Quote of note:

Clifton's revelation that the PD was holding two investigative projects was actually first published in a column he wrote June 30 about the Miller and Cooper case. While the column garnered positive reaction, he said, almost nobody picked up on the disclosure tucked into the end of the piece.

"As I write this, two stories of profound importance languish in our hands," Clifton wrote. "The public would be well served to know them, but both are based on documents leaked to us by people who would face deep trouble for having leaked them. Publishing the stories would almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail. Because talking isn't an option and jail is too high a price to pay, these two stories will go untold for now. How many more are out there?"

'Plain Dealer': We're Holding Big Stories Because of Fear of Jail
By Mark Fitzgerald
Published: July 08, 2005 5:02 PM ET

I got Tony Brown's Journal recorded.

Medicaid Commission Formed to Tame Program's Growth
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, July 8 - The Bush administration named a commission on Friday to find ways to rein in the rapid growth of Medicaid, and it said the panel would be headed by a former governor of Tennessee, where the program has been plagued with fiscal problems for a decade.

The chairman of the new Medicaid Commission, Don Sundquist, a Republican, was governor from 1995 to 2003 and was a Tennessee congressman for 12 years before that. A former governor of Maine, Angus King, an independent, was named vice chairman.

Problem with the legislation of note:

Because "partial-birth" abortion is a nonmedical term coined by opponents of reproductive rights, the crux of the confusion has to do with what the measures aim to outlaw, and when. Largely as a result of ban proponents' literature and rhetoric, the phrase "partial-birth" was initially understood to be tantamount to "intact dilation and extraction" (D&X), a medically accepted term that describes a specific clinical abortion procedure used during the late second and third trimesters of pregnancy. However, the definition of D&X abortion in the Ohio law does not correspond to the procedure as defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and the term "partial-birth" abortion as used in the Michigan law and subsequent state and federal measures does not incorporate medical terminology at all.

Quote of note:

I got Tony Brown's Journal running in the background. They're talking about BiDil.

Real interesting. I set the PVR back to the beginning of the show and am trying to record it all because there's some details about the testing and marketing of BiDil that I think should be shared. I'm recording it because I want to get it right...but I don't know if I can record it when it's time shifted some 15 minutes to begin with.

Just to let you know, they're blowing up the concept that it's a Black-specific thing beyond marketing. This combination of known drugs is being marketed as a new thing so they can get a patent for more than two years. But I want the quote...I think there's checkable stuff in there.

I don't like this game, or the trend it represents. And I have no doubt Rockstar Games knew this porn is on the shipping DVD. (LATER: follow up here)

Quote of note:

The mod's author —  Patrick Wildenborg of Deventer, Netherlands —  told The Associated Press Friday that his code merely unlocks content that is already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game, the latest edition of the top-selling "Grand Theft Auto" series.

...Within the game's official storyline, the main character earns the chance to have "coffee" with "girlfriends." Wildenborg says his "hot coffee" patch merely toggles a single value in the game's main script   a "censor flag," he calls it, that appears to have locked up several hot and heavy scenes.

..."If Rockstar Games denies that, then they're lying and I will be able to prove that," Wildenborg, 36, wrote in an e-mail. "My mod does not introduce anything to the game. All the content that is shown was already present on the DVD."

Investigation, denials and outcry over video game's sex scenes
- By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 8, 2005
(07-08) 16:49 PDT San Francisco (AP) --

Lotta discussion about this one.

There's always a lot of discussion in financial circles when two large, serious competitor merge. This one has public policy implications though, so we're getting public discussion on this one.

First, I want to bitch about newpaper articles in general.

At this point I'm some 10-15 minutes into writing this thing. I've deleted an opening about spin in the linked article because it opens like this:

The acquisition of PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. by industry giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. would mean more competition in the health insurance business  — not less, the companies' chief executives said Friday.

Now, if you really want to annoy me, you can try to convince me increasing competition in their own field is a part of any business plan. The only good thing about the general acceptance of anti-government rhetoric is I don't have to

Iraq and Iran to co-operate over defence
By Neil MacDonald in Baghdad and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: July 7 2005 19:01 | Last updated: July 7 2005 19:01

Former foes Iraq and Iran announced  a new chapter  in their relations on Thursday, including cross-border military co-operation, dismissing US concerns about Iranian regional meddling.

On his first official visit to Tehran, Iraqi minister of defence Saadoun al-Dulaimi asserted his country's sovereign right to seek help from wherever it sees fit in rebuilding its defence capabilities.

"Nobody can dictate to Iraq its relations with other countries," Mr Dulaimi said in a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Admiral Ali Shamkhani.

Bush has to review strategy, say US experts
By Guy Dinmore and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

...Last September, at the peak of his re-election campaign, Mr Bush told the Republican national convention:  We are staying on the offensive striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. Our strategy is succeeding. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer. 

John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy secretary of defence, said:  Clearly [the world] is not safer. I think this highlights the complexity of the problem.

 We must defend a vast infrastructure constantly while extremists get to pick the time and place with very limited tools. Obviously we must try to intercept the terrorists. But we must also address the broader socio-political context. We can t solve this with a relatively limited dimensional model of counterforce. Being mighty is one thing. Being effective is another. This is a much more complex problem 

I like verbal archaicisms so the word "Blackamoor" is one I'll use on occasion. It came up in a web search today, so in honor of the broad popularity of the Blackmoor Mimin Pinguin:

In addition to Mexico, Memín remains a popular magazine in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Colombia, the Philippines and other countries. At its peak, it had a weekly circulation of one and a half million issues in Mexico; as of mid-2005 it sells over 100,000 issues a week.

The story
While Memín suffers a degree of racist taunting, especially in the first issues, the characters mocking him are depicted as either cruel or ignorant. As the story progresses, his race becomes less of an issue.

In one famous issue, Memín, having read that Cleopatra took milk baths to lighten her skin, tries the same treatment. His mother weeps with sorrow that her son would want to change his skin color. A repentant Memín decides to be proud of his race and color to honor his good mother.

In another, Memín decides not to commune, after a cruel boy tells him blacks aren't allowed in Heaven, pointing to the lack of black angels in religious paintings as proof. Memín reasons that, since he's going to Hell anyway, he can do any mischief he wants. This prompted some Roman Catholic priests to boycott the magazine, and after sales plummeted an issue in which Memín communes and dreams of becoming an angel was published.

In yet another adventure called "Líos Gordos", Memín and his friends travel to Texas to play soccer. They go for a chocolate milkshake, but the place refuses to sell to Memín, because it doesn't serve "blacks, Mexicans or dogs". His friends stand up for him, get into a fight, and end up in jail.

I thought I'd serve up a few (blacka)more.

Quote of note:

Included with McCabe's letter to Bush was a lengthy report by Crow and Lewis, in which the prosecutors wrote that this was not the first time McCabe's office had been asked to consider accusations against Michael Schiavo. But each time, they wrote, they had "found insufficient evidence of any prosecutable offense to justify a criminal investigation."

The prosecutors stated that the 'past decade of increasingly venomous litigation and the family members' disparate and irreconcilable beliefs as to Terri's wishes"' made it "unrealistic to expect" that their office could resolve the dispute

They added that "despite extended litigation and a detailed autopsy, we have no proof to suggest that a crime has occurred." They also noted that Michael Schiavo was not the only witness who has given conflicting testimony as to when events occurred the night Terri Schiavo collapsed.

Bush agrees to end Schiavo inquiry
Gov. Jeb Bush agreed to close an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of Terri Schiavo after a state prosecutor said there is no evidence of any crime.
BY GARY FINEOUT

Quote of note:

Dr. Gregg Bloche, a medical ethicist at Georgetown University Law Center, said the charity program was a way to blunt criticism about the drug's cost.

"It's a vent, a kind of steam vent, to protect you against pressure building up," Dr. Bloche said.

Another one:

The higher pricing strategy for the drug, which the company said it would fully explain in an investor conference next week, has led other analysts to revise their sales estimates for BiDil, with many forecasting higher revenues than before.

Maker of Heart Drug Intended for Blacks Bases Price on Patients' Wealth
By STEPHANIE SAUL

The company that recently broke new ground by winning federal approval for the first drug intended for African-Americans could now be entering new territory with a controversial pricing system for the medicine.

The maker, NitroMed, has set the price of its heart-failure drug BiDil at $1.80 a pill, significantly higher than what analysts had expected and nearly twice as much as some other heart-failure treatments. Depending on the dosage, that would make the cost of taking BiDil at least $5.40 and maybe as much as $10.80 a day.

Quote of note:

Mr. Factor accused the club of betraying its free-market principles by turning to regulators to squelch a competitor. "This country was built on competition," he said. "The only people who get threatened by competition are the ones without new ideas," who, instead of building a better mousetrap, "have lawyers and the government shut down the other guy's mousetrap."

...In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Toomey, the new president of the Club for Growth, said the organization was dropping its accusations about the mailing lists and defended its initial vigilance. "We simply sent the letter asking, 'How did you obtain this list?' " he said. "We have an obligation to defend the privacy of our members." He contended that the suggestion that the Club for Growth resented competition was "ridiculous."

Leadership Dispute Causes a Split in a Powerhouse of Fund-Raising for Conservative Causes
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Live in fear of something less likely than being struck by lightning. You can use the physical stress, right? You WANT your blood pressure elevated over something you can't affect...something that affects you only by making you decide it affects you.

Like you flyover people that are so knowledgeable about Black people without knowing any. Yew hoo tawk abawt Ebonics widdout a wuhd a da King's English evuh passin thru yo lips. Who as SOOOO SCARED terrorists from Iraq are goingto blow up all your cows and wheat and corn.

You're used to paranoia. You obviously LIKE it. So go for it...go, go, go! Just keep a sponge around to clean up the mess when you periodically pee your pants and I'm cool with it.

In Americans, Lurking Fears Rise to Surface
By PAUL VITELLO

Quote of note:

While Mr. Chappelle's show helped increase the channel's black audience to 20 percent from 7 percent, both Mr. Mencia and Comedy Central executives say that he was not given a show to increase Hispanic viewership; that would be a bonus, they said.

"The fact that he could potentially bring in a more diverse audience for us is part of the appeal," said Lauren Corrao, executive vice president of original programming and development for the channel, "but when you see the kind of comedy he's doing, it really does appeal to a broad range of people, even though he comes at it from that very specific point of view."

Sharpening Ethnic Barbs and Hoping for a Hit
By LOLA OGUNNAIKE

Quote of note:

"The leaders will stand firm against this evil," said President Vicente Fox of Mexico, adding that the bombings had stirred them all to work harder at coming to agreement on a wide variety of issues, including trade and global warming.

Demonstration that Mr.Fox is out of the loop. Of note:

Mr. Bush and the American delegation were clearly focused on the terrorist threat. The American president left a meeting during the middle of the morning and, sitting outside his hotel suite, held a videoconference over a secure line with his national security team in Washington to discuss the possible threat to the United States.

Bombings Rewrite G-8 Agenda
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

LAPD Hid Claims, Judge Says
Bratton denies, however, that an informant's statements linking officers to Notorious B.I.G.'s slaying were concealed on purpose.
By Andrew Blankstein
Times Staff Writer
July 8, 2005

The LAPD deliberately hid witness statements tying corrupt police to the slaying of Notorious B.I.G., a federal judge said Thursday in granting a mistrial and potentially lucrative attorney fees to the rapper's family.

U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in a written order upholding an earlier oral ruling, said the family's wrongful-death case had been hopelessly disrupted by the Los Angeles Police Department's concealment of a jailhouse informant's statements. The informant, cellmate to then-Officer Rafael Perez, the central figure in the Rampart police scandal, said Perez and rogue officer David Mack were involved in the slaying of the rapper, born Christopher Wallace.

Quote of note:

Mr. Duncan began his online journal in January of last year. It was called "Blogging the Fifth Nail," an allegorical reference to a fifth nail intended to end Christ's suffering on the cross.

Chris Magnus, the police chief in Fargo, the suspect's hometown, said officers learned of the blog when they questioned friends and neighbors after Mr. Duncan failed to check in with his probation officer in May.

A Kidnapping-Murder Suspect Blogged About His Demons
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOISE, Idaho, July 7 (AP) - A convicted sex offender spent months on the Internet documenting his internal struggle with right and wrong. Then, four days before two children he is accused of kidnapping disappeared, he wrote, "The demons have taken over."

Sometimes the deepest accidents...

I checked my referral logs and found a link from an .edu site. Those always interest me, so I checked it out and found one of the better personal link collections I've stumbled into for quite a while...belongs to this guy, whose blog ain't bad either.

Anyway, being nosy I scanned the list. Ran into a journal called Mind. Fascinating stuff...I really wish these journals were priced within mortal (or even Chaos Lord) reach. There's some things I REALLY WANT TO READ...one or two that I will, because I found the PDF online.

Check this:

The Role of Language Development in Understanding That “Beliefs” Can Be Faulty

Our research yielded three main findings. First, language was a necessary condition for young children to make progress in false belief understanding. Simply experiencing deceptive objects was not enough: children needed to have that experience structured by some language from others, such as, different nouns showing different perspectives on these objects. Second, training in the grammar used to describe belief situations was sufficient by itself to facilitate children’s false belief understanding, even if children had no experience with deceptive objects or situations in the training. Third, these two effects - of perspective-taking and grammar - seem to be relatively independent of one another. Children showed the most improvement in a condition using both factors, suggesting that each of these types of linguistic experience play an independent role in the development of false belief understanding. Thus, the results of the study point to the relevance of language acquisition for the development of fundamental social cognitive skills. These findings are of special importance for populations with difficulties in language development, (e.g. deaf children or children with Specific language impairments) as well as for populations with specific deficits in developing a Theory of Mind, like autistic children, by offering new research as well as treatment strategies.

Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 74, Issue 4, The Role of Language in the Development of False Belief Understanding: A Training Study by H. Lohmann and M. Tomasello. Copyright 2003 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.

And there's Linguistic Understanding and Belief. And check out the abstracts from the April 2005 issue...I might be willing to trample someone to death to get to Are there Genuine Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena?

In his book (which you can dig out the title of, if you wish) Rick "Man-on-Dog-Sex" Santorum says:

"This was tried once before in America," Santorum writes. "But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave."

Wrong.

First of all, no one has the unlimited right to an abortion. Just try calling the clinic and telling them you're 100 days into the pregnancy, totally healthy and want an abortion. Go on, I dare you.

Secondly, slaveowners DID have the unlimited right to kill their slaves.

They had the unlimited right to kill free Blacks. They killed them with impunity after slavery was restricted to convicted prisoners (bet you thought slavery was illegal in the USofA, didn't you?).

Quote of note:

"...this governor has a blind spot when it comes to the constitutional requirement on separation of church and state. He's completely uncritical. He doesn't believe that reading the Bible and strengthening your relationship with God is a faith-based message."

...which is a fascinating observation.

Incidentally, I must report...almost sadly...that celebrity has value; the Huffington Post is useful. Onward...

Gov. Bush touts Christian-based program for schools
By Dara Kam
Special to The Palm Beach Post
Wednesday, July 06, 2005

TALLAHASSEE —  Just before Father's Day, Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he wanted every public school in Florida to host a Christian-based program designed to increase fathers' participation in their children's lives.

The program, All Pro Dad, combines a biblical foundation with the draw of popular professional athletes to promote the belief that "the father is the head of the household" and that men should rely on God to help them be better parents and keep their marriages intact. It also encourages Bible reading.

Now you KNOW this is wrong.

Identical Twins Exhibit Differences in Gene Expression

At first glance identical twins seem, well, identical. In fact many of these sibling pairs show minor physical variations and differences in characteristics such as susceptibility to disease. Just what causes these dissimilarities is unclear. But a new report further suggests that epigenetic factors--that is, differences in how the genome is expressed--could be responsible.

Mario F. Fraga of the Spanish National Cancer Center and his colleagues studied 160 monozygous twins ranging from three to 74 years of age. They analyzed two epigenetic phenomena along the entire genome and compared the results for each set of twins. The processes, DNA methylation and histone acetylation, both govern gene expression and can amplify or dampen the effects of particular genes. The team determined that early in life, twins were indistinguishable in the manner in which their genes were expressed. Among older sets of twins, however, significant differences in the gene-expression portraits were apparent for 35 percent of the study group. (The image above shows methylation patterns for three-year-old twins (left) and 50-year-old twins (right), with the differences highlighted in red.) In addition, twins who had spent the most time apart and had more divergent medical histories exhibited the greatest epigenetic differences.

Climate Change Could Set Dunes in Motion, Study Suggests

Immense sand dunes hardly seem like nimble objects, but they can meander over time. In fact, researchers report that the dunes of Africa's Kalahari Desert may soon be on the move once more as a result of climate change. The results indicate that by the end of the century the changes could have drastic environmental and social consequences in the region.

Dunes shift when winds pick up sand grains and deposit them some distance away. How much movement occurs depends on a number of factors including wind strength, the amount of vegetation cover and moisture levels. David Thomas of the University of Oxford and his colleagues investigated what might happen to the immense dune fields in southern Africa over the coming years using three global climate models. They first calibrated the models using data collected between 1961 and 1990 and found it agreed well with observed dune activity. All three models predicted that the erodibility of the dunes was likely to increase. By 2040, sands in Botswana and Namibia could start to move, the team reports, with dunes in Angola, Zimbabwe and Zambia beginning to shift by 2070.

Fox News' Brian Kilmeade: London terror attack near G8 summit "works to ... Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together"

KILMEADE: And he [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined. This is his second address in the last hour. First to the people of London, and now at the G8 summit, where their topic Number 1 --believe it or not-- was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened.

Quote of note:

In brief, the president's claim that tax cuts to the owners of small businesses will stimulate them to hire more workers flies in the face of bedrock principles outlined in every introductory economics textbook.

Credentials of note:

Robert H. Frank, an economist at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, is the author of "Luxury Fever."

Do Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Stimulate Employment?
By ROBERT H. FRANK

THE centerpiece of the Bush administration's economic policy has been large federal income tax cuts aimed mainly at top earners. These tax cuts account for much of the $2 trillion increase in the national debt projected to occur during the Bush presidency. They prompted a large group of Nobel laureates in economics to issue a statement last year condemning the administration's "reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation."

The question of whether to make the tax cuts permanent is still on the Congressional agenda. So it is an opportune moment to examine the president's argument in support of them.

Unequalled innovation in today s smallest, lightest Tablet PC
The LS800 is a revolutionary addition to Motion Computing s award-winning Tablet PC series with its unique size and remarkable power. About the size of a paperback, the LS800 Tablet PC comes equipped with Intel® Centrino  Mobile Technology for outstanding mobile performance and productivity.

The LS800 Tablet PC measures just 8.94  by 6.69  by 0.87 , and it weighs only 2.2 pounds. It s easier to use, stow or transport than any Tablet PC available today and will easily fit in a lab coat pocket or purse.

God help me if they ever add Sharp's 3D displays to these things.

Odd Man Out
July 7, 2005

President Bush conceded Wednesday that global warming is a real environmental problem and that human-caused pollution worsens it. "Listen, I recognize the surface of the Earth is warmer," Bush told reporters in Denmark, "and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem."

Finally, in the hours before the G-8 summit, he grudgingly joined the other leaders of developed nations in showing respect for the research on climate change instead of calling for more studies and appointing oil-industry lobbyists who soft-pedal scientific reports.

But the president's new stance throws into even starker relief his refusal to join with other nations in taking substantive steps against climate change. The potential for long-term disaster, as Bush's strange equation adds it up, isn't equal to the importance of short-term economic protection.

Instead of capping carbon dioxide emissions, Bush wants the G-8 nations to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels. He should do both; companies under regulatory mandate to stem environmental damage typically respond with technological breakthroughs.

...and there he is, on The Huffington Post, talking about the high standard that would have to be met to indict Karl Rove...and why he thinks that standard has been met.

Other than being up to his neck in it anyway...

In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues  order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges  in the light of reason and experience.  Tatel actually found that reason and experience support recognition of a privilege for reporters  confidential sources.  But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to  the gravity of the suspected crime. 

Judge Tatel's opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to "[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor's] voluminous classified filings." 

Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case  which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.  Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters  shield law -- but in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he  might have  let Cooper and Miller off the hook "[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security." 

Tatel's colleagues are at least as impressed with the prosecutor's secret filings as he is. One simply said "Special Counsel's showing decides the case." 

All the judges who have seen the prosecutor s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.

My opinion of the law in this case hasn't changed...but my opinion of the case is being opened for reinterpretation.

A Different Shortlist
How about an old-style conservative Supreme Court nominee?
By Emily Bazelon and David Newman
Posted Wednesday, July 6, 2005, at 4:14 PM PT

Most of the shortlists for the Supreme Court being bandied about (including ours) are predicated on the assumption that Bush is most interested in appointing a radical right-wing justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. That idea is supported by the names most often mentioned by the White House and people close to it. But what if the president decided to look instead for a conservative in the traditional sense of the word, a distinguished jurist who believes in moderation, judicial restraint, and deference to Congress? A shortlist that emphasized those qualities might include the following: