Undernews for 9, July 2009

Undernews for 9, July 2009

Since 1964, the news while there's still time to do something about it
THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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WORD

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society. - Thomas Jefferson

It's never too late to have a happy childhood, and age only matters if you're a cheese. - Rick Steves

The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground. - Barack Obama apparently predicting a bleak outlook for the U.S.

PAGE ONE MUST
CAN TRUMKA BRING LABOR BACK TO LIFE?
David Moberg, Nation - Richard Trumka--once a coal miner-lawyer from tiny Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, but for the past fourteen years secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO--will officially announce his candidacy for presidency of the labor federation on Thursday. But with no other candidates even rumored and, by Trumka's account, a majority of votes already in the bag, the transfer of power from President John Sweeney next September seems almost certain. . .

Trumka, who was seen by some union leaders as too militant when Sweeney picked him, has long had an affinity for the industrial unions, but he also has some strong supporters among service unions, such as the California Nurses Association and AFSCME (public employees). As secretary-treasurer he worked with union pension funds and educated himself on economic issues. He wants the AFL-CIO in the future to devote more attention to research and economic policy and to seek more advice from labor-friendly academics.

In Trumka's view, the unionism of the 1930s forged a social compact that made possible the middle class prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s. But since the early 1970s, Wall Street and financial interests have dominated American politics, dismantling the compact and increasing inequality, debt and insecurity as workers struggled to keep up. These interests created the current crisis through their recklessness and deregulation, won through political money power--such as $5 billion in campaign contributions and lobbying by the financial industries over the past decade. "Though Republicans deserve the lion's share of the blame," he says, "it's been a bipartisan failure, and it's been driven by Wall Street domination of politics."

PEE FOR THE PLANET: A URINE FUELED WORLD

MSNBC - Urine-powered cars, homes and personal electronic devices could be available in six months with new technology developed by scientists from Ohio University.

Using a nickel-based electrode, the scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. "One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses," said Gerardine Botte, a professor at Ohio University developing the technology. "Soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel."

Pee power is based on hydrogen, the most common element in the universe but one that has resisted efforts to produce, store, transport and use economically. . .

By attaching hydrogen to another element, nitrogen, Botte and her colleagues realized that they can store hydrogen without the exotic environmental conditions, and then release it with less electricity, 0.037 Volts instead of the 1.23 Volts needed for water. . .

"The waste products from say a chicken farm could be used to produce the energy needed to run the farm," said John Stickney, a chemist and professor at the University of Georgia.
MASSACHUSETTS SUES TO END ANTI-GAY FEDERAL LAW ON MARRIAGE
NY Times - The Massachusetts attorney general, Martha Coakley, sued the federal government to overturn a section of the law denying federal benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages. With the suit, Massachusetts becomes the first state to challenge the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by Congress in 1996 and prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.

Massachusetts was also the first state, in 2003, to grant gay couples the right to marry; five other states - Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont - have since followed. The challenge, filed in United States District Court here, comes as President Obama and Congress face increasing pressure from gay rights groups to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

EMENDATION

We reported the Cape Cod town council that couldn't decide whether a vote of 136 to 70 met the requirements of a two thirds majority. A couple of our readers said no. For example, Montana legislator Brady Wiseman writes:

"This question comes up often in state legislatures, where some supermajority of those present and voting requires the calculation. In this case, the calculation is: 206 x 2/3 = (206 x 2)/3 = 137.3333. So the actual 2/3 majority vote is 138, since 137 is fractionally less than 2/3 of 206."

Vemene did a similar calculation adding the thought that "The officials need to put away their calculators and learn to work arithmetic with good, old-fashioned fractions and their own brainpower."
OBAMA CLAIMS RIGHT TO KEEP PEOPLE IMPRISONED EVEN IF ACQUITTED
Although the administration is theoretically talking about "terrorists," all it takes is for it to declare you one and it applies to you as well.

Glenn Greenwald, Salon - Spencer Ackerman attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified. Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial. About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafkaesque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective." Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt: "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies - now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention."

In June, Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked by ABC News' Jake Tapper whether accused terrorists who were given a trial and were acquitted would be released as a result of the acquittal, but Gibbs -- amazingly -- refused to make that commitment. But this is the first time an Obama official has affirmatively stated that they have the "post-acquittal detention" power (and, to my knowledge, the Bush administration never claimed the power to detain someone even if they were acquitted).

All of this underscores what has clearly emerged as the core "principle" of Obama justice when it comes to accused terrorists -- namely, "due process" is pure window dressing with only one goal: to ensure that anyone the president wants to keep imprisoned will remain in prison.
CRASH TALK
Business Insider - The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, [shows] a decrease of 19 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. . . The Refinance Index is at its lowest level since November 2008.

Wall Street Journal - The president's stimulus plan has been aimed primarily at the top of the economy, pumping money into banks and car companies and state and city governments. But it also has put more money into the hands of the poorest Americans by boosting monthly food-stamp allocations. Starting in April, a family of four on food stamps received an average of $80 extra.

Money from the program -- officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- percolates quickly through the economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that for every $5 of food-stamp spending, there is $9.20 of total economic activity, as grocers and farmers pay their employees and suppliers, who in turn shop and pay their bills.

While other stimulus money has been slow to circulate, the food-stamp boost is almost immediate, with 80% of the benefits being redeemed within two weeks of receipt and 97% within a month, the USDA says.

Edward I. Koch & Robert S. Weiner, NY Daily News - While the recent anti-foreclosure bill signed by President Obama is of assistance to the homeowners affected by the current financial meltdown, the bill and its $13.6 billion of housing recovery money have ignored the nearly one-third of American households who rent, including more than 2 million households in New York City.

All these people also have a dream of having and staying in a home - and they also need help from Congress, on the double. Over the course of the last generation, things have gotten progressively worse for renters - and the deep recession has added insult to injury. . .
The Federal Housing Administration advocates that a family should spend no more than 30% of their income on housing. In 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of renters exceeded this guideline, with almost 25% of renters spending more than 50%. The situation is particularly dire in New York, where nearly one in three New Yorkers use half of their income on rent.

It shouldn't surprise us that one very immediate consequence of all this is homelessness. In New York City alone, there has been a 65% increase in the use of homeless shelters since 1998 and a 23% increase since 2002. Even at these record numbers - 36,218 were in shelters as of May 31 - a shelter, though a wonderful resource, is not a permanent home, and shelters only house a tiny fraction of the homeless. While a virtually immeasurable number, the New York City Coalition for the Homeless believes homelessness this decade is "the greatest since the Great Depression.
THE SICK CONNECTION BETWEEN MONEY & HEALTHCARE
The business school approach to ethics and life is alive and well in Washington as politicians and lobbyists discuss health care changes. Note in the article below how money is being considered a useful tool in health care, not to support it but implicitly to bribe doctors not to spend a lot on their patients.

Washington Post - Although Obama and his advisers have held up providers' spending patterns as the crux of the crisis, proposals in Washington go only so far in addressing the thorniest questions about who gets what care. . .

The bills being written would put new emphasis on evaluating treatments according to their "comparative effectiveness," or weighing the risks and benefits of different types of treatment for the same illness, but the bills stop short of incorporating cost-benefit analyses into the findings or of requiring that providers abide by conclusions.

Lawmakers are also considering ways to reform Medicare payments to emphasize the overall quality of care over the quantity of treatments. But lawmakers are not going as far as Massachusetts did; it is considering shifting entirely from a fee-for-service model to one where salaried physicians would be paid an overall annual price for covering a given person or family. . .

"The questions of who gets what, these difficult choices . . . really are not posed in the current health reform legislation," said Drew E. Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. "The challenge," he said, "is us, the American people: We want the latest and the best, and we want it now."

The Democrats' caution has not kept Republicans from accusing them of embracing rationing. They raise the specter of the British agency, which goes by the acronym NICE, that decides whether that country's nationalized health-care system will pay for items such as costly cancer drugs that extend lives a few months on average. . .

Others retort that the United States already has rationing: The uninsured and under-insured do not get the care they need. "We're already doing it," said Stanford University epidemiologist Randall Stafford. "We're just doing it in such way that it doesn't service societal interests."

But reformers are clearly spooked by the notion that they could be accused of denying, for example, hip surgery to an 80-year-old. In recent months, a federal panel has held hearings on how to spend $1.1 billion in economic stimulus money allocated for comparative effectiveness research. At each hearing, representatives of providers, industry and patient groups praised the research -- but then demanded that cost not factor into the eventual findings. . .

Many physicians and health care-experts argue, though, that it is precisely by marshaling better research data, partly with the help of electronic health records, that a case can be built for limiting certain treatments. If doctors were to demonstrate to heart disease patients how few advantages coronary artery bypass graft surgery has over less expensive treatments, for example, many patients probably would not elect to undergo the surgery.

All signs in Washington suggest that cost considerations will be kept at arm's length as health-care legislation moves forward. Carolyn M. Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, said the emphasis will be on clinical outcomes alone.

The draft legislation in the Senate Health and Education Committee, meanwhile, stresses that any research findings "shall not be construed as mandates for payments in coverage and treatment.". .

The plans being considered in Washington . . . contemplate changing some Medicare payments from fee for service to a "bundling" system in which providers would be paid for an entire episode of care, giving them an incentive to reduce repeat hospital admissions. . .

John C. Goodman, president of the conservative-leaning National Center for Policy Analysis, questions this approach, citing new research by his group that shows that areas with high Medicare spending do not correlate with high medical spending overall, suggesting that fixing excesses in Medicare will not necessarily translate to the broader system.
INSPECTOR GENERAL; HOMELAND SCREW-UPS CAN'T HANDLE ANOTHER KATRINA
Washington Post - U.S. authorities remain unable to provide emergency housing after large-scale catastrophes and must do more to prepare survivors of such disasters for permanent relocation, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general is expected to tell a House panel today.

Nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed or damaged 300,000 homes on the Gulf Coast and led to billions of dollars of waste in the diaspora that followed, federal homeland security officials could face a repeat scenario if another storm struck a major coastal city or a high-magnitude earthquake hit population centers in California or the Midwest, according to prepared testimony by Inspector General Richard L. Skinner.

"FEMA does not have sufficient tools, operational procedures, and legislative authorities to aggressively promote the cost-effective repair of housing stocks," Skinner will say, according to the testimony. "
WAR KILLS TROOPS AND OUR ECONOMY
Joseph Stiglitz & Linda J. Bilmes, Capital Times - The death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan reached 5,000 in June. An additional 80,000 Americans have been wounded or injured since the war in Iraq began. More than 300,000 of our troops have required medical treatment, and Army statistics show that more than 17 percent of our returning soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, even though most of the population has long told pollsters they can't wait for U.S. forces to leave, U.S. officials have said we are likely to station 50,000 troops at military bases in the country for the foreseeable future. . .

Moreover, the U.S. barely has begun to face the enormous financial bill for the war. By our accounting, the U.S. has already spent $1 trillion on operations and related defense spending, with more to come - and it will cost perhaps $2 trillion more to repay the war debt, replenish military equipment and provide care and treatment for U.S. veterans back home. . .

This wartime spending undoubtedly has been a major contributor to our present economic collapse. The U.S. has waged an expensive war as if it required little or no economic sacrifice, funding the conflict by massive borrowing. As we've observed in the past, you can't spend $3 trillion on a reckless foreign war and not feel the pain at home.

Burned by the difficulties in Iraq, our political leaders have no illusions about the length and difficulty of the challenge facing us in Afghanistan. But in other respects we seem set to repeat the same mistakes that we made in Iraq. The president has just signed yet another "emergency" supplemental appropriations measure ($80 billion) to fund continuing operations in Iraq and expansion into Afghanistan. This means that for the 30th time since 2001, war spending has been rushed through the budget process without serious scrutiny.
GLOBAL SUMMITS: WHO NEEDS THEM?
Michael Golfarb, Global Post - Leaders of the G8 nations begin their annual three-day summit in earthquake shattered L'Aquila Italy. Are you excited by that fact? Thought not.

Neither, would it seem, is the host of the event, the government of Italy. Disinterested chaos has characterized the preparations for the get together and the agenda is decidedly thin.

Since it was set up in 1975 as the G6, the leaders of the largest industrialized nations have used their annual summit primarily as an opportunity to make pledges, have their pictures taken and generally act as if they are on top of the problems facing the world.

Some years there are more crises to deal with than others and this would seem to be one of those years. The global economic crisis and the post-election situation in Iran being two things that the leaders might be expected to address. But so far the big item on the agenda is "food security," an initiative aimed at keeping small farmers in the developing world in business. Or something like that. . .

In 2005, Britain used its presidency of the group to focus on global poverty at the Gleneagles Summit. It was a big theme dear to the heart of both then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. The Live Aid concert, broadcast globally by the BBC, was all part of a big push to get the richest nations to commit hard cash to the poorest. . . The amounts pledged at the Gleneagles summit were historic, we were told by Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof.

Four years later, Brown, now prime minister, wants the summit to at least publish results of which countries have lived up to their pledges. That is unlikely to happen, not least because Italy has slashed its aid budget under Berlusconi. . .

The question that hovers over all these "summits" whether G8, G20 or G-everybody is can these ad hoc groups, led by politicians, who make promises they will not be in office to fulfill, possibly serve any use at all?

We live in a world where it seems all the major decisions on how human beings live are made not by our elected leaders but by a narrow group of elites working for private multi-national companies; or speculators - hedge funds and others - playing the markets for their own and their wealthy shareholders massive enrichment; or one or two autocratic regimes like China and Russia. Most leaders of democratic countries are operating from a position of weakness. . . .

Perhaps it is time to add one more demand to the protesters' list: stop G8 summits.
GREAT MOMENTS IN THE LAW

Philadelphia Inquirer - The Philadelphia School District is expected to formally settle an almost 40-year-old desegregation case. At a special meeting, the School Reform Commission is set to vote on a settlement for a lawsuit that at first sought to desegregate city schools, then focused on providing equal opportunities for minority students. The terms of the settlement were not clear yesterday.
Improbable Research - A proposed new law restricts the appearance, in films, of non-local pigeons. Here is the text of the bill:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2203 FILED ON: 1/12/2009 HOUSE. . . No. 816

AN ACT RELATIVE TO PIGEONS IN MOTION PICTURES. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: SECTION 1. Not withstanding any General Laws to the contrary, all pigeons that are used in motion pictures within Massachusetts must be licensed and banded within Massachusetts.

The wording is general. Disputes may arise as to whether this applies (1) only to motion pictures that are filmed in Massachusetts; or (2) also to motion pictures are viewed in Massachusetts.
OBAMA BACKS OFF BIDEN OKAY FOR ISRAELI ATTACK ON IRAN
Jerusalem Post - US President Barack Obama strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. US President Barack Obama. . . Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: "Absolutely not.". . .

"What is also true is, it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities," Obama said.

On Sunday, US Vice President Joe Biden was asked on ABC's This Week whether the US would stand in the way militarily if the Israelis decided they needed to take out Iran's nuclear program.

The US "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do," he said.

"Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said. . .

Earlier Tuesday, The Washington Times reported that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his top deputies had not formally asked for US aid or permission for a possible military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, since they feared the White House would not approve.
WHAT NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS DON'T TELL YOU
Newsosaur - Compared with other industries, publishers on average still are doing remarkably well.

Notwithstanding the triple-digit profit plunge occasioned by a 28% drop in advertising sales, the largest newspapers reported profits averaging 12% of sales at the end of 2008, according to the Inland study.

A 12% profit margin is more than double that achieved last year by Wal-Mart Stores, the largest of the Fortune 1,000 companies. A 12% pre-tax profit is just about a percentage point light of the margins run by Exxon and Chevron, the second and third largest corporations behind Wal-Mart on the Fortune list.
IS WAR INEVITABLE?
John Horgan, New Scientist - Optimists called the first world war "the war to end all wars". Philosopher George Santayana demurred. In its aftermath he declared: "Only the dead have seen the end of war". History has proved him right, of course. What's more, today virtually nobody believes that humankind will ever transcend the violence and bloodshed of warfare. I know this because for years I have conducted numerous surveys asking people if they think war is inevitable. Whether male or female, liberal or conservative, old or young, most people believe it is. .

Just a few decades ago, many scholars believed that prior to civilization, humans were "noble savages" living in harmony with each other and with nature. Not any more. Ethnographic studies, together with some archaeological evidence, suggest that tribal societies engaged in lethal group conflict, at least occasionally, long before the emergence of states with professional armies. Meanwhile, the discovery that male chimpanzees from one troop sometimes beat to death those from another has encouraged popular perceptions that warfare is part of our biological heritage.

These findings about violence among our ancestors and primate cousins have perpetuated what anthropologist Robert Sussman from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, calls the "5 o'clock news" view of human nature. Just as evening news shows follow the dictum "if it bleeds, it leads", so many accounts of human behavior emphasise conflict. However, Sussman believes the popular focus on violence and warfare is disproportionate. "Statistically, it is more common for humans to be cooperative and to attempt to get along than it is for them to be uncooperative and aggressive towards one another," he says. And he is not alone in this view. A growing number of experts are now arguing that the urge to wage war is not innate, and that humanity is already moving in a direction that could make war a thing of the past.

Among the revisionists are anthropologists Carolyn and Melvin Ember from Yale University, who argue that biology alone cannot explain documented patterns of warfare. They oversee the Human Relations Area Files, a database of information on some 360 cultures, past and present. More than nine-tenths of these societies have engaged in warfare, but some fight constantly, others rarely, and a few have never been observed fighting. "There is variation in the frequency of warfare when you look around the world at any given time," says Melvin Ember. "That suggests to me that we are not dealing with genes or a biological propensity."

Anthropologist Douglas Fry of Ã…bo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, agrees. In his book, Beyond War, he identified 74 "non-warring cultures" that contradict the idea that war is universal. His list includes nomadic hunter-gatherers such as the !Kung of Africa, Australian Aborigines and Inuit. These examples are crucial, Fry says, because our ancestors are thought to have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers from the emergence of the Homo lineage around 2 million years ago until the appearance of permanent settlements and agriculture less than 20,000 years ago. That time span constitutes more than 99 per cent of the evolutionary history of Homo. . .
LONG TRAVEL INCREASES CHANCE OF BLOOD CLOTTING
USA Today - The risk of venous thromboembolism, a rare but potentially deadly clot-forming condition, is three times greater for travelers than for people who are not cramped for many hours in airplanes or on other forms of transportation, says one of the first studies to measure the risk.

The report in the Annals of Internal Medicine warns travelers about the importance of knowing the symptoms and staying hydrated and mobile to help prevent the condition from developing during long trips. . .
The study also found an 18% higher risk for each two-hour increase in duration of travel "by any mode" and a 26% higher risk for every two hours of air travel.

One remedy would be for airlines to provide adequate leg room - TPR
THE CASE FOR CURB DAY
Curb Day - Let's say you buy a new bicycle. You want to keep your previous bike, just in case. OK, but what about the previous-previous bike you own? The one that's starting to rust in your garage?

Typically, here's what happens to that bike. You move it from place to place each time you clean out the garage. You don't know what to do with it. You'd like to sell it or maybe give it away, but you never get around to it. When you finally get sick of tripping over it, you wheel it out with your trash on garbage day.

So [you put] bike out by the curb. No one knows it's there, unless they happen to drive by. And most of those people are rushing to work. As a result, no one salvages this bike and it eventually winds up in a landfill. Meanwhile, hundreds of people in your neighborhood would love to own that bike.

Here's a partial solution to this waste. It's called Curb Day, and it's on Saturday, October 24th.

On October 24th, take your old bikes and other useful but unwanted possessions to your curb. People in your neighborhood will know about Curb Day and they will be on the lookout for valuables. They'll pick up these items for free, and you'll be relieved of the clutter.

The main question people have is, 'What happens to all the stuff that doesn't get picked up?"

The answer: there won't be much left over - as long as we all help promote this event. And whatever is left over is probably true junk that would have wound up in a landfill anyway. However, please be prepared to retrieve items left over or possibly pay higher disposal costs.

Also, please obey local ordinances if they prohibit participation in this event. But let your elected officials know you want them to consider a variance twice a year.
SAMGRAM
Sam Smith

I was on my way home the other evening and had just passed through the woods when I found my way blocked by two porcupines in the middle of the road, sitting on their hind legs and embracing each other. I carelessly leapt to the conclusion that this was how porcupines dealt with the peculiar problem posed to reproductive recreation by a plethora of quills surrounding one's target orifice. Perhaps all one needed was a slight readjustment in the location of the respective organs.

Then my mind swept back to an evening when I thought I would explain sex to one of my then little sons using the less provocative example of a non-human. The only problem was, thanks to the book we were reading together at the time, I chose a walrus as my example. No sooner had I started then I realized that I had no idea how walruses had sex and that, frankly, the idea seemed absurd.

But for walruses at least, it was mainly a problem of excessive blubber that appeared to interfere with the enjoyment - not an arsenal of quills situated like a ring of ABMs around the aperture of bliss.

My flashback was interrupted by the porcupines, one of which departed to the weeds at the edge of the road while the other boldly approached my immobile car as if it were going to chastise me for having spoiled the evening. The creature then stopped, turned 180 degrees, and raised its posterior slightly as if to say, "You come any closer, you're going to need a new tire."

I got the message and sat quietly until the porcupine decided it was all right to leave.

Safely at home, I googled for some information on what I had just seen and, sure enough, the ever reliable Cecil Adams of Straight Dope set me straight:

|||| An account of porcupine romance (in North American Porcupine, Uldis Roze, 1989) does begin this way: "Somewhere ahead, a porcupine is screaming." However, it's not what you think. The screaming porcupine is a female letting an ardent male know she's not in the mood. Male porcupines may give vent to the occasional scream as well, but it's from frustration, not pain: the female is only sexually receptive 8-12 hours per year.

Porcupine sex is not the exercise in S&M you might imagine but it does have its kinky aspects. I quote from Roze: 'Perhaps the strangest aspect of the interaction is male urine-hosing of the female. The male approaches on his hind legs and tail, grunting in a low tone. His penis springs erect. He then becomes a urine cannon, squirting high-pressure jets of urine at the female. Everything suggests the urine is fired by ejaculation, not released by normal bladder pressure. . . In less than a minute, a female may be thoroughly wetted from nose to tail."

So much for foreplay. If the female decides now is the time, she hoists up her rump a bit and raises her tail, the underside of which is quill-less, and curves it up over her back, covering the quills thereon and exposing her genitalia. The male then approaches in a gingerly manner from the rear, walking on his hind legs and taking care to touch nothing with his forepaws but the safe part of the tail. . . The act lasts 2-5 minutes and may be repeated several times during the half-day window of opportunity. . .

The real problem for a male porcupine is not getting intimate with the female but surviving the bar fights with his male rivals beforehand. Researcher Roze reports coming upon the scene of an interporcupine slugfest where three males had fought it out for the favors of one female. The ground was littered with nearly 1,500 quills and a few more could be seen in the nose of the apparent victor. ||||

Elsewhere, I learned that the few critical hours of porcupinial reproduction typically occur in November and December, further suggesting that what I had spotted had been convivial but not consummated. Still, even the sight of two porcupines hugging was a cheerful reminder of how many possibilities in this world we haven't even imagined.
BREVITAS
HEALTH & SCIENCE

National Geographic - With just a click of the tongue, anyone can learn to "see" with their ears, according to a new study of human echolocation. Several animals, such as bats, dolphins, whales, and some shrews, are known to use echolocation-sound waves bounced off nearby objects-to sense what's around them. Inspired by a blind man who also navigates using sound, a team of Spanish scientists has found evidence that suggests most humans can learn to echolocate. The team also confirmed that the so-called palate click-a sharp click made by depressing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth-is the most effective noise for people to use. Daniel Kish, executive director of World Access for the Blind in Huntington Beach, California, was born blind. He taught himself to "see" using palate clicks when he was a small child. Kish is able to mountain bike, hike in the wilderness, and play ball games without traditional aids.

WHY THE LEFT IS LOSING THE HEALTHCARE FIGHT

CYBER NOTES

Guardian, UK - A new kosher search engine called Koogle has been launched for orthodox Jews living in Israel, allowing them to surf the net without compromising the religious standards set by their rabbis. Koogle, which is a pun on search engine behemoth Google and a popular Jewish noodle dish, will filter out forbidden material, such as sexually explicit images or pictures of women deemed to be immodestly dressed, and restrict purchases of taboo items including television sets, which are banned in orthodox households
CNET - AOL, the current owner of CompuServe, confirmed the passing of CompuServe Classic in a message sent to subscribers last week. . Back in the early days of the PC, CompuServe was the Google of its day. Introduced in 1979, it was the premier service for a small number of geeks in the 1980s looking to share files and conversation as well as corporate customers looking for ways to connect their offices. And by the early 1990s, before the dawn of the World Wide Web and browsers, CompuServe's forums were the place to be on the Internet.

HOW CAN YOUTUBE SURVIVE?

THE MIX

Ng'ang'a Muchiri, East Africa in Focus - Most rags-to-riches stories take a lifetime. Such stories are even harder to find among African immigrants. But George Maragia is one of the few who have defied the odds and establish one of Pennsylvania's most successful medical transportation companies. Maragia came to the United States from Kenya in 1996 to study computer information systems at Rutgers University. Throughout college, he did several menial jobs, working at one time as a bus boy for the luxurious Sheraton Hotels. . . Maragia started a used car dealership, but the business was not lucrative enough. He dropped it to create a limousine company, occasionally driving the vehicles himself. But after 9/11, his company, like others in the transportation industry, experienced a serious reduction in demand.. . . Maragia decided to venture into the medical transportation industry with his partner, Mark Chore. They launched Whitehall Medical Transport Services in 2006, to offer ambulance, wheelchair and stretcher transportation to residents of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.

CORPORADOS

Wall Street Journal - The Department of Justice has begun looking into whether large U.S. telecommunications companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter. The review, while in its early stages, is an indication of the Obama administration's aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has said she wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies.

ECO CLIPS

Reuters - Toyota Motor Corp plans to start mass producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2012, with a projected first-year output of about 20,000 to 30,000 units, the Nikkei business daily reported. Toyota has said it would start leasing 500 plug-in cars globally by the end of this year, primarily for government and corporate use, but has not said when it would commercialize them. Toyota wants to price its plug-in hybrids at a comparable price to Mitsubishi Motors Corp's all-electric car, which debuts this month to fleet customers in Japan at 4.59 million yen ($47,800) before government subsidies, the Nikkei said.

Tree Hugger - Current rates of deforestation in the Amazon will have markedly less impact on the number of plant species to likely go extinct by mid-century, new research shows. Rather than the 20-33% predicted by some studies scientists from Wake Forest University say that 5-9% of species are likely to be extinct. . . The determining factor in habitat loss and extinction risk for a plant species was found not to be the size species' range, but its location.

Guardian, UK [A] stunning solar powered blimp is poised to take flight by harnessing sunlight for fuel. Dubbed Nephelios, the solar-powered helium blimp was designed and built by high school engineering students in France. The history making blimp will begin test flights in the next 2 weeks, and by summer's end the designers hope to fly Nephelios across the English Channel, "just to show that it's possible." Nephelios will be the first manned solar airship in existence, and its inaugural flight will prove that CO2-free air travel is now a reality. Part of the Sol'R Project, Nephelios consists of a lightweight aluminum frame with an outer wrap of nylon and polyethylene, which is filled with helium. Stretched out on top of the blimp are flexible solar panels that collect energy from the sun and convert it to power a small motor, which turns two large red propellers. The solar panels are capable of generating 2.4 kW of power and provide enough energy to propel the 18 foot in diameter blimp at 25 mph.

Tree Hugger - The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new set of rules under the Clean Air Act that would require all U.S. flagged ocean-going vessels to meet stricter diesel engine and fuel standards, leading to cleaner air along the coasts of the US . . . . California's new law only applied up to 24 miles from the coasts (for legal reasons), and just for one state. But if the whole US has a uniform regulation that requires cleaner burning engines and fuels, it won't as easy to just ship around the regulation. This should make a real different (if it is enforced properly).. . . Just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760 million cars.

SUSTAIN YOURSELF

Melanie Creamer, Portland Press Herald - About 10 years ago, [William] Burnham and Cheryl Atherton, his partner of 10 years, bought a 3-acre farm on Sebago Lake Road in Gorham. . . Mr. Burnham, who died Saturday at 69, loved working on his farm. Atherton said he liked to keep busy and enjoyed working on new projects. In the past couple of years, Mr. Burnham's back began to bother him. He came up with an idea to continue his passion for farming without the pain. He created his "Garden in Heaven," cutting large PVC pipes in half and putting them on metal posts that stood 4 feet tall. He then used flexible pieces of plastic to cover the pipes and protect the seedlings. In the pipes, he grew onions, Swiss chard, radishes and green beans. Atherton said it was his last project and a great achievement.

Padosa is a site for small businesses seeking to become more sustainable and helping the planet to become likewise

ART & CULTURE

Guardian, UK - Two titans of the British museum world, Sir Nicholas Serota and Neil MacGregor, sketched out their visions for the museum of the future. Both said that the relationship between institutions and their audiences would be transformed by the internet. Museums, they said, would become more like multimedia organizations. "The future has to be, without question, the museum as a publisher and broadcaster," said MacGregor, director of the British Museum. Serota, director of the Tate, said: "The challenge is, to what extent do we remain authors, and in what sense do we become publishers providing a platform for international conversations? I am certain that in the next 10 to 15 years, there will be a limited number of people working in galleries, and more effectively working as commissioning editors working on material online.". . .

JUST POLITICS

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now strongly approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent strongly disapprove giving Obama a presidential approval index rating of –8. The president's approval index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week

Yeas & Nays, Washington Examiner - [Rep Sheila Jackson Lee] appeared in Los Angeles to present the Jackson family HR 600 - a bill she and Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., introduced to honor the singer's contribution to the arts and humanitarian efforts. Problem was, she treated the stage in the Staples Center as she would the House floor. She took up more time speaking than others there who knew the singer more personally, speaking minutes longer than Al Sharpton, Queen Latifah, Magic Johnson and Brooke Shields. In fact, a well-placed source at the service told Yeas & Nays that the teleprompter flashed to her, "Please end your comments," and said everyone was "groaning" over how long it went. . . The framed bill she presented to the family in itself is quite rambling as well, containing 44 "whereas" clauses.

Heard On the Hill - The Texas Democrat - who, according to her spokesman, was asked to speak at the star-studded service by Jackson's brother Jermaine - has a history of making cameo appearances at funerals. The Houston Chronicle reported in September 2008 that Jackson had staffers "cull the obituaries" to find funerals at which she then requested to speak. "One told friends of taking her to five funerals in one day, and of hating to have to ask the families if they would allow her to speak," reporter Rick Casey wrote. "The request pleased some, he said, but angered others.". . . Jackson Lee said during her Jackson tribute that she was at the service "on behalf" of Congress

WAR DEPARTMENT

Washington Post - Rep. Silvestre Reyes (Tex.), in a letter sent to House leadership, said that CIA officials "affirmatively lied" to the intelligence committee when recently notifying the panel about a classified matter. Reyes wrote that it was one of several recent instances in which the CIA has not fully informed the committee on other classified notifications. His complaint echoed charges by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who on May 14 said the agency intentionally misled her in a 2002 briefing on interrogation techniques used against alleged terrorist detainees. "This committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and [in at least one case] was affirmatively lied to," Reyes wrote.

JUSTICE & FREEDOM

We reported earlier on a 16 year old from North Carolina being held in prison for reasons the federal government wouldn't say. Now there's this news release: The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Indiana announced that a three-count indictment was returned against Ashton Lundeby for his role in Internet bomb and related threats directed to Purdue University, Indiana University/Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Ind., and numerous other educational institutions throughout the country. . . . Lundeby was ordered detained and remains in federal custody. Under federal law, juvenile proceedings are sealed. . . The indictment alleges an extensive conspiracy involving Lundeby and unnamed other individuals to transmit bomb threats through the internet. Lundeby, often using the pseudonym "Tyrone," and his co-conspirators used Voice Over Internet Protocol software to set up large-scale conference calls across the Internet. In addition, online computer gaming accounts were used so participants could listen and observe the police response in real-time. Lundeby and his associates charged fees to listen and observe. Lundeby and his associates used other software to disguise their true identities and the origin of the calls.

INDICATORS

From the Center for American Progress

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