XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Saturday, 23 July 2011

Out of the Way, Please, Mr. President - The Gang of Six puts forward some ideas worth pursuing -

It's good, it represents progress, build from it. That would be a helpful approach to the Gang of Six proposal on the debt. Don't deep-six it because it's flawed. Flawless isn't going to happen. There will be a big election in 201

2. A lot can be settled then, and after.

The Gang of Six—three Democrats and three Republicans in the Senate—this week put forward a plan aimed at reducing the national debt by almost $4 trillion over the next 10 years. It includes $500 billion in immediate cuts, and it repeals a costly provision of ObamaCare. It would lower the top individual tax rate to 29%, push corporate tax rates down to 29% from 35%, and abolish the Alternative Minimum tax. On long-term spending, the plan includes a legislative supermajority and sequester feature. In the words of a senator involved in the bargaining, "For the first time, we have some real teeth" in spending controls.

This is all pretty good. It moves the ball forward in the right ways.

As for the flaws: A lot is left up to committees and future action. A lot is left vague. But a critic of the plan, the Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell, highlighted with justice one of its central advantages: It "is not fueled by class-warfare resentment." These days that always comes as a surprise and a relief. And it might have come at a cost to the Democrats in the bargaining sessions.

The primary good of the plan is that it represents the work of three serious liberals and three serious conservatives who together are moving in the right direction, not the wrong one. They admit the spending crisis is a crisis; they appear to admit that we cannot, at least now, tax our way out of it. This seems small but isn't. Agreement on these essentials is an antidote to feelings of widespread public hopelessness: "Washington can't do anything." That hopelessness damages us more than we know, both at home and in the world. We have to look competent. We have to look like we can reform ourselves. The other day there was an apparently incorrect report that the Republicans and the president had neared a debt-ceiling deal. The markets immediately jumped. Everyone wants Washington to work. People hunger for it.

Was the $5 Billion Worth It? - A decade into his philanthropy, Bill Gates talks teachers, charters—and regrets -

'It's hard to improve public education—that's clear. As Warren Buffett would say, if you're picking stocks, you wouldn't pick this one." Ten years into his record-breaking philanthropic push for school reform, Bill Gates is sober—and willing to admit some missteps.

"It's been about a decade of learning," says the Microsoft co-founder whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now the nation's richest charity. Its $34 billion in assets is more than the next three largest foundations (Ford, Getty and Robert Wood Johnson) combined, and in 2009 it handed out $3 billion, or $2 billion more than any other donor. Since 2000, the foundation has poured some $5 billion into education grants and scholarships.

Seated in his office at the new Gates Foundation headquarters located hard by the Emerald City's iconic Space Needle, Mr. Gates says that education isn't only a civil-rights issue but also "an equity issue and an economic issue. . . . It's so primary. In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there's such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success."

One of the foundation's main initial interests was schools with fewer students. In 2004 it announced that it would spend $100 million to open 20 small high schools in San Diego, Denver, New York City and elsewhere. Such schools, says Mr. Gates, were designed to—and did—promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults.

"But the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn't move the needle much," he says. "Maybe 10% more kids, but it wasn't dramatic. . . . We didn't see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that." Still, he adds, "we think small schools were a better deal for the kids who went to them."

The reality is that the Gates Foundation met the same resistance that other sizeable philanthropic efforts have encountered while trying to transform dysfunctional urban school systems run by powerful labor unions and a top-down government monopoly provider.

In the 1970s, the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, among others, pushed education "equity" lawsuits in California, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere that led to enormous increases in state expenditures for low-income students. In 1993, the publishing mogul Walter Annenberg, hoping to "startle" educators and policy makers into action, gave a record $500 million to nine large city school systems. Such efforts made headlines but not much of a difference in closing the achievement gap.

150 human animal hybrids grown in UK labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years -

Scientists have created more than 150 human-animal hybrid embryos in British laboratories.

The hybrids have been produced secretively over the past three years by researchers looking into possible cures for a wide range of diseases.

The revelation comes just a day after a committee of scientists warned of a nightmare ‘Planet of the Apes’ scenario in which work on human-animal creations goes too far.

Last night a campaigner against the excesses of medical research said he was disgusted that scientists were ‘dabbling in the grotesque’.

Figures seen by the Daily Mail show that 155 ‘admixed’ embryos,containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act.

This legalised the creation of a variety of hybrids, including an animal egg fertilised by a human sperm; ‘cybrids’, in which a human nucleus is implanted into an animal cell; and ‘chimeras’, in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.

Two Chinese bullet trains have collided - killing 16 passengers - first major accident on the high-speed rail network -

Two Chinese bullet trains have collided - killing 16 passengers - first major accident on the high-speed rail network -
The Chinese D train derailed with two of its carriages falling off a bridge - grab from http://ww2.sinaimg.cn/large/705521aegw1djfygf24nuj.jp

The Chinese D train derailed with two of its carriages falling off a bridge - grab from http://ww2.sinaimg.cn/large/705521aegw1djfygf24nuj.jp

The accident, just after 8.30pm in Shuangyu, close to the city of Wenzhou on China’s east coast, came after the first train lost power in a lightning strike and came to a halt.

According to the state news agency Xinhua, the D3115 train was then hit from behind by a second train, the D301 train. The two bullet trains, which run on electricity, are capable of hitting a top speed of 155mph.

The impact derailed the first four carriages of the D301 and sent two of them crashing from tracks that were built on concrete pillars around 50ft high.

A reporter from Zhejiang radio, on the scene of the accident, said one carriage had broken in half upon hitting the ground. The impact derailed the train and its third and fourth carriages fell from the side of the bridge.

Early reports said the death toll was 16, but each carriage was thought to have contained at least 100 people and there were fears that the total would rise.

Local hospitals said they had received 89 people with injuries, with three of them in a critical condition. Queues of people have formed in Wenzhou to donate blood.

A passenger on the train, who sent a short message using Sina Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging service, said: “About 8.35pm the carriage suddenly shot forward at high speed. Luckily I was sitting down.

"The train slid for five to six minutes and then the whole carriage went pitch black and listed to the left. After 10 minutes the train staff asked us to slowly exit the train. We walked out slowly on the muddy road by Xi’ao mountain.”

Other passengers using Sina Weibo appealed for help. One said: “I can see the carriages that fell. I would probably have died if I had been sitting in them.”

The stretch of line between Hangzhou and Fuzhou, on which the trains were running, was completed in 2009 and is one of the eight high-speed rail corridors that form the backbone of China’s network.

NASA’s big asteroid plan is one engineers ‘will eat up’: mini-spaceships, harpooning, jetpacks -

With the space shuttle now history, NASA’s next great mission is so audacious, the agency’s best minds are wrestling with how to pull it off: Send astronauts to an asteroid in less than 15 years.

The challenges are innumerable. Some old-timers are grousing about it, saying going back to the moon makes more sense. But many NASA brains are thrilled to have such an improbable assignment.

And NASA leaders say civilization may depend on it.

An asteroid is a giant space rock that orbits the sun, like Earth. And someday one might threaten the planet.

But sending people to one won’t be easy. You can’t land on an asteroid because you’d bounce off — it has virtually no gravity. Reaching it might require a NASA spacecraft to harpoon it. Heck, astronauts couldn’t even walk on it because they’d float away.

NASA is thinking about jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets and spiderwebs to allow explorers to float just above the surface of it while attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.

Such a ship — something like a “Star Trek” shuttlecraft melded with a deep sea explorer with pincer-like arms— is needed just to get within working distance of the rock. That craft would have to be big enough for astronauts to live in for a week or two. They’d still need a larger habitat for the long term.

It would take half a year to reach an asteroid, based on current possible targets. The deep space propulsion system to fly such a distance isn’t perfected yet. Football-field-sized solar panels would help, meaning the entire mothership complex would be fairly large. It would have to protect the space travelers from killer solar and cosmic ray bursts. And, they would need a crew capsule, maybe two, for traveling between the asteroid complex and Earth.

Read more - http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/nasas-big-asteroid-plan-is-one-engineers-will-eat-up-mini-spaceships-harpooning-jetpacks/2011/07/23/gIQAs6H4UI_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

George the Great Dane is 7ft long, weighs 18st (252 lbs) and is the world's biggest dog... but he's terrified of chihuahuas -

George the Great Dane is 7ft long, weighs 18st (252 lbs) and is the world's biggest dog... but he's terrified of chihuahuas -
Man's biggest friend: Devoted owner Dave Nasser with George, the world's biggest dog

Man's biggest friend: Devoted owner Dave Nasser with George, the world's biggest dog

The first time we saw George, our beloved Great Dane, he was no more than a tiny, cowering ball of fuzzy fur.

As my wife Christie opened the door of the crate he’d travelled in, he teetered to a standing position and looked out at us, moving his head slowly from side to side, taking in the wonder of it all.

Finally, as if weighing us up and deciding we were acceptable, he tentatively pushed his little nose forward and gave Christie her first lick.

Though it didn’t really register, George’s paws were comically large even then. But all we saw was this cute puppy.

We certainly never dreamed he would one day become the biggest dog in the world, standing nearly 4ft high at the shoulder, 7ft long and weighing nearly 18 stone. Right now, he just looked bewildered.

He came into our lives in January 2006, just a few months after we had married and set up home in Arizona. We both had busy jobs, Christie selling medical equipment while I was a property developer, but she had always planned that, once she had a house of her own, she would also have a dog.

Dollar, euro and yen might be the primary language of currency traders today, but online, all the talk is "Bitcoins" -

The dollar, euro and yen might be the primary language of currency traders today, but online, all the talk is about bitcoins.

The digital currency has been around for nearly two years now, but it burst onto the radar of the mainstream world in June, when Gawker published a story about an underground Website where you could trade the currency for illegal drugs. The chatter surrounding the story eventually faded, but a lot of people were left confused about bitcoins. What are they? How do they operate? And what, aside from illegal narcotics, can they be used for?

Bitcoin is striving to be a global currency of sorts—one that's not backed by any government or institution. Bitcoins aren't cash, technically. They're an entirely virtual currency. Users exchange online credits for goods and services from select retailers, contractors and online trading houses.

Rather than going through a bank or financial institution, these credits—called tokens by users—are exchanged directly from person to person.

When a transaction occurs, the bitcoin is automatically sent from the buyer to the seller through an encrypted method that's designed to ensure bitcoins can’t be hacked or artificially created.

Bitcoin's creators like to position the currency as an alternative to the dollar and Euro. They hope to revolutionize the world of finance just as the Web has proven to be a paradigm shift in the publishing world.

That's a lofty (and likely impossible) goal, but it wisely taps into people's frustration and anger with banks following the 2008 financial crisis. By moving the transaction process to a peer-to-peer level, banks are removed from the process, which also lowers fees for both users and businesses.

The process also lets people conduct transactions with virtual (but not complete) anonymity, perhaps the biggest key to its success so far. And as online transactions continue to grow and online data theft becomes a more common occurrence, bitcoin backers see an opening for the system.

Read more -
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43823614/

Africans pour anger, sadness onto Twitter over famine - to vent grief and anger, raise money and comfort each other -

Thousands of Africans are taking to Twitter to vent grief and anger over another famine in Somalia, raising money and comforting each other -- a stark illustration of a continent embracing a digital future but lamenting timeworn failings.

When news began to break that what many referred to as "the F-word" was now official in parts of the war-wracked Horn of Africa country, the social networking site Twitter lit up.

By mid-Friday, some Twitter statistics websites said that twenty tweets a minute were about the famine and a growing number were from Africans who previously had not engaged in such widespread pan-continental debates using what is still relatively new technology.

Debates that had raged through weeks of drought gained momentum when the famine was declared Wednesday and many were angry things had deteriorated so much.

"The emergency in the Horn of Africa should be attributed to respective governments and al Shabaab (Somalia's Islamist rebels) not the lack of rain," wrote a Twitter account called Conflict Media.

Somalis, Ethiopians and Kenyans did not hold back from attacking their governments for failing to prepare for a predictable drought and for reacting slowly when it became clear some 10 million people were going hungry in the three countries.

"It's just depressing that it's a pattern and EVERY time we're *surprised* the drought is here!" wrote Leyou from Ethiopia.

Though Twitter penetration in Africa is still much lower than other parts of the world, it is growing fast as technology improves, mobile networks spread and thousands are now accessing the Internet on their phones.

Many Africans on Twitter recognized the contrast between themselves -- normally middle class professionals -- and the people who have spent days trekking across parched deserts, under attack from hyenas and bandits, looking for food.

Some professing themselves guilty for having so much in contrast to those in the refugee camps, Africa's tweeters and Africans living in the West used Twitter to organize small fundraising events and to tell confused Westerners to what charities they should donate.

"Donate the cost of a fast food meal. Help somebody in need," wrote Dilaun White, linking to a website that outlined different options for people who wanted to give money.

The Africans on the network often use it to complain about negative portrayals of the continent that they say Westerners sometimes perpetuate, and to publicize their fast-growing economies, mushrooming industries and emerging middle classes.

How did the Oslo suspect buy 6 tons of fertilizer? -

New details emerged Saturday surrounding the mass shooting and bomb attack in Norway that left 91 people dead, as a fuller picture of the suspect charged in the attacks came to light.
An employee at a Norwegian agricultural cooperative told CNN that the man identified in media reports as the suspect in Friday's attacks bought six tons of fertilizer from her company in May.
Oddmy Estenstad, of Felleskjopet Agr, said she did not think the order was strange at the time because the suspect has a farm, but after the bombing she called police because she knew the material can be used to make bombs.
"We are very shocked that this man was connected to our company," said Estenstad. "We are very sad about what happened."
Norwegian television and newspaper reports have identified the suspect as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik.
Official sources and social media indicate that Breivik might be a right-wing Christian fundamentalist who may have had an issue with Norway's multi-cultural society.
Campers shot at Utoya Island Boater describes rescuing survivors Utoya survivor: 'I'm glad I'm alive' Norway in shock Norwegian FM on attacks
Police have not officially released the identity of the suspect, telling reporters only that they detained a 32-year-old Norwegian man who is being questioned in both the Oslo bombing -- which left seven dead and more than 90 wounded -- and the shooting attack at the youth camp on Utoya island, in which 84 people were killed.
The suspect was cooperating with police, making it clear he wanted to explain himself, Roger Andresen, a deputy police chief, told reporters during a news conference.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg did not rule out the possibility that there was more than one person involved in the attacks, which he called the "worst atrocity" the country had faced since World War II.
"They have so far arrested one person," Stoltenberg told reporters Saturday. "They have not concluded whether there is one or more than one person behind the attacks."
Indeed, a second person was arrested Saturday in a hotel where the prime minister was due to meet families of the victims of the attack, police said. He was carrying a knife, state-run broadcaster NRK reported.
Seven were killed in Friday's explosion in the Norwegian capital, officials said. In all, 90 people were hospitalized as a result of the blast, said Erik Hansen, a spokesman for Oslo Mayor Fabian Stang.
It was while authorities were searching for survivors of the mid-afternoon bombing that a man wearing a police uniform and identifying himself as an officer arrived by boat at Utoya island, about 20 miles from Oslo, where word was spreading among the campers about the explosion in the capital, said Adrian Pracon, a survivor of the mass shooting.

Read more -
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/07/23/norway.explosion/index.html?iref=BN1&hpt=hp_t1

Hunt for trophy trees yields a treasure trove on Vancouver Island - untouched remnants of a 10,000-year-old forest -

When T.J. Watt went into the woods just outside the small West Coast town of Port Renfrew, he didn’t know what he’d find but he was hoping for a big score.

The photographer and member of an environmental non-profit called the Ancient Forest Alliance had been searching across southern Vancouver Island for mega flora – the last, untouched remnants of a 10,000-year-old forest.

He had found big trees in remote locations before, but nothing that fit the bill for the marketing campaign the group wanted to launch. They needed huge, dramatic, mind-blowing trees that were easily accessible to the public. But that combination is increasingly elusive because logging has removed 90 per cent of the old growth on southern Vancouver Island, and less than 1 per cent of what remains is thought to have trees over 500 years of age.

Just as darkness fell, however, Mr. Watt glimpsed a few grey, weathered spires of wood jutting up through the ragged forest canopy.

“I didn’t think there could possibly be big trees that close to Port Renfrew,” he said. “But those candelabra tops are a sign of really old cedars. So I stopped.”

There, 10 minutes off the road, he stumbled into a grove of giant trees so stunning that it has inspired a town founded by logging to call for the area to be protected. Rose Betsworth, president of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, said her organization has joined forces with the Ancient Forest Alliance because of the tourism potential in keeping big, old trees standing. The unusual partnership is testament to how far the debate over old-growth forest has come since the bitter War of the Woods drew international attention to logging practices on Vancouver Island two decades ago.

“They are a non-radical environmental group. That’s why I sided with them. They have a nice way of educating people about the old growth. … They bring a lot to the table and are stirring things up,” Ms. Betsworth said. “For decades this was a logging town. … My dad was a logger. But it’s about tourism now.”

As she spoke, a steady stream of vehicles pulled up to the town’s new visitor information centre, which opened this summer after a joint fundraising event with the Ancient Forest Alliance.

The popularity of Avatar Grove, as it was named in a brilliant branding move, has convinced the British Columbia government to protect the area – and it may yet lead to a rethinking of how the province manages its oldest forests.

Mr. Watt, who says hunting for trophy trees is as addictive as searching for gold, knew immediately he’d found something special.

“When we went in there, right away we came across some big cedars and we were running around like kids in a candy story,” he recalled. “Not only were they giants, but they had crazy shapes as well.”

Read more -
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/hunt-for-trophy-trees-yields-a-treasure-trove-on-vancouver-island/article2107118/