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

    In the News

    Germans Fear Dioxin Has Contaminated Small Farms

    By Judy Dempsey, New York Times, January 7, 2011

    BERLIN — German officials halted sales from more than 4,700 small farms after dioxin was found in some feed for chickens and pigs and as fears grew about how far contaminated food might have spread....

    Also see
    Report Claims German Company Knew of Dioxin for Weeks, Spiegel Online, January 7, 2011, and Tests show up to 77 times more dioxin than legal limit, Deustche Welle, January 7, 2011

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Tech Executives: Schools, Immigration Key to Innovation

    By Roger Cheng, Wall Street Journal technology blog, January 7, 2011

    The U.S. needs to fix its primary education system, encourage talented immigrants and cut business taxes if it wants to maintain it lead in innovation, several top tech executives said Friday.

    Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Ursula Burns gave the K-12 school system a “D-minus” and said fixing it is a priority. “We can’t pretend to be better than we are,” she said. She added that when it comes to preparing students out of high school to be productive workers, the U.S. is failing.

    The executives, however, said that the college system remains the best in the world. But they also agreed that valuable foreign talent who come over to the U.S. to attend colleges end up going back home because the country no longer welcomes them....

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Miami to use military drones

    Military drones may be used in urban settings. Besides some ooooops factor that always looms with new technology, urban police are beginning to look more and more like the military.

    And some of our urban slums are beginning to look like war zones.

    Richard Day 13 years 11 months ago

    Obama takes a Syrian gamble

    By Sami Moubayed from Damascus, Asia Times Online, January 5, 2011

    United States President Barack Obama's decision to bypass the senate and appoint Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria has bigger implications for the US than its Syrian interests in the Middle East. While Republicans say the appointment sends "the wrong message", Damascus has the ear of top Iranian and Iraqi officials, and clear influence in Lebanon, making it a significant broker in the Middle East peace process.

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Gates proposes cutting Army & Marines

    Tribune Wire/LA Times, January 6, 2011

    WASHINGTON-- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called Thursday for shrinking the Army and Marine Corps by as many as 47,000 troops, opting to cut ground forces in response to pressure from the White House and Congress to reduce the defense budget.

    The proposed troop cuts, part of $78 billion in budget savings outlined by Gates Thursday at a Pentagon news conference, would not begin until 2015 and 2016. By then, Gates emphasized, U.S. forces are due to be entirely gone from Iraq and hopefully will be drawing down in Afghanistan.....

    For more see

    Gates outlines plans to cut $78 billion in programs, 70,000 troops, by Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes, January 6, 2011, and Program cuts let Army keep soldiers, for now, by Kate Brannen, Army Times, January 6, 2011.

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S.

    Here is coverage by Greewaldt with audio of his conversation with the young man.

    http://www.salon.com/news/torture/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/20...

    A Guy Called LULU 13 years 11 months ago

    The Rise of the New Global Elite

    By Chrystia Freeland, Atlantic Magazine, January/February 2011 issue

    F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.

    A "must read" for anyone blogging about "the rich" or "the oligarchy;" if you want to be taken seriously on the topic, that is. The whole thing; she's writing a book, this already is the Cliff Notes version.

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Saudi Arabia 'detains' Israeli vulture for spying

    BBC News, January 5, 2011

    Saudi Arabian officials have "detained" a vulture on accusations of being a spy for Israel, media reports say. The griffon vulture was carrying a GPS transmitter bearing the name of Tel Aviv University, prompting rumours it was part of a Zionist plot.

    Note that in order to keep their readers fully informed on the general topic, BBC has also linked to a story from last month on that page:

    Shark attacks not linked to Mossad says Israel
    By Yolande Knell BBC News, Jerusalem, December 7, 2010
    Israel has dismissed Egyptian claims that a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea could have been the result of a plot carried out by its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad.

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Fed now says it will reign in mortgages abuses

    They may have reversed their decision through the help of House Dem Brad Miller and Yves Smith's petition to Geithner and Bernanke demanding it; she sent 20,000 signatures.  (Thanks, Yves!)  It even made Dylan Ratigan's show...pretty good work, folks.)

    we are stardust 13 years 11 months ago

    Vaccine blocks cocaine high in mice; could have wider use in addictions

    Researchers have produced a lasting anti-cocaine immunity in mice by giving them a safe vaccine that combines bits of the common cold virus with a particle that mimics cocaine.

    "In their study, published Jan. 4 in the online edition of Molecular Therapy and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researchers say this novel strategy might be the first to offer cocaine addicts a fairly simple way to break and reverse their habit, and it might also be useful in treating other addictions, such as to nicotine, heroin and other opiates." [snip]
     
    "The novelty of this possible treatment is that it hooks a chemical that is very similar in structure to cocaine, onto components of the adenovirus, a common cold virus. In this way, the human immune system is alerted to an infectious agent (the virus) but also learns to "see" the cocaine as an intruder as well, Dr. Crystal says. Once the structure of the new intruder is recognized, natural immunity builds to cocaine particles, so any time cocaine is snorted or used in any way, antibodies to the substance are quickly produced and the cocaine molecules are engulfed by the antibodies and prevented from reaching the brain."
     
    we are stardust 13 years 11 months ago

    2nd person denied Ariz. transplant coverage dies

    Yeah.  I gotcher Death Panel right here, buddy.

    I'm flagging this for the "IN THE NEWS" section not because I have a doubt this won't be widely read, but because if you are going to manufacture bullshit talking points for your Party to spread like wildfire, make sure they can't come back to bite you in your own ass.

    So, the Republican leadership in Arizona is rationing healthcare now?  The very idea.

    Have a nice day!

    wabby 13 years 11 months ago

    TWO KIDS SHOT IN OMAHA SCHOOL

    Guns again disrupt public school.

    Richard Day 13 years 11 months ago

    J-20 stealth fighter photos: Did China leak them intentionally?

    By Christopher Bodean, Associated Press, January 5

    J-20 stealth fighter photos have appeared on Chinese websites, suggesting that the leaks of images of what could be China's first stealth fighter jet are a calculated moved by the traditionally secretive People's Liberation Army.

    Artappraiser's note: paging David Seaton, re wikileaks = China conspiracy theory--got one for ya. Tongue out Mho, they simply would like to be able to control the internet, but whatevah floats your boat.

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Pinal County Deputy Sheriff Fired

    Just a follow-up story that is interesting to me. Pinal County Sheriff is actually investigating graft in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.

    And there is the issue surrounding the lure of big money by drug cartels in the area and how some officers of the law are caught going for the bait.

    Richard Day 13 years 11 months ago

    Prisoners at Supermax Ohio Penitentiary Begin Hunger Strike to Protest 17+ Year Solitary Confinement

    Four prisoners in the supermax Ohio State Penitentiary have launched a hunger strike to protest what they call their harsh mistreatment under solitary confinement. The prisoners—Bomani Shakur, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Jason Robb and Namir Abdul Mateen—were sentenced to death for their involvement in the 1993 prison uprising in Lucasville, Ohio. For over 17 years, they’ve been held in 23-hour-a-day solitary lockdown.

    Donal 13 years 11 months ago

    Resurgent Turkey Flexes Its Muscles Around Iraq

    By Anthony Shadid, New York Times, January 4-5, 2010

    ZAKHO, Iraq — A Turkey as resurgent as at any time since its Ottoman glory is projecting influence through a turbulent Iraq, from the boomtowns of the north to the oil fields near southernmost Basra, in a show of power that illustrates its growing heft across an Arab world long suspicious of it....

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

    By Juan Cole,  Informed Comment, January 5, 2010

    Salman Tasir, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was assassinated by one of his own guards Tuesday, allegedly for his desire to repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has been increasingly misused by the religious right to target Christians, Ahmadis and secularists. The guard who killed him was not a Deobandi fundamentalist but an adherent of the moderate Barelvi school, and a member of the non-violent Da’vat-i Islam organization....

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    Iraq-Radical Anti-American Mullah Returns to Power and Jubilant Crowds in the New Bush Middle East

    Worth tens of thousands of US dead and wounded, seven years and a trillion or two trillion in treasure? The New Iraq brought to you by the GOP and War President George W. Bush, now emerges, a country depleted of professionals who have fled, Christians who live in fear or exile, and a government that includes a death squad/militia running radical cleric who is a very good friend of the repressive government of Iran.

    BAGHDAD — Moktada al-Sadr, the radical cleric whose followers waged deadly warfare against American troops after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, returned to Iraq on Wednesday after three years of voluntary exile in Iran.....

    NCD 13 years 11 months ago

    The Locavore's Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn't Be Grown in North Dakota

    By Jayson L. Lusk and F. Bailey Norwood, Econlib.org, January 3, 2011

    (Hat tip to Donal for reminding me of this website. Unfortunately, I suspect he might not like what this essay says, but I do. And I've been an avid gardener for a couple decades now. )

    artappraiser 13 years 11 months ago

    So now dead birds are falling from the sky in Louisiana

    Dead fish and now this.  Wow is all I've got to say.  Just wow. 

    http://www.longislandpress.com/2011/01/04/dead-birds-dead-birds-fall-in-louisiana/

     

    anna am 13 years 11 months ago

    PsySR's Open Letter on PFC Bradley Manning's Solitary Confinement

    Psychologists for Social Responsibility is deeply concerned about the pretrial detention conditions of alleged Wikileaks source PFC Bradley Manning, including solitary confinement for over five months, a forced lack of exercise, and possible sleep deprivation. It has been reported by his attorney and a visitor that Manning's mental health is suffering from his treatment. As a response, PsySR has issued this Open Letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

    Donal 13 years 11 months ago

    Daley Emerges as Possible Obama Chief

    Get ready for some talking heads to explode.  

    Mark Ambinder on current but soon retiring, Chicago mayor Richard Daley's brother William as a serious contender for Obama's Chief of Staff, a post vacated by Rahm Emanuel who is hoping to become Chicago's next mayor.  Just another political trade off within the Chicago machine?

    "Daley, who spends his days in a picturesque corner office in downtown Chicago as J.P. Morgan's Midwest chair, is close to several members of Obama's inner circle, including his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who departed the job to run for the mayoralty vacated by Daley's brother Richard."

    What a gift for Beck and Rush and Hannity and .....

    EmmaZahn 13 years 11 months ago

    The Economist > The Khodorkovsky trial: Putin's victory

    ANY dwindling hope among the supporters of Mikhail Khodorkovsky that the full force of Vladimir Putin's fury would not be brought to bear on the imprisoned oil tycoon ended earlier today, when he and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev received the maximum 14-year prison sentence,,,.

     

    This postscript was added to the article's feed:  (Just in case you missed it, AA :-)

    Interested in Putin? You can now view all of the articles The Economist has written about Putin

    Topics section: http://econ.st/fbkkaB

     

    EmmaZahn 13 years 11 months ago

    The Economist > Fluid Movement: How men and women are less different than you think

    Review of Man & Woman: An Inside Story. By Donald Pfaff.

    THE trouble with books about the differences between men and women is that the authors are all too often partisan, or perceived to be. Any writer brave enough to take on this subject needs to be meticulous and unflaggingly sceptical in his or her approach.....

    [....]

    Mr Pfaff is the right man for the job. A neurobiologist at New York’s Rockefeller University, he has worked in the field for nearly half a century, focusing on how hormones affect the brain....

    EmmaZahn 13 years 11 months ago

    NYC Poor: How the Other Half Lives: Hardships and Personal Worries

    "The Community Service Society conducts an annual survey, The Unheard Third, which catalogues some of the conditions poor and near-poor New Yorkers face. My impression is that New York has fared much better than the rest of the country in the aftermath of the crisis precisely because of the massive overt and covert subsidies given to the financial services industry, which is the foundation of the local economy. Thus I suspect if you were to conduct the same sort of survey in other US cities, the results would be even more grim.

    The survey focused on low income residents, with those defined as poor (household earnings at or below federal poverty standards, or FPL) sampled most intensively.

    charts and explanations

    we are stardust 13 years 11 months ago

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