methane and other human-sourced greenhouse gases than had been hoped. . .

ONE IN FOUR HOME MORTGAGE HOLDERS ARE UNDER WATER

Wall Street Journal - The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery.

Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American Core Logic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif. . .

These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already saturated market. Economists from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said Monday they didn't expect U.S. home prices to hit bottom until early 2011, citing the prospect of oversupply.

Home prices have fallen so far that 5.3 million U.S. households are tied to mortgages that are at least 20% higher than their home's value, the First American report said. More than 520,000 of these borrowers have received a notice of default, according to First American.

Most U.S. homeowners still have some equity, and nearly 24 million owner-occupied homes don't have any mortgage, according to the Census Bureau. . .

Homeowners in Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California are more likely to be deeply under water, according to the analysis. In Nevada, for example, nearly 30% of borrowers owe 50% or more on their mortgage than their home is worth, said First American.

More than 40% of borrowers who took out a mortgage in 2006 -- when home prices peaked -- are under water. Prices have dropped so much in some parts of the U.S. that some borrowers who took out loans more than five years ago owe more than their home's value. . .

About 7.5 million households were 30 days or more behind on their mortgage payments or in foreclosure at the end of September, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Many of those homes will be lost to foreclosure, adding to the supply of homes for sale.

THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW MUAMMAR GADDAFI COULD DO

Al Jazeera - Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has accepted an Arab League request to calm tension between Egypt and Algeria sparked by their football World Cup play-off matches, Libyan state media has reported.

Egypt and Algeria have accused each other of failing to protect their citizens and property from attacks by rival football fans.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary general, called Gaddafi and asked him to intervene in his role as chairman of the African Union and drawing on "the high, distinguished position that the leader enjoys," Libya's JANA news agency reported.

"The Leader of the Revolution, Chairman of the African Union, will work to repair the situation that relations between the two brotherly countries Egypt and Algeria were subjected to" it said.

Libya has borders with both Algeria and Egypt.

The troubles began when the Algerian team bus was attacked with stones before a group-stage match on November 14, injuring three players.

Egypt won the game 2-0, forcing the play-off in Khartoum, Sudan's capital. In the days after the first game, mobs in Algeria ransacked the offices of Egyptian companies.

After the second match in Khartoum, Egyptian newspapers unleashed stirring headlines about Egyptian fans being attacked by machete-wielding crowds.

Sudanese police said there were only a handful of injuries.

"Barbaric attacks on Egyptian fans in Khartoum," read one headline in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

"Algerians chase Egyptian fans with knives and machetes," said another.

Cairo withdrew its ambassador to Algiers last week and Algeria has demanded an explanation from Cairo.

Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president, said on Saturday that Egypt would not allow its citizens abroad to be humiliated.

Ibrahim Youssri, a former Egyptian ambassador to Algeria, told Al Jazeera that the introduction of Gaddafi as a mediator would "give the leaders a chance to save face".

"I do not think it will happen in a short time, maybe in a few weeks. But things are calming down. People in the two countries are very sad about this. The Egyptian and Algerian intellectuals wrote and spoke against all of these developments which have not reason or logic at all."