Friday, January 31, 2014


News Clips For The Day


U.K. nuclear employees ordered to stay home amid increased radiation levels – NBC

By Alexander Smith, NBC News contributor

The United Kingdom's largest nuclear plant ordered thousands of workers to stay at home Friday after recording increased levels of radioactivity, its operator said.
The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site, in Cumbria, north-west England, told all non-essential employees not to come to work after the elevated levels were picked up by a monitor at the north end of the site.

"Levels of radioactivity detected are above naturally occurring radiation but well below that which would call for any actions to be taken by the workforce on or off the site," said a statement posted on Sellafield's website.

"The site is at normal status and employees and operational plants are continuing to operate as investigations continue. All our facilities have positively confirmed there are no abnormal conditions and are operating normally.”

The plant is on the coast of the Irish Sea about 300 miles northwest of London and employs more than 10,000 staff. Despite the decreased workforce, it said the facility was still operating at full capacity.

Britain's nuclear decommissioning authority told Reuters that it was unclear where the radiation is coming from.

A spokesman for the U.K.’s Department of Energy and Climate Change said it was in constant contact with Sellafield, and that there was no reason to believe the situation was more serious than the operator had claimed, Reuters reported.
Sellafield processes spent fuel and no longer produces power from nuclear. It is undergoing a decommissioning and dismantling program, run by a consortium of British company Amec, French group Areva, and U.S. firm URS. 



As much as I fear nuclear power plants, they remain the most reliable and productive clean energy source. Solar is proving to be good, according to an article a couple of months ago, but it only works when the sun shines clearly. That article did say, though, that the homeowner's rooftop solar panels were producing enough electricity to cover the needs for the house with some to give back to the electric company. The article was on what to charge the homeowner for the power plant's electricity used. The power plant managers were dissatisfied with the amount of reduction in the bill that the solar panels caused, and wanted to charge a higher fee. Business is business, I guess.






Yahoo Mail resets passwords after hackers attack – NBC
Devin Coldewey NBC News


If you're a Yahoo Mail user, you might want to be on the lookout for a password reset notification. Yahoo has announced that it detected a "coordinated effort" to access some email accounts.

In a post to the company's official blog, Yahoo's Jay Rossiter explained that it did not appear that the attackers had breached Yahoo servers to collect information, but rather had logged in to a number of accounts using data collected from "a third party database."

That means that no one actually broke in to Yahoo servers — the attackers were likely using usernames and passwords that were stolen during some other leak of customer data, for example Adobe or LivingSocial.

Yahoo didn't say how many accounts were affected, but it is the second-largest webmail provider in the world, with well over a quarter of a billion accounts, so if it were only a few dozen accounts, it probably wouldn't receive this kind of attention from the security team.

Anyone affected should have received a text or email at a backup address saying their password has been reset. If you didn't have a secondary mode of notification attached to your Yahoo Mail account, try to log in — if your password works, you weren't affected (but should probably change it just in case). If it didn't, you should contact Yahoo and see about getting your access restored.



I have a Yahoo account and I have been receiving alerts supposedly from Yahoo to reset my account information, but when I clicked on the link provided I got a message that the page was unavailable. After a while I started deleting those emails when I saw one. So far, I seem to have email service still, so I think the messages I received are bogus. I wonder if it was connected with these hackers. As long as they don't delete my emails or damage my computer with a virus I'm not too worried. Still, you Yahoo users might want to check your emails.





Utah school district apologizes for seizing kids' lunches for unpaid bills

By M. Alex Johnson and Henry Austin, NBC News

One of Utah's biggest school systems apologized Thursday and told angry parents it was investigating why dozens of elementary school children had their lunches seized and thrown away when they didn't have enough money in their accounts.
"This was a mistake," said Jason Olsen, a spokesman for the Salt Lake School District. "There shouldn't have been food taken away from these students once they went through that line."

The district came under national criticism after as many as 40 kids were given fruit and milk and their real lunches were thrown away Tuesday at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City.

"She took my lunch away and said, 'Go get a milk,'" fifth-grader Sophia Isom told NBC station KSL. "I came back and asked, 'What's going on?' Then she handed me an orange. She said, 'You don't have any money in your account, so you can't get lunch.'"
Sophia's mom, Erica Lukes, called the move "traumatic and humiliating" and told the Salt Lake Tribune she was all paid up.

"I think it's despicable," she said. "These are young children that shouldn't be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up."
Olsen said that parents had been notified about negative balances Monday and that a child nutrition manager had decided to withhold lunches to deal with the issue. They were thrown away because once food is served to one student it can't be served to another, he said.

That brought a storm of criticism on the elementary school's Facebook page, where scores of people denounced school and district officials as "heartless" and "inhumane."



Every now and then an article is published which points to a situation that is really shocking. The almighty dollar should not interfere with school children, especially such young ones, getting their lunch. Kids need enough healthy food for good brain function, which is why poor children now have programs to pay for their lunches. This was apparently parents who had enough money to pay, though, and the nutrition manager just decided to teach them a lesson. I assume that person will be demoted or fired for this. I do hope the decision to do that didn't go higher up the management chain than this official. It certainly has hit the news in a big way, and the school system is apparently embarrassed. "This was a mistake," said Jason Olsen, a spokesman for the Salt Lake School District. "There shouldn't have been food taken away from these students once they went through that line." You're right, sir – it was a big mistake.






Newer football helmets could slash concussion risks, study suggests – NBC
Linda Carroll NBC News contributor


Newer football helmets could cut concussion risk in half, a new study suggests.
Researchers found a 54 percent difference in concussion risk between two different helmets made by the same company in a large study that included data from 1,833 college football players.

The players in the study wore one of two helmet models made by the Riddell company: the older VSR4 and the newer Revolution. All the helmets had been equipped with sensors that recorded forces, or accelerations, experienced by the players’ heads each time there was a hit.

“No helmet can completely prevent concussions,” said study co-author Stefan Duma, a professor and head of biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University. “There’s always a risk. All we are saying is that by effectively adding more padding, it reduces the accelerations, and that reduces concussions.”
Duma and his colleagues scrutinized concussion and accelerometer data collected from 2005 to 2010 from eight college football teams. All the players wore either the Riddell VSR4 or the Riddell Revolution.

During the years of the study there were a total of 322,725 head impacts in players wearing the VSR4 helmets and 27 concussions, which amounted to 8.37 concussions per 100,000 jolts to the head. Among those wearing the Revolution, there were 958,719 head impacts and 37 concussions, which amounted to 3.86 concussions per 100,000 head impacts.

Concussion experts called the study an important first step, but one that needed to be duplicated, since there is another recently published helmet study that found no difference in concussion protection between older and newer versions.
“The newer helmets are about 40 percent thicker, so it’s not a surprise that they would reduce the linear impacts you would record,” said Dr. Robert Cantu, a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the Boston University School of Medicine and co-director of the Center for the Study of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Cantu also serves on the board of trustees as vice president of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment.

“What is surprising is the degree to which they appear to have found concussion to be reduced,” he added.

Cantu said he was concerned about the small number of concussions that were reported. Numbers were also an issue for David Hovda, a professor of neurosurgery and director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center.

There was far less data from the VSR4 wearing players, Hovda pointed out. And if there had been more data, the difference between the two helmets might not have been as sharp. Further, Hovda said, you have to take into account the fact that many, many players weren’t — and still aren’t — reporting concussions.

Ultimately there will just need to be more studies on the topic, said Dr. Douglas Smith, a professor of neurosurgery and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

“I would say this is an important study because it instructs us on how to sharpen our focus for future ones,” Smith said. 



This is a major difference, from 8.37 concussions per 100,000 jolts to the head to 3.86 concussions. It's still not truly safe to play football, but this is much better than before. According to Hovda and Smith, however, there wasn't enough data to make a correct determination of the difference between the two helmets, so officials will of course be waiting for further studies. If I find any more articles updating this I will clip them.




Art cache of recluse Huguette Clark revealed, begins world tour before sale

By Bill Dedman
Investigative Reporter, NBC News

NEW YORK — Masterpieces from the art collection of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, hidden away like their owner for nearly a century, begin a world tour on Friday, stopping in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Christie's will auction the works in May and June.

Huguette Clark was 24 when she purchased this work from Claude Monet's series of "Nymphéas," or "Water Lilies," in 1930 in New York. This 1907 painting remained out of the public eye until now. It is estimated by Christie's to bring $25 million to $35 million at auction on May 6, after it is available for viewing in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York.

First, on May 6, four Impressionist paintings will be sold at Christie's in Rockefeller Center, including a Monet from his "Water Lilies" series with an estimated value of $25 million to $35 million. This Monet has not been seen in public since the copper heiress bought it in 1930. Her three paintings by Renoir will also be sold: "Girls Playing Battledore and Shuttlecock," "Chrysanthemums," and "Woman with Umbrella." Together the Renoir trio is estimated to be worth $16.5 million to $25.5 million.

Then on June 18, more than 400 objects collected by Clark and her parents will receive their own spotlight at a sale at Christie's. They include paintings by Americans John Singer Sargent ("Girl Fishing at San Vigilio") and William Merritt Chase ("A Water Fountain in Prospect Park"); a Stradivarius violin ("the Kreutzer," c. 1731) and other musical instruments; rare books (a first edition of Baudelaire's "Les fleurs du mal," a Book of Hours from the 16th century with pages bordered in liquid gold, and a first edition of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"); European furniture and decorative arts; Chinese works of art; and English silver.

Here are the tour dates for public viewing: London, Jan. 30 through Feb. 4; Hong Kong, April 4-9; Tokyo, April 10-12; and in New York selected items will be on view in April. All the Impressionist and Modern art work will be on view May 2-6. All other items will be on view from June 14-17. A catalogue of the collection will be printed this spring.

Renoir's "Girls Playing Battledore and Shuttlecock" has a pre-sale estimated value of $10 million to $15 million. Huguette Clark paid $125,000 for it in the late 1950s. From about 1887, this large work is one of Renoir's most prized, showing five women in a rural landscape.

Huguette Clark on a ship with her father, W.A. Clark, the copper miner and former senator, in the 1910s. The familiy held tickets on the return trip of the Titanic in 1912, though as Huguette explained some 80 years later, "We took another boat."
Huguette (pronounced "oo-GET") Marcelle Clark was the youngest child of former U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark (1839-1925), one of the copper kings of Montana, a railroad builder, founder of Las Vegas, and one of the richest men of the Gilded Age. Huguette, born in Paris in 1906, was a painter and doll collector who spent her last 20 years living in simple hospital rooms. She attracted the attention of NBC News in 2009 because her fabulous homes in Connecticut, California and New York sat unoccupied but carefully maintained. (See all the stories in the NBC series.)

After Clark died in 2011 at age 104, nineteen relatives challenged her last will and testament, which had cut them out of her $300 million copper fortune. The relatives claimed that she was mentally ill and had been defrauded by her nurse, attorney and accountant. No one was charged with any crime after an investigation by the district attorney's office, but enough questions were raised that the case was settled in September 2013 just after jury selection began. The relatives, who last saw her in 1957 and most of whom never met Clark, will receive $34.5 million. Lawsuits continue as the relatives hope to receive more money from Clark's hospital and doctor. The proceeds from the scheduled sales at Christie's will go back into the estate for distribution under that settlement. (Read a summary of the deal here.)

Though Clark kept much of her art collection under wraps, along with the rest of her life, she was a persistent supporter of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and lent works to it periodically, including two paintings by Sargent and one of the Renoirs. Most of the art collected by her father went to the Corcoran after his death in 1925, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York turned it down.
Not for sale are paintings made by Clark herself. Those will go to a new Bellosguardo Foundation for the arts, to be set up at her summer estate in Santa Barbara, Calif. The foundation received her oceanfront property by that name, worth at least $85 million.

With only about $5 million in cash — an exact amount still to be determined — the foundation will have to choose a mission and figure out how to fund it. It could become a public museum, or the house could be sold to fund the foundation's charitable efforts. The board members will be appointed, probably by this summer, by the New York attorney general; most will be nominated by the mayor of Santa Barbara.
The foundation also will receive Clark's collection of dolls, mostly from France, Germany and Japan, as well as  dollhouses and model Japanese castles she designed, altogether worth an estimated $1.7 million.

Clark's jewelry collection was sold at Christie's in 2012, bringing $18 million to provide cash to keep her estate running during the dispute. Her three apartments on Fifth Avenue sold for a total of $54.8 million. Her Connecticut home, unoccupied since she bought it in 1951, remains on the market at $15.9 million.

Bill Dedman is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller "Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune." The co-author is Paul Clark Newell Jr., Huguette Clark's cousin, who was not involved in the legal contest for her estate.

Paintings made by the shy artist Huguette Clark will not be sold at auction, but will go to the new Bellosguardo Foundation for the arts, at her California home. This self-portrait is from the late 1920s.




One painting shown in the news article, which is said to have been painted by Clark herself, looks like a very good professional quality work to me. She was more than just a wealthy collector. She also, the article said, designed model Japanese castles and collected dolls. Shy and reclusive, she spent her last 20 years in a hospital room. She apparently willed most of her money to her nurse and doctor, along with her lawyer. The book by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr. is one that I would like to read, which may be available at my public library. I don't want to have to buy it – art books are prohibitively expensive.







'Devil frog' sported anti-dinosaur body armor, scientists say – NBC
Tia Ghose LiveScience


A new computer model for Beelzebufo ampinga's skeleton incorporates fossil specimens marked in dark blue. The scale bar at lower right marks roughly an inch in length.

An ancient, predatory creature known as the devil frog may have looked even scarier than previously thought.
The monster frog, Beelzebufo ampinga, lived during the Cretaceous Period in what is now Africa, and sported spiky flanges protruding from the back of its skull and platelike armor down its back, almost like a turtle shell.

"We knew it was big; we knew it was almost certainly predatory," said study co-author Susan Evans, a paleontologist at the University College London. "What the new material has shown us is that it was even more heavily armored than we imagined."
The massive frog's spiked body armor may have helped it fend off the dinosaurs and crocodiles that prowled during that time. [See Photos of the Devil Frog and Other Freaky Frogs]

Elusive lineage
The researchers first discovered a few bone fragments from a mystery frog in Madagascar in 1998, but it wasn't until 2008 that they had enough pieces to identify the species, which they dubbed the devil frog, or Beelzebufo ampinga. The massive frog lived between 70 million and 65 million years ago.
When the team analyzed the frog's morphology, they found that physically, it fit in with a family of horned frogs called the Ceratophryidae, which are now found only in South America.

But to reach Madagascar from South America, the frogs would have needed to hop along a passageway, possibly through Antarctica, that linked the two landmasses. But that route was submerged underwater by 112 million years ago, Evans said.
That would mean that devil frogs must have diverged from their South American cousins prior to that submergence, pushing back the origin of Ceratophryidae by more than 40 million years, Evans said.

More specimens
Over the course of the next five years, the team found several more bone fragments of Beelzebufo ampinga. In the new study, they combined all of the fragments to do a much more complete reconstruction of the devil frog.

The new analysis confirms the frog's lineage in the Ceratophryidae family. It also downgrades the amphibian's size — instead of being the biggest frog that ever lived, it may be closer to the size of an African bullfrog, which grows to about 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) across.

Even so, the analysis reveals that the devil frog was even fiercer-looking than previously thought. Past studies had suggested it had a huge, globular head as well as sharp teeth and short back legs. But the spiky flanges and the plates embedded in its skin were a surprising discovery.

The frogs may have hunted like African bullfrogs, hiding before pouncing on a small mammal.

It's not clear what the frogs used the body armor for, but one possibility is that the sculptured bones may have been an adaptation to a dry environment that allowed the frogs to burrow underground, where they were less likely to bake in the hot sun, Evans said.

But the armor may also have been protection.
"There were an awful lot of things roaming around that would have liked a bite out of a big, juicy frog," such as dinosaurs, crocodiles and even strange mammals that once lived on the Gondwana supercontinent, Evans told LiveScience.



A common bull frog is in that range of size, which is of course found all over the American south as well as apparently in Africa. A closely related species is in South America, according to this article, so I assume they must have teeth, too. Most frogs don't have teeth, I don't think, but they are all predators in that they at least eat insects. Eating small mammals is another matter. They must be able to open their mouths very widely. The South American horned frog mentioned in the article is also colored brightly rather than green and the frog grows directly from its egg without a tadpole stage in between. See the article referenced in the news clip at http://www.livescience.com/12881-ria-110211.html for more details on the South American frog.

Thursday, January 30,. 2014


News Clips For The Day



Super Bowl surge in sex trafficking? Maybe not, but issue grabs the spotlight – NBC

By Monica Alba, NBC News

The idea of helping sex-trafficking victims came to Theresa Flores when she was naked and freezing on the floor of a motel bathroom, after being gang-raped by at least 10 men, maybe more. She says she lost count when she passed out from the pain.  
Decades later, Flores, a sex-trafficking survivor, has made good on her promise to herself. The founder of SOAP, or Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, is trying to make at least a small dent in a national problem this week with a modest act: distributing bars of soap with the National Human Trafficking Hotline number on the wrapping to hotels and motels in New York and New Jersey.

“There are three things in every motel: a Bible, toilet paper and soap,” said Flores. “Every girl cleans up after every man and it’s often the only time she’s allowed alone. Who knows? The soap could be the difference. I wish there had been one in that motel room all those years ago.”

Flores, 48, is making her rounds because the Super Bowl will be held on Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J., and many of the fans will stay in New York before and after the game. Her presence is just one indication of the unwelcome role football’s marquee event has assumed in the debate over sex trafficking and prostitution.
Some experts and organizations that advocate for sex-trafficking victims and/or prostitutes say that big sporting events like the Super Bowl provide a major boost to the illicit businesses by providing a ready-made customer base. That view gained ground after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott labeled the game the “single-largest human-trafficking incident in the United States” in 2011, when it was held in his state. 

Bars of soap, with the phone number for the national human trafficking hotline on them, are being distributed to hotels and motels in New York and New Jersey.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie indicated on Wednesday that the law enforcement is taking seriously the possibility of an influx of prostitution and sex trafficking surrounding the game.

"We are only a few days away from the Super Bowl. A time where sex trafficking is at a high risk," he said in the first of a series of tweets, shortly before appearing at an anti-sex-trafficking news conference in Bergen County, N.J., with Cindy McCain, wife of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, and others.

"So to anyone out there that is even thinking about it. Don't even try it. We have eyes and ears on the ground and on the web."
And finally: 
If you do try it, expect to be caught. And when you are caught, expect to be prosecuted.
— Governor Christie (@GovChristie) January 29, 2014

But other victim advocacy groups reject and resent this characterization. Among them is the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, which produced a 2011 report that concluded there is no evidence indicating that major sporting events result in increased sex trafficking. On the contrary, it speculated that anti-prostitution campaigners were actually promoting the connection to force authorities to crack down on the sex trade.

Many advocacy groups draw a sharp line between prostitution and sex-trafficking, referring to adult prostitutes working on their own as “sex workers” and contrasting them with those pushed to provide commercial sex through force, fraud or coercion.

Flores is among those who believe big sporting events do draw more sex-trafficking victims and that Sunday’s game provides an opportunity to reach at least a few who may find the soap she and others leave behind and call the hotline to be rescued.
Flores started SOAP decades after her ordeal in the motel room, which occurred when she was only 16 years old.

Flores tells a familiar story about her descent into the trade. She said it began when she was date raped at 15 by a classmate in an upscale suburb of Detroit, who drugged her and took illicit photos. He then blackmailed her by telling her she would have to have sex with other men to buy back the photos, she said. Flores said she never told her family or police during the two years she was forced to have sex for money, because she worried that she would get in trouble. By the time she did tell someone, the statute of limitations to prosecute her assailants had long since expired.

Toshia Kimbler, a SOAP volunteer and herself a sex-trafficking victim, said she understands Flores’ silence, since she, too, was trafficked by someone she knew and initially trusted. Later, though there were chances to escape or call the police, she thought her captor would kill her if she did.

“What many people don’t realize,” Kimbler said, “is that it’s not your body that’s enslaved. It’s your mind.”

Kimbler, who was trafficked for almost 10 years, said she also knows first-hand that the sports and sex-trafficking connection is real, as she was shuttled around to big events in cities such as Chicago, Boston and New York.
“For all I know, I could have been at a Super Bowl, but we were rarely told anything,” she recalls.

Now, Kimbler, a former SOAP employee who now volunteers while attending college full-time, and Flores travel all around the U.S., attending events like the Detroit Auto Show, the Final Four, NASCAR races and the national Democratic or Republican Conventions. Flores will also be traveling to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June for the World Cup, marking the organization’s first international outreach effort.  

On Sunday afternoon, Flores, Kimbler and hundreds of other volunteers gathered in the frigid cold in Paramus, N.J., before fanning out to distribute thousands of bars of soap to hotels and motels, along with missing children posters and pamphlets outlining the telltale signs of human trafficking.

That way, even if a sex-trafficking victim doesn’t call the hotline, a hotel or motel owner might call if they witness any suspicious activity when guests check in – like someone who doesn’t speak for themselves, isn’t in control of their own identification or has no luggage.

More soap and posters will be distributed in New York hotels and motels this week and by game time, Flores estimates, 100,000 bars of soap will have been handed out in the two states.

But if past Super Bowls are any indication, the dividends from their efforts at outreach will be small.
At the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis, SOAP distributed 40,000 bars of soap at 200 hotels.
Meantime, back-page ads for commercial sex in local alternative newspapers went from an average of 22 before the event to 269 the week of the game, it said. And only two trafficking victims were identified and recovered, according to the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.

But the increase in awareness that comes from efforts like SOAP’s is worthwhile, said Clemmie Greenlee, a sex-trafficking survivor who now works at Eden House in New Orleans, site of last year’s Super Bowl. 

“I don’t have anything against the Super Bowl. I’m a football fan myself but I need people to know this is one of the greatest activities going on at the Super Bowl,” said Greenlee, who says she also remembers being moved around for large events, including doctors and lawyers conferences.

And the awareness may also keep some traffickers at home, said Rachel Lloyd, who runs a New York nonprofit called GEMS.

“Pimps read the news and watch TV too,” said Lloyd, another sex-trafficking survivor. “When you start talking about thousands of law enforcement out there, pimps know there’s a lot of increased focus on the Super Bowl so can people then point to a lack of numbers as being prevention? Not really. They just didn’t come to your city.”
Bradley Myles, the CEO of the Polaris Project, a nonprofit founded to combat human trafficking and “modern-day slavery,” said better data is needed to establish the scope of the problem – both in the U.S. and around the world. But he said no one should think that human trafficking is only a problem at big events like the Super Bowl.

“I think that it’s important to strike a balance. On the one hand, it’s absolutely true that this is a 365-day-a-year issue and community preparedness and community mobilization needs to happen 365 days a year,” he said. “On the other hand, if people are more likely to get involved through the catalyst of some large rallying point like the Super Bowl, I think some good can come out of that.” 




I had heard of “white slavery” but I didn't realize the extent of it, nor the degree of business organization that is involved. Apparently, wherever large numbers of men are gathered together – even doctors and lawyers conferences, this article said – there is an uptick on ads offering sex and the women are brought in to the location to be available to men.

The number of those women who are captives rather than voluntary participants is also a shocker. In several of these stories girls started out in their teens and were afraid to break away and go to the police. In one case a classmate raped the girl and enmeshed her in the white slavery organization. Teenaged boys are advanced in the kinds of mischief they do these days, I see.

I'm very glad that this SOAP organization will actually come and rescue women upon request. That's even better than simply encouraging them to go to the police if there is any danger of being arrested on charges of prostitution. Of course if they go to the police they can be witnesses against the pimps, and Gov. Christie's NJ police are alert to the problem, giving aid to the women rather than arresting them. Hopefully the crime of being a pimp, or worse, a trafficker, is enough to put the criminals in prison for a number of years. It would be interesting to hear how many arrests are made at the Super Bowl this year. I'll look for articles about it.




92 nuclear missile officers implicated in cheating scandal, Air Force says – NBC
By Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube and Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News

The number of nuclear missile launch officers under investigation for allegations of cheating has ballooned to 92, the Air Force said Thursday.

The new total is nearly three times the initial 34 officers who were implicated in the scandal and nearly one-fifth of the force. The officers have been taken off their missile wing duties during the investigation into the cheating, which happened during a key proficiency exam, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said at a Pentagon news briefing.

Of the 92, 40 are suspected of actually cheating by obtaining answers in advance of the test; the remaining 52 were allegedly aware of the cheating, but failed to report it to superiors.  

"The situation remains completely acceptable," James told reporters. 
Officials have stressed that there has been no change in the overall nuclear mission and no degradation of the U.S. nuclear capability.

"This is a failure of integrity, not a failure of the mission," James said Thursday.
The original officers in the probe, all assigned to the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, are accused of apparently texting answers to each other, or knew that the cheating was going on and didn't report it, according to officials.

The monthly exam tested the officers' knowledge of the missile launch systems. It was administered in August and September 2013.

Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh said earlier this month the officers shared the exam "electronically.” Text messages were involved, he said. He would not expand on the exact circumstances of the alleged cheating, citing an ongoing investigation.

The investigation into the cheating ring was announced on Jan. 15 by the Air Force.
The 341st Missile Wing provides security for 150 nuclear-armed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, one third of the entire ICBM force. James said there is no evidence of similar cheating at the other two nuclear missile bases, F.E. Warren in Wyoming and Minot in North Dakota.

Just two days ago, a U.S. military official told NBC News the number of officers under allegations had nearly doubled.

James, who is the service's top civilian official, said Thursday that the systemic micromanagement in the nuclear force has created "undue stress and fear," and that situation at Malmstrom was "not a healthy environment." 

She has said that the alleged cheating at Malmstrom was discovered during a previously announced probe of drug possession by 11 officers at several bases. Initially, that probe only included 10 officers.




It is surprising that, though this is a monthly test, there are still enough men worried about their scores to cheat. They should know the information after awhile; if not, our nuclear readiness is indeed in danger. No other bases had problems, the article said, and the situation there is “not a healthy environment,” caused by “micromanaging.” Sounds like they should fire those managers and bring in some new ones. They probably will, since this has become such a big news story. I'm sure the Air Force is embarrassed enough to do that.





Female politician says victims' behavior plays role in India gang-rape attacks – NBC

By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

A female Indian politician and member of the "women's commission" sparked fury by saying that gang-rape victims may have invited attacks with their clothes and behavior.

"Rapes take place also because of a woman's clothes, her behavior and her presence at inappropriate places," Asha Mirje, who is a member of the state women's commission, said at a Tuesday meeting, local media reported.

She also questioned whether a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, who died after being gang-raped on a bus in the capital New Delhi, really needed to go out to a movie at 11 p.m.

Thousands of people took to the streets in nationwide protests against rape and sexual assault after the attack, for which four men were sentenced to death last year. 
Mirje, the Nationalist Congres
s Party (NCP) leader in western Maharashtra state, also commented on the case of photojournalist who was gang-raped in Mumbai last year, asking, "Why did the victim go to such an isolated spot at 6 p.m.?"
Women, she explained, must be "careful" and must consider whether they are leaving themselves open to assault. 

Her comments prompted fury from both politicians and activists, who called for her resignation or removal from her post on the women’s commission.   
"Every time such a statement is made by a public figure it justifies rape," Kavita Krishnan, secretary of lobby group All India Progressive Women's Association, told Reuters. "It's unconscionable that people in public posts make such remarks."  

Rupa Kulkarni, leader of domestic workers in the state, told the Hindustan Times that Mirje had "no moral right to continue on the post as she is biased against women."

NCP spokesman Nawab Malik said Mirje had apologized for her comments, which did not represent the views of the party.
"As far as the party is concerned she has said sorry and the issued is closed," he said.   

Assaults have tarnished the reputation of the world's largest democracy, where police said last week that village elders ordered the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman after they found out she was in a relationship with a man from a different community. 
A Danish tourist also told police she was gang-raped, beaten and robbed after getting lost in the heart of New Delhi earlier this month. 



"As far as the party is concerned she has said sorry and the issued is closed," he said. These differences between societal groups in India and other highly conservative societies – “conservative” meaning resistant to rethinking and change – keep social issues involving second-class people from becoming fairly and legally adjudicated. Women, in this case, are still second-class, even in the US. Men in India who were not paid their bride price because the bride's family was too poor, physically assaulted the bride, especially burning them, not many years ago there. There was a rash of those events in the news, just like the recent gang-rapes. A rape is a crime, but a gang-rape is an organized assault of major proportions.

In the southern USA there were lynchings of black people not too long ago and attempts to disenfranchise them are still ongoing by Republicans in a cynical attempt to remove Democrats from the voting rosters. That's what I mean by “I hate conservative thinking.” It leads to severe injustice and is basically caused by a relatively rigid class and social system. We can go to the polls and vote and sometimes even demonstrate in the streets for a cause, but until these things stop happening we are not a free country.






Scarlett Johansson quits Oxfam over SodaStream criticism – NBC
Duncan Golestani NBC News


LONDON — Actress Scarlett Johansson has quit her role with the charity Oxfam after it criticized her promotion of drinks company SodaStream, which has a factory in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The star is due to appear in a commercial for SodaStream during the Super Bowl on Sunday. Oxfam said the actress’ role global ambassador was incompatible with her promotion of SodaStream. 

In a statement released on Wednesday, Johansson’s spokesman wrote, "She and Oxfam have a fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement."

Oxfam on Thursday noted in a statement on its website that it has accepted the "Her" star's resignation, and said it is "grateful for her many contributions" during her eight years working with them.

Fox, which is airing the Super Bowl, has banned her uncensored ad because the commercial for the at-home soda maker takes a swipe at Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi is sponsoring the halftime show. SodaStream's CEO has said the line, "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi," will be removed from the ad.

Israel-based drinks company SodaStream has its largest factory in Maale Adumim, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law, and Oxfam has a policy of opposing trade with those areas. 
The West Bank factory employs both Palestinians and Israelis. SodaStream cites it as an example of the two peoples working side-by-side. "Approximately 500 Palestinians work at our Mishor Adumim facility, supporting several thousand people and their families," Yonah Lloyd, chief corporate development and communications officer for SodaStream, said in a statement to NBC News.

The issues of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is central to U.S.-brokered peace talks that have been ongoing since July. Around 350,000 Jews live in settlements which the Palestinians claim as part of a future state. 



I basically sympathize with the Israelis, because the Arabs of all stripes are hard set against their presence in the Middle East as a nation. However, they have persisted in opening more settlements in Palestine rather than being willing to negotiate the use of land there, and they should put a stop to that in order to attain a peaceful solution there. The whole world needs it. Even the Jews would be better off.






Quick new approach catches scary diseases, CDC says – NBC
Maggie Fox NBC News


In just six months, a pilot program to help Uganda watch out for deadly new health threats such as Ebola helped officials catch cases of West Nile virus, Zika virus, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus, hepatitis E virus, and a bacteria that causes dangerous meningitis, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

They say the results justify programs to help developing countries beef up their disease surveillance programs — to protect them and to protect people in the United States.

“We are all connected by the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe, and stopping outbreaks where they start is the most effective and the least costly way to save lives,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC News.

“And it’s the right thing to do.”
New diseases such as bird flu and Ebola popped up seemingly out of nowhere, and continue to flare up in unexpected places. In one of the most recent surprises, a Canadian traveler died of H5N1 after she returned home from a long trip to China. “It does just emphasize that we are all connected — that a virus anywhere in the world is just a plane ride away,” Frieden said.

It’s of constant concern with thousands expected to travel to the Olympics in Sochi, Russia next month and billions of people in east Asia traveling to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

West Nile virus likely hitched a ride on a jumbo jet, for instance. It quickly took hold in the New York City borough of Queens when it first appeared in 1999 and has now spread across the country to infect more than 37,000 people at last count, killing more than 1,500 of them. 

But it was SARS that got the attention of world leaders. Severe acute respiratory syndrome arose in China and spread around the world in the space of a few months in 2003, infecting close to 8,000 people and killing nearly 800 before it was stopped. Public health experts said catching new viruses like that more quickly would save lives, and a lot of money. “SARS cost over $30 billion in just two months,” Frieden said.

CDC experts, working with local governments and health officials, set up two demonstration projects to see if it would be possible to scale up an effective surveillance and response network quickly. They chose Uganda, where Ebola and AIDS are both threats, and Vietnam, where H5N1 bird flu, cholera and enterovirus 71, which causes hand, foot and mouth diseases, all circulate.

Frieden says he was especially impressed with what the project in Uganda was able to accomplish between March and September of last year, building on work being done by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

“The Uganda Ministry of Health and CDC implemented upgrades in three areas: 1) strengthening the public health laboratory system by increas­ing the capacity of diagnostic and specimen referral networks, 2) enhancing the existing communications and information systems for outbreak response, and 3) developing a public health emergency operations center,” the team reports in this week’s issue of CDC’s weekly report on illness and death.

“Analysis of samples has led to confirmation of cases of infection with West Nile virus, Zika virus (a relative of dengue virus) , Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, hepatitis E virus, Neisseria meningitides (which cases bacterial meningitis) and multidrug-resistant (including extensively drug-resistant) M. tuberculosis.”
It should be a model for other programs, CDC said. “In less than a year, they were able to transform the system,” Frieden said.

Right now, world health officials are keeping an eye on dozens of potentially dangerous new pathogens, from H7N9 bird flu in China, to the MERS virus in the Middle East. “For the Chinese New year there are more than 3 billion trips that will be taken in China,” Frieden said. “We are in the middle of a surge of H7N9 flu and we anticipate that there will be more cases as people travel in buses and have more exposure to poultry.” 

China has restricted poultry markets in some areas but more than 200 cases of H7N9 have been reported since October and more than 250 in total since H7N9 was first spotted around a year ago. Middle East respiratory virus, or MERS, has infected nearly 200 people since September of 2012 and killed at least 75. The worry is that either or both could acquire the ability to spread easily from person to person. Then they’d almost certainly spread quickly, causing a pandemic.

And there’s always something even newer, like a virus that killed two teenagers in Congo in 2009 that looked like rabies, but killed like Ebola. 




The CDC doctors are heroes by any measure. Even as our known antibiotics become ineffective, there are new diseases appearing. “Looks like rabies, but kills like Ebola.” That must be a very bad one. We think of these pandemics happening in third world countries, but of course they could happen here, especially in highly concentrated and often poor populations like New York City and Los Angeles. I pray that I don't live to see one of these here. Our hospitals can only handle so many patients at a time, and medicines would run out. I hope our congressmen don't decide to cut the funds to these necessary parts of the government. Surely they have too much intelligence to do that.





Obama touts manufacturing on road tour
By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

President Barack Obama talked up manufacturing jobs as a worthwhile pursuit for young people, even after the struggles weathered by U.S. industry in recent years.

President Barack Obama signs a memorandum on job training after speaking at the General Electric Waukesha Gas Engines facility on January 30, 2014 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Taking his State of the Union message on the road to Wisconsin, the president talked up skilled trades, and signed a directive to have Vice President Joe Biden lead a comprehensive review of federal job training programs.

"Not all of today’s good jobs need a four-year degree. But the ones that don’t need a college degree do need some specialized training," Obama said at a General Electric gas engine factory in Waukesha, Wis.

"A lot of parents, unfortunately, maybe when they saw a lot of manufacturing being offshored, told their kids you don’t want to go into the trades, you don’t want to go into manufacturing because you’ll lose your job," Obama further explained. "Well, the problem is that a lot of young people don’t see the skilled trades and manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks make a lot more – potentially – with the skilled trades and manufacturing than with an art history degree."

The president otherwise reiterated some of the highlights from his speech on Tuesday, speaking about education, equal pay for women and a higher minimum wage. The president will touch upon similar themes when he visits Tennessee later this afternoon. Thursday's trip marked the second day of Obama's post-State of the Union tour.



I'm glad to see him talking about manufacturing jobs, because in the past many or maybe most of the so-called “Middle Class” people in the US have not been doctors and lawyers, but plumbers, carpenters and assembly line workers. Especially in a Union Shop, it is a fine old tradition.

Besides, a kid who barely reads at grade level by the 12th grade is not going to succeed in college, where he will get 20 or more pages of reading assigned at each class, so he had better be prepared to study something else. Most people with that turn of mind are not really interested in Liberal Arts or scientific subjects, which require a theoretical turn of mind, anyway. They want to be a football player or a race car driver when they dream of a bright future. People are all different and, for the most part, if they find their niche they will be okay.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014


News Clips For The Day



Six things we learned from the State of the Union – NBC
By Carrie Dann, NBC News

President Barack Obama may have made sweeping statements about his unfinished agenda on Tuesday night, but, when it came to specifics, the president used a scalpel rather than an axe when delivering his State of the Union message. 

The president put forward a series of relatively modest policy proposals that offered plenty for Democrats, but suggested little in the way of legacy-making ambitions. And he pulled some punches when it came to big ticket items like immigration and voting rights. 

Here are six takeaways from the big night: 

Carrots and sticks : It’s no secret that the president is frustrated with Republicans in Congress, whose resistance has foiled his plans for everything from immigration reform to the extension of long-term unemployment insurance. That exasperation was more than apparent in some parts of Obama’s speech, but he also urged cooperation and an optimistic outlook for solving the gridlock. Opponents likely heard his tone as patronizing and pained; fans probably heard patience and maturity. He sternly chided Republicans for the government shutdown and poked fun at Obamacare repeal efforts, but he also gave congressional Republicans wide berth on the issue of immigration and lauded conservative for backing voting rights reforms.  He devoted time to issues like patent reform and new trade proposals, things that many Republicans might be willing to play ball on. 

Looking to 2014 : As his party prepares for tough midterm elections, Obama offered plenty of items -- outside of Obamacare -- that Democrats can run on in 2014. He promoted access to education and improvements to international trade (without the controversial specifics that some in his party dislike). With lines like “Give America a raise” and “It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a ‘Mad Men’ episode,” he created instant, stump-ready sound bites to plug a minimum wage hike and wage fairness for women. And he mentioned “opportunity” 12 times, underscoring Democrats’ message of economic fairness.  Aside from ongoing discomfort over proposed Iran sanctions that Obama says he will veto, there wasn’t much in this speech for Democrats to dislike. 

But, mostly small ball : While Obama did make sweeping statements about issues like climate change and gun violence -- hardly fertile areas for bipartisan compromise in an election year -- most of Obama’s “concrete, practical proposals” to help the economy were small in scope. Projects to improve access to broadband, create retirement savings bonds and reform federal training programs aren’t exactly sexy, even if they could positively impact many Americans’ lives. He repeated earlier declarations that he will use executive actions to bypass Congress -- including on guns, saying “America does not stand still -- and neither will I.”  But  the most specific executive proposals he laid out just weren’t the stuff of which headlines are made. 

Advertising, not apologizing, on Obamacare: After the disastrous launch of the HealthCare.Gov site last year, Obama held a lengthy and almost agonized press conference to apologize for the rollout. But that conciliatory tone was gone Tuesday night, with the president instead taking the opportunity of the big television audience to push Americans -- particularly young people -- to sign up for Obamacare. “Moms, get on your kids to sign up.  Kids, call your mom and walk her through the application,” he said. “It will give her some peace of mind – plus, she’ll appreciate hearing from you.”  He didn’t exactly treat GOP opponents of Obamacare with kid gloves either, urging them against more votes to outright repeal his signature domestic achievement. “The first forty were plenty. We got it.  We all owe it to the American people to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against,” he said. 

A gentle approach on immigration : As House Republicans prepare to consider a set of “principles” on the issue this week, Obama devoted only a paragraph of his 20-page speech to the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, his top second-term domestic agenda item. The brief mention -- devoid of any specifics about his priorities on how to treat undocumented immigrants inside the country’s borders -- may disappoint some pro-immigration activists. But Obama was also careful not to complicate the efforts of House GOP leaders to find a solution -- if there is one -- that can appease most Republicans and still make it to the president’s desk.


A transcendent moment for an American hero : The most memorable moment of the State of the Union, by far, was Obama’s callout to Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg, a wounded veteran who was a guest of First Lady Michelle Obama. The lengthy and emotional standing ovation from every person in the chamber provided one powerful data point to back up Obama’s message that unity is still sometimes possible. But it also made the annual pomp and circumstance around what was a very modest State of the Union feel awfully small.



“Opponents likely heard his tone as patronizing and pained; fans probably heard patience and maturity.” “he also gave congressional Republicans wide berth on the issue of immigration and lauded conservative for backing voting rights reforms.” “He devoted time to issues like patent reform and new trade proposals, things that many Republicans might be willing to play ball on.” “to plug a minimum wage hike and wage fairness for women.” “Projects to improve access to broadband, create retirement savings bonds and reform federal training programs....”

The trouble with the State Of The Union address is that it's so long, however the above snippets highlight the news coverage on it. I first would like to say that I do really like the tendency that Obama has most of the time – he has occasionally made some sharp and pointed comments about various things – to be diplomatic, patient and “mature.” Maturity is something I really love to see, and is something that Biden, though he is usually very cute and entertaining, sometimes fails to show.

Voting rights – I'm glad to see that Obama thinks the Republicans have been behind voting rights reform, but I don't trust them not to make the voting rights more restrictive rather than more inclusive and fair. I know in Florida the Republican- ruled legislature has tended to insist on things like removing felons from the roles of voters after they are out of prison for a certain period of time and then failing to notify them that they could go and sign up to vote again, so those people have to be very careful to protect their rights. Many felons in Florida are black or Hispanic and also tend to vote Democratic, so the Republicans have effectively removed many Democrats from the list of registered voters. Likewise with the rule that ID must be a picture ID like a driver's license or even worse, requiring also a birth certificate. Many black people don't own cars and have never gone to the Tax Collector's office to get an official government ID. They are afraid of Democrats “stuffing the ballot box,” or illegal immigrants registering to vote, though there have been very few proven cases of that actually happening.

Minimum wage hikes and extensions or equal pay for women are things that the “conservatives” always fight. Being the party of big business, they are trying to please their constituency. They used to argue that men need more money because they have a wife and children to support, but when it is pointed out that many women are raising several children on their own with no husband, many Republicans argue that those women should get married! Bah!

Retirement Savings Bonds is not something I've heard before, and it sounds like it might make saving easier, since government savings bonds of the World War II era, at any rate, cost relatively little and matured to be worth a good deal more. Hopefully bonds will be issued again. There is a need for more plans to help people save for their retirement. I think employer plans are good, but it is possible for a person to cash their retirement plan out ahead of time and thus not have it when it is time to retire, plus many employers simply don't give any retirement plans. When finances get tight, it is tempting to cash their retirement out early. If the employee has been a long time federal government employee they probably won't have much money in the Social Security fund, so they are really up the creek without a paddle.

State of the Union messages are always so hopeful and full off clapping and standing ovations that it is possible to think that everybody there are completely happy with the actual state of the nation and the president's report, but when it's over the opposing party always gives their take on things with the aim to cut the president down. If you look closely, too, you can see that the standing ovations don't include everybody in the audience, with the opposing party grimly keeping their seats and with grimaces on some faces. I always watch it because I feel it's my duty, but my attempts to absorb all of it always fail. My mind begins to go blank before it's all over. It's just too long. Thank God for intrepid news reporters and analysts who will keep track of every point and present them for me to read!





Weatherman Jim Cantore wards off on-air ambush – NBC

By Alexander Smith, NBC News contributor

Meteorologist Jim Cantore has had to report on air while enduring some pretty extreme conditions. But during a broadcast from South Carolina’s College of Charleston on Tuesday night the weatherman was faced with an entirely different adversary when a young man ran up to him in the middle of a live broadcast.

Faced with an enthusiastic assailant who was letting out a lighthearted battle cry, Cantore didn't miss a beat, sticking out his knee and warding off the would-be ambusher.

Cantore was reporting for The Weather Channel on the rare winter storm which has caused chaos across a large part of the Deep South.
"Obviously, here at the College of Charleston, they are already having a good time," Cantore said, slightly perturbed but none the worse for wear.



Snow – we love it and we hate it. Nothing is more magical than a sky full of snow flakes. It's dizzying to see them falling toward us. I don't have that in Jacksonville, FL and I miss it. If we have to have cold weather, and we do, we should have beauty, too. Even freezing rain creates beauty, with the tree branches covered in crystal clear ice – they look like they're carved from glass. Yet snow and ice cause many automobile accidents and the weight of the ice pulls down power lines and tree branches. This year one of the northern mayors was on the news saying that his city had almost run out of their year's stockpile of salt already. They will have nothing when it snows again. But the snow has remained north of the Georgia border so far this year. Maybe I'll get a few flakes of snow before this unusually cold winter is over.





Jonathan Martin says he 'felt trapped' in Dolphins' locker room – NBC

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

In his first interview since leaving the Miami Dolphins, NFL tackle Jonathan Martin says he felt "trapped" by bullying and decided it was best "just to remove myself from the situation."

"I'm a man. I'm a grown man. I've been in locker rooms. There's vulgar language in locker rooms," Martin told Football Night in America’s Tony Dungy in the exclusive sitdown.

"One instance doesn't bother me," Martin said of his former teammates' behavior. "It's the persistence of it. I wish I would have had more tools to solve my situation . . . but I didn't.

"I felt trapped like I didn't have a way to make it right. And it came down to the point where, you know, I thought it was best just to remove myself from the situation."

An excerpt of the interview aired on the Nightly News on Tuesday, and there will be more on TODAY on Wednesday. The full interview airs on NBCSN's “Pro Football Talk” on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. ET. 

Martin, 24, who started playing for the Dolphins in 2012, left the team on Oct. 28, alleging he was harassed by teammates, including guard Richie Incognito, who was accused of leaving a voicemail with racial slurs and expletives.

Incognito, 30, was suspended Nov. 3 in the wake of the bullying scandal and has not played while an NFL probe, led by special investigator Ted Wells, is ongoing.
Martin's lawyer, David Cornwell, has said that his client "endured harassment that went far beyond the traditional locker room hazing."

“For the entire season-and-a-half that he was with the Dolphins, he attempted to befriend the same teammates who subjected him to the abuse with the hope that doing so would end the harassment. This is a textbook reaction of victims of bullying," Cornwell said in a statement in November.

"Despite these efforts, the taunting continued. Beyond the well-publicized voice mail with its racial epithet, Jonathan endured a malicious physical attack on him by a teammate, and daily vulgar comments."

Incognito, who is white, has said he's embarrassed about leaving the voicemail for Martin, who is African American, but insisted it was not malicious.
“I’m embarrassed by my actions. But what I want people to know is, the way Jonathan and the rest of the offensive line and how our teammates, how we communicate, it’s vulgar. It’s, it’s not right,” Incognito said in a November interview with Fox Sports.

“I understand why a lot of eyebrows get raised, but people don’t know how Jon and I communicate to one another,” he added.

He said that Martin had sent him a text that said, in an apparent joke, "I will murder your whole effing family.” Cornwell said that Martin has simply forwarded Incognito a widely disseminated Internet meme.

Wells has interviewed Martin, Incognito and others from the Dolphins — but it's unknown when his report on the scandal will be released.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross meanwhile, said on Tuesday that he's spoken with the NFL and Wells about the report, and he's proud of the way the team handled the situation.
"I have an idea what will be in it," Ross said while speaking at a news conference to introduce the Dolphins' new general manager. "I haven't seen the report. I don't know exactly what his conclusion is. When it comes out, we'll do what has to be done. In my mind, I know what direction we're going ... The respect that we gained by how we handled the situation that took place here says a lot about this organization and the people that are running it."

Incognito becomes a free agent this winter. When asked if he or Martin will play for the Dolphins again, Ross was coy.
"I don't believe so — well, I can't say that," Ross said, adding with a chuckle, "Therefore I retract that." 




There is too much roughness in general in many professional sports. In an earlier article on the Martin affair it was stated that a coach had actually told Incognito to lean on Martin – they felt that he was not training and playing as hard and competitively as they wanted. I saw the Martin interview on NBC news, and Martin is a well-spoken and intelligent man. He may have qualms about bashing his head against another player, or receiving those hits himself. There has been a lot on the news about concussions and the long-term brain damage it causes. Maybe he is too intelligent to play football. I hope he goes back to college and gets an advanced degree to work in another field.






Scientists make a new type of stem cell, using a little acid – NBC
Maggie Fox NBC News


Japanese researchers have created a new type of stem cell just by pressuring normal cells in the body. This image shows a mouse embryo created using these cells, which are genetically engineered to glow green.

Scientists have made a whole new type of stem cell using little more than a little acid, and they say it may represent a way to skip all the complex and controversial steps that it now takes to make cells to regenerate tissues and organs.

The team in Japan includes some of the foremost experts in making what are called pluripotent stem cells — master cells that have the power to morph into any type of cells, from blood to bone to muscle. These master cells look and act like an embryo right after conception and, like a days-old embryo, have the power to generate new tissue of any type.

Making these powerful cells usually requires the use of embryos — something many disapprove of — or tricky mixtures of genes to turn back the clock.

While there’s not an immediate use for the discovery, it could add to the arsenal of tools that scientists can use in trying to find ways to repair the human body, the team reports in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

“It is also exciting to think about the new possibilities this finding offers, not only in areas like regenerative medicine but also perhaps in the study of senescence and cancer as well,” Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, told reporters in a conference call.

Obokata’s team worked with mice, and found they could get ordinary cells from baby mice to turn into pluripotent stem cells by bathing them in a slightly acidic solution. They call them stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP, cells.

Other stem cells experts praised the work. “These breakthroughs are so impressive and potentially powerful — truly another dramatic game-changer,” said Dr. Gerald Schatten, a stem cell and genetic engineering expert at the University of Pittsburgh.
“If reproducible in humans, this will be a paradigm changer," said Dr. Robert Lanza of Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology, a company developing stem cell-based treatments. 

“It also tells us that normal body cells have an amazing latent capacity, and raises the question ‘what else can our body's cells do under stress?’ That being said, there are a lot of things that work in mice that don't work in humans.”

Stem cells are the body’s master cells, and they’re found all through the body. But usually, they’re differentiated — on a clear road to become blood, or muscle, or nerve, with no turning back. These so-called adult stem cells are most commonly used to replace bone marrow in treating cancer.

What scientists want to do is start with a blank slate, taking cells from a patient that matches his or her DNA perfectly, and growing fresh bone marrow transplants, skin grafts or organs that could treat people without the fear of rejection.
One way to do this is to do what’s called therapeutic cloning — using someone’s cells to make a very early embryo and then harvesting those cells. But it’s almost impossible to do in people and extremely controversial because many people consider the process tantamount to creating a human life and then destroying it.

Scientists found another way to make similar cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) from ordinary pieces of human skin by injecting the genes that make a cell behave like an embryonic stem cell. But this process also isn’t straightforward or trouble-free.

Obokata and colleagues tried something far simpler and less complicated. They tried stressing cells to see what might happen. The idea comes from nature — crocodile eggs develop into either males or females based on temperature, for instance.

Less than half an hour in a slightly acidic solution turned mouse blood cells back into a stem-cell-like state. They injected these new cells into growing mouse embryos and the news cells mixed all through the growing fetal mouse, creating what’s called a chimera, an animal that’s a mix of two different animals.

“The ability to produce chimeras is a property that was previously thought to be exclusive to embryonic stem cells and iPS cells,” stem cell expert Austin Smith of Britain’s Cambridge University wrote in a commentary in Nature.

As with any pluripotent stem cell type, there’s a big danger — that the cells could turn into tumors, notes stem cell expert Dr. John Gearhart of the University of Pennsylvania. And the team will have to show this works on human cells.

And Schatten points out that cells behave differently in lab dishes than they do in the body. Something prevents people from regenerating a lost arm, for instance.
Another caveat: If this works as well in humans as it does in mice, it could offer another route to cloning human beings, Lanza noted. “This research could have serious ethical ramifications,” he said.




From Wikipedia, the term senescence refers to the aging process. According to this article the new stem cell process would provide “a way to skip all the complex and controversial steps that it now takes to make cells to regenerate tissues and organs.” Unfortunately, it also makes it easier to clone a human being, which so far is illegal in the US, though not in all countries. Whatever they use it for, this new kind of cell is another step forward in the research. Such improvements usually provide even more advantages than scientists at first predict. Knowledge builds on past knowledge, especially in science and technology.





$600k in U.S. taxpayer dollars buys medieval hospital in Afghanistan – NBC

By Jamieson Lesko, Producer, NBC News

KABUL, Afghanistan – Despite the United States spending nearly $600,000 in taxpayer dollars on Salang Hospital in Afghanistan’s Parwan province, the facility must still resort to medieval medical practices such as pulling teeth out with pliers.
Salang Hospital – the only medical facility servicing the mountainous community of approximately 50,000 – lacks essentials such as basic medical equipment, clean water, electricity and a working sewage system.

A comprehensive report released Wednesday by the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a federal government watchdog, details the good intentions of the U.S. contract that was commissioned in 2009 to build the hospital, and tries to get to the bottom of what went wrong.

Teeth pulled with pliers
On a recent visit to the facility, NBC News observed the hospital’s desperate staff trying to administer care to patients like 12-year-old Khorshid, who goes by only one name. She came in with a toothache and left traumatized.  
“We have a total of six pieces of dental equipment,” said Dr. Said Maqsoud Sarwy, as he laid the rusty tools down on a table. He pushed a chair up against the wall, sat Khorshid down and poked around her top row of teeth with a pair of unsterilized scissors to determine which one hurt the most.

“We don’t have what we need to check the teeth for cavities,” he frowned. “We don’t even have the equipment to help us determine whether we should extract a tooth or not.” That said, he decided to pull one of hers out.

The girl was shivering with fear, and began crying after the doctor gave her a shot in her gums. Another man held her still as Sarwy swiftly tilted her head back, opened her mouth and yanked out one of her teeth with a pair of pliers.

Her tooth – along with some bloody gauze – were thrown in a filthy bucket and she was sent home. Compared to the other two patients NBC observed in the hospital on the day of our visit, she appeared to fare the best.

Best intentions
According to the SIGAR report, the USFOR-A (U.S. Forces-Afghanistan) commissioned a local Afghan contractor, Shafi Hakimi Construction Company, to do the job in 2009 through a program designed to give Afghans jobs. 

A 20-bed hospital with surgery and X-ray rooms, a lab, a pharmacy, dental, pediatric and mental wards was supposed to be built.

Instead, the resulting structure is a mostly unused, understaffed, inadequately supplied, structurally deficient building at risk of collapse in the second most seismic zone in an earthquake-prone country.

“They should have had a team of observers here, making sure the work was done properly and that they were using the right materials,” the hospital’s administrator, Arsala, who only goes by one name, told NBC News.

“Promises that were made to us here were broken,” said one of the nurses, Arzoo Mohammadi. She is part of a small staff that comprises less than 17 percent of the proposed staff that was supposed to be hired to provide care to the rugged mountain community.  

Mohammadi worries that the hospital has no ability to perform surgeries. Besides having no surgeons on staff, the “operating room” lacks even the most basic equipment. The hospital actually has to use its ambulance to send critical patients away from their facility to get care elsewhere, she said.

Salang Hospital is also in desperate need of an OB-GYN specialist to help mothers giving birth. The day NBC visited the facility, the “delivery room” consisted of one dirty, rusty bed standing in a puddle of flood water next to a moldy, wet wall. The water was leaking from the shoddy roof, where snow was melting. When babies are born here, the staff told NBC News, they are washed in untreated river water.

SIGAR’s report commends the small staff for “making the best of a limited facility.” They simply do what they have to, the staff said, in order to get by. That includes jerry-rigging wires to a neighbor’s property to keep the hospital running at night.
“We are working with just three light bulbs here,” the hospital’s supervisor, Dr. Khan Mohammad, told NBC News. SIGAR reports that when its inspectors visited the facility, the hospital staff told them they were "paying the equivalent of about $18 a month of their own money” in order to keep those three lights on.

Military aware of problems
USFOR-A has been aware of the many issues plaguing the hospital since it conducted an inspection of the property in mid-2012, said the report, which was sent to top U.S. military commanders, including Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, who commands all international forces in Afghanistan.

Despite documenting its problems and requesting additional funds to rectify the problems it identified, it issued a final payment to the builder before handing control of the beleaguered hospital over to Afghan officials.

In documents obtained by NBC News, USFOR-A said that due to “reduced combat forces, threats in the area, and reduced technical engineering assets… it could not conduct a re-inspection.”

On Tuesday, the day before SIGAR’s inspection report was publicly released, USFOR-A’s public affairs office issued a press release praising the facility, titled, “U.S.-funded, historic Salang Hospital providing critical care to mountain villagers.” 
In it, USFOR-A said the hospital “represents a significant step forward in medical services for local Afghans who previously had access to minimal medical care.”
The statement acknowledges the SIGAR inspection report citing incomplete construction and safety issues, but asserts that according to the province’s director for the Ministry of Public Health, the hospital’s capabilities include “internal medicine, pediatric, maternity, dentistry, nursing care, immunization, pharmaceutical and overnight hospitalization services.”

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, told NBC News, “either no one from USFOR-A has actually visited this facility recently or USFOR-A is living in an alternate reality. SIGAR inspectors went there and what we saw was a decrepit facility, riddled with problems and underserving the community.”




This is simply scandalous. I assume there will be a Senate or Congressional investigation of the matter, with lots of news in the near future. It shows the US as being completely irresponsible, and if other US actions have been this bad, shows why the people there hate Americans.




­

55 Bodies Exhumed At Reform School Site In Florida – NPR
by Bill Chappell
­
Researchers say they have exhumed the remains of 55 people at Florida's Dozier School for Boys, a notorious reform school that closed in 2011. The total found by University of South Florida researchers represents 24 more bodies than official records say should be there.

"They also found remains under a road, under a tree and spread throughout surrounding forest," reports The Tampa Bay Times. "Only 13 were found in the area marked as a cemetery with pipe crosses, which is on a forgotten corner of campus."

For years, the Dozier School has inspired stories of horror and sadness, told by the men who were sent there as children and by the relatives who sometimes never saw their son or brother alive after they arrived at Dozier.

Around 300 men have spoken out about their experiences at the reform school in the small panhandle town of Mariana in the 1950s and 1960s. And they said they were certain that some of their schoolmates had died as a result of the treatment they received.

NPR's Greg Allen gave us some background on the institution last year:
"They're called the White House Boys — a group of men, many now in their 60s and 70s — who were sent to the Dozier school when they were children. They take the name from a small white building on the school grounds where boys were beaten. Jerry Cooper was sent to the school in 1961. He says guards beat the boys using a leather strap."
"These were not spankings. These were beatings — brutal beatings," Cooper told Greg.
In a recent examination of the site, USF researchers used ground-penetrating radar to locate the bodies over the course of three months.

"Locating 55 burials is a significant finding, which opens up a whole new set of questions for our team," USF team leader Erin Kimmerle said, in a news release about the findings. "At this time, we know very little about the burials and the children in terms of who specifically was buried there, their ages or ancestry, as well as the timing and circumstances of their deaths."

Ovell Krell, whose brother died at Dozier more than 70 years ago — he was reportedly buried there before the family could go view his body — said she never believed the school's version of events, which claimed her brother, who was 14 when he died, had simply crawled under a house and not survived.

"It would be the answer to many a years of prayer" to find him, Krell tells the Tampa Bay Times. "I want to get him out of there and put him between my mother and daddy in Auburndale."

The Dozier school and site has repeatedly been the target of state and federal inquiries. The USF team has been working to find the boys' remains since at least 2012, when it announced the discovery of 19 more graves than had been reported
To help identify the bodies the USF team found in its recent work, the researchers will compare samples with DNA collected from the families of boys who died at Dozier. The team says it recovered "bones, teeth and numerous artifacts in every one of the 55 burials" whose discovery was announced today on the USF website.

"According to state records, 96 boys died while incarcerated at the Dozier School for Boys," CBS News reports.



I wonder what crimes the boys had committed to cause them to be sent there, and who sent them. It is shocking that this reform school was still open in 2011. What state government officials, if any, were aware of it and was there any oversight? The following is an excerpt from a long article on Wikipedia, which is recommended reading.

Florida School for Boys
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Florida School for Boys


Location
Marianna, Florida, United States


Information
School type
Reform school
Established
January 1, 1900 (1900-01-01)
Opened
1900
Status
for sale
Closed
June 30, 2011 (2011-06-30)
Gender
Male
Age
8 to 21
Enrollment
100-564
Campus size
159 acres (64 ha)
Campus type
Rural

The Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (AGDS), was a reform school operated by the state of Florida in the panhandle town of Marianna from January 1, 1900, to June 30, 2011.[1][2] For a time, it was the largest juvenile reform institution in the United States.[3] A second campus was opened in the town of Okeechobee in 1955. Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued. Many of the allegations were confirmed by separate investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2010 and the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice in 2011.[4] State authorities closed the school permanently in June 2011.


This is the kind of “conservative” thinking that I hate – these boys were simply “throw aways” to those running the boys home, and the State of Florida took its time about closing the place. It's absolutely nauseating.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014


News Clips For The Day




Iconic folk singer and activist Pete Seeger dead at 94 – NBC
F. Brinley Bruton and Christopher Nelson, NBC News



Pete Seeger, the iconic banjo-strumming folk singer and activist who performed for migrant workers and presidents, died on Monday. He was 94.

Seeger, whose songwriting credits included "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn, Turn, Turn," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," died of natural causes in a New York City hospital, his grandson Kitama Cahill-Jackson confirmed to NBC News early Tuesday.  
“He thought everyone could be heroic,” Seeger's grandson said. “He got the world to sing. I think he was a role model to his family, to the whole world.”

As a member of the Communist Party in the 1940s, Seeger's skepticism of those in power carried through his career. He was a longtime supporter of the labor movement, and supported the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. Seeger was also convicted of contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions at the House Un-American Activities Committee.

"Be wary of great leaders," he told The Associated Press after a 2011 Manhattan Occupy march. "Hope that there are many, many small leaders."
Nevertheless, he performed for presidents as well, including at a concert marking President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

President Bill Clinton hailed him as "an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them."

Seeger was born on May 3, 1919, to an artistic family in New York City. He dropped out of Harvard and took to the road in 1938.

"The sociology professor said, 'Don't think that you can change the world. The only thing you can do is study it,'" Seeger said in October 2011, according to the AP.
Seeger was credited with popularizing what became the anthem for the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome," although he said his contribution to the actual song was minimal. 

In 1996, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ten years later, Bruce Springsteen honored him with "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," a rollicking reinterpretation of songs sung by Seeger.

"Every kid who ever sat around a campfire singing an old song is indebted in some way to Pete Seeger," fellow folk singer Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, told the AP.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. 




Pete Seeger is an icon. He will live forever, not merely in the history of popular music, but also the history of the country as he sang about labor issues, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. I am deeply sorry to see that he died. There are fewer and fewer leaders from the 1970's left. That music was the backdrop of my young adult years, and brings back many memories.




U.K.'s Queen Elizabeth down to last $1.6 million in reserves after royal overspend – NBC
By Alexander Smith, NBC News contributor

LONDON --  Britain's Queen Elizabeth has just £1 million ($1.6 million) left in financial reserves after the royal household overspent on its budget last year, according to a report by British lawmakers released Tuesday.

The royal household had to dip into its reserves after overspending £2.3 million ($3.8 million) on the £31 million ($51.4 million) it was given by the taxpayer in 2012/13. 

The report by the Public Accounts Committee said the amount was "historically low" and that it was "concerned that the household has reduced its balances to such an extent that it could be unable to cover its expenditure on any unforeseen events."

This paltry figure of £1 million is in contrast to 2001 when the royal household had £35 million ($58 million) in its reserves. The royals spend the money on costs such as staff wages, maintaining their palaces and travel.

A restructuring in 2012 of the way the royals receive public money allowed the royal family's finances to come under scrutiny from lawmakers for the first time.
"The household needs to get better at planning and managing its budgets for the longer term -- and the Treasury should be more actively involved in reviewing what the household is doing," said Margaret Hodge, the member of parliament who chairs the Public Accounts Committee.

The report also criticized the royals' "complacency" in allowing some 39 percent of royal buildings and land to slip into a state of disrepair. It said the 60-year-old heating system in Buckingham Palace alone will cost between £500,000 and £1 million to replace.

"The Household must get a much firmer grip on how it plans to address its maintenance backlog," Hodge said.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson described maintaining  the royal family's estate, such as the recent renewal of a roof over at Windsor Castle and the removal of asbestos from Buckingham Palace, as a "priority."




I am very fond of the British Royals, but I agree with this article that it's time they went on a budget. It may even be time for Britain to stop having a royal family, as opposed to a President and Vice President. A number of the royal family members draw money from the government, not just the queen and her consort. There are a growing number of calls inside and outside Britain for the monarchy to be abolished. It makes sense, but I do have an emotional attachment to the the royal family, though they have their scandals and don't contribute much to the life of the country except for their charitable endeavors. If they are demoted to the rank of citizens I will be sorry.





Reading gap between wealthy and poor students widens, study says – NBC
By Alessandra Malito, NBC News

The gap in reading proficiency between lower- and higher-income fourth graders has grown by 20 percent in the past decade, says a new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Eighty percent of lower-income fourth-graders do not read at their grade level compared to 49 percent of their wealthier counterparts, according to the report, "Early Reading Proficiency in the United States," which was released on Tuesday and is based on data from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Overall, although improvements have been made in the last 10 years, 66 percent of all fourth graders are not proficient in reading, a level the researchers called “unacceptably low in an economic environment that requires increasing levels of education and skills for family-sustaining jobs.”

2020, the United States is expected to face a shortage of 1.5 million workers with college degrees and a surplus of 6 million unemployed people without a high school diploma, the report says.

"The research is pretty clear – grade level reading by the end of third grade is a pretty good predictor of which children will have the most success in middle school and high school, and which children will end up graduating from high school,” said Ralph Smith, senior vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Kids who read on grade level by the end of third grade can graduate from high school at higher rates and this includes low-income children.”

That can make all the difference for a child’s future prospects, Smith said. “In the world we live in today, high school graduation is the portal to college and careers and post-secondary credentials needed to succeed in a global economy, to succeed in military service, to succeed in college and in many respects to succeed in life.”
According to the Casey Foundation report, by the time children are 8-years-old, especially those living in low-income families, many have not met the developmental “milestones” they need for future success. To reach these milestones, children need to be physically healthy, socially and emotionally on track and exposed to language as often as possible, research shows.

“There’s what we call an inconvenient truth: That there is a significant number of kids who will find it difficult to succeed even in good schools with effective teachers,” Smith said. “Those are the kids who start out so far behind that it is difficult if not impossible for them to catch up by third grade.”

The key to preventing kids from falling behind later on, he said, is to make sure that fewer start kindergarten with undetected and untreated social-emotional challenges, developmental delays, hearing and vision impairment and other correctable health issues.

In nearly every state, the reading gap between lower- and higher-income students increased in the last 10 years. In 12 states and the District of Columbia, the gap widened by more than 30 percent, with the largest increases in D.C., Hawaii and Tennessee.

Disparities are also apparent among the five largest racial groups. According to the study, 83 percent of black students, 81 percent of Latino students, 78 percent of American Indian students, 55 percent of white students and 49 percent of Asian students are not proficient.

Students who are dual-language learners had a significantly higher percentage of non-proficiency in reading with 93 percent. According to the study, dual-language learners are one of only a few groups that did not see an improvement in the last 10 years. Children with disabilities had a rate of 89 percent.




This racial breakdown looks like the social class system in the US is probably partially responsible for these differences in achievement. I think growing up lower class and very poor discourages the students from trying to learn rapidly as they face competition from wealthier and more socially advanced students in their classes. They aren't keeping up and their teachers don't give them enough extra help when they are very young and they simply give up and become negative.

It seems to me to parallel the greater number of delinquent or violent kids among poorer and lower class young people. I think most kids start out in the world with comparable IQ's, but as soon as they enter a family where the parents don't have one-on-one time for them, squelch their individuality in an attempt to achieve discipline, too often, and don't converse within the family with an educated vocabulary, they just don't progress intellectually as fast and as far as more privileged children. A recent article was on the vocabulary of students before they start learning to read. There is a need to understand more words in order to learn to spell and read them.

Then they hit the school system and the teachers are too often burned out and lack hopeful expectations for the lower class students, and therefore don't challenge and work with them as much as their “favorites,” who are more advanced and more wealthy. In small Southern towns it can make a great deal of difference to the teachers who the kids parents are, as social class is still a real issue there.

It would help if schools went to a more rigorous mode of academic expectations from the beginning, hired more teachers to decrease class size, maybe had more schools with smaller enrollments, possibly even instituted a requirement that the kids wear uniforms and focus more on discipline, and hired teachers with higher levels of training. The schools are overwhelmed by the number of kids due to population pressure, and the task of giving the needed extra help to too many of the students. The dual language problem may mean that the kids would learn better in bilingual classes, or with bilingual teacher helpers. It's a large and complex problem, but we have to soldier on with it.





Farm bill deal reached; cuts SNAP by $800m per year – NBC
By Luke Russert and Frank Thorp, NBC News

Lawmakers have reached a deal on a sweeping farm bill that would cut food stamps by about $800 million per year.  

Senate and House negotiators have been hammering out compromise legislation on the massive agriculture legislation since last year.

A GOP aide tells NBC News that a preliminary estimate shows that the cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by about $8 billion over a decade – roughly a one percent cut.

The food stamp cuts had been a major sticking point in the negotiations. A House-passed bill cut $20 billion from SNAP over 10 years, while the Senate’s legislation cut $4.1 billion over that same period.

"Today's bipartisan agreement puts us on the verge of enacting a five-year Farm Bill that saves taxpayers billions, eliminates unnecessary subsidies, creates a more effective farm safety-net and helps farmers and businesses create jobs," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat and the head of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The House is expected to vote on the bill on Wednesday. 



Well, the Senate negotiated this cut down from $20 billion, but it is still a problem for very poor people. I understand and accept the need to make cuts. What about cutting the military or foreign aid to countries whose allegiance we want to gain? We could have fewer wars, maybe. That would cost less.






Scientists link two plagues of the past — and warn of future outbreaks – NBC
Maria Cheng The Associated Press

LONDON — Scientists say two of the deadliest pandemics in history were caused by strains of the same plague and warn that new versions of the bacteria could spark future outbreaks.

Researchers found tiny bits of DNA in the teeth of two German victims killed by the Plague of Justinian about 1,500 years ago. With those fragments, they reconstructed the genome of the oldest bacteria known.

They concluded the Plague of Justinian was caused by a strain of Yersinia pestis, the same pathogen responsible for the Black Death that struck medieval Europe. The study was published online Tuesday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Plague made multiple jumps
The two plagues packed quite a punch. The Plague of Justinian is thought to have wiped out half the globe as it spread across Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The Black Death killed about 50 million Europeans in just four years during the 14th century.

"What this shows is that the plague jumped into humans on several different occasions and has gone on a rampage," said Tom Gilbert, a professor at the Natural History Museum of Denmark who wrote an accompanying commentary. "That shows the jump is not that difficult to make and wasn't a wild fluke."

The plague is usually spread to humans by rodents whose fleas carry the bacteria.
"Humans are infringing on rodents' territory, so it's only a matter of time before we get more exposure to them," Gilbert said.

Will antibiotics save us?
Still, he and other experts doubted a modern plague epidemic would be as devastating.
"Plague is something that will continue to happen, but modern-day antibiotics should be able to stop it," said Hendrik Poinar, director of the Ancient DNA Center at McMaster University in Canada, who led the new research. He said about 200 rodent species carry the plague and could potentially infect other animals or humans.
Poinar warned that if the plague transforms into an airborne version — which can happen if the bacteria reaches the lungs and its droplets are spread by coughing — it would be much harder to snuff out. That type of plague can kill people within 24 hours of being infected.

Poinar said scientists need to sharpen their surveillance of plague in rodent populations to try averting future human infections.

"If we happen to see a massive die-off of rodents somewhere with (the plague), then it would become alarming," he said.

There are several thousand human cases of plague every year, most often in central and Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and parts of the Americas.




I do remember in the news when I was a young adult that there was one case of bubonic plague. As I remember it was in New York City. There was no panic about it, so I assume it was an isolated incident and antibiotics cured it. It was scary to hear about it, though, and makes me think that poverty stricken people in cities are still living too close to rats and mice. I think on farms, there are always a certain number of rats and mice. That's why some farms to this day keep cats in their barn. A hungry cat can eat lots of mice. I do hope we don't have massive outbreaks of plague in the future. Sometimes antibiotics are failing to work these days, due to overuse by doctors.



­
­ One Way Lawmakers Are Trying To Prevent Government IT Disasters – NPR
by Elise Hu
­
HealthCare.gov's infamous failure to launch has inspired some fresh legislation that aims to organize and streamline the currently scattered — and expensive — approach to multimillion-dollar technology projects built by the government and its contractors.

Specifically, the measure, which is co-sponsored by Reps Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., calls for the creation a U.S. Digital Government Office, charged with reviewing and guiding major IT projects of all federal agencies. It also makes permanent the role of U.S. Chief Technology Officer, a position that has only existed in recent years under the Obama administration.

HealthCare.gov's disastrous debut brought to light long-festering issues with how the government handles technology projects — contracting processes favor entrenched vendors who don't deliver efficiently or effectively, tech talent that's available inside government is lacking and there are hundreds of agencies running in several directions on services that duplicate efforts and resources.

"In the 21st century, effective governance is inextricably linked with how well government leverages technology to serve its citizens," Connolly said in a statement. "The bottom line is that large-scale federal IT program failures continue to waste taxpayers' dollars, while jeopardizing our nation's ability to carry out fundamental constitutional responsibilities, from conducting a census to securing our borders."

In Britain, a string of costly tech project failures led to the creation of the cabinet level position of "Executive Director of Digital," currently held by Mike Bracken, who we talked with last fall.
­
"One of the issues that you have here, and other countries have, is the absence of a delivery capacity — the absence of being able to put your hand on teams of highly skilled, multidisciplinary technical and digital and policy people and deploy them at points of real urgency," says Bracken, of America's current government tech-deployment system. The Eshoo-Connolly bill calls for putting that team at the heart of government, with the new digital office out of the White House. Bracken calls this draft bill "a great start" in solving the delivery problem.

A few notable provisions in the bill:
1. The Digital Government Office would have authority over all agencies' large IT projects. (Currently these are run by the individual agencies and not overseen by a tech-savvy office that knows what it's doing/buying.)
2. It gives the Chief Technology Officer the power to hire people outside of the standard government pay schedule, allowing government agencies to pay people at salaries competitive to jobs in the tech private sector.
3. The bill also seeks to increase competition for contracting work, which is currently a field made up of the same handful of players who tend to get expensive and often unsuccessful results. Currently, agencies have to go through a rigorous process to buy the work/start contracts for technology projects that cost more than $150,000. Projects smaller than that are comparatively simple to hire for and more agile companies bid for those. So the bill increases "small acquisition thresholds" from $150,000 to $500,000 — making it easier for government to buy small technology projects.

This won't be the final form the bill takes; it's only a draft right now. Lawmakers released it to invite discussion, which will be happening in the coming weeks and months.

Clay Johnson, a critic of existing government technology procurement processes, says he's excited.
"Having procurement reform happening means creating more opportunities, improving the way government can deliver services, and for thousands of small businesses, unlocking the largest customer in the world," Johnson wrote in a blog post.

Connolly says the bill pairs well with the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, known as FITARA, which passed in the House but stalled in the Senate. Connolly is a co-sponsor of FITARA, with his Republican colleague and sparring-partner, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. FITARA would give more authority to the chief tech officers within agencies, among other things.


http://www.openhealthnews.com/hotnews/house-republicans-and-democrats-find-rare-bipartisan-agreement-open-source-it-procurement

House Republicans and Democrats Find Rare Bipartisan Agreement on Open Source IT Procurement
By Roger A. Maduro | April 9, 2013

The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITAR) —sponsored by California Republican Darrell Issa along with Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, and supported by every member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—threatens to put open-source software on par with proprietary by labeling it a “commercial item” in federal procurement policies. The proposal wouldn’t give open source a privileged position, just an equal one.

The legislation would also limit CIOs in federal agencies to one where there are sometimes many. And it would give the president the power to appoint these IT leaders. In short, FITAR would enable the president to act like a CEO and give agency CIOs the responsibility and flexibility to cut costs where they are cut-able.
Issa and Connelly’s proposed legislation was inspired by a 2010 Government Accountability Office report that identified 37 of 810 IT investments in the departments of Defense and Energy alone as possibly redundant. The GAO estimated potential savings over five years from eliminating these redundancies at $1.2 billion. Issa and Connelly did the math and saw billions more—an estimated $20 billion annually—in potential IT savings across the sprawling and expanding federal government complex.

Proprietary technology firms are fighting the natural history of technology evolution. Commoditization and acceptance of open source is the norm across most all private technology markets. Issa and Connelly’s legislation applies these commonly held principles to the federal marketplace. Whether they know it or not, U.S. taxpayers stand to benefit from the competition, innovation and savings it will bring.




Hopefully this will organize the federal efforts better and cost less. Having duplication of efforts across agencies is really not good, and according to this NPR article there have been other tech failures than just the health care IT. Maybe now they can keep track better of what is going on and hire more effective companies to do the IT. I noticed that the first Executive Branch head to manage IT was named by Obama, so that was a good idea on his part.