not innovative

Border Patrol lets some illegals go — over and over again

by ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago

EL PASO, Texas - Josefa Gonzalez Loya has sneaked across the Mexican border at least 128 times in the past eight years. And each time, the Border Patrol has been nice enough to give her a lift home.

Gonzalez and a group of other women and children — all Indians from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca — have no interest in staying in the United States. All they want to do is panhandle outside El Paso businesses, using the children as lures.

At the end of a productive day, they wait for the Border Patrol to come pick them up and drive them back to the border.

Little dramas like this play out day after day, accounting for thousands of arrests but hardly any prosecutions in the past several years.

The Oaxacan immigrants fall under a loophole that gives border agents discretion to keep some adults and children together and out of jail.

"They do qualify for jail and prosecution," Border Patrol spokesman Ramiro Cordero said. "However, we've got to look at the humanitarian factor first if we are going to have to separate the family."

Nearly 500 Oaxacan (pronounced wah-HAH-ken) women and children in colorful serapes have been rounded up since the fiscal year began in October, accounting for thousands of arrests.

The middle-aged Gonzalez and some of the others make a mad dash across the Rio Grande with the help of a guide. Occasionally they get caught trying to slip across, but evidently they are good at evading the Border Patrol, even though they use the same general area over and over. Sometimes, authorities realize they have arrived when they see the little footprints the diminutive immigrants leave along the banks of the Rio Grande.

Once she makes it across, Gonzalez, who speaks only a language common among Indians in Oaxaca, catches a bus to a strip mall a few miles away from the border, just far enough into El Paso to evade agents on patrol. There she starts begging for spare change.

Border agents say when she and her entourage are ready to go home, they muster in front of a store. Then they wait, knowing their presence will create enough of a nuisance that agents will come pick them up. When they do, the beggars' mugshots are taken and their fingerprints checked. Then they are walked back across the border.

"Half the time when you see them, they're ready to go," Cordero said.

Gonzalez has been arrested 128 times. Despite a crackdown on illegal immigration along much of the border, she and most of her tribal members have never been jailed.

Most illegal immigrants cannot count on the goodness of immigration officials' hearts. Unlike the Oaxacans and other Mexicans caught near the border, illegal immigrants arrested in the U.S. interior are routinely separated from their children, with some youngsters placed in foster care while their parents are deported.

Cordero said agents have the authority to "look at the totality of the circumstances" when deciding if an illegal immigrant should be prosecuted.

"They are coming to beg. They are not trying to further their entry into the United States," Cordero said.

He said it is impossible to say how much each arrest costs the taxpayers.

Gonzalez and her crew seem well-aware of the law. The women all claim the children as their own, but that would mean women obviously in their 50s and 60s have just had babies. Often the same child is claimed by different women on different days. And still, the agents err on the side of keeping the self-proclaimed "families" together.

"We're pretty sure they are family units or at least close-knit groups," Cordero said.

Even David Hensley, manager of an El Paso department store, gives the panhandlers a few dollars before calling the authorities to take them away.

"It's good to see that the Border Patrol is showing some common sense in dealing with the reality that is life on the border," said Ruben Garcia, who runs a shelter in El Paso that sometimes houses some of the Oaxacans. "Nothing is served by locking these people up."

sometimes the policy solutions should be tough or innovative (like the gladwell article), not easy

Dumb as We Wanna Be

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: April 30, 2008

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

No, no, no, we’ll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Mrs. Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars — burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation?

The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Are you sitting down?

Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘Congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”

It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point “where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics” that it would turn its back on the next great global industry — clean power — “but that’s exactly what is happening.” If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won’t be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. “Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets.”

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

best senator...

Why I wish I was from Vermont...

Responding to the earlier post...

To the Editor:

There is an important point to add. The United States has, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country — almost 20 percent.

Unlike other industrialized countries, quality and affordable child care in our country is largely unavailable for low- and moderate-income families.

Further, many of these low-income kids attend underperforming schools and drop out of high school at very high rates. To nobody’s surprise, a lot of these ignored, jobless and poorly educated youngsters then engage in destructive and criminal activity.

Perhaps if we adequately invested in the low-income children of this country, we could produce citizens who work and pay taxes, rather than criminals who cost us $50,000 a year to incarcerate.

Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator from Vermont
Washington, April 23, 2008

Things you already know

Front page of the NYT today...but since you took this class you already knew this...aren't you glad!

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

Door 1, 2, or 3?

Is Krugman Correct?

Running Out of Planet to Exploit

Paul Krugman April 21 2008

Nine years ago The Economist ran a big story on oil, which was then selling for $10 a barrel. The magazine warned that this might not last. Instead, it suggested, oil might well fall to $5 a barrel.

In any case, The Economist asserted, the world faced “the prospect of cheap, plentiful oil for the foreseeable future.”

Last week, oil hit $117.

It’s not just oil that has defied the complacency of a few years back. Food prices have also soared, as have the prices of basic metals. And the global surge in commodity prices is reviving a question we haven’t heard much since the 1970s: Will limited supplies of natural resources pose an obstacle to future world economic growth?

How you answer this question depends largely on what you believe is driving the rise in resource prices. Broadly speaking, there are three competing views.

The first is that it’s mainly speculation — that investors, looking for high returns at a time of low interest rates, have piled into commodity futures, driving up prices. On this view, someday soon the bubble will burst and high resource prices will go the way of Pets.com.

The second view is that soaring resource prices do, in fact, have a basis in fundamentals — especially rapidly growing demand from newly meat-eating, car-driving Chinese — but that given time we’ll drill more wells, plant more acres, and increased supply will push prices right back down again.

The third view is that the era of cheap resources is over for good — that we’re running out of oil, running out of land to expand food production and generally running out of planet to exploit.

I find myself somewhere between the second and third views.

There are some very smart people — not least, George Soros — who believe that we’re in a commodities bubble (although Mr. Soros says that the bubble is still in its “growth phase”). My problem with this view, however, is this: Where are the inventories?

Normally, speculation drives up commodity prices by promoting hoarding. Yet there’s no sign of resource hoarding in the data: inventories of food and metals are at or near historic lows, while oil inventories are only normal.

The best argument for the second view, that the resource crunch is real but temporary, is the strong resemblance between what we’re seeing now and the resource crisis of the 1970s.

What Americans mostly remember about the 1970s are soaring oil prices and lines at gas stations. But there was also a severe global food crisis, which caused a lot of pain at the supermarket checkout line — I remember 1974 as the year of Hamburger Helper — and, much more important, helped cause devastating famines in poorer countries.

In retrospect, the commodity boom of 1972-75 was probably the result of rapid world economic growth that outpaced supplies, combined with the effects of bad weather and Middle Eastern conflict. Eventually, the bad luck came to an end, new land was placed under cultivation, new sources of oil were found in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, and resources got cheap again.

But this time may be different: concerns about what happens when an ever-growing world economy pushes up against the limits of a finite planet ring truer now than they did in the 1970s.

For one thing, I don’t expect growth in China to slow sharply anytime soon. That’s a big contrast with what happened in the 1970s, when growth in Japan and Europe, the emerging economies of the time, downshifted — and thereby took a lot of pressure off the world’s resources.

Meanwhile, resources are getting harder to find. Big oil discoveries, in particular, have become few and far between, and in the last few years oil production from new sources has been barely enough to offset declining production from established sources.

And the bad weather hitting agricultural production this time is starting to look more fundamental and permanent than El Niño and La Niña, which disrupted crops 35 years ago. Australia, in particular, is now in the 10th year of a drought that looks more and more like a long-term manifestation of climate change.

Suppose that we really are running up against global limits. What does it mean?

Even if it turns out that we’re really at or near peak world oil production, that doesn’t mean that one day we’ll say, “Oh my God! We just ran out of oil!” and watch civilization collapse into “Mad Max” anarchy.

But rich countries will face steady pressure on their economies from rising resource prices, making it harder to raise their standard of living. And some poor countries will find themselves living dangerously close to the edge — or over it.

Don’t look now, but the good times may have just stopped rolling.

Social Problems = Sins?

From Danielle...

Would equating social problems with Sin make people care more or less, or would it have an affect at all on solving social problems?

The Vatican has brought up to date the traditional seven deadly sins by adding seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming prevalent in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".

Those newly risking eternal punishment include drug pushers, the obscenely wealthy, and scientists who manipulate human genes. So "thou shalt not carry out morally dubious scientific experiments" or "thou shalt not pollute the earth" might one day be added to the Ten Commandments.

MODERN EVILS Environmental pollution Genetic manipulation Accumulating excessive wealth Inflicting poverty Drug trafficking and consumption Morally debatable experiments Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".

The new mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession - or the Sacrament of Penance in Church jargon.

According to a survey carried out here 10 years ago by the Catholic University, 60% of Italians have stopped going to confession altogether. The situation has certainly not improved during the past decade.

Catholics are supposed to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year. The priest absolves them in God's name.

Talking to course members at the end of the seminar organised by the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican department in charge of fixing the punishments and indulgences handed down to sinners, Pope Benedict added his own personal voice of disquiet.

"We are losing the notion of sin," he said. "If people do not confess regularly, they risk slowing their spiritual rhythm," he added. The Pope confesses his sins regularly once a week.

Greatest sins of our times

In an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Girotti said he thought the most dangerous areas for committing new types of sins lay in the fields of bio-ethics and ecology.

He also named abortion and paedophilia as two of the greatest sins of our times. The archbishop brushed off cases of sexual violence against minors committed by priests as "exaggerations by the mass media aimed at discrediting the Church".

ORIGINAL DEADLY SINS Pride Envy Gluttony Lust Anger Greed Sloth

Father Gerald O'Collins, former professor of moral theology at the Papal University in Rome, and teacher of many of the Catholic Church's current top Cardinals and Bishops, welcomed the new catalogue of modern sins.

"I think the major point is that priests who are hearing confessions are not sufficiently attuned to some of the real evils in our world," he told the BBC News website. "They need to be more aware today of the social face of sin - the inequalities at the social level. They think of sin too much on an individual level.

"I think priests who hear confession should have a deeper sense of the violence and injustice of such problems - and the fact that people collaborate simply by doing nothing. One of the original deadly sins is sloth - disengagement and not getting involved," Father O'Collins said. The Jesuit professor now teaches at St Mary's University in Twickenham.

"It was interesting that these remarks came from the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary," he said. "I can't remember a time when it was so concerned about issues such as environmental pollution and social injustice. It's a new way of thinking."

Why I'll be having a Shot of Absolut Vodka this Weekend

This is what it has come to...Absolut Vodka has to apologize for an ad that depicted several Western and Southern states as part of Mexico...which they were before we took them. Has anti-immigrant sentiment reached this point?

I don't think i have had any vodka in the last ten years, but i will proudly order some absolut this weekend..

Here is a discussion of the ad...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/08/ap/strange/main4001346.shtml

Here is some commentary about the ad from two different blogs (one obviously liberal and the other conservative)

http://www.racismreview.com/blog/?p=241
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/02/absolut-reconquista/

Lobbying and Why Health Care Will Not Change If Dems are in Power

Another Record Year for Lobbying:

$2.8 Billion

__________________

Expanding Washington’s influence industry by 8 percent in 2007, industries and interests spent $17 million for every day Congress was in session. The drug industry spent the most of all, paying lobbyists 25 percent more last year.

____________________

WASHINGTON—Corporations, industries, labor unions, governments and other interests spent a record $2.79 billion in 2007 to lobby for favorable policies in Washington, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has calculated. This represents an increase of 7.7 percent, or $200 million, over spending in 2006. And for every day Congress was in session, industries and interests spent an average of $17 million to lobby lawmakers and the federal government at large.

“At a time when our economy is contracting, Washington’s lobbying industry has been expanding,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the 25-year-old watchdog group. “Lobbying seems to be a recession-proof industry. In some respects, interests seek even more from our government when the economy slows.”

CRP, which tracks lobbying spending on its award-winning Web site, OpenSecrets.org, found that, for the second straight year, health interests spent more on federal lobbying than any other economic sector—$444.7 million. The finance, insurance and real estate sector was second, spending about $418.7 million.

Looking more specifically within the larger sectors the Center tracks, the pharmaceuticals/health products industry outspent all industries by shelling out $227 million for lobbying services, or an average of $1.4 million for the 164 days that the 110^th Congress met in 2007. The drug industry has spent $1.3 billion on federal lobbying over the last 10 years, more than any other industry. Its reported lobbying increased 25 percent in 2007.

The second-biggest spender among industries in 2007 was insurance, which spent $138 million on lobbying, followed by electric utilities, which spent $112.7 million, the computers/Internet industry, which spent $110.6 million, and hospitals and nursing homes, which paid lobbyists at least $90.5 million. The securities and investment industry, which ranked sixth, spent $87.3 million, increasing its lobbying 40 percent over 2006.

Drilling even further to look at particular corporations, trade associations, unions and other organizations, the biggest spender in 2007 was again the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Although the business booster’s reported lobbying decreased about 27 percent last year, following a record year in 2006, the Chamber and its affiliates still managed to spend nearly $52.8 million on in-house lobbyists and with K Street firms.

General Electric was the number-two spender ($23.6 million), followed by three interests in the health sector: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America ($22.7 million), American Medical Association ($22.1 million) and the American Hospital Association ($19.7 million). Other big spenders on the Top 20 list included AARP, Exxon Mobil, AT&T, General Motors, the National Association of Realtors, Verizon Communications and several defense contractors, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The amount of money spent on federal lobbying has increased about 8 percent annually since the late 1990s, making last year’s growth typical. But some interests vastly increased their lobbying in 2007. Blackstone Group, the private equity firm lobbying to prevent higher taxes on its profits, ramped up 477 percent to spend $5.4 million. The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, spent $9.2 million last year—up 464 percent—and presumably focused its lobbying on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind act.

Among Washington’s lobbying firms, Patton Boggs reported the highest revenue from registered lobbying for the fifth year in a row, $41.9 million, an increase over 2006 of more than 20 percent. The firm’s most lucrative clients included the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, the candy and pet food company Mars Inc., telecom giant Verizon, the pharmaceutical manufacturers Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche, and the American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America).

The Center for Responsive Politics calculated spending on lobbying as narrowly defined under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, because that is what is disclosed to the Senate Office of Public Records (SOPR) and House Legislative Resource Center. Spending by corporations, industry groups, unions and other interests that is not strictly for lobbying of covered government officials, but is still meant to influence public policy, is not reported—and may exceed what was spent on direct lobbying. Such activities include public relations, advertising and grassroots lobbying.

Spending on lobbying was reported twice a year to Congress in 2007. The year-end reports were due Feb. 14 to SOPR, which was the data source for the Center’s analysis. The Center’s Lobbying Database on OpenSecrets.org now includes approximately 42,000 reports from 2007 that were available electronically from SOPR on April 7, in addition to data back to 1998. Despite SOPR’s new electronic filing system, it still took about eight weeks for complete year-end lobbying data to become electronically available to the public.

Beginning this year, lobbying reports will now be filed quarterly. April 21 is the deadline for reports covering lobbying in January through March of this year.

What Monetary Policy Would You Recommend

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/business/09leonhardt.html?em&ex=1207886400&en=37ecbcf28a0d85b5&ei=5087%0A

again, we spoke about this earlier in the year and i know many of you were surprised to see the increases in inequality since the 1970s...the nyt seems to think this is somewhat new or at least new news to some people...what policy would you recommend knowing what you have learned this semester?

Good Example of Policy Shifts

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/washington/09justice.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1207768286-NqHpT/FVhUiqsALqSZrQCQ

i can see both good and bad things coming out of this...there is a good podcast i have from npr i will try and attach somewhere in sakai or here that also addresses these shifts.

Is Obama Black Enough?

From Danielle:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1584736,00.html


I guess my larger question for the class is Does race matter--should it (we can start with the election, but as we ended class last night i think the examples and nathan's comment + we will begin with Kozol's discussion of the importance of race in education next week might propel us into a larger discussion) ?

polls

this just in...notice that what a lot of americans are worried about are things we already knew...http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/us/03cnd-poll.html?hp
why do you think the percentage of americans who favor tax hikes for those over 25ok is so low?

exam

just curious, what did people think of the exam?
too difficult, too long, too easy?

Essay on Obama

kind of long, but worth reading...



Uh-Obama: Racism, White Voters and the Myth of Color-Blindness
http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/Obama.html

Professors using Drugs

SO far no one is demanding that asterisks be attached to Nobels, Pulitzers or Lasker awards. Government agents have not been raiding anthropology departments, riffling book bags, testing professors’ urine. And if there are illicit trainers on campuses, shady tutors with wraparound sunglasses and ties to basement labs in Italy, no one has exposed them.

Yet an era of doping may be looming in academia, and it has ignited a debate about policy and ethics that in some ways echoes the national controversy over performance enhancement accusations against elite athletes like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance. The former is approved to treat attention deficit disorder, the latter narcolepsy, and both are considered more effective, and more widely available, than the drugs circulating in dorms a generation ago.

Letters flooded the journal, and an online debate immediately bubbled up. The journal has been conducting its own, more rigorous survey, and so far at least 20 respondents have said that they used the drugs for nonmedical purposes, according to Philip Campbell, the journal’s editor in chief. The debate has also caught fire on the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education, where academics and students are sniping at one another.

But is prescription tweaking to perform on exams, or prepare presentations and grants, really the same as injecting hormones to chase down a home run record, or win the Tour de France?

Some argue that such use could be worse, given the potentially deep impact on society. And the behavior of academics in particular, as intellectual leaders, could serve as an example to others.

In his book “Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution,” Francis Fukuyama raises the broader issue of performance enhancement: “The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not turn healthy people into gods.” He and others point out that increased use of such drugs could raise the standard of what is considered “normal” performance and widen the gap between those who have access to the medications and those who don’t — and even erode the relationship between struggle and the building of character.

“Even though stimulants and other cognitive enhancers are intended for legitimate clinical use, history predicts that greater availability will lead to an increase in diversion, misuse and abuse,” wrote Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and James Swanson of the University of California at Irvine, in a letter to Nature. “Among high school students, abuse of prescription medications is second only to cannabis use.”

But others insist that the ethics are not so clear, and that academic performance is different in important ways from baseball, or cycling.

“I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading, because in sports it’s all about competition, only about who’s the best runner or home run hitter,” said Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. “In academics, whether you’re a student or a researcher, there is an element of competition, but it’s secondary. The main purpose is to try to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments. So in that case if you can do it better because you’ve got some drug on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.”

She and other midcareer scientists interviewed said that, as far as they knew, very few of their colleagues used brain-boosting drugs regularly. Many have used Provigil for jet lag, or even to stay vertical for late events. But most agreed that the next generation of scientists, now in graduate school and college, were more likely to use the drugs as study aids and bring along those habits as they moved up the ladder.

Surveys of college students have found that from 4 percent to 16 percent say they have used stimulants or other prescription drugs to improve their academic performance — usually getting the pills from other students.

“Suppose you’re preparing for the SAT, or going for a job interview — in those situations where you have to perform on that day, these drugs will be very attractive,” said Dr. Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge, a co-author with Sharon Morein-Zamir of the recent essay in Nature. “The desire for cognitive enhancement is very strong, maybe stronger than for beauty, or athletic ability.”

Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended several institutions, said that those numbers sounded about right. “You can usually tell who’s using them because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they don’t want to be bothered,” he said.

Mr. White said he did not use the drugs himself, considering them an artificial shortcut that could set people up for problems later on. “What happens if you’re in a fast-paced surgical situation and they’re not available?” he asked. “Will you be able to function at the same level?”

Yet such objections — and philosophical concerns — can vaporize when students and junior faculty members face other questions: What happens if I don’t make the cut? What if I’m derailed by a bad test score, or a mangled chemistry course?

One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: “I’m not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps),” the posting said. “I’m talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.”

Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania who foresaw this debate in a 2004 paper, argues that the history of cosmetic surgery — scorned initially as vain and unnatural but now mainstream as a form of self-improvement — is a guide to predicting the trajectory of cosmetic neurology, as he calls it.

“We worship at the altar of progress, and to the demigod of choice,” Dr. Chatterjee said. “Both are very strong undercurrents in the culture and the way this is likely to be framed is: ‘Look, we want smart people to be as productive as possible to make everybody’s lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means using these medicines, then great, then we should be free to choose what we want as long as we’re not harming someone.’ I’m not taking that position, but we have this winner-take-all culture and that is the way it is likely to go.”

People already use legal performance enhancers, he said, from high-octane cafe Americanos to the beta-blockers taken by musicians to ease stage fright, to antidepressants to improve mood. “So the question with all of these things is, Is this enhancement, or a matter of removing the cloud over our better selves?” he said.

The public backlash against brain-enhancement, if it comes, may hit home only after the practice becomes mainstream, Dr. Chatterjee suggested. “You can imagine a scenario in the future, when you’re applying for a job, and the employer says, ‘Sure, you’ve got the talent for this, but we require you to take Adderall.’ Now, maybe you do start to care about the ethical implications.”

Economy down, but not because of IRAQ

don't know if you saw it, but last week Bush blamed homeowners for buying too much home for the downfall in the economy (also the construction industry--but he would deny that)...not the war in iraq. i don't blame homeowners who usually have no idea what they can afford, i'd blame mortgage lenders, banks, etc. before i blame homeowners--but we don't like blaming capitalism for our problems--its uhhh, un-american...

but help me with the math...we are giving all taxpayers (and then some non-payers) $600 to stimulate the economy...but the bill is $4,000 per taxpayer for iraq...if we had that $4000 wouldn't that be better than $600?

If history is a reliable guide, the recession of 2008 is now unavoidable.

The dismal jobs report released Friday showed overall employment to be lower than it was three months ago. Every time such a slump has occurred since the early 1970s, a recession has followed — or already been under way.

And if the good times have really ended, they were never that good to begin with. Most American households are still not earning as much annually as they did in 1999, once inflation is taken into account. Since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, a prolonged expansion has never ended without household income having set a new record.

For months, policy makers and Wall Street economists have been predicting, and hoping, that the aggressive series of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve would keep the economy growing, despite the housing bust. But the possibility seemed to diminish almost by the hour on Friday.

Shortly after 8 a.m., the Fed announced yet another measure meant to unlock the struggling credit markets. At 8:30, the Labor Department released the unexpectedly poor jobs report. Almost immediately, the economists at JPMorgan Chase — who only last week had told clients they thought the economy was still growing — reversed course and said a recession appeared to have started earlier this year.

Stocks fell when the markets opened at 9:30, recovered and then fell again, with the Standard & Poor 500-stock index closing down 0.8 percent. Traders became even more confident, based on the price of futures contracts, that the Fed would cut its benchmark interest rate three-quarters of a point, to 2.25 percent, when policy makers meet on March 18.

“The question was always, ‘Would the economy hang on by its fingernails?’ ” said Ethan Harris, the chief United States economist at Lehman Brothers. Based on the employment report, Mr. Harris said, “there’s a very high probability that we’re in a recession now.”

Even the one apparent piece of good news in the employment report was a mirage. The unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent, from 4.9 percent in January, but only because more people stopped looking for work and thus were not counted as unemployed by the government.

Over the last year, the number of officially unemployed has risen by 500,000, while the number of people outside the labor force — neither working nor looking for a job — has risen by 1.3 million.

Employment has risen by 100,000, but even that comes with a caveat: there are also 600,000 more people who are working part time because they could not find full-time work, according to the Labor Department.

“The decline in the unemployment rate,” said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR, a research firm in New York, “should not be viewed as good news.”

Much of the economic stimulus put in place by the government will begin to take effect in the next few months, which does leave open the possibility that the country can still escape a recession. Policy makers have reacted quite quickly to this slowdown, relative to previous ones.

The Treasury Department will begin sending out rebate checks — of up to $1,200 for couples, plus $300 per child — in May, as part of the stimulus package negotiated by President Bush and Democratic leaders in Congress. The Fed has already cut its benchmark short-term interest rate five times since September, and such reductions typically take six months or more to wash through the economy.

White House officials have predicted in recent weeks that the economy would avoid recession, but after the release of the jobs report, they offered a subtly different forecast. At the White House on Friday, Edward P. Lazear, the chairman of Mr. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, parried reporters’ questions about whether he now thought the economy would slip into a recession.

Instead, he said, “I’m still not saying that there is a recession.”

The administration does expect growth in the current quarter to be slower than it had previously thought, before accelerating this summer. “Obviously, we are concerned,” Mr. Lazear said. But he added that he remained hopeful that “growth will pick up, and pick up quickly.”

The most commonly cited arbiter of recessions is the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of academic economists that is based in Cambridge, Mass. (Mr. Lazear referred to the group at his briefing, saying it would not be clear whether there had been a recession until the bureau had made an announcement.)

The seven economists who sit on the bureau’s recession-dating committee began exchanging e-mail messages late last year about whether the economy was on the verge of a recession. But committee members said Friday that it remained too early to know.

The bureau defines a recession as a significant, protracted decline in activity that cuts across the economy, affecting measures like income, employment, retail sales and industrial production.

“Given that definition, the committee can’t possibly call a recession until it has been going on for a while,” said Christina D. Romer, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “There is no way to know if the downturn will be sufficiently long-lasting until it has lasted for a while.”

The committee did not announce the end of the last recession — which came in November 2001 — until more than a year-and a half later. Robert J. Gordon, a Northwestern University economist on the committee, said any announcement about the start of a new recession was unlikely before the last few months of 2008 at the earliest.

Recent recessions have inevitably brought inflation-adjusted income declines for most families, which would be particularly painful given what has happened over the last decade. For a variety of reasons that economists only partly understand — including technological change and global trade — many workers have received only modest raises in recent years, despite healthy economic growth.

The median household earned $48,201 in 2006, down from $49,244 in 1999, according to the Census Bureau. It now looks as if a full decade may pass before most Americans receive a raise.

From NYT

I'm betting we never find out where all the money goes...i do remember, however, that the war was going to cost US taxpayers about 150 million...and now 5 years later we are saying 3 trillion...supposedly around 2005-2006 Iraq would be self-sufficient due to the money they make off of oil...

Two senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have requested a full accounting of how Iraq is spending its soaring oil revenue, amid starkly conflicting estimates of how much the country has invested in rebuilding its broken infrastructure and providing basic services to its citizens.

The request, sent Friday to David M. Walker, the top official at the United States Government Accountability Office, estimates that Iraqi oil revenue could skyrocket above $56 billion in 2008, largely because of the rising price of oil.

That enormous influx of cash comes as the United States has been reducing spending on the reconstruction effort. Since the invasion in 2003, the United States has invested close to $50 billion in reconstruction, but the effort has achieved at best mixed results when measured by improvements in the lives of Iraqi citizens.

Still, the American military and State Department continue to finance a wide range of relatively small reconstruction projects as well as training and equipment for Iraqi military forces.

Despite the dire need for better health care, more electricity and clean water, a functioning sewage system and other services, the accountability office has previously estimated that Iraq spent only 22 percent of the oil money set aside for reconstruction in 2006. And in January, the office, which is charged with overseeing the Iraqi government’s finances, reported that Iraq had spent a meager 4.4 percent of its 2007 reconstruction budget by August of that year, the most recent figures available at the time.

As a result, the letter from the Armed Services Committee says, “we believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks.”

The letter was signed by Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the committee chairman, and Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who is a former chairman. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the committee and the presumptive Republican nominee for president, did not sign the letter.

Iraqi officials say they face many obstacles in what might seem to be a straightforward task: spending their plentiful money. Workers are attacked, engineers and contracting experts have fled government ministries, construction companies refuse to take jobs in risky areas and building materials are not available.

And if all of those factors were not daunting enough, the various Iraqi and American government entities involved cannot even agree on how much the notoriously opaque Iraqi bureaucracy has in fact spent on reconstruction.

Last fall, as Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, reported to Congress on the state of the war, the Bush administration provided figures that contrasted sharply with those of the accountability office. The administration reported that by July 2007, Iraq had spent 24 percent of the $10 billion in oil revenue set aside for reconstruction that year.

The accountability office disputed those figures, saying they were based in part on projections that proved inaccurate. But in a recent phone interview, a senior Iraqi official gave even more bullish estimates of the expenditures. Citing official Iraqi Finance Ministry figures, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to provide information that had not yet been publicly released, said by the end of last year, Iraq had spent 63 percent of its capital budget, a leap over the previous year that would indicate rapid progress in governmental efficiency.

“It’s totally unacceptable that there’s no decent accounting for their money,” Senator Levin said in a telephone interview Saturday. “But the problem is our money. Why are we spending our money five years later when they have a surplus? That’s just extraordinary.”

In order to resolve some of these discrepancies and track down where the oil money has gone, the letter by Senators Levin and Warner asks the accountability office to answer a series of basic questions.

The senators requested detailed information on the amount of Iraqi oil revenue from 2003 to 2007, how much of that money has gone unspent, and “how much money does the Iraqi government have deposited, in which banks, and in what countries?”

Finally, Senators Levin and Warner ask the question looming over the entire rebuilding effort: “Why has the Iraqi government not spent more of its oil revenue on reconstruction, economic development and providing essential services for the Iraqi people?”

Also on Friday, Iraqi security forces discovered a mass grave containing the remains of about 100 people in Diyala Province, said Maj. Winfield Danielson, a spokesman for Multinational Forces-Iraq.

fair or unfair

By now you probably know which way i would go with this...but does this seem fair or unfair?

Earn $1 Million a Year? Assembly Democrats Will Seek a Tax Rise Just for You

ALBANY — If you earn a million dollars in New York this year, beware. Albany has its eyes on your money.

As Democratic Assembly members try to figure out how to right the state’s finances, they are looking to the state’s fabulously wealthy — the hedge fund managers, real estate moguls and superstar shortstops — to balance the budget.

The Democrats will introduce legislation next week that would impose an income tax increase of nearly 1 percentage point for the next five years on anyone who earns more than a million dollars a year. Democrats estimated that the plan could bring in $1.5 billion in the first year alone.

The plan is certain to run up against rigid resistance by the Republican-controlled State Senate and Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who has repeatedly pledged not to raise taxes.

But Democrats are hopeful that it can attract broad support because it would focus on a small group of well-to-do New Yorkers. Some 26,000 New Yorkers have incomes higher than $1 million a year; of those, about 4,600 earn more than $5 million a year.

And they say the state needs to start looking hard for new ways to raise money because state revenues continue to soften with each passing day.

As part of their pitch, Democrats also plan to argue that as recently as 2003 the Legislature approved — over Gov. George E. Pataki’s veto — a temporary income tax increase for households earning more than $150,000 a year, which has since expired.

“The Senate’s already voted for this tax for people with incomes of $150,000,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County. “It should be no problem for them to vote for the same tax for people with higher incomes.”

But the Senate and the governor might not see it that way. On Wednesday, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, was unyielding in his opposition to higher taxes of any kind. His office issued a statement that said the thought of an income tax rise should “send shivers down the spine of every overburdened, hard-working New York taxpayer.”

Governor Spitzer was equally resolute. “That is not something that we can afford to do,” he said during a trip to Geneseo in western New York. “The idea that we would turn around at this moment and start raising taxes is the wrong way to go.”

The plan that the Assembly will take up next week calls for a new tax bracket. Anyone with income greater than $1 million would have all income taxed at 7.7 percent. Right now, their income is taxed at 6.85 percent, the state’s highest tax rate.

In the first year of the tax increase, all of the $1.5 billion in expected revenue would go into the state’s general fund. In the second year, the revenue would be split between the general fund and transportation projects, including upgrades to roads and bridges across the state and improvements to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s subways. In the third, fourth and fifth year of the plan, all revenue would go toward transportation.

Because of the money it would provide for transportation improvements, the plan would reduce the pressure on the Assembly to support Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan; revenue from congestion pricing would be used to finance transit projects. Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, and many Assembly Democrats have voiced reservations about congestion pricing.

The Assembly plan differs considerably from another budget plan that is being promoted by the Working Families Party, which has gained influence among Democrats for providing critical support in important local races. That could put some Democrats in an awkward spot given the Working Families Party’s political clout.

On Wednesday, the party’s executive director, Dan Cantor, said he was disappointed that the Assembly’s plan did not include property tax relief and a tax increase on those earning more than $250,000, as the party has proposed.

“This doesn’t go far enough,” Mr. Cantor said. He said the party would continue pressing for its income tax increase and property tax relief plan.

Democrats who break with the Working Families Party on this issue could risk alienating a strong ally that has not shied away from challenging Democrats in primary races.

“You can never underestimate the Working Families Party’s ability to influence the political dialogue through the electoral process,” said Micah Lasher, who once worked as a political consultant to the party.

Mr. Cantor said he could not rule out running candidates against Democrats who oppose their plan. “We don’t know yet. It’s too soon to tell,” he said.

Some legislators said that it was far too early to predict what the Assembly’s tax increase plan would look like, and noted that it would most likely undergo several revisions before it has to be melded with the Senate’s budget on March 31.

“It’s a place to start,” said Assemblyman Darryl C. Towns, a Democrat from Brooklyn. “I think the Assembly is trying to start a conversation, and we’ll wait to see what our partners see in this.”

Scientific Proof that we don't really need Florida

Florida’s ‘Theory of ...’

From the NYT

We were cheered last year when a committee appointed by the State Department of Education drafted a new set of science standards that, for the first time, actually used the word evolution and called it a fundamental concept underlying all of biology. This was a huge advance over the previous standards, which gingerly referred only to “change over time,” leaving it up to teachers to decide whether they dared to mention the e-word in class.

The new standards were drawn up in a careful process over several months by a committee of scientists, educators, business leaders and others, with advice from scientific organizations and outside experts to ensure that they were as scientifically accurate as possible. But then the anti-evolution crowd — the advocates of creationism and intelligent design — raised a ruckus. With the help of sympathetic board of education members, they forced some last-minute revisions that squeaked through the board by a 4-to-3 vote.

The compromise was to insert the phrase “scientific theory of” before the word evolution as a sop to opponents who contend that evolution is just a theory, not a fact. But it looks to us like the scientists got the better of the argument. School officials inserted the same “scientific theory of” before every other major scientific consensus. The document now refers, for example, to “the scientific theory of cells,” the “scientific theory of atoms,” and the “scientific theory of electromagnetism.”

Although some supporters of teaching evolution grouse that the standards were watered down, they actually look more airtight with the revisions. The standards make it clear that a “scientific theory” is well supported by evidence, not a mere claim, and that evolution is no different in this respect than many other widely accepted “theories.”

Some anti-evolutionists are now pushing Florida’s Legislature to step in and allow the teaching of alternative explanations of biological origins. The alternatives that they have in mind would almost certainly not be deemed “scientific” and would have no legitimate place in science classes.

If the standards are strictly followed, Florida may finally be on the way toward improving the quality of its science curriculum and the subpar performance of its students in national assessments.

NIU

just curious but what do you think they should do--and why...

Illinois: University Rethinks Razing

Published: March 6, 2008

Less than a week after plans were announced to raze the Northern Illinois University lecture hall where five students were killed last month, there is now talk that more thought must be given to the idea. Six days ago, the university’s president, John Peters, left, announced that the building, Cole Hall, would be torn down. Mr. Peters changed course on Tuesday and called for a campuswide discussion on the building’s fate. Also, the backyard gun shop where the gunman bought five weapons has closed. Special Agent Thomas Ahern of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the owner of the shop, Tony’s Guns and Ammo in Champaign, gave up his federal dealer’s license this week and closed.

Liberal or Conservative Media

A response to another post has me wondering (though i can wager a guess), how many of you think that the US media has a liberal bias? Why do you think this?

So Why Then?

Ok, we all know this because we talked about it earlier in the year, some of you even found some stats for us. So why do you think we don't also make hands-free cell phone use a primary offense?

TRENTON, N.J. - For New Jersey drivers, the message is clear: Keep your thumbs on the wheel and off the keypad.

Beginning Saturday, police can slap drivers with a $100 fine for talking or sending a text message on hand-held devices.

New Jersey joins four other states, including neighboring New York, where talking on a hand-held cell phone is reason enough to get pulled over. The Garden State is the first where text-messaging on the road is a primary offense, meaning police need no other reason to pull a driver over, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Pam Fischer, director of New Jersey's Division of Highway Traffic Safety, said officers will be on the lookout for telltale signs of distracted drivers — slow driving and the "cell-phone weave."

Drivers can still use their cell phones to contact police or emergency services, and can talk at any time with a hands-free device. But crash statistics suggest that those headsets and earpieces may not make conversations in the car any safer.

In 2006, nearly half of the 3,580 phone-related crashes in New Jersey involved a hands-free device, according to transportation officials. Five of 11 fatal accidents involving a cell phone that year also involved a hands-free device.

Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said those figures are consistent with recent research showing no difference in crash risk between hand-held and hands-free cell phones.

"The conversation itself is the distraction," Rader said. "You are in another place when you are talking on the phone."

Trucker Lou Cataldo hopes the new law will cut down on the distracted drivers he sees across the state.

"I see a car in the middle lane doing 50 miles per hour, and 99.9 percent of the time it's someone yakking on a cell phone," he said.

But Cataldo questioned how police would spot drivers typing out a message.

"If you're doing 75 miles per hour," he said, "the cop has to be right alongside to see you."

Driving while using a hand-held cell phone has been illegal in New Jersey since 2004, when the state became the second in the nation to pass a ban. However, it was considered a secondary offense — something drivers could be ticketed for if they were pulled over for another reason. Over the past year, state courts have recorded 16,000 tickets issued for the offense.

Fischer predicted that number would rise significantly now that drivers can be pulled over for cell phone use alone.

Twenty-one state legislatures this year are considering some kind of ban on texting while driving.

"It's a popular issue this year," said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. "We expect to see some movement on this."

Scary article in London Times

the american press will not run this story in any newspaper...the basic gist is that our government officials sold nuclear secrets to turkey and israel and we knew that they would send it on to pakistan (which is why despite a 5% popularity rating we still stand behind pervez--he knows way too much about bush and the US). pakistan as many know then sold the info to iran, libya, and north korea (this countries should sound familiar when seen as a group as bush labeled them the axis of evil)...and it is possible that al-qaeda got a hold of them as well...


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3216737.ece

Good article in NYT

The thing i like about this is that it gives two dominant theories for cyclical poverty, a cultural theory (which i don't buy)--which basically says that there is a culture of poverty and poor kids pick up the cultural traits from their poor parents and repeat them, their kids pick them up etc., and a structural theory--which basically suggests that the social structure condemns people to poverty (which i buy)...so basically if you have a crappy school you are not likely to go to college and therefore very likely (remember 90%) to be in poverty...which means you probably live in a really bad school district and thus your kids go to a really poor school which means they are not likely to go to college, etc. the article discusses mobility. it seems as we start the fourth decade of little to no mobility some people are concerned...


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/us/20mobility.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

More from the CFCF

Activists acting as experts...but sometimes i agree with them...sometimes i don't...
let me know what you think about this issue:

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm/article/182

Good idea...NO?

Is this a good idea? Would it work in the US...say in towns where driving makes sense (LA, Houston, etc.)?

Britain: London Gets Tougher on Gas-Guzzlers

Published: February 13, 2008

Drivers of 4x4s, high-powered sports cars and other high-emission vehicles will have to pay $49 a day to enter central London, triple the current charge, while the most fuel-efficient vehicles will get a free ride, said the mayor, Ken Livingstone. Mr. Livingstone, left, who introduced the daily congestion charge on trucks and cars entering central London in 2003 to cut traffic and pollution, said the change is primarily aimed at the big cars owned by people in wealthy parts of the capital. The changes will come into effect in October. Mr. Livingstone said that 17 percent of the cars that visit each day, about 33,000, will pay the $49 charge, while 2 percent will go free. The remaining 81 percent, along with trucks, will continue to pay the current $16 fee.

the politics of regret

we have according to prominent sociologist jeff olick entered into an age of the politics of regret. where it has become politically fashionable (necessary) to express regret for the past. this is a story in the NYT today about Australia, but in the past few years several states have issued apologies for slavery here in the US. What do you think? Should we apologize for past events or keep the past in the past...


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/world/asia/13aborigine.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

Do 16 year olds really want to vote?

You’re 16, You’re Beautiful and You’re a Voter

By ANYA KAMENETZ

Published: February 6, 2008

THE 2008 presidential campaign has made history in many ways, not least being the arrival of a new generation at the polls. Voters under 29 were the first to anoint Barack Obama as their candidate. Reversing a general decline that began in 1972, youth turnout leapt in 2004, and in the early contests in this primary season it was up sharply.

We should hasten the enfranchisement of this generation, born between 1980 and 1995, by lowering the voting age to 16.

Age thresholds are meant to bring an impartial data point to bear on insoluble moral questions: who can be legally executed, who can die in Iraq, who can operate the meat cutter at the local sub shop. But in a time when both youth and age are being extended, these dividing lines are increasingly inadequate.

Legal age requirements should never stand alone. They should be flexible and pragmatic and paired with educational and cognitive requirements for the exercise of legal maturity.

Driving laws provide the best model for combining early beginnings and mandatory education. Many states have had success with a gradual phasing in of driving rights over a year or more, starting with a learner’s permit at age 16. The most restrictive of these programs are associated with a 38 percent reduction in fatal crashes among the youngest drivers, according to a study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Similarly, 16-year-olds who want to start voting should be able to obtain an “early voting permit” from their high schools upon passing a simple civics course similar to the citizenship test. Besides increasing voter registration, this system would reinforce the notion of voting as a privilege and duty as well as a right — without imposing any across-the-board literacy tests for those over 18.

And why stop at voting? Sixteen is a good starting point for phasing in adult rights and responsibilities, from voting to drinking to marriage. In reality, this is already when most people have their first jobs, their first drinks and their sexual initiations. The law ought to empower young people to negotiate these transitions openly, not furtively.

We know driving laws reflect reality; whoever heard of the scourge of under-age driving? On the other hand, studies have shown that three-fourths of high school seniors have drunk alcohol. Surveys show that teenagers who drink at home with their families go on to drink less than those who sneak beers with friends. Imagine 16-year-olds receiving a drinking permit upon passage of a mandatory course about alcoholism. The permit would allow a tipple only at family gatherings or school functions for two years — until you graduate or leave home.

The phasing in of credit cards at 16 could work with firm restrictions. A parental co-signer should be required until young applicants have made a year of on-time payments from their own wages. The most important requirement would be passing a mandatory financial literacy test. The applicant would define “compound interest,” correctly decipher the fine print on a credit card agreement and argue with a robotic customer service representative over a mysterious fee. Surely this graduated system would be safer than handing young people a $2,000 line of credit just as they leave home for the first time.

The more we treat teenagers as adults, the more they rise to our expectations. From a developmental and vocational point of view, the late teens are the right starting point for young people to think seriously about their futures. Government can help this process by bestowing rights along with responsibilities.

Tying adult rights to cognitive requirements could also smooth the path to dealing with a much bigger age-related social problem. Demographically, those over 85 are our fastest-growing group. By 2020, the entire nation will be about as silver-haired as Florida is today. We need to be able to test Americans of all ages, to make sure they’re still qualified to drive and to help them avoid financial scammers. From a public health point of view, the silver tsunami poses more of a threat than marauding teenagers ever did.

Anya Kamenetz, a staff writer for Fast Company, is the author of “Generation Debt.”

RIP Plastic Bags

Would this work in the US? Why/Why not?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/world/europe/02bags.html?ref=todayspaper

More Police in Philly

Do you think this will help? Why/Why Not?

More Police in Philly:

Published: January 31, 2008

Philadelphia’s new police commissioner promised to decrease gun violence in the city sharply by putting 200 more officers on the street, using “stop and frisk” searches in tough neighborhoods and installing 200 more surveillance cameras. The commissioner, Charles Ramsey, who spent eight years as police chief in Washington, set a goal of reducing killings by 25 percent this year, in large part by allocating more officers to the most violent neighborhoods. There were 392 killings in 2007 in Philadelphia, and 406 in 2006.

Meat Footprint

you might have to register to read the article, but it is worth it (free) and you can save articles on-line, which is a cool feature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?em&ex=1201669200&en=3f189a22ce28dc36&ei=5087%0A

what do you think is the best reason for reducing our meat footprint? which reason would make you put the porkchop or steak down?

what is the best solution?

Obama and Clinton Tangle

What are some of the claims being made against Obama? Which ones do you think are most credible? Why?

If the debate was full of memorable moments — Mrs. Clinton accusing Mr. Obama of associating with a “slum landlord,” Mr. Obama saying he felt as if he were running against both Hillary and Bill Clinton, the two candidates talking over each other — the totality of the attacks also laid bare the ill will and competitive ferocity that has been simmering between them for weeks.

“You know, Senator Obama, it is very difficult having a straight-up debate with you, because you never take responsibility for any vote, and that has been a pattern,” Mrs. Clinton said, drawing a chorus of jeers from a crowd at the Palace Theater in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Mr. Obama shot back that Mrs. Clinton was conducting a brand of negative politics that, he suggested throughout the night, she and her husband had perfected: “comb my 4,000 votes in Illinois, choose one, try to present it in the worst possible light.” He added that he had sought to maintain “a certain credibility” in the race.

Both candidates believe the Democratic nomination could be sealed in the next six weeks, and they used this debate, the second-to-last one of the primary season, to unload their best opposition research and sound bites against each other. In some cases, it was the first time the candidates had personally confronted each other on potentially embarrassing points.

As she has never done before, Mrs. Clinton linked Mr. Obama to a longtime fund-raiser, whom she characterized as a slumlord in “inner-city Chicago.”

Mrs. Clinton was referring to Mr. Obama’s ties to Antoin Rezko, a Chicago businessman who was indicted last fall on federal charges of business fraud and influence peddling connected to the administration of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois. Mr. Obama did work for a law firm in Chicago and performed legal work involving Mr. Rezko’s housing developments. On Saturday, Mr. Obama returned more than $40,000 in political contributions that were linked to Mr. Rezko.

And Mr. Obama, who appeared on the verge of losing his temper at times, noted that she was on the board of Wal-Mart while he was working on “the streets” as a Chicago community organizer. Mrs. Clinton was a director of Wal-Mart from 1986 to 1992.

The third Democratic contender, John Edwards, had to fight to speak. He tried to portray himself as the only candidate who was focusing on the real issues, criticizing the others for squabbling among themselves when health care and other issues go unresolved. At the same time, he tried make an appeal for his own electability in November against a Republican candidate like John McCain, saying he could “go every place” in the country to campaign.

Mr. Edwards, the winner of the South Carolina primary in 2004, also slashed into his leading rival in the state, Mr. Obama, by portraying him as weak-willed for voting “present” — rather than yea or nay — on scores of bills as an Illinois state senator.

For the most part, the sparring focused on the major issues in the primary contest, from the candidates’ plans on the economy and universal health care to their past and current positions on the Iraq war and free trade. Yet at the same time, the subtext of the attacks dwelled on honesty and accountability, with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama repeatedly implying that voters could not trust the opponent’s words.

Mr. Obama was as heated and intense as he has been at any debate over the last year. At times, he appeared angry and close to expressing it at Mrs. Clinton — and also at her husband, Bill Clinton, whom Mr. Obama criticized frequently during the debate for what he said were distortions of his views and record by the former president.

“I’m here,” Mrs. Clinton said, “not my husband.”

Mr. Obama snapped, “I can’t tell who I’m running against sometimes.” At several other points, he used the phrase “Senator Clinton and President Clinton” to re-enforce his view that he is facing off against a decades-old Clinton machine.

Mr. Clinton was neither onstage nor in the audience, but he played a central role in the debate. Asked whether he had crossed the line as a former president, Mrs. Clinton smiled and raised the names of both of her rivals’ wives.

“This campaign is not about our spouses, it’s about us. Michelle and Elizabeth are strong and staunch advocates for their husbands,” Mrs. Clinton said. “At the end of the day, voters are going to have to choose among us.”

Still, the questions persisted about Mr. Clinton, who is scheduled to spend the week campaigning in South Carolina as Mrs. Clinton travels elsewhere. Mr. Obama, who would be the nation’s first black president, was asked about how the author Toni Morrison had bestowed that title on Mr. Clinton more than a decade ago.

“I think Bill Clinton did have an enormous affinity with the African-American community,” Mr. Obama said, praising Mr. Clinton for his longtime commitment to racial equality as a man who grew up in the South.

Lightening the moment, he added: “I would have to investigate more Bill’s dancing abilities and some of this other stuff before I accurately judged whether in fact he was a brother.”

Mrs. Clinton replied, “I am sure that can be arranged.”

The South Carolina primary is the fourth showdown of the fight for the Democratic nomination: Mr. Obama won the first, the Iowa caucuses, where Mrs. Clinton came in third, but she rebounded and won the next two contests, in New Hampshire and last Saturday in Nevada. Mr. Obama appears to hold a strong lead in public polls in South Carolina; Mrs. Clinton is spending time and resources there this week, but she is also campaigning in other states in the next two days, in part to lower expectations for her performance there.

In those three contests, Mr. Edwards did not end up in a leading spot, and in the debate he sought to break through and connect with his fellow Southerners. (He was born in South Carolina and lives in North Carolina.)

“There are three people in this debate, not two,” Mr. Edwards reminded Wolf Blitzer, the moderator of the debate, which was sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and shown on CNN. “I also want to know on behalf of voters in South Carolina, how many children are going to get health care because of this? We have got to understand that this is not about us personally.”

Mr. Edwards made a labored effort to highlight what he called his electability in the general election, referring to himself as “the white male” candidate, a phrase that became a point of playful banter between him and Mr. Obama, who often referred to the fact that a woman and a black man are running.

Patrick Healy reported from New York, and Jeff Zeleny from Myrtle Beach, S.C. Julie Bosman contributed reporting from Myrtle Beach, and Kitty Bennett from Washington.