blondbraintrust

Via Technology Review
Podcasting Made Painless

It wasn't so long ago that publishing a Web log (blog) required some Web
programming skills. Then along came Blogger, software that made blogging easy
enough for the masses. Substitute "podcast" for "blog" in the preceding sentences, and you'll understand the vision behind the new Web-based podcasting tools developed by Odeo, a San Francisco startup launched by Blogger cocreator Evan Williams and his former neighbor, Noah Glass.
Podcasting, for the uninitiated, is the hot independent-media trend of
2005; amateur broadcasters record their own news shows, commentary, or
interviews on whatever subjects they choose and put the audio files on the Web.
Unfortunately, being a podcaster has, until lately, also meant being an expert in digital recording and mixing.
Just as Blogger did for blogging, Odeo turns the process of making a
podcast (a basic one, anyway) into something any semicompetent PC user can
handle. It also takes all the pain out of finding and downloading podcasts
And it will be at least partly free. The audiences of millions that podcasters have been craving may arrive soon.
The neatest part of the program is Odeo Studio, which runs inside a Web
browser and converts a PC into a rudimentary recording studio. I used it to
produce my own podcast, which you can find at this Technology Review web page and at Odeo.com.
Making a podcast was as simple as clicking "Record," talking into the PC's
built-in microphone (you can also use an external headset), then clicking
"Stop." Clicking "Publish" placed the podcast in my own "channel," to which
others can subscribe. What was a tedious process is now quick and mildly
fun.

How China Will Change Your Business
From Inc.com:

How can the U.S., perhaps with its traditional allies, adjust to a
competitive challenger that has strengths unlike any other that America has
faced? Are the transfers of talent, technology, and capital part of an
inevitable dynamic? Or does the U.S., or any other country, have the power to
shape a future in which everyone prospers?
Americans looking for answers and
action must also find a way to move America's leadership to see China's rise as
every bit as worthy of national attention as the rumblings in more obvious
political hot spots. While all eyes turn to the so-called clash of civilizations
between Islam and the West, China will have the more profound impact on the
world in the long run. And yet, despite occasional misgivings offered in factory
towns and tariffs slapped on imports at the height of campaign season, American
leaders tend to view China's rise as the fulfillment of a free marketer's dream,
where global investors will shepherd the country into wealth, democracy, and
peaceful interdependence with the rest of the free world.
It is a lovely
theory, and it may ultimately be true. There is, however, no evidence upon which
to base such a prediction. Which exactly of the world's large, highly
nationalistic, dictatorial, Communist-capitalist countries offers a historical
analogue? Answer: There is no such country.

New Scientist Breaking News - Planting trees may create deserts
Planting trees can create deserts, lower water tables and drain rivers, rather than filling them, claims a new report supported by the UK government.

The findings - which may come as heresy to tree-lovers and most environmentalists - is an emerging new consensus among forest and water professionals.

“Common but misguided views about water management,” says the report, are resulting in the waste of tens of millions of pounds every year across the world. Forests planted with the intention of trapping moisture are instead depleting reservoirs and drying out soils.

Recount story a surprise to Bush: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

TALLAHASSEE · Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that he was surprised by a
report that U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts played an influential role
in Florida's 2000 presidential recount, insisting that "my relationship with him
lasted about 30 minutes."

I don't know if it's true or not; it hasn't been confirmed by anybody other than some guy in Texas."Gov. Bush said

The governor, whose brother, President Bush, won the
White House after the high court stopped the Florida recount by a 5-4 vote, said
he huddled briefly with Roberts during the 36-day legal standoff for a "very
arcane discussion."

The governor made the remarks after Texas Solicitor General
Ted Cruz, a former domestic policy adviser to George Bush's campaign, told
reporters that he brought Roberts, then a Washington lawyer, to Tallahassee to
take part in the frenzied legal battle that followed the Florida contest.

Cruz said Roberts arrived in Tallahassee a week into the recount, writing and editing legal briefs before eventually helping prepare Bush's argument before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I am surprised," Gov. Bush said of Roberts' apparently expanding
role. "But since I wasn't part of all the inner workings of the Bush campaign
after the election, it was news to me that he was. I don't know if it's true or
not; it hasn't been confirmed by anybody other than some guy in Texas."

BBC NEWS South Asia Madrassa foreigners 'must leave'
I do think Mushareff is trying. He is walking a very fine line and has the assassination attempts to prove it.

"Any (foreigners) in the madrassas - even dual nationality holders -
will leave Pakistan," Gen Musharraf said.
"We will not allow madrassas to be misused for extremism, hatred being
projected in our society."
No new visas will be issued to foreigners wishing
to study in the schools.

But the BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan says it is not clear
what effect these measures will have on extremism as the more militant students
work at unregulated madrassas that have survived previous crackdowns.

It is estimated that there are around 20,000 madrassas in Pakistan.

According to the Pakistani newspaper, The News, there are around 1.7m
students at the institutions, mainly from poor rural families.
The number of foreigners dropped sharply after the 11 September attacks in the US.
New rules after the attacks obliged foreigners to state in their visa applications
where they planned to study. The visas became invalid if they left the
madrassa.

Broccoli Packs Powerful Punch To Bladder Cancer Cells
BROCCOLI PACKS POWERFUL PUNCH TO BLADDER CANCER CELLS

COLUMBUS , Ohio – Researchers have isolated compounds from the vegetable
broccoli that they believe may help prevent or slow the progress of bladder
cancer.
The current work builds on a major study conducted six years ago by
Harvard and Ohio State universities that found that men who ate two or more
half-cup servings of broccoli per week had a 44 percent lower incidence of
bladder cancer compared to men who ate less than one serving each week.
The
researchers isolated compounds called glucosinolates from broccoli sprouts.
During chopping, chewing and digestion, these phytochemicals morph into
nutritional powerhouses called isothiocyanates
– compounds that the scientists believed play a role in inhibiting
cancer.
Their hunch was right, at least in the laboratory experiments. There,
isothiocyanates hindered the growth of bladder cancer cells. And the most
profound effect was on the most aggressive form of bladder cancer they
studied.
While young sprouts naturally have higher concentrations of these
phytochemicals than full-grown broccoli spears, eating the spears also provides
health benefits, Schwartz said.
Broccoli isn't the only cruciferous veggie
with health benefits, the researchers say. The plant's kin, which include
cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale, may all contain similar
disease-fighting phytochemicals.
“Cruciferous veggies have an effect on other
types of cancer, too,” Schwartz said. “We already know that they contain
compounds that help detoxify carcinogens. We're thinking more along the lines of
progression and proliferation, such as once cancer starts, is there a way to
slow it down?”

Young sprouts naturally have higher concentrations of these phytochemicals than full-grown broccoli spears.

I buy my sprout seeds from http://waltonfeed.com/grain/sprouts.html

E.P.A. Holds Back Report on Car Fuel Efficiency - New York Times

With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.

The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980's.

Eryn Witcher, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said the timing of the release of the report had nothing to do with the energy bill deliberations.

"We are committed to sharing our scientific studies with the public in the most comprehensive and understandable format possible," she said. "Issue experts are reviewing the fuel economy data and we look forward to providing a summary of the information next week."

"Something's fishy when the Bush administration delays a report showing no
improvement in fuel economy until after passage of their energy bill, which
fails to improve fuel economy," said Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club's top global
warming strategist.

The study found " judicial orders that mandate severely ill psychotic patients to undergo compulsory community treatment are associated with decreased time spent in the hospital and thus increased personal freedom."
Effects of Compulsory Treatment Orders on Time to Hospital Readmission -- Frank et al. 56 (7): 867 -- Psychiatric Services:

We must find a middle ground between warehousing the mentally ill in dickensian asylums and a laissez-faire policy that protects neither the mentally ill nor the public.

No Strategery Here:

Chinese politicians have shown that they have a longer-term point of view that we do in the US. (They of course do not have to worry about being reelected, do they.) That viewpoint gives them the patience to wait out western governments on strategic objectives. The Hong Kong handover was an example. Taiwan will be another. A third is their multi-objective approach to Chinese energy policy, simultaneously pursuing initiatives in Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Japan (the disputed gas deposits in the Sea of Japan), the US (Unocal), and other countries.

The biggest damage terrorists have done in the the US is not what happened on september 11, 2001. It is what they have done to our thinking. Instead of devoting our resources to checking each other's boarding passes we should be focusing on our relationship with China. china, not bin Laden, is going to be the topic that dominates political and economic discussions for the next 50 years. (emphasis mine)

Norton Internet Security 2005 Software available at OfficeMax.com
$30 Upgrade rebate form
Go here to get $30 rebate form
This is good through 7/30, but these deals come around regularly. This is for the download, not the retail box. Same software, just no CD.
This requires you to submit two rebates. Norton is great about rebates. I have never waited more than three weeks to receive my check.
You need to have proof of previous ownership of Norton/Symantec, McAfee, or Zone Labs software.
Norton Internet Security includes:
Norton Internet Security includes:Norton AntiVirus:
NEW! Norton Internet Worm Protection stops certain damaging Internet worms at the point of entry.
Norton Personal Firewall:
NEW! Automatically turns the firewall back on after a set period of time if you need to turn it off temporarily.
Norton Privacy Control
NEW! Confidential information blocking now lets you send personal data to sites you trust while protecting you from sending it to sites you don't.
Norton AntiSpam
NEW! Filters email coming to Yahoo! Mail® accounts.
NEW! Helps detect and filter fraudulent and explicit email.
NEW! Automatically synchronizes its Allowed List with your POP3 email address books.
Norton Parental Control
NEW! Works with Outlook to filter junk email from Hotmail® and MSN® Mail accounts.

Amazon.com: Software: Norton AntiVirus 2005 - Single User

This is free after rebate only if you can provide proof of previous ownership of a stand-alone, retail (boxed or downloaded)version of any Norton,™ Symantec,™ McAfee,® Internet Security Systems,® or Zone Labs® software product (excluding products pre-installed or supplied by a manufacturer) by furnishing either the previous product’s original CD, diskette 1, title page of manual(usually titled “User’s Guide”), or your confirmation email from your previous download
purchase.
I have been told that you can buy two products in the same week and use each as the previous ownership of the other software.
I buy Norton software often for my family, and always get my rebate check within three weeks.
Please make a copy of everything you send in, just in case it gets lost in the mail. I also keep a listo of any rebate outstanding and check it from time to time. Some rebate processing companies are notorious for rejecting rebates. they then make you resubmit all your info, so you need copies.

Landmark eatery in Cincinnati closes abruptly
Cincinnati- The Maisonette, a top-rated restaurant and downtown landmark, abruptly closed its doors Monday.
"This is a sad day," Comisar said after meeting with the staff of some 90 people. He said six workers, including himself, had been at the French fine-dining restaurant for more than 30 years. The restaurant was in its 57th year.
Server Justin McConnal, 31, an eight-year employee, said he was stunned "to wake up this morning and not have a job. . . . But all the signs were written. Downtown is real slow right now."
Republicans have controlled the governor's office since 1981, I don't know how much more of this business friendly government Ohio can take.

"The greatest discovery of my lifetime was that a person can change the circumstances of his life by changing his thoughts." ~ William James, American Psychologist

Russia�s Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

TimT at Will Type For Food asks a good question.

So, apparently at work we're going to have to go to some Walk Against Want
thing later this year. You know, wander down the streets for an hour or so, get
sponsored, and send the sponsorship money to some charity or the other.I'm not
sure I see the point. Sure, it's a good thing to do Good Things, but why does it
have to be so much work? I'd prefer something else:

The Leisurely Sit Down
Against Need!The Ten-Hour Nap Against World Poverty!

But nobody seems to want to sponsor it.

The Girl Gets Away: Serious questions to ponder on a Friday afternoon.

What kind of a sadist plays the bagpipes on a street corner in downtown
Seattle on a day when he knows there’s going to be tons of people out? What kind
of sadist plays the bagpipes and has a friend accompany him on a drum kit? If
there’s anything worse than listening to a guy noodling around on the bagpipes,
with his friend playing drums alongside, I don’t know what it is. It is
literally the worst music I’ve ever heard - and they’re out there every single
day now, on one of the corners adjacent to my office building. They’re trying to
get people to give them money, a respectable ambition, but I am seriously
considering offering them money to stop playing long enough for me to get out of
earshot. $5 for a 20 second running head start seems fair to me, but I don’t
know what the going rate is for getting street performers to not perform. There
is no excuse for playing the bagpipes if you’re not in Scotland.

TimT's comment is hilarious too.

TimT said...
There is no going rate for not playing the bagpipes. Not playing the bagpipes is, properly considered, a charitable activity. If it wasn't, then people would be competing to not play the bagpipes for you. Sure, it might seem like a nice idea, since the price for not playing the bagpipes would go down, but in the long run, it would cost you more, since you'd end up paying EVERYONE to not play the bagpipes. In short, in most things I am quite the capitalist, but not in this matter. I should know; my own brother plays the bagpipes.In this case, I think the best solution would be violence. Shoot the fucker.
5:00 AM

State: Bush defends court pick for visit during recount
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts came to Tallahassee at his own expense to volunteer advice to Florida Governor Jeb Bush on the 2000 Florida Election recount debacle.

Bush said he didn't even remember Roberts at first when asked about that
2000 visit earlier in the week.
"It was a very short meeting," Bush recalled, noting there were others there, although he was unsure who they were.
"It was not related to politics."
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, said Friday she was skeptical of Bush's claim that the half-hour meeting had nothing to do with politics.
"I doubt he brought in John Roberts to advise him on his duties as governor," Wasserman Schultz said.
She added, "I would think someone who is familiar with Florida law and the Florida
Constitution would seem more appropriate."

President Bush appointed Roberts to the federal bench in 2002 and nominated
him Tuesday for the Supreme Court.

From St. Pete Times
Southpinellas: Late with a payment? No wonder car won't start
A new device reminds drivers when a car payment is due. And if they don't pay up, they're not going anywhere.

ST. PETERSBURG - One of life's cruel quirks got Amber Jumbelick into
trouble.
When the 23-year-old waitress had her first child, she began paying
expenses by credit card. Then she lost her job and her ability to pay bills. Her
credit tanked.
"I needed a car, but my credit was so bad nobody would give me
a loan," Jumbelick said. "I'm a waitress and a single mom with a baby boy. I
don't have extra money to put away."
Chuck Lutes hears that sort of story a
lot.
Lutes, owner of Affordable Auto Sales on 66th Street N in St.
Petersburg, thinks he has found a solution. It's a device he installs on every
car he sells that alerts drivers when they have a payment due. Day by delinquent
day, the alert gets increasingly insistent. On the fifth day, the car won't
start.
Lutes says the device, called On Time/Payment Protection Systems, has
dramatically increased customers' on-time payments. Jumbelick says the need to
pay up and pay on time has improved her credit score after less than a
year.
"With this system, I don't have to go out chasing my money," Lutes
said. "And I want the money, not the car."
Lutes has been using On Time since
October. According to his computer data files, only 65 percent of his customers
were making payments on time before October. Now, about 95 percent of his
accounts are current.

My first inclination, was that this was wrong. But if the buyer knew about this beforehand, and she was so irresponsible about paying her bills that she was unable to purchase a car any other way, then I think the seller should be able to do this.
I don't understand why people cannot manage to save $500 and buy an old junker outright. It seems a TV, DVD player, car with fancy rims and stereo are "necessities". The perpetually downtrodden seem to be willing to pay outrageous interest and rental fees for these "necessities". I know here in St. Peterburg, although it takes planning, you can get almost anywhere by bus.

Via Eureka Alert
Special issue of Yale journal analyzes environmental impact of consumption

Free full text of this journal edition is available at: ( http://mitpress.mit.edu/jie/consumption ).

The environmental impact of what we buy and use is increasingly drawing the attention of business, governments, and consumers. The connection between consumption and environmental impact is analyzed in new and important ways in a special issue of Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology.
Articles in the special issue analyze the environmental impact of consumption and U.S. house size, diet change, work time reduction, time use, product life spans and the quality of life. Articles also examine consumption at the household, city and national levels.
This special issue includes evaluation of water use in China, energy use in Sweden, the "export" of environmental impacts via Dutch consumption, and risks from exposure to scented consumer products. Articles consider the strategies advocacy groups use to influence global production and consumption, and explore the role of the "rebound effect"--the possibility that reduced purchase of one set of products can, by saving the consumer money, lead to increased consumption of other goods and services with their attendant environmental effects.

The research represents a broadening of the scope of environmental concern that has traditionally focused on the impact of production-related activities such as emissions from factory smokestacks. It brings systematic analysis of the role of consumption in environmental management to a new and higher level. Questions addressed include: how big is the footprint of households taken as a whole, and which activities are the most damaging.

Unprecedented industry-backed laws limit public safety, study shows

Two laws recently passed by Congress with strong industry backing have had
a chilling effect on government efforts to protect public health, according to a
UCSF study.
The laws make all raw data produced by federally funded research
available for public review, and require that any data disseminated by the
government adhere to definitions of quality set by the law – definitions that
industry interests helped develop. The new laws allow industry advocates to more
easily challenge or stall government scientific research and weaken proposed
regulations that affect them, the UCSF researchers assert.
Yet at the same time, research by industry faces no such high standard, and
as a result, pharmaceutical, tobacco and other industries can make claims that
are harder to challenge than the government's research-based standards, says
Lisa Bero, senior author of the study and professor of clinical pharmacy and
health policy at UCSF.
The UCSF study is published in a special issue of American Journal of
Public Health, online July 20, which draws on once-secret internal tobacco
industry documents to show this particular industry's role in establishing these
laws that now cripple regulation of many industries. The documents show motives,
strategies and tactics used by the tobacco industry working with other corporate
interests to challenge the scientific basis for public health policies.
This article is part of the entire issue devoted to "How Challenges from Industry
Undermine Scientific Evidence and Public Health Protections."

The two laws in question are the Data Access Act, passed in 1998, requiring for the first time that all raw data produced under federally funded research studies be
publicly available, and the Data Quality Act of 2001, requiring that
government-disseminated data adheres to standards established by the law.
"The Data Quality Act has implications for all corporate interests," Bero
says. "The tobacco industry documents give us insight into how different
companies worked together to produce legislation that makes it harder to
regulate industry. It basically allows corporate interests to challenge laws --
existing or proposed -- that do not meet the industry-developed data quality
standards for government-sponsored research.
"What is really ironic is that the data quality law applies only to government-sponsored research (such as NIH research), but not industry-funded research. So, industry-funded research does not have to adhere to the standards. This is particularly relevant with all the transgressions we've seen lately related to the quality or failure to publish industry science. The public health community cannot use the data quality law to challenge industry science."

New UC study shows 'stop and go' traffic increases infant wheezing
At least the hybrids' gas engines turn off while idling.

Research showed that infants living within 100 meters of "stop and go" traffic wheezed twice as often as those living within 400 meters (about 400 yards) of interstates, and more than three times as often as unexposed children. African American infants living near "stop and go" traffic experienced the highest wheezing rate--25 percent.

"Our study illustrates that living within a football field's distance of 'stop and go' traffic puts infants at a higher risk for wheezing," said Ryan. "Traditional wisdom told us that highway traffic was to blame. We now know that's not necessarily the case."

Read it before the Bush Scientific Team edits it.
Institute of Arctic Biology - News

In the July 22, 2005 issue of the journal Science, co-author Terry Chapin,
professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Institute of
Arctic Biology (IAB), and colleagues point out that modern land-use practices
may be trading short-term increases in food production for long-term losses in
the environment’s ability to support human societies.
The key to resilient and sustainable land use, according to the paper’s
authors, is closer collaboration between scientists and practitioners – linking,
for example, ecologists and land-use planners, climatologists and architects,
and entomologists (insect scientists) and physicians – and the development of
land-use strategies that recognize both short- and long-term needs.
“We need manager and policy makers who understand the ecological, economic,
political, and social connections and unintended consequences of land-use
decisions,” said Chapin, RAP’s director.

“All of the changes in local land-use are driven by human activities to meet local needs or create economic profits, but these changes have global consequences,” Chapin said. “We need to be aware of the local and global consequences of land-use change so that the true costs are considered when land-use planning and development take place.

“Alaska has many of the properties of a third-world economy,” Chapin said. “An extractive economy subject to changes in the world economy, tremendous amounts of natural resources, diversity of cultures – and we’ve got the money and the wealth to solve the problem if we know what to do,” he said. ( And that's exactly the way Bush and his energy cronies treat Alaska.)

Steve Clemons
SCOOP: John Bolton Was Regular Source for Judith Miller WMD and National Security Reporting
TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.
The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.

Washington State University study points to role of toxins in inherited disease

A disease you are suffering today could be a result of your great-grandmother
being exposed to an environmental toxin during pregnancy.

Researchers at Washington State University reached that remarkable conclusion after finding that environmental toxins can alter the activity of an animal's genes in a way that is transmitted through at least four generations after the exposure. Their discovery suggests that toxins may play a role in heritable diseases that were previously thought to be caused solely by genetic mutations. It also hints at a role for environmental impacts during evolution.

Skinner and a team of WSU researchers exposed pregnant rats to environmental toxins during the period that the sex of their offspring was being determined. The compounds – vinclozolin, a fungicide commonly used in vineyards, and methoxychlor, a pesticide that replaced DDT – are known as endocrine disruptors, synthetic chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of reproductive hormones.

The finding that an environmental toxin can permanently reprogram a heritable trait also may alter our concept of evolutionary biology. Traditional evolutionary theory maintains that the environment is primarily a backdrop on which selection takes place, and that differences between individuals arise from random mutations in the DNA. The work by Skinner and his group raises the possibility that environmental factors may play a much larger role in evolution than has been realized before. This research was supported in part by a grant to Skinner from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's STAR Program.

U.S. attorney seeks Plain Dealer source

The Plain Dealer garnered national attention in recent weeks after Editor
Doug Clifton announced in a June 30 column that the paper would not publish two
stories because both were based on leaked documents and could result in trouble
for the people who leaked them.

The U.S. attorney's office wants a court hearing to find out who leaked
documents to The Plain Dealer that revealed former Cleveland Mayor Michael R.
White was the target of a probe that led to the indictment of consultant Nate
Gray, one of White's best friends.
"Once another medium identified us as a holder of the documents in
question, holding back the story became moot," Clifton said. "And we think that
it was a public service to be done in reporting the contents of the affidavit."
Clifton said the paper would honor its promises of confidentiality.
White said Thursday he had no immediate plans to issue subpoenas to find out
who leaked the documents.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: July 17, 2005 - July 23, 2005 Archives
Copy of letter provided by Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo.

Reading about King Jigme Singye Wangchuck made me think of this quote.
"Nothing discloses character like the use of power." Robert Ingersoll

This is a cool and enlightened guy.
He asks the ultimate question. What is the end objective of progress and development? I think the world would be a lot better off if all politicians, from the city councilman to the POTUS,CEOs, scientists and think tanks kept that question in mind when making decisions.
Good article by Stephan Herrera over at technologyreview.com

By the end of this year, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, whose family has ruled
over Bhutan for almost a hundred years, will officially hand over power to the
people. Nobody wants to see him go, but the king himself has decided that he
must take a less active role in government. By his own account, he does not want
to see the throne stand in the way of the remarkable modernization under way in
Bhutan.

Rejecting the models of urbanization and unregulated market development usually promoted by the U.S. government, the king has crafted the framework for a political economy based on a theoretically harmonious mix of representative government, south-Asian-style capitalism, traditional religious values, environmentalism, hydropower, tourism, mandated preventative medicine, and universal health care.

If Bhutan's experiment succeeds or fails, many will credit or blame the
country's very Buddhist (or very eccentric, depending on whom you ask) notion of
"gross national happiness." In the late 1980s, Bhutan's University of
Oxford-educated king famously asserted that gross national happiness (GNH) was
more important than gross national product (GNP). Among the core principles of
GNH, he said, are good governance and sustainable economic development, cultural
and religious preservation, eradication of poverty, and environmental
protection. More recently, health care and education have been added to the
concept.
Bhutan only began modernizing in the 1950s. Previously, there were no paved
roads, most homes were built from mud and grass, literacy was low, and the death
rate was high. That Bhutan has progressed so far is thus remarkable. The current
king, who came to the throne in 1974, invested the country's meager finances in
an airport, an east-west road, bridges, national education, health care, and
select energy-producing technologies like hydropower, which provides almost all
the country's electricity. And it has worked, after a fashion.
According to the Asian Development Bank, Bhutan's GNP in 1985 barely topped $45 million. By 2002, it was more than $590 million. From 1999 to 2003, Bhutan's average GDP grew by 6.72 percent every year. Save for China, none of Bhutan's regional neighbors--including India--saw more GDP growth during the same period.
If Bhutan is still not a very healthy place to live, it's certainly better than
it was. The number of health facilities in the country rose from 65 in 1985 to
more than 200 today. Infant mortality rates in 2000 were half of what they were
in 1985, while average life expectancy rose from 48 years to 63 during the same
period.

The country has seen a remarkable growth in general education. The literacy rate
is almost 50 percent, whereas in the early 1990s it ranked the lowest among the
least-developed countries. More than 90 percent of Bhutanese children now reach
at least the fifth grade. The country's first university opened its doors in
2003.

But even as it modernizes, Bhutan has also strengthened or enacted laws designed to control pollution, mining, and logging. Almost 70 percent of the country's forests are protected. New laws ban smoking, gambling, and prostitution; anticorruption and construction codes have also been enacted.

Now comes the real test: can Bhutan and the king's enlightened framework
withstand the messy business of democracy and development, and the problems that
tend to follow? "With China, India, and Nepal sitting on its borders," says
Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Washington, DC, policy think tank the
Brookings Institution who specializes in south-Asia security matters, "and donor
nations in the West constantly pushing new models upon the developing nations
they fund, anything can happen."
But if Bhutan can prove that democracy,
social equality, sustainable development, environmental protection, and limited
technology are compatible with Buddhism and 21st-century modernization, it will
be an interesting example for other poor nations who want modern technology and
economies--but who want them on their own terms.

These are just headlines I ran across today in my normal daily reading. There was no searching to make a point.
SCORCHED: DEATH VALLEY TEMPS NEAR 130 DEGREES!
Ice Shelf Collapse Reveals New Undersea World
Glacial cover-up keeps skiers happy

Bush Says He'll Fire Any Aide Who 'Committed a Crime' - New York Times
"If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration. I don't know all the facts; I want to know all the facts."
I find it ironic that the President insists on waiting until all the facts are in before deciding whether to punish Karl Rove for leaking, in an attempt to smear the reputation of the man who accused the President of not wanting to know all the facts before rushing to war. A war that is costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives, not to mention the misery and death we have foisted on the Iraqis while "waging democracy".(I love that phrase, thanks, James Wolcott)

I don't do emoticons, so a pithy quote that speaks to me, at the moment, will have to suffice for gauging my current, but capable of going from pleasant to bitch in 4.2 seconds, mood.

Theodore Roosevelt: To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. (1918)

Mr. Rove and the Access of Evil
Mr. Wolcott turned me on to Greg Palast's latest column.
"When officialdom uses "you-can't-use-my- name" to cover a lie, the official is not a source, but a disinformation propagandist."

"The great poison in the corpus of American journalism is the lust for tidbits of supposedly "inside" information which is more often than not inside misinformation parading as hot news. And thus we have Miller sucking on the steaming sewage pipe of White House lies about Iraq and spitting it out in the pages of The Times as "investigative reporting," for which The Times has apologized. " (emphasis mine)

James Wolcott: One City, One World, One America

One of the puzzling and perverse questions raised by the poodle relationship
between Tony Blair and George Bush is what Blair gets out of it, and, by
extension, what benefit Britain obtains by playing deputy sidekick to the
Sheriff of Nazareth. Where's the payoff, the reward? Even a poodle ought to
receive a doggy treat now and then. The loyalty has been entirely one-sided.
Bush made it insultingly clear before the G8 summit that he wasn't going to do a
major budge on global warming and African aid just because Blair was so staunch
on Iraq. He said that he didn't believe in any quid pro quo and as
for Iraq--"Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping
the peace and winning the war on terror, as I did." His manner in that interview
couldn't have been more matter-of-fact and dismissive, when he wasn't blinking
up a storm.
Like Johnny Rotten in "No Feelings," President Bush has got no
emotions for anybody else, and can't be bothered even to go through the formal
motions, having so many more important, interesting things to do, such as fall
off his bicycle.
Tom Watson, blogging at The Huffington Post, noted the
difference between how the Brits mourned our losses on September 11th and how
the leader of the free world breezed
out of the summit after their losses last week.
"On the morning of
September 13th, 2001, the officer in charge of the Coldstream Guards Band and
1st Battalion Scots Guards received a call from Buckingham Palace. Banish
tradition. The music accompanying that day's tourist-swathed ceremomy at the
changing would be different. That day, the band played The Star-Spangled Banner.
The Brits were with us.
"Four years later, still firmly at the side of the
United States in general, and this administration specifically, the British felt
the domestic blow of what most Americans and Britons agree is a common enemy -
even if we disagree on the prosecution of the struggle against that
enemy.
"Our President, George W. Bush, was actually in the United Kingdom
when terror struck London. He was in Scotland, a two-hour flight from Heathrow.
Understandably, he and the other leaders completed the G8 summit, unbowed by the
carnage in the London transit system.
"And then our President came
home.
"And in doing so, he knowingly cast a gob of bitter spittle in the face
of our constant ally, and disgraced the United States of America.
"Why didn't
President Bush visit London? Why didn't he walk the streets, take a few
questions from the press, show the power of his office to Londoners? Stand at
the side of Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone?"
Because, to repeat myself, he
just couldn't be bothered.
But it is unfair to single out Bush. The
Bush/Rush/Fox News/Ann Coulter/National Review mindless blare of American
exceptionalism and entitlement has helped enlist millions of Americans into the
ranks of selfish bastards. "We are all Britons" blogtalk is cheap, like wearing
another one of those goddam colored wristbands to signal that you nominally
support a cause (sympathy as kitsch). Yet again the American eagle has exposed
its chicken feathers and rubber beak in the face of adversity. From across the
ocean Simon Jenkins at
The Huffington Post lobs a question our way.
"Can anyone on your side
help? Five days after we had four bombs explode on the London Tube and with
everyone saying, stay calm and stay normal, US Air Force officials ordered
personnel in Britain to avoid London, whether or not in uniform and including
their families. The order has since been rescinded, but the damage is
done.
"London must be one of the safest cities on Earth. The only conceivable
purchase the terrorists can get is by sowing fear, a fear which is
statitistically irrational - Americans are more at risk on the roads round their
bases than in the capital. Yet Washington handed Al-Qaeda a free publicity coup
on a plate. It incidentally had every front page and every pub bar ranting about
cowardly Americans, jeering at the US Marines 'We are not afraid' website, which
adds 'We stand with our British brothers and sisters.'"
We are quite willing
to stand by our British brothers and sisters, as long as we can stand a good
safe distance and still do our shopping.
To me, the greatest insult to the
British and their losses was delivered today, all the more insulting because it
was thoughtless and unintentional.
I was watching the news of the two minutes
of silence held for the victims of the London bombings, a silent vigil held not
just in London but across
Europe.
"Britain's Queen Elizabeth stood in silence at Buckingham Palace.
In London's Trafalgar Square, a giant banner declared 'One City, One
World.'
"Taxis and buses pulled over, workers left their offices to stand in
the street and financial markets paused to remember the dead.
"In Italy,
government offices, railway stations and airports paused while television
stations cut into normal broadcasting to honour the London dead.
"In Paris,
President Jacques Chirac's annual Bastille day television address was put back
so the French could mark the moment. Chirac stood silent on the steps of the
Elysee Palace."
Has the United States or even simply Washington, DC held a
silent moment for the victims of the London bombings? Has any national gesture
of solidarity been proposed?
If so, I haven't seen or heard of it. We're
just going about our business while insisting that the world perpetually
acknowledge our scars and trauma from September 11th as our justification to
wage whatever aggressive action we deem necessary to ensure it never happens
again.
For months, we've been hearing and reading that Brits no longer
discriminate between average Americans and the policies of our government--that
the reelection of Bush has made them hold us in something of the same contempt
they hold him. Well, they have good reason, and we keep furnishing them with
better reasons all the time.

Since I couldn't have said it better, I will just sign myself- Embarrassed American

White Kids Dresser
I thought this was funny.

The Underbelly of Cultural Diversity:
"After the age of 17, a girl is considered too old for marriage - 'esta quedada'' - say the traditions in Ahuacotzingo, Guerrero."

Last July, the Mexican Consulate wrote a letter to Hillsborough Circuit Judge
Martha Cook trying to explain the couple's background.A bride is chosen between
the ages of 13 and 15, after a girl starts puberty and learns household
responsibilities, the letter stated. The letter - and a similar one in Spanish
from the Institute of Culture of Guerrero - said parents believe their daughters
are better off when married younger with older men.

Last year, Palm Beach County investigators dropped a first-degree murder charge
against a Mayan teenager from Guatemala who was accused of killing her baby
after a bloody bathroom birth. The girl later revealed she had been sold by her
father to a man when she was 11 and was later raped. She survived a harrowing
trip from Guatemala to Lake Worth and arrived pregnant.
The girl, now 17,
lives with foster parents, will be a senior this fall at Boynton Beach High
School and has learned Spanish and English.
Her case reveals yet another
quagmire for state investigators: They must also be on the lookout for the
growing number of victims of human trafficking.

This is where moral relativism breaks down. Should we accept parents selling or giving their eleven year old daughters to older men just because the practice has gone on in their country for hundreds or thousands of years?
I say no. If you want to live in the United States, you must agree to abide by the laws and social mores of American society where they conflict with the laws and social mores of your homeland.

Case puts victim in role of accused

Here's a synopsis:
Guy meets girl. Guy marries girl. Guy and girl have two kids. Girl starts affair with guy's "friend". Girl makes guy live in basement. Girl hires hitman to kill guy. Hitman is a cop. Girl pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder.
Girl's figurative hired gun claims guy was drunk and abusive. Figurative hired gun blames guy for instigating the rage and depression that drove girl to seek her other, literal hired gun. Guy asks judge to send girl to prison and give guy the $12k that wife paid to have him killed.
Judge not only deviates from sentencing guidelines and gives girl probation, judge called guy "selfish" for wanting the "hit money" and awards the money to girl. Guy loses business due to money and time spent since crime on divorce and criminal case.

I find this ruling outrageous. Any judge worth her salt should know attorneys can find an "expert" to espouse any theory, make any diagnosis, come to any conclusion the attorney requests. This is especially true in psychology, an amorphous discipline whose myriad theories and syndromes aren't readily proved or disproved.
From what I have been able to glean from newspaper accounts, there was no evidence of any abuse by the victim/husband. The husband denies he ever abused or threatened to abuse the perpetrator/now ex-wife. The daughters, ages 19 and 17, would have echoed this fact, had they not been forbidden by the judge from speaking at their mother's sentencing.
There should be a special place in hell/prison for people who falsely cry abuse to justify their criminal behavior, claim sexual abuse to gain the upper hand in a custody dispute, or cry racism to obscure the wrongdoing of the perpetrator. True racism, sex abuse and spousal abuse are grievous crimes. Like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", society will become deaf to true victims' cries for help, when blatant impostors are allowed to prevail on such claims with no corroborating evidence. To add insult to injury, while the ex-wife/perpetrator's claims are on the record, the husband/victim was given no opportunity to present evidence to dispute those charges and set the record straight.