Headlines in NY Times May 31, 2012

The headlines alone tell a story of failure to change human behavior and a waste of lives, time and money.

Despite Deaths in Honduran Raid, U.S. to Press Ahead With New Antidrug Policy 
Stop Following a Failed Policy

Regulate Drug Use, Don’t Criminalize It

Focus on Violent Gangs and Big Users

Drug Legalization Could Create More Crime

Stop Outsourcing Our Drug Murders

Modify the Rules, Don’t Abandon the Fight

Effects of Easing Laws

Off the Record

Would you ever expect that the notes you took in college could not be shared with anyone who was not a member of the class?  Yet, if you were in Gen. McChrystal's class at Yale, that's the situation you'd be in - you would have signed a non-disclosure form stating that you would not discuss class matters with any outsider.

Absolutely bizarre!

Special Ops

It's Andrew Bacevich again.  This time he's inveighing against the military Special Operations forces, Green Berets, Seals, etc.

Did you know that there was a Special Operations Forces industry?  Their annual conference drew 8,000 people, including the Special Ops commander, Admiral William McRaven.  I guess one should expect a conference - which is basically a sales opportunity - when the US  spends $2 billion a year on the latest devices to kill people.

What gets Bacevich is the aura of privilege and the secrecy attendant on Special Ops doings which insulates them in most cases from having to worry about politics.  We don't hear that much about the doings and never when they fail. Since 9/11, the forces have only become more prominent. Their budget has quadrupled, their staff doubled.  And our current president is in love with them, so you can only see the money and people increasing and transparency decreasing.

Child Poverty

UNICEF has been issuing reports on child poverty for a number of years.  Their latest can be found here.

UNICEF defines child poverty as "the percentage of children (aged 0 to 17) who are living in relative poverty, defined as living in a household in which disposable income, when adjusted for family size and composition, is less than 50% of the national median income".

Here are some numbers from lowest to highest of the world's rich countries:

Iceland 4.7%

Netherlands 6.1%

Germany 8.5%

France 8.8%

Australia 10.9%

UK 12.1%

Canada 13.3%

Italy 16.9%

Latvia 18.8%

U.S.A. 23.1%

Romania 25.5%

The richest country in the world, us, is just one rung from being the rich country with the highest rate of child poverty.  I wonder when Obama and Romney will discuss this issue.

Now it's a 12-year-old that blows my mind

This must be the week for the 21st century people who will make a difference. We've had one kid who invented a better diagnostic for pancreatic cancer, another kid who solved a problem postulated by Newton. And now a 12-year-old with some interesting ideas about banking.

Maybe there is hope, although two of these kids are not from the U.S.A,

Doing Something About Manufacturing

The National Association of Manufacturing (NAM) is actually doing something beyond lobbying.  You may recall in the foofarah about Apple, an Apple executive attributed the massive offshoring of manufacturing to "The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." Well, the NAM is doing something about that.

Together with 113 colleges, the NAM has established a program whereby students can earn a "portable skills certificate" which is recognized nationally.  A worker trained in northern California could land an aerospace manufacturing job in Missouri, an industrial job in Illinois or work in a factory in the Carolinas.

Young workers are taking to the program.  85,000 received a certificate in 2011.

More Fallout from Fukushima

Radioactive substances have been found in bluefish tuna caught off San Diego.  The tuna came from Fukushima.  The fact that these fish were radioactive really surprised scientists; they thought any radioactivity would be eliminated via metabolism. 

The theory is that the tuna absorbed radioactive cesium from swimming in contaminated waters and feeding on contaminated prey such as krill and squid.  A comment from one scientist, "That's a big ocean. To swim across it and still retain these radionuclides is pretty amazing". More tests will be conducted this summer.

Once Again

I guess it's becoming my fate to listen to the poem "It is the Soldier" recited on Memorial Day.  It was recited last year and I had the following comments:

While it is important to have a strong military, I think we have gone overboard in this country in our praise of the military. We have a defense budget that will bankrupt us. We 'support the troops' because we know very few who actually serve in the military and, thus, are at risk. The continuous state of war in which we have been engaged for this entire century has hardly any direct impact on our lives, so we and our leaders accept it. There seems to be little effort on the part of our military and political leaders to bring this country back to days of peace. While we rebelled against England to gain the freedoms listed in the poem, the soldier does not grant us these freedoms, the Constitution does.

I find it hard to accept that this poem was written by a priest, Father Denis Edward O'Brien.  Aren't priests supposed to be preaching the gospel of Christ, which champions peace above war?

2 Teenage Scientists in 1 Week

Last week I wrote about Jack Andraka, a high school freshman who invented a better test for pancreatic cancer.  This week's boy genius is Shouryya Ray, who, at 16, has solved a mathematical problem first posed by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago.  Ray is the first person to do so, although many have tried and have come up with partial solutions.  Ray was born in India and moved to Germany four years ago.

It's good to see talent being distributed around the world.

21st Century Operations

By Telnaes from Washington Post

Birds, Bees, Butterflies

Courtesy of a Duncaster correspondent

memories

 By Todd Heisler of the Rocky Mountain News:

The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. "I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it," she said. "I think that's what he would have wanted." 

Let us remember that we can be evil

Bill Moyers had a chilling show this week.  The subject was our practice of torturing those we believed to be terrorists. The show was based on work done by the ACLU and PEN.  Through the Freedom of Information Act they were able to get a significant number of documents pertaining to torture: Yoo's memos, statement by detainees, regrets by some interrogators, etc.  These documents can be found here at Reckoning With Torture.  Moyers interviewed Doug Liman and Larry Siems who are creating a movie based on the documents.  The movie will feature people - some famous, some not - reading from these documents.  It will be a unique documentary.

Although I did not watch the show, I did read the transcript.  Here are some interesting excerpts:

• Moyers introduced the show: Because if we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who died fighting for their country, we’ll redouble our efforts to make sure we’re worthy of their sacrifice; we’ll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for. So in this broadcast we’ll reckon with torture, the torture done in our name, allegedly for our safety.

• Sandra Cisneros read from Abu Zubaydah’s first-hand account of his interrogation in a secret CIA prison.  Our government has admitted that he was innocent: About two and a half or three months after I arrived in this place, the interrogation began again, but with more intensity than before. Then the real torture started.  I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face. […] The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury. During these torture sessions many guards were present, plus two interrogators who did the actual beating still asking questions.  I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless. I thought I was going to die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine when under stress. 

• I, Darrel Vandeveld, declare as follows: I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps. […] I was the lead prosecutor assigned to the Military Commissions case against Mr. Jawad until my resignation in September 2008. Initially, the case appeared to be a simple street crime, as I had prosecuted by the dozens in civilian life. But eventually I began to harbor serious doubts about the strength of the evidence. […] I learned that the written statement characterized as Jawad’s personal confession could not possibly have been written by him because Jawad was functionally illiterate and could not read or write and the statement was not even in his native language. I also found evidence that Mr. Jawad had been badly mistreated by U.S. authorities both in Afghanistan and Guantánamo. Mr. Jawad’s prison records referred to a suicide attempt, a suicide which he sought to accomplish by banging his head repeatedly against one of his cell walls. The records reflected 112 unexplained moves from cell to cell over a two week period, an average of eight moves per day for 14 days. Mr. Jawad had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program known as the “frequent flyer program.” I lack the words to express the heartsickness I experienced when I came to understand the pointless, purely gratuitous mistreatment of Mr. Jawad by my fellow soldiers. It is my opinion, based on my extensive knowledge of the case, that there is no credible evidence or legal basis to justify Mr. Jawad’s detention in U.S. custody or his prosecution by military commission. Holding Mr. Jawad for six years, with no resolution of his case and with no terminus in sight, is something beyond a travesty. […] Six years is long enough for a boy of sixteen to serve in virtual solitary confinement in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand. Mr. Jawad should be released to resume his life in a civil society, for his sake, and for our own sense of justice and perhaps to restore a measure of our basic humanity. 

• David Liman:  When you think about reading a book like this, you would think you're going to be subjected to some very horrific, grim, bloody scenes. You know, in fact there was not a lot of physical barbarity. You know? It's a kind of a relentless degradation, and a relentless assault on the dignity of the person. They very rarely touch a prisoner. They very rarely do, because they want to preserve the sort of mockingly, this false idea that they follow the rules. But we all know this is torture, this is what they said, so it's things like sleep deprivation. One of the most famous, and well-documented interrogations which was also the subject of you know, ongoing trench warfare, between the F.B.I. and the criminal investigative task forces in Guantanamo, saying, "Stop this." And the military, on the other hand, saying, "Do this," is the interrogation of this guy Mohammed al-Qahtani, that's carried out over several months, but the most intense period is a 50-day interrogation where they allow this man to sleep for only four hours a day, for 50 days. And then during that time, it's sleep deprivation, it's temperature manipulation. And then endless, endless humiliations. Just mocking him all the time. At one point dressing him in a bra and panties. Calling him a homosexual. Another time, inflating a latex glove, and slapping him on the face with it, and calling it-- and putting a-- making him wear a sign that says "Coward," and slapping with this sissy-slap glove. Have a female interrogator constantly getting up in his face, constantly touching him, you know, to constantly sort of just-- what things that, you know, people who looked at this would say, "Well, that constituted an assault, under the universal-- under the Uniform Code of Military Justice." But it wasn't punching him. It's just invading his space. 

And here's Annie Proulx reading a document.

Sea Lions Taking Over

The Fortune 100 Company You've Never Heard of

Actually Glencore International, plc, is not a Fortune 100 company.  It is a Swiss-based company that is larger than most Fortune 100 companies.  Revenue in 2011 was $186 billion. Apple's revenue was $108 billion.  

Glencore "controls more than half the international tradable market in zinc and copper and about a third of the world's seaborne coal; was one of the world's largest grain exporters, with about 9 percent of the global market; and handles 3 percent of daily global oil consumption for customers ranging from state-owned energy companies in Brazil and India to American multinationals like ExxonMobil and Chevron."  Its ROI is 38%, much better than most companies in which you have invested. 

The company was founded by Marc Rich.  Remember him?  He was the guy indicted on federal charges of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He was in Switzerland at the time of the indictment and has never returned to the U.S. He received a presidential pardon from Clinton. 

Glencore makes its money by being in bed with the bad guys of the world who have bribed dictators and others to look favorably on the company.

A High School Freshman and a Dipstick

The freshman is Jack Andraka.  The dipstick is a better test he devised for pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancers.  The test seems to be more than 90 percent accurate, 28 times faster, 28 times cheaper, and more than 100 times more sensitive than current tests for the diseases.  Andraka is more than smart, he is persistent.  At least 200 researchers said 'no' to him when he asked to use their lab for his research.  A Johns Hopkins scientist said 'yes' and Andraka went on to win the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and $75,000.

Is the Secret Service in Good Hands?

E.J. Dionne says no.  He really lambastes Mark Sullivan, the director, who, in the eyes of many journalists, did not exactly come across as someone who knew what was going on within the Secret Service or chose to lie about what he knew.  Based on some quotes in the article, most of the Senators investigating the issue had trouble also believing him. 

Scenes from the Galapagos

Courtesy of my daughter, who recently visited the islands.

A Surprise

Global Zero is an organization whose goal is to eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth.  You wouldn't think that many military men would support such an organization.  But Marine Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright does support Global Zero.  And he is not your average military man: former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, he oversaw the nuclear targeting plan and thousands of warheads atop missiles and inside long-range bombers.  So he does know a fair amount about nuclear weapons.

Cartwright chaired a Global Zero group that has just published a report urging that the existing American arsenal of 5000 warheads be cut by 80 percent, in an effort meant to be matched by similar reductions in the Russian arsenal.  The group included another other military man, General Jack Sheehan, as well as Senator Hagel and two former ambassadors, Richard Burt and Thomas Pickering.

A couple of quotes:

• “No sensible argument has been put forward for using nuclear weapons to solve any of the major 21st century problems we face,”
• Nuclear deterrence, the report asserted, “is no longer a cornerstone of the U.S-Russian security relationship” but is instead “driven largely by inertia and vested interests left over from the Cold War.”

Moreover, you're looking at savings of over $10 billion a year.

A penny here, a penny there

And before you know it, you're looking at a $1 trillion defense budget. 

Now I know that the the Pentagon’s base budget is $530 billion, but there are a number of defense items not included in this budget. 

Let's start out with the most obvious - the cost of the wars. It has averaged more than $100 billion a year. 

You would think nuclear weapons would be part of the defense budget. Think again. That $18 billion is in the budget of the Department of Energy. The very name, Homeland Security, implies defense. The budget for DHS is $35.5 billion. But there is another $13.5 billion squirreled away in other departments. 

What about “international security assistance”? Bump it by $10 billion. Veterans? $138 billion. Civilian retirees from DOD? $21 billion. 

We're very close to $1 trillion.

Impressions

Steven Walt participated in the Istanbul World Political Forum, a Davos-like gathering of political scientists from around the world.  Here are a few of his comments.  Emphases mine.

One of the more vivid impressions I took from the conference was the prevailing wariness -- if not outright suspicion -- with which the United States was viewed by many of the attendees. Virtually any statement that cast even mild doubt about U.S. policy (on Iran, Middle East peace, past interventions, Iraq, etc.) drew spontaneous approval from the audience, even if the statements weren't especially provocative, penetrating, or anti-American.

America is still very powerful, and plenty of governments still understand that some of our strategic interests overlap. But we're entering a world were fewer and fewer governments are going to be reflexively deferential to the United States, for the simple reason that they pay attention to popular sentiment and their own national interests aren't in fact identical to ours. If we expect governments in these countries to be as supine as some of their predecessors, we had better get used to disappointment. What will be needed is a lot more nuance, flexibility, and diplomatic skill, as well as a greater sense of humility and restraint. I only hope that we are better at displaying these qualities in the future than we've been in the recent past. 

A Man of Strong Opinions

That Bill Black certainly is.  Contrast his views on JPMorgan with those of James Kwak of Baseline Scenario.  In a straightforward way Kwak reminds us that the game is a combination of skill and luck. But Dimon and company thinks it's only a game of skill, luck plays no part in it.  Black has a similar view but he is more bombastic in expressing that view.  He thinks Morgan is an out-and-out gambler.  It claims it is hedging risk.  In Black's view that is just what it is - a claim to appease the public and the regulators.  In Black's words, "JPMorgan poses a clear and present danger to the global economy."  He has a point.

A True Christian?

Pastor Charles Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina speaks.

Looking for ways to cut the federal budget?

All is not well with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  First of all, it's been unbelievably expensive.  We will wind up spending at least $1.51 trillion on it; that's more than any other weapon in our history.  

The first estimates for the cost of one F-35 were $75,500,000, now the estimate is $160,000,000.  Note the word 'estimates'.  It assumes no major design changes. But the GAO says, "much of its developmental and operational testing remains and the risk of future design changes is significant."  Thus, the chances of higher costs than estimated are quite large, particularly since the GAO also said some critical technologies were "not mature and present significant development risks" and a Pentagon review stated that there were major issues the combined impact of which "results in a lack of confidence in the design stability."

Chicago 1968 Redux

The NATO protest seems to have invigorated the nasty side of the Chicago police.  Here's one view from Firedoglake. 

Here are some videos taken at the scene. 
 

Unleash Your Creativity

If you are a groomer of pets, you may want to consider joining the National Association of Professional Creative Groomers, LLC.  This organization "offers pet groomers the unique opportunity to truly individualize and customize their clients’ grooms by adding touches of personal style and even practicality to nearly any pet that enters the salon".   Here is a sample of the kind of pet grooming they are talking about.

We have truly entered a world where many people treat their dogs as people (or their version of people). There is a fascinating article in Agence France Presse that lists an amazing number of things people have done to their animals: tattoos, earrings, nose rings, chin rings, tummy tucks, facelifts, fake testicles, implants to make floppy ears stand straight, declawing to prevent scratching, and tooth removal to stop destructive chewing.  

Pet grooming is a growing business.  Annual revenue exceeds $1 billion.

The Dumb Daniel Webster

The name Daniel Webster is usually thought of in connection with the Daniel Webster of the 19th century, a man considered one of our greatest Senators.  I suspect that the 21st century Daniel Webster, a Congressman from Florida, will be remembered as one of our dumbest Congressmen.  Here are a couple of his quotes. "What really promotes business in this country is liberty, not demand for information."  "This is a program that intrudes on people's lives, just like the Environmental Protection Agency or the bank regulators."

Mr. Webster's comments are in connection with his bill to eliminate the American Community Survey from the census.  The survey has been part of censuses since 1850 and has provided vital information to industry and the government.  The survey is conducted among a random segment of those participating in the census.  It provides information about demographics, habits, languages spoken, occupation, housing and various other categories.  Many branches of the government use it to answer a wide variety of questions, such as the contamination of ground water in rural areas or how much funding for education or public health is need in  the states and communities of this country. Organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, National Association of Home Builders rely on the information for planning smartly. 

Mr. Webster probably is not a businessman.  Hence, his comment that information is really not needed for success in business.  Target stores use the survey to plot where their new stores should be built.  He also has a lot of faith in bankers.  I wonder what he thinks about JPMorgan today.

A Better Product?

Helicopters need drip pans to catch transmission fluid before it leaks into the cockpit.  Phoenix Products claims to make the best drip pans.  They were the only company deemed "approved and certified" by the Pentagon.  Thus, there were no competitive bids.  They have been selling them to the government for use with the Blackhawk helicopter for the past three years for $17,000 each, a discount from the regular price of $19,000.

At the same time VX Aerospace has been selling the Pentagon drip pans for the UH-46 helicopters.  Their price? $2,500.  Are these helicopters so different that two drip pans are needed?  Is this a very complex part requiring extra special precision machining?

Or is it the case that Phoenix has an in with the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee?  In 2009 Mr. Rogers, the Chairman, put an earmark in the budget so that Phoenix could sell its drip pans. Are their drip pans really that good that we should be paying 8 times the price of those made by VX Aerospace?

An Almost Perfect Spring Day

Yesterday driving on Memorial Drive near Harvard Square.  The grass always seems greener there.  Students lounging on the grass.  Couples in love.  Crews practicing on the Charles.  Cyclists all around.  Streets abuzz with people of all ages and dress.  Sun shining.  Temperature in the high 70s.  And Callas singing Butterfly with Gedda in Milan, von Karajan conducting.

It doesn't get much better.  
 

Quotes from Curt Schilling

"If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.  A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.”

Headline in Boston Globe  today

High-risk video game venture has Rhode Island, Curt Schilling reeling

College for One and All

The Fiscal Times has a list of the 11 worst-performing public colleges in the U.S.  In this case performance is measured by the percentage of entrants who graduate in six years.  They do acknowledge that the numbers are a little tricky; those who transfer to another school are counted as dropouts.  

The numbers seem unbelievable.  The worst college is Southern University at New Orleans where the graduation rate is 4%.  You read that right - 4%.  You have to wonder whether many of these students were victims of the philosophy that everyone must go to college.  Tuition is low, only $3,906 for Louisianans and 75% of the students got Pell grants.  And the school admitted less than half of the applicants.  Could the fact that the average SAT score of those admitted was 715 have any bearing on the graduation rate?  The national average is 1500.

The other ten colleges listed are not much better.  The article does point out that in terms of the percentage of college dropouts world-wide we ranked dead last.  Should this not tell us something?  I suspect that in most other countries young kids are not 'forced' into going to college.

A Terrible Advertisement

"Life of Julia" is quite an amateurish ad for Obama's reelection.  It's something you'd see in a sixth-grade reading booklet.  I wonder who it is aimed at.  I also wonder at the cost. 

I can understand that Obama has faith in the people who helped elect him in 2008.  However, they had the advantage then of an untried character who was able to convince us he was a change agent.  Mr. Obama has not proven himself a change agent of any kind, he's more of a follower of GW. 

Is his team up to the job?

Baseball at War

Chief Specialist Robert William ("Bob") Feller, former American League baseball pitcher service in US Navy in World War II. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-f/r-feller.htm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ted Williams being sworn into the military on May 22, 1942. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I attended a talk, "Baseball at War", by Chris Martens, a retired ESPN executive.  It was fascinating but, when you compare those war days with the current war days, quite dispiriting.

Everybody from kids to old people was involved with WWII.  We all worked for its success.  Baseball was no exception.  The parks became centers of patriotism selling war bonds, holding blood drives, collecting metals.  The players fought in many battles.  It did not matter whether you were Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller or just an average ballplayer.  You were drafted or volunteered.  And you fought in the war.  There were no exceptions.

Contrast that with today's wars.  Do you know anybody who has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and who knows where else are troops are?  What sacrifices do we have to make to ensure our success? How united is this country?  How effective are our leaders? Who will write of our decline and fall?

Privacy Lost

I've been using drugstore.com for a few years.  However, they sold out to Walgreens earlier this month.  So to order a new prescription I had to register on Walgreen's web site.  

Naturally, they had to prove that I was who I had typed into their form.  I was given a series of questions asking my last address, my last phone number and the model year of my car.  These questions popped up almost instantaneously after I had entered my name, address and telephone number.  I have never done business with Walgreen's, so, although I use the web daily, I must confess that I was taken aback by the speed with which they could display these questions.

I decided to forego the privilege of becoming a Walgreen's customer.

Not mincing any words

Tom Engelhardt certainly has strong opinions about drones and our world of secrecy.  About the latter, he has this to say:

You may be paying a fortune to maintain their world -- the 30,000 people hired to listen in on conversations and other communications in this country, the 230,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security, the 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, the 4.2 million with security clearances of one sort or another, the $2 billion, one-million-square-foot data center that the National Security Agency is constructing in Utah, the gigantic $1.8 billion headquarters the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency recently built for its 16,000 employees in the Washington area -- but there’s a good reason.  That’s what’s needed to make truly elevated, surgically precise decisions about life and death in the service of protecting American interests on this dangerous globe of ours.

He concludes his screed as follows:

What they can’t see in the haze of exceptional self-congratulation is this: they are transforming the promise of America into a promise of death. And death, visited from the skies, isn’t precise. It isn’t glorious. It isn’t judicious. It certainly isn’t a shining vision.  It’s hell.  And it’s a global future for which, someday, no one will thank us.

You really should read it.

Another view of JP Morgan

James Kwak at Baseline Scenario has an interesting take on the JP Morgan fiasco.  His premise, which is very hard, if not impossible, to dispute, is that success is a combination of skill and luck.  To me, it's clear that chance (you can call it luck) is a very important determinant in one's life.

Dimon and company seem to believe that luck does not play into man's endeavors.  Their prior success, they seem to believe, was due solely to their skill. 

Mother's Day At JP Morgan

from Peter Steiner

Voluntary Amputation

It was only last week that I wrote about the staggering improvements in prostheses, particularly those for legs.  Those improvements have led some to cut off more of their already amputated leg so that they can use the new generation of prostheses.  Pain using their current prosthesis has been a common reason for some to go through the process of losing part of one's leg once more.  Others do it because they want to live a more active life. The bionic man of 20th century tv is becoming more and more a reality.

Assinine

I was lucky when I went to college.  Tuition was low enough that my parents were able to foot the bill.  My kids were similarly lucky.  If they were graduating now, they would probably not be as lucky.

The NY Times had a very disheartening story about the costs of today's college education.  They have become so high that graduates are almost forced into a form of servitude. Here's a summary of the situation:

1. The number of students who have to go into debt to get a bachelor’s degree has risen from 45% in 1993 to 94% today.

2. There is now more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt in the United States.

3. Over the last 10 years, tuition and fees at state schools have increased 72%.

4. During the late 1970s, Ohio spent 17% of their budget on higher education and 4% of prisons. Today, Ohio spends 11% on higher ed and 8% of prisons.

5. This year, national, state and local spending on higher education reached a 25-year low. 

Then, there is always the question as to how many of these kids will really benefit from the education.  Would the nation be better off if some of these kids did not go to college but did whatever their spirit moved them to do?

Mothers and Drugs

Drones and bribes

We know that we paid people to tell us who in their town were members of a terrorist organization.  Obviously, the chances of people naming those they don't like in exchange for money is fairly high, especially in poor areas.  Guantanamo has had a number of these accused people.  One analysis of WikiLeaks documents concludes that 80% of the Guantanamo prisoners had no connection with terrorist organizations.  Now, it looks as though we are once more using bribery to identify and locate terrorists so that we can send a drone after them. We've given informants GPS tags to put on vehicles being driven by supposed terrorists so that a drone can locate the terrorists.

We've also been told that the number of civilian deaths by drone are "exceedingly rare".  Well, one English organization, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, claims to have exhaustively documented  the death of 479 to 821 civilians, including 174 children, in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, out of a total of up to 3,113 people killed.  Their web site has a lot of figures on drone attacks around the world.

Who do we believe?  

Liberty Mutual is really Liberty Executive

Brian McGrory acknowledges that he's written a lot about Liberty Mutual lately.  We've seen that Liberty's executives are really men of the 1%.  One would think that the facts revealed in that posting were bad enough.  But McGrory has more to say.  The more is the cost of a new executive office for the new CEO, David Long.  The 1,335 square foot office suite cost $4,513,415, which works out to $3,370 per square foot.  This cost was incurred in the fall of last year.  Next year Liberty is moving into a new office building with executive offices appropriate to their occupants' status. So, that's a cost of roughly $6,200 per day (for a 365-day year, not the 250 days of a work year.  The 'Mutual' in the company's name is supposed to mean that the policyholders own the company.  That is not the case with Liberty Mutual.

Staffing a volunteer army is not easy.

Sure, now that the economy is still in the tank recruiting of soldiers is not a major problem any longer.  However, a very impressive group of retired generals, admirals and civilian military leaders are very concerned about our ability to properly and fully staff the military on a continuing basis.  

Their fear is based on research that shows our youth has many problems which prevent them from joining the military. There are three major problems: physical condition, criminal records and poor education. To wit:

•  27% of the 17- to 24-year-olds in this country are too fat. 32% have other health issues (asthma, mental health, poor eyesight or hearing, etc.).
• 10% of young adults have been convicted or a felony or serious misdemeanor.
• 25% don't have a high school diploma and many who do graduate do not have the skills necessary

The military men and women do not simply list the problems.  They think the problems can be solved.  Their basic recommendation: "Our recommendation to state and federal policymakers is to ensure that America’s children have access to high-quality early education. That is the best way to make certain that more young Americans will meet the tough standards of the United States military should they choose to serve. A strong commitment today to high-quality early education will keep America strong and safe tomorrow."

Beer points the way?

I'm not much of a beer drinker, but, since one of my sons works for Allagash Brewing, I do tend to read articles about beer that catch my eye.  So, naturally I had to read "Can Beer Save America?" by David Sirota.  I thought it would be a satire.  It's actually about the future of our economy.

Sirota hopes that we move away from a macrobrewing economy - high volume, low price, low quality - to a microbrewing economy - low volume, high price, high quality.  He has the numbers in the beer industry to show that macrobrewing is waning, while microbrewing is growing.  He asks. "Will we be a country of high volume and low quality? Or can we become an economy of quality and price premium? Whether it’s drinking, buying computers or choosing what industrial policy to support, we are in the process of answering those questions".

Sirota relates the macrobrewing economy to that of China, which he thinks will always have lower costs and lower quality products.  Germany is the archetype for the microbrewing economy: high quality, lower volume, higher prices. 

Which type of economy would you rather live in?

Rumors are flying

In the eyes of the Catholic bishops in America the Girl Scouts must be investigated to be sure that Catholics may continue to be members.  To the bishops it looks like the Girl Scouts pass out bad materials and support Planned Parenthood and all their evil ideas.  So, the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth will conduct an official inquiry into the Girl Scouts.  They will look for ”possible problematic relationships with other organizations” and various “problematic” program materials.

The Girl Scouts is a relatively liberal organization, unlike the Boy Scouts which excludes atheists and homosexuals from leadership roles.  However, the Girl Scouts have freely made adjustments in their materials and relationships when they feel they have made a mistake.  Would that the Church acknowledge it is fallible.  They'd be better off investigating themselves.

Would the Volcker Rule Have Prevented this?

JP Morgan is reporting a loss of $2 billion from its trading desk in the last six weeks and there is a likelihood of another billion going down the drain.  A month ago, the Wall Street Journal raised some questions about the types of trades that have led to this problem.  Dimon's response? "a complete tempest in a teapot."

Again, credit-default swaps gone wrong were the primary cause of the loss. Morgan's strategy of managing the risk attendant on these swaps in Morgan's words "has proven to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the firm previously believed." 

Obama's support for gay marriage splits US

This post's title is a headline from the BBC web site.  While the extremists on both sides - and the presidential campaigns - may be split, I doubt that many Americans are as concerned with the issue.  Admittedly, it is an important issue, but most people I know think that too much - much too much - is being made of it.  Perchance, the media thinks it will sell papers or ads or increase their visitor count.

There are more important issues that the media is ignoring, such as our ineffective governmental leaders of both persuasions, our growing militarism, our terrible unemployment, our movement towards a 1984 world, and on and on.

Getting ready for a line dance

Walking without a leg

I do have a strong interest in amputees, particularly those who have lost a leg, I know.  The progress we have made in building prosthetic legs in the past 50 years has been amazing.  Oscar Pistorius' ability to compete with two-legged track stars is certainly not something I could ever have imagined.  Now it seems that the type of legs Pistorius uses is probably better for walking with a prosthesis than what has been typically accepted - a leg whose foot mirrors man's natural foot. English scientists have published a study demonstrating this proposition.

Jim Usherwood, the lead scientist tells us, “If you want to make a good prosthetic foot but don’t care what it looks like, you should put the motor — in this case the ankle — as far up the leg as possible.”  When it is higher up, the ankle “can provide the power without making the feet heavy and hard to swing backwards and forwards”.  Their model for this new type of prostheses is Pistorius as well as another 'walker' - the ostrich.

Apparently, apes and men walk differently than other bipeds.  We, says Usherwood, "walk by crashing on the heel, vaulting over the stationary leg and then pushing off with the toes".  The ostrich has no heels, his tendons act as springs; this allows the ostrich to walk faster.  Such a system is more efficient when you don't have a natural leg.

Protect the criminal not the victim

That seems to be the attitude of the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn when it comes to sexual abuse of a child.  Apparently there is a custom (mesirah) which prohibits them from turning in Jews to non-Jewish authorities like the police. And there is another custom contributing to this protection: chillul Hashem prohibits publicly airing allegations against other Jews.

A few examples of this shunning are given in the NY Times.  In one, a mentally disabled teenager was abused.  When his father complained to the police, his friends dropped him, his family was evicted and he got tons of abusive phone messages. In other cases kids were expelled from religious schools and synagogues.

The courtroom hearing one of these abuse cases was packed with so many rabbis, religious school principals and community leaders in sympathy with the abuser that the judge lamented, “While the crimes the defendant stands convicted of are bad enough. What is even more troubling to the court is a communal attitude that seems to impose greater opprobrium on the victims than the perpetrator.” 

There are some in the ultra-Orthodox community trying to change this situation.  They have a ways to go. 

How does this differ from the Catholic Church's handling of pedophile priests?

Closer than you think

Zoos around the country have introduced orangutans to the iPad.  Miami's Jungle Island uses an iPad to communicate and as part of a mental stimulus program.  As with us, the young orangutans use it, the older ones don't. The zookeeper says, "They are sort of trapped in those bodies. They have the intelligence that they need to communicate, but they don't have the right equipment, because they don't have voice boxes or vocal cords. So this gives them a way to let us know what they know, what they are capable of, what they would like to have."

The software was originally designed for humans with autism.  The screen displays pictures of various objects. A trainer then names one of the objects, and the ape presses the corresponding button.

The iPad does have limitations. The small screen causes orangutans to hit the wrong buttons sometimes (Gee, is that a surprise?).  The biggest limitation to the apes holding the device is its cost; the iPad is too fragile and would most likely be wrecked if held by the orangutans.

Since several zoos are using iPads with their orangutans there is a move towards creating video-conferencing software to reconnect orangutans with friends and family members who have been transferred to other zoos.

When will the FCC work for us?

I can't believe that it's been six years since I started writing about our country's poor Internet performance and high Internet cost.  The OECD periodically reports on the Internet status in their various countries.  We are not the cheapest; there are 28 (of 34) OECD countries whose citizens pay less than we do for web access. This high cost has affected Internet penetration; in 2002, the United States had the sixth-highest broadband penetration among all O.E.C.D. countries. Last year it was in 15th place.  Somehow in the country that invented the Internet we rank 17th in terms of average download speeds.

And now net neutrality has once more become a hot item in the halls of Congress.  The lobbyists are out in force to allow the telecommunication companies to discriminate amongst its users; equality of access will vanish.

The 20th century FCC was concerned with us.  Remember the MCI decision? They also made sure that you could use a non-Bell phone to make calls on Bell networks.  AT&T was cut up into smaller - and sometimes more responsive - companies.

Will the 21st century FCC put us first?

The Military and the War on Drugs - Part 2

The NY Times has a 'debate' on the deployment of our military to fight the War on Drugs in Honduras.  I was surprised when I read the comments to the various positions expressed.  By and large, the commenters think this deployment is a stupid idea but typical of those who believe that the War on Drugs actually accomplishes anything good.

Another View of Global Warming

Some British scientists think that global warming was as bad in the days of the dinosaur as it is today.  Today it's estimated that we produce about 500,000,000 tons of methane from a variety of natural and industrial sources.  The scientists think that dinosaurs alone produced 520,000,000 tons.

They base their estimate on the current production of methane by cows.  Assuming that cows produce between 50-100 million tons a year, their estimate of the dinosaur population had to produce 520,000,000.

It seems a fairly shaky proposition to me.  However, it did pass the judgement of the peer reviewers of Current Biology.  I hope that the reviewers asked such questions as:

• How did the investigators calculate the number of cows on earth today and dinosaurs in the Mesozoic Age?
• Is the estimated annual output of methane by cows consistent around the globe?
• How did they estimate the annual output of methane by dinosaurs?

Is the Taliban Weaker or Stronger?

The president says that the “tide had turned” and “we broke the Taliban’s momentum” with the 'surge of 2010' when we sent 33,000 more troops to Afghanistan.   Senator Feinstein and Rep. Rogers, leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, disagree.  Their view: “I think we’d both say that what we’ve found is that the Taliban is stronger.” 

Why not accept reality and leave?

 

The Military and the War on Drugs

I guess if you call something a war, then the military have to wage that war.  That's probably why we have troops in Honduras.  Since Mexico has been able to cut the drug smuggling into that country, the smugglers have moved to Central America.  Honduras has become a major smuggling point. 

The NY Times calls our efforts in Honduras "the nation’s new way of war: small-footprint missions with limited numbers of troops, partnerships with foreign military and police forces that take the lead in security operations, and narrowly defined goals, whether aimed at insurgents, terrorists or criminal groups that threaten American interests".  Apparently, the military is assuming the job of police.  But, you'd expect that in a war, wouldn't you?

Supposedly, there are restrictions on our actions: We can't fire except in self-defense;  Nor can we respond with force if DEA people are in danger. What are the chances of those restrictions going by the board?

How many millions does this effort add to the cost of the War on Drugs?  What are its chances of success?

Boycott Budweiser

That's what Nicholas Kristof is advocating.  His argument is based on Budweiser's catering to the alcoholic bent of Indians living in the Pine Ridge Reservation in Nebraska.  Alcohol is banned on the reservation.  But outside the reservation is a very tiny town, Whiteclay; perhaps there are 10 people living there.  But these 10 are able to sell more than 4,000,000 cans of beer and malt liquor a year.  Most of the liquor is made by Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Budweiser.  

Alcohol has devastated the reservation.   "Life expectancy is about the same as in Afghanistan. As many as two-thirds of adults there may be alcoholics, and one-quarter of children are born suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders."

The tribe says that more than 90 percent of arrests by the tribal police are alcohol-related, along with 90 percent of arrests of juveniles. Children often begin drinking in their early teens. 

I am not in favor of prohibition, but clearly Anheuser-Busch is willing to sacrifice a community for a buck.

Women's Rights

Mona Eltahawy has a blistering diatribe on women's rights in the Arab world, primarily Saudi Arabia, in this month's Foreign Policy.  For example, did you know that

• Cairo has a woman-only subway car
• Most Saudi shopping malls are for families only
• 80% of Egyptian woman claimed to have been sexually harassed, 60% of the men admitted to having harassed women (that percent of admissions absolutely amazed me)
• 15 girl students were prevented from leaving a burning school building because they were not wearing headscarves and cloaks - they all died
• In Libya, female victims of sexual assault were placed in "social rehabilitation centers" which they could not leave unless a man agreed to marry them or their families took them back

Eltahawy was beaten and sexually assaulted by Egyptian police in November 2011.

Wishing will not make it so

We had planned to establish four consulates in various sections of Afghanistan beyond Kabul.  The first one is in Heret and the second was to be in Mazar-e Sharif.  Thus far, we have invested $80,000,000 on this second site.  But we will stop the spending as now we believe the site to be too dangerous.  

A quote from a report assessing the site, “We believe the survey will show that a [car bomb] would cause catastrophic failure of the building in light of the local construction techniques and materials.”  In addition, the complex was surrounded by several tall buildings from which an attack could easily be launched.  If things went really bad at the consulate, the roof was too small to land a helicopter. 

Need I say we are reassessing whether we should build the other two consulates?

Bella Luna

The Perigee Moon rises over the Mississippi Sound in Biloxi, Mississippi. This occurrence happens when the Moon is in its nearest approach to Earth.  from McClatchy

And here's the moon over Phoenix.

 

from the Washington Post

Spend your money on your pet

Sure, that's what a lot of people do.  This is not a new phenomonen.  About thirty years ago a friend and I briefly considered starting a company to provide health insurance for dogs.  The care and treatment of pets - and the money involved - has certainly escalated since then.  The latest is Pet Airways, an airline whose "pawsengers" are people's pets and the pets can be almost any type of animal.

And, then, there are the pet funerals.  You can buy a casket or an urn.  You can have your pet preserved in ice.  You can have it mummified.  Really going out there, you can have your pet converted into a synthetic diamond.  If you are really broken up about your pet's demise, you can visit a pet psychologist.

The world is changing and I guess I'm not changing with it.

Let the light shine

Myopia - short-sightedness - is way up in Southeast Asia.  About 20% of the population was myopic 40 - 50 years ago.  Now it's 80%.  If myopia get's really bad, you go blind.

Some think that the dramatic rise in the condition is due primarily to the emphasis on succeeding in school.  Students' eyes work very hard.  But that's true around the world.  The problem here is that the Asian kids are not out in the sun that often; being out rejuvenates the eyes.  They even take a nap at lunchtime when the sun is at its peak.

Multinationals are not all bad

In Foreign Policy Charles Kenny argues that, although multinationals have made a lot of money in underdeveloped countries, on the whole they have also done good things.  

Sometimes the good requires you to stop and think.  Vodafone, the cell phone company has 213,000,000 users in developing countries. It's doubtful that many of these users are teenagers texting.  Mobile phones now allow you to do much more than text and talk.  One thing that it does in South Africa, for instance, is enable people to search for jobs outside of their immediate area.  One benefit of this expanded job search is increased employment of around 15%.  In Kenya it makes banking much more accessible.  One-third of Kenyans use the mobile-banking applications Vodafone offers.  Why?  The number of bank branches is tiny, one for every 44,000 Kenyans.

Unilever sells a lot of soap in India, where the use of soap on such a simple task as washing your hands was not as widespread as one would think.  Yes, Unilever makes a lot of money from its soaps.  But using the soaps means that many people are less likely to develop diarrhea.

For the past ten years Glaxo has reduced the incidence  of intestinal worms by donating 2.6 billion treatments of their deworming drug to 58 countries.  Yes, they do sell drugs at exorbitant prices. But, like most things in life, the company is neither all good nor all bad.

The SEC acts against the rating agencies

The only problem is that it has not acted against Moody's and the big rating agencies.  It's gone after a firm I've never heard of, Egan-Jones.  Egan-Jones makes its money from those who use its ratings. The big agencies get paid by the issuer, which is one of the reasons why their ratings were so skewed towards the Lake Woebegon proportions that were a major factor leading to the Great Recession.

The SEC is going after Egan-Jones because of problems with the firm's application to be a "nationally recognized statistical ratings organization."  The firm claims that one application matter stems from a different method of counting the number of ratings they had made. The other SEC concern involves investments in securities being rated; the firm claims these investments were of long-standing and were brought to the SEC's attention.  

It's possible these matters were sufficient to deny the firm's application. But the real question is why the SEC is going after a piddling firm and is doing nada about the big guys.  It looks like the major ratings agencies have been evaluated as TBTBI, Too Big To Be Indicted.

The E-Rate Program

Back in the days of Clinton, a law was enacted to allow schools to get on the information highway (the Internet and other 21st century communication methods).  Schools could not only get on the highway but the costs of doing so would be subsidized by the phone companies, with the largest subsidies going to the schools with the most disadvantaged children.  Subsidies would be funded largely by the “Universal Service Fund”, a little charge that appears on your phone bill; this little charge has amounted to about $2.25 billion.  The law also required the phone companies to grant the schools the lowest competitive rate to comparable customers. 

The problem is that the law is not working. More of the $2.25 billion goes to the profits of the phone companies than to subsidizing the schools.  Defining "lowest competitive rate" has been a big challenge for the phone companies.  AT&T has charged some schools up to 325 percent more than it charged others in the same region for essentially the same services. Verizon charged a New York school district more than twice as much as it charged government and other school customers in that state.

The FCC has not done a very good job in monitoring the program.  It hasn't brought suit against any carrier for violating the lowest cost rule.  Perhaps one reason might be because the FCC has provided little if any guidance to companies on how to apply the best-price rule.They have also been remiss in responding to Freedom-of-Information requests by ProPublica.  ProPublica asked for 12 audits, they got 9.

A private non-profit company, Universal Service Administrative Company, monitors the program for the FCC.  The company pays more attention to infractions of the rules made by schools, rather than the companies.

Who gets the short end of the stick?  Kids in poor school districts and you and me.

Do you believe this?

In the world of the Internet and 21st century media it's very hard to determine the truth.  Sometimes it's just a simple matter of different cultures; what's normal here may seem very weird in, for example, China.  Our NYC correspondent sent us a link to a China-based article that sounds weird to this older American. Can you guess what this man is doing?

Supposedly, he is licking the butt of the monkey.  Why?  Well, the article asserts that the man is really a very good guy.  The monkey, which happens to be a rare type of monkey, had swallowed a peanut and became so ill its life was threatened.  The monkey was too small to ingest medicine, so its caretaker took matters into its own hand, rather mouth.  He washed the monkey's buttocks and then proceeded to lick the buttocks for over an hour until the undigested peanut was defecated by the monkey.

Do you believe it?

Maybe the zoo should give the caretaker a raise.