The Case Against Indexing

(I Don't Buy It) by Andrew Tobias

SMALL BUSINESS BOOST

The way to help small businesses is NOT to give them tax cuts – what good's a tax cut when you're making no profit to be taxed ON?  I refer you back to my five questions on tax cuts. 

 

But yesterday the Obama Administration did three things concrete things that WILL help small business: 

 

It waived the fees small businesses have to pay to take out SBA loans.

 

It raised the Federal guarantee on such loans from 75% and 85% to 90%, which will encourage more lending (yet still leave the lender on the hook for significant scratch).

 

It set aside $15 billion of TARP money to buy securitized SBA loans, until private investors regain their appetite, so that the banks can sell them and, with the proceeds, make new small business loans.

 

That money will be ready to start buying 7A loan securitizations by the end of this month – any minute now – and 504 loan securitizations by mid-May.

 

To take just one concrete example of how constructive this is:  I have an investment in a private company that has profitable orders it can't fill.  It lacks the working capital to pay suppliers, shippers, and so on.  It may have to close and lay everyone off.  But with an SBA loan, it would be able to keep people employed filling the orders, remain in business, and continue to grow.

 

Now, because of the Administration's swift action, it has a better chance of getting an SBA loan.

 

Compare that with telling the owners of this company that they will get a tax break on their nonexistent profits.  I think the Obama approach makes more sense.

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/090317.html

Stimulus/recovery

A Mom Lets Her Son Walk to Soccer…And The Police Come Calling

 

Dear Readers: The following is an exchange I had earlier this week with a mom who wrote to this blog. It shows how those of us who trust our own eyes, and guts, and neighborhood, and children can get beaten down…and rise up again.

A WOMAN NAMED LORI WROTE: I went searching for your story after an experience last night. My 10-year-old son wanted the chance to walk from our house to soccer practice behind an elementary school about 1/3 mile from our house. He had walked in our neighborhood a number of times with the family and we have driven the route to practice who knows how many times. It was broad daylight - 5:00 pm. I had to be at the field myself 15 minutes after practice started, so I gave him my cell phone and told him I would be there to check that he made it and sent him off. He got 3 blocks and a police car intercepted him. The police came to my house — after I had left — and spoke with my younger children (who were home with Grandma). They then found me at the soccer field and proceeded to tell me how I could be charged with child endangerment. They said they had gotten "hundreds" of calls to 911 about him walking. Now, I know bad things can happen and I wasn't flippant about letting him go and not checking up, but come on. I live in a small town in Mississippi. To be perfectly honest, I'm much more concerned about letting him attend a birthday party sleepover next Friday, but I'm guessing the police wouldn't be at my house if I chose to let him go (which I probably won't). 

I WROTE BACK: Incredible! It's like the Salem Witch trial era, when people were hallucinating witchcraft. Today we hallucinate horrific danger in the safest of settings. I am so sorry you – and he – went through this!

LORI WROTE: I appreciate you responding. I was more than a little upset yesterday and second-guessing my actions. I tend to actually be more of a hovering parent, so even though I was nervous about my son going on his own yesterday I really didn't think it was a bad decision. I really resented the police officer trying to lecture me about how the streets aren't safe. Rather than give in to the hysteria or naively ignore the danger, I think I'm going to go down to the police office and ask to see detailed statistics about what happens on our streets in the afternoon hours. I'd like to base my decision on facts rather than hysteria. 'Course, I don't quite know what to do about the "hundreds" of people who called 911 when they saw him on the street. I can't imagine that many people even saw him in 3 blocks in a mostly residential neighborhood. But, if they were watching out for him, that just makes me feel like he was that much safer.

I WROTE encouraging  her to go get those statistics and keep me posted. She did!

LORI WROTE: Guess what. I just got an apology from the Chief of Police. I emailed him this afternoon to ask for stats and explain what happened. He called me almost immediately, assured me that I lived in a safe neighborhood, and apologized for the officer's conduct. He asked if I really wanted the stats, or if I just wanted to know that I was right. I told him that knowing that I was right was enough for me. I still don't know what I can do about the people who call 911 because they see my son on the street alone, but at least I don't feel like a naïve mother anymore. And, I like our chief of police even more J. He promised to handle this himself with the officer.

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/a-mom-lets-her-son-walk-to-soccerand-the-police-come-calling/

New word of the day: testilying

Testilying

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Testilying is U. S. police slang for the practice of giving false testimony against a defendant in a criminal trial, typically for the purpose of "making a stronger case" against someone they believe to be guilty, although it may also be for the purpose of framing an innocent defendant.

The word and its meaning have been publicized by defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, notably in a 1994 New York Times article, "Accomplices to Perjury," in which he said:

As I read about the disbelief expressed by some prosecutors... I thought of Claude Rains's classic response, in Casablanca on being told there was gambling in Rick's place: "I'm shocked—shocked." For anyone who has practiced criminal law in the state or Federal courts, the disclosures about rampant police perjury cannot possibly come as a surprise. "Testilying"—as the police call it—has long been an open secret among prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges.^[1]

There seems to be little doubt that the practice occurs, is not limited to any region of the country, and that "testilying" is a common name for it. A 2003 Boston Globe editorial noted:

In the early 1990s, the Mollen Commission peeled away layers of falsehood in the New York City Police Department, including false statements on warrant applications, creation of confidential informants out of whole cloth, and lies told to establish probable cause for stopping and searching vehicles. So-called "testilying," however, is not limited to any one area or police department. The problem has become so acute that juries nationwide routinely express skepticism about law enforcement testimony, such as drugs found "in plain view."

The LAPD is said to call the practice "joining the liars' club." In a 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times, "Has the Drug War Created an Officer Liars' Club?," Joseph D. McNamara, then chief of police of San Jose, said "Not many people took defense attorney Alan M. Dershowitz seriously when he charged that Los Angeles cops are taught to lie at the birth of their careers at the Police Academy. But as someone who spent 35 years wearing a police uniform, I've come to believe that hundreds of thousands of law-enforcement officers commit felony perjury every year testifying about drug arrests." He noted that "Within the last few years, police departments in Los Angeles, Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, Denver, New York and in other large cities have suffered scandals involving police personnel lying under oath about drug evidence."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testilying

The SkinFlints

Get excited and make things

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackbeltjones/3365682994/

Final goodbye from the Seattle P-I

Thank you for making us who we were

By DAVID MCCUMBER
P-I MANAGING EDITOR

Goodbye, Seattle.

Thanks for everything.

We probably didn't tell you enough how proud we were to be part of you.

We love your saw-toothed Klondiked Boeing-proud past. It's our past, too.

We even love your nervous overcaffeinated undercapitalized Sonics-free present.

And we're sure you'll still be pretty fetching in the future as a bored-tunnel light-railed one-paper joint (or paper-free zone, as the regrettable case may be).

We love your Koolhaas library and your defiant little Edith Macefield house. We love your ratty Pike Place Market and rattier Pioneer Square, complete with the ersatz totem pole standing in for the real one the P-I-backed drunken expedition stole from the Tlingits in 1899 (not our finest move).

Down here on Elliott, we love it when Rainier rolls into view on mystical ball bearings, and we love the way our old globe looks when the winter sun sets behind it about 4 p.m. and lights up the bay with more fire than Hempfest.

We love the Blue Angels and the hydros and the Duwamish and Northwest Harvest and Dave Niehaus and Elliott Bay Books and Tom Douglas' coconut cream pie. We love guys named Warren (Moon and Magnuson), and Jimi Hendrix, and walking around Green Lake and along Alki and Golden Gardens and through the arboretum. We love the Suzzallo and Salumi and the Burke-Gilman and the Fremont Troll and the best women's crew in the world. We love Benaroya Hall, and also the Croc and the Showbox and the Tractor. We love Norwegians, but most of us fear lutefisk. We love taking ferries, and not using umbrellas, and eating lunch at Bakeman's and the Pecos Pit and the Shanty.

All of which is to say, we love you.

We're overwhelmingly grateful to you for supporting us for 146 years -- for buying us on the street, for inviting us into your homes, for placing ads with us, for telling us what you think and helping us be better. And, over the last two months, for telling us how much you'll miss us.

And we're damned sorry we won't be here in print to cover you. When our kids and your kids make this place even better than it is now. When the Mariners win the World Series. When the city and the county and the state step up to their responsibilities to give our youths better schools and alternatives to shooting each other in the streets, to clean up both traffic and Puget Sound, to actually plow snow, to hold cops accountable, to make this a better place to do business and buy a home.

We won't be here to nudge you along in that old traditional newspaper way, so you're going to have to figure all that out, and more, without us.

It's been a hell of a ride, from Skid Road to the SLUT, from the Great Fire to the Kindle, the first edition to the last deadline in a gut-punched newsroom, and we never wanted to see it end.

Remember: We'll continue the P-I bloodline online with seattlepi.com.

Come see us in the pixels.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/403835_mccumberxx.html

Obama's Critical Early Test: Corporate Arrogance

by Dan Gillmor

 

This is Obama's air-traffic controllers opportunity.

In 1981, not long after taking office, President Reagan faced a strike by the nation's air-traffic controllers. He fired them, broke the union and set in motion a generation of anti-labor policies that were a tenet of Republican orthodoxy. Whether those policies were ultimately more positive or negative is still a topic of political and economic debate, (I think the aggregate outcome was damaging) but Reagan's decisive action made a huge difference that reverberated through his presidency and several more.

Today, we face corporate arrogance that is almost transcendent and vastly more damaging than any of organized labor's excesses. Wall Street's barons, and the people who have been running and allegedly governing many of the nation's biggest companies, have raised a collective middle finger to America even as they've forced us to bail out the enterprises they've run into the ground. When commentators fret about corporate leaders' tone-deafness, they are implying that the executives simply don't get it. Oh yes they do.

In coming to Washington for bailouts, they said: "This is a stick-up. Give us the money or we'll kill the economy."

In creating their disgusting compensation schemes, they said: "Pay us as usual, not for performance but because this is our just due as masters of the universe. And because we deserve anything we can loot from whoever has the money, whether it's shareholders, customers, taxpayers or anyone else."

The puzzle of the past week is not that Americans are furious. Only an idiot (or a Wall Street banker) wouldn't be angry upon learning of the unconscionable "bonuses" renegade ward-of-the-taxpayers AIG wants to pay to its employees -- including well over $100 million to people in the same unit that completely screwed the company and then threatened to take down the entire global economy if we refused to subsidize (so far) to the tune of $170 billiion.

No, the mystery is why this outrage hasn't come to the surface sooner. And why it's not more dangerous.

Why, for example, didn't Americans take to the streets earlier this year when we found out that Merrill Lynch and its conniving buyer, Bank of America, had paid almost $5 billion in bonuses -- a number that makes the AIG bonus money seem small -- after taking tens of billions from taxpayers? Why didn't we scream bloody murder when the Bush administration flatly refused to disclose where the hundreds of billions in bailout money was going in any kind of detail?

One reason, perhaps, is that we are a soft and lazy and uncurious people. We are quick to being pissed off at relatively small things -- typically minor but sensationalized stuff that tabloid TV news programs (i.e. CNN, MSNBC and Fox and local stations) decide to make into issues -- but slow to grasp the significance of the really big and crucial stuff until it's so powerfully in our faces that we can't avoid it any longer.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/18/obamas-critical-earl.html

U.S. Government celebrates one millionth member of terrorist watch list

Posted by Sisyphus

WASHINGTON – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center celebrated a major milestone last week when the nation's terrorist watch list reached one million members.

To mark the event, the FBI and the ODNI are planning celebrations and media events throughout the remainder of the year, including commemorative memorabilia, such as stationery, coffee cups and apparel, and highly visible signage at airports and border crossings that will center around the program's new tagline: The U.S. Terrorist Watch List: One Million Strong … and Growing.

Featured heavily in the promotion will be Saif Abu Abd al-Shibh al-Masry bin al-Ouda, who has been honored by the agencies with official recognition as the watch list's one millionth member.

The nation's terrorist watch list boasts a healthy CAGR of 38.4% since May 2005

"Some of the best and brightest brands in the world have recently commemorated their millionth customer – from Singapore Airlines to Verizon," noted Throaty Midge, a non-managing director of information for ODNI's civil liberties and customer retention unit. "We thought, 'Why not us?' It's a great way to personalize the government's anti-terrorist efforts – to put a warmer, human face on them."

Abu Abd al-Shibh al-Masry bin al-Ouda, a tuk tuk cabbie in Peshawar, Pakistan, said through an interpreter that he was unaware of how he gained admission to the list, but was happy to accept the agencies' invitation to participate in the marketing blitz. As part of the agreement, he will undergo cosmetic beautification and a photo shoot and receive a transferrable "Get out of Gitmo Free" card, which he says he plans to auction on EBay.

http://wineandexcrement.com/us-government-celebrates-one-millionth-member-of-terrorist-watch-list/981/

Gay Marriage Ban Introduced in Minnesota to Prevent 'End of the World'

By Julie Bolcer

The Minnesota Family Council said on Tuesday that it would introduce a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in Minnesota within the next few days. The group made the announcement at a press conference, accompanied by religious leaders from all major faiths who said that gay marriage would trigger the end of the world.

"If everyone is a gay, this world will cease to exist in 10 years," said Ikram ul-Huq, the imam and religious director of the Muslim Community Center of Bloomington, according to the The Minnesota Independent.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid75605.asp

SuperNews: Twouble with Twitters

As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge's instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.

Vincent J. Fumo and his girlfriend, Carolyn Zinni, leaving the Philadelphia courthouse Monday.

Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.

"We were stunned," said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. "It's the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head."

It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.

Last week, a building products company asked an Arkansas court to overturn a $12.6 million judgment, claiming that a juror used Twitter to send updates during the civil trial.

And on Monday, defense lawyers in the federal corruption trial of a former Pennsylvania state senator, Vincent J. Fumo, demanded before the verdict that the judge declare a mistrial because a juror posted updates on the case on Twitter and Facebook. The juror had even told his readers that a "big announcement" was coming on Monday. But the judge decided to let the deliberations continue, and the jury found Mr. Fumo guilty. His lawyers plan to use the Internet postings as grounds for appeal.

Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system's complex rules of evidence. They can also tell their friends what is happening in the jury room, though they are supposed to keep their opinions and deliberations secret.

A juror on a lunch or bathroom break can find out many details about a case. Wikipedia can help explain the technology underlying a patent claim or medical condition, Google Maps can show how long it might take to drive from Point A to Point B, and news sites can write about a criminal defendant, his lawyers or expert witnesses.

"It's really impossible to control it," said Douglas L. Keene, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/18juries.html?_r=2&em

Google submission hammers section 92A

Google has made a detailed submission to the Telecommunications Carriers Forum that heavily criticises the draft code of practice for ISPs in relation to section 92A of the Copyright Act.

Google has made a detailed submission to the Telecommunications Carriers Forum that heavily criticises the draft code of practice for ISPs in relation to section 92A of the Copyright Act.

In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.

As such, Google says "Section 92A puts users' procedural and fundamental rights at risk, by threatening to terminate users' internet access based on mere allegations and reverse the burden of proof onto a user to establish there was no infringement."

It goes on to say, "Section 92A undermines the incredible social and economic benefits of the open and universally accessible internet, by providing for a remedy of account termination or disconnection that is disproportionate to the harm of copyright infringement online."

 

http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/feature/93FEDCEF6636CF90CC25757A0072B4B7

Scenes from the recession

The state of our global economy: foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies, layoffs, abandoned projects, and the people and industries caught in the middle. It can be difficult to capture financial pressures in photographs, but here a few recent glimpses into some of the places and lives affected by what some are calling the "Great Recession". (35 photos total)

 

Unused newspaper racks clutter a storage yard in San Francisco, California on Friday, March 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

 

Thousands of job-seekers flock to a job fair in Hefei, Anhui province, China on March 1, 2009. At least 20 million of China's 130 million migrant workers have become jobless after tens of thousands of labor-intensive export-oriented factories closed due to the global financial crisis, and job training schemes for migrant workers are springing up around China, Xinhua News Agency reported. (REUTERS/Jianan Yu)

 

The Magen Abraham Synagogue sits at center of this photograph taken on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008, surrounded by the gleaming new skyscrapers in Wadi Abou Jmil, Lebanon - formerly Beirut's main Jewish neighborhood. One of Lebanon's sole remaining synagogues, this building was set for a restoration that has the rare blessing of all the factions in this divided country - but the global financial crisis has scuttled the effort for now, leaving the Magen Abraham chained, padlocked, badly damaged and overgrown with weeds. (AP Photo/Grace Kassab)

 

A home construction site stands idle where construction has been halted, on February 24, 2009 near Riverside, California. U.S. single family homes prices continued to plummet for the second year, falling 8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the year before. It was the biggest decline in the 21-year history of the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller US national home price index. (David McNew/Getty Images)

 

A homeless resident of a tent city in Sacramento, California wears an American flag jacket on March 10, 2009. This tent city of the homeless is seeing an increase in population as the economy worsens, as more people join the ranks of the unemployed and as homes slip into foreclosure. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

 

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/scenes_from_the_recession.html

Conservatives argue Obama's victory shows legal safeguards for minorities not needed

Conservative legal foundations and the Republican governor of Georgia, in challenging key parts of the Voting Rights Act, filed briefs in the Supreme Court this month pointing to racial progress and a high black turnout in last fall's election. They said Obama's election heralds the emergence of a colorblind society in which special legal safeguards for minorities are no longer required.

By Peter Wallsten and David G. Savage

WASHINGTON — The election of Barack Obama as president has been hailed as a crowning achievement of America's civil-rights movement, the triumph of a black candidate in a nation with a history of slavery and segregation.

But in a twist, Obama's success has now emerged as a central argument from conservatives who say his victory proves that some of the most protective civil-rights laws can be erased.

Conservative legal foundations and the Republican governor of Georgia, in challenging key parts of the Voting Rights Act, filed briefs in the Supreme Court this month pointing to racial progress and a high black turnout in last fall's election. They said Obama's election heralds the emergence of a colorblind society in which special legal safeguards for minorities are no longer required.

"The America that has elected Barack Obama as its first African-American president is far different than when (the Voting Rights Act) was first enacted in 1965," argued Texas lawyer Gregory Coleman, whose client, a local utility board in Austin, is challenging parts of the law.

"The question now is, at what point do we as a society wipe the slate clean and accept that we are equals with equal rights, equal treatment, and equal expectations, and special treatment shouldn't be provided to anyone?" asked Shannon Goessling, director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation in Atlanta, which has fought affirmative action and similar programs.

The Supreme Court sounded a similar note last week in limiting the reach of the Voting Rights Act. The law's goal is "to hasten the waning of racism in American politics ... (not) to entrench racial differences," Justice Anthony Kennedy said.

That decision, in a North Carolina case, said states and municipalities need not consider race when drawing voting districts, except in areas where blacks or Latinos form a majority.

The Texas case to be heard next month will decide whether certain states and localities, mostly in the South, must continue to obtain Justice Department approval before changing voting districts, polling locations or other election procedures.

By invoking Obama, conservatives, in effect, are asking the Supreme Court to issue more than a mere legal decree about the fate of one law, but also to weigh in on emotionally charged questions about American society: Does the election of a black president mean racism is no longer a factor in American politics? And are civil-rights laws outdated in the age of Obama?

Conservatives said they plan to apply the Obama argument in the court of public opinion, as well.

"We will say, 'How do you account for the election of Barack Obama?' " said Ward Connerly, a leading anti-affirmative-action activist, foreshadowing his response to supporters of race-preference laws. "If we can't get rid of these laws now with Obama, I don't know what yardstick we're going to use."

Civil-rights advocates bristle at the idea that Obama's victory signals it is time to dismantle the Voting Rights Act and other laws. Obama and his administration reject the conservatives' arguments.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008865646_rights16.html

Legalize Which Drugs?

by ex-Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper

Who do you want "regulating" the drug market? The druglords of Afghanistan? The Taliban and Al Qaeda who reap and turn opium profits into weapons of terror?

The cartels of Latin America who've rendered Mexico a violent and failing state, and whose drug gangs have made deep incursions into U.S. cities?

The traffickers who ply their trade on street corners across the U.S., including for years our beloved Pike Place Market?

You see, there's only one choice. We either allow the $500 billion illicit global drug industry to monopolize the commerce--and to decide who gets what drugs at what levels of potency and purity and at what price--or we end prohibition. And turn the regulation of currently illegal drugs over to an admittedly imperfect government.

So, in answer to the question, Legalize which drugs? All of them, every last one. In fact, the more dangerous, the more sinister and frightening the drug (and sensational its media coverage), the greater the justification for our government to step in and regulate the entire enterprise. It's a far from perfect solution but an infinitely better approach than the current "War on Drugs."

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition takes no stand on a particular regulatory model, but here's mine: The government would issue hard-to-get, easy-to-lose licenses to a new breed of pharmacist. It would control all aspects of growing and manufacturing, quality assurance, packaging, pricing, and sales. Personally, I would ban all forms of marketing (something we probably should have done with alcohol and tobacco; no one will convince me that those two industries have not spent billions targeting our young people, grooming them as future consumers).

That hard-to-get license? A prospective licensee would have to undergo a rigorous background investigation, successfully complete an intensive education and training program, and be made to understand that selling to a kid or otherwise violating any provision of the new drug laws would result in revocation of the license. The possible end to one's livelihood has helped keep liquor distributors in line for years.

By the way, not to seem too defensive, I've been arguing along these lines for decades, in both San Diego and Seattle. It's true I didn't stand atop the old Public Safety Building with a bullhorn and call for an end to prohibition. Politics clearly plays a role in how much we're willing to say about what we really believe. I wish that weren't true, but it is. Still, as a cop, I took this (essential) position in classes I taught at San Diego State and at the University of Washington. I advocated an end to the drug war, and for drug legalization at the Cascadia Mayor's Conference in the late nineties. And I was asked by the respected leader of a national drug reform organization to "tone down" my public arguments for fear of frightening prospective converts.

I say all this not to pat myself on the back but in recognition of the value of police and other leaders speaking out on the issue. When one does so, it grants permission for others to speak what they know to be the truth, namely that prohibition is an unmitigated failure. And that there are sensible alternatives.

Including one that seems at first blush, radical.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/normstamper/archives/164541.asp

United Nations drug policy

y

Who owns Colorado's rainwater?

Environmentalists and others like to gather it in containers for use in drier times. But state law says it belongs to those who bought the rights to waterways.

By Nicholas Riccardi

Reporting from Denver -- Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law.

Holstrom's violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain.

 

But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways.

What Holstrom does is called rainwater harvesting. It's a practice that dates back to the dawn of civilization, and is increasingly in vogue among environmentalists and others who pursue sustainable lifestyles. They collect varying amounts of water, depending on the rainfall and the vessels they collect it in. The only risk involved is losing it to evaporation. Or running afoul of Western states' water laws.

Those laws, some of them more than a century old, have governed the development of the region since pioneer days.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-contested-rainwater18-2009mar18,0,5585599.story?track=rss

If America had $100 and 100 people...

by Afferent Input

From one neuron to another...

Here's an easy way to look at income distribution and how it has changed over the years. Let's pretend America has 100 people in it and that the total income for all of America is $100. If everyone made the same per year, everyone would get $1.00 each.

Obviously no free market society operates that way. Instead, there is variability in talent and capability, and some people are able to perform some very important jobs better than others. Those talented people are hired at a premium, and thus they make more than others. That gives us an income distribution, with some people making more money than others. In our example, some people are going to get more than a dollar and some will get less. That's reality.

So how has the income distribution changed in our society since 1979? I've been going through the latest data from the CBO and have come up with a couple of figs to describe this.

First a little about "binning". A data set is best illustrated when you put them into categories, or bins. The CBO has made five bins, called quintiles. Thus, the bottom 20% is the lowest quintile, the people who accrue on average between 20% and 40% the total share of income per year are in the second quintile, and so on. The problem with binning is that you lose resolution. The CBO only chose 5 bins, and therefore it is impossible to say what is happening within a given bin (except for the highest quintile; more on that later).

Below is a figure that illustrates how income would be distributed to the various quintiles if our economy were $100 large and the US had a population of 100 households. The value at any given point is the average amount of $100 dollars each person receives per bin.
Thus, in 1979 each of the twenty people in the lowest quintile received $0.26, and each of the twenty people in the highest quintile received $2.21. As you can see, though, that the amount of the pie each group gets per year has changed over time. The top 20% has expanded it slice of the pie, while the bottom 80% has gotten a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. For example, in 2005 the twenty people in the lowest quintile received only $0.19 each, and each of the twenty people in the highest quintile received $2.73. In other words, the top twenty people get $54 of the $100 and leave $46 for the rest of the 80 people. The change over time can be illustrated as a % change distribution of the $100.

This figure shows that the piece of the pie given to the wealthiest people in the US has grown by 23% over the last 26 years. The piece of the pie given to the bottom 80% has decreased since then, as much as 28% for the bottom 20 people. The percentages don't add up because this is how each piece of the pie has changed over time. The bottom has a small piece to begin with; thus, a small decrease for them is actually quite big, relatively speaking.

 

http://afferentinput.blogspot.com/2007/12/if-america-had-100-and-100-people.html

True value

This Week in Newsweek

Four arrested as hundreds protest Bush speech

By Richard Cuthbertson

 

CALGARY - A crowd of roughly 400 noisy protestors gathered outside the Telus Convention Centre in downtown Calgary on Tuesday to demonstrate against a noon address by former U.S. president George W. Bush.

Blowing whistles and chanting "war criminal," demonstrators carried signs and shouted "shame on you" at people attending the event at a cost of $400 each.

At the protest pinnacle, four people were arrested. One man tried to enter the convention centre and was turned back by police. After a second person was arrested, two more protesters were taken into custody. One kicked the side of a police van.

Another was taken to the ground in the middle of Centre Street as a crowd gathered around shouting for police to let him go.

Police viewed the protest as largely peaceful and say they didn't push demonstrators out from in front of the convention centre door as they worried that would cause more chaos.

Duty inspector Rob Williams also said they didn't contemplate closing down that part of the Stephen Avenue to only those with tickets to Bush's speech.

Protester Orest Slepokura from Strathmore had a sign comparing disgraced U.S. financier Bernie Madoff to George W. Bush.

"Of the two, I would say that Bernie Madoff comes off almost saintly by comparison."

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Four+arrested+hundred+protest+Bush+speech/1398586/story.html

Obama drops 'war on drugs' rhetoric for needle exchanges

by Dan Glaister

 

Gil Kerlikowske, the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

The Obama administration signalled today that it was ready to repudiate the prohibition and "war on drugs" approach of previous presidents, and steer policy towards prevention and "harm reduction" strategies favoured by Europe.

David Johnson, an assistant secretary of state, said the new administration would embrace policies supporting federally funded needle exchanges. The aim, he said, was to establish a policy based on public health needs. "This will result in a policy that is broader and stronger than the one we had in the past," Johnson said on the sidelines of a UN drug strategy conference in Vienna.

His words come days after the nomination of the Seattle police chief, Gil Kerlikowske, to the post of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the nation's drug czar. Kerlikowske has built a reputation in Seattle for pursuing drug policies based on harm reduction. The state has an established needle exchange programme, has legalised marijuana for medicinal purposes and has made marijuana among the lowest priorities for law enforcement.

In a further sign of a new approach in Washington, congressional committee hearings last week heard lawmakers argue for a shift in national drug policy, largely in response to the rising drug-related violence seeping into the US from Mexico.

Those hearings followed a report by the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, which dubbed the war on drugs a "complete failure". Ernesto Zedillo, César Gaviria and Henrique Cardoso, all conservative politicians, blamed the US emphasis on criminalisation for the continuing toll caused by drug trafficking, and called for an approach based on public health, including the legalisation of marijuana.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/16/drug-policy-obama-needle-exchange

Newspaper Sites See Big Gains in Uniques

By Jennifer Saba

NEW YORK More than half of the top 30 newspaper Web sites gained double-digit percentages of visitors in February, according to new data from Nielsen Online.

The number of unique visitors grew 36% year-over-year to 8.4 million at the Los Angeles Times.

USAToday.com said in a release that its 25% increase of readers in February was due to the Tech section of the site and popular stories. Visitors to the Tech section rose 100% to 1.9 million, according to USA Today. It also cites its coverage of the economic stimulus package, the Octuplet mom and Rihanna for drawing in readers.

The number of uniques at the Orlando Sentinel spiked 57% to 1.5 million. At the N.Y. Daily News, the number of visitors increased 38% to 4.9 million.

For those keeping track of the Web sites of the Seattle Times and its former sister the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The number of uniques at the P-I fell 19% to 1.8 million users. The Seattle Times lost 25% of its visitors year-over-year with a total of 1.5 million uniques in February.

Kansas.com, the web site of The Wichita Eagle, made an appearance on the list in February with 2.7 million uniques.

Below is the latest list of top 30 newspaper Web sites based on U.S. panels and ranked by unique users for February. The percent change compares February 2009 to February 2008. Also keep in mind there are several reasons why traffic fluctuates, including news events.

For January's top 30 list, go here.


NYTimes.com -- 20,126,000 -- 6%
USATODAY.com -- 13,430,000 -- 27%
washingtonpost.com -- 9,240,000 -- (-12%)
LA Times -- 8,421,000 -- 36%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 6,842,000 -- 13%

Boston.com -- 5,659,000 -- 15%
New York Post -- 5,121,000 -- 23%
N.Y. Daily News Online Edition -- 4,924,000 -- 38%
Chicago Tribune -- 4,016,000 -- 22%
Politico -- 3,726,000 -- 29%

Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 3,536,000 -- 20%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- -- 3,321,000 -- (-25%)
The Houston Chronicle -- 3,117,000 -- 17%
Newsday -- 3,110,000 -- (-20%)
Kansas.com -- 2,782,000 -- N/A

Star Tribune -- 2,442,000 -- 16%
International Herald Tribune -- 2,372,000 -- (-9%)
The Washington Times -- 2,349,000 -- 39%
Village Voice Media -- 2,226,000 -- (-11%)
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,183,000 -- (-1%)

DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 2,082,000 -- 2%
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 1,839,000 -- (-19%)
MercuryNews.com -- 1,679,000 -- 34%
Azcentral.com -- 1,576,000 -- (-41%)
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 1,569,000 -- (-1%)

Orlando Sentinel -- 1,533,000 -- 57%
The Seattle Times -- 1,532,000 -- (-25%)
NJ.com -- 1,508,000 -- 24%
Detroit Free Press -- 1,500,000 -- 12%
The Sacramento Bee -- 1,489,000 -- 13%

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003952221

US to Support UN Gay Rights Declaration

By Julie Bolcer

The Obama administration will support a United Nations declaration affirming that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in international human rights protections, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday evening.

According to officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Congress was still being notified, the Obama administration had reviewed the reasons why the Bush administration opposed the declaration, and decided to notify the French sponsors that the United States would support it.

One official said that the United States was concerned about "violence and human rights abuses against gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual individuals" and was also "troubled by the criminalization of sexual orientation in many countries."

The United States did not join more than 60 countries that signed the historic declaration in December, putting the country in the company of gay rights opponents such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, and the Vatican. The Bush administration rejected the non-binding declaration on technical legal grounds concerning federal and state jurisdiction over gay rights.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid75607.asp

The 8 Most Unusual & Cutting Edge Inks

by Andy in Printing Technology

We have scoured the web for the most unusual, random and downright fascinating printing-related articles out there. We start with a playful look at the more frivolous side of ink innovation and swiftly move on to some industry advances that could make a real difference to the environment. Next, we explore how printing is being applied to microelectronics and finish off with a look at a printing application that could change the lives of millions of people in the most dramatic of ways. Who said printing's boring?

1. Edible Ink

Not a lot of people know this, but if you take a photograph down to the bakery section of your local supermarket, they'll print it onto a birthday cake for you. They don't use traditional printer ink because it's poisonous, not unlike some of the other artificial additives and flavourings found in a supermarket birthday cake. They use edible ink, which is non-toxic, but definitely does not count towards your 5-a-day!

The Californian company Kopykake have created edible ink cartridges (the ink's edible, not the cartridge) that can be used in your home Canon or Epson printer. For the non-paper eaters amongst us, they also sell edible Frosting Sheets to print onto. Kopykake's edible ink cartridges will not clog your printer heads and what's more, they're certified as Kosher.

2. DNA Ink

Great writers never really die; they live on forever in their work. Mr Yoshida, President of Tokyo's Ko-sin Printing, has taken this idea to the next level. He has created a new type of ink that contains the author's genetic footprint, providing an altogether less disturbing alternative to penning a love letter in one's own blood. DNA is extracted painlessly from a human (or animal) hair or nail, and then mixed with ordinary ink to create DNA-enriched ink: the ultimate in vanity press.

The DNA doesn't alter the ink's appearance, but through scientific analysis it's possible to extract genetic information from any material printed in this way. DNA-enriched ink has already been used to add a personal touch to several self-published autobiographies. Perhaps in the future, this technology could be used to authenticate genuine works of art, or even store the genetic makeup of endangered species in books and leaflets, so that one day they can be resurrected, post extinction, a la Jurassic Park. Or perhaps, that's a little too far-fetched!

3. Disappearing Ink

The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) created the PC, inkjet printing, Ethernet networking and the mouse, only to have these creations 'stolen' by other companies. PARC has now developed a new product, 'disappearing ink', which it believes will prove just as revolutionary. Let's hope they can take all of the credit this time.

Disappearing ink is something of a misnomer: there's actually no ink involved in the process. Instead, paper is coated with photosensitive chemicals that darken when exposed to UV light produced by a special printer. Whatever is printed onto the page fades away after 24 hours. If the paper needs to be re-used more quickly, the printer can erase the paper's image instantly. This photosensitive paper can be used an infinite number of times, so long as it doesn't become crumpled or torn, saving energy, money and the environment in the process.

4. Eco Ink

The Big Print, a printing company in Seattle, have become one of the first to trial a new eco friendly type of ink that, unlike traditional petroleum-based inks, is both renewable and biodegradable. This 'eco ink' is made from ethyl lactate, which is derived from corn, a renewable resource that is available in abundance in the USA.

The large format printing industry creates massive amounts of waste. The Big Print alone produce 1 million square feet of material each year. The use of eco friendly ink is a huge step towards making the industry more sustainable and environmentally friendly. The Big Print, which currently uses the corn-based ink in 10% of their printed output, maintains that its use does not affect print quality. Despite it being more expensive at present, they are investing in new machinery so that they can use even more of the ink in the near future.

5. Nanoink

Californian company, Nanosolar, make solar cells: devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity. They are currently building the world's largest solar cell factory in San Jose, which covers an area of 140,000 square feet. They have created an ingenious type of ink that makes it possible to print the CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) semiconductor of a high-performance solar cell, making mass production quicker and easier.

The nanoink contains the CIGS semiconductor material, which consists of four elements in exactly the right atomic ratios. The mix of nanoparticles in the ink locks in these ratios so that they are correct, wherever the ink is deposited. Rolls of semi-conductors can be printed at a time onto a metal foil substrate.

6. Silver Nanoparticle Ink

A research team at the University of Illinois have developed a new type of silver-based ink, made from silver nanoparticles, which can be used to create microelectrodes that carry signals between circuit elements. These unique printed microelectrodes can be stretched and bent repeatedly with little change in their electrical properties. The university team has managed to print silver microelectrodes with minimum widths of just 2 microns.

To produce printed features, the team uses a highly concentrated silver ink that's forced out through a tapered cylindrical nozzle attached to a micropositioning stage. The ink's bonded by being heated to a temperature of 150°C, low enough for flexible, organic substrates to be used. Because the process uses minimal contact pressure, it can bond silver features onto extremely delicate devices.

7. Gold 'Fountain Pen' Ink

A Swiss-US research team has devised a method, known as the 'fountain pen', for depositing gold nanoparticle ink stripes as thin as 5 microns. The stripes are solidified by illumination with an argon laser. Fascinatingly, the stripes' elctrical properties can be customised by changing the laser's power and scanning speed, providing an exciting new way of creating miniature resistors and conductive tracks for flexible electronics. At present, inkjet printing can create stripes no thinner than 50 microns.

The 'fountain pen' is a pulled glass pipette that's placed 2 microns above a glass substrate. The ink inside contains gold particles (2-4 nm in diameter) in toluene, a clear, water-insoluble liquid. The laser is beamed from underneath the substrate, directly below the pipette, onto the newly printed structure.

8. Bio Ink

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania have used a type of inkjet printer to simultaneously grow different tissues from the stem cells of mice. The inkjet device shoots various 'bio ink' patterns of growth factor proteins onto stem cells. By using different print heads and patterns, the stem cells can be directed to become different types of tissues.

The team has already managed to grow muscle and bone in the same dish, the first time more than one type of tissue has been grown from a single population of stem cells. They are now investigating 'bio ink' patterns that will grow other tissues found in the human body.

The researchers hope that this technology can one-day be used to repair various tissues at the same time. This will be of particular benefit to those who suffer from joint problems and other conditions that damage cartilage, bone, muscle and fat simultaneously.

http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/news/the-most-unusual-cutting-edge-inks/

GEO Group, Inc.: Despite a Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit

by Erin Rosa

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib While the nation's economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings. GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company's share value is not the only thing that's growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death. Detaining immigrants has become a profitable business, and the niche industry is showing no signs of slowing down. The number of undocumented immigrants the U.S. federal government jails has grown by at least 65 percent in the last six years. In 2002, the average daily population of immigration detainees was 20,838 people, according to ICE records. By 2008, the average daily population had grown to 31,345. Since 2003, more than a million people have been processed through federal immigration lockups, which are part of a network of at least 300 local, state and federal lockups, including seven contracted detention facilities. GEO operates four of those seven for-profit prisons. Numerous investigations and reports have documented problems at GEO's immigration detention facilities. At the company's Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, federal prosecutors charged a GEO prison administrator in September 2008 with "knowingly and willfully making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements to senior special agents" with ICE, according to court filings. A February 2008 audit found that over a period of more than two years ending in November 2005, GEO hired nearly 100 guards without performing the required criminal background checks. The GEO employee responsible, Sylvia Wong, pleaded guilty. In the plea agreement the federal government stated that Wong falsified documents "because of the pressure she felt" while working at the GEO lockup to get security personnel hired at the detention center "as quickly as possible." Two months before the fraud charges, a study by the Seattle University School of Law and the nonprofit group OneAmerica reported that conditions at the Tacoma facility violated both international and domestic laws that grant detained immigrants the right to food, due process and humane treatment. Federal immigration officials have the authority to incarcerate undocumented immigrants, asylum-seekers, and even lawful permanent residents while they await hearings with immigration judges or appeal decisions. ICE reports the average length of stay is 30 days, but detentions can last years, according to a November 2008 ICE fact sheet. Pramila Jayapal, executive director with OneAmerica, took part in interviewing a random sample of more than 40 immigrants detained at the Northwest Detention Center, which holds approximately 1,000 immigrants at any given time. "It's a very giant concrete box. It's just like a jail," said Jayapal. "You're only supposed to meet in the client area, which is only a few rooms." One inmate from Mexico, Hector Pena-Ortiz, told interviewers that guards had interrogated and handcuffed him twice, demanding that he sign immediate deportation papers despite the fact that he had a pending appeal. Under federal law, immigrants cannot be deported from the United States if their immigration legal cases are still pending. During one of the incidents, guards admitted to having a file on the wrong inmate, Pena-Ortiz said.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15308

Lessons from the Wizard of Oz

Chapter One

"The great Oz as spoken! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I am the great and powerful Wizard of Oz!"

In refreshing contrast to the impenetrable writings of economists, the classic fairytale The Wizard of Oz has delighted young and old for over a century. It was first published by L. Frank Baum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. In 1939, it was made into a hit Hollywood movie starring Judy Garland, and later it was made into the popular stage play The Wiz. Few of the millions who have enjoyed this charming tale have suspected that its imagery was drawn from that most obscure and tedious of subjects, banking and finance. Fewer still have suspected that the real-life folk heroes who inspired its plot may have had the answer to the financial crisis facing the country today!

The economic allusions in Baum's tale were first observed in 1964 by a schoolteacher named Henry Littlefield, who called the story "a parable on Populism," referring to the People's Party movement challenging the banking monopoly in the late nineteenth century. Other analysts later picked up the theme. Economist Hugh Rockoff, writing in the Journal of Political Economy in 1990, called the story a "monetary allegory." Professor Tim Ziaukas, writing in 1998, stated:

"The Wizard of Oz" . . . was written at a time when American society was consumed by the debate over the "financial question," that is, the creation and circulation of money. . . . The characters of "The Wizard of Oz" represented those deeply involved in the debate: the Scarecrow as the farmers, the Tin Woodman as the industrial workers, the Lion as silver advocate William Jennings Bryan and Dorothy as the archetypal American girl.

The Germans established the national fairytale tradition with Grimm's Fairy Tales, a collection of popular folklore gathered by the Brothers Grimm specifically to reflect German populist traditions and national values. Baum's tale did the same thing for the American populist (or people's) tradition. The Wizard of Oz has been called "the first truly American fairytale." It was all about people power, manifesting your dreams, finding what you wanted in your own backyard. According to Littlefield, the march of Dorothy and her friends to the Emerald City to petition the Wizard of Oz for help was patterned after the 1894 march from Ohio to Washington of an "Industrial Army" led by Jacob Coxey, urging Congress to return to the Greenback system initiated by Abraham Lincoln. The march of Coxey's Army on Washington began a long tradition of people taking to the streets in peaceful protest when there seemed no other way to voice their appeals. As Lawrence Goodwin, author of The Populist Moment, described the nineteenth century movement to change the money system:

[T]here was once a time in history when people acted. . . . [F]armers were trapped in debt. They were the most oppressed of Americans, they experimented with cooperative purchasing and marketing, they tried to find their own way out of the strangle hold of debt to merchants, but none of this could work if they couldn't get capital. So they had to turn to politics, and they had to organize themselves into a party. . . . [T]he populists didn't just organize a political party, they made a movement. They had picnics and parties and newsletters and classes and courses, and they taught themselves, and they taught each other, and they became a group of people with a sense of purpose, a group of people with courage, a group of people with dignity.

Like the Populists, Dorothy and her troop discovered that they had the power to solve their own problems and achieve their own dreams. The Scarecrow in search of a brain, the Tin Man in search of a heart, the Lion in search of courage actually had what they wanted all along. When the Wizard's false magic proved powerless, the Wicked Witch was vanquished by a defenseless young girl and her little dog. When the Wizard disappeared in his hot air balloon, the unlettered Scarecrow took over as leader of Oz.

The Wizard of Oz came to embody the American dream and the American national spirit. In the United States, the land of abundance, all you had to do was to realize your potential and manifest it. That was one of the tale's morals, but it also contained a darker one, a message for which its imagery has become a familiar metaphor: that there are invisible puppeteers pulling the strings of the puppets we see on the stage, in a show that is largely illusion.

http://www.webofdebt.com/

Palestinian Propaganda of the Week

FixCNBC!

Jon Stewart made the case.
Now we're demanding action.

CNBC: Hold Wall Street accountable!

We need CNBC to practice responsible journalism. Will you please take a few moments to sign this open letter to CNBC?

Dear CNBC —

"You knew what the banks were doing, and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was." — Jon Stewart

These now-legendary words were a wake-up call. We're asking you to wake up.

Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism – asking tough questions to Wall Street, debunking lies, and reporting the truth. Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street. You've been so obsessed with getting "access" to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today.

You screwed up badly. Don't apologize – fix it!

CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices – people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives' feet to the fire.

Please show us that you hear our voices loud and clear.

Sincerely,

Sign at http://fixcnbc.com/b

SAVE THE NEWSPAPERS, SAVE THE WORLD?

Momma said wonk you out

Clay Shirky has a brilliant essay that thinks the unthinkable. "The people committed to saving newspapers," he writes, "[demand] to know 'If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?' To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke."

Be careful: That's not to say there's no model for The New York Times. We're not going to lose the news that everyone wants. Americans will not be deprived of Gallup poll numbers or Stupid Politician Tricks or write-ups of the Obama administration's financial regulation plans. Quite the opposite: The trend is to have more of that news from more different sources than at any other point in human history. Rather, we're going to lose the news that few people want. There's no obvious model for the Baltimore Sun. We're losing the reporting that's subsidized by the audience that comes for the national news coverage but does not result in stories that large audiences are actually interested in reading. The local stories and targeted investigations. The stuff that wasn't read but really mattered.

The news business, we all agree, is an inefficient enterprise. But it has benevolent inefficiencies. Not every story in the paper maximizes readership and thus advertising revenue. The low-readership stories, however, aren't misfires. They're aimed at a different audience: Empowered elites. They make the political system aware of problems, or they alert the political system to the fact that other people are aware of problems. A story uncovering Medicare payment fraud, for instance, is not an effort to capture the largest possible readership but to force the relevant regulators to act. The intended audience is about four dozen people, and the hundreds of thousands of subscribers who don't really care about that article but nevertheless see it are the leverage forcing the four dozen to act.

As the business becomes more streamlined, however, it is jettisoning these inefficiencies. If you have to sell the news -- rather than sell a local advertising monopoly -- you can't put resources into stories that don't perform. And so you won't. The Politico is a good model for congressional coverage but a bad model for investigative content. The response to that problem by many is that we must save newspapers. But on this, I agree with Shirky. We can't save newspapers. Not as currently constructed. And nor should that even be the goal.

"Society doesn't need newspapers," writes Shirky. "What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That's been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we're going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead. When we shift our attention from 'save newspapers' to 'save society', the imperative changes from 'preserve the current institutions' to 'do whatever works.' And what works today isn't the same as what used to work."

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=03&year=2009&base_name=society_doesnt_need_newspapers#113744

Of all the charlatans on Wall St....

AN ESTABLISHMENT WITH A FRAGILE EGO

 

President Obama, citing family commitments, announced last week that he would skip this year's dinner at the Gridiron Club. He will be the first president since Grover Cleveland to skip the event in his first year in office.

This isn't going over well in some circles.

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, "People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.

"I don't think he understands the implications of not coming to the club in the first year. It's not your ordinary state dinner. I think it would be helpful for him and his relations with the Washington establishment to come to the club."

Beyond bruised feelings among the pundit class, Obama's snub is a revealing cultural moment.

Gridiron has for decades been an inner sanctum of Washington's political press corps. The club's mostly aging members were considered highly prestigious because they said so -- and because they had the ability to summon the capital's political elite to a spring frolic of skits and songs.

But if a young and glamorous president decides he can afford to blow off an august and tradition-bound institution, one has to at least entertain the possibility that this institution may not be quite as august as its members assumed.

Yes, and what a tragedy that would be.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017311.php

Right Wing Idiot of the Day

The North Dakota State Representative Dan Ruby.

Never heard of him? Well, you need to hear all about him.

This numbnut has actually written a bill that would essentially give full "personhood" to any fertilized egg. This misguided fool, in his zeal to outlaw  abortion, has actually crafted a law that will have more negative unintended consequences than anything proposed in many years, if it's taken seriously at all by his fellow representatives in North Dakota. Check out the beginning of this piece of crap:

A BILL for an Act to provide for equality and rights to all human beings at every stage of biological development; to create and enact two new sections to chapter 12.1-17, relating to the crimes of dismemberment and torture; to amend and reenact subsection 3 of section 12.1-20-03, section 12.1-20-11, subsection 2 of section 12.1-20-17, and section 12.1-27.2-04.1 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to penalties for crimes against born alive children; to
provide legislative intent; and to provide a penalty.

Do you get that, folks? First off, check out the "every stage of biological development" phrase. Talk about draconian. That gives full human rights to every single fertilized egg. Think that's funny and sad? Well, it's not. What it means is simple; an overzealous cop or prosecutor can throw a woman in jail for taking a "morning after" pill. It could technically make the birth control pill illegal., since most birth control pills essentially cause a miscarriage. It could actually create a situation in which a woman is tried for manslaughter for a miscarriage, especially if she didn't realize she was pregnant, and didn't take her prenatal vitamins. And how would you like to be involved in a fender bender with a  woman at some point, and have some woman make a claim in court that she was two weeks pregnant, and produces a blastocyst to prove you guilty of wrongful death?

Not only that, but what does that do to stem cell research? Hell; who's responsible if an attempt at in vitro fertilization doesn't take? 

What the hell is wrong with these people? 

Well, consider the source.

First of all, he's a man. That should automatically disqualify him from writing reproduction legislation. Second of all, he's a proud member of the Roman Catholic Church, and has – are you ready? – TEN kids. And look at him; he LOOKS like a prig who would try to tell women to stay pregnant against their will, even though he probably doesn't understand how babies are made, anyway.

I know it looks like I'm making light of this, but I'm not. This is a very dangerous precedent that could take hold in a country where half the goddamn judges are right wing hacks. We have to fight this sort of thing, and fight it hard!

And by the way, this bill has already passed the North Dakota House 51-41, and is now being considered in the Senate. Time for action on this should have been weeks ago.

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/2009/03/right-wing-idiot-of-the-day-march-16-2009.html

Latest bear fashion

America's Sweetheart