Testing for brain injury

It seems that our 21st century wars have produced a significant number of brain injuries. So, the military has been pushed to develop tests for brain injuries. Unfortunately, the test they use,  the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metric (ANAM), is not doing the job, per ProPublica. Here are their reasons why. My emphases.

• The people who invented ANAM and stood to make money from it were involved in the military's decision to use it, prompting questions about the impartiality of the selection process. No other tests received serious consideration. A report by the Army's top neuropsychologist circulated last year to key members of Congress labeled the selection process "nepotistic."
• The Pentagon's civilian leadership has ignored years of warnings, public and private, that there was insufficient scientific evidence the ANAM can screen for or diagnose traumatic brain injury. The military's highest-ranking medical official said the test was "fraught with problems." Another high-ranking officer said it could yield misleading results.
• Compounding flaws in the ANAM's design, the military has not administered the test as recommended and has rarely used its results. The Army has so little confidence in the test that its top medical officer issued an explicit order that soldiers whose scores indicated cognitive problems should not be sent for further medical evaluation.
• Top Pentagon officials have misrepresented the cost of the test, indicating that because the Army invented the ANAM, the military could use it for free. In fact, because the military licensed its invention to outside contractors, it has paid millions of dollars to use its own technology.
• The military has not conducted a long-promised head-to-head study to make sure the ANAM is the best available test, delaying it for years. Instead, a series of committees have given lukewarm approval to continue using the ANAM, largely to avoid losing the data gathered so far. 

Inalienable Rights

Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican, speaks against an un-American provision of the National Defense Authorization Act. Basically, the provision gives the President the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians - even U.S. citizens - anywhere in the world.

Here's the real story

Figuring out what is true or false in today's media is not an easy task. This article in Bloomberg is an example. The article is based on the word of one person who was at a meeting in the summer of 2008. Another attendee was Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury.

At a press conference days before this meeting, Paulson had stated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would not be taken over by the government, they would remain shareholder-owned. He repeated this message in a Senate hearing a few days later. However, at the meeting referenced by Bloomberg, Paulson told a different story: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to get whacked, they would be taken over by the government.

The fact that Paulson changed his mind (if he actually did) is not the issue here. The issue is that the meeting at which Paulson told his story was a meeting with fund managers and others in the financial world. 

If the article is truthful, did Paulson commit a crime? Attorneys quoted in the article say 'no'.  Did the audience act on the inside information? Bloomberg could find no evidence that they had. So, what is the real story?

How big were Black Friday sales?

Despite the hype as to how much better sales were this year, Barry Ritholz reminds us, "We actually have no idea just yet as to whether, and exactly how much, sales climbed. The data simply is not in yet. The most you can accurately say is according to some foot traffic measurements, more people appeared to be in stores on Black Friday 2011 than in 2010".

He finds it humorous that some people (e.g., ShopperTrak) think they can measure sales based on foot traffic alone.

I think that, by and large, we now accept numbers that would have been questioned years ago.

Another Fallen Leader

Eastern Airlines, TWA, PanAM and a host of other airlines I can't remember. They were big deals when I was a traveling man. They are no longer here. And now  American has filed for bankruptcy.  It is true that Delta, United and Continental made it through bankruptcy, although United and Continental merged. Maybe American will also.

How much is a college football coach worth?

Ohio State thinks it's $26,650,000 over a six year period. That's the deal they struck with their new coach, Urban Meyer. Here are the pieces that have been made public: $4,000,000 in base salary, bonuses as much as $700,000 a year, lump payments every other year, an annual automobile stipend, a golf club membership, 50 hours of private jet use and 12 tickets to each home game. This is a little more than the OSU president makes: $1,320,000 a year. Part of the funds will clearly come from television; the Big Ten pulled in $227,100,000 last season. 

Maybe you should urge your child to become a college coach. The average salary of such is $1,470,000, which is not chump change.

Something's rotten in the state of college athletics.

Keep it to ourselves was the watchword of Tim and Ben

Messrs Geithner and Bernanke were really worried about the banks' failing - especially the huge banks run by their friends. So, not only did they see that the banks got TARP money, but they also loaned the banks an obscene amount of money ($1.2 trillion) at truly bargain basement rates (.01%).  Then, they made it very difficult for most people to find out what they'd done. Bloomberg was at it for over two years and has finally been able to get some details.

Ben's argument for the secrecy was that those banks who got the money would be working under such a stigma that needy banks would be unwilling to seek federal aid in the next crisis. You buy that one?  Of course, the banks were not forthcoming either.  They were all claiming that they were very healthy. Yet, they were willing to take $1.2 trillion in loans from us and I don't think it was only because of the low interest rate, although that did help them make around $13 billion on our money.

Of course, the bankers, being true capitalists, have been quite successful in lobbying against any regulations which would make life a little difficult for them, while minimizing the likelihood of a repeat of the current situation.

What the commotion in Egypt is about

Nagla Rizk teaches at the American University in Cairo. Here are some excerpts from a recent posting that speak of the failures thus far of the Arab Spring in Egypt:

When we stormed the streets last January, we chanted “Aish, Horreya, Adala Egtema’eya” (“Bread, Freedom, Social Justice”).  Ten months down the road, yesterday we chanted in Tahrir, “Aish, Horreya, Adala Egtema’eya” (“Bread, Freedom, Social Justice”). Why?

No one expected bread and social justice right away. People wanted a roadmap, a plan, a timeline. They got none. Naturally, what emerged was a series of demonstrations and strikes by employees and workers whose demands were never acknowledged, let alone addressed. Rather than tackling the root of the problem or starting a dialogue with the protesters, SCAF chose to order them to go home.  

Meanwhile, the economy has suffered gravely. 

The political atmosphere under SCAF is no different from Mubarak’s. Indeed, we are still under Mubarak’s emergency law of 30 years. So far, 12,000 civilians have been subjected to military trials.  

SCAF have also carried out unprecedented attacks on media, specifically attacking the premises of two television stations, both documented on video.

On March 19, we excitedly participated in a referendum on 9 constitutional amendments to the 1971 constitution. The amendments were accepted by a 77% majority. Right after, SCAF dictatorially issued a constitutional declaration with 63 articles including the amendments with some editorial changes. This nulled the old constitution. Article 56 of the declaration gave SCAF their legitimacy as rulers of Egypt. This was not subject to a referendum.

 On October 9, we wept witnessing the Maspero massacre, where SCAF vehicles brutally run down street protesters in scenes that moved the whole world. 

In short, we have a clear failure of SCAF to lead the political transition and to allow for proper management of the economy by an independent government. SCAF has ruled with an iron fist, with a very weak government in place.

Judge Rakoff does not approve of SEC practices

At the beginning of the month I wrote about the SEC's settlement of still another dispute with Citicorp. I asked the question of whether the SEC was in bed with them. Apparently, Judge Jed Rakoff felt they were, as he threw out the settlement as being “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest” because it does not provide the court with evidence on which to judge the settlement. The judge felt that the policy "asks the court to employ its power and assert its authority when it does not know the facts.”

And, he goes on, “In any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth.” The S.E.C. in particular, he added, “has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges.”

The U.S. Ambassasor to Iraq Speaks

Our ambassador, James Jeffrey, held a roundtable discussion with reporters yesterday.  In addition to his announcing that we'll be spending $6 billion in Iraq next year and there will be 16,000 embassy employees, here's another intriguing excerpt:

Jeffrey also discussed U.S. military sales to Iraq.

“We have about $8 billion, give or take some, of active (foreign military sales) cases with Iraq.

“That’s not counting the new one that just came out for the F-16s (warplanes). That will send it up by a number of additional billions of dollars,” Jeffrey said.

“This is one of the biggest programs in the world.”

“We have a large number of trainers and people from the defense contracts that are doing the equipping and training of the Iraqis throughout the country,” he said.

We must make sure the revenues to our defense companies continue to pour in, war or no war.

Government Employees Around the World

It's unclear from this chart whether employees from state and local governments are included.

The disparity between Japan and the rest of the countries is major.

It's nearing an end

But will it be the end?

Supposedly most of our troops will leave Iraq next month. What will Obama say when it's over?  Here's what Bush said when it started, "This will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory." It was certainly not a campaign of half measures - almost 4,500 American troops dead, 32,000 wounded, almost $1 trillion spent. And the costs will continue for decades. Just consider the number of veterans with PTSD or the number of suicides. In the past two years the VA's crisis line has received over 500,000 calls.

I'll never see the end. Will my grandchildren?

Federal help to cities?

Is the federal government helping cities to 'handle' their Occupy sites? There certainly appears to be a coordinated effort among these cities. The U.S. Conference of Mayors helped sponsor conference calls among mayors of affected cities. The Police Executive Research Forum arranged for police chiefs to discuss their efforts.

Now, I really don't have a major problem with mayors and police chiefs discussing common problems. The big issue is that the federal government seems to have entered the picture in the form of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other agencies. That is really overstepping in a major way.  It is unAmerican.

I'm not an animal lover, but I was intrigued with an article on bulldogs in the NY Times. It seems as though people have bred these dogs in such a way that their future is unlikely. Look at how much these dogs have changed in 50 years.

The dog on the left is a drawing of the Georgia mascot in 1956, the one on the right is the 2011 mascot. While many veterinarians think that the future of the bulldog is questionable, the AKC and its British counterpart as well as some longtime breeders think things are wonderful.

More bad news for BofA

For the past 2.5 years Bank of America has been operating under a memorandum of understanding with bank regulators. The memorandum named a couple of areas - governance, risk management, liquidity - that needed to be improved. So far, there has been no improvement. If this continues, then the secrecy will be dropped and the problems of BofA will become even more public, as the regulators take action to enforce the terms of the memorandum.

Orioles like peanut butter

A Thin Line

For some drugs there is a thin line between effective use and damaging use.  Often, it is difficult to determine when that line has been crossed.  Combine these problems with the fact that 40% of those of us over 65 take between five and nine medications a day and you have a problem which manifests itself in a trip to a hospital's emergency ward. 

More than two-thirds of the trips old folks take to emergency wards are due to four medications.  Warfarin, a blood thinner usually known as Coumadin (and sometimes as rat poison) causes one-third of these trips. Diabetes, whether from insulin injections or drugs taken orally, account for 25% of trips to emergency. Aspirin and other drugs that prevent blood clotting make up 13% of the trips.

Cutting hair can be a hate crime

That is, if the Amish are involved. Seven men have been arrested and accused of cutting the beards of Amish men and the hair of Amish women. Hair to Amish is almost sacred; cutting it is a big deal. The cutters knew that, as they are all Amish.  Violence accompanied most of the cuttings.

Apparently, the cuttings were the outcome of an internal religious dispute. In 2002 Samuel Mullett, named as the ring leader and shown below, excommunicated some followers, but the excommunication was overturned by higher-ups. Mullett was incensed,"You have your laws on the road and the town - if somebody doesn't obey them, you punish the people. But I'm not allowed to punish the church people? "I just let them run over me? If every family would do just as they pleased what kind of church would we have?"

Wish I could learn more

The Wall Street Journal had this teaser on its site today:

A group of investors and analysts have access to top Fed officials who give them a chance at early clues to the central bank's next policy moves, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Journal.

Unfortunately the story is behind a paywall. The entrance to the wall tells of Nancy Lazar making double digit returns, seemingly the result of information she gained after meeting with Bernanke. 

Is there something here or is the Journal just mouthing off against Bernanke?

Bring back the old blue laws

When I was growing up in Massachusetts, most stores - except for the corner grocery stores - were closed on Sundays and holidays. As we were raising our young children, some stores were allowed to open at noon on Sundays and holidays. Then in 1994 the blue laws were essentially abandoned and Sundays and holidays made little difference in whether stores were open or not.

I actually liked having most stores closed on Sundays. It made Sunday a different day of the week, a day of peace and relaxation. Now, Sundays and holidays are far from days of peace and relaxation. 

And the Christmas season may be the best example of just how bad it has gotten. Black Friday began as a way of one chain store trying to get an advantage over its competitors. But now that every chain store is opening on holidays, that advantage has gone away. The business now is essentially selling at a discount stuff that would otherwise be bought at regular prices. In Massachusetts employees who work on Sundays and holidays must be paid time-and-a-half. So, revenue is less, costs are more.  There is no financial advantage when everyone is doing the same thing.

If there is no financial advantage, then why don't we return to a more human way to enjoy Sundays and holidays?

This makes no sense

In Michigan parents of handicapped children who receive state aid are classified as home health care workers. As such, they are considered state workers and, by default, members of the state workers union, SEIU. Every month, the state sends $30 per child to the union for union dues. Remember we're talking about parents taking care of their kids. Why should they be considered state workers? They do not get a salary from the state. They have no manager to whom they report. They don't earn a vacation from their job. In any sort of rational world, they are not state workers. Yet, they have been making their monthly payment for five years now. To top it off, they get zero union benefits.

It is possible that other states, such as Connecticut where I now live, have adopted a similar 'rule'.

Only in America.

Indulge an old man

There is nothing magical about this video. I had some time on my hands and wanted to fool around with Microsoft's MovieMaker.

How some "colleges" make money

By and large we taxpayers have made for-profit colleges an industry. We give them more than $4 billion a year in Pell grants and we loan their students more than $20 billion a year, some of which is never paid back.  It is a competitive industry. Some companies do quite well. Unfortunately, a good number of them rely on fraud and deceptive practices to do well. The GAO has just released a study that shows just how bad the situation is.

The GAO investigated fifteen for-profit colleges and found that all of them "made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements to GAO’s undercover applicants". Four of them"were encouraged by college personnel to falsify their financial aid forms to qualify for federal aid". Listen to some of the b.s. that was thrown by the schools.

These colleges are not cheap. The GAO found that they "cost substantially more for associate’s degrees and certificates than comparable degrees and certificates at public colleges nearby". In one case, the for-profit charged $14,000 for a course that was available from a local community college for $520.

Filibuster is a dreaded word

At least to some of our leaders. They are so afraid of that word in the Senate that they now consider it necessary to get 60 votes to pass legislation; a majority of 51 is not good enough. I can't understand why letting a Senator make a fool or hero of himself is so bad. Of course, most of those who do filibuster do not become heroes or fools. They just demonstrate the stupidity or rightness of their causes. 

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has a new take on the filibuster. You get a chance to participate in the filibuster. Wyden is trying to protect the freedoms we have on the Internet. The entertainment industry and the Chamber of Commerce are lobbying hard for a bill which would allow the government to essentially shut down sites which they suspect are guilty of intellectual piracy. The operative word is 'suspect', as they would not need court authorization to do the job. 

I agree that intellectual piracy is a problem, but the proposed bills are not the answer to the problem. You can do something about it by supporting Wyden's planned filibuster. 60,000 people have already signed a petition opposing these bills. Wyden's plan with regard to the filibuster is to read the names of all who sign the petition. Will you be one of them?

He's enamored with payroll taxes

Mr. Obama is urging Congress to extend the payroll tax cuts that were part of his supposed stimulus.  One has to question just how much stimulus these cuts provided. Economists I read say "Very little". Yet, by continuing to espouse the idea of tax cuts, even if payroll taxes, Obama is playing into the hands of the GOP tax cutters. We need both higher taxes and more judicious spending if we are to reduce the deficit significantly. Pushing for a tax cut that has little benefit is not a smart thing to do.

Taxes and GDP

Here's an interesting chart from the OECD. It adds up state, local and federal taxes and compares the total to GDP. Maybe the U.S. is not overly taxed.

You know where you were and what you did 48 years ago today

Image via Wikipedia

That is if you are of a certain age, for November 22, 1963 was the day President Kennedy was killed. There has been a world of speculation as to what effect, if any, this had on the world. Would he have pulled out of Vietnam? Could he have gotten civil rights legislation passed? Would we old folks be benefiting from Medicare? The questions go on and on.

There has been a lot more speculation as to whether Oswald was the assassin or the lone assassin. Probably more books have been written about the assassination itself than Kennedy's presidency. Personally, I think he was the lone assassin, but, really, who cares?

Capt. Raymond Lewis on Occupy Wall Street

Is it now the Arab Fall?

Things are not good in Egypt. Tahrir Square is once more a gathering point for those opposed to the regime. It is once more a gathering point for the authorities. Yesterday, two protesters were killed and 750 injured there.  And disenchantment with the military regime goes beyond Cairo; it's in most large cities. Even the Egyptian cabinet is worried as indicated by their statement, "What is happening in Tahrir is very dangerous and threatens the course of the nation and the revolution."

The Courts Should Not Enforce Gambling Debts

Lynn Stout, professor at UCLA Law School, believes that most derivatives are gambling. If our courts did not enforce gambling debts - a practice that has been recognized by most countries going back to the Romans - a major cause of the Great Recession would have been eliminated.

Stout asserts that "most of the bets on Wall Street were pure speculation. Against $15 trillion of mortgage bonds, Wall Street marketed credit default swaps in 2008 with a notional value of $67 trillion. Worldwide, traded swaps at their peak equaled $670 trillion or $100,000 for each person on the planet, vastly more than all the wealth in the world. Those numbers make it a mathematical certainty that the swaps were mostly speculation, not hedging".

Stout would not consider all derivatives as gambling. Those that are backed by hard assets would be allowed.

Good point!

Serving priests is a job for boys only

Now, I'm not referring to the pedophiles in the Roman Catholic priesthood. I'm referring to what in my day was known as an altar boy. Their function is to assist at mass: to respond to the priest's prayers, to help serve communion, to hold the censer and do whatever else necessary for the saying of the mass.

In 1994 the Vatican declared that girls could also perform the tasks of an altar boy. Now, seventeen years later the majority of the dioceses in northern and eastern Virginia have not implemented the Vatican's declaration. And in some of those which do allow altar girls, the boys wear black, more priestly garments, while the girls wear white.

The official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano has stated, "The exclusion of girls from all this, for the sole reason of belonging to the female sex, has always weighed heavily and signified a profound inequality within Catholic education, which fortunately has been cancelled by now for several decades."  The 'cancellation' is attested to by a 2010 meeting of altar boys and girls in Rome. The girls outnumbered the boys 60-40.

It's obvious that the Roman Catholic church is in decline, particularly in the U.S. This altar girl situation is simply another reason for this decline.

Moving into Asia

I must say that my initial reaction to stationing our troops in Australia was not favorable. It seems like another empire-grabbing move and that may be what it eventually winds up as. Stephen Walt has a different view.   

He sees it as an attempt to ensure that China does not become powerful enough to seriously challenge us. In his view this emphasis on Asia is really a defensive position, not only with regard to Asia but also with regard to the Western Hemisphere. Of course, Walt does not believe in unilateralism; he urges "extensive diplomatic engagement with China and with our various Asian partners".

While Walt approves of this initiative, he is very far away from agreeing with many of our other foreign policy positions. Maybe he is right about our new Asia policy.

Attacking Water Pumps

Speculation has it that the computers that control a water pump in Illinois were hacked. The FBI and DHS are investigating a failure of a pump in the Springfield water plant. The theory is that minor problems caused the pump's motor to be turned off and on repeatedly so that eventually the motor blew. Whether or not this incident was the result of hacking, it is obvious that we are very vulnerable when it comes to our infrastructure.

Update:

Although the cause of the problem is still unknown, authorities assert that there was no cyberattack. They claim an employee, who had the necessary authority, accessed the computer system while traveling in Russia .

Who does acceptance testing?

When I was selling computer software, the sale was never final until the customer had performed his own acceptance testing. That's normal. You try to do acceptance testing on any major purchase you make. You don't rely on the seller to do the testing; his interest is in closing the sale. Yet, here's a comment from the Army Chief of Staff, General Raymond Odierno, "Do we need to take a review of our testing requirements? Sometimes we have tests that are done by the private industry and yet we redo the tests because we have to meet certain regulations and requirements. And I think those are areas that we could look at that could reduce those costs significantly." He is willing to accept the tests of the contractor.

In a comprehensive, somewhat technical article, Dina Rasor explains why this is a stupid comment. We're going to see lots more, as the Pentagon fights the upcoming budget cuts.

Obviously, I know nothing about weapons systems. However, I was really struck reading that one major test for the M-1 tank was to travel 97 miles without a serious failure of the engine, power train or transmission. That is not a typo. Can you believe - go less than 100 miles before a major failure and that considered success? Would you also believe that the tank crapped out after 34 miles? Didn't the tanks of WWII travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles to get the job done?

A slightly different view of Occupy Wall Street

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Tomorrow

Drew Westen thinks that Obama's fundamental management style is delay. Perhaps, not so much delay in making a decision, but in setting a date for when the decision becomes operational. He has a slew of examples in his latest NY Times op-ed: tar sands, budget, health care, etc. He gives two possibilities as explanations of Obama's reason for delay:

the president either doesn’t know or doesn’t want anyone else to know what he believes..... Perhaps the most intriguing thing about an Obama-Romney election would be the question of who could hold out longer without the public discovering what they actually believe.

the president is tied up in the knots of indecision because he lacks the passion that motivates decision-making and distrusts or fears precisely the emotions that allow us to choose between one course of action or another.

Whatever the reason, I hope the Republicans smarten up and choose someone with a brain, a conscience and a sense of responsibility.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?

The title of this post was heard often in America in the 1940s and 1950s. It was part and parcel of a radio show, "Twenty Questions".  Some of our Congressmen have figured out that since pizza is neither animal nor mineral, it must be vegetable. You would agree, would you not?  After all, most pizza does have tomato sauce and tomato is a vegetable.

Whether pizza is a vegetable or not is a very important question to those who supply food to our schools. A lot of that food is subsidized by the federal government and, because of this, our Congress has to grapple with this complex question, as to the degree of vegetable that makes pizza eligible for payments from us. The Agriculture Department, the agency that sets school lunch standards, says that you need a half-cup of tomato paste to turn pizza into a vegetable; very few pizzas have this much tomato paste. Ergo, pizza is not a vegetable.

Congress is also interested in making sure the schools can serve as many starchy foods, such as french fries, as often as they want.  Surprisingly, a group of retired generals, called Mission: Readiness, thinks Congress is wrong. Mission:Readiness has called poor nutrition in school lunches a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service.

How would you like your rice?

With or without caesium? Rice from a farm about 40 miles from Fukushima has been found to be contaminated with caesium.  Authorities say that this rice has not been sold and, of course, will not be. So, do they now inspect all rice within 50 miles of Fukushima? Do the Japanese stop eating rice?

Lipitor Forever

Lipitor is one of the biggest selling drugs ever. Pfizer would like to milk it even though its patent expires in a few weeks, which gives the makers of generic drugs an opening. Pfizer is trying to close off that opening by making deals with pharmacy benefit managers, such as Medco. The deals are such that Pfizer is offering the benefit managers big discounts on Lipitor if the managers tell pharmacies that these generic drugs will not be covered. So, although your doctor may have prescribed a generic - and cheaper - replacement for Lipitor, pharmacies will be prevented from filling the prescription with anything other than Lipitor.

Bankers are becoming more honest

Image via Wikipedia

Over the past twenty years the number of financial institution fraud cases prosecuted by our Justice Department has declined by more than half (56.5%). Even in these days of the Great Recession the number has declined (2.4% from last year). Of course, you suspected that, because our bankers have gotten religion. Very, very few of them actually consider robbing the public. In fact, some bankers have even been nominated for sainthood.

This conversion to a more honest way of life began under W and continues to improve under Barack. Look at these numbers from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse to see how much the improvement has been.

What's "twirling around" in Herman Cain's head

Keep Foreigners Out....

...at least when it comes to political matters in Israel. Many left-wing organizations in Israel - such as B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights and Peace Now - receive some of their money from outside Israel, mainly the U.S. and Britain. The Knesset has just passed laws which will make it difficult for these organizations to continue to raise funds from these sources. One law "bans political organizations in Israel from receiving donations of more than $5,000 from foreign governments and other international groups. Another would tax organizations at a rate of 45 percent on all revenue provided by foreign governments." 

This will have a devastating effect on an organization like Physicians for Human Rights which receives 80 percent of its donations from outside Israel.

Diabetic Long Distance Runners

I'd say they run long distances. How about from California to New York? This video will give you some insight into why they run and some of the challenges they surmounted. They should all be congratulated.

A problem with some Japanese food

That's what it looks like after a study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal. The study's authors have produced the chart below, which shows that the amount of caesium-137 in the soil in Fukushima and surrounding areas makes farming in the areas unsafe.

Cracking down on Occupy Wall Street

New York City; Portland, Oregon; Chapel Hill; Boston; Chicago; Oakland; Salt Lake City - all have seen police remove protesters. Perhaps, the worst one was Chapel Hill which had a swat team arrest the protesters.

Also, Chapel Hill has been accused of overstepping with regard to those watching the arrest.

Comparing Movements

This is via The Big Picture

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The early morning skies are different here

Why should that be? Bloomfield, CT is not that far from the Vineyard. Nor is it unlike all the places I have lived. I'm not sure these photos do justice to what I see around 7a.m. most mornings.

Will DOD ever complete its new systems?

Crucial to DOD's ability to function well enough to be audited in the 21st century is its replacement of 500 or so legacy systems with 10 modern enterprise resource planning systems (ERP). We've invested billions of dollars in these new systems, but are still have a fair way to go if DOD is to be ready to be audited by 2017, six years from now.

Six of the ten new systems will be late - from two to twelve years - and cost $6.9 billion more than planned.
Many do not have a fully integrated master schedule nor a best practice tool(s).
One does not even comply with the government's Standard General Ledger.
At least two don't have ad-hoc query capabilities and do not meet user requirements.

And Panetta and company are very concerned with possible budget cuts?

They did it!

Would you believe a team of type 1 diabetics could run across the country in just a little over two weeks? You should, because this is a team of real athletes. But, they are more than athletes. They are demonstrating what can be done by committed people. 

It so happens than a nephew of mine is one of these committed people. I can say that Matthew is more than a committed runner. He's a nice guy, a very nice guy. He'll be at World Diabetes Day in New York City tomorrow.

Why can't the Pentagon budget be substantially cut?

I doubt that the committee charged to 'solve' our budget problems by November 23 will come to any meaningful conclusions. So, some cuts will automatically be made. Pentagon supporters are worried about this. However, both liberal and conservative think tanks have proposed plans that claim to support cuts from $800 billion to $1.2 trillion without damaging our military preparedness.

One argument the supporters make is that the 21st century wars have seen us wear out our equipment. It will cost a lot to replace and modernize equipment. However, from FY2001 to FY2010 the army spent $1 trillion to replace or upgrade its armored vehicles and the Air Force and navy met their modernization goals.

Lawrence Korb had a good summation of the situation in a recent NY Times letter:

Since we are unlikely to use nuclear weapons, our arsenal can be slashed from the current level of 5,000 to 311, as recommended by some Air Force strategists. Since we are withdrawing troops from the Middle East and are unlikely to need large armies there anytime soon, the size of our ground forces can be cut back by 100,000 to pre-9/11 levels. Since the cold war ended 20 years ago, the 80,000 troops still in Europe can be reduced to 20,000. Since the military increasingly relies on unmanned planes and precision guided munitions, the number of carriers and Air Force fighters can be reduced by 25 percent.

Finally, health care premiums for working-age military retirees can be doubled without breaking faith. In 1995, premiums were set at $460 a year for a family and never raised until a $60 increase this year.

Not a tourist site

Although I've never been to Wyoming, I do believe those who tell me it is a beautiful state. Hence, I was surprised to read about Pavillion, Wyoming. There have been many complaints about water quality there for a number of years and it so happens that the area has been drilled for natural gas for at least twenty years.  In the past ten years residents have had a number of complaints, one of the more interesting being the water is black and smells of gasoline. 

The EPA drilled two monitoring wells last year. Yesterday, they released basic information as to their findings; they did not interpret their findings. ProPublica has been reporting on Pavillion for a few years and has its own interpretation of the findings. As you would expect, things are not good. 

Still, the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one -- a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) -- widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing. The agency said it had not found contaminants such as nitrates and fertilizers that would have signaled that agricultural activities were to blame.
The wells also contained benzene at 50 times the level that is considered safe for people, as well as phenols -- another dangerous human carcinogen -- acetone, toluene, naphthalene and traces of diesel fuel.
The EPA said the water samples were saturated with methane gas that matched the deep layers of natural gas being drilled for energy. The gas did not match the shallower methane that the gas industry says is naturally occurring in water, a signal that the contamination was related to drilling and was less likely to have come from drilling waste spilled above ground.

Some budget cutting is stupid

The Department of Agriculture is saving $11,000,000 a year by eliminating or cutting the frequency of some of its reports, a few of which have been produced for 150 years. Most of the reports are censuses of agricultural data, like the number of sheep in this country. While you or I probably don't have a deep interest in this data, some farmers do, as it is information for them, important information. At a time when we have no qualms about sending $147,000,000 to Brazilian cotton farmers, it would seem a worthwhile use of $11,000,000 to supply American farmers with information that is important to the survival.

Income Inequality in the U.S. of A.

The Gini index measures the degree of inequality in family income in a particular country. The higher this number, the worse the inequality. The worst in the World Factbook is Namibia with an index of 70.7, the best Sweden with 23. Where do you think the U.S. ranks? At 45, we're more equal than Bulgaria and less equal than Cameroon. The worst European country is Portugal at 38.5. 

The Gini index is one measure Invictus uses in a lengthy discussion as to why the Occupy people and others believe that there is a high degree of inequality in this country. It is truly a comprehensive article. His conclusion:

In summary, then, OWS is not about any one thing that is wrong with either our economic or political system. It is about the many things that are wrong with both and, more to the point, the way the ills of each are exacerbating the ills of the other in a very negative feedback loop. Their message is infinitely more complex and nuanced than, say, “End the war in [insert opponent(s) here].” Right now, we’re getting the worst of both worlds — a crappy economy coupled with crappy politicians trying to fix it (though to be fair many are only pretending). As we all well know, it’s very hard to get your message across when it doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.

My bottom line: OWS is not anti-capitalist, anti-Semitic, socialist or Marxist. It is about restoring the unfortunate but somewhat necessary accepted degree of unfairness/inequality that prevailed in this country for generations and, importantly, about demanding that the rule of law be applied uniformly (a quaint notion that exited stage “right” during the Bush administration and remains MIA during Obama’s) and not selectively on the masses while the political and Wall St. elites run amok.

Let’s stop celebrating Veterans’ Day

If we continue to support November 11 as a holiday honoring military veterans, then we should also have holidays honoring many more professions, such as policemen, firefighters, doctors, teachers, etc. Since the advent of our volunteer army in 1973, those in the military profession are there of their own free will. What is it about a military job that makes it deserving of a holiday? Don’t police and firefighters risk their lives protecting us? 

I can understand why we would honor those who were drafted into the military and those military professionals who led these draftees. But why single out for honor people who have not been forced into the military, who wanted to become a soldier, who knew and accepted the associated risks?

Not Good News for the GOP

The results of some of yesterday's local elections have to be of concern to Republicans. Mississippi rejected the 'personhood' concept by 57% - 43%. Ohioans rejected their governor's attempt to gut municipal unions 61% - 39%. In Arizona voters recalled the most rabid of anti-immigrant legislators.

Couple this with the strange cadre of Republican candidates for President and you might think Obama a shoo-in in a year. However, I think that people are so discouraged by the lack of political leaders in this country that a sure winner next year would be "None of the above".

Jon Stewart's Take On Corzine

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Bill Black does not mince words

His latest screed indites Holder and company for failing to even recognize that fraud - primarily via liars' loans - was a large cause of the Great Recession, let alone investigate and prosecute the miscreants.

As embarrassing as Wagner’s statement is, however, it cannot compete on this dimension with that of his boss, Attorney General Holder. I was appalled when I reviewed his testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC). Chairman Angelides asked Holder to explain the actions the Department of Justice (DOJ) took in response to the FBI’s warning in September 2004 that mortgage fraud was “epidemic” and its prediction that if the fraud epidemic were not contained it would cause a financial “crisis.” Holder testified: “I’m not familiar myself with that [FBI] statement.” The DOJ’s (the FBI is part of DOJ) preeminent contribution with respect to this crisis was the FBI’s 2004 warning to the nation (in open House testimony picked up by the national media. For none of Holder’s senior staffers who prepped him for his testimony to know about the FBI testimony requires that they know nothing about the department’s most important and (potentially) useful act. That depth of ignorance could not exist if his senior aides cared the least about the financial crisis and made it even a minor priority to understand, investigate, and prosecute the frauds that drove the crisis. Because Holder was testifying in January 14, 2010, the failure of anyone from Holder on down in his prep team to know about the FBI’s warnings also requires that all of them failed to read any of the relevant criminology literature or even the media and blogosphere.

In addition to claiming that the DOJ’s response to the developing crisis under President Bush was superb, Holder implicitly took the position that (without any investigation or analysis) fraud could not and did not pose any systemic economic risk. Implicitly, he claimed that only economists had the expertise to contribute to understanding the causes of the crisis. If you don’t investigate; you don’t find. If you don’t understand “accounting control fraud” you cannot understand why we have recurrent, intensifying financial crises. If Holder thinks we should take our policy advice from Larry Summers and Bob Rubin, leading authors’ of the crisis, then he has abdicated his responsibilities to the source of the problem.