Friday, February 14, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Delaware pediatrician convicted of waterboarding girlfriend's daughter – CBS
AP February 13, 2014

GEORGETOWN, Del. - A Delaware jury convicted a pediatrician Thursday of waterboarding his companion's daughter by holding the child's head under a faucet.

The jury deliberated for about six hours before returning its verdict against Melvin Morse, 60.

Morse was charged with three felonies, two for alleged waterboarding and one for alleged suffocation by hand. He was convicted of one felony - waterboarding in the bathtub - and five misdemeanors.

Morse did not show any immediate reaction after the verdict. He could face several years in prison. Sentencing was set for April 11.

Defense attorneys argued that "waterboarding" was a term jokingly used to describe hair washing that the girl did not like.

Morse was charged with endangerment and assault after the girl ran away in July 2012 and told authorities of waterboarding and other abuse.

Morse, whose medical license was suspended after his arrest, has written several books and articles on paranormal science and near-death experiences involving children. He has appeared on shows such as "Larry King Live" and the "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to discuss his research, which also has been featured on an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" and in an article in "Rolling Stone" magazine. Morse denied police claims that he may have been experimenting on the girl.

The girl's mother, Pauline Morse, 41, pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor endangerment charges and testified against Melvin Morse.

Pauline Morse and her daughter, now 12, testified that Melvin Morse used waterboarding as a threat or a form of punishment. Waterboarding as used in the past by U.S. interrogators on terror suspects simulates drowning. Many critics call it torture.

According to testimony, the allegations of waterboarding surfaced after the girl ran away. The girl went to a classmate's home the morning after Morse grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her across a gravel driveway into the home, where she was spanked and warned of worse punishment the next day. When investigators questioned the girl, then 11, she told them about what she called waterboarding.

Prosecutors argued that in addition to being waterboarded, Morse subjected the girl to other abuse, including being forced to stand with arms outstretched for hours at a time; being confined to her room, where she had to use her toy box or closet as a toilet; and being deprived of food or force fed until she vomited.

Prosecutor Melanie Withers portrayed Melvin Morse as a brutal and domineering "lord and master" of his household, abusing the girl for years while her mother acquiesced in silence. Pauline Morse said she chose to ignore the abuse, saying she was afraid of "undermining" Melvin Morse. She also testified that she did not have a close relationship with the girl for several years that encompassed the waterboarding, and that she did not pay her much attention.

The girl and her younger sister remain in foster care but are allowed supervised visits with Pauline Morse. Pauline Morse said she hoped her cooperation with prosecutors will bolster her chances of being reunited with her daughters.




There are people who don't deserve to have children. Why should this mother be reunited with her daughters? As for the man, he should serve more than a few years in prison. When I see a woman who has no more courage than to allow flagrant child abuse by her mate or boyfriend I have no sympathy for her, especially when she spends years in that situation. At a certain point, if you can't protect yourself and your children, you should go to the police and swear out a warrant against the man. You may have to run the risk of his anger when you do that.

I hate to say it, but women should learn how to fight with their bare hands effectively or get some martial arts training. It is possible to kill an attacker by jamming the heel of your hand up against the tip of his nose and thrusting upward as hard as you can, thus driving the bone up into his brain. It takes strong determination to do something like that, but it works. You can also gouge out an eye with your fingers. A friend of mine had been beaten by her husband, so she took judo. The next time he came at her she threw him up against a brick wall. He never bothered her again. They did divorce, of course.

A horribly bad marriage is not something that is uplifting or virtuous, and should be broken off sooner rather than later, with legal charges against the aggressor if appropriate. Occasionally a woman physically abuses her husband, but that is rare. I can't believe that divorce under those conditions will cause you to go to hell, as some conservative religions say. It seems to me that the psychological effects of staying in it are more likely to grow some kind of depravity. There is no love in those relationships, at least not healthy, normal love. Children who are subjected to that atmosphere day in and day out are emotionally damaged in all cases, and may grow up to follow in the same path as their parents. It's a no win situation.




Amid partisan bickering, Obama to tour drought-affected areas – CBS
CBS/AP February 14, 2014

As Democrats and Republicans fight about the best way to deal with California’s historic drought, President Obama is traveling to the Fresno area, Friday, where he’ll take part in a roundtable with those affected by the drought. 

During his visit, the White House says, Mr. Obama will lay out a laundry list of efforts his administration is taking to help those affected, including:
$100 million in livestock disaster assistance for California producers
$15 million in targeted conservation assistance for the most extreme and exceptional drought areas, including $5 million in additional assistance to California and $10 million for drought-impacted areas in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico

$5 million in targeted Emergency Watershed Protection Program assistance to the most drought impacted areas of California to protect vulnerable soils 
600 summer meal sites to be established in California’s drought stricken areas
$3 million in Emergency Water Assistance Grants for rural communities experiencing water shortages

The president’s visit comes as the drought has become somewhat of a political football.  Last week, House Republicans passed a bill to divert water to California's parched Central Valley farms, water that now flows to preserve rivers and endangered fish.

  On a recent visit to California, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the drought's devastation a man-made disaster, saying, "How you can favor fish over people is something that people in my part of the world would never understand."
In response, Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., called the Republicans' actions an unwelcome and divisive intrusion into California's efforts to manage this severe crisis.
The bill would reallocate water from the San Joaquin Delta to farmers south in the Central Valley and stop efforts to restore the San Joaquin River, which now runs dry a short distance west of Friant Dam.

In response, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, proposed legislation that would pour $300 million into emergency aid and drought relief projects, upgrading city water systems and water conservation.

Political scientist John Pitney said, "This is a partisan water war. The Republicans are siding with farmers. The governor is siding with environmental interests."
Brown, whose administration supports the bill proposed by the Democrats, said he is doing what he can to find middle ground, rather than exploiting the drought as a chance to throw "cheap rhetorical missiles" at the other side.

"Look, if anybody can get it done, I can get it done," Brown said Wednesday during a visit to Tulare, Calif., in the heart of California’s Central Valley – the state’s agricultural heartland. "I'm working night and day to achieve it." He did not elaborate on those efforts.

He added that bickering among federal lawmakers over drought aid accomplishes nothing.
"They like to fight, and now they're fighting," Brown said. "That doesn't help farmers, doesn't help California, doesn't help the country."

Brown said the president will view devastation brought on by the drought and recognize the need for the federal government to invest in water projects, improving water quality and technology.  The White House said the president will be joined by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, as well as Brown, Feinstein and Boxer.

Brown said the farmers he met with in Tulare expressed their frustration, which he shares. 
"When you're in a drought, you're in a drought," he said. "From biblical times there are plagues and there are droughts, and we have to learn how to live with them."



I guess I have to agree with the Republicans that preservation of a river for ecological purposes may be secondary in such an extreme drought. I saw news footage of the cracked, dry land which had been under water. You can't grow crops in such a condition, and it really would be a problem for the whole state if the farmers all went broke and had to sell their land. A large amount of our food in this country comes from California. That would affect the economy and would also run food prices up for the consumer. A drought will eventually break, most probably, and the river will recover unless the problem is truly “climate change” rather than a seasonal aberration. Fish populations may be lost, though. I wonder what the species involved are? I'd like to see a report on that.





One-third of cat bite victims end up in the hospital – CBS
By Michelle Castillo CBS News February 13, 2014

Cats might be cuddly, but their love nibbles can be a serious health matter.

A study published in the February issue of The Journal of Hand Surgery showed that 30 percent of patients who had a cat bite on hand ended up staying in a hospital for more than three days on average.

Who would've thought those tiny teeth could be so dangerous?

“The dogs’ teeth are blunter, so they don’t tend to penetrate as deeply and they tend to leave a larger wound after they bite," senior study author Dr. Brian Carlsen, a Mayo Clinic plastic surgeon and orthopedic hand surgeon, said in a press release. "The cats’ teeth are sharp and they can penetrate very deeply, they can seed bacteria in the joint and tendon sheaths.”

The researchers identified 193 patients who had went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. over the course of three years due to cat bites. Fifty-seven of them had to be admitted to the facilities, with an average stay of 3.2 days. 

Oral antibiotics were given to 154 patients, but failed to work in 14 percent of cases. Those patients ended up being hospitalized.

Out of the patients who had to take a hospital bed because a cat gnawed on them, 67 percent needed cleaning and removal of dead, damaged or infected tissue. Eight of the patients needed more than one operation.

Other injuries including erythema, a redness or rash on the skin due to damage to deeper skin layers, and swelling were linked to a higher chance of needing a hospital stay.

Complications were also common in these cases, especially for those who were bit over a joint like the wrist or a tendon sheath. People who were smokers and had immune system problems were also more prone to having additional issues from a cat bite.
“It can be just a pinpoint bite mark that can cause a real problem, because the bacteria get into the tendon sheath or into the joint where they can grow with relative protection from the blood and immune system,” Carlsen said.




I have had eight cats in my life, and I love them dearly. They are, however, not like a dog. Dogs will play bite open-mouthed and tussle rowdily, but they never break the skin. A cat will play fight, too, without resorting to real harm like severe scratching, but not as gently as dogs. They have an instinct to follow and attack when something in front of their eyes is moving around. I used to play roughly with my cats, testing my skill and speed against theirs, but stopped it as I got a little older, because you can actually get them into the habit of being too rough. Also, some male cats do tend to “love bite”, especially if you pet them extensively. I think it arouses them sexually, and if you have ever had a male cat you know that they bite the female on the neck as a part of the sex act.

In summary, it is best if you are going to keep a house cat that you treat them gently and stop them immediately if they start to get rough with you, saying “No!”. Don't play fight with them or you may get one of those deep cat bites mentioned in this article.

My ex-husband didn't like my large black tom cat because he was aloof, and he began to chase the cat through the house acting like a chimpanzee and hooting. It wasn't long after that when he had to put the cat outdoors for the night without my help and it bit him deeply on the thumb. That was my husband's fault, and I had little sympathy with him. He didn't have to go to the hospital, though. All three of our cats disappeared shortly after that one night and I have always suspected my husband of calling the city pound on them. He was a “passive aggressive” personality in many ways, and that would be his style.




­ Stopping Microbes Not Missiles: U.S. Plans For Next Global Threat – NPR
by Jason Beaubien
February 13, 2014
­
Spot the next plague before it arrives. Predict the next swine flu outbreak before it makes headlines. Even detect a biological weapon before it's launched.
These are the goals of an ambitious initiative, launched Thursday, to build a worldwide surveillance system for infectious diseases.

Spearheaded by the U.S. government, the Global Health Security Agenda brings together 26 countries, the World Health Organization and several other international group. It aims to stop epidemics and bioterror agents before they spread.

Why is such an early warning system needed?
Because the U.S. and the world are at greater risk than ever before from biological organisms, says Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention.

"Viruses are just a plane ride away," he says. Bird flu could spread out of Asia. Ebola could emerge out of central Africa. Or drug-resistant Staphylococcus can sweep through hospital wards. "In today's globalized world, an outbreak anywhere is a threat everywhere," Frieden says.

The Global Health Security Agenda is an attempt to make the world better prepared to confront those threats, he says. "We want to make sure we do everything we can to prevent emerging organisms from becoming outbreaks and outbreaks from becoming epidemics."

And the Obama administration seems to agree. It has placed several high-ranking officials on the project, not just from the medical side of the government, but also from the U.S. military and the Department of Homeland Security.

Three top officials wrote an opinion piece Thursday on CNN's website to make the case that biosecurity is a key element of national security.

In the piece, Secretary of State John Kerry; Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; and Obama's assistant on homeland security and counterterrorism, Lisa Monaco, argued that infectious diseases have the potential to cause massive economic damage and loss of life, similar to nuclear, chemical or cybersecurity attacks.

They offered two examples to illustrate their point: the economic loss from the H1N1 swine flu in Mexico in 2009 and lives lost from the SARS epidemic in Asia in 2002 and 2003.

The Obama administration has been concerned that many countries don't have the capacity to monitor potential biohazards and emerging diseases, said Laura Holgate, the senior director for weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and threat reduction at the National Security Council.

"In 2012 we were really struck by the reality that 80 percent of the countries didn't meet the WHO deadline to be prepared for disease threats," Holgate said Thursday at a media briefing. In a world where viruses and other biological agents don't respect national borders, she said, the U.S. can't do this alone.

The Global Health Security Agenda plans to build a structure for biosurveillance so that, hopefully, other countries will be able to quickly detect the next major epidemic. The program also will set standards for national laboratories and outline the diagnostic tools needed to spot and contain modern diseases.

The participating countries have committed to creating emergency disease centers that can respond within two hours to an outbreak or other crisis. They also have agreed to link data from this global biosurveillance network through the WHO.

It's unclear how much the Global Health Security Agenda will cost the U.S. Other countries, such as China, are spending their own money on the parts they're implementing themselves.

But the Obama administration did say it's committing an extra $45 million to the CDC's 2015 budget to help low-income countries participate in the network. The money will mainly go to improve surveillance systems, update diagnostic equipment and train staff.




I am glad to see that this attempt to improve our readiness to confront such a threat is going forward. Ever since it was mentioned in the press that our bacteria are growing immune to antibiotics due to overuse by doctors, I have been a little worried. I usually read murder mysteries, but a number of years ago I read the non-fiction book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, and it was more suspenseful than most mysteries. It was about an actual Ebola outbreak that occurred at a laboratory in Reston, Virginia among the research monkeys there. I happened to be living twenty miles away at the time and heard a 10:00 PM News teaser stating that a Hazmat emergency had occurred at Reston. Interestingly, the station didn't play any news about that subject when their show came on. That was the Reston outbreak, and it was “hushed up” by the authorities to avoid a panic. I highly recommend the book. Without being as dramatic as the movie that was produced later, it was an eye-opener. Most diseases that crop up are not as deadly as Ebola, but still SARS and Bird Flu kills people every time it occurs, so we need this information network to keep track of those things. I'm glad to see the Obama administration is pursuing it.




­

U.K. Warns Scotland: Vote To Secede, Lose Common Currency – NPR
by Krishnadev Calamur
February 13, 2014
­
Scotland, as we've told you previously, is voting later this year on breaking away from the U.K.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond had said that the new country would retain the pound as its currency and take on a portion of the U.K.'s debt. Britain's message today [Thursday]: Not so fast.

"If Scotland walks away from the U.K., it walks away from the pound," said Chancellor George Osborne. [You can watch his comments here.

Osborne's remarks were supported by members of all three major parties: the ruling Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as well as the opposition Labour. The chancellor's comments came after recommendations made by Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the senior civil servant at the Treasury. He said a currency union with an independent Scotland was "fraught with difficulty."

Salmond, Scotland's first minister, supports independence, and he reacted angrily to Osborne's remarks, calling them "bluff, bluster and posturing." And, he said, if there was no deal on the pound, there won't be a deal on the U.K.'s $2.67 trillion debt, either.

"All the debt accrued up to the point of independence belongs legally to the Treasury, as they confirmed last month – and Scotland can't default on debt that's not legally ours," he said in a statement. "However, we've always taken the fair and reasonable position that Scotland should meet a fair share of the costs of that debt. But assets and liabilities go hand in hand, and – contrary to the assertions today – sterling and the Bank of England are clearly shared UK assets."

Osborne's remarks mark a hardening of the anti-independence posture by the U.K.'s politicians. Just last week, Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech in which he urged the rest of the U.K. – England, Wales and Northern Ireland – to tell Scottish voters to reject independence when they vote in September.

"If we lost Scotland, if the U.K. changed, we would rip the rug from under our own reputation," he said. "The plain fact is we matter more in the world together."
It's unclear what a "yes" vote for independence would mean economically. Diageo, the company that owns whisky brands such as Johnnie Walker, says it would make no difference, a comment echoed by the head of Barclays bank. The head of the oil giant BP, however, says independence would create "uncertainties."

Polls show that support for independence is low, but many Scots are still undecided.




Here in the US there have been occasional bids by some small part of the country such as the Texas Nationalist Movement to secede from the Union. It never makes much sense to me, and never seems to include a large part of the population. I tend to think it is the result of “whacko” thinking, like the “Patriot Movement” in rural places. The Patriots are largely racist and haters of the government, often linked to Neo-Nazi groups. This “small government” trend is just something that would fail immediately in real life. You can't have billions in population and fifty interlinked states without a “big government” to handle all that.




­ In Damp Country, Record-Breaking Rains Flood Britain – NPR
by Ari Shapiro
February 13, 2014
­
Parts of England have been underwater for more than six weeks now, since storms began pummeling the west of Great Britain around Christmas. While many of those areas are still submerged, the situation keeps getting worse.

Now the floodwaters are lapping near Windsor Castle, as the Thames overflows its banks. Thousands of people have fled their homes, with more evacuating every day.
You needn't travel far from central London to find the misery: A 20-minute train ride from the city brings you to West Byfleet. A short walk from the station, families and senior citizens are trying to pass the time at a community center in the town of New Haw. These people are all evacuees from nearby villages.

Priscilla Smithers and her four children have arranged chairs around a few air mattresses to create a space for themselves. It's not exactly private, but it's the best they can do. Smithers says she's never seen anything like this flood.
"When Monday come and it was going up, I didn't think really much of it, to be honest. And then when Tuesday come, I thought it'll probably go down, this is probably the highest level it's gonna go. Come Wednesday, it was horrific. It was literally up to the sandbags."

Across the room, 12-year-old Calvin Wai is playing cards with his family. They evacuated two days ago, and he's having a hard time getting used to living in a place without showers.

"We can't go back probably for a month or more." He says he feels "homeless. It's upsetting."

Red Cross worker Martin Shea has been on the job since the storms began before Christmas. Shea used to serve in the army, so he's responded to a lot of disasters. But this one takes even his breath away.

"As far as the volume of it, it's got to be the biggest," says Shea. "We've more or less got what amounts to a huge, deep puddle which goes all the way from Windsor Castle right the way through to a couple of miles up the road from here."

A Record-Breaking Winter
That's a lake about 15 miles long and that's just around here. This winter has broken records all over Britain. Some rivers are at their highest levels ever. Last month was the rainiest January in history.

But other ways of measuring this disaster make it seem less apocalyptic. Around 6,000 homes have flooded. In 2007, British floods inundated 50,000 homes. Those floods also killed 13 people, and so far the death toll this year has been nothing close to that.

Even so, the government is under heavy attack for its response to the disaster.
"This could've been prevented," says Bert Goody, 77, who had to evacuate the mobile home he's lived in for 40 years. "It's going to cost the government a lot more now. They could've done something years ago. It'd be a lot cheaper."

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised that money is no object in the flood response.

During Prime Minister's Questions this week, Labour leader Ed Miliband urged Cameron to reverse plans to lay off 550 environment agency workers who respond to floods.
"If money is no object as he said, is he committing now to reconsider these redundancies?" Miliband asked.

Cameron would not make that commitment. He said the U.K. is spending record amounts on flood prevention, which is only possible because the government has made other tough choices on spending.

"We're only able to make those pledges because we've managed our economy effectively and managed our budgets effectively," Cameron insisted.

The coming days are forecast to bring as much rain as England typically sees in the entire month of February. It's a strong sign that things are likely to get worse before they get better.




I didn't realize England had such problems with flooding, though I did read a great classic novel called The Mill On The Floss by George Eliot in which a disastrous flood occurs. England is, of course, famous for its rain, however, and I wonder if climate change is affecting this season's rain. At least nobody has died yet, though I assume many families will be hard pressed financially to clean out their houses once they can get back home and pay their living expenses while they are away. I saw on the news the two royal princes have been out working on sand bags to fight the water. I hope they get relief from the rain soon, and the water drains off into the natural watercourses. One article linked to this one on today's web site is about the Polar Vortex affecting the rain. I do hope these kinds of disasters don't become a regular thing due to global warming, but I'm afraid they will.