Dark Matters

PHD Comics has a nice 6 minute video comic explaining what we know about Dark Matter.

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

World's Best Tetris Player

World's best Tetris player "It starts getting insane around the 3:00 mark and then, at 5 minutes in, all the blocks turn invisible and he keeps right on going! "



I'm pretty sure I'm not this good at anything.

3-2-6-1-5-3-4-6-8

(via grahams)

Emscripten

"Emscripten is an LLVM-to-JavaScript compiler. It takes LLVM bitcode (which can be generated from C/C++, using llvm-gcc or clang, or any other language that can be converted into LLVM) and compiles that into JavaScript, which can be run on the web (or anywhere else JavaScript can run)."

That's pretty insane.

Endeavour Docked One Last Time

NASA posted this pic of Endeavour docked at the ISS. As Bad Astronomy says, "The exposure time was long enough to show city lights streaking under the station, and I suspect tracked on the stars long enough to make them clear and obvious. I can’t identify the stars, but I think the southern dark nebula the Coal Sack can be seen on the left just above the limb of the Earth."

One-Person Drug Companies Sprouting Up In Boston

WBUR reports One-Person Drug Companies Sprouting Up In Boston.

"Dennis Goldberg runs a drug company out of one corner of his living room...The drug he and a couple of investors are putting through human trials right now is a cholesterol drug, an improvement over Lipitor. But Goldberg said he doesn’t need to have a corporate headquarters in Cambridge for LipimetiX to be successful. What Goldberg does is simply contract out the work he needs to get done. A peptide manufacturer makes the drug for him. Then he hires a lab to research it and then contracts with medical clinics to do the drug trials. Goldberg is spending $6 million of his and investor money to take this cholesterol drug through the first set of human trials."

A Trip Around Our Solar System

In Focus collections pictures in A Trip Around Our Solar System "Robotic probes launched by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and others are gathering information for us right now all across the solar system. We currently have spacecraft in orbit around the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Saturn; several others on their way to smaller bodies; and a few on their way out of the solar system entirely. On Mars, a rover called Spirit has just been officially left for dead, after two years of radio silence from it -- but its twin, Opportunity, continues on its mission, now more than 2,500 days beyond its originally planned 90-days. With all these eyes in the sky, I'd like to take the opportunity to put together a photo album of our Solar system -- a set of family portraits, of sorts -- as seen by our astronauts and mechanical emissaries."

A lot of these I've never seen before and as usual, they're amazing.

The science of justice: I think it's time we broke for lunch…

The Economist wrote in April, The science of justice: I think it's time we broke for lunch…. "A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes how Shai Danziger of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and his colleagues followed eight Israeli judges for ten months as they ruled on over 1,000 applications made by prisoners to parole boards. The plaintiffs were asking either to be allowed out on parole or to have the conditions of their incarceration changed. The team found that, at the start of the day, the judges granted around two-thirds of the applications before them. As the hours passed, that number fell sharply (see chart), eventually reaching zero. But clemency returned after each of two daily breaks, during which the judges retired for food. The approval rate shot back up to near its original value, before falling again as the day wore on.

To be sure, mealtimes were not the only thing that predicted the outcome of the rulings. Offenders who appeared prone to recidivism (in this case those with previous convictions) were more likely to be turned down, as were those who were not in a rehabilitation programme. Happily, neither the sex nor the ethnicity of the prisoners seemed to matter to the judges. Nor did the length of time the offenders had already spent in prison, nor even the severity of their crimes (as assessed by a separate panel of legal experts). But after controlling for recidivism and rehabilitation programmes, the meal-related pattern remained."

Some Questions for Paul Ryan

Ezra Klein has 8 good Questions for Paul Ryan. My favorite:

"2) The main cost control in your plan is that seniors will purchase regulated private health insurance on an exchange. But the Medicare Advantage program, in which seniors choose regulated private insurance options on an exchange and receive the savings through increased benefits, has proven more expensive than traditional Medicare. Why will your exchanges achieve such dramatically different results than the Medicare Advantage exchanges?"

From Space: Video of Five Days of Tornadoes

Bad Astronomy writes From space: video of five days of tornadoes. "Over the past few days, huge storms have exploded over the US midwest. The GOES 13 geostationary weather satellite had a birds-eye view of the whole thing, and its images were used to make animation showing five days of meteorological action:"

Joplin Before And After

The Daily What wrote "Missourian Aaron Fuhrman — a self-taught landscape photographer — has been traveling around Joplin, photographing heartrending panoramic shots of the devastation left in the aftermath of Sunday’s tornado.

Fuhrman lined up one of these panoramic photos with a Google Street View screencap of the same intersection to illustrate the comprehension-challenging extent of damage caused by the twister."

TV Movie Review: Too Big to Fail

HBO has made a docudrama Too Big to Fail based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's book about the financial crisis. I haven't read the book but thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Sure it's lots of old (mostly) white men in suits talking, but they're talking about the collapse of the world economy. By all accounts I've seen it's pretty accurate, I also found it understandable. I don't think I learned much but it did help me put all the players and timelines into perspective.

No matter how many people they have working for them when a crisis happens the top people get in a room and discuss options, at very high levels and make big sweeping decisions on hunches based on the best but incomplete information they have. It's amazing how many billion dollar mergers and bailouts happened so quickly, but the alternative was worse. We shouldn't have gotten into that situation, there should have been regulation and oversight to prevent it, but there wasn't and sadly there still isn't. But maybe if people have relive that experience we'll be able to see the need for it.

Also the casting is a lot of fun; best summed up by saying Dan Hedaya as Barney Frank.

Ezra Klein liked it. "Which is why “Too Big to Fail” is very much worth your time. The financial crisis wasn’t that long ago, but even so, it’s hard to recall how insane that period was, how the economy’s guardrails shook and then bent and then broke and how we almost tipped over. But it’s worth remembering, if only because it’s the only possible explanation for why we did what we did, and why we are where we are."

Mathew Yglesias did too. "Peter Gould’s slimmed down almost 600 pages of actual text in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book into 98 minutes, cutting out characters’ biographies, condensing protracted negotiations between Lehman Brothers and potential buyers into single scenes. The movie relies on montages of actual cable reports to provide context, but other than that, and a single scene where Paulson and Jim Wilkinson explain some of the financial instruments involved in the meltdown to Michele Davis to prepare her to brief the press, it mostly trusts the audience to keep up. It’s a risk, but with a small, curated audience like HBO’s, probably a reasonable gamble. The movie doesn’t need to waste time outlining John Thain’s compensation history to make him look avaricious when he complains about possible golden parachute limits during the meetings setting up the Troubled Asset Relief Program."

He also points out, House Republicans Aim To Reduce Regulation Of Derivatives.

Doctors and dentists tell patients, "all your review are belong to us"

Ars has another good article, Doctors and dentists tell patients, "all your review are belong to us".

"When I walked into the offices of Dr. Ken Cirka, I was looking for cleaner teeth, not material for an Ars Technica story. I needed a new dentist, and Yelp says Dr. Cirka is one of the best in the Philadelphia area. The receptionist handed me a clipboard with forms to fill out. After the usual patient information form, there was a "mutual privacy agreement" that asked me to transfer ownership of any public commentary I might write in the future to Dr. Cirka. Surprised and a little outraged by this, I got into a lengthy discussion with Dr. Cirka's office manager that ended in me refusing to sign and her showing me the door.

The agreement is based on a template supplied by an organization called Medical Justice, and similar agreements have been popping up in doctors' offices across the country. And although Medical Justice and Dr. Cirka both claim otherwise, it seems pretty obvious that the agreements are designed to help medical professionals censor their patients' reviews."

"Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews, and medical privacy laws do make it tricky for them to respond when their work is unfairly maligned." But the article points out, this isn't the way to correct this problem.

The Tragedy of Sarah Palin

The Atlantic published The Tragedy of Sarah Palin. I found it to be a really fascinating description of her and of her term as governor. I wish it came out during the election. It's long but worth reading (or at least Instapapering).

"As governor, Palin demonstrated many of the qualities we expect in our best leaders. She set aside private concerns for the greater good, forgoing a focus on social issues to confront the great problem plaguing Alaska, its corrupt oil-and-gas politics. She did this in a way that seems wildly out of character today—by cooperating with Democrats and moderate Republicans to raise taxes on Big Business. And she succeeded to a remarkable extent in settling, at least for a time, what had seemed insoluble problems, in the process putting Alaska on a trajectory to financial well-being. Since 2008, Sarah Palin has influenced her party, and the tenor of its politics, perhaps more than any other Republican, but in a way that is almost the antithesis of what she did in Alaska. Had she stayed true to her record, she might have pointed her party in a very different direction."

Understanding why Japan's recent quake defied expectations

Ars Technica has a good article, Understanding why Japan's recent quake defied expectations "Last week, Science released three papers and a perspective, all focused on understanding what happened during the March earthquake that struck Japan. Now officially termed the Tohoku-Oki quake, the event is estimated as a magnitude 9 quake—one of the biggest in recorded history—and it has triggered significant aftershocks. But it's not the size alone that has people worried; it's the fact that something this size occurred on a segment of fault that we didn't think was capable of producing a quake of this magnitude (an estimate that has had disastrous consequences at the Fukushima nuclear reactors). Understanding what happened and why can potentially tell us a lot more about risks elsewhere along this fault."

Movie Review: Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a documentary by Werner Herzog about the Chauvet Cave of southern France. Discovered in 1994 they contain the oldest known paintings by humans, 30,000 years old. The entrance collapsed long ago and the environment is fragile and almost toxic so only scientific teams are allowed in. Herzog was granted unprecedented access to film for six days.

He choose to film in 3D to capture the drawings which made use of the contours of the rock. On several occasions I closed one eye to see if the 3D added much and it did make a big difference. It's the best use of 3D I've seen next to Avatar and while most films aren't worth this extra cost, this one is.



They couldn't leave a 2 foot wide steel walkway and couldn't touch anything. There are lots of shots of the crew and I kept thinking, turn the camera to the wall. They seemed to shoot the same paintings over and over again, you'll see the above (amazing) image a lot.

It's a Herzog film so his narration is always fun. His great accent and boyish wonder of everything is infectious. The film is a bit clunky with it though. At one point in the cave he tells everyone to be quiet so they can just stare paintings and hear the cave "and maybe our own heartbeats". That's fine, but then the soundtrack pumps up a Pink Floyd like heartbeat (not punctuated with a cash register but I was waiting for it).

He interviews scientists about the paintings, including one named Wulf dressed literally in animal skins because that's what people would have worn in those times. Another was a perfumer trying to use his trained sense of smell to locate caves. Another awkwardly demonstrates ancient hunting techniques. But that all pales with the ending which literally asks what nearby mutant albino alligators would think of the paintings. Who else but Herzog would connect the two?

RIP Spirit

NASA Concludes Attempts to Contact Mars Rover Spirit - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "NASA is ending attempts to regain contact with the long-lived Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, which last communicated on March 22, 2010. A transmission that will end on Wednesday, May 25, will be the last in a series of attempts. Extensive communications activities during the past 10 months also have explored the possibility that Spirit might reawaken as the solar energy available to it increased after a stressful Martian winter without much sunlight. With inadequate energy to run its survival heaters, the rover likely experienced colder internal temperatures last year than in any of its prior six years on Mars. Many critical components and connections would have been susceptible to damage from the cold."

More Disaster Photos.

In Focus shows Tornado-damaged Joplin, From Above and The Big Picture shows Another Icelandic eruption: Grimsvotn volcano. Both have some new amazing photos.

Tornado and Volcano

In Focus has two sets of disaster photos today, Tornado Ravages Joplin, Missouri and Grimsvotn Volcano Erupts in Iceland. Both are worth looking at.

Weather satellites capture shots of volcanic plume blasting through clouds

Weather satellites capture shots of volcanic plume blasting through clouds.

Misuse of 3-D Digital Lens Leaves 2-D Movies in the Dark

Interesting and depressing article in the Boston Globe, Misuse of 3-D digital lens leaves 2-D movies in the dark. "The uniting factor is a fleet of 4K digital projectors made by Sony — or, rather, the 3-D lenses that many theater managers have made a practice of leaving on the projectors when playing a 2-D film. Though the issue is widespread, affecting screenings at AMC, National Amusements, and Regal cinemas, executives at all these major movie theater chains, and at the corporate offices of the projector’s manufacturer, have refused to directly acknowledge or comment on how and why it’s happening. Asked where his company stands on the matter, Dan Huerta, vice president of sight and sound for AMC, the second-biggest chain in the US, said only that “We don’t really have any official or unofficial policy to not change the lens.’’"

Scott Brown No Longer Backs Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan

Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) wrote an op-ed in Politico today Why I don't back Paul Ryan's Medicare plan. TPM rips him for flip-flopping, Walkback Complete: Scott Brown Now Attacks GOP Medicare Plan He Recently Praised. While I obviously agree with him (now) that Ryan's plan is awful, I'll attack Brown on the content of his piece.

"As part of the 2012 budget discussions, Congress is dealing with Medicare reform. This debate is long overdue, since its increasing cost must be addressed if we are serious about the nation’s growing $14 trillion debt and $1.6 trillion annual deficit. President Barack Obama unfortunately missed an opportunity to deal with this when he filed his budget. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) offered a plan that at least finally jumpstarted the debate."

Really, Congress is dealing with long overdue Medicare reform and Obama missed it in his budget? It's not like Obama and the Democrats having been trying to deal with Medicare and overall healthcare reform since they got into office. Remember, the right was ripping into them for changes to Medicare which they deemed "death panels". But I guess now the Republicans have the House we can finally deal with Medicare.

"First, I fear that as health inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support— and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays. Protecting those who have been counting on the current system their entire adult lives should be the key principle of reform."

Well yes, that's been a problem with the Ryan plan since the beginning, have you only just read it? The other problem is of course which private insurers will actually offer insurance to seniors? I like the phrasing of "their entire adult lives", does that include 25 year olds?

"Second, Medicare has already taken significant cuts to help pay for Obama’s health care plan. The president and Congress cut a half trillion dollars to the private side of Medicare — meaning seniors are at risk of losing their Medicare Advantage coverage."

Seriously?!? He can't really be saying this can he? The $500 billion is over 10 years, he leaves that part out. It's not so much cuts as much controlling the growth by 7% over that timeframe. Only about $130 billion of that is from Medicare Advantage which is an optional program that uses private insurance to provide Medicare coverage to about 10 million participants. It's more costly than the equivalent regular Medicare coverage so we're cutting payments to it over 10 years to save money. The Act is saving money by eliminating waste because the private sector is more expensive. But Republicans just can't get their heads around that.

See this Kaiser Health News article from October and this factcheck.org one. But if all you read is the Heritage Foundation, you understand it incorrectly.

Here's Obama on this, "Here -- here's what's going to happen. These are essentially private HMOs who are getting, on average -- and this is not my estimate, this is Democrats and Republicans, experts have said -- they're getting, on average, about 14 percent more over payments, basically subsidies from taxpayers for a program that ordinary Medicare does just as good, if not better, at keeping people healthy. Now, they package these things in ways that, in some cases, may make it more convenient for some consumers, but they're overcharging massively for it. There's no competitive bidding under the process. And so what we've said is instead of spending $17 billion, $18 billion a year, $177 billion over 10 years on that, why wouldn’t we use that to close the donut hole so the people are actually getting better prescription drugs."

Back to Brown, "The Government Accountability Office has estimated that nearly 10 percent, or $47 billion, of annual Medicare spending is nothing but waste, fraud or abuse. Attorney General Eric Holder has put the number higher — at $60 billion. We need Medicare administrators to work to prevent these improper payments — instead of the existing “pay and chase” model that makes the system so susceptible to fraud."

While both sides argue about Medicare administrative costs, it's not clear if they're better or worse than private insurance. Ezra Klein has a good primer on this. I certainly agree that we should be investigating Medicare fraud, but my understanding is that funding for doing so has been cut by Republicans. I've had a hard time finding references to this. This is the best I've seen, Medicare Fraud Fight Would Be Harmed by House GOP Cuts, CMS Says. If you have something better let me know.

The rest was pretty banal. "improve quality", "tort reform", "work with people" in either party, "not the time for finger pointing", blah blah blah.

So yeah, he seems to be closer to my views, great. I'm not sure what convinced him though I'd guess a lot of constituent calls. Now it would be great if he could convince some other Republicans, or maybe even the leadership to do a better job.

Stanley Kubrick’s Chicago, 1949

How To Be A Retronaut wrote Stanley Kubrick’s Chicago, 1949 "Before he started making movies, Stanley Kubrick was a star photojournalist. In the summer of 1949, Look magazine sent him to Chicago to shoot pictures for a story called “Chicago City of Contrasts.”

When Austerity Fails

Krugman wrote When Austerity Fails "After the creation of the euro in 1999, European nations that had previously been considered risky, and that therefore faced limits on the amount they could borrow, began experiencing huge inflows of capital. After all, investors apparently thought, Greece/Portugal/Ireland/Spain were members of a European monetary union, so what could go wrong?

The answer to that question is now, of course, painfully apparent. Greece’s government, finding itself able to borrow at rates only slightly higher than those facing Germany, took on far too much debt. The governments of Ireland and Spain didn’t (Portugal is somewhere in between) — but their banks did, and when the bubble burst, taxpayers found themselves on the hook for bank debts. The problem was made worse by the fact that the 1999-2007 boom left prices and costs in the debtor nations far out of line with those of their neighbors."

Malware on the Mac

Ars has a good article, Malware on the Mac: is there cause for concern?.

Remember: World to End Tomorrow

As I reported in March, Family Radio says tomorrow is Judgement Day. I saw a shrink wrapped bus driving around Boston on Wed to remind me of this. Sorry, I didn't get a picture because I was driving. Apparently it happens at 6pm local time.

Now I'm a little confused on what tomorrow actually is. Is it the final judgement? But there's also supposed to be a first judgement. And shouldn't Christ have returned already? Maybe he's keeping a low profile.

I'm also not quite sure what happens to me. I think I just stay here, but I guess I might go to hell, or maybe here turns into hell? There are supposed to be earthquakes. Anyway all the true believers go up to heaven. That I'd like. It would basically guarantee the Democrats would win the 2012 election. In fact, there will probably be a lot of vacancies in Congress so we'll need special elections and probably won't have to wait till 2012. Bring it on.

An Hour of Boston Logan Airport Takeoffs in Two and a Half Minutes

Kepler Orrery

"All the multiple-planet systems discovered by Kepler as of 2/2/2011; orbits go through the entire mission (3.5 years). Hot colors to Cool colors (Red to yellow to green to cyan to blue to gray) are Big planets to Smaller planets, relative to the other planets in the system."

Recent Astronomy Images and News

Here's some amazing footage of the sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory



Those flares can cause magnetic fields that affect the earth and display as auroras like this:



Here are two photos of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The first shows "swirls of tracks left by dust devils" and the second "the bedrock on the floor of a crater near Noachis Terra"



There are more images here. Mars has a very varied landscape.

NASA reports Free-Floating Planets May Be More Common Than Stars. "Astronomers have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds are probably outcasts from developing planetary systems and, moreover, they could be twice as numerous as the stars themselves. 'Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected,' said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. '[This has] major implications for models of planetary formation and evolution.'"

NASA also wrote, NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer Helps Confirm Nature of Dark Energy. "A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion years in cosmic time, has led to one of the best independent confirmations that dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds." "The results tell us that dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed."

io9 reports on a Nature article, The Earth’s core melts and freezes all at the same time. "The researchers examined heat flow at the boundary between the core and the mantle. In areas like the Pacific Ring of Fire, the tectonic plates are undergoing subduction, which involves one of the plates being pushed underneath into the other and into the mantle below. Because the crust is cooler than the mantle, this subduction process causes a net loss of heat in the mantle. As the subducted ocean plates sink to the bottom of the mantle, they begin to suck up heat from the core itself. All this exacerbates the freezing process down in the core. But here's where things get interesting - it's also possible for plate tectonics to produce the opposite effect. There are areas beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean where the plates are so large that very little heat can escape upwards, meaning the mantle is hotter than average. This in turn means that there is less heat flow from the core. The heat stays further down, and the core can actually become hot enough for the solid inner core to start melting again, in a reversal of the general trend. This means that Earth's inner core is simultaneously melting and freezing, which is a pretty neat trick."

The past, present and future of the deficit

Ezra Klein wrote The past, present and future of the deficit. "The takeaway? They’re all quite similar. Absent the financial crisis, the wars and the tax cuts, we’d be in pretty good fiscal shape right now. Which suggests that it’s probably not a great idea to be defunding our financial regulators and refusing to consider a return to Clinton-era tax rates."




These are from the Economic Policy Institute, Pew, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Worst president ever.

Klein also laments, How more stimulus could reduce the deficit, and vice versa. " In fact, there’s no stimulus money or tax increases on the table at all. And that’s because, for Republicans, deficit reduction is not the top priority. It’s lower, for instance, than opposing tax increases and stimulus. If it wasn’t, we’d have a deal already — one that could address both our jobs problem and our debt problem in a big way. Instead, we’ve abandoned the unemployed and are bickering over the debt. Which is perhaps the most frustrating thing about this issue: some policy problems are very hard to solve, but this one isn’t. There’s a win-win on the table, a deal that could address both the problems and the politics, but Washington seems entirely uninterested in it."

Throwing the Tea Party Under the Bus

Kevin Drum wrote Throwing the Tea Party Under the Bus. About tea party demands to not raise the debt ceiling.


"In any case, I actually see this as a bigger problem for the tea party than it is for Boehner. Don't get me wrong: it's a huge pain in the ass for Boehner because, in the end, he'll have to defy the tea partiers and do what Wall Street wants — which, on the bright side, also happens to be the right thing to do. In the longer term, though, this is just another sign of the tea party wearing out its welcome. It was a handy force for rousing the voters in the 2010 election, but there's only so much idiocy that even Republicans can put up with. Talk radio is one thing. Fox News is one thing. For the most part, they talk big but don't actually demand that politicians commit suicide. Tea partiers, conversely, do want them to commit suicide, and if they get their way the only real result is going to be more Democrats in Congress and the reelection of Barack Obama. The adults in the party understand this perfectly well, and they're going to throw the tea partiers under the bus if it looks like they're seriously screwing things up for GOP hopes next year."

Let's hope so.

Mississippi Floodwaters Roll South

In Focus has devastating photos as Mississippi Floodwaters Roll South "Very slowly, the high waters of the swollen Mississippi River are making their way south to Louisiana. Weeks of heavy rains and runoff from an unusually snowy winter have flooded thousands of homes and over 3 million acres of farmland in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The river is expected to crest at a record height of 58.5 feet sometime today in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 200 miles north of New Orleans. In order to spare larger cities and industrial areas downstream, the U.S, Army Corps of Engineers has opened floodgates in the Morganza Spillway, north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, allowing an estimated 100,000 cubic feet of river water to flow into the Atchafalaya Basin every second. Collected here are images of the Mississippi and those caught in its path over the past few days -- coping, watching and waiting. [40 photos]"

More Proof Ben Stein is an Ass

Ben Stein wrote a stupid post about Dominique Strauss-Kahn listing several reasons he's probably innocent. One of them was this bit of inanity:

"In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category? Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind."

"People who commit crimes tend to be criminals", really? How about every criminals first crime? Boing Boing points to a List of economists involved in violent sex crimes, for Ben Stein.

Apple Tech Support Regarding Malware

There is a mac malware going around called Mac Defender, the details are here. It's not a virus but a fake anti-spyware program that is itself an infection (just to scare you to buy it). To get it, you have to go to a website and install it yourself. Don't.

Ed Bott's Microsoft Report wrote Apple to support reps: "Do not attempt to remove malware". He posts what he purports is an internal memo for AppleCare reps on how to handle support calls about it. If it's real, it's pretty crappy. They won't help in any way shape or form, even answering basic statements about if it's installed or not.

I suspect the document is real and will be repealed soon. Apple makes mistakes on such policies and usually corrects them. I only expressed doubts because while I haven't heard of Mr. Bott, his post is in a Microsoft Report and he then compares it to Microsoft's malware tech support policy. I find the security comparisons between the two systems pretty funny.

Amazon Now Sells More Kindle Books Than Hardcover and Paperback Combined

Amazon Now Sells More Kindle Books Than Hardcover and Paperback Combined - Techland - TIME.com "In a press release sent out this morning, online mega-seller Amazon announced that Kindle books are now outselling both print and hardcover books combined. It took a little over two years since the Kindle launched in 2007 to have its e-books outpace hardcovers, but it happened in July of 2010 before overtaking paperbacks six months later as well."

I wish I could buy a Kindle book from either the Kindle or Amazon iPad apps (and not just from the website).

Justice in Dreamland

Linda Greenhouse has an interesting post, Justice in Dreamland. "It’s worth stopping to consider the assumptions about human nature that underlie not only this ruling but much of the court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. It’s worth wondering what planet the justices — most of them, anyway, and not just the incumbents, but many of their predecessors — have been living on when it comes to encounters between the police and the rest of us."

The CIA Weighs In: Torture Did Not Help Find Bin Laden

I agree with everything in this ACLU post, The CIA Weighs In: Torture Did Not Help Find Bin Laden

Government is Broken

The Washington Post wrote ‘Gang of Six’ on verge of collapse as Republican Sen. Coburn withdraws "Those close to the talks said trouble has been brewing for weeks. Earlier this month, the group appeared to be tantalizingly close to an agreement. But then, Democratic sources said, Coburn started bringing up new issues at every meeting, or demanding that old ones be reconsidered. For example, Coburn began pressing for sharper cuts to Social Security than had been previously agreed to, according to sources familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the negotiations. And during a three-hour session late Monday, the sources said, Coburn demanded deep and immediate cuts to Medicare that went beyond anything previously proposed."

Mathew Yglesias sums up, You Can’t Make A Deal If People Don’t Want A Deal "This is a familiar pattern in the Obama administration. Bipartisan talks begin on the Hill. They make progress. Sometimes a little progress, and sometimes a lot of progress. Then at some point during the progress-making, the conservative participants in the talks realize that they have a problem—the talks are making progress! So then they start casting around for new demands or new reasons to break off the talks. Eventually, Lucy yanks the football away and we’re back to square one."

Ezra Klein says "But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Gangs, groups and gaggles haven't had much success at bridging broad partisan gaps in recent years."

I think it's just the Republican party, or maybe their leadership (and the rank and file just go along like sheep). There's just no intellectual honesty going on here. Lies and mistruths are spread by Fox and Rush and the constituents call to make sure their representatives don't make deals and hold the party line. Even if it's it factually wrong. You want to debate small vs large government, fine but don't say things like the deficit is the cause of our economic problems and then go on to continue to subsidize the most profitable companies' taxes while saying raising taxes can't solve things.

So Paul Ryan's plan does in fact end Medicare as we know it, even if he won't admit it. Newt Gingrich, now infamously called it social engineering from the right and he's been back peddling ever since.

Kevin Drum brilliantly sums up the back peddling, Quote of the Day: Truth is Libel: "You have to give the guy credit for stones, I guess. On Sunday he called Ryan's plan "right-wing social engineering" and said he was opposed to it. Within hours he was getting hammered by just about every conservative luminary in the country and watching his presidential campaign go up in smoke. So first he tried to pretend that host David Gregory had somehow tricked him, even though Gregory's question was a pretty straightforward softball and Gingrich's answer was obviously a considered one. Then he explained that his language had probably been a wee bit "too strong." Then he blamed the liberal media for taking his comments "out of context." Then he suggested that his views were "evolving" and the press really needed to keep up. Then he "clarified" that what he really supported was a voluntary version of the Ryan plan that could be implemented right now, instead of ten years from now. Then he called Paul Ryan to apologize. Finally, tonight, having apparently convinced himself that 48 hours of abject abasement had literally erased what he said on Sunday, he declared that anyone who accurately quotes his Sunday statement in the future is a liar."

Ezra Klein wonders "if this is the sort of advice the people who sign up for his ”transformational leadership” seminars are receiving. There is, after all, a lot of transforming going on here."

But it gets even better. Gingrich press secretary Rick Tyler responded with this unbelievable missive. "The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,” Tyler wrote. “Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces."

Seriously?!?!! I was going to say that if New Gingrich has become the reasonable voice in GOP party that's evidence that things have gotten seriously bad, but with the crap I just listed, I can't bring myself to say it.

Ezra Klein wrote, Ryan 1, Newt 0. "Newt Gingrich’s attack on Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan as “right-wing social engineering” could have resolved itself one of two ways. The first is that Gingrich could have stood his ground, proposed a different Medicare plan, and provoked a healthy debate among GOP presidential candidates about the role of government in health care. The second is that he could have apologized and groveled at Ryan’s feet for forgiveness. And groveling it is...The three main Democratic candidates in 2008 had very, very similar health care plans, but they at least argued vigorously over what few differences there were between them. The 2012 Republican field doesn’t seem likely to feature even that much disagreement."

And he wrote You can’t save Medicare by raising taxes. "That’s why Ryan’s plan isn’t real health-care reform: it has no plausible strategy for slowing the growth in health-care costs, and instead just cuts federal spending on the program. Simply raising taxes, however, is the mirror image of that. It just tosses more money into the maw of Medicare, and leaves less for everything else. What we need is to cut the actual growth in health-care costs, so there's room for us to make needed investments elsewhere, and, while I’m on the subject, so private businesses can give their workers larger raises rather than diverting every spare dollar to health-care insurance. The Affordable Care Act makes a good start on that, and a series of committed, attentive Congresses could finish the job. But let’s not get distracted by a debate over spending cuts or tax increases. Both are wrong. In the long run, reform is the only way forward."

Government is broken.

Just Another Day At Fox News

I'm getting a haircut tomorrow. If the conversation turns to politics it's articles like this that help me keep up with whatever crazy thing my barber might be complaining about. It's not only that I disagree with him on most things, it's that he hears completely different news than I do. I had no idea "that 20% of all healthcare waivers had gone to Nancy Pelosi's district!" As Kevin Drum reports, Just Another Day At Fox News.

Cross Section Views of Leica Lenses

Cross Section Views of Leica Lenses "If colleges offered camera equipment anatomy classes, this Leica lens cutaway might be one of the things you’d be examining in the lab. It’s a Leica Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50mm sliced cleanly down the middle, revealing all the glass and pieces inside that go into making the lens."

Here's What's Wrong With Our Intellectual Property System

Disney files trademark for "Seal Team 6;" possibly for "Killing bin Laden" snow globes, Christmas ornaments.

"SEAL Team 6 is the elite Navy squad credited with killing Osama bin Laden. One day after the raid, Disney Enterprises, Inc., filed applications with the US. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark the name "SEAL TEAM 6." The trademark has not yet been granted."

How the father of electromagnetism took the first color photograph 150 years ago

io9 in How the father of electromagnetism took the first color photograph 150 years ago gives a nice history of color photography. Lots of stuff I didn't know.

Scenes From China

Stunningly beautiful photos in Scenes From China "China, now the second-largest economy in the world, is a vast and diverse country that is nearly impossible to sum up in a single photo essay. But here is an attempt -- a recent photographic look across the nation. The ruling Communist Party is gearing up for its 90th anniversary. Massive growth and construction continue to raise environmental concerns. And three years later, residents of Sichuan are still recovering from the May 2008 earthquake that killed more than 85,000. This collection is only a small glimpse of events in China over the past month. [48 photos]"

The Fox News Effect

Chris Mooney wrote The Fox News "Effect": A Few References "These studies tend to take the same basic form. First, they survey Americans to determine their views about some matter of controversy. Inevitably, some significant percentage of citizens are found to be misinformed about the core facts of the issue--but not just that. The surveys also find that those who watch Fox, or watch it frequently, are more likely to be misinformed."

Walter Lewin Lecture

I hadn't heard of Walter Lewin before, but Monday I saw this amazing lecture. A labor of love "Walter Lewin, acclaimed professor emeritus and Internet star, delivers one final lecture at MIT."

His new book is For the Love of Physics.

Winter Is Coming

If you're watching HBO's A Game of Thrones and haven't read the books, you're probably completely confused on almost all the characters and know only a few names. Winter Is Coming might help. They have recaps of the episodes, separate ones for those that read the books and those that haven't and also this nice cheat sheet of characters.

Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too

Ars wrote Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too.

"Things moved fairly quickly: by four hours after the tsunami hit, the levels of cooling water had dropped enough that the top of the fuel stack was exposed to the air. Shortly after that happened, the temperature in the core reached nearly 3,000°C, and the cooling water boiled off the bottom of the fuel stack. Melting of fuel rods started at 4.8 hours after the earthquake hit, and a partial meltdown had already occurred by 5.1 hours. According to TEPCO, any residual integrity in the fuel rods was gone by 15 hours after the quake, and the reactor core was emptied of fuel by 16 hours. If there's a bright side here, it's that, by melting to the floor of the reactor, most of the fuel was resubmerged in cooling water"

"All of this will make the cleanup efforts extraordinarily complex, as the fuel can no longer be lifted out using the structure it was incorporated into, since all that supporting material has melted away. Workers will also have to contend with leaks of highly radioactive water during the process; that water will have to be removed or contained before it leaches into the surrounding soil. There are positives here—temperatures are relatively low now, and the fuel appears to have remained in the reactor vessel—but Fukushima is likely to be a long-term worry."

Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities writes Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits. "Some lawmakers, pundits, and others continue to say that President George W. Bush’s policies did not drive the projected federal deficits of the coming decade — that, instead, it was the policies of President Obama and Congress in 2009 and 2010. But, the fact remains: the economic downturn, President Bush’s tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years (see Figure 1)."

National Jukebox

The Library of Congress has created the National Jukebox "The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives."

Jon Stewart Last Night

I thought Jon Stewart did a great job last night covering a Fox faux-controversy (which I of course hadn't heard anything about). I'm also tired of the ridiculousness and hypocracy.

Gas Prices

The BBC asks Why are Americans so angry about petrol prices? "Rising petrol prices in the US are expected to be one of the key issues in the 2012 presidential election. But Americans still pay half of what Europeans fork out on the forecourt. So why is it such a big deal?"

"Americans use their cars more, so the pain is greater. They have, on average, a longer daily commute than all Europeans, except Hungarians and Romanians. Public transport is generally poor so many Americans have no alternative but to drive."

Of course a huge factor in the price of gas is the price of crude oil. "It's increased in price by about $1.20 a gallon since August, he says, driven by increased global demand, especially in China and India, where more and more people are driving cars." But then there's this chart, since our gas taxes are so low, the price of crude has a bigger influence on our gas prices than in other places:

A Year After Opening, Panera’s Pay-What-You-Want Café Proving Successful

The Washington Post wrote A year after opening, Panera’s pay-what-you-want café proving successful "Overall, the café performs at about 80 percent of retail and brings in revenue of about $100,000 a month. That’s enough to generate $3,000 to $4,000 a month above costs, money being used for a job training program for at-risk youths."

Boehner’s Fraudulent Speech Savaged, Agenda Criticized by Catholic Academics

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post, so I'm reposting]

David Dayen writes in FireDogLake Boehner’s Fraudulent Speech Savaged, Agenda Criticized by Catholic Academics.

He points to a Bloomberg article Studies Contradict Boehner Economy Views and a National Catholic Reporter article, Catholic Academics Challenge Boehner.

I agree with Dayen "The speech was just a sea of right-wing lies about the economy over three decades, employed to back up an ideological agenda of tax cuts and limiting government. That’s all there is to it." The Catholic academics make a good point:

"Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings. From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it."

I wonder if it will stick the religious right, particularly after Ryan's budget:

"The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy."

Jon Stewart Last Wednesday

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post, so I'm reposting]

I thought Jon Stewart did a great job last night covering a Fox faux-controversy (which I of course hadn't heard anything about). I'm also tired of the ridiculousness and hypocracy.

After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post, so I'm reposting. Jon Stewart covered this last night but I posted it last week :)]

Arc technica writes After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist "Four months after approving the massive transaction, Attwell Baker will take a top DC lobbying job for the new Comcast-NBC entity, according to reports."

"At the time, Baker objected to FCC attempts to impose conditions on the deal and argued that the 'complex and significant transaction" could "bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms.'"

Doesn't this seem like a conflict of interest (as a quid pro quo).

Gas Prices

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post, so I'm reposting]

The BBC asks Why are Americans so angry about petrol prices? "Rising petrol prices in the US are expected to be one of the key issues in the 2012 presidential election. But Americans still pay half of what Europeans fork out on the forecourt. So why is it such a big deal?"

"Americans use their cars more, so the pain is greater. They have, on average, a longer daily commute than all Europeans, except Hungarians and Romanians. Public transport is generally poor so many Americans have no alternative but to drive."

Of course a huge factor in the price of gas is the price of crude oil. "It's increased in price by about $1.20 a gallon since August, he says, driven by increased global demand, especially in China and India, where more and more people are driving cars." But then there's this chart, since our gas taxes are so low, the price of crude has a bigger influence on our gas prices than in other places:

Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post, so I'm reposting]

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities writes Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits. "Some lawmakers, pundits, and others continue to say that President George W. Bush’s policies did not drive the projected federal deficits of the coming decade — that, instead, it was the policies of President Obama and Congress in 2009 and 2010. But, the fact remains: the economic downturn, President Bush’s tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years (see Figure 1)."

National Jukebox

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post, so I'm reposting]

The Library of Congress has created the National Jukebox "The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives."

Mississippi Flooding

[Blogspot seems to have lost this post so I'm reposting]

In Focus shows Mississippi Flooding "The Mississippi River crested in Memphis at nearly 48 feet yesterday -- not quite surpassing its all-time record set in 1937, but still soaking low-lying areas with enough water to require a massive cleanup. The upper Mississippi basin has been experiencing near-record flooding for weeks now. Across Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Arkansas, heavy rains have left the ground saturated and rivers swollen. At the same time as recovery begins in Memphis, residents of Louisiana are working to prepare themselves for the massive amounts of water heading their way -- experts estimate that as many as three million acres may become submerged in the next few days. Collected below are images of the recent floods and those who are coping with this disaster. [35 photos]"



This is downtown Memphis and as I understand it, it was mostly spared. The pyramid is a museum that I've visited.

TiVo Woes

Last Friday (the 13th) my TiVo died. I woke up and it showed just a grey screen. I rebooted and got back to the same thing. I did it a few times and it finally came up but it died again. I called TiVo and they walked me through running SMART tests on the drives (I had a Series 3 TiVo with an external 1TB WD MyDVR expander which is supported by TiVo).

The SMART test showed the internal drive failed. TiVo only had some crappy options for me. The device was 4.5 years old and I had lifetime service on it (that I had paid to transfer from my original TiVo which is still running in the bedroom). TiVo would let me buy a newer model for $270 (a $30 discount) and pay $200 to transfer the lifetime subscription to it. Or they could put a new drive in my Series 3 for ~$150 but I'd still have to pay $200 to transfer lifetime to this new fixed box. That seemed ridiculous to me. In essence they weren't offering to swap the drive but to give me a new unit. The support rep was friendly and did off that I could go to weaKnees.com and get a new drive and install it myself and not have to transfer lifetime service.

That's what I ended up doing. I ordered a 500GB drive for $169 and with two-day shipping it came to about $190. It arrived today and I installed it. The installation was easy. 6 screws to open the TiVo, 4 screws to remove the drive, 4 more to disconnect it from the drive mount and then put it all back. The TiVo came up and after going through Guided Setup was up and running in about 30 minutes.

I then connected the external drive and rebooted. The TiVo showed it was connected but didn't register the additional storage space. I rebooted 4 times and had the same problem. I called TiVo and the support rep was nice but not particularly helpful. The only advice she could offer was rebooting. She asked a supervisor and he said since I got a new drive that's probably the problem and they can't help anymore. I said it was TiVo that recommended I went to weaKnees and there is a TiVo image on the drive. I really expected them to check the system version number to make sure it was the latest or to give me some way to see error logs or something. The rep was nice enough to stay on a little longer but couldn't offer any additional help.

I called weaKnees and he knew immediately what the problem was. TiVo only supports an external drive with an original drive internal. Since I got a 500GB drive that's why it wasn't working. That's why they still sell the 250GB drive. He said they try to make this clear on the website but people miss it. I looked and it's there but I did miss it. I wondered why anyone would buy the 250GB drive for $159 instead of the 500GB one for just $10 more. The 1TB drive was $249 and I figured I didn't need that given the external.

But then it all worked out well. WeaKnees is having a sale today on 1TB drives, just $199. They're sending me one with free ground shipping. In a week it will arrive and I can swap it in and then return my 500GB drive for a refund (less a $10 restocking fee). It would have been nice to avoid the hassle but I can fix the TiVo on my own terms and I'll still have HD TV for season finale week (the TiVo uses cableCARDs so it's my cable box, if it's dead there no TV at all on that set).

Hard drives fail, I'm okay with that. TiVo wasn't very helpful. They don't have a way to replace drives and they charge too much for transferring lifetime service (which as I understand is about to go up to $500 on new machines). WeaKnees offers a much better service, was very accommodating, was faster to diagnose a problem and is more affordable.

TiVo is still the best toy I have (yeah I think even more so than my mac or iPad) and I still like it a lot better than other DVRs. I've been a shareholder for a long time and wish they could be more profitable but now I also wish they had better service.

Gas Prices

The BBC asks Why are Americans so angry about petrol prices? "Rising petrol prices in the US are expected to be one of the key issues in the 2012 presidential election. But Americans still pay half of what Europeans fork out on the forecourt. So why is it such a big deal?"

"Americans use their cars more, so the pain is greater. They have, on average, a longer daily commute than all Europeans, except Hungarians and Romanians. Public transport is generally poor so many Americans have no alternative but to drive."

Of course a huge factor in the price of gas is the price of crude oil. "It's increased in price by about $1.20 a gallon since August, he says, driven by increased global demand, especially in China and India, where more and more people are driving cars." But then there's this chart, since our gas taxes are so low, the price of crude has a bigger influence on our gas prices than in other places:

Namib-Naukluft Park Picture

This is the National Geographic Photo of the Day, it's not a painting Namib-Naukluft Park Picture.

Yankee Stadium Tips Taken By Owners, Servers Allege

Yankee Stadium Tips Taken By Owners, Servers Allege "In the more desirable seats at Yankee Stadium, an already pricey $10.50 draft beer will run you an eye-popping $12.60 thanks to an involuntary 20 percent 'service fee' tacked on to the original price. If the sticker shock doesn’t make that brew bitter enough, consider this: Despite what you might expect, that extra $2 and change isn't going to the hustling server who sold it to you, according to a new lawsuit.

Legends Hospitality, the concessionaire co-owned by the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, and Goldman Sachs, allegedly pockets the 20 percent service fee attached to food and drink in violation of New York law, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against the company by three Yankee Stadium servers this week. If certified as class action, the suit could involve more than a hundred servers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims."

Apparently everything is Goldman Sachs' fault. It's one thing to tack on an extra stupid fee for money grubbing purposes. It's another to do so in a way that makes servers lose their tips.

After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist

Arc technica writes After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist "Four months after approving the massive transaction, Attwell Baker will take a top DC lobbying job for the new Comcast-NBC entity, according to reports."

"At the time, Baker objected to FCC attempts to impose conditions on the deal and argued that the 'complex and significant transaction" could "bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms.'"

Doesn't this seem like a conflict of interest (as a quid pro quo).

Mississippi Flooding

In Focus shows Mississippi Flooding "The Mississippi River crested in Memphis at nearly 48 feet yesterday -- not quite surpassing its all-time record set in 1937, but still soaking low-lying areas with enough water to require a massive cleanup. The upper Mississippi basin has been experiencing near-record flooding for weeks now. Across Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Arkansas, heavy rains have left the ground saturated and rivers swollen. At the same time as recovery begins in Memphis, residents of Louisiana are working to prepare themselves for the massive amounts of water heading their way -- experts estimate that as many as three million acres may become submerged in the next few days. Collected below are images of the recent floods and those who are coping with this disaster. [35 photos]"



This is downtown Memphis and as I understand it, it was mostly spared. The pyramid is a museum that I've visited.

Boehner’s Fraudulent Speech Savaged, Agenda Criticized by Catholic Academics

David Dayen writes in FireDogLake Boehner’s Fraudulent Speech Savaged, Agenda Criticized by Catholic Academics.

He points to a Bloomberg article Studies Contradict Boehner Economy Views and a National Catholic Reporter article, Catholic Academics Challenge Boehner.

I agree with Dayen "The speech was just a sea of right-wing lies about the economy over three decades, employed to back up an ideological agenda of tax cuts and limiting government. That’s all there is to it." The Catholic academics make a good point:

"Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings. From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it."

I wonder if it will stick the religious right, particularly after Ryan's budget:

"The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy."

Blackwater Founder Builds Mideast Mercenary Army to Put Down Revolts

Spencer Ackerman writes Blackwater Founder Builds Mideast Mercenary Army to Put Down Revolts.

The West Wing Explained the Debt Ceiling

Paul Ryan Fires Back At Newt: With Friends Like These ...

TPM reports Paul Ryan Fires Back At Newt: With Friends Like These ... "Paul Ryan defended his struggling Medicare proposal from its toughest Republican criticism yet on Monday, rebutting Newt Gingrich's claim that it was 'right-wing social engineering.'"

Maybe this election season could be fun :)

Nikon Image Authentication System: Compromised

Nikon Image Authentication System: Compromised "ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. researched Nikon’s Image Authentication System, a secure suite validating if an image has been altered since capture, and discovered a major flaw. The flaw allows anyone producing forged pictures that will successfully pass validation with Nikon’s Image Authentication Software. The weakness lies in the manner the secure image signing key is being handled in Nikon digital cameras. The existence of the weakness allowed ElcomSoft to actually extract the original signing key from a Nikon camera. This, in turn, made it possible to produce manipulated images signed with a fully valid authentication signature."

"The ultimate vulnerability is that the private (should-be-secret) cryptographic key is handled inappropriately, and can be extracted from camera." It's always the same. Though I didn't know that Nikon had such a system or that Canon does too (with a similar flaw).

Direct Democracy: Origin of the Species

A few weeks ago The Economist did a special report on government in California. It was all interesting but this one paragraph from one article summed it up nicely. Direct democracy: Origin of the species. "Direct democracy in California is thus an aberration. It has no safeguards against Madison’s tyranny of the majority. It recognises no saucer that might cool the passions of the people. Above all, it is not a system intended to contain minority factions. Instead, it encourages special interests to wage war by ballot measure until one lobby prevails and imposes its will on all. Madison and Hamilton would have been horrified."

Hobbes and Bacon

The site is still bogged down but web comic Pants Are Overrated did a tribute to Calvin and Hobbes, set in the future when Calvin is a father. Hobbes and Bacon is great.

Update: There's a part 2.

Casino Royale: discovering the lost script

The Telegraph wrote a fascinating article, Casino Royale: discovering the lost script. "In response to the growing popularity of Bond, Feldman turned to Ben Hecht to write a script for Casino Royale. Known as 'the Shakespeare of Hollywood', Hecht was a novelist, poet and playwright who had written or co-written several classic scripts, including The Front Page, based on a play he had co-written; Underworld, for which he won the first best screenplay Oscar in 1927; the original Scarface; and Hitchcock’s Spellbound and Notorious. Hecht also worked uncredited on dozens of other screenplays, including Gone With The Wind, Foreign Correspondent and a few other Hitchcock films."

"But these drafts are a master-class in thriller-writing, from the man who arguably perfected the form with Notorious. Hecht made vice central to the plot, with Le Chiffre actively controlling a network of brothels and beautiful women who he is using to blackmail powerful people around the world. Just as the theme of Fleming’s Goldfinger is avarice and power, the theme of Hecht’s Casino Royale is sex and sin. It’s an idea that seems obvious in hindsight, and Hecht used it both to raise the stakes of Fleming’s plot and to deepen the story’s emotional resonance."

It goes on to describe the plot and it really sounds great.

Medicare Election Politics

Mother Jones wrote about The Democrats' Medicare Problem. "Republicans have already launched an ad against Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Ca.), a Democrat representing a Northern California swing district, Politico reports. In the television ad, Republicans claim that 'McNerney and President Obama's Medicare plan empowers bureaucrats to interfere with doctors, risking seniors' access to treatment. Now, Obama's budget plan lets Medicare go bankrupt: That'd mean big cuts to benefits. Tell McNerney to stop bankrupting Medicare.'"

This of course is amazingly hypocritical since the GOP plan is to replace Medicare with vouchers that are too small to pay for coverage if you could find an insurer willing to insure seniors. The article explains,

"The first sentence of the ad refers to a new Medicare payment advisory panel created by Obama's Affordable Care Act. The ACA empowers an independent, Senate-approved group of experts to reduce Medicare costs—so long as their actions don't ration care, increase premiums, or decrease coverage. In terms of keeping wasteful spending and costs down, it's one of the most important pieces of the federal reform—and one of the most widely misunderstood, reviled by the GOP as the new "death panel." House Democrats were wary of supporting the panel to begin with, and concerned about its ability to bypass legislators. (Congress can still vote to override the panel's decisions, but the panel doesn't need advance approval to act.) Now a small but growing number of Dems have signed on to a GOP effort to scrap the panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)."

About this, digby wrote Offense Defense. "This should be a slam dunk for the Democrats but only if they take an exceedingly hard line and don't waver. If they start capitulating and wavering, they'll lose the most valuable political advantage they've built up over 60 years. Dems should just say 'we created social security and Medicare, we protected it when the Republicans tried to end them over and over again, and you can trust us to keep them strong now.' Seniors are old enough to remember that history."

Meanwhile, Ezra Klein explains, America’s waiting times are the worst in the developed world. "Any discussion of waiting times must begin with the observation that France, Germany, Switzerland and many other developed nations manage to combine universal access to care with rapid access to care. It’s an unfortunate quirk of international health-care policy that Canada and England, the two countries that do struggle with waiting times, happen to be the two nearby, English-speaking countries in the sample, and so our impressions of government-run health-care systems are disproportionately influenced by their experiences. That said, it’s important to understand that America also struggles with waiting times. Someone who can’t afford to go to the doctor, or can’t afford to purchase an elective surgery, waits. In some cases, they wait forever. In some cases, they’re killed by the delay. But we don’t count them as having “waited” for care, and so they don’t show up in measures of American waits."

The Information Sage

The Washington Monthly has a profile on Edward Tufte, The Information Sage

Bin Laden’s Death and the Debate Over Torture

John McCain (yes him) wrote a pretty surprising op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post, Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture.

"Former attorney general Michael Mukasey recently claimed that “the intelligence that led to bin Laden . . . began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information — including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” That is false.

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means."

AIDS: At last, the Good News

The Economist wrote Treating and preventing AIDS: At last, the good news "The study began in April 2005. Since then, 28 people have transmitted the virus to their partners. Of those, 27 were in the control group and only one in the experimental arm of the trial. Drugs, in other words, do stop transmission as well as saving lives. You can have your cake and eat it."

High Unemployment Not Structural

Paul Krugman wrote Spilled Beveridge explaining that the recent talk about the Beveridge curve explaining that unemployment is structural was based on bad data. "No, it’s not structural. And we’ll only face a “new normal” of high unemployment if policy makers want it that way." Monetary and fiscal policy (that is Keynesism) can help unemployment.

The details are here: New Paper: What Does the Dramatic 2009-2010 Revisions in Job Openings Tell Us About Structural Unemployment?

Revisiting the Value of Elite Colleges

This seems crazy, but interesting. Revisiting the Value of Elite Colleges "Once the two economists added these new variables, the earnings difference disappeared. In fact, it went away merely by including the colleges that students had applied to — and not taking into account whether they were accepted. A student with a 1,400 SAT score who went to Penn State but applied to Penn earned as much, on average, as a student with a 1,400 who went to Penn.

‘Even applying to a school, even if you get rejected, says a lot about you,’ Mr. Krueger told me. He points out that the average SAT score at the most selective college students apply to turns out to be a better predictor of their earnings than the average SAT score at the college they attended."

Americans Moderately Amenable To Reason

The Economist blog Democracy in America writes on the birthers, Americans moderately amenable to reason "A Washington Post poll last week found the same thing: they had overall belief that Mr Obama was most likely born abroad falling from 20% a year ago to 10% now. Among Republicans, the Post's figures show a drop from 31% to 14%."

Really? One in three Republicans still don't believe it? Sigh.

"It might have been nice if the eyeball-minutes consumed in convincing Americans that Mr Obama really was born in America could instead have been devoted to convincing Americans of the inaccuracy of their beliefs on some more important question, such as global warming, inflation or the deficit. But I'm not sure that would have been possible."

Raising The Social Security Retirement Age Is Incredibly Regressive

Mathew Yglesias explains Raising The Social Security Retirement Age Is Incredibly Regressive. "If I were to say, ‘let’s fix the Social Security gap with a benefit cut that hurts the poor really badly while largely sparing the rich’ Beltway people would think that was a bit of an odd idea. But if I were to say, ‘people are living longer than ever, so let’s raise the retirement age,’ I’d be the toast of Washington. The problem, as Aaron Carroll shows citing Hilary Waldren’s research (PDF) is that these are equivalent ideas. Consider that not only do the rich live longer than the poor, but the gap has grown steadily:"

Why does the GOP hate taxes so much?

Ezra Klein continues to write the best articles around. He asks, Why does the GOP hate taxes so much? and it's really worth your time to read.

"Disliking taxes, of course, is understandable. No one likes taxes, just like no one likes visiting the dentist or going to the DMV. But most of us accept them because the alternatives are worse. The GOP’s argument, however, is that a federal default and a second financial crisis are preferable to even modest tax hikes."

"Which is why I spent much of yesterday asking right-leaning economists to walk me through two quotes that seemed to summarize the Republican Party’s argument against taxes."

Lets hope the GOP listens to the business community. Business Groups to Congress: ‘Raising Debt Ceiling Is Critical’. "Sixty-two business groups ... urged congressional leaders on Wednesday to raise the federal debt ceiling amid fears that political brinkmanship could lead to another financial crisis."

Klein followed up with this, The income made by, and the taxes paid by, the rich, in one graph. "Over the past 30 years, the very rich have seen their real taxes fall sharply even as they’ve seen their incomes rise rapidly."



"This graph is also worth keeping in mind when you hear that the rich are paying a greater proportion of federal income taxes than they have in previous years. That’s true, but it’s also true that the reason they’re paying more in taxes is that they’re making much more money."