Thursday, October 17, 2013

I have a doctor's appointment today at ten o'clock and it's 9:02. I'm going to eat and have coffee anyway. It's a 15 minute drive from here. 10:37 I saw Dr. Fricke, and he gave me a three months prescription this time. He said if the insurance company honors it, it may be less expensive. Now to the NBC news site.

McCain on attempt to defund “Obamacare”

In an interview with NBC News' Brian Williams, McCain said some House members' determination to repeal or defund President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act during a government shutdown was “a fool’s errand.” 
"We inflicted pain on the American people that was totally unnecessary. We cannot do this again," McCain said. "We, Republicans, have a hole that we've got to come out of and obviously we're going to have to do a lot of work."

McCain also addressed the "polarization" and "lack of civility" on Capitol Hill on the heels of inflammatory comments made by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, on Friday, when he accused McCain of supporting al Qaeda in Syria.
"Sometimes those are, comments like that are made out of malice, but if someone has no intelligence, I don't view it as being a malicious statement," McCain said. "You can't respond to that kind of thing."
"I enjoy the good fight but the time comes when you have to do what's right for the American people," he added.”

I would like to comment that McCain, who is a Republican and I would oppose many of his viewpoints, did defend Obama at a town meeting when a woman spoke up and accused Obama of being an alien (the “birther” controversy). He told her that Obama is a loyal American and a good citizen (not in those words), and then refused to talk to the woman. That showed me that McCain tries to be fair and honest as a candidate, and indeed has considerable intelligence. Some members of the press in the last week have been praising the Tea Party leader Ted Cruz for his impressive college degrees and assumed intelligence, but I think McCain shows a greater kind of intelligence by doing the right thing when it would be easier to go along with the flow. McCain is known as a maverick, but that simply means that he thinks for himself, so he gets points in my book.

IMF on US economic brinksmanship

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged Washington to build a more stable management of U.S. finances, mindful that Wednesday night's deal only suspends the debt limit until Feb. 7.
“Looking forward, it will be essential to reduce uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy by raising the debt limit in a more durable manner,” said IMF boss Christine Lagarde.

Markets in Asia rose on the news that U.S. lawmakers had voted with hours to spare to avoid reaching the $16.7 trillion threshold, but the dollar fell against a slew of currencies, according to Reuters.
"It casts dark clouds over the economy - politics are now the main drag for growth in the U.S," Rabobank strategist Philip Marey said. 
In the U.K., The Times newspaper wrote in an editorial of its “relief” at the deal, which it said “saves world from financial meltdown.”

Robin Bew, chief economist and editorial director of the Economist Intelligence Unit, posted on Twitter: “So we can look forward to another #US debt debacle in 3mths time. Don't expect a grand bargain so likely to lurch from one crisis to next.”
Spanish newspaper El Pais said the deal “doesn’t dispel the doubts created about the governability of the world’s superpower.” It went further, adding that U.S. brinksmanship had “weakened the international leadership of the United States”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, welcomed the deal, telling reporters it was in accordance with the U.S. interests and served global economic stability.
Chinese credit rating agency Dagong downgraded the U.S. from A to A-. "Hence the government is still approaching the verge of default crisis, a situation that cannot be substantially alleviated in the foreseeable future," the agency said in a statement. However, Dagong’s ratings do not have much influence beyond China, Reuters reported.

11:56 I did send a detailed email to my Senate and Congressional representatives and to Senator McCain and the president as well, in the following form:

“I did vote for you at the last election, and I have given money to the Democratic Party. But simply as a citizen I am writing you with a question. Is it possible to make a law that in the future neither the Congress nor the Senate can cause a shutdown of the government or a default on our debts. I would like to see any representatives who vote in such a way as to cause either situation to occur, especially if they do it purposely in order to ram an unwanted piece of legislation down the public's throat, to be sanctioned financially, or thrown out of office, or jailed. Also, I would like to see it be the case that such an action will not succeed, because the bill or legislation would be unlawful. Would that require a Constitutional amendment? Even if it does, it is still possible I would think. Write me a short note giving me your opinion. We incurred considerable international criticism over this debacle. Losing our credit rating should not be a viable option for our government. Thank you.”

Policing in the Internet Age

Almost as soon as police in Bellingham, Wash., had finished dispersing a rowdy crowd of young people throwing stones, bottles and even cinder blocks at cops last weekend, investigators sat down at their desks and began surfing the Web.

As investigators did after the recent beating in New York City of an SUV driver by a pack of angry motorcyclists and the Boston Marathon bombing in April, Bellingham police immediately turned to social media websites to assemble evidence in the melee, which they hope to use to bring key perpetrators to justice.
“(We) brought our forensic guy in early Sunday and started pulling it off the Internet, Facebook and Twitter and whatever,” police spokesman Lt. Rick Sucee said of the investigation.

That approach doesn’t completely supplant old-fashioned shoe leather investigation, but Grant Fredericks, who helped analyze thousands of hours of video collected by police during an investigation of the 2011 hockey riots in Vancouver, British Columbia, said it can yield vast amounts of evidence if the crime was committed in a place where large numbers of people are present.
“In every social event that’s significant, every person out there is collecting evidence for police,” said Fredericks, who runs Forensic Video Solutions. “Police just have to get to it.”

“We were not ready for the massive amount of digital information that people were now trying to send us,” John Daley, chief technology officer of the Boston Police Department, told a social media conference in May. “Thousands of people with video captured on their smartphones were now trying to send it to us, immediately, to process.”
He added that police were “also monitoring flickr, Twitter, Reddit and other sources for photos and videos that were circulating or were being referenced on social media. Many hundreds of leads were forwarded to us through social media in this way.”

But investigators are not only looking for suspects, he said. Some of the videos from Bellingham show people watching the confrontation, he noted, useful for police as they seek witnesses.
All of that video is uploaded into a computer program – the Bellingham department uses an Avid system – and is then tagged and matched by time stamp and location information, often provided by cell phones, Fredericks said. That gives police a fuller picture of events and people’s movements during and after the incident, said Fredericks, who teaches a class in video forensics at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.

The thesis of that class is that the most prolific source of evidence for police is from video. More than fingerprints or DNA, it’s video,” he said.
Can video evidence replace interviews with witnesses? There’s a place for both, said video forensics analyst Gregg Stutchman of Napa, Calif. “Usually they’re from a different perspective, different vantage points, so they’re complementing each other, they’re supplementing each other,” he said.

Slavery today

“Almost 30 million people across the globe are living in modern-day slavery, according to a report published Thursday.
The inaugural Global Slavery Index, published by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation, said the African nation of Mauritania, Haiti, Pakistan, and India have the highest number of slaves in proportion to population.
But taken in absolute terms, global powers such as China and Russia were near the top of the list of countries with the largest total of people living in slavery.
The index says the term "slavery" is used mean a variety of conditions, such as forced labor, human trafficking, the sale and exploitation of children, and forced marriage.

As many as half of the estimated global total of 29.8 million slaves are living in India, the index said.
With between 13.3 million and 14.7 million slaves -- more than the population the U.S. state of Illinois -- around 10 percent of India's population are facing these conditions.
The second highest is China, with around 3 million people estimated to be living in slavery.
The index said the figure for China includes “the forced labour of men, women and children in many parts of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and forced marriage.”

The Walk Free Foundation said in a preface to the report that it is "committed to ending all forms of modern slavery in this generation."
"Whether it is called human trafficking, forced labour, slavery or slavery-like practices...victims of modern slavery have their freedom denied, and are used and controlled and exploited by another person for profit, sex, or the thrill of domination," it said.
Teenage girls are among five women, 38 girls and one boy rescued from a house where they were held captive by a network of human trafficking and labor exploitation, in Villa Canales municipality, 25 km south of Guatemala City, on October 10.
It also commented on the "staggering but harsh reality" that many people are born into hereditary slavery, particularly in West Africa and South Asia.
The index ranked 162 countries based on three factors: estimated prevalence of modern slavery by population, levels of child marriage, and levels of human trafficking into and out of the country.
The U.S. came in at 134th, worse off than Barbados (135), South Korea (137), Hong Kong (141), Costa Rica (146), and Cuba (149).
While deeming the U.S. and Canada "very low risk," it said they were prime destinations for human trafficking because of "their demand for cheap labour and relatively porous land borders."
The U.K., Ireland, and Iceland were given the best ratings and came in at joint 160th.
“This does not mean these countries are slavery free,” the report said. “On the contrary, it is estimated that there are between 4,200 -- 4,600 people in modern slavery in the United Kingdom alone.”
Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest founded the Walk Free Foundation last year, according to Reuters.
Its Global Slavery Index was endorsed by leaders including former U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.”

The description given for the types of slavery in China “in many parts of the economy” was shocking, plus the incidence in West Africa and South Asia of people born into “hereditary slavery,” were hard to believe. Can you imagine being forced to beg? Out of a total of 162 countries, the US is number 134. I do remember a fairly recent case in the news of an hispanic woman who was being kept without wages to do housework in a home in the US. She managed to escape. I wonder if I could find it on the Internet if I look? I looked under “housekeeper slave” and found many pages of entries. I guess if you're rich enough you can get away with anything for awhile at least. Who would question the financial arrangements in a neighbor's household?


The vision of cats

“Humans have superior eyesight during the daytime. We have more cones, the cells responsible for processing bright light. That gives us a much more vibrant palette of color. In contrast, reds, yellows, oranges and browns look very similar to cats.


Cats' fondness for pouncing on feet and feathery toys may be rooted in their hunting instinct, but it also has a lot to do with their unique vision. And, as it turns out, scientists know a lot about what cats see.
Now, a new set of images, by artist Nickolay Lamm, tries to capture the differences between cat vision and human vision. Whereas humans are able to see more vibrant colors during the day, their feline companions have the edge when it comes to peripheral vision and night vision. [Images: See What a Cat Sees]
Night creatures
Cats have a wider field of view — about 200 degrees, compared with humans' 180-degree view. Cats also have a greater range of peripheral vision, all the better to spot that mouse (or toy) wriggling in the corner.

Cats are crepuscular, meaning they are active at dawn and dusk. That may be why they need such good night vision. Their eyes have six to eight times more rod cells, which are more sensitive to low light, than humans do.
In addition, cats' elliptical eye shape and larger corneas and tapetum, a layer of tissue that may reflect light back to the retina, help gather more light as well. The tapetum may also shift the wavelengths of light that cats see, making prey or other objects silhouetted against a night sky more prominent, Kerry Ketring, a veterinarian with the All Animal Eye Clinic in Whitehall, Mich., wrote in an email. [10 Surprising Facts About Cats]
Their extra rod cells also allow cats to sense motion in the dark much better than their human companions can.

But felines don't have the edge in all areas. The human retina has about 10 times more cones, the light receptors that function best in bright light, than cats' eyes have.
"Humans have 10 to 12 times better motion detection in bright light than the cat or dog, since bright-light vision is a cone function," Ketring said.
Humans also have three types of cones, allowing them to see a broad spectrum of colors, with sensitivity peaks at red, green and blue. While cats may have three types of cones, the number and distribution of each type varies. In behavioral tests, cats don't seem to see the full range of colors that most humans do.
Some experts believe cats' "color vision is limited to blue and grays, while others believe it is similar to dogs', but with less richness of hues and saturation of the colors," Ketring said. Dogs see the world in fewer hues than humans do and cannot distinguish between red, yellow, green and orange objects. Fish, in contrast, can see ultraviolet wavelengths that humans can't see.
Nearsighted
Humans also can see with much greater resolution, with a greater range of vibrant colors, thanks to their eyes' many cones.
Humans can see objects clearly at 100 to 200 feet (30 to 60 meters) away, but cats need to be no more than about 20 feet (6 m) away to see those same things sharply.
Because cats lack the muscles necessary to change the shape of their eye lenses, they can't see things clearly quite as close as humans can and need to be further away, Ketring said.  
And though Fluffy may be better at picking up the darting and scurrying of a frightened mouse, there are many slow-moving objects that humans can detect with their eyesight that look stationary to cats.”

I thought it was interesting that fish can see ultraviolet light. I did know that many deep sea creatures emit colored light, so I guess that helps the fish see their prey. And cats, of course, if they are allowed to roam freely, will go around at night in preference to the day. I have heard many a cat howling at another one outside my window. I can see why they were chosen as god figures by some ancient cultures. They sound very powerful and otherworldly when they are angry. I admire cats tremendously as survivors and independent spirits.



Scientists say Ötzi the Iceman has living relatives, 5,300 years later

“No next-of-kin was around to claim the frozen 5,300-year-old body of Ötzi the Iceman when it was found in the Italian Alps in 1991, but researchers now report that there are at least 19 genetic relatives of Ötzi living in Austria's Tyrol region.
"These men and the 'Iceman' had the same ancestors," Walther Parson, a researcher at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, told the Austrian Press Agency last week.
The relatives may not know they're related, however. The Austrian researchers haven't told them.
They found the 19 genetic matches by looking through the DNA records of 3,700 Austrian blood donors for a rare Y-chromosome mutation known as G-L91. The mutation is a reliable marker for ancestral relationships, because it tends to be passed down intact from one generation to the next. But because it's on the Y sex chromosome, the marker can be used only to trace male ancestry.
Parson and his colleagues are using genetic markers to get a better sense of how different populations spread throughout the Alpine regions. So far, their research suggest that migration patterns favored Austria's Pillersattel pass over the Landeck district in prehistoric times, Parson told APA.
The 19 Austrian men in Parson's study are almost certainly not the only ones who share ancestry with Ötzi. The APA said scientists expect to find relatives in nearby regions of the Swiss and Italian Alps as well.

When it comes to frozen mummies, Ötzi is a world-famous celebrity. (Juanita the Peruvian Ice Maiden ranks up there as well.) Researchers have already deduced that Ötzi came from farming stock, and that he suffered from heart disease, joint pain, tooth decay, lactose intolerance and possibly Lyme disease.
None of those maladies killed him. Instead, scientists suggest he was shot with an arrow as he walked along an Alpine trail. He apparently experienced a blow to the head, injured his eye as he fell, and bled to death on the trail. Or did he die somewhere else, and get a ceremonial burial in the mountains? All these clues make Ötzi's death one of the scientific world's most intensely investigated "cold cases." Now if they can just find DNA samples from his killers ...”

The uncovering of Otzi was one of the most important finds in archeological history, with his weapons and kit of supplies. Most archeological finds are incomplete in the extreme, leaving scientists to examine a few arrowheads or pottery sherds and compare them with other finds to make their best guess as to what culture the pieces fit within. It was as exciting as the woolly mammoths that are now being discovered in Siberia due to global warming.

It would be interesting to have my DNA read and compared to European and North American samples to see who my relatives seem to be. There has always been the rumor in our family that we have a little bit of Cherokee in us, and southern culture being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised to find some black heritage there, too.

3:03 PM Reading my novel now. Copied here is an answer to a question about the cluviel dor from an online interview with the author Charlaine Harris.
“We here at True Blood Fan Source were so excited to have the opportunity to do a question and answer with the incredible Charlaine Harris, author of the Southern Vampire Mysteries series on which HBO‘s True Blood is based.  Ms. Harris has been busy promoting the 11th book in the series, ‘Dead Reckoning’, and we are so greatful that she took time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions for us.  Below is the list of questions we asked her along with her answers.
How did you come up with the cluviel dor, and what’s the significance behind its name (did you base it on anything in the real world?)?
I made up the term “cluviel dor.” I needed a fairy object with a mysterious name, and that’s what I came up with. In appearance . . . well, let’s just say my powder compact looks a lot like a cluviel dor. Though it’s not nearly as magical . . .”
This author doesn't stick to old traditional myths about supernatural beings. She makes it up as she goes. She has even created some beings that aren't documented anywhere except Wikipedia and other sites dealing with her stories. It continues to hold my interest, though it's by no means a standard murder mystery.

5:36 It has gotten later than I realized. Closing for now.