The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    In the News

    New Fossils May Redraw Human Ancestry

    By Nicholas Wade, New York Times, September 8/9/2011

    An apelike creature with human features, whose fossil bones were discovered recently in a South African cave, is being greeted by paleoanthropologists as a likely watershed in the understanding of human evolution.

    The discoverer of the fossils, Lee Berger of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, says the new species, known as Australopithecus sediba, is the most plausible known ancestor of archaic and modern humans. Several other paleoanthropologists, while disagreeing with that interpretation, say the fossils are of great importance anyway, because they elucidate the mix-and-match process by which human evolution was shaped.

    Dr. Berger’s claim, if accepted, would radically redraw the present version of the human family tree....

    artappraiser 13 years 4 months ago

    Ex-NM Governor Bill Richardson Won’t Leave Cuba Without Seeing Jailed American

    Voice of America's Breaking News blog, September 9, 2011

    Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson says he will not leave Cuba until he is allowed to see U.S. contractor Alan Gross, who is serving 15 years in prison for crimes against the communist state.

    Richardson said Friday he had met for three hours with Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez and was surprised to be told that it would not be possible to visit the jailed American. He said he had planned his visit to the Communist island with the understanding he would be allowed to visit Gross, whose health is deteriorating.

    Richardson is in Cuba trying to negotiate Gross' release....

    artappraiser 13 years 4 months ago

    Pennsylvania hit by huge flooding, towns submerged

    By Paul Eckert in Wilkes Barre, Reuters, September 9, 2011

    The Susquehanna River, swollen by rainfall from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, reached record levels in Pennsylvania on Friday and submerged some towns amid worry that flood waters had been turned toxic by swamped sewage processing plants....

    A levee system protected Wilkes-Barre but remained under heavy pressure and had sprung a few small leaks, Luzerne County engineer Jim Brozina said at a news conference.

    "It is under extreme stress right now. I mean, we are well beyond our design for this system," Brozina said. "Every hour is a benefit to us as that river starts to recede."......

    artappraiser 13 years 4 months ago

    The Story of the 9/11 Air Force Kamikaze Pilot

    Wow!  This was in Gawker today, but the story ran in the WaPo, so here is the link to that as well.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-lif...

    tmccarthy0 13 years 4 months ago

    When the system was "blinking red"

    By Anthony Summer and Robbyn Swan,
    (authors of "The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden,")

    Salon.com, September 8, 2011

    Two sentences in a 9/11 Commission document, previously withheld from the public but released in recent weeks, offer a tantalizing glimpse of a nugget of intelligence that has long been concealed from the public.......They used the codewords Teresa and Sally....The pair discussed -- improbably -- sending "skirts" to "Sally."....

    artappraiser 13 years 4 months ago

    Massive Power Outage Hits the Southwest
    There is a massive power outage in the Southwest, From San Diego to Phoenix and it includes Tiajuana, Baja, Rancho Santa Margarita, OC, Lakeforest, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, parts of Mission Viejo and more. The outage affects about 1.4 million people.
    tmccarthy0 13 years 4 months ago

    The Shakedown at the King Monument

    By Charles E. Cobb, Jr., The Root, September 6, 3011

    The builders of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial at the National Mall had to pay $761,160 for the right to use King's words and images, according to financial documents obtained by the Associated Press. The money went to Intellectual Properties Management Inc. -- a foundation controlled by King's youngest son, Dexter. Another $71,000 was paid out in a "management fee" to the family estate back in 2003.

    I hope I'm not the only one who found the opening of this monument soured by what could be considered extortion. In any case, I'm especially ticked off, perhaps because I was an activist and organizer in the Southern freedom movement of the 1960s....

    artappraiser 13 years 4 months ago

    $4 Gas: Brought to You by Wall Street

    ... last month, ... someone leaked confidential documents detailing the positions of Wall Street speculators—including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays—from a single day that fateful summer, June 30, 2008. More than 200 companies held investments in millions of barrels of oil that day, many of them companies that neither produce nor use oil.

    The documents laid bare the extent to which big banks' speculating has begun to affect oil prices: Traditionally, those who produce and buy oil have been the big players in the futures market, making calculations about how much oil will cost in the future and drafting contracts to provide that oil at a set price down the line. But now financial players are also in the game, bidding on oil that they'll never make or use—a development that many say is artificially raising the price of crude.

    Donal 13 years 4 months ago

    Ports Across Puget Sound Shut Down Because Of Labor Dispute`

    I wouldn't mess with the ILWU, I generally go to their union at the Port Of Seattle when it is election season to organize the Longshoremen.

    According to the article:

    A union demonstration and violent protest that has shut down the Port of Longview has spread to other port facilities, including Tacoma and Seattle.

    Police in Longview say hundreds of longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday morning, vandalizing port property, damaging rail cars, and taking hostages.

    This is the result of an ongoing labor dispute between the union and EGT Development that has built a multi-million dollar grain facility on the site of a terminal that used to operate using members of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's union.

    Wow! Follow the link it is an interesting read.

    tmccarthy0 13 years 4 months ago

    Pike forecasts cumulative plug-in vehicle sales to reach 5.2M units worldwide by 2017

    While electrified vehicles will become a growing portion of total vehicle sales, the penetration rates will remain relatively low in the context of the total automotive industry. Pike forecasts that PEV and HEV sales together will represent approximately 3% of total light-duty vehicle sales in 2017. Adoption rates will be highest in North America, Pike projects, where electrified vehicles will capture 4.9% of the total light-duty vehicle market in that year.

    [For comparison, hybrid market penetration now is less than 2% and EV market penetration now is less than 0.2%.]

    Donal 13 years 4 months ago

    Tea Party - the Best Informed on Global Warming?

    A Yale/George Mason University survey of over 1000 persons revealed that among Democrats, Independents and Republicans, the Tea Party leads in not believing in global warming, and also in thinking they don't need to know more about it. Only 10% of the Tea Party think 'most scientists' believe global warming is happening, when in reality, over 95% of scientists believe climate change is occurring. There was not a question on beliefs in talking snakes or in Noah's Ark in the survey, as someone posited at Thinkprogress.

    TEA PARTY, some results for them in the survey:


    Most scientists believe global warming is happening : 10% (lowest %)
    Global warming isn't happening: 53% (highest %)
    If it is happening it is 'natural' : 50% (highest %)
    Last summer heat waves didn't convince me global warming was real : 46% (highest %)
    Are you very or fairly well informed about global warming : 85% (highest %)
    I do not need anymore information on global warming : 52% (highest %)
    How worried are you about global warming : Not at all 51% (highest with no worries)

    NCD 13 years 4 months ago

    Perpetual War

    "Liberals who still believe that the Bush administration transcended the law while the Democrats are exemplars of a normative approach are blinded by political tribalism... Apart from Obama’s windy rhetoric, little now divides this administration from its predecessor."  

    Duh!

    A Guy Called LULU 13 years 4 months ago

    A Very Sad Loss

    [From LisB] Hello, Paradigm family. It’s with much sadness that I must inform you of a huge loss. Our beloved friend “othepeoplechoose” has passed away.

    The People Choose, as you know, migrated here after Josh Marshall closed the reader’s cafe at Talking Points Memo, and through the years he has become a very close friend to several of us here. Most especially Dick Day. TPC, as we affectionately called him, shared emails and phone calls with Dick and I on a regular basis, and earlier this year he came up with the idea of flying Dick out from Minnesota so that the two of them could finally meet. TPC also invited me, and was ecstatic when Dick and I both agreed to make the trip up to Syracuse for this Labor Day weekend. TPC made all sorts of plans for us (we were to visit the State Fair, attend a concert, and have a beautiful dinner together this past Friday night). I can’t tell you how much the three of us were looking forward to this trip.

    Donal 13 years 4 months ago

    The Last Moderate

    [NYT OpEd] Jim Cooper, a Blue Dog Democrat who represents the Nashville area, was first elected to Congress in 1982. He was 28, and if it’s not quite right to say he’s been there ever since — he spent eight years in the private sector after losing the race for Al Gore’s Senate seat — he’s still been a congressman most of his adult life.

    You’d think that Cooper’s tenure would ensure him the privileges of seniority. It doesn’t. Considering that he’s a mild-mannered man, you’d think he’d have friends on both sides of the aisle. Not so. He’s loathed by Republicans for being in the wrong party, and scorned by Democrats for his fiscal conservatism. At the least, you’d think that he’d be respected for his institutional memory. Wrong again.

    The reason is that Cooper is the House’s conscience, a lonely voice for civility in this ugly era. He remembers when compromise was not a dirty word and politicians put country ahead of party. And he’s not afraid to talk about it. “We’ve gone from Brigadoon to Lord of the Flies,” he likes to say.

    Donal 13 years 4 months ago

    Mental illness affects 38 percent of Europeans, study shows

    By David W. Freeman, Associated Press, September 6, 2011

    Is mental illness more common in Europe than in other parts of the world? Reliable statistics aren't readily available, but mental health experts expressed surprise over new research showing that 38 percent of the European population, or 165 million people, have a mental or neurological disorder.

    "Although the figure seems shockingly high, this is the most rigorous study done in Europe," said Graham Thornicroft, a professor of community psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, who was not linked to the study. "The real tragedy is that so few people with mental health problems receive treatment."

    Experts estimate that only one-third of people affected by the disorders get help.

    Researchers arrived at the eye-popping figure after.....

    Also see:

    Mental Disorders on the Rise in Europe,

    By Nicole Gobel, Reuters, September 6, 2011,

    ...Mental disorders such as depression and anxiety attacks, as well as neurological diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's, are affecting 38 percent of Europeans, according to a comprehensive study that calls for better treatments and prevention.

    "Mental disorders have become Europe's largest health challenge of the 21st century," the study's authors said.

    "The immense treatment gap…for mental disorders has to be closed," said Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, director of the Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at Dresden's Techinal University and lead investigator of the study....

    artappraiser 13 years 4 months ago

    The Behavioral Sink

    How do you design a utopia? In 1972, John B. Calhoun detailed the specifications of his Mortality-Inhibiting Environment for Mice: a practical utopia built in the laboratory. Every aspect of Universe 25—as this particular model was called—was pitched to cater for the well-being of its rodent residents and increase their lifespan. The Universe took the form of a tank, 101 inches square, enclosed by walls 54 inches high. The first 37 inches of wall was structured so the mice could climb up, but they were prevented from escaping by 17 inches of bare wall above. Each wall had sixteen vertical mesh tunnels—call them stairwells—soldered to it. Four horizontal corridors opened off each stairwell, each leading to four nesting boxes. That means 256 boxes in total, each capable of housing fifteen mice. There was abundant clean food, water, and nesting material. The Universe was cleaned every four to eight weeks. There were no predators, the temperature was kept at a steady 68°F, and the mice were a disease-free elite selected from the National Institutes of Health’s breeding colony. Heaven.

    Four breeding pairs of mice were moved in on day one. After 104 days of upheaval as they familiarized themselves with their new world, they started to reproduce. In their fully catered paradise, the population increased exponentially, doubling every fifty-five days. Those were the good times, as the mice feasted on the fruited plain. To its members, the mouse civilization of Universe 25 must have seemed prosperous indeed. But its downfall was already certain—not just stagnation, but total and inevitable destruction.

    Donal 13 years 4 months ago

    Koch Brothers Compare Obama to Saddam Hussein

    "We have Saddam Hussein," declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be "the mother of all wars."

    Mother Jones obtained a clandestine recording of the 2011 secret meeting of the wealthy overlords who want to buy the next election. I am sure for Koch and his rich buddies, it would, in fact, be better if the USA was ruled by a dictator.  Dictators are so much easier to control, and what they say goes, or else. You just send checks to one address to buy your way out of paying taxes or complying with any or all regulations. Which, in fact, is what they do now by funding the GOP.  It would be so much easier if there was a new Decider running the country for the 'have-mores'. And people complain Obama is really just a Republican.  The Koch brothers disagree.

    NCD 13 years 4 months ago

    TweetUp Briefing: Ask @PressSec Your Questions at the White House

     

    In case you missed the announcement:

    We’re excited to announce our next White House Tweetup: a Tweetup Briefing! The day after President Obama’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress, some lucky tweeple will have the chance to come to the White House and ask Press Secretary Jay Carney their questions, as well as questions from their followers.

    This briefing marks the third White House Tweetup, an in-person meet-up with people who follow the White House on Twitter. White House Tweetups give @WhiteHouse followers the chance to attend events, engage with Administration officials and share their ideas with other @WhiteHouse followers.

    What are you waiting for? Learn more and apply here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/tweetup.  Note: The deadline to apply is 2:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, September 6th.

    EmmaZahn 13 years 4 months ago

    The Way the Future Wasn't

    I’m not sure how many people have noticed that science fiction is the one really distinctive form of fiction created by industrial civilization. Romances, satires, and adventure stories are practically as old as written language; the novel of character and manners had its first great flowering in tenth-century Japan, and detective stories were written in medieval China; even fantasy fiction of the modern kind, which deliberately cashes in on legends nobody actually believes any more, flourished in Renaissance Europe—it still amazes me that nobody has rewritten Amadis of Gaul to fit the conventions of modern fantasy fiction and republished it as “the sixteenth century’s number one fantasy bestseller,” which it unquestionably was. Science fiction—the branch of literature that focuses on the impact of scientific and technological progress—is the exception. 

    Donal 13 years 4 months ago

    Former Republican Calls Party an Ideological Cult

    ...A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner..(it) plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good,"....This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government....For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document.

    NCD 13 years 4 months ago

    Rick Perry beats Obama for first time in poll Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/02/123016/texas-rick-perry-beats-obama-for.html#ixzz1Wy2lFstV

    I have less faith in Rasmussen's ability to design an unbiased poll than just about any of the big polling cos, but this poll herald's what the White House has on its plate for 2012. 

     

    For the first time, Texas Gov. Rick Perry leads President Barack Obama in a national poll, by 44 to 41 percent, while his GOP rivals trail in head-to-head match-ups against the president.

    The new Rasmussen poll signals a breakthrough for Perry, who trailed Obama by 3 percentage points in last week's Rasmussen poll. The latest survey of 1,000 likely voters, released Thursday, was conducted Aug. 23-30 and has an error margin of 3 percentage points.

    miguelitoh2o 13 years 4 months ago

    GOP Glock Auction 'Energizes the Base' in Arizona

    Apparently the 'energizing' impact, and the $1250 (minus $ of a Glock), was deemed more than 'worth it' by the local gun happy Republicans, as they deal another blow to the reputation of tourist dependent Arizona:

    TUCSON - The Republican Party in the county where a deadly Arizona shooting rampage took place drew criticism for raffling a handgun for a get-out-the-vote fundraiser. But Pima County Republican Party officials said they sold all 125 of the $10 tickets available for the Glock 23....Mike Ebert, a member of the GOP executive committee, said he was happy to see the publicity and the publicity energized the party's base.... (Jared Loughner used a Glock to shoot 19 people in Tucson early this year, 6 of whom died)

    NCD 13 years 4 months ago

    Several drivers decline invite to the White House due to scheduling

    "Drivers" in this case referring to NASCAR drivers.  I'll get there are considerably more Americans who can name 5 NASCAR drivers than can name 3 currently serving elected federal officials.

    Perhaps there is more to this and it is mere coincidence that 5 NASCAR drivers all have "scheduling conflicts" that require them to decline an invitation to meet with the President of the United States.  

    Disrespect.  It can be contagious.  And it definitely appears to be spreading lately in this country, whether one counts "lately" as the last 15-20 years or the last 15-20 months.

    AmericanDreamer 13 years 4 months ago

    Rush Limbaugh Axed the Obama Speech Date?

    It appears that Rush Limbaugh nixed the Obama speech date for September 7th, soon after the White House sent it to Boehner and made it public. Limbaugh demanded the House reject Obama's date.

    ...Speaker Boehner must say "no" to this request....Rush Limbaugh

     

    First Boehner stepped into line and did what Rush told him to do, then it was Obama's turn,  'Yes,  Mr. Speaker,  please can I have another....... date?"

    NCD 13 years 4 months ago

    Greens Gain in Germany, and the World Takes Notice

    A string of Green Party victories and strong electoral showings across Germany, from the conservative south to the port cities of the north, are helping to redefine politics among voters who are increasingly losing faith in the more established parties.

    ...

    “Nothing in our political science books has prepared us for this kind of party,” said Josef Joffe, publisher of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, who noted that the Greens have won the culture war on the left over the rusty Social Democrats on issues like gay rights and the integration of immigrants. “I bet if you had a party like this in America, all my rich friends on both coasts would vote for it.”

    Although their roots are on the left, the Greens are being increasingly embraced by voters on the right, successfully tapping into a German strain of conservationist conservatism by opposing highways and the demolition of old buildings. It has benefited both from the slow collapse of European socialism and the rising awareness of renewable technologies that have brought even once-skeptical businesspeople into the fold.

    Michael Wolraich 13 years 4 months ago

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