Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Yes, That Jerk Really Does Make More Than You (And Research Might Prove It)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/16/139687362/yes-that-jerk-really-does-make-more-than-you-and-research-might-prove-it?sc=fb&cc=fp
August 16, 2011
by Bill Chappell
Anyone who's harbored suspicions that only mean people seem to get ahead in the business world may be glad (or perhaps not) to learn that a new study agrees with them.
While such beliefs are often whispered in the office — and declaimed at volume during happy hour — new research quantifies just how much the nasty seem to profit by the (non-) virtue of their nastiness.
For men, the gain is around 18 percent in annual pay. Men who were rated as "highly disagreeable" on personality tests were paid an average of $9,700 more annually than men rated as "most agreeable," according to The Globe and Mail.
For women, the gain is only 5 percent — seemingly because it's not seen as a weakness for them to be pleasant. Wall Street Journal blogger Rachel Emma Silverman spoke with one of the study's authors, Beth Livingston of Cornell:
Dr. Livingston told me that more agreeable men may be penalized in the workplace because they might not be living up to longstanding expectations that men be aggressive, combative or even rude. "Nice guys are getting the shaft," she says, even in firms that claim to value teamwork. Women, meanwhile, are expected to be nice, so they aren't penalized much for being so.
[...]
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David Cameron on riots: broken society
Ethics is rooted in empathy. The conservatives, including Cameron, have encourage lack of empathy for the poor, and have castigated those who do express empathy. The inevitable result is a decrease in ethics in society.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/15/david-cameron-riots-broken-society
Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 August 2011 12.10 BST
David Cameron says the riots have put his broken society analysis 'back at the top of my political agenda' Link to this video
David Cameron pledged his government would "turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families" by the next election as he said his broken society analysis is "back at the top of my political agenda".
He made the ambitious commitment in a speech delivered on Monday at a youth centre in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire, in which he described the rioting as a "wake-up call" for the country. He said his ministers would use the summer to ensure their departments' policies address the causes of broken Britain.
The government has assessed there are 120,000 families across the UK that cause much of the disturbance in communities across the country – and he is now to use the government's success in turning around their lives as a benchmark against which he should be judged in 2015.
Cameron made the pledge as he reasserted his analysis that Britain is broken, but he joined Ed Miliband in drawing a link between the riots, and recent scandals in banking, parliament and journalism, his words almost precisely mirroring those of the Labour leader.
Cameron said: "In the banking crisis, with MPs' expenses, in the phone-hacking scandal, we have seen some of the worst cases of greed, irresponsibility and entitlement. The restoration of responsibility has to cut right across our society.
"Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations?
"Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort.
"Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control. Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised – by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised.
"So do we have the determination to confront all this and turn it around? I have the very strong sense that the responsible majority of people in this country not only have that determination; they are crying out for their government to act upon it. And I can assure you, I will not be found wanting."
Cameron made the pledge as he reasserted his analysis that Britain is broken, but he joined Ed Miliband in drawing a link between the riots, and recent scandals in banking, parliament and journalism, his words almost precisely mirroring those of the Labour leader.
Cameron said: "In the banking crisis, with MPs' expenses, in the phone-hacking scandal, we have seen some of the worst cases of greed, irresponsibility and entitlement. The restoration of responsibility has to cut right across our society.
"Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations?
"Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort.
"Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control. Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised – by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised.
"So do we have the determination to confront all this and turn it around? I have the very strong sense that the responsible majority of people in this country not only have that determination; they are crying out for their government to act upon it. And I can assure you, I will not be found wanting."
Cameron said he wanted to look at making tougher the welfare reform bill going through parliament. "I'm not satisfied that we're doing all we can. I want us to look at toughening up the conditions for those who are out of work and receiving benefits … and speeding up our efforts to get all those who can work back to work." [Weird. If people are behaving badly because they can't get a job, make sure they don't have any income at all and are totally desperate.]
[...]
"These riots were not about government cuts: they were directed at high street stores, not parliament. And these riots were not about poverty: that insults the millions of people who, whatever the hardship, would never dream of making others suffer like this. No, this was about behaviour. [Stupid statement. The rioters attacked the areas they did because they were close by and easy to get to. How would they get access to attack Parliament?]
"People showing indifference to right and wrong. People with a twisted moral code. People with a complete absence of self-restraint. [Like Murdoch, Wall Street finance people, the police who provided Murdoch's papers with info to help them hack phones, the police and goverment officials who covered up the Murdoch misdeeds for years.]
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700 water main breaks in Houston — a day
Same old, same old, ignoring problem until they are an emergency, when damage has already been done and it costs more to deal with. We're doing the same thing with global warming/climate change. I guess Texas governor Perry's solution will tell people to pray that the water mains don't break. And how does he feel about the government rationing water use, telling people what to do?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44160515/ns/weather/#.Tkr0EmNGZhk
By Miguel Llanos Reporter
updated 1 hour 2 minutes ago
It's not just hot and dry in Houston, the city's also losing water at an alarming rate due to water main breaks — 700 a day, the mayor said Tuesday.
Other cities across the central U.S. — which has had the worst of this summer's heat — are also seeing more breaks than usual as older pipes feel the strain from both sides: increased water use builds pressure from inside pipes, while dry soil shrinks away, leaving space on the outside of pipes for the inside pressure to burst through.
While many homeowners know the frustration of frozen pipes bursting "it can be surprising to know that high heat can also put stress on a pipe and cause it to break," Greg Kail, spokesman for the American Water Works Association, told msnbc.com.
"The nationwide infrastructure is getting older," he added, "and when pipes begin to corrode and weaken they're more susceptible to breaks brought on by temperature conditions."
In Houston, water rationing began this week and a frustrated Mayor Annise Parker said that was largely due to the water main breaks.
"Normally, in a summer we have 200 water main breaks a day over our 7,000 miles of pipes," she told KPRC TV. "Right now we're over 700 a day and we have a difficult time maintaining the water pressure."
About 40 crews are working on repairing broken water mains, officials said.
The rationing bans residents from outdoor watering more than twice a week and it has to be done between 8 p.m. to 10 a.m.
"While these restrictions are mandatory, we will begin with warnings and an informational campaign because the goal is voluntary compliance," Parker said in a statement Monday. "For those who insist on not being good neighbors, citations will follow."
Houston on Monday also saw its 15th straight day at 100 degrees or worse, breaking its previous record, set in 1980. The trend should continue for at least the rest of the week.
Other cities dealing with a backlog of water main breaks include Corpus Christi, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, and Oklahoma City.
In Kemp, Texas, a town of some 1,500 people about 45 miles southeast of Dallas, residents lost their water for three days last week after water tanks went dry due to drought and water main breaks.
Walmart came to the rescue by trucking in palettes of water, and city hall provided water only for non-drinking purposes.
Nationally, the American Society of Civil Engineers has graded the U.S. water infrastructure as a D- and noted that many water mains are beyond their designed life span of 65-95 years.
"Leaking pipes lose an estimated 7 billion gallons of clean drinking water a day," the society said in its most recent report card.
"Drinking water systems face an annual shortfall of at least $11 billion in funding needed to replace aging facilities that are near the end of their useful life and to comply with existing and future federal water regulations," it added.
Kail, the AWWA spokesman, notes that most of the nation's water pipes were installed in three periods: the late 1800s, the 1920s and the post World War II era.
"In many parts of the country those pipes are all wearing out at about the same time," he says, noting that a 2001 AWWA study estimated it would cost $250 billion to repair or replace aging water pipes.
Cities can either fix the pipes before or after they break, but before is much cheaper, Kail argues. Much like a car, he says, "if you invest along the way you're not going to be hit with the big bills later."
The AWWA hopes to get a bill sponsored in Congress that would provide low-cost loans for public entities to make those investments at a time of tight budgets.
"If we simply defer those costs, thinking that other more visible things are more urgent, the price tag is going to go up considerably," Kail says.
"Communities are going to have to make some hard decisions," he adds. "Your water pipes are out of sight and out of mind usually until there's a break or interruption of service. When water systems do fail it doesn't take long for a community to understand their value."
..
Study: An hour of TV can shorten your life by 22 minutes
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44156412/ns/health/#.Tkr0mWNGZhk
updated 8/16/2011 7:22:16 AM ET
Watching an hour of TV after the age of 25 can shorten the viewer's life by just under 22 minutes, according to researchers in Australia.
[...]
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Globe's 7th wamest July; remarkable heat in Asia
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1883
Posted by: JeffMasters, 2:34 PM GMT on August 16, 2011 +19
July 2011 was the globe's 7th warmest July on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies rated July the 3rd warmest on record. July 2011 global land temperatures were the 5th warmest on record, and ocean temperatures were the 11th warmest on record. Global satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the 6th or 3rd warmest in the 34-year record, according to Remote Sensing Systems and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). Arctic sea ice in July was the lowest on record, going back to 1979.
Remarkable heat in Asia
For the second consecutive summer, some of the hottest temperatures in Earth's recorded history have scorched Asia. The six hottest (undisputed) temperatures ever measured in Asia have all occurred in during the past two summers:
1) 53.5°C (128.3°F) at Moenjodaro, Pakistan on May 26, 2010
2) 53.3°C (127.9°F) at Mitrabah, Kuwait on August 3, 2011
3) 53.1°C (127.6°F) at Sulaibiya, Kuwait on June 15, 2010
4) 53.0°C (127.4°F) at Tallil, Iraq on August 3, 2011
4) 53.0°C (127.4°F) at Dehloran, Iran on July 28, 2011
4) 53.0°C (127.4°F) at Sibi, Pakistan, on May 26, 2010
Asia's official all-time hottest temperature is 54°C measured at Tirat Zvi, Israel on June 21, 1942. However, as explained by our weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, this record is under serious dispute. Weather records researchers Howard Rainford and Maximiliano Herrera discovered that the thermograph trace of the record had been mis-read as one degree higher than it actually was, and there were other irregularities with the data. Also, a temperature in excess of 54°C was measured in Mitribah, Kuwait in July 2010, but the temperature sensor was found to be faulty.
Last year, twenty nations set all-time heat records. So far this year, there have been six such records set:
[...]
No nations have set an all-time coldest temperature record this year, or did so in 2010.
..
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Pennsylvania Judge Sentenced for Cash for Convictions Illustrates What’s Wrong with Privatization
Ah, those hard-working rich owners, who are so great because of the jobs they create by locking up children.
http://dismalpoliticaleconomist.blogspot.com/2011/08/pennsylvania-judge-sentenced-for-cash.html
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Pennsylvania has privatized some of its juvenile detention facilities. In order to get a “full house” the owner/operator of one facility found an easy way to insure he was maximizing profit. He paid a judge to convict thousand of youths and sentence them to his detention center, where he then collected fees from the government.
The case against the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., who presided in Luzerne County, drew national attention for what legal experts say is a dangerous gap in the juvenile justice systems of many states — children appearing in court without lawyers.
Mr. Ciavarella was convicted and just sentenced to what is hoped to be a life sentence
There is no parole in the federal system, so U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik's 28-year sentence will likely keep Mr. Ciavarella behind bars until he is 89.
Mr. Ciavarella’s attorney supported his client, that what attorney’s do, but the attorney went way too far.
William Ruzzo, Mr. Ciavarella's lawyer, called the sentence for his client "much too harsh," noting that it amounted to a life sentence. "This was a nonviolent offense. I've had people convicted of murder who received as little as a six-to-12-year sentence," he said, adding that he plans to appeal the conviction
This “non-violent” offense may have partially or totally destroyed the lives of over 4,000 to 6,000 young people, whose convictions in Mr. Ciavarella’s court have been expunged.
Few of the young people had lawyers, a chronic problem that legal scholars say makes guilty pleas more likely, saddling them with criminal records. The state has since expunged more than 6,000 records of youths Mr. Ciavarella sentenced, some for crimes as small as stealing a jar of nutmeg.
But the fact that he is on trial at all feels like a triumph to Hillary Transue, whom he sentenced to three months for a spoof Web page mocking an assistant principal at her high school in 2007.
No, the sentence is not “much to harsh”. The Judge deserves two life sentences, one for this life, one for the life in the hereafter.
[...]
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"Naked" Jennifer Aniston Helps Out Haiti
http://news.yahoo.com/naked-jennifer-aniston-helps-ben-stiller-195149683.html
8/13/2011
By Kiri Blakeley
Actor Ben Stiller has figured out what many of us at Forbes have known for months—if you put the words “Jennifer Aniston” and “naked” together, you are going to get attention. Lots of attention.
Stiller, who's started a foundation that will help fund schools in impoverished nations like Haiti, came up a brilliant parody video to promote his cause. In the video, he tries to decide what to call his foundation. “Ben Schooler”? “Touched by a Ben-Gel"?
But Stiller is no dummy. He knows he needs to really grab people. So he decides to call his charity "The Jennifer Aniston Foundation” with the URL of the charity being seejenniferanistonnakedfoundation.com. Sorry, fellas (and ladies), the URL brings you to Stiller’s charity’s Facebook page. (Can’t believe that URL wasn’t already taken!)
Stiller is obviously already aware of the “Jennifer Naked Effect,” wherein if you insinuate in any way, shape, or form, that you might get to see Jennifer Aniston naked, thousands of people will instantly click. At Forbes, we’re quite familiar with this effect, and have put it to good use several times over the past few months.
[...]
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Texas Lets The Poor Burn To Keep The Rich Cool
This is even more disgusting because Texans have chosen to elect anti-environmental politicians who have helped block efforts to reduce global warming/climate change.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/13/texas-lets-the-poor-burn-to-keep-the-rich-cool/
August 13, 2011
By Justin "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario
Texas has, like much of the country, experienced a brutal heat wave this year. Triple digit temperatures are a mortal threat to the elderly. children and other vulnerable citizens and Texas has a system in place to protect those who cannot afford the excessive electrical costs associated with keeping cool (and alive). All residents that pay for their utilities pay a little extra to subsidize the poor in times of high energy costs like a vicious heat wave.
Without question, this saves lives and makes me wonder if my home state of New York has such a forward thinking program in place. The embarrassment of being out-progressived by Texas might prove fatal to a filthy liberal scum like me.
But lest someone accuse them of the dreaded “socialism!!,” the Republican Texas legislature has taken steps to remedy this situation:
From RawReplay.com:
CBS reports that the Texas legislature has repeatedly approved raiding the fund in order to balance its budget without raising taxes. By 2013, there will be $900 million sitting unspent, with no plans to ever pay it out.
This isn’t because there is a huge surplus, they’re letting people go without AC during a heat wave simply to avoid having to raise any taxes. Even on the richest people in the state. If even one single person dies because of this, that stolen money is blood money. And it is stolen money. If you donate money to feed the poor and someone uses it to buy a car that is fraud and highly illegal.
But what’s a little fraud if the rich don’t have their taxes raised, right? It’s just poor people left to suffer and die needlessly, so who cares? It’s not like they’re REAL people like a corporation or anything…
[...]
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G.O.P. on Defensive as Analysts Question Party’s Fiscal Policy
Of course "Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail refuse to back down". Deliberately holding back economic recovery helped them gain seats in Congress last year. Why should they give up a winning strategy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/business/economy/voices-faulting-gop-economic-policies-growing-louder.html?pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: August 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity and antitax orthodoxy.
Their critiques have grown sharper since last week, when President Obama signed his deficit reduction deal with Republicans and, a few days later, when Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States.
But even before that, macroeconomists and private sector forecasters were warning that the direction in which the new House Republican majority had pushed the White House and Congress this year — for immediate spending cuts, no further stimulus measures and no tax increases, ever — was wrong for addressing the nation’s two main ills, a weak economy now and projections of unsustainably high federal debt in coming years.
Instead, these critics say, Washington should be focusing on stimulating the economy in the near term to induce people to spend money and create jobs, while settling on a long-term plan for spending cuts and tax increases to take effect only after the economy recovers.
But Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail refuse to back down.
[...]
..
Saturday, August 13, 2011
If Fat Dogs Are Cool, Could Fat People Be, Too?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110812162549.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2011) — Fat dogs are cool. And obese people may be, too. That's what research by a University of South Carolina Salkehatchie professor suggests.
Dr. Roberto Refinetti, a professor of psychology and associate dean, studied the relationship between body temperature and body weight in lean and obese dogs. His findings showed that obese dogs have lower body temperature than lean dogs, and the difference in temperature is enough to account for weight gain.
[...]
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Contrary to Earlier Findings, Excess Body Fat in Elderly Decreases Life Expectancy
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110811151325.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) — While some past studies have shown that persons carrying a few extra pounds in their 70s live longer than their thinner counterparts, a new study that measured subjects' weight at multiple points over a longer period of time reveals the opposite.
Research from Adventist Health Studies recently published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed that men over 75 with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 22.3 had a 3.7-year shorter life expectancy, and women over 75 with a BMI greater than 27.4 had a 2.1-year shorter life expectancy. Generally, a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal weight, and a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight. A BMI of 30 or more is considered obese.
Previous work in this area by others found a protective association for a high body weight among the elderly. Pramil N. Singh, DrPH, lead author of the paper and an associate professor in the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University, says the data from many past studies is problematic because only a single baseline measure of weight was taken, which does not account for weight changes or how weight changes affect life expectancy. Additionally, most past studies had mortality surveillance of fewer than 19 years, which analyses have shown to be an inadequate amount of time to study risks associated with weight.
[...]
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Outrage Erupts After Energy Committee Evaluating Dangerous Gas Drilling Practice Is Stacked With 'Experts' on Industry Payroll
I noticed that NPR reported that the panel concluded fracking is safe, w/o any mention of the conflict of interest of the members of the panel. NPR is nice to its corporate donors.
http://www.alternet.org/water/152000/outrage_erupts_after_energy_committee_evaluating_dangerous_gas_drilling_practice_is_stacked_with_%27experts%27_on_industry_payroll?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet
August 12, 2011 |
After mounting concern about the public health and environmental risks of the controversial shale gas drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), last May Obama charged Energy Secretary Steven Chu with the task of setting up an advisory board to look into the practice. Thanks to Dick Cheney and something known as the "Halliburton loophole," fracking is exempt from major environmental laws that protect our water and our health even though fracking can pose serious risks. The process involves injecting water, sand and a toxic cocktail of chemicals deep underground at high pressure to break up rock formations and capture natural gas that may be released.
Fracking has resulted in over 1,000 documented cases of water contamination, yet companies are allowed to keep the chemicals they use a secret. Rural communities from Pennsylvania to Wyoming have been impacted by the industrialization of their towns by drilling operations and residents have complained of poisoned well water, health problems and even explosions from leaking methane. Calvin Tillman, the mayor of Dish, Texas left his town after his family became ill from nearby drilling operations.
So, some oversight from the Obama administration seemed like welcome news. Except the group, known as the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee, was a sham from the start. According to the Department of Energy, this special subcommittee's task was to "identify, within 90 days, any immediate steps that can be taken to improve the safety and environmental performance of fracking and to develop, within six months, consensus recommended advice to the agencies on practices for shale extraction to ensure the protection of public health and the environment."
The task wasn't to evaluate whether or not fracking was safe; simply how to tweak it a little to appease public outcry. And the recommendations the group made were definitely minimal. As the Washington Post reported:
A key Energy Department advisory panel will issue a qualified endorsement of shale gas exploration Thursday, saying that hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," can continue safely as long as companies disclose more about their practices and monitor their environmental impact.
The committee's report could ease the way for greater domestic gas exploration, even as it calls for new standards to limit harmful air emissions that bring to the surface gas buried deep in shale formations. But the report is largely silent on the most contentious issue surrounding shale gas exploration: who should regulate it, and whether regulators should apply to it laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act.
This conclusion is not shocking considering who was appointed to the subcommittee -- all but one has financial ties to the oil and gas industry. As 28 scientists from 22 universities wrote in a letter to Secretary Chu:
Arctic Ice Thinning 4 Times Faster Than Predicted by IPCC Models, Semi-Stunning M.I.T. Study Finds
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/11/294403/arctic-ice-thinning-4-times-faster-than-predicted-by-models-semi-stunning-m-i-t-study-finds/
By Joe Romm on Aug 11, 2011 at 10:45 pm
According to new research from MIT, the most recent global climate report fails to capture trends in Arctic sea-ice thinning and drift, and in some cases substantially underestimates these trends….
After comparing IPCC models with actual data, [lead author Pierre] Rampal and his collaborators concluded that the forecasts were significantly off: Arctic sea ice is thinning, on average, four times faster than the models say, and it’s drifting twice as quickly.
[...]
But it’s very safe to say that two-dimensional analyses of sea ice trends — ones that don’t model ice thickness and hence ice volume — are going to miss crucial feedbacks and dynamic changes. That is the central point of this new MIT study, which will be stunning only to those who don’t follow either this blog or the recent scientific literature.
Recent statements that we are seeing an “Arctic Death Spiral” focused on volume. In the words of National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) director Mark Serreze, who is most associated with that phrase:
Serreze (9/10): “There are claims coming from some communities that the Arctic sea ice is recovering, is getting thicker again. That’s simply not the case. It’s continuing down in a death spiral. Every bit of evidence we have says the ice is thinning. That means there’s less energy needed to melt it out than there used to be.”
Serreze (7/11): “The extent [of the ice cover] is going down, but it is also thinning. So a weather pattern that formerly would melt some ice, now gets rid of much more. There will be ups and downs, but we are on track to see an ice-free summer by 2030. It is an overall downward spiral.“
This new study, “IPCC climate models do not capture Arctic sea ice drift acceleration: Consequences in terms of projected sea ice thinning and decline,” (subs. req’d) adds to our understanding of how the two-dimensional models go astray. Here’s an extended excerpt from the news release:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, released in 2007, forecasts an ice-free Arctic summer by the year 2100, among other predictions. But Pierre Rampal, a postdoc in the Department of Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), and colleagues say it may happen several decades earlier.
[...]
Although it’s impossible to say for sure when we might see an ice-free Arctic, the IPCC itself has acknowledged that its 2007 report may have painted too rosy a picture. “If you look at the scientific knowledge things do seem to be getting progressively worse,” said Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chair, in an interview reported by The New York Times shortly after the report’s release. “So you’d better start with the interventions even earlier. Now.”
=============================================
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110811113956.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) — Although Arctic sea ice appears fated to melt away as the climate continues to warm, the ice may temporarily stabilize or somewhat expand at times over the next few decades, new research indicates.
The computer modeling study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reinforces previous findings by other research teams that the level of Arctic sea ice loss observed in recent decades cannot be explained by natural causes alone, and that the ice will eventually disappear during summer if climate change continues.
But in an unexpected new result, the NCAR research team found that Arctic ice under current climate conditions is as likely to expand as it is to contract for periods of up to about a decade.
[...]
..
By Joe Romm on Aug 11, 2011 at 10:45 pm
According to new research from MIT, the most recent global climate report fails to capture trends in Arctic sea-ice thinning and drift, and in some cases substantially underestimates these trends….
After comparing IPCC models with actual data, [lead author Pierre] Rampal and his collaborators concluded that the forecasts were significantly off: Arctic sea ice is thinning, on average, four times faster than the models say, and it’s drifting twice as quickly.
[...]
But it’s very safe to say that two-dimensional analyses of sea ice trends — ones that don’t model ice thickness and hence ice volume — are going to miss crucial feedbacks and dynamic changes. That is the central point of this new MIT study, which will be stunning only to those who don’t follow either this blog or the recent scientific literature.
Recent statements that we are seeing an “Arctic Death Spiral” focused on volume. In the words of National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) director Mark Serreze, who is most associated with that phrase:
Serreze (9/10): “There are claims coming from some communities that the Arctic sea ice is recovering, is getting thicker again. That’s simply not the case. It’s continuing down in a death spiral. Every bit of evidence we have says the ice is thinning. That means there’s less energy needed to melt it out than there used to be.”
Serreze (7/11): “The extent [of the ice cover] is going down, but it is also thinning. So a weather pattern that formerly would melt some ice, now gets rid of much more. There will be ups and downs, but we are on track to see an ice-free summer by 2030. It is an overall downward spiral.“
This new study, “IPCC climate models do not capture Arctic sea ice drift acceleration: Consequences in terms of projected sea ice thinning and decline,” (subs. req’d) adds to our understanding of how the two-dimensional models go astray. Here’s an extended excerpt from the news release:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, released in 2007, forecasts an ice-free Arctic summer by the year 2100, among other predictions. But Pierre Rampal, a postdoc in the Department of Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), and colleagues say it may happen several decades earlier.
[...]
Although it’s impossible to say for sure when we might see an ice-free Arctic, the IPCC itself has acknowledged that its 2007 report may have painted too rosy a picture. “If you look at the scientific knowledge things do seem to be getting progressively worse,” said Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chair, in an interview reported by The New York Times shortly after the report’s release. “So you’d better start with the interventions even earlier. Now.”
=============================================
Since computer models have been underestimating the effects of climate change, the following may turn out to be overly optimistic. It will be interesting to see what happens. Of course, if we do get these temporary stabilizations, the fossil fuel industry will claim them as evidence against climate change.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110811113956.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) — Although Arctic sea ice appears fated to melt away as the climate continues to warm, the ice may temporarily stabilize or somewhat expand at times over the next few decades, new research indicates.
The computer modeling study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reinforces previous findings by other research teams that the level of Arctic sea ice loss observed in recent decades cannot be explained by natural causes alone, and that the ice will eventually disappear during summer if climate change continues.
But in an unexpected new result, the NCAR research team found that Arctic ice under current climate conditions is as likely to expand as it is to contract for periods of up to about a decade.
[...]
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Less Salt, Less Strokes, Says New Research
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110811201521.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) — Speaking ahead of a United Nations High Level Meeting on non-communicable diseases, Professor Francesco Cappuccio from Warwick Medical School argues that lowering dietary salt intake has the potential to save millions of lives globally by substantially reducing levels of heart disease and strokes.
New research by Professor Cappuccio revealed this week in the the British Medical Journal (BMJ) shows that in the UK, a reduction of 3 grams of salt intake per day would prevent up to 8,000 stroke deaths and up to 12,000 coronary heart disease deaths per year in the UK.
A similar reduction in the USA would result in up to 120,000 fewer cases of coronary heart disease, up to 66,000 strokes and up to 99,000 heart attacks annually. It would also save up to $24 billion annually in health care costs.
The World Health Organisation has set a global goal to reduce dietary salt intake to less than 5 g (about one teaspoon) per person per by 2025, yet salt intake in many countries is currently much higher than this. The average daily intake in the UK is currently just under 9 g. The question, though, is not whether to reduce salt intake, but how to do so effectively?
[...]
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Can Blaming Others Make People Sick?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110809104259.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) — Constant bitterness can make a person ill, according to Concordia University researchers who have examined the relationship between failure, bitterness and quality of life.
"Persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person's physical health," says Carsten Wrosch, a professor in the Concordia University Department of Psychology and a member of the Centre for Research in Human Development.
[.....]
Unlike regret, which is about self-blame and a case of "woulda, coulda, shoulda," acrimony points the finger elsewhere -- laying the blame for failure on external causes. "When harboured for a long time," says Wrosch, "bitterness may forecast patterns of biological dysregulation (a physiological impairment that can affect metabolism, immune response or organ function) and physical disease."
[...]
The jury is still out on this proposal. Wrosch and Renaud say bitterness can be avoided, if people who experience failure can find other ways to fulfil their goals. If they can't, the researchers stress, it's essential to disengage from the fruitless effort (e.g., to get promoted, to save a marriage) and reengage in something that's equally meaningful (e.g., a new job or passion).
Called self-regulation processes, disengaging and reengaging can be necessary for a person to avoid bitter emotions. "Any effective therapeutic intervention," says Renaud, "hinges on the affected individual finding ways to self-regulate."
In some cases, overcoming bitterness demands more than self-regulation. When bitterness arises from blaming other people, then recovery may involve others. "In order to deal with bitter emotions there may need to be something else required to enable a person to overcome the negative emotion -- that something is forgiveness," says Wrosch.
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Friday, August 12, 2011
Obama: Different Style Rooted In Different Tradition
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/2011/08/12/obama-different-style-rooted-in-different-tradition/
by Karoli on August 12, 2011
Obama acts entirely within the tradition of mainstream African American political strategy and tactics. The epitome of that tradition was the non-violence of the Civil Rights Movement, but goes back much further in time. It recognizes the inequality of power between whites and blacks. Number one: maintain your dignity. Number two: call your adversaries to the highest principles they hold. Number three: Seize the moral high ground and Number four: Win by winning over your adversaries, by revealing the contradiction between their own ideals and their actions. It is one way that a oppressed people struggle.
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Northeast Passage and Northwest Passage both Ice-free
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1879
[...]
It is already possible to sail completely around the North Pole in ice-free waters through the Northeast Passage and Northwest Passage, according to sea ice maps maintained by the UIUC Cryosphere Today website. This marks the fourth consecutive year--and the fourth time in recorded history--both of these Arctic shipping routes have melted free. Mariners have been attempting to sail these passages since 1497. This year, the Northeast Passage along the north coast of Russia melted free several weeks earlier than its previous record early opening.
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Kids today really are less creative, study says
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44122383/ns/today-parenting/#.TkW-NmNGZhk
By Rachael Rettner, Staff Writer
updated 8/12/2011 3:19:19 PM ET
It sounds like the complaint of a jaded adult: Kids these days are narrow-minded and just not as creative as they used to be.
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But researchers say they are finding exactly that. In a 2010 study of about 300,000 creativity tests going back to the 1970s, Kyung Hee Kim, a creativity researcher at the College of William and Mary, found creativity has decreased among American children in recent years. Since 1990, children have become less able to produce unique and unusual ideas. They are also less humorous, less imaginative and less able to elaborate on ideas, Kim said.
Has modern society really extinguished the creative spark among our youth?
Experts say creativity is innate, so it can't really be lost. But it needs to be nurtured.
"It's not that creativity can necessarily disappear," said Ron Beghetto, an education psychologist at the University of Oregon. "But it can be suppressed in particular contexts."
The current focus on testing in schools, and the idea that there is only one right answer to a question, may be hampering development of creativity among kids, Beghetto said. "There's not much room for unexpected, novel, divergent thought," he said.
But the situation is not hopeless, Beghetto said. In fact, there's evidence to suggest that, worldwide, youngsters are very creative, particularly with their use of digital media, Beghetto said. And a recent study found that, at least in their playtime, kids are becoming more imaginative.
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Experts agree changes can be made in the classroom to cultivate creativity.
[...]
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Ghana schoolboy launches $13 million drive for Somali kids
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44122412/ns/us_news-giving/#.TkW7PmNGZhk
By FRANCIS KOKUTSE
updated 2 hours 31 minutes ago
ACCRA, Ghana — As international aid agencies scramble for donations for East Africa's famine victims, one multi-million-dollar fundraising drive has come from an unexpected source: a West African schoolboy.
Andrew Adansi-Bonnah is 11. And during his eight-week school holiday, he wants to raise 20 million Ghanaian cedis — or about $13 million — for his cause by walking office to office collecting donations in Ghana's capital, Accra.
Since starting the drive Aug. 1, he has collected about $6,500 in pledges for the fund he started after consulting with UNICEF and the U.N.'s World Food Program. His father, schoolteacher Samuel Adansi-Bonnah, donated his entire July salary of about $500.
Andrew said he was inspired by images of skeletal babies and stick-thin children he saw on television, which led him to name his campaign Save Somali Children from Hunger.
"There are hungry people in Ghana but our situation is not as desperate as the people of Somalia," said the skinny, soft-spoken boy.
The United Nations estimates more than 12 million people across East Africa need food aid because of a long-running drought that has sent more than 100,000 people fleeing to refugee camps. Somalia has been hit the hardest. U.S. officials estimate the famine has killed 29,000 children in the past three months.
The U.N. has yet to raise half of the $2.4 billion it has requested from donor countries. The U.N. says the famine is expected to spread to all regions of southern Somalia in the next four to six weeks unless more aid can be delivered.
The African Union has also urged African nations and private citizens to donate, and will hold a pledging conference later in August.
'This is not right'
Andrew said he is confident he can raise all of the money. Ghanaians on average earn $2,500 a year, compared to Somalia's average yearly income of $600, according to 2010 CIA estimates.
[...]
"This is a moment that mankind can touch lives," he said. "There is no point for others to have so much to eat while others have nothing to eat. It is not right."
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Unsuccessful enhancement
I activated the option on my blog to allow links to Facebook, etc., but it's not showing up.
Sorry, for anybody who might want to use it.
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Britain's Riots: A Grim Portent of the Consequences of Europe's Economic Crisis?
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/08/11/britains-riots-a-grim-portent-of-the-consequences-of-europes-economic-crisis/
Posted by Tony Karon Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 1:05 pm
To reduce the riots that have shaken Britain this week to nothing more than criminal wickedness, as Prime Minister David Cameron and his cohort tend to do, is a dangerous exercise in denial. And it barely survives the most cursory scrutiny: Thousands of people don't suddenly take to the streets to manifest wickedness as if in response to the appearance of Lord Voldemort's Deatheater sigil on their Blackberries, without any context; criminality -- which the actions of the rioters certainly are, with no mitigating features or excuses -- on the massive scale seen in London this week is indicative of a social crisis. And to dismiss as apologists for thuggery those who seek explanations in the state of society for a mass outbreak of criminality is a self-serving, self-deluding evasion by those in power. When so many young people have been so willing to break the laws that maintain order and protect property rights, it doesn't require a Marcellus to point out that there's something rotten in the state of Britain.
[.....]
Posted by Tony Karon Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 1:05 pm
To reduce the riots that have shaken Britain this week to nothing more than criminal wickedness, as Prime Minister David Cameron and his cohort tend to do, is a dangerous exercise in denial. And it barely survives the most cursory scrutiny: Thousands of people don't suddenly take to the streets to manifest wickedness as if in response to the appearance of Lord Voldemort's Deatheater sigil on their Blackberries, without any context; criminality -- which the actions of the rioters certainly are, with no mitigating features or excuses -- on the massive scale seen in London this week is indicative of a social crisis. And to dismiss as apologists for thuggery those who seek explanations in the state of society for a mass outbreak of criminality is a self-serving, self-deluding evasion by those in power. When so many young people have been so willing to break the laws that maintain order and protect property rights, it doesn't require a Marcellus to point out that there's something rotten in the state of Britain.
[.....]
Preschool: The Best Job-Training Program
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/12/139583385/preschool-the-best-job-training-program
August 12, 2011
by Alex Blumberg
When economist James Heckman was studying the effects of job training programs on unskilled young workers, he found a mystery.
He was comparing a group of workers that had gone through a job training program with a group that hadn't. And he found that, at best, the training program did nothing to help the workers get better jobs. In some cases, the training program even made the workers worse off.
The problem was that the students in the training program couldn't learn what they were being taught. They lacked an important set of skills which would enable them to learn new things. Heckman, a Nobel-Prize-winning economist, calls these soft skills.
August 12, 2011
by Alex Blumberg
When economist James Heckman was studying the effects of job training programs on unskilled young workers, he found a mystery.
He was comparing a group of workers that had gone through a job training program with a group that hadn't. And he found that, at best, the training program did nothing to help the workers get better jobs. In some cases, the training program even made the workers worse off.
The problem was that the students in the training program couldn't learn what they were being taught. They lacked an important set of skills which would enable them to learn new things. Heckman, a Nobel-Prize-winning economist, calls these soft skills.
The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest
In the past few days, I saw an article about some very rich "philanthropist" who had died. People said how great he was. The only "philanthropy" anybody mentioned was contributions to art museums. That's nice, but I notice that it is in the interest of the rich to support art museums, as it ensures the value of their own investments in art. It's certainly not in the same category as contributions to inner-city schools.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44084236/ns/health-behavior/#.TkRizmNGZhl
By Brian Alexander msnbc.com contributor
updated 8/10/2011 9:12:12 AM ET
Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.
In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest."
“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.”
Walking Around Is the Simplest Way to Shorten Hospital Stay, Study Finds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808104530.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 8, 2011) — Walking around the ward during hospitalization reduces the length of geriatric patients' stay in internal wards, according to a new study.
[.....]
The study found that all of the patients who walked around shortened their hospital stay by an average day and a half compared with those who did not exercise physical mobility. The study also found that those who walked around the ward on the first day of hospitalization shortened their stay more than the others. The researchers stated that they found this to be relevant regardless of the patients' health status.
According to the researchers, older patients might mistakenly believe that when they are hospitalized they must stay in bed. Studies of older adults have shown, however, that the opposite is true. "The muscle's reserve capacity' can decompose quite quickly in older people. If they shift from a mode of mobility -- even if it was minimal -- to a state of almost complete immobility, and even for just a few short days of hospitalization, they could very quickly lose their muscle 'reserves', resulting in more difficulties functioning and other complications. This study, along with other new studies in the area, shows that walking really does pay off," the researchers stated.
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Getting Along With Co-Workers Can Significantly Increase Your Lifespan, Says Researcher
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110804133604.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2011) — Companies like Google and Zappos.com are famous for their "work hard, play hard" attitudes and friendly work environments, but are their employees healthier too? According to a Tel Aviv University researcher, a positive relationship with your co-workers has long-term health benefits.
Dr. Sharon Toker of the Department of Organizational Behavior at TAU's Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration says that employees who believe that they have the personal support of their peers at work are more likely to live a longer life. "We spend most of our waking hours at work, and we don't have much time to meet our friends during the weekdays," explains Dr. Toker. "Work should be a place where people can get necessary emotional support."
[.....]
During the course of the study, says Dr. Toker, 53 participants died, most of whom had negligible social connections with their co-workers. A lack of emotional support at work led to a 140% increased risk of dying in the next twenty years compared to those who reported supportive co-workers, she concluded.
While building a supportive environment for employees may seem intuitive, Dr. Toker says that many workplaces have lost their way. Despite open concept offices, many people use email rather than face-to-face communication, and social networking sites that may provide significant social connection are often blocked.
[...]
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Thursday, August 11, 2011
Don't freak out! Facebook didn't publish your mobile contacts
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/10/7333958-dont-freak-out-facebook-didnt-publish-your-mobile-contacts
By Helen A.S. Popkin
8/10/2011
Facebook may be replacing old timey email for much of our e-communication needs, but we've adapted some of our most annoying habits to fit this exciting new medium!. For example: Blindly clicking on, cutting and pasting specious information of an alarmist nature that somehow seems all the more credible for its cap lock abuse. Case in point, this popular status once again making the Facebook rounds:
OMG this is for real everyone!!!! Warning to ALL ...ALL THE PHONE NUMBERS IN YOUR PHONE are now on Facebook! No joke - go to the top right of the screen, click on Account, then click on Edit Friends, go left on the screen and click on Contacts. All phone numbers are published!! Please re-post this on your Status, so your friends can remove their numbers and thus prevent abuse if they do not want them published.
Listen, seriously: Your mobile phone contacts synced to your Facebook account is nothing new, but nobody else can see them. Just to make sure however, we asked Facebook and a spokesperson told us this:
Our Contacts list, formerly called Phonebook, has existed for a long time. The phone numbers listed there were either added by the friends themselves and made visible to you or have been previously synced from your Facebook for iPhone application. This is not new functionality and is unrelated to Facebook Messenger.
If for some reason you're only learning now that the phone number you included on your Facebook profile can be seen by others — if you didn't change the default privacy settings — this is nothing new, either. While Facebook's privacy settings leave much to be desired, the social network has made efforts over the last year to both simplify privacy settings and educate users about their options.
Since we're on the subject, we should probably remind you that if you access third party apps — games, quizzes, etc., — you could be giving those third parties permission to access your personal information, including your phone number and address if you've included them on your profile. You should see a prompt with the fine print information, you just have to take the time to read it. Again, this is nothing new.
So let's review: "ALL THE PHONE NUMBERS IN YOUR PHONE are now on Facebook!" True, but nobody visiting your Facebook profile can see them. What's more, the Contacts feature only includes the phone numbers of your Facebook friends who also share their phone numbers on their Facebook profile. While the cap lock warnings in your friends' status updates may freak you out, this isn't a new thing Facebook is hiding from you.
[.....]
Meanwhile, if you'd rather not share your phone number, mobile or otherwise, with others, you can either delete your phone number from your profile setting or choose who can see your phone numbers in your privacy settings.
If you don't want the numbers in your mobile phone available in your Facebook account, do this:
From the Account menu in the upper right side of your Facebook profile, chose Edit Friends.
From the top far left of your Friends page, choose Contacts.
On the top far right of your Phonebook Contacts page, you will see this note:
Phonebook Contacts
Facebook Phonebook displays contacts you have imported from your phone, as well as your Facebook friends.
If you would like to remove your mobile contacts from Facebook, you need to disable the feature on your mobile phone and visit this page.
Click the "this page" link. It will take you to Remove Imported Contacts. Follow the directions and you are good to go.
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July 2011: Most extreme July on record for the U.S.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1876
Posted by: JeffMasters, 4:43 PM GMT on August 09, 2011
According to the National Climatic Data Center's Climate Extremes Index, July 2011 was the most extreme July on record (since 1910) with a value of 37%. The Climate Extremes Index is created by merging the various climate indicators (drought, flood, extreme heat, extreme cold, etc.) into an index that can be tracked over time. This month's record CEI was due to extreme warm minimum temperatures across the country, wet northern Plains and Great Lakes, extreme warm maximum temperatures, and the severe drought across the South and Gulf Coast.
It was the fourth warmest July on record for the nation, and the fourth warmest month overall with an average temperature of 77°F. Extreme heat continued to bake the South, and Oklahoma and Texas both had their warmest months on record. Oklahoma's statewide average temperature was a remarkable 88.9°F in July, which is the warmest monthly statewide average for any state in any month. Dallas, Texas hit or exceeded 100°F on 30 out of the 31 days in July. For the entire South climate region, which comprises Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, July 2011 was the warmest month on record for any of the climate regions.
As we noted in a previous blog, an unprecedented area of exceptional drought covered the United States in July, the largest area in the history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. 75% of Texas was in an exceptional drought, and the entire state of Oklahoma was in moderate to exceptional drought in July. The NCDC estimates that it would take 20 inches of rain to end the drought in one month in the worst hit areas of Oklahoma and Texas.
..
Posted by: JeffMasters, 4:43 PM GMT on August 09, 2011
According to the National Climatic Data Center's Climate Extremes Index, July 2011 was the most extreme July on record (since 1910) with a value of 37%. The Climate Extremes Index is created by merging the various climate indicators (drought, flood, extreme heat, extreme cold, etc.) into an index that can be tracked over time. This month's record CEI was due to extreme warm minimum temperatures across the country, wet northern Plains and Great Lakes, extreme warm maximum temperatures, and the severe drought across the South and Gulf Coast.
It was the fourth warmest July on record for the nation, and the fourth warmest month overall with an average temperature of 77°F. Extreme heat continued to bake the South, and Oklahoma and Texas both had their warmest months on record. Oklahoma's statewide average temperature was a remarkable 88.9°F in July, which is the warmest monthly statewide average for any state in any month. Dallas, Texas hit or exceeded 100°F on 30 out of the 31 days in July. For the entire South climate region, which comprises Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, July 2011 was the warmest month on record for any of the climate regions.
As we noted in a previous blog, an unprecedented area of exceptional drought covered the United States in July, the largest area in the history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. 75% of Texas was in an exceptional drought, and the entire state of Oklahoma was in moderate to exceptional drought in July. The NCDC estimates that it would take 20 inches of rain to end the drought in one month in the worst hit areas of Oklahoma and Texas.
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Chimpanzees Are Spontaneously Generous After All,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808152220.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2011) — Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center have shown chimpanzees have a significant bias for prosocial behavior. This, the study authors report, is in contrast to previous studies that positioned chimpanzees as reluctant altruists and led to the widely held belief that human altruism evolved in the last six million years only after humans split from apes.
[.....]
According to Yerkes researchers Victoria Horner, PhD, Frans de Waal, PhD, and their colleagues, chimpanzees may not have shown prosocial behaviors in other studies because of design issues, such as the complexity of the apparatus used to deliver rewards and the distance between the animals.
[...]
In each trial, the chooser, which was always tested with her partner in sight, selected between differently colored tokens from a bin. One colored token could be exchanged with an experimenter for treats for both members of the pair (prosocial); the other colored token would result in a treat only for the chooser (selfish). All seven chimpanzees showed an overwhelming preference for the prosocial choice. The study also showed the choosers behaved altruistically especially towards partners who either patiently waited or gently reminded them that they were there by drawing attention to themselves. The chimpanzees making the choices were less likely to reward partners who made a fuss, begged persistently or spat water at them, thus showing their altruism was spontaneous and not subject to intimidation.
"We were excited to find female after female chose the option that gave both her and her partner food," says Dr. Horner. "It was also interesting to me that being overly persistent did not go down well with the choosers. It was far more productive for partners to be calm and remind the choosers they were there from time to time," she continues.
The authors say this study puts to rest a longstanding puzzle surrounding chimpanzee altruism. It is well-known these apes help each other in the wild and show various forms of empathy, such as reassurance of distressed parties. The negative findings of previous studies did not fit this image. These results, however, confirm chimpanzee altruism in a well-controlled experiment, suggesting human altruism is less of an anomaly than previously thought.
[...]
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When and How to Toilet Train Children
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808124236.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2011) — Parents often ask their doctors for advice on toilet training young children, and a new article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) summarizes current approaches and evidence to help physicians respond to these queries.
"Toilet training is felt to be a natural process that occurs with development, yet very little scientific information is available for physicians who care for children," writes Dr. Darcie Kiddoo, Divisions of Pediatric Surgery and Urology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. "In reality, toilet training is a complex process that can be affected by anatomic, physiologic and behavioural conditions."
[.....] [The article gives a variety of methods that have been used, but no info on whether there has been any research into their effectiveness.]
Toilet training should be started when both the child and parents are ready. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Paediatric Society recommend starting when a child is 18 months old and shows interest in the process.
There is some evidence that indicates more negative outcomes in children who started toilet training late (after age 2 or 3 in various studies.) Negative outcomes associated with toilet training include refusal to void stool, hiding while defecating, leakage and daytime wetting or urinary tract infections. However, few studies have addressed the link between methods and adverse outcomes.
"In the absence of evidence, the treating physician must rely on expert opinion and should turn to the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics for advice for patients that is unlikely to cause harm," concludes the author.
..
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2011) — Parents often ask their doctors for advice on toilet training young children, and a new article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) summarizes current approaches and evidence to help physicians respond to these queries.
"Toilet training is felt to be a natural process that occurs with development, yet very little scientific information is available for physicians who care for children," writes Dr. Darcie Kiddoo, Divisions of Pediatric Surgery and Urology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. "In reality, toilet training is a complex process that can be affected by anatomic, physiologic and behavioural conditions."
[.....] [The article gives a variety of methods that have been used, but no info on whether there has been any research into their effectiveness.]
Toilet training should be started when both the child and parents are ready. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Paediatric Society recommend starting when a child is 18 months old and shows interest in the process.
There is some evidence that indicates more negative outcomes in children who started toilet training late (after age 2 or 3 in various studies.) Negative outcomes associated with toilet training include refusal to void stool, hiding while defecating, leakage and daytime wetting or urinary tract infections. However, few studies have addressed the link between methods and adverse outcomes.
"In the absence of evidence, the treating physician must rely on expert opinion and should turn to the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics for advice for patients that is unlikely to cause harm," concludes the author.
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New leukemia treatment exceeds 'wildest expectations'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44090512/ns/health-cancer/#.TkRW32NGZhl
By Robert Bazell Chief science and health correspondent NBC News
updated 8/10/2011 7:20:14 PM ET
Doctors have treated only three leukemia patients, but the sensational results from a single shot could be one of the most significant advances in cancer research in decades. And it almost never happened.
In the research published Wednesday, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania say the treatment made the most common type of leukemia completely disappear in two of the patients and reduced it by 70 percent in the third. In each of the patients as much as five pounds of cancerous tissue completely melted away in a few weeks, and a year later it is still gone.
The results of the preliminary test “exceeded our wildest expectations,” says immunologist Dr. Carl June a member of the Abramson Cancer Center's research team.
Dr. Edgar Engleman, a cancer immunologist at Stanford University School of Medicine who was not involved in the research calls the results “remarkable ... great stuff.”
The Penn scientists targeted chroniclymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common type of the blood disease. It strikes some 15,000 people in the United States, mostly adults, and kills 4,300 every year. Chemotherapy and radiation can hold this form of leukemia at bay for years, but until now the only cure has been a bone marrow transplant. A bone marrow transplant requires a suitable match, works only about half the time, and often brings on severe, life-threatening side effects such as pain and infection.
In the Penn experiment, the researchers removed certain types of white blood cells that the body uses to fight disease from the patients. Using a modified, harmless version of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, they inserted a series of genes into the white blood cells. These were designed to make to cells target and kill the cancer cells. After growing a large batch of the genetically engineered white blood cells, the doctors injected them back into the patients.
In similar past experimental treatments for several types of cancer the re-injected white cells killed a few cancer cells and then died out. But the Penn researchers inserted a gene that made the white blood cells multiply by a thousand fold inside the body. The result, as researcher June put it, is that the white blood cells became “serial killers” relentlessly tracking down and killing the cancer cells in the blood, bone marrow and lymph tissue.
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As the white cells killed the cancer cells, the patients experienced the fevers and aches and pains that one would expect when the body is fighting off an infection, but beyond that the side effects have been minimal.
Doctors had told Bill Ludwig, one of the research volunteers, that he would die from his leukemia within weeks. Then he got the experimental treatment a year ago.
With tears welling up, he told NBC, "I'm more closer to the people I love and I appreciate them more... I'm getting emotional... the grass is greener and flowers smell wonderful."
The other two patients have chosen to remain anonymous but one who happens to be a scientist himself wrote, “I am still trying to grasp the enormity of what I am a part of -- and of what the results will mean to countless others with CLL or other forms of cancer. When I was a young scientist, like many I’m sure, I dreamed that I might make a discovery that would make a difference to mankind – I never imagined I would be part of the experiment.”
So why has this remarkable treatment been tried so far on only three patients?
Both the National Cancer Institute and several pharmaceutical companies declined to pay for the research. Neither applicants nor funders discuss the reasons an application is turned down. But good guesses are the general shortage of funds and the concept tried in this experiment was too novel and, thus, too risky for consideration.
The researchers did manage to get a grant from the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, a charity founded by Barbara and Edward Netter after their daughter-in-law died of cancer. The money was enough to finance the trials on the first three patients.
With results for the three patients published Wednesday simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine, money for further studies -- not just in this one type of leukemia, but in other cancers -- will likely pour in from both the government and drug companies.
It is important to emphasize that there still have been only three patients. Over the past century, many attempts to harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer have shown initial success and subsequent failure. So much research remains to be done to prove just how good this treatment is. But it should begin soon, with great vigor.
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Small Amount of Exercise Could Protect Against Memory Loss in Elderly, Study Suggests
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110809184155.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2011) — A new University of Colorado Boulder study shows that a small amount of physical exercise could profoundly protect the elderly from long-term memory loss that can happen suddenly following infection, illnesses or injury in old age.
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Why Is America Cutting Emergency Food Aid in the Middle of a Famine?
And climate change, to which the U.S. are major contributors, is making droughts worse.
http://blog.bread.org/2011/08/why-is-america-cutting-emergency-food-aid-in-the-middle-of-a-famine-.html
Tony Hall and staff from the Alliance to End Hunger are currently in East Africa to see the devastating impact of the famine gripping the Horn of Africa. Here is his first-hand report:
Ambassador Tony Hall, executive director of the Alliance to End Hunger, on a visit to Kenya in 2006. Hall is currently traveling through the country to witness first-hand the impact of the famine in the Horn of Africa. When I first visited Ethiopia at the height of the 1984 famine, I watched as 24 people died of starvation in less than 15 minutes, right in front of my eyes. Barely five years into my career as a congressman, nothing my staff told me beforehand could have prepared me for what I saw on that trip.
Gasping at awful photographs of unspeakable human suffering is one thing; bearing firsthand witness to human suffering is another thing entirely. Glancing at a picture of a starving child in the newspaper, you can always turn away. But when you're staring into the eyes of a mother who has just lost that child, it's a completely different story. There's no looking the other way.
That's why I often describe those first Ethiopia experiences as my "converting ground" on issues of global hunger. What happened in Ethiopia changed me, and changed how an entire generation looks at hunger.
It's also why I'm currently back on the Horn of Africa, reporting on the ground from the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya, less than fifty miles from the Somali border. And I am appealing to my affluent brothers and sisters in the United Stated and around the world not to look away. We need your help.
The worst drought in 60 years has struck the continent, putting more than 12 million people at risk of serious malnutrition, starvation, and even death. According to USAID, more than 500,000 Somalis have already fled the worst areas of their country, seeking food and water across the border in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia.
Today at the Dadaab camp I met a husband and wife and their six children who have spent the last two months walking hundreds of miles from their home in Somalia. They arrived with nothing but the clothes on their back. They've made this tremendous sacrifice for one simple reason: They want to live. Dadaab gives them that hope.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, some of America's political leaders are considering budget cuts that would make it all but impossible for us to respond to crises like these in the future. The U.S. House of Representatives already voted on a budget proposal for FY2012 cutting emergency food aid by 75 percent compared with FY2008 levels. If enacted, these cuts will decrease America's commitment to addressing global hunger from 30 percent of the current global total need to less than 15 percent.
In my former role as the U.S. ambassador to the UN World Food Program, I visited dozens of refugee camps in crisis zones all over the world, and Dadaab is the best-run camp I have ever seen. It's clear that the money that the United States has spent on this crisis so far is being used well. We have actually learned and improved since 1984, but if we pull back now all of this is at risk. Now is not the time for deep cuts to emergency food aid.
The proposed cuts ignore the low-cost of these life-saving programs; U.S. foreign aid spending is less than 1 percent of the total budget. They also ignore broad bipartisan support these programs have shared in recent decades; President George W. Bush actually increased funding for international feeding programs. Moreover, these cuts would undermine our national security; hungry people either migrate, revolt ,or die, all three of which create extreme instability. Finally, and most importantly, these cuts violate the basic moral principle that we should not harm the most vulnerable people in the world in their moment of greatest need.
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Chase Bank Sells Off Soldier’s Home On The Very Same Day He Returns From Iraq
Isn't it nice to see rich bankers earning their money.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/10/292993/chase-bank-soldier-home/
By Zaid Jilani on Aug 10, 2011 at 7:40 pm
As ThinkProgress previously reported, Chase Bank had been planning to foreclose on the home of the family of Aaron Collette, who was serving in Iraq. Aaron’s father Tim had fallen on hard times following the recession, and the bank was refusing to work with the family to negotiate for new terms. After an intense pressure campaign from activists and Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-OR), the bank decided to delay the foreclosure past the original June date.
Yet when Aaron Collette returned home to the states this week for what should have been a warrior’s homecoming, he faced his father’s home that had been foreclosed on instead. On the very same day that Collette returned from Iraq, Chase sold the house back to itself during auction proceedings on the local courthouse’s steps. Local news station News 21 covered the event. Watch their report: [see link for video]
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Ironically, the day before the Collette family had their home sold off to the bank, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon bragged to Chase bank employees at a barbecue in Vancouver that his company was helping veterans keep their homes.
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Out of the shadows of modern day slavery
http://clatl.com/atlanta/georgias-human-trafficking-victims-get-relief/Content?oid=3831515
by Gwynedd Stuart | 08.11.11
For years, Atlanta has been among 14 cities the FBI considers the most booming markets for child prostitutes. But forced servitude in the metro region is hardly limited to the sex trade. Women and children — and sometimes men as well — are made to work without pay in fields, restaurant kitchens and even upper-middle-class homes as domestic servants. The factors that make Atlanta a thriving economic center have also made it a hotbed of human trafficking.
On Aug. 1, a variety of local and federal law enforcement agencies, politicians and nonprofit organizations gathered at Georgia State University to powwow about human trafficking, which has been called a growing problem in the Atlanta area.
[.....]
following the passage of state legislation giving it investigative and subpoena power, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation formed its own anti-human trafficking unit in July. In the past several months, Yates' office has indicted and/or prosecuted a number of human traffickers, including a man from Marietta who attempted to "purchase" a Guatemalan child for a year of sexual service; a Suwanee woman who lured two young Nigerian women to the U.S. and kept them as domestic slaves; an Ellenwood couple — a preacher and his wife — who forced a young woman from the Kingdom of Swaziland to serve as their housekeeper for two years without pay; and an Atlanta man who pleaded guilty to pimping out young girls on a classified ad website.
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The federal Victim Trafficking Act of 2000 created a channel for victims of human trafficking to obtain temporary immigration documents called T-visas. They're good for four years, and a visa-holder can apply for permanent citizenship after three. The only caveat is that they must agree to cooperate in the prosecution of their perpetrators. Most victims agree to those terms, but occasionally they don't.
Rosa De Kelly of Catholic Charities Atlanta recalls one particularly heartbreaking case in which the victim decided not to cooperate. The young woman, a singer, was brought to the U.S. and was forced to perform without pay. Her three male captors raped her repeatedly. "I think sometimes these people have shame or feel like they need to leave this behind. They're glad they're alive, glad they're free," says De Kelly. "[This girl], she wanted to just leave it behind. So, unfortunately, there was no prosecution."
[...]
Although victims of human trafficking are sometimes able to escape and report their forced servitude, Maja (who requested her last name not be used) of the nonprofit Tapestri says fear can prevent them from coming forward. "They fear law enforcement. They've been told by traffickers that they came in illegally and they are afraid they're going to be prosecuted for it, especially the women forced into commercial sexual exploitation — they're afraid they'll be held in jail for a long time," she says. "Many things are going through these people's minds. They don't realize there's relief and help out there for them."
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Tea Party Rep: Bank Should Have Known I Wouldn't Be Able To Repay $2.2 Million Loan
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/tea_party_rep_bank_should_have_known_i_wouldnt_be_able_to_repay_22_million_loan.php?ref=fpb
Jillian Rayfield | August 11, 2011
Tea Party aligned Georgia Rep. Tom Graves (R), who castigates Washington for fiscal irresponsibility, reached an out of court settlement Wednesday after he was sued for defaulting on a $2.2 million loan -- which his attorney argued is the bank's fault for lending him the money in the first place.
Graves and his business partner Chip Rogers -- who is the state Senate's Republican majority leader -- took out a $2.2 million loan from the Bartow County Bank in 2007 to buy and renovate a local motel. The project soon went belly-up.
The bank, which has since failed and had its assets taken over, sued Graves and Rogers for defaulting. The two Republicans then countersued, "accusing [the bank] of improperly declaring the loan in default after reneging on a promise to refinance it at more favorable terms," according to Jeremy Redmon and Aaron Gould Sheinin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .
In June, Simon Bloom, the attorney for Graves and Rogers, argued in a court filing that the default was the bank's fault because it lent the pair the money knowing full well they couldn't pay. Bloom cited a deposition in which bank officials saw Graves and Rogers' financial records, and then had them sign personal guarantees so they'd "'have some skin in the game' presumably meaning a sense of personal obligation for the debts ... even though they clearly could not fulfill the obligation." Graves and Rogers said they were unaware of that particular filing.
The case was settled out of court on Wednesday, and a Graves spokesman called the case "fully resolved in an equitable and fair manner."
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Graves, who won a special election in 2010 to replace Rep. Nathan Deal (R), voted against the House bill to raise the debt ceiling on August 1st.
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Spoiler Alert: Stories Are Not Spoiled by 'Spoilers'
Well, I've always known this. I like to read the end first. Then I can see how the rest of the story leads up to it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810093735.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2011) — Many of us go to extraordinary lengths to avoid learning the endings of stories we have yet to read or see -- plugging our ears, for example, and loudly repeating "la-la-la-la," when discussion threatens to reveal the outcome. Of book and movie critics, we demand they not give away any plot twists or, at least, oblige with a clearly labeled "spoiler alert." We get angry with friends who slip up and spill a fictional secret.
But we're wrong and wasting our time, suggests a new experimental study from the University of California, San Diego. People who flip to the last page of a book before starting it have the better intuition. Spoilers don't spoil stories. Contrary to popular wisdom, they actually seem to enhance enjoyment.
Even ironic-twist and mystery stories -- which you'd be forgiven for assuming absolutely depend on suspense or surprise for success -- aren't spoiled by spoilers, according to a study by Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt of UC San Diego's psychology department, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Narcissism May Benefit the Young, Researchers Report; But Older Adults? Not So Much
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810101630.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2011) — We all know one, or think we do: the person whose self-regard seems out of proportion to his or her actual merits. Popular culture labels these folks "narcissists," almost always a derogatory term. But a new study suggests that some forms of narcissism are -- at least in the short term -- beneficial, helping children navigate the difficult transition to adulthood. ...
"Most people think of narcissism as a trait that doesn't change much across the lifespan," said postdoctoral researcher Patrick Hill, who conducted the study with University of Illinois psychology professor Brent Roberts. "But a lot of recent studies have shown that the developmental trajectory of narcissism goes upward in adolescence and what we call emerging adulthood -- the late teens and early 20s, and then typically declines."
This reduction in narcissistic traits coincides with a decline in their usefulness, the researchers found.
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In the study, young people who were high in the leadership and grandiose exhibitionism forms of narcissism were likely to report higher life satisfaction and well-being, while mothers who had the same traits were not.
A sense of entitlement or willingness to exploit others for personal gain predicted lower life satisfaction at every age, however.
In general, participants had a lower opinion of those with narcissistic traits. Narcissistic mothers, in particular, tended to be viewed as neurotic and low in conscientiousness, the researchers found. Students who were narcissistic were not generally judged to be neurotic, but they and their narcissistic mothers were more likely to be viewed as low in "agreeableness."
These negative judgments, particularly of older adults, "could have quite interesting negative ramifications for people's circumstances in middle and old age if they retain this rather grandiose sense of self," Roberts said.
"This study continues a line of research that shows that there is a fundamental developmental shift in both the amounts of narcissism that people have and also in the meaning of it as people age," Roberts said. An exaggerated belief in one's own capabilities and prospects may help young people "navigate adolescence and the turmoil involved in trying to find a sense of identity," he said. Later in life, however, those same traits "appear to be related to less life satisfaction and a poorer reputation."
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Days Spent Reading to Dogs During Summer May Help Avoid Decline of Reading Skills
Maybe because dogs are not critical and "helpful" about reading mistakes?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810101614.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2011) — Second graders who read aloud to a canine over the summer seem to maintain their reading skills during the dog days of summer, according to a pilot study published August 10 by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
In the study, published in a whitepaper on the school's website, second-grade students with a range of reading aptitudes and attitudes toward reading were paired with dogs -- or people -- and asked to read aloud to them once a week for 30 minutes in the summer of 2010.
At the end of the program, students who read to the dogs experienced a slight gain in their reading ability and improvement in their attitudes toward reading, as measured on the Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS), respectively -- while those who read to people experienced a decrease on both measures.
Another surprising result was the high rate of attrition among students in the control group. Of the original cohort of nine, a third failed to complete the program. No students left the dog-reading group.
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Music Reduces Anxiety in Cancer Patients
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110809212424.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2011) — Cancer patients may benefit from sessions with trained music therapists or from listening to music. A new Cochrane systematic review shows using music can reduce anxiety in cancer patients, and may also have positive effects on mood, pain and quality of life.
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Narcissists Look Like Good Leaders, but They Aren't
I noticed years ago that the people who are always sure they are always right are sure to be quite ignorant. The more we know, the more we know we don't know.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110809184157.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2011) — Narcissists rise to the top. That's because other people think their qualities -- confidence, dominance, authority, and self-esteem -- make them good leaders.
Is that true? "Our research shows that the opposite seems to be true," says Barbora Nevicka, a PhD candidate in organizational psychology, describing a new study she undertook with University of Amsterdam colleagues Femke Ten Velden, Annebel De Hoogh, and Annelies Van Vianen. The study found that the narcissists' preoccupation with their own brilliance inhibits a crucial element of successful group decision-making and performance: the free and creative exchange of information and ideas.
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As expected, the group members rated the most narcissistic leaders as most effective. But they were wrong. In fact, the groups led by the greatest egotists chose the worse candidate for the job. Says Nevicka, "The narcissistic leaders had a very negative effect on their performance. They inhibited the communication because of self-centeredness and authoritarianism."
Narcissism can sometimes be useful in a leader, says Nevicka. In a crisis, for instance, people feel that a strong, dominant person will take control and do the right thing, "and that may reduce uncertainty and diminish stress."
But in the everyday life of an organization, "communication -- sharing of information, perspectives, and knowledge -- is essential to making good decisions. In brainstorming groups, project teams, government committees, each person brings something new. That's the benefit of teams. That's what creates a good outcome." Good leaders facilitate communication by asking questions and summarizing the conversation -- something narcissists are too self-involved to do.
Nevicka says the research has implications beyond the workplace -- for instance, in politics. "Narcissists are very convincing. They do tend to be picked as leaders. There's the danger: that people can be so wrong based on how others project themselves. You have to ask: Are the competencies they project valid, or are they merely in the eyes of the beholder?"
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Organic Poultry Farms Have Fewer Drug-Resistant Bacteria, Study Finds
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/08/10/139386917/organic-poultry-farms-have-fewer-drug-resistant-bacteria-study-finds?sc=fb&cc=fp
August 10, 2011
by Eliza Barclay
Proponents of organic meat often make the case that it's inherently better for people's health and the environment than meat raised by conventional farming methods. But the actual impacts of organic production can be tough for scientists to prove.
A study out today in Environmental Health Perspectives adds some weight to the argument that organic poultry, at least, may reduce one type of health risk. A team of scientists from the University of Maryland and other universities found that large-scale organic poultry farms — which are not allowed to use antibiotics to prevent disease in the animals — had significantly lower levels of one group of drug-resistant bacteria than their conventional counterparts.
The study comes at a time when antibiotic use in industrial livestock production is under heavy fire from the public health community. Farmers who raise food-producing animals use about 29 million pounds of antibiotics each year, according to the Food and Drug Administration, and the latest Salmonella outbreak in ground turkey turned out to be caused by a strain resistant to several antibiotics.
Bacteria resistant to antibiotics can make their way to humans through the meat itself and the environment — like waterways contaminated with runoff. If humans ingest those bacteria or are exposed to them other ways and get sick, there aren't many options for treating them.
Several European countries have already banned the prophylactic or preventative use of antibiotics for exactly this reason, and some studies there have shown that once farmers reduce antibiotic use, those resistant microbes mostly go away.
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For one common antibiotic, erythromycin, 67 percent of an Enterococcus bacterium from conventional poultry farms were found to be resistant, while 18 percent were resistant at the organic farms. But Sapkota notes that organic farms usually still have "reservoirs" of resistant bacteria that can linger in the soil or the packed dirt floor of the poultry houses, so they may never be completely free of the bugs.
But Sapkota's work does not mean organic poultry eaters get a free pass when it comes to food safety. No chicken is completely free of pathogens, and consumers still need to take all the precautions they normally would when preparing poultry: Cook it well and beware of cross-contamination on the cutting board.
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Ga. Republican congressman attacks agency for protecting US jobs
http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/08/10/ga-congressman-attacks-agency-for-protecting-us-jobs/
Writing in the Washington Post, Dana Milbank notes that U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, a freshman Republican from Georgia, has introduced his first bill, legislation that would abolish the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal assistance to those too poor to pay attorney fees.
“Scott introduced the bill abolishing Legal Services exactly three days after it became public that Legal Services had won a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determination that Georgia’s Hamilton Growers “engages in a pattern or practice of regularly denying work hours and assigning less favorable assignments to U.S. workers, in favor of H2-A guestworkers.” Hamilton also “engages in a pattern or practice of discharging U.S. workers and replacing them with H-2A guestworkers,” the EEOC determined.
Just to make things clear, Legal Services attorneys won a battle to protect American jobs for American workers in Scott’s congressional district. Hamilton Growers, the EEOC found, had been firing Scott’s constituents and replacing them with cheaper migrant workers, and that’s illegal.
The reaction by Scott, who campaigned against illegal immigration, was to try to abolish Legal Services. And he’s not alone. As I noted in a column back in March, U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, another conservative Georgia Republican, is also trying to abolish LSC, accusing it of filing frivolous lawsuits against Georgia farmers.
But as a senior staff attorney for Georgia Legal Services pointed out at the time, his group had filed 29 cases against Georgia growers, and had won financial judgments and settlements in 28 of those cases, totaling more than $2 million. They weren’t so frivolous after all. (Some of those cases, like the Hamilton Growers case, involved charges that farms were firing or refusing to hire Americans.)
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Milbank, noting that Scott enjoys strong Tea Party support, draws an interesting conclusion about that movement.
“It is fueled by populist anger, but it has been hijacked by plutocrats. Well-intentioned Tea Party foot soldiers demand that power be returned to the people, but then their clout is used to support tax cuts for millionaires. They rally for tougher immigration laws, but then their guy in Washington helps corporations to fire U.S. workers and hire foreign nationals.”
I can’t argue with that. Can you?
– Jay Bookman
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Finally, a pundit with a clue explains Obama to progressives
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/28/999869/-Finally,-a-pundit-with-a-clue-explains-Obama-to-progressives
Thu Jul 28, 2011 at 08:13 AM PDT
Finally, a pundit with a clue explains Obama to progressives
by Willinois
Many progressive pundits seem to be stuck in the past. They expect Obama to be another Bill Clinton. Even before the inauguration he was accused of being the next DLC conservative Democratic sell-out after every hint of compromise or attempt at consensus building.
They don't get it. They don't understand Obama's approach because they're expecting a repeat of something more familiar.
Finally, I saw an article by someone who does get it. James Warren, writing for the Atlantic, explains Obama in context of his background in the Illinois State Senate and as a "deal-making community organizer." I've always viewed Obama through the same lens and I suspect that's why I'm very rarely surprised by anything he does.
And, as you watch him, be reminded of his informative pre-law school days as a community organizer in Chicago. Recall how they inspired both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin to openly mock the term "community organizer" at the 2008 Republican National Convention, with the former New York mayor unable to contain derisive giggling as he openly wondered what the term stood for.
Well, it stands for giving power to the powerless. But, for Obama, it also meant a strategic set of notions about finding mutual agreement among people with the most divergent of motivations, according to Obama mentors whom I know from back then and David Maraniss, the journalist-author now working on an Obama biography.
He describes Obama as taking a pragmatic, non-ideological approach to making progress, which incidentally, is how Saul Alinsky describes his own approach in the community organizing favorite, "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals."
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He comes from a background which assumes that taking what you can get and fighting for more next year isn't considered a failure. Neither is getting people together for a solution that most can be happy with as long as progress is being made.
[...]
Obama's approach isn't evidence that he's a center-right or conservative President as I've seen him described by left pundits and bloggers. It's a difference of tactics, not ideology.
Undoubtedly, Obama needs to be pushed to do better. But, the comparisons to Clintonian third-way politics and broad-brushed denunciations don't add to the pressure or contribute to an understanding of what's really going on.
I'm afraid that too many on the left have been beaten down by decades of little or no progress. Losing has become part of their ideological identity to the extent that compromise is interpreted as failure . Progressives must learn to define success in ways other than losing righteously. There's a rising generation of progressives who aren't overburdened with cynicism and they're determined to get something done.
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Don't fight yourself
We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide. ~Havelock Ellis
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Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Was S&P downgrade an act of revenge?
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/09/7321296-was-sp-downgrade-an-act-of-revenge
8/9/2011
Bob Sullivan
You might think Standard & Poor’s has something against the U.S. government, the way the ratings firm treated the nation's credit rating on Friday.
In fact, it does.
It's hard to view the monumental ratings downgrade in context without understanding the long-running feud between the government and ratings agencies. In April, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., issued a scathing 650-page report contending that malfeasance at ratings bureaus like Standard & Poor’s was as much to blame for the housing bubble as any bank, and included a series of smoking gun e-mails that suggested that the firms knew they were profiting from unethical behavior. A little-known section of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill also hits the rating agencies with new limits destined to undercut their lucrative business; the Securities and Exchange Commission is discussing right now just how to implement the new rules. The public comment period on new rules ended Monday.
Is the timing a coincidence? Or could the ratings downgrade from Standard & Poor’s be viewed as a shot back at a government that's been taking plenty of shots at the ratings industry lately?
To be sure, no one needs Standard & Poor’s to say the U.S. government's coffers are in sorry shape. But this feud over the lucrative and arcane business of granting credit ratings shouldn’t be ignored.
For years, federal agencies and Congress have made attempts to reform the credit ratings business, which on its face is a bit absurd -- part accountancy, part cheerleader, part judge and jury of the financial system. As things stand, firms that want to borrow money from the bond market seek out a seal of approval from companies like S&P, Moody's and Fitch, and pay handsomely for it. The firms say they isolate fee collection from ratings judgment, but the business model is the very definition of a conflict of interest -- and the firms' actions during the height of the housing bubble call into question their ability to keep the ratings business free of profit-driven influence.
"It's like one of the parties in court paying the judge's salary," Levin said recently.
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Levin's report includes testimony from an endless stream of former employees who say they felt pressure to grant top ratings to new bond issues, lest they lose deals to competitors. In fact, the housing bubble was very, very good for the ratings agencies -- Standard & Poor’s fees from mortgage-related bond issues quadrupled from $64 million to $265 million between 2002 and 2006, the report found.
Internal e-mails from the various firms show that warning bells were repeatedly ignored. A 2006 email from an S&P employee cited in the report said the rating agencies "have all developed a kind of Stockholm syndrome," held captive by banks. Another e-mail cites an employee openly fretting about the agencies facing their "Nixon moment," when the housing bubble finally burst.
The problem hardly began with the overheated housing market, however.
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