Prometheus 6

Starting Monday, I'm going to require logins for comments. This "Texas Hold-em" asshole needs to leave an ugly-looking comment every day. I choose to head it off before I get annoyed.

So Dr. Rice is getting all these props for style during her swing through Europe. I can't help but wonder if the folks she's talking to see her kinder, gentler presentation as a real shift in policy.

I also find it interesting that people are talking about "her" arguments

The heart of Rice's argument goes something like this: The greatest strategic challenge of our time lies in the wider Middle East. It's from there that the terrorists who struck the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, emerged, and it's there that Islamist extremism is still being spawned. Poverty may contribute to the problem and should be tackled, not least in the Palestinian territories, but Osama bin Laden was hardly poor. The root causes are political. Freedom from want matters; more important by far is the want of freedom.

In shock after 9/11, the Bush administration began with a military and police response. It was going to kick butt, even if it sometimes kicked the wrong butt. Now it recognizes that addressing the underlying causes of terrorism requires more and longer-term deployment of economic, political and cultural means. "Even more important than military and indeed economic power," Rice said in Paris on Tuesday, "is the power of ideas."

and "her" thinking

OSSIE DAVIS, BELOVED ACTOR AND HUMANITARIAN, REMEMBERED
Visitation and Funeral Service, Open to the Public, Set for Friday and Saturday, February 11 &12

WHAT: Funeral services for the late Ossie Davis, 87, noted writer, actor and activist, have been confirmed. In keeping with the spirit of his life and his concern for humanity, both his visitation and funeral are open to the public.

VISITATION:
Friday, February 11-5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Abyssinian Baptist Church, 132 W. 138th Street, Manhattan

FUNERAL DETAILS:
Saturday, February 12 at 12:00pm noon,
Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive (120th street), Manhattan

The presiding ministers at the ecumenical service will be the Reverend James Forbes, pastor of Riverside Church, and the Reverend Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Davis was a member.

The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The release of the Douglass Papers, from the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division, contains approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images) relating to Douglass' life as an escaped slave, abolitionist, editor, orator, and public servant. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895. The collection consists of correspondence, speeches and articles by Douglass and his contemporaries, a draft of his autobiography, financial and legal papers, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous items. These papers reveal Douglass' interest in diverse subjects such as politics, emancipation, racial prejudice, women's suffrage, and prison reform. Included is correspondence with many prominent civil rights reformers of his day, including Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Horace Greeley, and Russell Lant, and political leaders such as Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. Scrapbooks document Douglass' role as minister to Haiti and the controversy surrounding his interracial second marriage. The online release of the Frederick Douglass Papers is made possible through the generous support of the Citigroup Foundation.

When Bush suggested adjusting Social Security to reflect Black men's shorter expected lifespan I just nodded my head in appreciation. Not since Abraham Lincoln himself has the Republican view of Black Americans as tools to attain their own goals been so clearly articulated.

By the way, remember a few years back when everyone was saying Black males had some greater than 50% chance of dying before they were 21 years old? How did that turn out?

Yeah, we got differences in life expectancy but they get hyped for various reasons at various times. In fact, I want to share a little hearsay. This weekend in the discussion of Social Security on The McLaughlin Report, Clarence Page told Pat Robertson that life expectancy figure averages in our higher youth mortality rate and if he's lucky enough to reach 60 he's "likely to live longer than you."

On the one hand

2004 Was Fourth-Warmest Year Ever Recorded
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 10, 2005

Last year was the fourth warmest since systematic temperature measurements began around the world in the 19th century, NASA scientists said yesterday.

Particularly high temperatures were measured over Alaska, the Caspian Sea region of Europe and the Antarctic Peninsula, while the United States was unusually cool. But the global average continued a 30-year rise that is "due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan.

On the other hand

Quote of note:

One of the studies, by researchers at Duke and Stanford universities and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California, estimated that routine one-time testing of everyone would cut new infections each year by slightly more than 20 percent, and that every infected patient identified would gain an average of 18 months of life.

The other study, by Yale and Harvard researchers, found that testing people every three to five years would be cost effective for all but the lowest-risk people, like those who are celibate or are in monogamous heterosexual relationships. And even for those people, one-time testing was found to be cost effective.

Experts Want H.I.V. Testing for All Adults

Quote of note:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also called for new hearings on the drug benefit. She said she is especially interested in lifting a provision that bars the Department of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices with the drug industry. The drug industry had insisted on that measure.

And in the spirit of bipartisanship:

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Wednesday that he wants White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten to tell Congress "what the real numbers are," and pronounced himself "very suspect of this program as to its cost."

Gregg later said outside the Senate chamber that while he would like to hold hearings on the drug benefit, "I'm a lone voice on that issue."

Medicare shortfall next on Bush's fix-it list
After new figures forecast that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost taxpayers at least $724 billion, President Bush vowed to make improving the program's financial picture a priority.

Quote of note:

Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.

A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.

"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."

Not just (though not least either) because we're overextended militarily. North Korea did not break the agreement they had with the USofA, so in international legal terms we got no leg to stand on.

Anyway...

North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Weapons and Rejects Talks

By JAMES BROOKE

TOKYO, Feb. 10 - In a surprising admission, North Korea's hard-line Communist government declared publicly today for the first time that it has nuclear weapons.

It also said that it will boycott United States-sponsored regional talks designed to end its nuclear program, according to a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement transmitted today by the reclusive nation's wire service.

Quotes of note:

For local residents, who presumed Katie had been abducted by a stranger, the tragedy deepened with the arrest on murder charges of Charles Hickman, 20, a fixture in front of his family's trailer on Crothersville's main street, just across from the Dollar General and Penn Villa.

"It's changed too late," said Misty Banks, who works at the Butcher Block convenience store, where she gave Reese's peanut butter cups and Popsicles to Katie even when she could not pay. "They've known it's been going on this whole time, and they have to wait until a 10-year-old's dead?"

Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge

Oscar's risks don't end at Chris Rock
In addition to this year's in-your-face host, key changes are expected in the set, format and how some of the Academy Awards are presented.

By Mary McNamara, Times Staff Writer

As if Chris Rock were not enough, this year's Oscar ceremony is shaping up to be hip-hop loose and in-your-face. Or at least as hip-hop loose and in-your-face as a show that revolves around a bunch of film types in evening dress getting awards and making speeches can be.

Ever since the announcement that Rock would host the 77th Academy Awards, the buzz has been as much about how the high-intensity, often blasphemous comic will fit into a traditional ceremony as it has in predicting the winners.

Strangeness of note:

Foster told authorities she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during the August 2003 murder trial of Kurt Vomberg, a man accused of shaking a toddler to death. The case ended in a hung jury. The whooshing sound could be heard on Foster's audiotape of the trial.

Okla. Judge's Career Ended by Allegations
- By JULIE E. BISBEE, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, February 8, 2005

(02-08) 16:32 PST Oklahoma City, OK (AP) --

Jurors and others in Judge Donald Thompson's courtroom kept hearing a strange whooshing noise, like a bicycle pump or maybe a blood pressure cuff. During one trial, Thompson seemed so distracted that some jurors thought he was playing a hand-held video game or tying fly-fishing lures behind the bench.

Bush Seeks $400 Million to Reward Allies
- By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005

(02-09) 21:31 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

President Bush is asking Congress to set up a $400 million fund to reward nations that have taken political and economic risks to join U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House announced the fund, dubbed the "solidarity initiative," after Bush's meeting Wednesday with Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, a nation that is to receive one-fourth of the money.

Quote of note

Since working memory is known to predict many higher-level brain functions, the research calls into question the ability of high-pressure tests such as the SAT, GRE, LSAT, and MCAT to accurately gauge who will succeed in future academic endeavors.

Smart People Choke Under Pressure
By Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 09 February, 2005
7:00 a.m. ET

People perceived as the most likely to succeed might also be the most likely to crumble under pressure.

A new study finds that individuals with high working-memory capacity, which normally allows them to excel, crack under pressure and do worse on simple exams than when allowed to work with no constraints. Those with less capacity score low, too, but they tend not to be affected by pressure.

U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds.
By Julie Cart
Times Staff Writer

February 10, 2005

More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.

The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Sick and Broke
By Elizabeth Warren
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A23

Nobody's safe. That's the warning from the first large-scale study of medical bankruptcy.

Health insurance? That didn't protect 1 million Americans who were financially ruined by illness or medical bills last year.

A comfortable middle-class lifestyle? Good education? Decent job? No safeguards there. Most of the medically bankrupt were middle-class homeowners who had been to college and had responsible jobs -- until illness struck.

Bush seeks 'major shift' with blacks
By Bob Cusack

In the nearly 100 days since he was reelected, President Bush has launched an aggressive campaign to win African-American and Hispanic voters away from the Democratic Party.

Political strategists say the president s meetings with minority groups and his move to highlight policies important to them is the start of a major effort to court constituencies that have predominantly embraced Democrats. 

Bush attracted 11 percent of the black vote in 2004, up three percentage points from 2000. Initial polls showed Bush attracting 44 percent of the Hispanic vote last year after getting 35 percent in 2000. Democrats have called the 44 percent figure overstated.

What is not in dispute, however, is that the battle for the minority vote will be fierce in 2006 and 2008.

Slavery and the Making of America.

Tonight, 9pm on WNET, if you're in the NYC area.

And Sunday at 2pm too. So none of that crap about ending past your bedtime.

I've been relaxing a bit today, and that involves time away from politics. I've spent some time today reading this week's Tangled Bank entries.

So I like science. Sue me. Or check it out yourself...if I linked everything I thought was cool you'd think my URL got hijacked by a science blog.