.::. sungolog

Sushi restaurant raided after Hollywood sting

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:18:48 -0500

Ewen Callaway, reporter

It’s been a good couple days for the producers of The Cove, an exposé on illegal dolphin hunting in Japan. Their documentary earned an Oscar on Sunday night and now they’ve landed a posh California restaurant in hot water for serving what authorities say is whale meat.

After hearing rumours that the Santa Monica sushi joint the Hump was serving whale, one of the producers rigged two activists up with miniature cameras to find out if they were true. The team, both vegans, were served what they believed to be whale meat. They nibbled at the pink flesh then shipped it off to researchers at Oregon State University, the New York Times reports.

Researchers there confirmed that the samples belonged to endangered sei whales, which are hunted by Japanese fisherman under a controversial scientific research exemption from a worldwide moratorium on whaling.

Eventually, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Attorney’s Office got involved in the operation. The latter worked with the filmmakers to stage additional stings of the Hump and were again served what the chef and waiters referred to as whale meat. And on Friday, federal agents armed with a search warrant raided the restaurant.

According to AOL:

“A warrant has been issued,” Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the US attorney for the Central District of California, told Aol News in a brief phone interview Tuesday morning. He did not say what the charges could be, but noted they could come as early as this week. According to a 13-page affidavit obtained by Aol News, there is “probable cause to believe that the Hump has illegally possessed and sold whale meat.”

“We’re going to look into the allegations and try to determine what is true,” a lawyer representing the Hump told the New York Times. “Until we have done that, I don’t have any other comment.”

The restaurant’s employees and owners could face $20,000 in fines and up to a year behind bars for violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

It seems James Cameron – whose blowout film Avatar was snubbed of all but technical awards – didn’t have the worst Oscar week after all.

Dollar Bond Sales Surge in Asia as Borrowers Tap New Investors

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:50:12 -0500

By Katrina Nicholas

March 10 (Bloomberg) — The lowest relative borrowing costs in more than two years and demand from international investors is driving Asian companies to sell record amounts of dollar- denominated bonds.

BOC Hong Kong (Holdings) Ltd., the Hong Kong unit of Bank of China Ltd., and Chinese developer Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd. led Asia-Pacific borrowers selling $38.4 billion of dollar debt this year, the fastest start on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales climbed 35 percent from $28.4 billion in the same period last year, when they slumped 22 percent in the aftermath of the seizure in credit markets.

“It’s one of the cheapest times to borrow in U.S. dollars, and at the same time, there’s a lot of cash floating around,” said Rajeev de Mello, head of Asian investment for Western Asset Management Co., which oversees $506 billion. U.S. and European pension funds “want a slice of the action,” De Mello, who is based in Singapore, said in a phone interview.

The extra yield demanded for dollar debt from investment- grade companies in Asia instead of Treasuries has fallen to 2.44 percentage points from 7.62 percentage points in December 2008, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Spreads fell close to a two- year low because growth in the region is helping lead the world out of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Korea Development

Korea Development Bank, the South Korean state-run lender known as KDB, boosted the size of its 4.375 percent bond sale last month to $750 million from $500 million, the most in U.S. dollars that the company has borrowed for so long at so cheap a rate, Bloomberg data show. The debt, due in 5.5 years, yielded 203 basis points more than Treasuries and the spread has narrowed to 166 basis points, Bloomberg data show.

KDB’s $1 billion of five-year 5.3 percent bonds, yielded 218 basis points, or 2.18 percentage points, more than similar- maturity Treasury yields when sold in January 2008.

BOC Hong Kong sold $1.6 billion of 5.55 percent bonds maturing 2020 on Feb. 4. Evergrande Real Estate issued $750 million of five-year notes on Jan. 22, the largest Chinese real estate high-yield offering ever, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which helped manage the sale. High-yield bonds are rated below Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and BBB- by Standard & Poor’s.

The difference between the average cost of borrowing in dollars and in local currencies in Asia has narrowed to 94 basis points from 426 basis points a year ago, when U.S. stock markets bottomed, according to HSBC Holdings Plc indexes.

Asian companies are “switching funding to international markets” as they borrow more and for longer periods and as the cost of borrowing in dollars becomes more competitive, Morgan Stanley credit strategist Viktor Hjort said in a phone interview from Hong Kong.

Borrowing Costs

Money-market rates have fallen in the period. The three- month London interbank offered rate for dollars was last at 0.25425 percent, compared with 1.33125 percent a year ago, Bloomberg data show. Libor is the interest rate at which banks borrow funds from one another and is a financing benchmark.

“The rally in the bond market has meant U.S. dollar funding costs are at least as competitive again,” said Sean Henderson, head of debt syndication atHSBC in Hong Kong. Local- currency sales in Asia still exceed dollar debt as “many Asian companies’ funding needs are too small to justify issuing offshore debt,” he added.

Local Currencies

Local-currency bonds by Asian companies total $112.2 billion this year, compared with $121.4 billion in the same period of 2009, Bloomberg data show.

“We were surprised to see new investors in our latest three global bond offerings, including some big U.S. asset managers who aren’t traditional buyers of our notes,” Yoon Hee Sung, the director of international finance at Export-Import Bank of Korea, the state-run lender known as Kexim, said in an interview in Seoul.

Kexim sold $1 billion of 4.125 percent, 5.5-year notes on March 2, priced to yield 195 basis points more than Treasuries.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has said the “nascent” U.S. recovery means rates of zero to 0.25 percent will be needed for an “extended period.” That contrasts with growth in Asian nations.

International Monetary Fund projections show developing Asia’s economy will expand 8.4 percent this year, compared with 2.7 percent in the U.S. and 1 percent in the euro area. Analysts boosted 2010 Asian corporate earnings estimates 4 percent, Credit Suisse Group said in a note to clients March 8.

U.S. Investors

“There is significantly more interest from U.S. and European investors as evidenced by new order allocations,” said Richard Chun, a Hong Kong-based money manager for New York hedge fund Claren Road Asset Management LLC, which manages about $3 billion globally. Now, 60 to 75 percent of recent deals are being allocated to U.S. and European investors versus 20 to 30 percent several years ago, he said.

Bank of Baroda and Bank of India have canceled dollar bond sales this year citing market volatility from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. Total issuance won’t be affected, Morgan Stanley’s Hjort said.

Morgan Stanley predicts new Asian dollar bond sales of at least $17 billion in the coming three months. The New York-based bank also forecasts bond redemptions of $27 billion — almost half 2009’s total new issuance — globally this year.

“While there are some risk factors facing credit markets, supply is unlikely to be what spoils the party this time,” Hjort said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katrina Nicholas in Singapore atknicholas2@bloomberg.net

propagandery: Oy, like we need this kind of...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:24:10 -0500

propagandery:

Oy, like we need this kind of attention.

peachfuzz:

I wish there was an aethiest column, because I’m currently weighing the merits of Judiasm vs. Hinduism.

Do you want more unelected lawmakers?

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:17:00 -0500

Congress wants to establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that will regulate everything from credit cards to mortgages.

House Democrats want the CFPA to be an independent agency, but Republicans are opposed. As a result, Senators Chris Dodd and Bob Corker are thinking of making it an arm of … the Federal Reserve!

Both Democrats AND Republicans are missing the point. Only Congress - not unelected bureaucrats - should have power to write and pass laws. Please tell Congress to oppose the creation of the CFPA and tell them to introduce the Write the Laws Act (WTLA) instead.

You may borrow from or copy this letter …

I’m upset that Congress is considering the creation of a new regulatory agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The CFPA would do more harm than good …

* it will regulate financial institutions to supposedly protect consumers
* whereas other federal regulators are charged with protecting the health and solvency of these same institutions
* these differing objectives will lead to conflicting regulations
* that will cause harm to both consumers and the industry itself

And the CFPA is unnecessary …

* existing agencies already have consumer protection powers
* members of Congress claim these agencies haven’t regulated adequately or wisely, HOWEVER
* there’s no evidence that yet another new regulatory body will do any better

You, the members of Congress, have ultimate responsibility for policy. You can restrain the bureaucrats, and you can give them specific instructions. New bureaucracies are not needed; instead, Congress must assume its Constitutional responsibility for ALL regulations.

Frankly, I do not believe any new regulations are needed. If you abolished the Fed, granted free competition in currency, and allowed free banking, the market would regulate itself according to the demands of the people. But if you are convinced that federal regulations are needed, the least you can do is follow the Constitution!

* the Constitution reserves legislative power - including regulatory power - in YOU, not in unelected bureaucrats
* write specific legislation, with no details left to the bureaucrats
* Executive Branch agencies should be charged only with enforcing regulations, not with writing them

I therefore insist that you oppose the creation of the CFPA. Instead, introduce the Write the Laws Act.

A final note: I am particularly insulted by the proposal to make the CFPA an arm of the Federal Reserve. All 317 House members and 32 Senators who co-sponsored the Audit the Fed bills must be insulted, too. Please do everything in you can to prevent the expansion of the Fed’s powers.

END LETTER

You can send your letter using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

helloszabi: (via typocode)

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:40:13 -0500

helloszabi:

(via typocode)

IBM

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:39:37 -0500

IBM

the future of games and reality and weirdness and points and...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:42:00 -0500

the future of games and reality and weirdness and points and things like that

Introducing the ‘fluid piano’

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:13:50 -0500

Introducing the ‘fluid piano’

The Newest Hybrid Model

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:19:42 -0500

INDIANTOWN, Fla. — In former swamplands teeming with otters and wild hogs, one of the nation’s biggest utilities is running an experiment in the future of renewable power.

Across 500 acres north of West Palm Beach, the FPL Group utility is assembling a life-size Erector Set of 190,000 shimmering mirrors and thousands of steel pylons that stretch as far as the eye can see. When it is completed by the end of the year, this vast project will be the world’s second-largest solar plant.

But that is not its real novelty. The solar array is being grafted onto the back of the nation’s largest fossil-fuel power plant, fired by natural gas. It is an experiment in whether conventional power generation can be married with renewable power in a way that lowers costs and spares the environment.

This project is among a handful of innovative hybrid designs meant to use the sun’s power as an adjunct to coal or gas in producing electricity. While other solar projects already use small gas-fired turbines to provide backup power for cloudy days or at night, this is the first time that a conventional plant is being retrofitted with the latest solar technology on such an industrial scale.

The project’s advantages are obvious: electricity generated from the sun will allow FPL to cut natural gas use and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It will provide extra power when it is most needed: when the summer sun is shining, Floridians are cranking up their air-conditioning and electricity demand is at its highest.

The plant also serves as a real-life test on how to reduce the cost of solar power, which remains much more expensive than most other forms of electrical generation. FPL Group, the parent company of Florida Power and Light, expects to cut costs by about 20 percent compared with a stand-alone solar facility, since it does not have to build a new steam turbine or new high-power transmission lines.

“We’d love to tell you that solar power is as economic as fossil fuels, but the reality is that it is not,” Lewis Hay III, FPL’s chairman and chief executive, said on a recent tour of the plant. “We have got to figure out ways to get costs down. As we saw with wind power, a lot has to do with scale.”

For solar power, scale is still a relative term. At its peak, the solar plant will be able to generate 75 megawatts of power, enough for about 11,000 homes. But that is dwarfed by the adjacent gas plant, which can produce about 3,800 megawatts of power. (A megawatt is enough to power a Wal-Mart store.)

Utilities are being pulled in different directions. They must ensure that the lights remain on at all times as well as provide the lowest-cost power to their customers. At the same time, they are being pressed to find ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable power sources.

The latter is critical if the nation is to succeed in reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide. Power plants account for over a third of domestic greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for global warming.

“We believe there is a cost to society associated with carbon emissions and not having energy security and not having domestic energy supplies,” Mr. Hay said. “But it’s not a level playing field for renewable versus fossil fuels right now.”

Mark Brownstein, an energy and grid specialist at the Environmental Defense Fund, praised FPL’s innovative thinking. “When we talk about getting to a low-carbon, clean-energy economy,” he said, “we know there is not going to be a single technology that is going to transform the industry.”

Currently, 29 states require utilities to increase the amount of power produced from renewable energy, which includes solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass. Last year, Congress considered a federal mandate for 25 percent of renewable power by 2025 as part of its energy and climate legislation. (The bill has since stalled.)

Utilities have been scrambling to meet the state requirements, and many will not be met, according to electrical utility experts.

While renewable power is growing, its share of the nation’s electrical generation remains small. Wind power, which has surged in recent years, accounts for less than 2 percent of the nation’s electrical output. Solar is even smaller. Coal, meanwhile, generates half of the nation’s electrical output, followed by natural gas and nuclear energy.

Part of the challenge in increasing the share of renewable energy sources is to make up for their variable nature — at night, for example, or when the wind does not blow. Because electricity cannot be stored easily, utilities must always produce enough power to meet electric demand at any given time. In practice, this means they need keep a lot of idle plants that can be fired up rapidly when demand spikes.

About 20 percent of the generation capacity overseen by PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission operator covering 13 northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, is used less than 100 hours a year, according to Lester B. Lave, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon’s school of business.

“As long as the contribution of wind and solar is very small, utilities can handle it very well,” Mr. Lave said. But what happens once the share of renewable power rises to 10 percent? Or 20 percent? “No one knows what the magic number is.”

Spain, which generates more than 12 percent of its electricity from wind, has struggled with wind variability, Mr. Lave said. Similar problems are also cropping up in the United States, especially in states where solar and wind power are on the rise. In 2008, for example, Texas narrowly avoided a blackout when wind power, which supplied 5 percent of demand at the time, experienced an unexpected lull, driving wind electricity generation down to 350 megawatts, from 2,000 megawatts, in less than four hours, according to Mr. Lave.

It is a problem the industry is beginning to focus on, and hybrid plants could provide part of the answer. By adding renewable power to existing fossil fuel plants that operate around the clock, the thinking goes, utilities could have readily available power that could be fired up instantly whenever their wind or solar resources dropped off.

The Electric Power Research Institute is working on two pilot programs that seek to integrate solar power with traditional coal and gas plants in New Mexico. A dozen hybrid projects similar to FPL’s plant are planned around the world, said Cara Libby, the institute’s project manager for renewable energy.

“Intermittency is probably the challenge utilities are putting the most efforts into researching at the moment,” Ms. Libby said. “The biggest concern, of course, is how to keep the power on.”

Instead of adding new capacity, smart grid designs and investments in transmission lines could also help balance the contribution of intermittent resources, said Tim Stephure, an analyst at Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm. Some regional operators, such as PJM, are also encouraging their large customers to cut consumption when demand is at its peak to reduce the overall power requirements on the grid, said Mr. Brownstein of the Environmental Defense Fund.

At FPL, part of the challenge will be to fine-tune the system so that its gas and solar components provide just as much electricity as needed at any given time — day or night, cloudy or clear. At a cost of $476 million, the solar project, known as the Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center, will be second-biggest, after the 310-megawatt Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert in California. That system, also owned by FPL, was built in the 1980s.

FPL estimates it will cut its natural gas use by 1.3 billion cubic feet each year, the consumption of 18,000 American homes. It will also cut carbon emissions by 2.75 million tons over 30 years, the equivalent of taking 19,000 cars off the road.

The solar panels concentrate the sun’s rays into a vacuum-sealed tube that contains a synthetic oil, which heats up to 748 degrees Fahrenheit. The oil is then used to produce steam that is fed into an existing turbine to produce electricity. Using small sensors, the mirrors will be able to rotate during the day to track the sun’s movement. In case of a hurricane, they will flip upside down for protection.

Mental Illness Multiplied in Children

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:50:00 -0500

What are the odds of being mentally ill if both your parents have bipolar illness or schizophrenia? Extremely high, according to the results of a new long-term study. The find may help scientists better understand patterns of transmission of psychiatric illness.

No one knows what genes predispose people to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, which each afflict about one in 100 people. There have been many candidates, but just what they do and how they interact is still largely a mystery.

Interested in how these diseases travel through families, professor emeritus and psychologist Irving Gottesman of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and colleagues in Denmark turned to the Danish Psychiatric Central Register. The team analyzed the records of all psychiatric admissions in the country between 1970 and 2007 and found 196 pairs of parents in which both had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Of the 270 offspring, 27% had been admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia by the age of 52. And for all psychiatric diagnoses, hospitalization for this group was a whopping 67.5%. In contrast, among 8000 couples in which one spouse had schizophrenia, only 7% of the offspring were schizophrenic.

The team noticed a similar trend with bipolar disorder. Thirty-six percent of children of two bipolar parents had major depression, with two-thirds of those also being bipolar. And in a few couples in which one was schizophrenic and the other bipolar, 27% of the children were diagnosed with one or the other disease, the authors report in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study, with its exceptionally large sample sizes, is “a major advance,” says David Goldman, chief of the lab of neurogenetics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland. Ordinary “additive” effect of whatever genes are involved can’t explain the remarkably high risk, says Goldman. Rather, he says, the most likely explanation is a phenomenon known as epistasis, where genes can interact so as to greatly multiply an effect.

Schizophrenia researcher Daniel Weinberger of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda agrees that the paper adds to evidence that epistasis—which has been shown in model organisms such as yeast but difficult to prove in humans—is “robust and ubiquitous.” However, he adds that “having two parents who are seriously psychiatrically ill” may also tip the balance of sanity in a vulnerable son or daughter, regardless of their genes.

The authors say a better evaluation of risks of transmitting mental illness should be helpful to genetic counselors advising people on family decisions.

by Constance Holden, sciencemag.org

Methane seen as growing climate risk

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:33:00 -0500

Methane, a potent global warming gas, is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic faster than had been expected.

Methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and a warming climate is now resulting in its release, researchers report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

“The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans,” said Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center and the co-author.

Concerns about global warming have centered on rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but scientists note that methane can be 30 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Historically, methane concentrations in the world’s atmosphere have ranged between 0.3 and 0.4 parts per million in cool periods to 0.6 to 0.7 in warm periods. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the scientists said, the highest in 400,000 years.

Cool opitcal illusion painting

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:40:58 -0500

Cool opitcal illusion painting

Temblor Tilts Earth by Inches

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:05:00 -0500

The earthquake that struck Chile was so powerful it shifted the planet’s axis enough to make it spin slightly faster, meaning our days will be shorter by 1.26 millionths of a second, according to preliminary calculations by scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“This is an esoteric effect that physics says has to happen,” notes David Kerridge, the British Geological Survey’s head of natural hazards, who studies earthquakes. “It’s interesting, but it has no particular consequence on anything.”

Scientists have long noted that just about any event that shifts a large amount of mass from one part of the planet to another will have a tiny—and sometimes measurable—effect on the Earth’s rotation. Such events include changes to ocean currents, big shifts in the atmosphere, earthquakes, and possibly even the creation of more and more reservoirs from the damming of rivers.

The 8.8-magnitude temblor that struck Chile on Saturday is one of the largest quakes in a century. It was the result of an ocean tectonic plate—a shard of the earth’s crust—sliding under the South American plate; over time, the two became locked together. When the pent-up energy overcame the forces of friction and the South American plate sprang upward, it unleashed a huge amount of energy in the form of the quake.

The planet was jolted to its roots. A chunk of the Earth’s mass was redistributed vertically, which caused the planet’s figure axis—on which the Earth’s mass is balanced—to move by about three inches, according to calculations by NASA scientist Richard Gross. The net effect of that mass redistribution made the earth spin slightly faster, just as a figure skater speeds up when she pulls in her arms.

“It’s important for us to know how the earth’s rotation changes,” said Dr. Gross, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It helps us figure out where a spacecraft is and to navigate it for a precise pinpoint landing” on Mars, the moon or another planet. Dr. Gross and his colleagues had conducted a similar analysis following the even bigger 9.1-magnitude quake in Indonesia. They found that the 2004 temblor decreased the length of a day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the North Pole by a few centimeters.

For a long time, earthquakes have been gradually changing the shape of the earth as well. Calculations suggested that the earth’s oblateness—the way it is flat on top and bulges at the equator—had decreased by a tiny amount following the Indonesian earthquake. In other words, the world is getting slightly rounder.

Dr. Gross said that though the Chilean quake was less powerful than the 2004 Indonesia temblor, it likely changed the position of the figure axis a bit more. (The planet’s figure axis is separate from the north-south axis; they are about 33 feet apart.)

The vertical redistribution of mass caused by the Chilean quake had a slightly greater impact in shifting the figure axis because the quake happened near the mid-latitudes, NASA concludes. Plus, the fault in Chile dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle, which again has a greater effect on shifting the figure axis.

The Haiti quake, by contrast, didn’t make the Earth wobble in quite the same way, according to Dr. Kerridge. The Haiti quake was caused by one tectonic plate sliding past another, not above or under it. “There was almost no vertical movement there when the quake happened, so you wouldn’t expect the same effect,” says Dr. Kerridge.

Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704486504575098083228068948.html?mod=WSJ-World-LEFTSecondNews

US burg renames self 'Google'

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:12:11 -0500

Google is looking for US locations to test its own ultra-high-speed fibre optic networks, and there’s no city more eager to be chosen than Google, Kansas.

Bill Bunten, mayor of the state capital formally known as Topeka, Kansas signed a proclamation on Monday temporarily renaming the city “Google” in an effort to convince the internet search giant to invest in its broadband infrastructure.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the decree designates the city Google, Kansas — albeit unofficially — for the duration of March. Apparently, Topeka can’t legally change it’s name for such a short period of time with the intention of changing it back, according to the city attorney.

Google did ask US local governments to express their interest in becoming a test bed for Gigabit fiber internet, and you’ve got to admire the showmanship.

The city government’s official website

The 79-year-old mayor said he hopes the stunt would set the city apart from other burgs elbowing for Google’s attention like Grand Rapids, Michigan and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Oddly enough, the name swap isn’t without precedent. Back in 1998, Topeka’s former mayor Joan Wagnon renamed the city ToPikachu to celebrate the US launch of Nintendo’s Pokeman franchise. Pikachu is the name of the painfully adorable monster that serves as the figurehead of the Pokemon phenomenon.

Bunten said that wooing Google’s high speed fibre may help improve the city’s image and make it more attractive to younger residents.

The strange things Congress did to extend the Patriot Act

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:00:21 -0500

Last week, Congress voted to extend three provisions of the so-called U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act (aka Patriot Act) for another year.

You can see how your Representative voted here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll067.xml

But if you do that you’ll think we’ve sent you to the wrong link. You’ll see that the title on the bill is “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act.”

You see, H.R. 3961 originally started with that title and subject, and it passed the House in November. Then, this past Wednesday, Majority Leader Harry Reid ripped the guts out of the bill and replaced it with the Patriot extensions. The Senate then passed that version of the bill and sent it back to the House, where it was approved Thursday night.

Now, you may be asking, where’s the link to the Senate roll call vote?

Well, there isn’t one. The bill passed by Unanimous Consent, which means a voice vote.

Everything about this process and bill is offensive to DownsizeDC.org …

* changing the subject of the bill by amendment violates our One Subject At A Time Act
* there was no 7-day waiting period before votes in either chamber, violating our requirements in the Read the Bills Act
* Congress neither let the provisions expire (our preference), nor reformed the Patriot Act for greater accountability and civil liberties protections

We can, however, mention some good news …

* Democrats thwarted Republican attempts to extend the provisions to four years instead of just one
* Rep. Conyers says he’s still committed to reforming the Patriot Act this year

Nevertheless, we believe civil libertarians in Congress wasted a great opportunity to roll back or repeal key provisions of the Patriot Act.

Please express your anger and disappointment using our Thank-or-Spank campaign.

You may borrow from or copy the points in this letter …

I am sending this letter to my Representative as well as my two Senators, because I am angry at both chambers of Congress.

If Congress had its priorities in order last fall, the Patriot Act could have been reformed, with parts of it repealed. I am angry that you chose to bicker over less-urgent healthcare reform and let this issue slide until it was too late.

I am particularly disgusted that the Senate rushed to extend the three expiring Patriot Act provisions by voice vote. Could not one Senator have objected and forced a debate and roll call vote?

Furthermore, while I’m happy these provisions have not yet been made permanent, I wonder why Congress hasn’t ever taken the time to …

* consider their Constitutionality
* determine their effectiveness
* investigate abuses http://tinyurl.com/yz2l46p

These abuses are important. They undermine distrust in the federal government. You’ll be interested to know that 56% of Americans view the government as a threat to their rights. http://tinyurl.com/y9t85ts

To regain the trust of the American people, Congress MUST start respecting the limits on federal power expressed in the Bill of Rights. This means reforming and, better yet, repealing the Patriot Act. I insist you get to work right away to restore the rights and liberties of the American people.

END LETTER

You can send your letter through DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

Please also forward this to concerned friends.

And contribute to expand our reach.

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

Women and children first? Maybe

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:37:58 -0500

By Thomas H. Maugh II

Whether it is “Women and children first” or “Every man for himself” in a shipwreck may depend on how long it takes the ship to sink, researchers said Monday.

When the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, it sank in 18 minutes and the bulk of survivors were young men and women who responded immediately to their powerful survival instincts.

But when the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912, it took three hours to go down, allowing time for more civilized instincts to take control. — and the bulk of the survivors were women, children and people with young children.

Economist Benno Torgler of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and his colleagues studied the two sinkings in order to explore the economic theory that people generally behave in a rational and selfish manner. The two tragedies provided a “natural experiment” for testing the idea, because the passengers on the two ships were quite similar in terms of gender and wealth.

The primary difference was how long it took the ships to sink.

Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the researchers found that, on the Titanic, children had a 14.8% higher probability of surviving than a man, a person accompanying a child had a 19.6% higher probability and women had more than a 50% higher probability.

On the Lusitania, in contrast, fit young men and women were the most likely to make it into the lifeboats.

Social class was also important. On the Titanic, first-class passengers were about 44% more likely to survive, while on the Lusitania, passengers from steerage were more likely to emerge safely.

The authors considered other possible complicating factors, but concluded that the most likely reason for the differences was the amount of time passengers had to effect escape.

They suggested that when people have little time to react, gut instincts may rule. When more time is available, social influences play a bigger role.

Ed Kamuda, president of the Titanic Historical Society in Indian Orchard, Mass., agreed with their conclusion that the very different circumstances of the wrecks could have affected people’s behavior. “The Lusitania sank so quickly, and half of the lifeboats couldn’t even be used,” he said. “The younger crowd would be able to make it into the boats, could jump into them as they swung away from the ship. The Titanic was pretty well on an even keel, and they had all sorts of time.”

But psychologists noted that many factors other than following social norms could come into play in a disaster, including an evolutionary imperative to save the species, attachments that are formed between individuals during the event and the leadership of authority figures.

The extent of altruism and how it occurs “is a very controversial issue,” said Anthony R. Mawson, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. “I surmise that the dominant response was affiliation/attachment behavior.”

In a rapid event, such as the Lusitania sinking, attachments would have been to people the passengers already knew. But when a disaster is spread out over hours, as was the case with the Titanic, “people who had previously been complete strangers become the equivalent of loved ones,” Mawson said.

Psychologist Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan thinks that the answer lies less in social norms and more in our evolutionary heritage. Human beings have a deep instinct to preserve our kind, he said, and that means “people are more likely to save those who have higher reproductive value, namely the young and women in child-bearing years.”

Kruger also stressed the importance of leadership during an emergency, noting that the Titanic’s captain appeared to exert greater control than the Lusitania’s. He compared the sinkings to the recent ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River. In that case, Capt. Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger was firmly in control and his edict that women and children should exit first was followed, even though the plane was in imminent danger of sinking.

“People might be in a state of panic, but if they are reassured there is a system in place, they might be more likely to go along with contingency plans,” Kruger said.

The researchers’ theory may fit well for the Titanic and Lusitania, but may not be generalizable.

Kamuda pointed to two other disasters, the 1873 sinking of the Atlantic on rocks off the coast of Halifax, and the 1914 sinking of the Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence River after it was hit by another ship. Both events took about an hour. But not a single woman and only one child survived the Atlantic disaster, while the majority of survivors from the Empress were women.

Obama, Canada's Harper bet beer on ice hockey

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:36:35 -0500

President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper unwittingly provided support for the popular belief that politicians cannot organize a booze-up in a brewery when they mixed up a simple wager on the outcome of Sunday’s Olympic ice hockey final.

With their two countries playing each other in the gold medal match, the two leaders agreed to raise the stakes and wage a personal bet on the outcome.

The only problem was that they messed up the terms of the bet, with both offices issuing media statements that the winner had to buy the beer rather than the loser.

After being told about the error, both offices agreed that the loser would pay so if the Americans won, Harper had to buy Obama a case of Yuengling beer.

If the Canadians won, Obama owed Harper a carton of Molson Canadian.

The U.S. beat Canada in the preliminary rounds of the competition but the two rivals followed different routes to the final to set up a mouthwatering end to the Vancouver Winter Games.

Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:55:03 -0500

Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning — on the order of 6 to 11 points — and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people’s behaviors come to be.

The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans’ evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.

“The adoption of some evolutionarily novel ideas makes some sense in terms of moving the species forward,” said George Washington University leadership professor James Bailey, who was not involved in the study. “It also makes perfect sense that more intelligent people — people with, sort of, more intellectual firepower — are likely to be the ones to do that.”

Bailey also said that these preferences may stem from a desire to show superiority or elitism, which also has to do with IQ. In fact, aligning oneself with “unconventional” philosophies such as liberalism or atheism may be “ways to communicate to everyone that you’re pretty smart,” he said.

The study looked at a large sample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which began with adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States during the 1994-95 school year. The participants were interviewed as 18- to 28-year-olds from 2001 to 2002. The study also looked at the General Social Survey, another cross-national data collection source.

Kanazawa did not find that higher or lower intelligence predicted sexual exclusivity in women. This makes sense, because having one partner has always been advantageous to women, even thousands of years ago, meaning exclusivity is not a “new” preference.

For men, on the other hand, sexual exclusivity goes against the grain evolutionarily. With a goal of spreading genes, early men had multiple mates. Since women had to spend nine months being pregnant, and additional years caring for very young children, it made sense for them to want a steady mate to provide them resources.

Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger.

“It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere,” Kanazawa said.

Participants who said they were atheists had an average IQ of 103 in adolescence, while adults who said they were religious averaged 97, the study found. Atheism “allows someone to move forward and speculate on life without any concern for the dogmatic structure of a religion,” Bailey said.

“Historically, anything that’s new and different can be seen as a threat in terms of the religious beliefs; almost all religious systems are about permanence,” he noted.

The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines “liberal” in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people. It does not look at other factors that play into American political beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and gay rights.

“Liberals are more likely to be concerned about total strangers; conservatives are likely to be concerned with people they associate with,” he said.

Given that human ancestors had a keen interest in the survival of their offspring and nearest kin, the conservative approach — looking out for the people around you first — fits with the evolutionary picture more than liberalism, Kanazawa said. “It’s unnatural for humans to be concerned about total strangers.” he said.

The study found that young adults who said they were “very conservative” had an average adolescent IQ of 95, whereas those who said they were “very liberal” averaged 106.

It also makes sense that “conservatism” as a worldview of keeping things stable would be a safer approach than venturing toward the unfamiliar, Bailey said.

Neither Bailey nor Kanazawa identify themselves as liberal; Bailey is conservative and Kanazawa is “a strong libertarian.”

Vegetarianism, while not strongly associated with IQ in this study, has been shown to be related to intelligence in previous research, Kanazawa said. This also fits into Bailey’s idea that unconventional preferences appeal to people with higher intelligence, and can also be a means of showing superiority.

None of this means that the human species is evolving toward a future where these traits are the default, Kanazawa said.

“More intelligent people don’t have more children, so moving away from the trajectory is not going to happen,” he said.

Birds of a feather strung together

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:37:00 -0500

Some say it sounds like a Sonic Youth album. Others have likened the guitar noise to a rock concert soundcheck.

But this particular band is made up of 40 zebra finches jamming on electric guitars and cymbals at the Barbican, in London.

The walk-through orchestra-come-aviary by French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot is the latest installation in The Curve, the centre’s visual art space.

Boursier-Mougenot, who trained as a theatre composer, has placed plugged-in Gibson Les Paul guitars as perches, and upturned cymbals as bird feeders.

As the flock of finches fly around and land on the instruments, wipe their beaks, or use twigs to pluck at the strings, they create a unique and changing soundscape.

Curator Lydia Yee said it was a auditory and visual experience for the visitor.

“You start to hear the birds chirping, you might hear a guitar, and you also hear your footsteps. You may also hear some music from the concert hall,” she explained.

“The sound varies quite a bit depending on how many people are in the space, the birds obviously take flight if people get too close, and when they land on the cymbals you hear sound too.

“Celeste intended it to appeal to different senses.”

The Curve installation is Boursier-Mougenot’s first solo show in the UK.

In his previous work, such as Videodrones (2001), the artist has experimented with ordinary objects to explore their acoustic potential.

Wild birds play electric guitar

He started working with birds 10 years ago, making installations with wire coat hangers, piano wire and metal balls to create sounds which he would amplify.

“He wants us to pay more attention to sound that surround us in everyday life,” explained Yee.

“They could be a low rumbling sound coming from the underground that, as some form of music in combination with other things, could be considered musical.”

“With the finches he started thinking about the relationship between sound and space. He wanted to create situations that would enable sound to happen but not in an enforced way, or a very composed way.

“An installation in an art gallery has a longer duration than a theatre piece.”

YouTube

While the finch soundscape seems random on the surface, Boursier-Mougenot takes care to tune the guitars and uses effects, such as reverb and echo. It is important to him that the random sounds are just right.

“What you hear could be an experimental rock band, or a band warming up,” said Yee.

A video clip of the installation, posted on YouTube by the Barbican, has been watched more than 520,000 times. So why the fascination?

“I have a theory there is a whole genre on YouTube of people’s pets playing instruments, and this falls loosely within that category,” said Yee.

“In most cases it is a cat walking on a piano and it doesn’t sound that great.

“But some interesting sound can come from the fact that it is not intended. Celeste talks about his one-year-old son who plays with his daughter’s electrical guitar and makes some interesting noise from it.

“It could sound like experimental music. As humans we are naturally always trying to make sense of the world and if something sounds partly musical I think we put two-and-two together.”

By Caroline Briggs

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Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

Birds of a feather strung together