Saturday, March 15, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Focus shifts to flight crew amid new plane revelations – CBS
CBS/AP March 15, 2014
Last Updated Mar 15, 2014 7:27 AM EDT

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- The Malaysian jetliner missing for more than a week had its communications deliberately disabled and its last signal came about 7 1/2 hours after takeoff, meaning it could have ended up as far as Kazakhstan or into the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean, Malaysia's leader said Saturday.

Prime Minister Najib Razak's statement confirmed days of mounting speculation that the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was not accidental, refocusing the investigation into the flight's crew and passengers and underlining the massive task for searchers who already have been scouring vast areas of ocean.

Police on Saturday told CBS News that the homes of all of the jetliner's flight crew were searched after being under surveillance for the last few days. Authorities have said they will be investigating the pilots as part of their probe, but have released no information about how they are progressing.

"Clearly the search for (Flight) MH370 has entered a new phase," Najib said at a televised news conference.

Najib stressed that investigators were looking into all possibilities as to why the plane deviated so drastically from its original flight path, saying authorities could not confirm whether or not it was a hijacking. Earlier Saturday, a Malaysian government official called the plane's disappearance a hijacking to The Associated Press, though he said no motive had been established and no demands had been made known.

"In view of this latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board," Najib told reporters, reading from a written statement but not taking any questions.

Experts have previously said that whoever disabled the plane's communication systems and then flew the jet must have had a high degree of technical knowledge and flying experience. One possibility they have raised was that one of the pilots wanted to commit suicide.

The plane was carrying 239 people when it departed for an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing at 12:40 a.m. on March 8. The plane's communications with civilian air controllers were severed at about 1:20 a.m., and the jet went missing - heralding one of the most puzzling mysteries in modern aviation history.

Investigators now have a high degree of certainty that one of the plane's communications systems - the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System - was disabled before the aircraft reached the east coast of Malaysia, Najib said. Shortly afterward, someone on board then switched off the aircraft's transponder, which communicates with civilian air traffic controllers.

The prime minister then confirmed that Malaysian air force defense radar picked up traces of the plane turning back westward, crossing over Peninsular Malaysia into the northern stretches of the Strait of Malacca. Authorities previously had said this radar data could not be verified.

Najib said the last confirmed signal between the plane and a satellite came at 8:11 a.m. - 7 hours and 31 minutes after takeoff. This was more than five hours later than the previous time given by Malaysian authorities as the possible last contact.

Airline officials have said the plane had enough fuel to fly for up to about eight hours.

"The investigations team is making further calculations which will indicate how far the aircraft may have flown after this last point of contact," Najib said.
He said authorities had determined that the plane's last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible "corridors" - a northern one from northern Thailand through to the border of the Central Asian countries Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
He said that searching in the South China Sea, where the plane first lost contact, had ended.

Two-thirds of the plane's 227 passengers were Chinese, and the Beijing government is under pressure to give relatives firm news of the plane's fate. In a statement after Najib finished speaking, Beijing urged "Malaysia to expand and clarify the search areas based on the latest information and step up search efforts," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qing Gang said. "We ask Malaysia to involve more countries in the search."

Malaysia has faced accusations that it isn't sharing all its information or suspicions about the plane's final movements, which have been the subject of constant media leaks both in Malaysia and the United States. Najib said that he understood the need for families to receive information, but that his government wanted to release only fully corroborated information.

He said that from Day One, the country had been sharing information with international investigators, even when it meant placing "national security concerns" second to the search, a likely reference to its release of military radar data. U.S., British and Malaysian air safety investigators have been on the ground in Malaysia to assist with the investigation.

In the Chinese capital, relatives of passengers who have anxiously awaited news at a hotel near Beijing's airport said they felt deceived at not being told earlier about the plane's last signal. "We are going through a roller coaster, and we feel helpless and powerless," said a woman, who declined to give her name.

At least one of the people waiting at the hotel saw a glimmer of hope in word that the plane's disappearance was a deliberate act, rather than a crash. "It's very good," said a woman, who gave only her surname, Wen.

Malaysian police have already said they are looking at the psychological state, family life and connections of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Both have been described as respectable, community-minded men.
Zaharie joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had more than 18,000 hours of experience. His Facebook page showed an aviation enthusiast who flew remote-controlled aircraft, posting pictures of his collection, which included a lightweight twin-engine helicopter and an amphibious aircraft.

Fariq was contemplating marriage after having just graduated to the cockpit of a Boeing 777. He has drawn scrutiny after the revelation that in 2011, he and another pilot invited two women aboard their aircraft to sit in the cockpit for a flight from Phuket, Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur.

Fourteen countries are involved in the search, which is using 43 ships and 58 aircraft
The USS Kidd destroyer arrived late Friday in the Strait of Malacca, from where U.S. officials said it would move into the Bay of Bengal to help in the search. It uses a "creeping-line" search method of following a pattern of equally spaced parallel lines in an effort to completely cover an area.

A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, was to arrive over the weekend and sweep parts of the Indian Ocean. It has a nine-member crew and has advanced surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement.




“Fourteen countries are involved in the search, which is using 43 ships and 58 aircraft.” The USS Kidd is using a method called the creeping line to make a more thorough search of the area, and an aircraft that can search both underwater and on the surface is also being used.

I wonder what the chance is that the plane was flown to a hidden location and landed, possibly under a thick canopy of trees where it can't be seen from the air. Still, there have been no demands for ransom. There was one plane during the Clinton administration that was flown into the ocean by an Egyptian pilot after he was heard crying “allahu akbar” in the cockpit. The nation of Malaysia is mainly Islamic. I wonder what the occurrence of al Qaeda related groups might be in the country. I keep wondering why the government of Malaysia withheld so much information about the situation until just recently and failed to search the homes of the pilots and crew.




World's oldest masks show creepy human resemblance – CBS
Livescience.com March 14, 2014

Billed as "the oldest masks in the world," a creepy collection of 9,000-year-old stone faces is now display in Israel.

With stilted smiles and large eyeholes, the artifacts are thought to have represented the spirits of dead ancestors and may have been worn during Stone Age ceremonies and rituals, researchers say.

Before putting the rare artifacts inside glass cases at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the curators say they brought the masks together for a comparative study. Three-dimensional modeling showed that most of the masks could have been placed comfortably on the face, curator Debby Hershman said. [See Pictures of the Stone Age Masks]

"The eye holes allow for a wide field of vision, and the comfortable apportioning of the mass is suited to human facial contours," Hershman told Live Science in an email.
There are also holes on the edges of some of the ancient masks, which may have been used to attach them to the face. Alternatively, these perforations might have been threaded with hair to make the masks look more human or with cords to suspend the masks from pillars or other structures.

The masks come from various sites in the Judean Desert and the Judean hills, according to the museum. The artifacts date back to theNeolithic era, when humans started giving up nomadic lifestyles in favor of permanent settlements, complete with farms and domesticated animals.

Two of the stone masks were already in the museum's collection; one came from the Nahal Hemar cave in a cliff close to the Dead Sea and the second had been found at the nearby archaeological site of Horvat Duma.

The other artifacts are on loan from the private collection of Judy and Michael Steinhardt of New York. None of those objects have a known provenance, but based on analyses of the material, researchers think most of the masks came from the Judean hills or Judean foothills.

The exhibition, "Face to Face: The Oldest Masks in the World," will be on view through Sept. 13.




People have been trying to reach out to gods or spirits as long as Homo Sapiens has existed and even before. A Neanderthal burial was found in the Middle East that had a great deal of pollen and the remains of flowers in the grave, so their mind was not so far from ours as archaeologists used to think. That looks like symbolic thinking to me. When you are out in the elements trying to find shelter and food and stay away from saber toothed tigers, you feel the need to ask for help and express gratitude when you are saved. The world, also, is full of mysterious “powers,” from earthquakes to the miraculous blooming of flowers. There is much for the curious mind to see.




Obama defends his "dad jeans" – CBS
By Stephanie Condon CBS News March 14, 2014

President Obama to this day gets lampooned for the horrible jeans he wore to throw out the first pitch at the 2009 MLB All-Star Game, but the president insists he's gotten a bad rap.

"I've been unfairly maligned about my jeans," Mr. Obama joked Thursday on the radio show "On Air with Ryan Seacrest."

"The truth is, generally I look very sharp in jeans," he said. "There was one episode like four years ago in which I was wearing some loose jeans mainly because I was out on the pitcher's mound, and I didn't want to feel confined while I was pitching and I think I've paid my penance for that. I got whacked pretty good. Since that time, my jeans fit very well."

The subject came up because the president recently missed a good opportunity update his look -- he recently stopped at the Gap in New York City to applaud the retailer's decision to raise its employees wages. He made some purchases for First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, but he didn't buy any new jeans for himself.

The 2009 baseball game wasn't the only time the president was caught wearing less-than-flattering jeans. In 2010, for instance, the president was biking in Martha's Vineyard with his daughter Malia in some ill-fitting pants.

It may seem like an insignificant matter, but at least one of Mr. Obama's political foes -- former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- seems to think the president's jeans are hurting foreign relations.

"Look, the perception of Obama, of him and his potency across the world is one of such weakness," Palin told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates."




President Obama is not quite what I would call nerdy, because he does play basketball very well and wears his suits beautifully, but he is very intellectually inclined and not so much into fashions and image. He is masculine without being macho. I prefer his characteristics in a president. He reminds me of Colin Powell. He is serious-minded for the most part, though he does crack a joke sometimes and possibly at someone's expense, but he tries to do a good job at being president. I don't see him as being weak, but rather deliberate and given to thinking about things before he does them. Sarah Palin is not a very intelligent person and I don't value her opinion. She is not one of my role models. I was absolutely startled when McCain nominated her for his running mate. He is such a bright man that I don't understand his choice at all, except that he thought he had to pacify the far right wing of his party.




­­Indian Court Stays Death Penalty For Two In Rape Case – NPR
by Bill Chappell
March 15, 2014
­
The hanging of two of the four men convicted for raping and murdering a woman in New Delhi in late 2012 has been stayed, according to a ruling by India's high court issued today. The men had been found guilty of raping and attacking a woman on a bus; they've been appealing that finding.

The four men were sentenced to death last September, for a crime that sparked shock, anger, and intense debate over how India handles violence against women.

"The Supreme Court's order came in response to a petition filed by an attorney for the two men that said the appeals court that confirmed the death sentence this past week had completely ignored their defense," the AP reports. "The court scheduled a hearing in the case for March 31."

An attorney for the other two men convicted in the case says he will file papers for a similar stay, the news agency reports.

As NPR's Julie McCarthy reported when the trial ended last fall, the judge detailed the crimes the men were found guilty of committing, in which they attacked a 23-year-old woman and a friend:
"He talked about how they lured this woman onto a bus. They turned off the lights. She believed she was on a normal bus; she wasn't at all. They pinned her down. They took turns raping her.

"They threw her off the bus naked. They stole all her belongings. And everyone was found equally guilty. So guilty on gang rape, guilty for murder, guilty for kidnapping and unnatural offenses, which really speaks to the brutality of this attack."

Two other men were also involved in the attack. One, a juvenile, is in a reform home. Another man allegedly hanged himself while in jail.




We will be looking for news about the Supreme Court hearing on March 31 looking into the guilt of the men. It was a truly shocking crime, so if they are guilty they should be hanged, I think. Of course we don't hang anybody in this country any more. We try to use more gentle means. There is question now, though, about the lethal drugs that are being administered – that they don't kill fast enough and the criminal lies there and suffers for several minutes before death. There is no clear preference to me. It's sad, if not tragic. For the prisoner to be innocent would be tragic. That's what the court is looking into in this Indian case.




­U.S. To Relinquish Remaining Control Of The Internet – NPR
by Eyder Peralta
March 14, 2014
­
The United States announced its intention on Friday of relinquishing its remaining control of the Internet.

In a statement, the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration said it wants to relinquish its oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

ICAAN is a kind of cooperative that includes a wide array of companies and people, as well as more than 100 governments. One of the key functions overseen by the U.S. is the assignment of domain names. (Think of .com or .org.)

"The timing is right to start the transition process," Lawrence E. Strickling, the assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement. "We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan."

NPR's Steve Henn tells our Newscast unit that the world community has been calling for this handover for a while. But the current revelations over spying by the National Security Agency has led to louder calls.

"The announcement by the Commerce Department Friday that it would relinquish its oversight role of ICANN was widely viewed as a response to that criticism," Steve reports. "Administration officials have said any new governance structure for ICANN should be transparent and free from any hint of government interference."
The Commerce Department adds that it was always the intention of the United States to hand over these responsibilities to the global community.

The Wall Street Journal adds:
"The impact of the change remains unclear, because the Commerce Department's day-to-day role in overseeing the contract with Icann is largely clerical. However, other nations have suggested the U.S. can still use its current authority to block certain websites for reasons like copyright infringement or having links to known terrorists. One goal of transitioning Icann to nongovernmental oversight would be to provide more transparency to all nations into how the Internet's root structure operates.

"Until 1998, the functions were managed by Jon Postel, a computer scientist at the University of Southern California, one of the early pioneers of the World Wide Web. Upon Postel's death in 1998, the Commerce Department issued a contract to Icann to take over those functions, making Icann the primary body in charge of setting policy for Internet domains and addresses."



ICANN
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN, /ˈaɪkæn/ EYE-kan) is a nonprofit private organization headquartered in the Playa Vista section of Los Angeles, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998[1] to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government[citation needed] by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which ICANN now operates.

ICANN is responsible for the coordination of the global Internet's systems of unique identifiers and, in particular, ensuring its stable and secure operation....ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the central Internet address pools and DNS root registries pursuant to the "IANA function" contract.

ICANN's primary principles of operation have been described as helping preserve the operational stability of the Internet; to promote competition; to achieve broad representation of the global Internet community; and to develop policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.[3]

Before the establishment of ICANN, the Government of the United States controlled the domain name system of the Internet.[5]

The original mandate for ICANN came from the United States government, spanning the presidential administrations of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. On January 30, 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, issued for comment, "A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses." The proposed rule making, or "Green Paper", was published in the Federal Register on February 20, 1998, providing opportunity for public comment. NTIA received more than 650 comments as of March 23, 1998, when the comment period closed.[6]

The Green Paper proposed certain actions designed to privatize the management of Internet names and addresses in a manner that allows for the development of robust competition and facilitates global participation in Internet management.




NPR's Steve Henn said “that the world community has been calling for this handover for a while. But the current revelations over spying by the National Security Agency has led to louder calls.” This looks like the point of the news article. NSA spying has lots of people spooked, especially since it goes so far afield as to include heads of state among our ally nations. The main power that is mentioned in the article is the US ability to block certain web sites. I can see the use of that as those web sites may be used to recruit suicide bombers or other such crimes. That looks more like a legitimate national security use than the mass collection of US citizens telephone information without evidence of a crime having been committed.




­Young Women Increasingly Turn To ADHD Drugs – NPR
by Nancy Shute
March 14, 201410:06 AM
­
Use of ADHD drugs continues to rise in the United States, but the group whose use is increasing the most may come as a surprise: young women.

An analysis of prescriptions filled from 2008 to 2012 through Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit management company, found that use of ADHD medications rose 35.5 percent overall. The company's database includes 15 million people with private insurance.

The medications, largely stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, are still most commonly prescribed to boys ages 12 to 18. While children's use of ADHD meds rose 19 percent, adult use rose 53 percent. More women are now taking ADHD meds than girls, and women use them more than men.

To find out more about what's going on, we talked with Dr. David Muzina, a psychiatrist who is the vice president and national practice leader for neuroscience at Express Scripts. This is an edited version of our conversation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have reported increases in use of ADHD medications in children, but this increase in adults seems huge. What's happening there?

ADHD is no longer just a childhood condition. Many of the children and adolescents who were diagnosed 10 years ago are now adults, and we know that about 1 in 3 kids carry ADHD with them into adulthood. I think that's one reason why the numbers in adults are going up. And there's been progressively more attention on ADHD in the public sphere. More adults recognize the symptoms: "Oh, I'm not concentrating, I'm not focusing. Maybe I have ADHD."

Then there's overdiagnosis, overtreatment and perhaps misuse. Frankly, many prescribers mistake a patient's objective reporting of symptoms like being forgetful for ADHD. Are there life stressors, is there a medical condition, is there depression or anxiety that explains this better?

You're seeing a drop-off in young men using ADHD drugs after age 18. Why?
Men are less likely to go to the doctor, and take the meds, and fill the meds. We're thinking about the 18-, 19-year-old who's going off to college. They're going to the doctor only once or twice a year.

But then why this big spike among women the same age, with 4 percent of young women taking ADHD meds in 2012?

It's been known for a long, long time that if girls have ADHD they are more likely to have the inattention form, not the hyperactive, aggressive, disruptive form. Perhaps that difference in how ADHD can look is why the diagnosis is missed in girls. They may be quietly suffering and having trouble in school, but they're not disruptive.
They move on into life, where those inattentive symptoms may reveal themselves as academic and social pressures compound. Now it's becoming more of an issue.

And lastly, we know that women in the United States are increasingly juggling more and more and more. Women still tend to have the majority of the responsibilities at home, particularly when families start up. That elevation of pressure and stress can either produce symptoms like ADHD, or that additional stress can express the underlying ADHD that previously had not been diagnosed.

Stimulant drugs like Ritalin are pretty well-known for improving energy and concentration, even if you don't have ADHD. Could that be a factor here?
There may be an element here of medication being prescribed off-label to help with that, as well as the desire to suppress appetite and lose weight. It's totally not approved for that. But it's popularized and perhaps glorified to some extent in popular media, including women's magazines. I've seen references to using these medications for weight loss.

Is this the tip of the iceberg?
I think we're into the iceberg. We forecast that use of ADHD medications will be 25 percent higher in five years. That's the main reason why Express Scripts decided to do this deeper analysis, to see what's driving the trend. If we see patterns from prescriptions that are coming in, we can intervene if someone shouldn't be on this medication or if we suspect fraud. We're beginning to put our brains around tightening those monitoring systems.




From Wikipedia, “Express Scripts, provides integrated pharmacy benefit management services including network-pharmacy claims processing; ... to manage drug plans for health plans, self-insured employers and government agencies.” I think Express Scripts is to be commended for noticing this trend and trying to see what's behind it. I have heard before of adults being diagnosed with ADHD. There's no reason why such a condition should only occur in children. Of course if young women are using the drug to lose weight, that is something that no doctor should allow.

The symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity in both children and adults could be due to worse conditions such as depression or even Bipolar Disorder, too, of course. I have been afraid that the diagnosis of ADHD has become a fad of sorts. It's the first thing the doctors think of. I don't really like to see General Practictioners giving psychiatric diagnoses and medicating them from their own viewpoint alone. They should refer the patient to a psychiatrist or psychologist for observation and diagnosis, I think, and let them do the prescribing.