I really did try to get this out last week, Livia, really I did. But I didn’t, and now this post has become bloated in size just like all of the others. *sigh*
I didn’t know how to categorize this first link, so I’ll just let it stand alone above the cut.
There’s an inscription: “I’m sitting on the back of a man. He is sinking under the burden. I would do anything to help him. Except stepping down from his back.”
Today is the 31st Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, giving the Green movement another plausible reason to take the streets and protest. It doesn’t look like things are going so well this time around though.
Follow the liveblogs @
TheLede (NYT)
The Guardian
NIAC (National Iranian American Council)
The news really doesn’t stop, does it? And I didn’t even touch the Toyota recalls… Does anyone have any interesting topics they think I should read more about? As usual, highlights are in red.
Politics
I got this note from someone with many decades’ experience in national politics, about a discussion between two Congressmen over details of the stimulus bill:
“GOP member: ‘I’d like this in the bill.’
“Dem member response: ‘If we put it in, will you vote for the bill?’
“GOP member: ‘You know I can’t vote for the bill.’
“Dem member: ‘Then why should we put it in the bill?’
“I witnessed this myself.”
If you haven’t read the State of the Union and the Obama-GOP Q&A, go ahead and read them now. Otherwise, here’s the news of the past two weeks. As usual, highlights are in red.
Politics
Consider Rep. Patricia Porker, a member of the Ways and Means Committee. She is running for re-election.
Consider, next, Marvin Moneybags. He is a wealthy individual with interests before Ways and Means.
Now consider two scenarios.
1) Porker calls up Moneybags and says, “Say, Marvin. I need about $300,000 to run campaign ads, but I’m not allowed to take donations that big. I know you’d hate to see anything happen to those tax credits I’ve helped you with. Just a thought: Go spend $300,000 on ads supporting my candidacy. You won’t regret it.”
…
2) Moneybags is a friend and an enthusiastic supporter of Porker’s. Acting on his own, without consulting Porker, he spends $300,000 on “Vote for Porker!” ads.
…
Why is Scenario 1 illegal and Scenario 2 legal?
Way too much happens over the course of two weeks. It took me 2 hrs just to take all the links and clippings and format them >.< . But for now, here’s the news. Again, highlights are in red.
Haiti
Happy New Year, everybody! I’ve highlighted my top 3 4 reads.
Mr. Roth and others in the industry had discovered that liquefying the fat and extracting the protein from the trimmings in a centrifuge resulted in a lean product that was desirable to hamburger-makers.
The greater challenge was eliminating E. coli and salmonella, which are more prevalent in fatty trimmings than in higher grades of beef. …
Mr. Roth eventually settled on ammonia, which had been shown to suppress spoilage. Meat is sent through pipes where it is exposed to ammonia gas, and then flash frozen and compressed — all steps that help kill pathogens, company research found.
Untreated beef naturally contains ammonia and is typically about 6 on the pH scale, near that of rain water and milk. The Beef Products’ study that won U.S.D.A. approval used an ammonia treatment that raised the pH of the meat to as high as 10, an alkalinity well beyond the range of most foods. The company’s 2003 study cited the “potential issues surrounding the palatability of a pH-9.5 product.”
… Beef Products acknowledged in an e-mail exchange that it was making a lower pH version, but did not specify the level or when it began selling it.
Environment
Nearly 10% of a typical product’s price is for packaging.
The global packaging market is worth $429 billion.
Nearly 1/3 of Americans’ waste is packaging. Just 43% is recycled after use.
In 2007, Americans threw away 78.5 million tons of packaging—520 pounds per person. That’s a 71% increase from 1960.
A 2008 bill written by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) would have required the EPA to find ways to reduce packaging waste by 30% in a decade. It died with no cosponsors.
Science
Society
The best way to grasp Japan’s mobile culture is to take a crowded commuter train. There are plenty of signs advising you not to use your phone. Every few minutes announcements are made to the same effect. If you do take a call, you risk more than disapproving gazes. Passengers may appeal to a guard who will quietly but firmly explain: “dame desu”—it’s not allowed. Some studies suggest that talking on a mobile phone on a train is seen as worse than in a theatre. Instead, hushed passengers type away on their handsets or read mobile-phone novels (written Japanese allows more information to be displayed on a small screen than languages that use the Roman alphabet).
What she discovered was another shocker: those who’d been spanked just when they were young—ages 2 to 6—were doing a little better as teenagers than those who’d never been spanked. On almost every measure.
There is no saving grace in being confined to an iron suit, cold and unforgiving. The pleasures of mental agility are much overstated, inevitably—as it now appears to me—by those not exclusively dependent upon them. Much the same can be said of well-meaning encouragements to find nonphysical compensations for physical inadequacy. That way lies futility. Loss is loss, and nothing is gained by calling it by a nicer name. My nights are intriguing; but I could do without them.
Jeremy Lin: The ABC basketballer (time)
It’s been 64 years since the Crimson appeared in the NCAA tournament. But thanks to senior guard Jeremy Lin, that streak could end this year. Lin, who tops Harvard in points (18.1 per game), rebounds (5.3), assists (4.5) and steals (2.7), has led the team to a 9-3 record, its best start in a quarter century.
…
Less than 0.5% of men’s Division 1 basketball players are Asian-American.
Development
Economy
There’s even an official name for the Stokeses, along with three other households in Northern Virginia: They are Climate Pilots, guinea pigs in a Swedish experiment aimed at helping U.S. citizens understand that a lifestyle that curbs greenhouse-gas emissions is not necessarily oppressive, just different. Whether Americans are willing to follow their example is part of the political calculation lawmakers have to make as they consider imposing nationwide limits on emissions in legislation making its way through Congress.
The question was simple: Should the lending practices of auto dealers be regulated?
…
The clerk called the roll, starting from the top. Senior Democrats roundly rejected Campbell’s amendment. It appeared as if the Democrats would beat back the effort and apply the same standard to car dealers that was applied to everyone else.Then came the bottom two rows, the place where reform goes to die. Despite the disapproval of the powerful chairman and nearly every consumer group in the country, the Campbell amendment passed by a 47-21 margin.
Now nearly 12 percent of Americans receive aid — 28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites. Benefits average about $130 a month for each person in the household, but vary with shelter and child care costs.
Healthcare
But in the case of anticancer drugs, a phenomenon known as omission bias appears to be at work. People tend to worry more about a low risk of harm from something they do (like taking a pill or a vaccine) than about a higher risk of harm from doing nothing.
In a seminal 1994 study of vaccination trends for whooping cough, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that parents gave far more credence to hypothetical concerns about side effects than about the very real danger of an unvaccinated child’s becoming severely ill with the disease.
A wasteful insurance system; distorted incentives; a bias toward treatment; moral hazard; hidden costs and a lack of transparency; curbed competition; service to the wrong customer. These are the problems at the foundation of our health-care system, resulting in a slow rot and requiring more and more money just to keep the system from collapsing.
Wow, what a deal! $15 for 700 Placebos!
There are a lot of spoof sites about placebos out there. This isn’t one of them! We actually sell placebos. Just click on the Buy Placebos button.
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We make absolutely no therapeutic claims for our placebos – they are made of sugar; they are not drugs – but we offer them, with love and with a sense of fun, as triggers and inspiration for the placebo effect.
Fun
Added Colbert: “We felt like we were throwing joke Molotov cocktails, and then the room burst into flames.”
Scott Inoue and Barrack Obama, 1969
Photos
Protests in Iran are heating up again. Coverage @ The Daily Dish
The Catalysts:
The Day of Ashura (عاشوراء (ʻĀshūrā’, Ashura, Ashoura, and other spellings) is on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar and marks the climax of the Remembrance of Muharram.
It is commemorated by Shia Muslims as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH (October 10, 680 AD). Some Sunni Muslims also have significance for that day as Moses fasted on that day to express gratitude to God for liberating the Israelites from Egypt. According to Sunni Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad fasted on this day and asked other people to fast.
In Iran, where the Shiites are in the majority, the battle of Karbala and the death of Imam Hossein have taken on political significance for at least a century. This began during the Constitutional Revolution (1905-11), when gatherings to mourn the death of Imam Hossein became political as well. The clerics began preaching that the oppressors — the king and his cronies — were similar to Imam Hossein’s enemies. The commemoration of Ashura became so political during the reign of Reza Shah that he actually outlawed it during the 1930s.
This year promises to be no different. The Green Movement has vowed to use the day of Ashura — Sunday, December 28 — to stage peaceful demonstrations and showcase its strength. Given that the color green has a special meaning in Islam, and that Imam Hossein, an underdog in the Karbala battle, is considered a symbol of resistance against oppressors and absolute power, the demonstrations, if they materialize, will be hugely significant. As fate would have, the Islamic mourning ceremonies marking the 7th day of the passing of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri will also fall on Ashura, which will likely fuel the intensity, as it will be rich in symbolism and can resonate politically throughout the country.
Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, one of Shia Islam’s most respected figures and a leading critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself said in August that the turmoil following the election “could lead to the fall of the regime”.
He said Iran’s clerical leadership was a dictatorship and issued a fatwa condemning the government after the election.
(bbc)
