Undernews For 23 July 2009

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23 July 2009

PAGE ONE MUST

THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE PASSING OBAMNIBUS HEALTHCARE PLAN
Progressive Review

What's in the over 1000 pages of the pending bill?

What services and cost savings do private insurers offer over single payer?

Whatever happened to the growingly accepted idea that a healthcare plan based on employer payments had been bad policy?

If we had had a single payer program twenty or thirty years ago, would General Motors have gone broke?

Why should the executive branch have the unconstitutional privilege of cutting the Medicare program without congressional approval - a selective line item veto that could hurt health services for millions of seniors?

While it is a good idea to eliminate repetitious medical tests, what grounds are there for assuming that appointees of Obama and his successors will do a better job of it than the medical profession? And might they not be more interested in making a better budget than a healthier patient?

Obama said, "Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that's out there. . . The doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, 'You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out.'" Could he identify the doctors he believes are doing this? Has he filed a malpractice complaint about them? And how is this different than a president cutting health care because he wants a lot more money in his budget?

Do we really want to boost the cost of drugs by banning generic competition to new drugs for 12 years?

Do we really want to ban cheaper drugs from Canada?

Does the fact that the current plan would subsidize private insurance for people earning in excess of $80,000 a year help explain why these private corporations have become more friendly to the measure?

Exactly how much healthcare rationing will there be?

How long will it take the country to undo the problems that seem inevitable as the result of a hodgepodge measure that nobody really wanted in the first place, nobody knows what it will cost, and nobody knows what it's really going to do?

STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT BEING SCREWED ON BOND INTEREST RATES

Bloomberg - State and local governments, forced to close budget gaps by firing workers and shutting schools, may pay at least $4.2 billion more in interest than companies with similar credit ratings on Barack Obama's Build America Bonds.

The $17.4 billion of Build America Bonds sold since April pay an average yield that's 0.96 percentage point more than corporate securities with the same ratings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and based on the 25 largest deals.

"Taxpayers are taking it on the chin," said G. Joseph McLiney, president of Kansas City, Missouri-based McLiney & Co., a firm that specializes in selling municipal bonds that qualify for federal tax credits. "There should be no spread."

While Build America Bonds opened credit markets to municipalities after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., states and cities are being penalized compared with corporations, which are 90 times more likely to default than local governments, according to Moody's Investors Service....

The difference in borrowing costs shows elected and appointed officials are failing taxpayers, said Stanley Langbein, a banking and tax law professor at the University of Miami and former counsel at the U.S. Treasury in Washington.

Issuers are "supposed to get the best rate available," Langbein said. "To me they're disserving their constituents. Their responsibility is to get the lowest rate available, which is the corporate rate."

MCDONALD'S WORKER ARRESTED FOR OVER-SALTING HAMBURGER

Consumerist - A 20-year-old McDonald's worker spilled salt on the hamburger meat that was used to make a "Big 'N Tasty" that was served to a Georgia police officer. The police officer says the burger made him sick-and Kendra Bull, 20, spent a night in jail because of it. According to Kendra, she accidentally spilled too much salt on the hamburger meat, tried to remove it, notified her coworkers, then took a break. During the break she says she ate a burger made from the salty meat.

Officer Wendall Adams got a burger from the over-salted batch, took a few bites and came back to confront Kendra. From WISTV:

"Bull admitted to spilling the salt on the burger, and the officer asked her to step outside, where he questioned Bull further, she said. Bull, who has worked at the restaurant for five months, said she did not know a police officer had ordered the burger because she could not see the drive-through window from her work area.

"Bull said Adams insisted the burger must have had something worse than salt on it. Adams actually did not eat the entire burger, and samples were sent to the state crime lab to find out what was in or on the burger that made Adams sick.

"Union City public information officer George Louth said Bull was charged with reckless conduct because she served the burger 'without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.'"

Crime lab analysis? It was salt.

ENTROPY UPDATE: 140 CHARACTER NEW JOURNALISM

David Brewer, Poynter Online - Imagine if a journalist writing a breaking news story online tweeted each element of the story as soon as the information were verified.

The work flow would look something like this:

- Check facts, write headline, tweet it.
- Check facts, write first paragraph, tweet it.
- Check facts, write second paragraph, tweet it.
- And so on . . .

Imagine if the tweets from a journalist at the scene of a breaking news story slotted neatly into a Web page displaying those tweets as a paragraph-by-paragraph build-up of the story, complete with any tweeted images needed to illustrate it.

Taken a step further, if the news organization is a broadcaster, the same text could be picked up and adapted for a radio voice piece or a TV voice-over.

Each paragraph of the online story would have retweet buttons so that audience members could forward only the parts of the story that interest them and are likely to interest their social network. . .

WALL STREET EVEN TAKING OVER ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPERS

DC Watch - Creative Loafing, the company that owns The Washington City Paper and The Chicago Reader, is in bankruptcy. Creative Loafing bought both papers two years ago, in July 2007, with a $30 million loan from Atalaya Capital Management of New York City and a $10 million loan from BIA Digital Partners of Virginia. On August 25, there will be an auction at which the two papers will be sold.

The only bidders are expected to be Atalaya and a partnership between Creative Loafing and BIA. If that's true, the winner will be Atalaya, because Atalaya is now owed $31 million, and will receive any proceeds from the auction up to that $31 million, after minor debtors are paid. Therefore, Atalaya can bid up to $31 million without actually spending any money. Because of that, Creative Loafing is asking the bankruptcy judge to disqualify Atalaya from bidding, which would essentially make Creative Loafing the default auction winner. Creative Loafing's CEO, Ben Eason, argues that the papers are his passion, that he's the best caretaker for them, and that Atalaya is just in the deal for the money.

AND JESUS WAS BORN IN DALLAS

Guardian, UK - The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.

Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasize the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue. . .

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called Wall Builders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual". . .

Another of the experts is Reverend Peter Marshall, who heads his own Christian ministry and preaches that Hurricane Katrina and defeat in the Vietnam war were God's punishment for sexual promiscuity and tolerance of homosexuals. Marshall recommended that children be taught about the "motivational role" of the Bible and Christianity in establishing the original colonies that later became the US. . .

And while God may be in, some of those he influenced are out. According to a draft of guidelines for the new curriculum, Washington, Lincoln and Stephen Fuller Austin, known as the Father of Texas after helping to lead it to independence from Mexico, have been removed from history lessons for younger children.

There's no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas. According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.

WHERE IS THE PRESS AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

Mark Plotkin, WTOP, DC - Last night the President had a press conference. But where was the press? I know they were sitting in their designated seats politely waiting to be selected to ask a question.

They all know the drill. The president has prepared for him a short list of the annointed few. They get to stand up, speak in the microphone and have their 15 seconds of fame.

I don't fault the President for trying to control the press. But I ask you, why does the press go along? There is not one moment of spontaneity. The questioners are tipped off, in advance, by the White House and they behave accordingly.

Not one questions about Iraq. Not one questions about Afghanistan, where American troops have had the worst month of fatalities in eight years. These guys, and women, are not journalists. They're enablers.

TOP SIX BANKS UP EMPLOYEE PAY 23% AS REST OF ECONOMY ROTS

Washington Post - Wall Street's biggest banks are setting aside billions of dollars more to pay their executives and other employees just months after these firms were rescued with a taxpayer bailout, renewing questions about compensation practices in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The recent outcry over bonuses at bailed-out firms prompted public alarm and promises of reform from financial leaders, who acknowledged that pay and bonuses should not reward risky short-term business decisions -- such as those that contributed to the meltdown -- but instead longer-term financial performance. But Wall Street, helped by improving profits, is on track to pay employees as much as, or even more than, it did in the pre-crisis days. So far this year, the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees, up from $60 billion in the corresponding period last year.

USURY PROTESTS IN FIVE CITIES

Washington Post - Several dozen protesters . . . descended on bank branches in downtown Washington as part of a multi-city campaign to bring back usury laws. They are calling for a national interest rate cap of 10 percent for credit cards and other types of consumer loans. Similar actions took place in New York, Chicago, Boston and Durham, N.C.

The event was organized by the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation with groups including the Washington Interfaith Network and Action in Montgomery. They have also sent letters demanding meetings with the chief executives of Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One, Discover and J.P. Morgan Chase.

Many states have laws that cap interest rates charged to consumers, but they do not affect rates charged by nationally chartered banks, including most major credit card issuers. Credit card companies frequently charge interest rates of more than 20 percent. A law passed by Congress earlier this year restricting arbitrary and excessive credit card fees has done little to quell complaints among consumers that they are being gouged by credit card issuers. Banks have responded by raising the fees they charge credit card holders.

Federally chartered banks were exempted from state usury laws in 1980. Since then, efforts to establish a national cap have met with mixed success. In May, an effort led by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) to set a 15 percent interest rate cap garnered only 33 votes. However, three years ago,

THE GATES CASE: WHAT THE MEDIA DIDN'T NOTICE

Dave Lindorff, Counterpunch - Professor Gates, who was understandably outraged at the whole situation, properly told the sergeant that he wanted his name and his badge number, because he intended to file a complaint. Whether or not the officer had done anything wrong by that point is not the issue. It was Gates' right as a citizen to file a complaint. The officer's alleged refusal to provide his name and badge number was improper and, if Gates' claim is correct, was a violation of the rules that are in force in every police department in the country.

But whatever the real story is regarding the showing of identification information by Gates and the officer, police misconduct in this incident went further. Gates reportedly got understandably angry and frustrated at the officer for refusing to provide him with this identifying information and/or for refusing to accept his own identification documents, and at that point the officer abused his power by arresting Gates and charging him with disorderly conduct.

There's nothing unusual about this, sadly. It is common practice for police in America to abuse their authority and to arrest people on a charge of "disorderly conduct" when those people simply exercise their free speech rights and object strenuously to how they are being treated by an officer. Try it out sometime. If you are given a ticket for going five miles an hour over the posted speed limit, tell the traffic officer he or she is a stupid moron, and see if you are left alone. My bet is that you will find yourself either ticketed on another more serious charge, or even arrested for "disorderly conduct." If you happen to be black or some other race than white, I'll even put money on that bet. . .

There is no suggestion by police that Gates physically threatened the arresting officer. His "crime" at the time was simply speaking out. . .

Very little of the mainstream reporting I've seen on this event makes the crucial point that it is not illegal to tell a police officer that he is a jerk, or that he has done something wrong, or that you are going to file charges against him. And yet too many commentators, journalists and ordinary people seem to accept that if a citizen "mouths off" to a cop, or criticizes a cop, or threatens legal action against a cop, it's okay for that cop to cuff the person and charge him with "disorderly conduct." Worse yet, if a cop makes such a bogus arrest, and the person gets upset, he's liable to get an added charge of "resisting arrest" or worse.

We have, as a nation, sunk to the level of a police state, when we grant our police the unfettered power to arrest honest, law-abiding citizens for simply stating their minds. And it's no consolation that someone like Gates can count on having such charges tossed out. It's the arrest, the cuffing, and the humiliating ride in the back of a cop squad car to be booked and held until bailed out that is the outrage.

I'm sure police take a lot of verbal abuse on the job, but given their inherent power-armed and with a license to arrest, to handcuff, and even to shoot and kill-they must be told by their superiors that they have no right to arrest people for simply expressing their views, even about those officers.

Insulting an officer of the law is not a crime. Telling an officer he or she is breaking the law is not a crime. Demanding that an officer identify him or herself is not a crime. And saying you are going to file a complaint against the officer is not a crime. . .

In a free country, we should not allow the police, who after all are supposed to be public servants, not centurions, to behave in this manner. When we do, we do not have a free society. We have a police state.

The following appeared in the front of the Coast Guard manual when your editor was an officer in the 1960s. It is from Alexander Hamilton's instructions to the first officers of the Revenue Marine, forerunner of the Coast Guard, and is one of the best descriptions of how law enforcement officers should deal with citizens. Not surprisingly, it has since disappeared from the Coast Guard manual.

Alexander Hamilton - While I recommend in the strongest terms to the respective officers, activity, vigilance and firmness, I feel no less solicitude that their deportment may be marked with prudence, moderation and good temper. . .

They will bear in mind that their countrymen are freemen, and as such are impatient of everything that bears the least mark of domineering spirit. They will, therefore refrain, with the most guarded circumspection, from whatever has the semblance of haughtiness, rudeness or insult. If obstacles occur, they will remember that they are under the particular protection of the laws and they can meet with nothing disagreeable in the execution of their duty which these will not severely reprehend. . .

This reflection, and regard to the good of the service, will prevent at all times a spirit of irritation or resentment. They will endeavor to overcome difficulties, if any are experienced, by a cool and temperate perseverance in their duty -- by address and moderation rather than by vehemence and violence.

JOBS NOT ALL THAT IMPORTANT TO HEALTHY ECONOMY ACCORDING TO ELITE

The establishment - in this case including Larry Summers, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and economists' - appear to have defined employment of Americans as of secondary importance in our economy

Wall Street Journal - The job market is doing even worse than the overall economy, prompting concern inside and outside the government that deeper-than-expected joblessness could persist once the recession ends.

Washington Post - The recession is expected to end sometime this year, but it could take far longer before millions of unemployed Americans notice. . . . . . . Economists worry that the worst recession of the post-World War II era could be followed by what they call a "jobless recovery," where output, or the gross domestic product, increases steadily while employment lags behind.

PASSINGS: JOHN S. BARRY, WHO BROUGHT YOU YOUR WD-40

NY Times - John S. Barry, an executive who masterminded the spread of WD-40, the petroleum-based lubricant and protectant created for the space program, into millions of American households, died on July 3 in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. He was 84.

The company says surveys show that WD-40, the slippery stuff in the blue and yellow aerosol can, can be found in as many as 80 percent of American homes and that it has at least 2,000 uses, most discovered by users themselves. These include silencing squeaky hinges, removing road tar from automobiles and protecting tools from rust.

Mr. Barry was not part of the Rocket Chemical Company in 1953, when its staff of three set out to develop a line of rust-prevention solvents and degreasers for the aerospace industry in a small lab in San Diego. It took them 40 attempts to work out the water displacement formula. The name WD-40 stands for "water displacement, formulation successful in 40th attempt.". . .

WD-40 hit store shelves in San Diego in 1958. In 1961, employees came in on a Saturday to produce the first truckload shipment to meet disaster needs of victims of Hurricane Carla on the Gulf Coast. WD-40 was used to recondition flood-damaged vehicles.

Sales continued to increase, but it was the arrival of Mr. Barry as president and chief executive in 1969 that jolted the company to dominance in its unusual niche market. He immediately changed the name of Rocket Chemical to the WD-40 Company, on the indisputable theory that it did not make rockets.

Mr. Barry was fiercely dedicated to protecting the secret formula of WD-40, not to mention its trademarks and distinctive container. The company never patented WD-40, in order to avoid having to disclose the ingredients publicly. Its name became synonymous with the product, like Kleenex.

. . He emphasized free samples, including the 10,000 the company sent every month to soldiers in the Vietnam War to keep their weapons dry. Within a little more than a decade, Mr. Barry was selling to 14,000 wholesalers, up from 1,200 when he started.

. . People's enthusiasm for sending in ideas for using WD-40 mushroomed under Mr. Barry. The uses included preventing squirrels from climbing into a birdhouse; lubricating tuba valves; cleaning ostrich eggs for craft purposes; and freeing a tongue stuck to cold metal. A bus driver in Asia used WD-40 to remove a python that had coiled itself around the undercarriage of his bus.

ORGANIC FARMLAND UP 118% SINCE 2000

World Watch -Farmers managed 32 million hectares of organic agricultural land worldwide in 2007, a 118-percent increase since 2000. This rapidly growing practice appears in 141 countries but still accounts for less than 1 percent of the world’s agricultural land.

Consumer demand led to $46 billion in global sales of organic food and drink products in 2007, with average annual growth of $5 billion over the last decade. The United States and European Union account for 97 percent of global revenue.

Many organic product labels are now owned by large companies as market supply chains continue to consolidate. Analysts highlight growing trends in the number of highly processed organic foods, in global sourcing rather than local, and in the quantity of organic products that are traded internationally.

HOW LARRY SUMMERS HELPED WRECK HARVARD'S ECONOMY. . . NOW HE'S WORKING ON OURS

Nina Munk, Vanity Fair - It's 2001 and Larry Summers has just been named president of Harvard University. Unapologetically combative, Summers is determined to lead (or force) the university into a glorious renaissance. Gazing into the future, Summers envisions smaller class sizes, a more diverse student body, a younger and more energetic faculty, a revitalized core curriculum, cooperation among Harvard's balkanized divisions, and a greatly expanded campus. Above all, at a university best known for its focus on the humanities, business, and law, Summers hopes to make science a priority. Belatedly, Harvard will match and even surpass the lavish investments that Princeton and Stanford have plowed into the sciences.

As Summers recently remarked to one of his colleagues, "I held out the hope that Boston would be to this century what Florence was to the 15th century."

Harvard's soaring endowment was the key to Summers' blueprint for the future. Instead of promoting fiscal restraint, he argued, Harvard should loosen its purse strings. The endowment should be used for "priorities of transcendent importance," he proclaimed to The New York Times in 2008, after resigning as Harvard's 27th president. "There is a temptation to go for what is comfortable," he added, "but this would be a mistake. The universities have matchless resources that demand that they seize the moment."

Caught up in the exuberance of the new millennium, and guided by Summers's transcendent vision for the university, Harvard embarked on a plan of action. In September 2003, Summers cut a crimson ribbon marking the opening of the $260 million New Research Building, at Harvard Medical School: at 525,000 square feet, it was the largest building in Harvard's history. The previous year, construction had started on the 249,000-square-foot Center for Government and International Studies. Designed by Henry N. Cobb, architect of Boston's John Hancock Tower, CGIS, with its two identical buildings covered in fragile terra-cotta panels, ended up costing a reported $140 million, more than four times what the planners had first anticipated.

The New College Theatre came next-a beautiful 272-seat space, built on the site of the Hasty Pudding Theatre of 1888 and retaining, at great expense, the Hasty Pudding's historic façade. A few months later, in November 2007, Harvard's Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering was completed. Its vital stats: 137,000 square feet, an internationally esteemed architect (1996 Pritzker winner Rafael Moneo), and a $155 million price tag, funded almost entirely with debt.

To be fair, when the Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering was still in the planning stage, Harvard intended to defray the cost of the building by selling naming rights. Nevertheless, for some now hazy reason, construction was well under way before a willing donor had been secured, and by then it was too late to seize the moment. "It is a lot harder to raise money for a building that has already been built" is how a former dean of Harvard College explained the situation at the time.

Where in the world were the voices urging restraint? "Some people really wondered at the expanse of the new buildings and the pace at which it was happening," I was informed by Everett Mendelsohn, a professor emeritus in the Department of the History of Science, who's been at Harvard since 1960. "Periodically, discussions would take place at the Faculty Council, and one of the deans or the presidents would come, and there would be questions asked. But there wasn't a regular give-and-take... I'd say there was a sense that the critics were not being heard."

Even today construction is going on at Harvard. The polished 520,000-square-foot Northwest Science Building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, has just opened. Over at Harvard Law School, a $250 million project, designed by the firm of Robert A. M. Stern, is a work in progress: a giant limestone building with a 700-car underground garage.

On the subject of Harvard's billion-dollar construction pit in Allston: over the years, quietly, the university had been assembling and buying hundreds of acres in the Allston-Brighton area, more land than it owns in Cambridge. Once home to slaughterhouses and stockyards and stench, Allston seemed the most likely place for Harvard to expand. In a 2006 interview with Harvard Magazine, Summers described Allston as "the launching pad for something new that reflects the dreams of the most creative young scientists in the world."

The university's master plan called for a "seminal" transformation of 220 acres in Allston over the next 50 years: in place of broken pavement and abandoned warehouses, Harvard would build new walkways and bicycle lanes. A paved piazza would be surrounded by theaters and museums. A new pedestrian bridge would span the Charles River. Here and there, landscapers would plant abundant, well-tended gardens. Small, charming shops would be adjacent to outdoor cafés. All that and more was the Utopian plan.

After decades of planning, construction began in Allston in 2007. Part one was to be the $1.2 billion Allston Science Complex. At 589,000 square feet it would include four buildings designed to house the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the Harvard Medical School's Department of Systems Biology, the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, and the new Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Earlier this year, however, when it became clear to everyone at Harvard that the effects of the global recession would be profound, construction at Allston was abruptly stopped. Not, mind you, that the verb "to stop" is part of Harvard's current vocabulary-the project is being "re-assessed" and "recalibrated." Once its mammoth foundation has been poured (for otherwise the unstable mud walls could cave in), the Allston Science Complex will be on hold.

Meanwhile, as Harvard pauses to recalibrate, five huge and silent cranes, like prehistoric relics, like monoliths, dominate the local skyline-or at least they did when I was there in May. Residents of Allston are furious; they think they've been double-crossed. You dirty rats, screamed a cover of the Boston Herald, referring to Allston's growing rodent problem and, subversively, to "rats" at Harvard jumping ship.

In theory, Larry Summers, who now heads the National Economic Council under Barack Obama, may have been the right person to lead Harvard into a glorious renaissance. In reality, however, when Summers was president of Harvard, he alienated just about every faculty member who crossed his path. Instead of being admired as a visionary, he was said to be arrogant. Instead of being recognized as a bold and fearless leader, he was perceived as a cerebral bully. That Summers suggested women lacked a natural ability for sciences did not help matters one bit. Nor did his very public feud with the professor of African-American studies Cornel West, who decamped for Princeton. In early 2006, anticipating a vote of no confidence by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Summers resigned.

WHY WE'RE LOSING THE AF-PAK WAR

Chris Hedges, Truthdig - The confusion of purpose in Afghanistan mirrors the confusion on the ground. We are embroiled in a civil war. . .

Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq. . .

We have stumbled into a confusing mix of armed groups that include criminal gangs, drug traffickers, Pashtun and Tajik militias, kidnapping rings, death squads and mercenaries. We are embroiled in a civil war. . .

We are losing the war in Afghanistan. When we invaded the country eight years ago the Taliban controlled about 75 percent of Afghanistan. Today its reach has crept back to about half the country. The Taliban runs the poppy trade, which brings in an annual income of about $300 million a year. It brazenly carries out attacks in Kabul, the capital, and foreigners, fearing kidnapping, rarely walk the streets of most Afghan cities. It is life-threatening to go into the countryside, where 80 percent of all Afghanis live, unless escorted by NATO troops. And intrepid reporters can interview Taliban officials in downtown coffee shops in Kabul. Osama bin Laden has, to the amusement of much of the rest of the world, become the Where's Waldo of the Middle East. Take away the bullets and the bombs and you have a Gilbert and Sullivan farce.

BUSTING THE MYTH ABOUT WOMEN AND MATH

Notices of the American Mathematical Society - One commonly held belief to explain the extreme scarcity of females who excel at the highest level in mathematics is that women simply lack sufficient aptitude for the field. The data presented here neither prove nor disprove whether the frequency of occurrence of people with profound intrinsic aptitude for mathematics differs between women and men. What they do indicate, however, is that this scarcity is due, in significant part, to changeable factors that vary with time, country, and ethnic group. First and foremost, some countries identify and nurture females with very high ability in mathematics at a much higher frequency than do others. . . A strong correlation also exists between the magnitude of measured gender difference in mathematics performance by eighth and tenth graders in a country and other measures of gender stratification such as participation in the labor force and politics.

Second, girls perform as well if not better than boys in mathematics throughout elementary school; it is during the middle school years, an age when children begin to feel pressure to conform to peer and societal expectations, that they start to lose interest and fall behind in most, but not all countries.

In some of the most gender-equal cultures, a gender gap is not observed in mathematics among fifteen-year-old students on the Program for International Student Assessment, not only with respect to median score, but also in the ratio of girls to boys performing above the ninety-fifth and ninety-ninth percentiles.

Third, Asian girls and white girls who are immigrants from Eastern Europe are well represented among the very top students identified in the extremely difficult mathematics competitions; it is only USA-born white and historically underrepresented minority girls who are underrepresented, underrepresented by almost two orders-of magnitude relative to Asian girls educated in the same school systems.

Fourth, the scarcity of females is much less pronounced in the sciences and engineering, fields that depend upon a solid understanding of mathematics. Their percentages in these . . . fields have been steadily increasing post-Title IX. . .

In summary, some Eastern European and Asian countries frequently produce girls with profound ability in mathematical problem solving; most other countries, including the USA, do not. Children, including girls, of immigrants to the USA and Canada from some of the countries that excel in the IMO are overrepresented among students identified as profoundly gifted in mathematics; USA-born girls from all other ethnic/racial backgrounds, including white, are very highly underrepresented.

REMEMBER HOW OBAMA WAS GOING TO GET THOSE LOBBYISTS OFF OUR BACK?

Discovered by Al Kamen, Washington Post

From: Quinn Gillespie & Associates [mailto:receptionist@quinngillespie.com]

Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009

Subject: You're Invited: QGA Breakfast with Fred Baldassaro, Department of the Treasury

Please join us on Tuesday, July 28th, as QGA welcomes Fred Baldassaro, senior advisor in the office of business and public liaison at the Department of the Treasury. Over breakfast at QGA's office, we will host an off-the-record opportunity to meet him and discuss the current financial landscape including how the new ethics rules work; the staffing situation at Treasury; and the legislative priorities of the department.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m.

Quinn Gillespie & Associates, 1133 Connecticut Avenue, NW; 5th Floor, Washington D.C.

CALIFORNIA TOWN WANTS TO SPY ON EVERY CAR ENTERING ITS BORDERS

KCBS - Tiburon's police chief is proposing using cameras to record the license plate number of every car that enters that city.

Tiburon is only accessible by two roads which means police could point the cameras, which are known as license plate readers, at every lane that leads into the city.

Police Chief Michael Cronin says the devises can compare plates to databases of cars that have been stolen or linked to crimes and immediately notify police of matches.

If the Town Council gives final approval to the idea, officials hope to install the readers by late fall.

Civil liberties groups are not happy about the proposal. Representatives of the ACLU of Northern California call the cameras a needle in a haystack approach that may waste money, invade privacy, and invite unfair profiling.

California ACLU - California cities are moving quickly to install video surveillance cameras on public streets and plazas without regulations, with little or no public debate, and without an evaluation of their effectiveness.

Even though 37 cities have some type of video surveillance program, and 10 cities are considering expansive programs, no jurisdiction in California has conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the surveillance cameras’ effectiveness. The ACLU sent Public Records Act requests to a total of 131 jurisdictions statewide and received responses from 119 cities.

Nicole Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director and report co-author, raises another serious concern. “The threat of widespread government surveillance only multiplies when cameras are combined with other new technologies such as radio frequency identification tags, face and eye scans, and automated identification software. In this light, video surveillance cameras provide a critical pillar for an emerging government surveillance infrastructure.

HOW ORGANIC FARMING COULD HELP AFRICA

IPS - In June, the aid organization Oxfam warned that sub-Saharan Africa will suffer great maize losses of up to two billion dollars annually due to changing global patterns.

The region is susceptible to water shortage, natural disasters and drought. Experts warn that Africa's scarce resources have to be used carefully to ensure food security.

According to Raymond Auerbach, a well-known advocate of organic farming in Africa, research done by a number of organizations proves that organic farming can double or treble production in the developing world. It reduces non-solar energy use by 33 to 56 percent; it uses water up to 40 percent more effectively and organically produced food has higher levels of vital nutrients. . .

A 2008 report by the United Nations Environment Program showed that in 114 projects in 24 African countries crop yields more than doubled when organic farming methods were used.

WHY THE INTERNET WORKS. . . AND DOESN'T

Guardian, UK - The second day of the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford began with contrasting optimistic and pessimistic views of the internet. Jonathan Zittrain, who recently wrote the cautionary book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, decided to paint an optimistic view of the internet and its future.

Discussing the creators of the internet, he said that they built the foundation for this global network despite facing a huge difficulty:

They had no money to build it "but they had an amazing freedom. They didn't have to make any money from it. The internet has no business plan. There is no firm responsible for building it."

In many ways, the internet should not work. As late as 1992, IBM said that it wasn't possible to build a corporate network using internet protocol.

Zittrain said the mascot of the internet is the bumble bee. It shouldn't be able to fly, but a recently government-funded program discovered how bees fly: They flap their wings really fast.

The internet works on a process that Zittrain compared to passing a beer to a person in a mosh pit. "This system relies on kindness and trust. This makes [the internet] rare and vulnerable."

Wikipedia also shouldn't work, according to Zittrain. "Wikipedia is an idea so profoundly stupid that even Jimbo [Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales] didn't have it," he said. Wikipedia was originally a way for editors of another project, Newpedia, to collaborate. But the backroom eventually took over the front room.

He showed how Wikipedians debate issues, and said that they are making their own law democratically. They decided to remove the real name of the boy who appeared in the Star War Kid YouTube video after his parents requested it. . .

From that optimistic view, Evgeny Morozov countered some of the cyber-utopian ideas that the internet, new media and technology were an unalloyed force for good and democracy.

Morozov, who is from Belarus, worked for an NGO using new media to promote democracy, but he found: "Dictatorships do not crumble so easily. Some get even more repressive."

He started studying how the internet could impede democracy. Cyber-utopians believe that with enough connectivity and devices that democracy will inevitably follow, he said. It was an assumption that underlies what he called "iPod liberalism" that everyone who owns an iPod must be a liberal.

If you believe 'Drop iPods, not bombs', the problem is that it confuses the intended versus actual uses of technology.

Governments are learning that censorship doesn't work but spin does. They are actually encouraging people to share information online. Blogs, Twitter and Facebook actually allowed the Iranian authorities to gather open-source intelligence on networks of anti-government activists.

The KGB used to torture people for weeks to get that information.

Also, he said that while many assume that technology is a catalyst for change, it might also be an opiate for the masses. Governments can engage in meaningless exercises that allow their citizens to believe they have a voice when the exercise itself is meaningless or it gives a government a scapegoat - the public - if the policy fails.

For technology to really be an agent for change, he said we need to stop thinking about computers per capita and start thinking about empowering NGOs and other members of society.

THE DANGERS OF A TWITTER REVOLUTION

Evgeny Morozov, Boston Globe - It's true that social media could do wonders when it comes to making many people aware of government's abuse or the venue of a rally. However, organizing protests is quite different from publicizing them; the former requires absolute secrecy. . . Discussing logistical matters on Twitter is simply going to attract unnecessary attention of the government and other detractors. This is why most such discussions take place on secure private platforms like e-mail or instant-messaging.

Besides, not all online activism is effective activism. What good is the ability of foreigners to contribute via Twitter if their contributions only worsen the situation for activists on the ground? Consider a much-publicized campaign to launch cyber-attacks on Iranian websites that are loyal to Ahmadinejad. Thanks to a tremendous viral success, hundreds of Twitter users - including many Americans and Europeans - took up "cyber-arms'' and launched their offensive, most of them without realizing that such attacks would also slow down Internet access to everyone else, including supporters of Moussavi, who might be unable to share their protest updates.

Similarly, the inadvertent consequence of a Twitter-based campaign to publicize the online locations of proxies - sites that may help to circumvent Iran's censorship - was that access to these sites was shut down too. For all it's worth, we may as well have been observing a Twitter "counterrevolution'': The fact that Twitter-based activism is restricted to cyberspace does not absolve it of its destructive capabilities.

We may be prone to embrace the thesis that the "Twitter revolution'' is shaking down the authoritarian fixtures of Iran simply because we know so much about the online activities of Moussavi's supporters - and almost nothing about those of conservative hard-liners. That their voices are missing from Twitter does not mean they are not relying on the same new media tools to mobilize their own supporters; they simply do it in Farsi and on local sites - we simply do not know where to look.

We shouldn't forget that Iran's hard-liners are not averse to technology: After all, it was the use of tape recorders and video cassettes that allowed the exiled Ayatollah Khomenei to build up revolutionary spirit in the country during the 1970s. His more contemporary adherents are as keen on blogging as their secular counterparts; religious seminaries in Qom, Iran's center of Islamic learning, have been offering blogging workshops since 2006; a dedicated organ - called The Bureau for the Development of Religious Web Logs - has been controlling these developments.

Thus, Iran's regime is quite knowledgeable about social media. Perhaps we should not read too much into the government's reluctance - or, some have argued, inability - to ban tools like Twitter. The reasons for these may be much more banal: These tools are simply too useful as sources of intelligence about what is happening in the country. Not only do they help the Iran government to follow the events closely (as well as to understand the perception of the government's actions) in every single locality with an Internet connection, they also help it to understand the connections between various activists and their supporters in the West. From the intelligence-gathering perspective, Twitter has been a gift from heaven.

However tempting it might be to attribute the Iranian protests to the power of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, we should be extremely careful in our conclusions, especially given that the evidence we are working with is extremely sparse. By sticking labels like "cyber-revolution'' on events in Tehran, we overstate the power of social media and make it look much more threatening than it really is.

. . The repercussions of a false "Twitter revolution'' in Tehran might be global too. Unfortunately, it is going to be bloggers in Russia, China, or Egypt who would eventually pay the price for such exaggeration; their governments, already suspicious of new media, may now want to take preventive measures - that usually involve intimidation and arrest - well in advance.

BREVITAS

POLICE BLOTTER

Chicago Sun Times - Two men -- at least one of whom was a contestant in a beauty pageant -- were charged with using a trophy to beat a judge because they allegedly did not like his vote in the West Side competition earlier this month. The attack left the judge with his jaw broken in three places and a gash on his forehead. Leroy Tinch, 28, of the 2200 block of Emerson Street in Evanston, and Anthony Johnson, 23, of the 8200 block of Keating Avenue in Skokie, were each charged with felony aggravated battery, according to Rogers Park District police Lt. John Franklin. . . Tinch, who resembles a woman and appears to have breast implants, was likely the one competing and probably did not win the trophy used in the attack, Franklin said. Tinch, who has a tattoo of "paw prints" on his chest, also allegedly slashed Latta across the forehead with an unidentified edged instrument, according to Franklin.

LOCAL HEROES

Stuff, New Zealand - Defiant Mapua artist Roger Griffiths today made a stand against Westpac by withdrawing his $190,000 savings in $20 notes.
The bank provided a red-and-black carry bag to take away the cash after meticulously counting it in front of Mr Griffiths at its Nelson branch. Mr Griffiths, a loyal Westpac customer for 25 years, decided to withdraw his money after the bank rejected his application for an $80,000 mortgage. "It's about time normal people took a stand." He said the bank turned down his application because he did not have a regular income as an artist. However, he was a successful artist, exhibiting his paintings at the World of Wearable Art complex, in Christchurch and New York, he said. He wanted to buy a $385,000 property in Mapua, had $200,000 in cash and was going to sell his $110,000 campervan. That more than met the bank's criteria for a 20 per cent deposit, and the property which included a home and commercial premises would have returned $500 a week, he said.

ECO CLIPS

We've been running some items lately about urban farming, but missed the fact that Vancouver has had a community garden program for over 30 years. City Farmer had a web site in 1994, a year before the Review had one. You can find out more here

HEALTH & SCIENCE

Press Watch - A pint of milk a day greatly reduces the risk of developing heart disease and suffering a stroke, a study has found. Researchers found that drinking more than half a litre of milk a day reduces the chances of suffering heart attacks and strokes by up to a fifth. It also reduces the chances of developing diabetes and colon cancer. The findings were announced by the University of Reading and University of Cardiff who analysed more than 324 studies from across the world.

BUSH NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME REPORT

Politico - President Barack Obama's Justice Department is arguing that former Vice President Dick Cheney's interview with prosecutors in the CIA leak case should remain secret for five to 10 years to persuade high-level government officials to cooperate in future investigations. "In making public the vice president's interview, you will chill them," Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith told Judge Emmet Sullivan during a two-hour hearing on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking release of records about the Cheney interview, which took place in 2004. Sullivan sounded highly skeptical of the government's arguments, but he said he had not decided how he would rule in the case. As the hearing concluded, Sullivan said he thought Congress had drawn a "bright line" with language in the Freedom of Information Act that generally exempts information about pending investigations from disclosure, but not closed probes, like the CIA leak case. He also said he would stay any ruling so the government could appeal before he released any documents.

ENTROPY UPDATE

NY Observer - From Ocala, Fla., and Unity, Maine, the fate of New York doormen may be decided. The two towns headquarter the remote command centers of the Virtual Doorman, a technology that, as the name suggests, acts as a building's doorman in everything but a warm body. Plus, it's cheaper: $9,000 to $17,000 for installation, maintenance extra, while a real, live doorman might run a building $80,000 annually. About 110 apartment complexes in the New York metro area use Virtual Doorman, mostly in Manhattan, and the company that released its first virtual doorman in 2000 is now looking to expand nationwide. There is a tradeoff, however, for the price: Orwellian-like vigilance. "The theme that's happened in the last couple of weeks is we have people that watch their dog walker," said Colin Foster, the founder and marketing head of Virtual Doorman. "'He was out for only 15 minutes-I'm paying him for half an hour!'" And workers from the Florida and Maine command centers can watch female tenants as they walk home alone from their parked cars. If anyone comes from behind, someone from Ocala can intone Eastwood-like, "Sir, you are instructed to leave the building. If you do not leave immediately, we will call the police," or, "We have already called the police, and they are already on their way." And why Ocala and Unity, anyway, and not, say, Brooklyn or the Bronx? The bottom line. "Fifteen to seventeen dollars is a very good salary in Ocala, Florida," Mr. Foster said.

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