Some of the biggest gains in unmarried couples were recorded in unexpected places. In the rural Midwest, the number of households made up of male partners has risen 77 percent since 2000.

That explains soooooo much...

It’s Official: To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered
By SAM ROBERTS

Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.

The American Community Survey, released recently by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.

I have come across the rare research paper I wantand can't find an accessible-without-subscription copy of.

Evidence for the regulatory function of intergroup emotion: Emotional consequences of implemented or impeded intergroup action tendencies
Angela T. Maitner, Diane M. Mackie and Eliot R. Smith
Received 23 July 2004; revised 27 June 2005. Available online 26 September 2005.

I forgot those attachments are automatically downloaded by some RSS readers and invisible to others.

Langston Hughes - Patternmaster (pdf)
Jonathan Scott
Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem

In the US academy Langston Hughes is considered a great `folk poet'. This specialist sort of literary designation is not wrong; the problem is that it has come to replace the more historically accurate and generalist description of Hughes as one of the most well-rounded writers and intellectuals of the twentieth century. Outside the United States, Hughes is usually ranked alongside Eliot and Yeats, both in terms of overall intellectual influence within the English language and literature tradition and for his catholic literary output over the course of four decades of work. The thesis here is that the downgrading of Hughes in the US academy, from world-class writer and intellectual to `Negro folk poet', is not only symptomatic of the endurance of white racial oppression in US society, but also extremely costly for students and scholars of American literature who have thus far been made familiar with only a fraction of his writings.

I've been reading Mirror to America slowly, like a chapter per day. It's been ego-challenging.

Fortunately Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America just showed up. This will be my focus for the next few days.

I do have another thing or two I want to post today, though.

Today's quote of note comes from John Tierney

...we need to balance uncertain future benefits against certain costs today. Most steps to combat global warming will be expensive and will slow economic growth, inevitably affecting poor people around the world. More of them will be sick, and more of their children will die. They’ll be less educated and live in less technologically advanced societies.

Climate change inaction will cost trillions: study
Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:44 AM ET
By Jeremy Lovell

James Carville gets paid to be the Democratic version of ruthless.

On a conference call today, James Carville suggested that the Democratic Party should expand beyond just the top targeted races.  He believes the party should help fund previously ignored Democratic challengers in second- and third-tier districts--the next 30 to 50 Republican-held seats--to fully capitalize on this environment and help those candidates maximize their chances of winning. Carville went as far as to suggest Democrats go to the bank and borrow $5 million. If I were them, I'd make it $10 million and put $500,000 each of these 20 districts.

 

The report found that agencies are often slow to realize that data thefts have taken place or how many people were affected by the breaches. And it was unclear how often they have informed citizens that their data might have been compromised, the report added...

...Most of the nearly 800 incidents of data losses have never been publicly reported.

Data Theft at Agencies Not as Uncommon as Hoped
A House report deems the incidence of lost or stolen information more pervasive than thought. Most cases are outright theft, it says.
By Moises Mendoza
Times Staff Writer
October 14, 2006

WASHINGTON — Incidents of lost or stolen personal data at federal government agencies are more widespread than previously thought, affecting all 19 federal departments and millions of citizens since 2003, according to a congressional report released Friday.

On the other hand, it is the most effective target.

With its debut two weeks ago, the Sermo site generated debate by prominently featuring postings from several doctors saying that Pfizer Inc.'s cholesterol-fighter Lipitor induces vivid and repeated nightmares in some patients as well as a posting by one doctor that said the diabetes drug Byetta, marketed jointly by Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly and Co. , was associated with ``sudden death" in 50 patients.

There has been almost nothing published about either problem in medical literature. Both drug companies, which reviewed the website after questions from the Globe, said the physicians' anecdotal observations appeared to be inaccurate.

Website seeks doctors' take on drugs, and firms are crying foul
By Christopher Rowland, Globe Staff  |  October 14, 2006

A Cambridge company that pays doctors to post medical observations on its website, including reports of drug side effects, has quickly incurred the wrath of pharmaceutical makers.

Sermo Inc. , founded by a surgical resident-turned-entrepreneur and backed by $3 million of venture capital, is promoting the website, sermo.com, as a novel Internet community. It's a password-protected private forum where raw postings by doctors can be viewed, for a fee, by Wall Street investment firms.

Founder and chief executive Daniel Palestrant says the site will serve as an early-warning system about potentially dangerous drug reactions. The site will also be a forum for doctors to share information about so-called off-label uses of drugs, for conditions other than those approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA, which is charged with monitoring drug safety, has come under criticism for failing to respond to reports of drug side effects, and for not making manufacturers follow through on pledges to monitor safety after their products are on the market.

Ariz. lawmaker's '96 rafting trip with ex-pages is scrutinized
Nature of inquiry is not disclosed
By Jennifer Talhelm and Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press  |  October 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation into a camping trip that an Arizona lawmaker took with two former pages and others in 1996, according to a law enforcement official.

Representative Jim Kolbe, Republican of Arizona, took the former pages as well as staff members and National Park Service officials on a Fourth of July rafting trip in the Grand Canyon in 1996, his spokeswoman Korenna Cline said yesterday.

FBI investigates Rep. Curt Weldon
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is investigating whether Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania traded his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter, according to sources with direct knowledge of the inquiry.

The FBI, which opened an investigation in recent months, has formally referred the matter to the department's Public Integrity Section for additional scrutiny. At issue are Weldon's efforts between 2002 and 2004 to aid two Russian companies and two Serbian brothers with ties to strongman Slobodan Milosevic, a federal law enforcement official said.

Lawyers representing Munaf in the United States said that his conviction in the Iraqi court is a farce and that he was not allowed to present evidence or witnesses in his defense. In an emergency motion filed yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Munaf's attorneys asked the U.S. government to intervene and argued that Munaf made incriminating statements only after "threats of violence and sexual assault against him and his family."

U.S. Citizen Sentenced To Death In Iraq
Federal Court Asked To Block Transfer
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 14, 2006; A17

A U.S. citizen who allegedly orchestrated the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists near Baghdad last year was sentenced to death in an Iraqi court Thursday, prompting his lawyers to ask a federal judge in Washington to block the U.S. military from transferring him to the Iraqi government.

Mohammad Munaf, 53, has been in U.S. custody since May 23, 2005, when he was arrested during a military raid to rescue the Romanian journalists nearly two months after they were snatched. Authorities have alleged that Munaf -- who had ushered the journalists into Iraq and was acting as their guide and translator -- posed as a kidnap victim but was actually involved in a conspiracy for ransom and led them into a trap.

Military officials have said in sworn statements that Munaf confessed to elements of the crime and helped arrange the kidnapping. Munaf has been held at Camp Cropper, where the U.S. military keeps high-value detainees on behalf of Multinational Force-Iraq.

That's outrageous. Only 57%? Were these kids lying on the survey? As it turns out, 27% admitted doing exactly that, which probably means that the rest were lying about lying about their lying...

We can bemoan the misdeeds of teens, and indeed they're troubling. But before we disdain adolescents too fast, we should remember that, luckily for us, Josephson doesn't do a similar survey of adults.

Teens Even Lie About Lying
A survey from the Josephson Institute shows that teens lie a lot, even on surveys.
October 14, 2006

MICHAEL JOSEPHSON, that "Character Counts" character with those ubiquitous radio commentaries and that eponymous institute of ethics, has polled teenagers and once again found them to be liars, cheats and thieves. In other words, they're horribly … well, just like the rest of us.

Did you know no torture took place at Abu Ghraib? Not according to Chris Shays (R-CT). Nope...the truth is, there was a sex ring running the place.

How do you even twist your mouth to say something like that?

Lloyd, who had been traveling independently and was not embedded with any military unit, was first shot in the back by Iraqi soldiers who overtook his four-wheel-drive vehicle, the coroner ruled. Lloyd then walked to a civilian minivan and was being driven away for medical treatment when U.S. forces opened fire on the van and killed Lloyd with a shot to the head, Walker concluded.

"There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces," said Walker, in a ruling he read aloud. "There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire upon the minibus."

Coroner: U.S. Killed British TV Reporter
By Karla Adam and Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 13, 2006; 11:58 AM

OXFORD, England, Oct. 13 -- A British coroner ruled Friday that U.S. soldiers unlawfully killed a British television journalist during the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Bush-bashing is just one part of an election very much defined by U.S.-related issues. One is whether Ecuador will keep letting the U.S. use the Manta air base on the Pacific coast for drug surveillance flights — or if Ecuador will even continue to assist Washington's drug war, particularly the multi-billion-dollar Plan Colombia. (Correa says he would not renew the Manta treaty when it expires in 2009.)

Another is the growing ill will among Ecuadorans toward foreign and U.S. firms like Occidental Petroleum, which recently had its operating contract in Ecuador revoked and $1 billion of its assets there seized for what the government called "unethical and illegal actions." (Occidental denies the charges.) What's more, Correa has pledged to kill free-trade talks with the U.S.; he has threatened to freeze Ecuador's foreign debt payments and says the country's economy should not "indefinitely" remain dollarized. (Ecuador switched its currency to the dollar in 2000.)

Is Another Chavez On the Rise in Ecuador?
Rafael Correa may be a U.S.-educated economist instead of a military firebrand, but if he wins this Sunday's election, he may well govern with the same anti-U.S. agenda as Venezuela's radical leader
By TIM PADGETT WITH MERCEDES ALVARO/QUITO

If the Bush Administration was starting to think that it didn't have to worry as much about Latin America's leftist tilt led by radical Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it may have to think again. In recent months, as left-wing, anti-U.S. candidates in Peru and Mexico lost presidential races, the Bush Administration had reason to feel that perhaps the region's so-called "pink revolution" was ebbing like a low Caribbean tide. But this Sunday's presidential election in Ecuador may well raise it again: the likely winner is Rafael Correa, a fervent anti-yanqui nationalist and Chavez ally.

Mr Parsons told the Guardian: "You can assume we're in negotiations with YouTube and that those negotiations will be kicked up to the Google level in the hope that we can get to some acceptable position."

Google faces copyright fight over YouTube
Time Warner upset over the use of its material100m videos under scrutiny for breaches
Jane Martinson
Friday October 13, 2006

Guardian

Dick Parsons, the chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, fired a shot across the bows of Google, saying his group would pursue its copyright complaints against the video sharing site YouTube.com.

Google paid $1.6bn for YouTube this week amid concerns that some of the fledgling website's 100m videos breached copyright rules. Time Warner, the media and entertainment group that owns the Warner Brothers movie studio, Time Inc magazines and the HBO TV channel, is one of several large media companies concerned about possibly illegal use of its material on YouTube.

Col. Tim Collins, who fought in Iraq in 2003 said the general’s comments had offered a ‘’refreshing and very honest insight into what the Army generally feels.”

‘’There comes a time when the realization on the ground is that the people of Iraq do resent foreign intervention and there comes a time when we have got to look forward to when we can hand it over to the Iraqis for them to sort out,” Colonel Collins said...

"I have withdrawn none of the comments that I have made," he said in a radio interview. "I have given a little more explanation about what I meant by ’sometime soon’; that’s not backtracking."

General’s Iraq Remarks Cause Stir in Britain
By ALAN COWELL

Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

Bush Confounded by the 'Unacceptable'
President Wields Word More Freely as His Frustration Rises and His Influence Ebbs
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 13, 2006; A10

 

President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."

In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Yup. Sure did.

Steele Takes a Head-On Jab at His Party
Republican Faults 'No Child' Law in Ad as Cardin Tries to Link Him to Bush
By Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 13, 2006; B02

 

Maryland Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, who often avoids mentioning his political affiliation in the overwhelmingly Democratic state, took one of his most direct swipes at his party in a new commercial yesterday while continuing to fault Democrats.

In the ad, Steele criticizes Republicans for creating an education policy "that teaches to a test," a reference to President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, and Democrats for putting "bureaucracy ahead of our kids."

"This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better," General Peter Schoomaker , the Army chief of staff, told reporters in Washington at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army . "It's just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot."

Troop levels in Iraq could hold steady through 2010
Army readies for long stay
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff  |  October 12, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Army is making provisions to keep at least 140,000 troops in Iraq through 2010, senior Pentagon officials said yesterday, in a stark signal that top commanders see little prospect of reducing American force levels soon and are bracing for more violence.

CONFRONTING NORTH KOREA
General: U.S. Has Troops to Fight N. Korea
By Peter Spiegel
Times Staff Writer
October 13, 2006

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military's top officer said Thursday that the Pentagon would have sufficient forces to win if called on to fight a war in North Korea, but the conflict would be more difficult without the intelligence and guidance systems devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that about 200,000 U.S. troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving more than 2 million troops available for a war in Asia.

Pace said a conflict with North Korea, which both he and President Bush have said is highly unlikely, would rely heavily on the Navy and Air Force because of the significant deployment of land forces in Iraq. In addition, such an attack would not be "as clean as we would like," he said, because guidance systems used to aim bombs were in use in the Middle East.

Personality and Social Psychology Review
2002, Vol. 6, No. 3, 242–261

The Malleability of Automatic Stereotypes and Prejudice
Irene V. Blair
University of Colorado at Boulder

The present article reviews evidence for the malleability of automatic stereotypes and prejudice. In contrast to assumptions that such responses are fixed and inescapable, it is shown that automatic stereotypes and prejudice are influenced by, (a)self- and social motives, (b) specific strategies, (c) the perceiver’s focus of attention, and (d) the configuration of stimulus cues. In addition, group members’ individual characteristics are shown to influence the extent to which (global) stereotypes and prejudice are automatically activated. This evidence has significant implications for conceptions of automaticity, models of stereotyping and prejudice, and attitude representation. The review concludes with the description of an initial model of early social information processing.

Anything to keep those gay translators away...

Computers may translate in war settings
Wed Oct 11, 6:42 PM ET