We Cover the News
NYC Protest
Originally uploaded by mollydobkin.
We cover the news, so the MSM doesn't have to.
Also see the Flickr photo pool of the event.
We cover the news, so the MSM doesn't have to.
Also see the Flickr photo pool of the event.
InformationThe interior will contain a concert hall, dining hall, and conference center. There also will be galleries for artists to sell their creative works.A junction in the northern part of Sweden, a destination for people all over the world, a monument dedicated to wilderness, nature and the king of the forest. Our goal is for this giant moose to be "born" before the end of 2006.
- Situated on top of the mountain "Vithatten"
- 2 legs in the district of Arvidsjaur and region "Norrbotten".
- 2 legs in the district of Skellefteå and region "Västerbotten."
- Construction completely made of gluelam wood with steeltubes in the legs and in the "pinetree".
- Approx. 47 m long, 12 m wide, 35 m on the back, ca 45 m on the antlers. The antlers incl. tines approx. 100 m².
- The moose will bite onto a pinetree, inside the pine an elevator will lift people up to enter the moose through the mouth. The branches from the pine will serve as an umbrella over the antlers.
- The exterior will be made from heat-preparated wood, which makes it possible to decide colour by using different temperatures.
- A track will be made for those who rather want to walk to the top.
- Inside the moose there will be 3 floors with a total size of approx. 1500 m² and a floor in the throat with a size of 250 m².
- Done by December 2006.
The Birds and the B’s Challenging Chomsky, Starlings Learn ‘Human-Only’ Syntax Patterns By Inga Kiderra April 26, 2006 The European starling – long known as a virtuoso songbird and as an expert mimic too – may also soon gain a reputation as something of a “grammar-marm.” This three-ounce bird, new research shows, can learn syntactic patterns formerly thought to be the exclusive province of humans. Led by Timothy Q. Gentner, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego, a study published in the April 27 issue of Nature demonstrates that starlings have the capacity to classify acoustic sequences defined by recursive, center-embedded grammars. Recursive center-embedding refers to the common characteristic of human grammars that allows for the creation of new (and grammatically correct) utterances by inserting words and clauses within sentences – theoretically, without limit. So, for example, “Oedipus ruled Thebes” can become “Oedipus, who killed his father, ruled Thebes” or “Oedipus, who killed his father, whom he met on the road from Delphi, ruled Thebes,” and so on. Chomskian linguists have held that this recursive center-embedding is a universal feature of human language and, moreover, that the ability to process it forms the computational core of a uniquely human language facility. “Our research is a refutation of the canonical position that what makes human language unique is a singular ability to comprehend these kinds of patterns,” Gentner said. “If birds can learn these patterning rules, then their use does not explain the uniqueness of human language.”One thing remains unique about humans: We are the only creatures that can raise the price of oil by merely starting a rumor about attacking another country. The original article is in Nature, here.
Rags-to-riches dream an illusion: studyThis, of course, is a corollary of the principle that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Despite all the talk about developing an "ownership society," the fact is that the income gap in the USA is getting wider.
Wed Apr 26, 2006 11:40pm ET
by: Alister Bull
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America may still think of itself as the land of opportunity, but the chances of living a rags-to-riches life are a lot lower than elsewhere in the world, according to a new study published on Wednesday.
The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent, according to "Understanding Mobility in America", a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University.
By contrast, a child born rich had a 22 percent chance of being rich as an adult, he said.
"In other words, the chances of getting rich are about 20 times higher if you are born rich than if you are born in a low-income family," he told an audience at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank sponsoring the work. [link added]
He also found the United States had one of the lowest levels of inter-generational mobility in the wealthy world, on a par with Britain but way behind most of Europe. [emphasis added]
The World Bank: false financial and statistical accounts and medical malpractice in malaria treatmentThe article is made available freely to the general public, something which Elsevier generally is loathe to do; the fact that it is freely available is an indication that the editors think it is a pretty important matter. And so it is:
The Lancet Early Online Publication, 25 April 2006
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68545-0
The World Bank has an annual budget of US$20 billion, and is the largest organisation operating with a mission to reduce poverty worldwide. Malaria destroys about 1 million lives a year; the disease is the leading parasitic cause of death for Africa's children and impoverishment for their families. Here we examine how these factors meet in the new Global Strategy & Booster Program, which is the Bank's plan for controlling that disease in 2005–10.
We believe this plan is inadequate to reverse the Bank's troubling history of neglect for malaria. In the past 5 years, the Bank has failed to uphold a pledge to increase funding for malaria control in Africa, has claimed success in its malaria programmes by promulgating false epidemiological statistics, and has approved clinically obsolete treatments for a potentially deadly form of malaria. Crucially, the Bank also downsized its malaria staff, so that it cannot swiftly execute the restoration it plans under the Global Strategy & Booster Program. We summarise the evidence, show that the Bank possesses demonstrably little expertise in malaria, and argue that the Bank should relinquish its funding to other agencies better placed to control the disease. [...]
The Bank's secrecy and technical errors combine dangerously when we look at malaria treatment. Our investigations suggest that the Bank wasted money and lives on ineffective medicines.The authors go on to provide abundant evidence of profound mismanagement. The more you read, the worse it sounds, despite the fact that it was written in a dispassionate and objective style. If anything, they are too gentle. After stating that their investigations "suggest" that the Bank wasted money and lives, they document six instances of exactly that.
The bill Introduced Tuesday in Congress would set aside $45 million in federal grants over seven years as seed money for communities to design and implement local programs to provide health insurance or health care services to the uninsured. There are 1.1 million uninsured people in Michigan.As commendable as these initiative may seem, they suffer from a serious flaw. They rely on an unreliable patchwork of solutions. The specifics vary from place to place, and change from time to time. As a result, healthcare providers will have a hard time understanding exactly what benefits are available, where, when, and for whom. This will make it difficult for providers to formulate treatment plans for their patients.
"As we all know, there are way too many Americans who do not have access to health insurance and therefore they do not have access to health coverage," said U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, the bill's main sponsor.
"We also know that as we face this issue in health care, there's not a silver bullet to address these concerns. We need to be doing a lot of things in a lot of different areas."
Inspired by Muskegon's Access Health insurance program, the Communities Building Access Act would allow communities to leverage federal grants to create local health insurance cooperatives where the cost of care is shared by the local government, employers and employees.
The money also could be used to create volunteer specialty provider networks, in which providers discount their services to care for low-income members of the network. CareNet of Toledo/Lucas County, Ohio, is the most prominent example of such a network.
Vondie Woodbury, director of the Muskegon Community Health Project, said that these community-based solutions are appealing to the business community, which has been reluctant to embrace national solutions for fear they would be costly and require too much red tape.
The memos, including an order dated April 4 and titled "Subject: Prevention of Trafficking in Persons in MNF-I," or Multinational Forces-Iraq, say the military also confirmed a host of other abuses during an inspection of contracting activities supporting the U.S. military in Iraq. They include deceptive hiring practices; excessive fees charged by overseas job brokers who lure workers into Iraq; substandard living conditions once laborers arrive; violations of Iraqi immigration laws; and a lack of mandatory "awareness training" on U.S. bases concerning human trafficking.That quote does not make it sound too bad, but the rest of the article details some overtly abusive practices:
Those workers and others suffered from a chain of exploitation that began in their home countries, where families often assumed huge debts to pay fees demanded by brokers, to Iraq. Even after discovering they'd been deceived, workers felt compelled to head into the war zone, or remain in danger for much longer than they desired, just to pay those debts.I have two things to say about this. First, it is absolutely disgusting that we would essentially enslave people, all in the service of "liberating" Iraq. Second, it is unbelievably stupid to import labor, when the unemployment rate in Iraq is so high. All it does is alienate the local people. What are they to think, when they see jobs going to foreigners, while their own people are going without jobs?
The Tribune also found evidence that subcontractors and brokers routinely seized workers' passports, deceived them about their safety or contract terms and, in at least one case, allegedly tried to force terrified men into Iraq under the threat of cutting off their food and water.
Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Open-Source compared to Microsoft.While that is not what I would call an earth-shattering result, it was kind of fun to take the test. Specifically, it was fun to try to figure out why the test works the way it does.
Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research done at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Yale University. However, these Universities, as well as the individual researchers who have contributed to this site, make no claim for the validity of these suggested interpretations. If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further.That would be common sense. My question for tonight is this: What is the opposite of common sense? Is it absurdity?
Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer," said George.
--Kurt Vonnegut, in Welcome To the Monkey House
A Peaceful Call to ArmsLast year, when I first noticed the propaganda that seemed to be preparing the US public for war with Iran, one of my first thoughts was 'There would have to be a draft. The American Public would not stand for that.' I suppose I was trying to reassure myself.
By PAUL KANE
Published: April 20, 2006
THE American public needs to be prepared for what is shaping up to be a clash of colossal proportions between the West and Iran.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt masterfully prepared Americans before the United States entered World War II by initiating a peacetime draft under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.
Now, President Bush and Congress should reinstitute selective service under a lottery without any deferments.
This single action will send a strong message to three constituencies in the crisis over Iran's nuclear intentions — Iran, outside powers like China and Russia and Americans at home — and perhaps lead to a peaceful resolution. [...]
Rove Is Giving Up Daily Policy Post to Focus on VoteWhat I want to know is this: if this guy's job is to "concentrate on the midterm elections," then why is he drawing a government salary?
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: April 20, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 19 — The overhaul of the White House staff intensified on Wednesday as Karl Rove, one of the president's most powerful and feared advisers, gave up day-to-day control over the administration's domestic policy to concentrate on the midterm elections. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said he was stepping down. [...]
Sleep Apnea Increases Cardiac Arrhythmia RiskWearing medical devices will be stylish someday, but quadrigeminy never will be stylish.
By Will Boggs. MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Apr 17 - Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is associated with an increased risk for complex cardiac arrhythmias, according to a report in the April 15th issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
This study, "suggests increased vulnerability for nocturnal cardiac arrhythmias in those with SDB," Dr. Reena Mehra from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio told Reuters Health. However, "the potential relationships of these arrhythmias and sudden nocturnal cardiac death in patients with SDB remain to be determined."
Dr. Mehra and colleagues compared the prevalence of arrhythmias in 228 patients with SDB and in 338 matched controls without SDB.
Atrial fibrillation, nonsustained ventricular tachycardia, complex ventricular ectopy, bigeminy, and quadrigeminy were significantly more common among SDB patients than among controls, the authors report. [...]
Electrical engineer Stephen Forrest of the University of Michigan, chemist Mark Thompson of the University of Southern California and their colleagues created the so-called organic LED by combining two layers of phosphorescent diodes--to release green and red wavelength light--and one layer of a fluorescent diode to supply blue wavelength light.This is a bit of a curiosity: the device uses both fluorescence and phosphorescence. The article implies that the only remaining technological obstacle is that they have to figure out what kind of coating to put on it, to keep moisture out. That is not expected to be a big obstacle. Lighting accounts for 22% of the electricity used in buildings. These devices would reduce that by 60%. Savings actually would be greater, in those buildings that are cooled by air conditioning.
Since they began six years ago, the Cactus Rescue Crew has rescued over 27,000 cacti and other native plants from road widening, subdivisions, golf courses and shopping malls in Arizona.The New York Times reports that volunteers have banded together to save cactus plants, by relocating them away from areas of development.
Restless legs syndrome is a relatively common disorder that often occurs just before falling asleep, particularly among persons > 50 yr. The cause is unknown, but >= 1/3 of persons with the syndrome have a family history. Uncomfortable sensations that are difficult to describe are felt in the legs and are relieved temporarily by movement. Patient distress and sleep loss may become severe. Treatment can be difficult and often requires trying different drugs and dosage regimens. The drugs of choice are the dopamine agonists pergolide and carbidopa/levodopa. Other choices are oxycodone, carbamazepine, and gabapentin. Benzodiazepines taken at bedtime prevent awakening but not nocturnal movements.Although Merck is a drug company, they do not have any drugs for RLS. Perhaps a more objective source, though, is Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. This is available online, although you have to be a medical doctor to register for it:
[...] Patients with this sensory-motor disorder report a creeping or crawling dysesthesia deep within the calves or feet, or sometimes even in the upper extemities, that is associated with an irresistible urge to move the affected limbs. For most patients with RLS, the dysesthesias and restlessness are much worse in the evening or night compared to the daytime and frequently interfere with the ability to fall asleep. The disorder is exacerbated by inactivity and temporarily relieved by movement. In contrast, paresthesias secondary to peripheral neuropathy persists with activity. The severity of this chronic disorder may wax and wane with time and can be exacerbated by sleep deprivation, caffeine, and pregnancy. The prevalence is 1 to 5% of young to middle-age adults and increases to 10 to 20% in those >60 years. There appear to be important differences in RLS prevalence among racial groups, with higher prevalence in those of Northern European ancestry. [...]Medical textbooks are not always the best source of up-to-date medical information, but Harrison's is pretty reputable, and this particular passage at least has face validity. It would appear that in the geriatric population, the reported incidence is at least as high as that reported by the company that markets ropinirole. However, it would appear that the company exaggerated the incidence, if one assumes that the rate they report, is a rate that applies to the general population.
The symptoms of RLS are exquisitely sensitive to dopaminergic drugs (e.g., pramipexole 0.25 to 1.0 mg q8pm or ropinirole 0.5 to 4.0 mg q8pm), which are the treatment of choice. Narcotics, benzodiazepines, and certain anticonvulsants may also be of therapeutic value. Most patients with restless legs also experience periodic limb movements of sleep, although the reverse is not the case.[...]
Drug firms 'hype up diseases to boost sales'There are similar news articles here, here, and here.
By RICHARD SHEARS, Daily Mail 08:35am 11th April 2006
Drug companies are inventing diseases to sell more of their products, it has been claimed. Scientists have accused major pharmaceutical firms of "medicalising" problems like high cholesterol or the symptoms of the menopause in a bid to increase profits.
Experts from around the world will meet in Australia today to discuss what they have labelled "disease-mongering". [...]
First, journalists should be very wary when confronted with a new or expanded disease affecting large numbers of people. If a disease is common and very bothersome, it is hard to believe that no one would have noticed it before. Prevalence estimates are easy to exaggerate by broadening the definition of disease. Journalists need to ask exactly how the disease is being defined, whether the diagnostic criteria were used appropriately, and whether the study sample truly represents the general population (e.g., patients at an insomnia clinic cannot be taken to represent the general public).The point I would like to make is that we cannot rely on journalists to do this. Readers should be able to do this for themselves. News articles that contain glowing quotations from patients should be taking with the same degree of skepticism as celebrity endorsements. Likewise, reports of unbelievably high incidence rates should raise some questions. Plus, it is very dangerous to assume that the mere presence of an illness means that treatment is always appropriate. Some conditions are best managed by leaving them alone.
Journalists should also reflexively question whether more diagnosis is always a good thing. Simply labeling people with disease has negative consequences [21]. Similarly, journalists should question the assumption that treatment always makes sense. Medical treatments always involve trade-offs; people with mild symptoms have little to gain, and treatment may end up causing more harm than good.
Finally, instead of extreme, unrepresentative anecdotes about miracle cures, journalists should help readers understand how well the treatment works (e.g., what is the chance that I will feel better if I take the medicine versus if I do not?) and what problems it might cause (e.g., whether I might be trading less restless legs for daytime nausea, dizziness, and somnolence).
The Sunday Times
April 09, 2006
US leak of Zarqawi letter riles Israelis
ISRAELI military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command, writes Uzi Mahnaimi.
Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity.
Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site.
Bush then referred to it during his weekly address. “The Al-Qaeda letter points to Vietnam as a model,” the president declared. “Al-Qaeda believes that America can be made to run again. They are gravely mistaken. America will not run and we will not forget our responsibilities.”
Israeli intelligence sources said officials who had worked on “Operation Tiramisu” inside Iraq took emergency steps to protect their sources, but it was not clear how successful they had been in averting the damage to their intelligence network.
They said Bush’s indiscretion had undone months of painstaking effort.
Despite its youth, the Medicare drug benefit is already chronically ill. But with extensive rehabilitation, it could go on for years, albeit with impaired functional capacity. Debate continues over whether its early spasticity was caused by inept management of its birth or a genetic disorder present at its creation. Proponents of the first explanation suggest that Medicare and its private insurers were not ready for the millions of applicants and hundreds of millions of prescriptions that poured in early in January, in a flood that they were ill prepared to handle. The layer of insurance companies inserted into the process in the name of efficiency exacerbated the confusion. An administration and Congress guided by Ronald Reagan's principle that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem" put his vision into practice in a chillingly convincing way.Oh my. "Chillingly convincing." That is from a Perspective article about the new Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. Read the whole thing. It is available to the public here.
Just the expectation of a mirthful laughter experience boosts endorphins 27 percent, HGH 87 percentThe article goes on to explain that they also found beneficial effects on the immune response, suggesting that there could be benefit for those with autoimmune diseases. It's just an armchair-musing kind of speculation, but since the effect is seen with mere anticipation of something positive, I wonder if it is related to the placebo effect?
Public release date: 3-Apr-2006
American Physiological Society
SAN FRANCISCO – There's no doubt that laughter feels good, but is there real neurophysiology behind it and what can you do about it?
In a paper being presented in an American Physiological Society session at Experimental Biology 2006, Lee S. Berk of Loma Linda University, reports that not only is there real science and psychophysiology, but just the anticipation of the "mirthful laughter" involved in watching your favorite funny movie has some very surprising and significant neuroendocrine/hormone effects.
According to Berk: "The blood drawn from experimental subjects just before they watched the video had 27% more beta-endorphins and 87% more human growth hormone, compared to blood from the control group, which didn't anticipate the watching of a humorous video. Between blood pulls, the control group stayed in a waiting room and could choose from a wide variety of magazines," he explained. [...]
Many more documents are to be released in the coming months. Quite possibly, they will vindicate the decision to undertake the Iraq war; help maintain public support for fighting it; and radically change our understanding of Saddam's role in international terrorism.I can't help but comment on this. First of all, you can't justify starting a war based upon documents found after the war started. The decision to go to war has to be judged based according to the information that was available at the time the decision was made. Second, the webstie containing the documents states plainly that:
The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available.Vindication of the war may be desirable, but it is a serious matter. Making such a judgment based upon unverified documents would be rash, at best. A much more thorough analysis would be called for.
No shift in architectural practice in recent times has been more fruitful or astonishing than the profession's current embrace of scientific models and ideas. While the Modern movement of the last century famously incorporated the latest advances in technology and industry, there were remarkably few attempts to come to terms with the more radical scientific developments of the era, such as relativity or quantum mechanics.The article got me to thinking that I should share with the world all that I know about design. I learned this from my brother-in-law, an architect and web designer, who used to make furniture. I learned that the application of scientific principles in design can not only lead to improvements in form and function, but can have significant practical implications as well. Understanding of these principles can be intellectually enriching.
Today's architect, however, is increasingly schooled in cutting-edge developments in science and mathematics, from neuroscience and computation, to complexity theory and embryology. Indeed, there has been a surprising turn in architectural thinking during the last 15 years that has brought it far from its ancient roots in mechanics—say from the post-and-lintel methods that remained nearly unchallenged for 3,000 years—to what one might call a biological habit of mind. Today's architect is more likely to study problems of form in the natural world than those within the history of his or her own discipline. [...]
While building science remained essentially the artful deployment of columns and beams, the Greeks could not help but add exquisite refinements such as the famous entases--the artificial bulges near the middles of columns that counteract the concaving effects of vision. This beguiling idea was derived from complex calculation systems based in geometry. Later, the Age of the (Gothic) Cathedrals would bring an unprecedented virtuosity and expressiveness to bear on the production of architecture, as well as new techniques of templating stones in order to master the very subtle mathematics required for progressively-changing angles and massing of material.The thing is, when my sister graduated, it was time to move that furniture. Her husband-to-be conveniently had to be somewhere else. So, it was I who had to move that concrete furniture. This leads to the final principle of design:
One of the arguments used to advocate for the deportation of illegal immigrants is that they are "illegal." They are breaking the law. Perhaps the knowledge, that law-breaking is actually normal in corporate America, will put this argument in a new light.Report: Most U.S. factories violate Clean Water Act
The Ithaca Journal reports in this weekend's paper on the latest study of Clean Water Act compliance by the US Public Interest Research Group.
Among the alarming details:• Nationally, more than 3,700 major facilities (62%) exceeded their Clean Water Act permit limits at least once between July 1, 2003 and December 31, 2004. [...]
Gross domestic income: profit growth swamps labor incomeToday's data release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows that the share of corporate profits in gross domestic income (GDI) reached the highest level since the 4th quarter of 1968. In the corporate sector, the current recovery has seen the largest swing from labor incomes to corporate profits of any recovery since World War II. Read EPI's new Snapshot for a full analysis.
Notes on a Strange WorldI find it amusing to think back at how seriously some people took this at the time.
The Walrus Was Paul!
Massimo Polidoro
Skeptical Inquirer
2006, Volume 30 1, Jan/Feb
Did you know that Paul McCartney, the ex-Beatle, never actually left the band because . . . he died in 1966 and was then replaced by a lookalike? It sounds bizarre, and it is. The “Paul is dead” myth is one of the most popular myths set in the world of rock music and perhaps the most fun to follow up. [...]
6. A Belgian police training manual which aims to help recruits understand body language has caused a row by likening George Bush's facial expressions to a chimpanzee's.That's from a list of news items that are said to sound like April fool items, but are not.