July 28, 2011

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel spacecraft has identified the source of water vapor ring surrounding Saturn. Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, spews 550 pounds of water vapor into space every second. Anywhere from three to five percent of that water ends up falling onto the planet itself, influencing the chemical composition of its atmosphere. No other moon in the solar system is known to do that. The water expelled from Enceladus mostly erupts from jets in an area of the moon's south pole known as the "Tiger Strips" for their distinctive markings. Paul Hartogh, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, led the analysis of data gathered by Herschel and said the water emitted by Enceladus is "enough to explain the amount of water first discovered in Saturn's atmosphere" in 1997. According to Tilman Spohn, of the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, the discovery is a puzzling one which gives rise to more questions than it answers. Enceladus' eruptions are surprising for a body of its size. A general assumption is that the larger a body in space is, the more unstable and active it becomes. Enceladus is too small to generate volcanic activity and heat. There is much more heat output than you would expect for a body like that. Yet beyond Enceladus' inexplicable qualities, the moon has caught scientists' interest in part because of the presence of liquid water which is a prerequisite for life as we know it. Enceladus seems to be covered by an ice cap with water underneath. An early explanation for the eruption of water could be Saturn's gravitational pull on its moon. Other moons of Saturn also have eruptions, although they spew materials other than water. Because of the low pressure in space, the water coming from Enceladus becomes vapor because can't remain in its liquid form or freeze. The water vapor is then broken down into hydrogen and oxygen by UV light and collisions with solar wind particles. Studying the conditions on Saturn and Enceladus can help scientists to understand what makes Earth so special in its ability to sustain life and explain how water came to Earth in the first place.

July 27, 2011

How can so many Republican lawmakers justify pushing their country toward catastrophic default just to score ideological points? The answer can be found in their statements and writings: They are constructing an alternative reality far different from that of most Americans. A large number of Republican lawmakers, for example, simply don’t accept that the United States is going to be in default as of Tuesday. (Wall Street banks say the nation will run out of money within a few days of that date.) The Treasury Department, which keeps the government bankbook, set the Aug. 2 deadline, but they say it cannot be trusted because it is an arm of the Obama administration. Representative Joe Walsh, a freshman from Illinois, recorded an instantly notorious video in which he accused President Obama of lying about the dangers of default. “There’s plenty of money to pay off our debt and cover all of our Social Security obligations,” he said, without saying where all these billions might be hidden. Representative Michele Bachmann, the Tea Partier running for president, went even further, saying there would be no default at all because the government would always find a way to pay the interest on its debt. Her level of disbelief in any statement made by the White House is so complete that she disregarded the possibility that the global financial system could impose its own devastating downgrade on the government’s obligations. Mrs. Bachmann’s denial of economic reality puts her at the far-right end of the House, alongside eight other Republicans who voted against the “Cut, Cap and Balance Act” last week because it was too liberal. More typical are those who are sticking by that bill and its balanced-budget amendment, though the Senate effectively rejected it. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who leads an influential group of House conservatives, said he is willing to go down with the cut, cap and balance ship even if default is the only option, since he, too, is not persuaded that the Treasury is telling the truth. He and several members of his Republican Study Committee have said they could not support Speaker John Boehner’s watered-down version of “cut, cap,” because it does not require passage of a balanced-budget amendment before the debt ceiling can go up. (In Mr. Boehner’s alternative reality, by the way, it just popped into Mr. Obama’s head to ask for “the largest debt increase in American history, on the heels of the largest spending binge in American history.” The president was required to ask for an increase by law, and the spending was mostly incurred by his Republican predecessor.) Mr. Jordan’s words offered one of the best explanations of the House’s determination to beat Mr. Obama at any cost. A former state champion wrestler, he told The National Review that in politics you pin your opponent whenever possible. “We want to get the win now,” he said. House members have been encouraged in their destructive daydream by many outside organizations and Web sites. An arm of the Heritage Foundation sent out a letter saying the government should live under the current debt ceiling rather than pass the Boehner plan, ignoring the need to raise the ceiling to pay for bills already incurred. Several right-wing bloggers, notably Erick Erickson of RedState, have threatened brimstone on any errant Republican lawmaker who even considers compromise with the president. And I can’t even repeat the idiocy of the entire conressional delegation from Utah. If the economy does begin to crumble next week, the trail back toward the reason will not be hard to follow, though the perpetrators of the disaster undoubtedly won’t be able to follow it.

July 26, 2011

As others have written, if China or Iran threatened our national credit rating and tried to drive up our interest rates, or if they sought to damage our education system, we would erupt in outrage. Well, wake up to the national security threat. Only it’s not coming from abroad, but from our own domestic extremists. We tend to think of national security narrowly as the risk of a military or terrorist attack. But national security is about protecting our people and our national strength — and the blunt truth is that the biggest threat to America’s national security this summer doesn’t come from China, Iran or any other foreign power. It comes from budget machinations, and budget maniacs, at home. House Republicans start from a legitimate concern about rising long-term debt. Politicians are usually focused only on short-term issues, so it would be commendable to see the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party seriously focused on containing long-term debt. But on this issue, many House Republicans aren’t serious, they’re just obsessive in a destructive way. The upshot is that in their effort to protect the American economy from debt, some of them are willing to drag it over the cliff of default. It is not exactly true that this would be our first default. We defaulted in 1790. By some definitions, we defaulted on certain gold obligations in 1933. And in 1979, the United States had trouble managing payouts to some individual investors on time (partly because of a failure of word processing equipment) and thus was in technical default. Yet even that brief lapse in 1979 raised interest payments in the United States. Terry L. Zivney, a finance professor at Ball State University and co-author of a scholarly paper about the episode, says the 1979 default increased American government borrowing costs by 0.6 of a percentage point indefinitely. Any deliberate and sustained interruption this year could have a greater impact. We would see higher interest rates on mortgages, car loans, business loans, and credit cards. American government borrowing would also become more expensive. In February, the Congressional Budget Office noted that a 1 percentage point rise in interest rates could add more than $1 trillion to borrowing costs over a decade. In other words, Republican zeal to lower debts could result in increased interest expenses and higher debts. Their mania to save taxpayers could cost taxpayers. That suggests not governance so much as fanaticism. More broadly, a default would leave America a global laughingstock. Our “soft power,” our promotion of democracy around the world, and our influence would all take a hit. The spectacle of paralysis in the world’s largest economy is already bewildering to many countries. If there is awe for our military prowess and delight in our movies and music, there is scorn for our political/economic management. While one danger to national security comes from the risk of default, another comes from overzealous budget cuts — especially in education, at the local, state and national levels. When we cut to the education bone, we’re not preserving our future but undermining it. It should be a national disgrace that the United States government has eliminated spending for major literacy programs in the last few months, with scarcely a murmur of dissent. Consider Reading Is Fundamental, a 45-year-old nonprofit program that has cost the federal government only $25 million annually. It’s a public-private partnership with 400,000 volunteers, and it puts books in the hands of low-income children. The program helped four million American children improve their reading skills last year. Now it has lost all federal support. “They have made a real difference for millions of kids,” Kyle Zimmer, founder of First Book, another literacy program that I’ve admired, said of Reading Is Fundamental. “It is a tremendous loss that their federal support has been cut. We are going to pay for these cuts in education for generations.” The attack on literacy programs reflects a broader assault on education programs. Republicans want to cut everything from early childhood programs to Pell grants for college students. Republican proposals have singled out some 43 education programs for elimination, but it’s not seen as equally essential to end tax loopholes on hedge fund managers. So let’s remember not only the national security risks posed by Iran and Al Qaeda. Let’s also focus on the risks, however unintentional, from domestic zealots.

July 24, 2011

Happy Anniversary.

July 23, 2011

The United Nations Security Council has for the first time admitted that global warming poses a major threat to world security and peace. The move catapults climate change higher up the global agenda. What might appear self-evident to many took days of complicated discussions and negotiations at the UN Security Council. But in the end, the 15 member-states agreed that a rise in global temperatures could pose a serious threat to world peace. They point out that drought, for example, could lead to conflicts over food and water. Even floods, such as the devastating one last year in Pakistan, or a rise in sea levels, could threaten the very survival of island nations. It was the first time in four years that the Security Council formally debated the environment. And it was the first-ever Council statement - at the insistence of this month's council president, Germany - linking climate change to global peace and security. The final statement expressed "concern that possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security." It also requested UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to include information on possible climate change impacts in his regular reports on global trouble-spots. It is a breakthrough because it's the first time that the Security Council has officially admitted the possible security and political dimensions of climate change. The declaration had to be voted on by all the 15 member states. In 2007, a similar initiative failed to get the necessary backing. Whether it's an exodus of refugees, conflicts over water and food, or rising sea levels, scientists have long been warning about the possible security risks of climate change. UN chief Ban Ki-moon too sounded the alarm about the risks associated with rising temperatures. "Extreme weather events continue to grow more frequent and intense in rich and poor countries alike, not only devastating lives, but also infrastructure, institutions, and budgets - an unholy brew which can create dangerous security vacuums," he told a Security Council debate on the issue. Also, the UN declared a famine in parts of war-torn Somalia. It was another sad illustration of the links between climate change, drought, food shortages, and security.

July 22, 2011

A very sad occurrence.

July 21, 2011

Is this a great country, or what?

July 20, 2011

Today, I sent this letter to Jim Matheson who purports to be my congressional representative:

I was surprised and deeply disappointed that you voted for the outrageous Cut, Cap, and Balance Act that would, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, eliminate another 700,000 jobs in just its first year. America’s richest 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans, and you have ensured your place among those who are working diligently to increase that economic disparity by voting to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs while happily relieving the wealthy of their share of the tax burden. Shame on you! You say you voted for it because the “time has come to impose spending discipline.” Just on everyone but the wealthiest, I guess. I love the picture of you on your website “serving lamb to families at the Emery County Fair”, while voting to rob them of the few social protections they have. Hypocrite. But then, I guess they haven’t paid enough to actually be represented by you. You will never get my vote. Ever.

July 19, 2011

Unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, and suicide rates are on the rise. Obsessing about the debt ceiling at a time like this is a lethal fraud. Naomi Klein said this about the debt ceiling charade being performed in Washington: “Using trumped up crisis to raid the public purse and attack the basic rights and benefits is a very old trick - but rarely is the shock doctrine tactic wielded as brazenly as in the pseudo debate about the debt ceiling. This is naked class war, waged by the ultra rich against everyone else, and it's well past time for Americans to draw the line.” The phony debt ceiling crisis is just one more excuse to further shred our already puny social safety net and increase wealth concentration at the top. But more to the point, I thought it was American policy not to negotiate with terrorists. The Republican tactic in Minnesota and Washington, D.C. is the same: do what we want or we’ll blow up the government. And, as we saw in Minnesota, they did just that. Unfortunately, governor Dayton did a Neville Chamberlin and let them get away with it. Appeasement is not the answer with these Republican Nazis just as it was not the answer in 1938. It’s just going to get worse. We are not amused.

July 16, 2011

There is simply no exaggerating the importance of the oceans to earth’s overall ecological balance. Their health affects the health of all terrestrial life. A new report by an international coalition of marine scientists, International Earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts, concludes that the oceans are approaching irreversible, potentially catastrophic, change. The experts, convened by the International Program on the State of the Ocean and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, found that marine “degradation is now happening at a faster rate than predicted.” The oceans have warmed and become more acidic as they absorbed human-generated carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They are also more oxygen-deprived, because of agricultural runoff and other anthropogenic causes. And, according to the report, these three conditions were present in previous mass extinctions. The oceans’ natural resilience has been seriously compromised. Pollution, habitat loss, and overfishing are themselves dangerous threats. But when these factors converge, they destroy marine ecosystems. The severity of human impact was reinforced last week when scientists concluded that seven commercially important species, including marlin, mackerel, and three tuna species, were either vulnerable to extinction, endangered, or critically endangered according to I.U.C.N. standards. The solutions that might help slow further degradation include immediate reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, a system of marine conservation areas, and a way to protect ocean life that goes beyond national jurisdictions. As the new study notes, changes in the oceans, caused by carbon emissions, are perhaps “the most significant to the earth system,” particularly because they will further accelerate climate change.

July 15, 2011

According to a recent study, the widespread use of search engines and online databases has affected the way people remember information. Researchers wondered whether  people were more likely to remember information that could be easily retrieved from a computer, just as students are more likely to recall facts they believe will be on a test. They staged four different memory experiments. In one, participants typed 40 bits of trivia — for example, “an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain” — into a computer. Half of the subjects believed the information would be saved in the computer; the other half believed the items they typed would be erased. The subjects were significantly more likely to remember information when they thought they would not be able to find it later. Participants did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statement they had read, according to the study’s authors. A second experiment was aimed at determining whether computer accessibility affects precisely what we remember. For example, If asked the question whether there are any countries with only one color in their flag, do we think about flags — or immediately think to go online to find out? In this case, participants were asked to remember both the trivia statement itself and which of five computer folders it was saved in. The researchers were surprised to find that people seemed better able to recall the folder. The experiment explores an aspect of what is known as transactive memory — the notion that we rely on our family, friends, and co-workers as well as reference material to store information for us. The researchers conclude that these experiments indicate the Internet has become our primary external storage system, that human memory is adapting to new communications technology. For better or worse…

July 14, 2011

In three new rulings, federal judges in different states have acted to block immediate enforcement of measures that restrict abortion rights and women’s access to affordable contraception, lifesaving cancer screenings, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. These rulings are important victories for women’s health and reproductive rights. On June 24, Judge Tanya Pratt of the Federal District Court in Indianapolis issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a new Indiana law banning the use of Medicaid funds at Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide essential health services to low-income women. The mean-spirited law is part of a Republican-led national campaign to end public financing for Planned Parenthood. The Obama administration promptly told Indiana, and other states weighing similar legislation, that the measure violated federal law by imposing impermissible restrictions on the freedom of Medicaid beneficiaries to choose health care providers. Judge Pratt agreed with that assessment in her decision. In another ruling six days later, a federal trial judge in South Dakota issued a preliminary injunction blocking, on constitutional grounds, a deeply intrusive state law requiring women to wait at least 72 hours after an initial doctor’s visit before terminating a pregnancy — the longest waiting period in the nation. This law also requires that women seeking abortions endure counseling at so-called pregnancy help centers run by antiabortion activists with the aim of discouraging abortions. “Forcing a woman to divulge to a stranger at a pregnancy help center the fact that she has chosen to undergo an abortion humiliates and degrades her as a human being,” Judge Karen Schreier wrote in her decision. On July 1, Judge Carlos Murguia, a federal district judge in Kansas, blocked immediate enforcement of a new Kansas licensing law and health department regulations imposing extensive, medically unnecessary requirements on the state’s three remaining abortion providers — like mandating 50 square feet of storage space for janitorial supplies — with the obvious goal of shutting them down. While these rulings are preliminary, each is a determination that enforcing the law would cause irreparable harm and that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail at trial. They do not, however, address other threats to women’s health. Those include the slashing of state support for family-planning services by governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey, and attacks from Congress like the bill Republicans pushed through the House in May that would use the nation’s tax system as a weapon to end abortion insurance coverage in the private market, as discussed in the June 2 post. Still, these rulings serve to at least temporarily block the extreme anti-abortion, anti-family-planning movement accelerating in the states and in Washington.

July 13, 2011

Men are at higher risk than women of developing cancer within their lifetime, and a recent study shows they are also more likely to die from it. The analysis, published in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, examined 36 types of cancer by gender, using almost 30 years of data, from 1977 and 2006. It found that for the vast majority of cancers, men have higher mortality rates than women, with the highest disparities for conditions such as lip, throat, and the rare hypopharyngeal cancer, which affects the area where the larynx and esophagus meet. Men were found to be about five times more likely to die from these diseases. Cancers with the highest mortality rates — such as leukemia and lung, colon, and pancreatic cancers — were also found to pose a greater risk of death for men. Men were found to be almost twice as likely than women to die from leukemia. Cancers of the colon and rectum, pancreas, and liver killed about one and a half to two times as many men as women in the U.S. over a 30-year period. In addition, lung cancer killed nearly two and a half times as many men during that time. The American Cancer Society estimates that men have about a 1 in 2 chance of developing cancer at some point in their lives, compared with women, who have a 1 in 3 chance. In general, women have earlier-stage cancers at diagnosis, though this isn't true for all types of cancer. It's not clear why there is a disparity, but men may be exposed to more carcinogens, have hormonal or metabolism differences, or be less protected from antioxidants than women.

July 9, 2011

Wars launched by the U. S. since the attacks of September 11, 2001 have left 225,000 dead and cost up to $4.4 trillion, according to a new study published by Brown University. It focused on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen, which came in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The authors argue that governments almost always go to war underestimating the potential duration and costs of a conflict while overestimating "the political objectives that can be accomplished by the use of brute force." "An extremely conservative estimate" of the casualty toll is about 225,000 people killed and 365,000 wounded in the wars so far. The number of soldiers killed comes to 31,741, including about 6,000 Americans, 1,200 allied troops, 9,900 Iraqis, 8,800 Afghans, 3,500 Pakistanis as well as 2,300 US private security contractors. The civilian toll was much higher, with an estimated 172,000 dead, including about 125,000 Iraqis, 35,000 Pakistanis and 12,000 Afghans. The study acknowledged that estimating the number of dead was difficult, particularly the toll for insurgents, putting the number at between 20,000 to 51,000 insurgents killed. The report found that 168 reporters and 266 humanitarian workers were among the dead in the period of the U. S. “war on terror.” The wars also have triggered a massive flow of refugees and displaced persons, with more than 7.8 million displaced, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study estimated the financial cost of the wars at a minimum of $3.7 trillion and up to $4.4 trillion, which represents about a quarter of the current U. S. debt. The researchers arrived at a much larger figure than the Pentagon's previous estimates, as they included spending by the Department of Homeland Security to counter terrorist threats, government projections for spending on wounded veterans through 2051 and war-related funds from the State Department and the U. S. Agency for International Development. "Wars always cost more than what the Pentagon spends for the duration of the combat operation", said the study.

July 5, 2011

How far will Republican lawmakers go to protect millionaires? Those who think a default on the federal government’s credit seems implausible should take a sobering look at the “closed” signs dotting Minnesota. The Republican Party there readily shut down the state’s government on Friday by refusing to raise taxes on the 7,700 Minnesotans who make more than $1 million a year. Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, campaigned for office last year promising to raise taxes on high earners, so it was no surprise when he proposed a tax increase on families making more than $150,000 a year to help close a $5 billion budget gap. In negotiations with the Republican majority in the Legislature, he compromised and reduced the increase to those making $1 million or more, but Republicans are refusing to consider any income tax increase. Like Republicans in Washington, they have the delusion that they can balance the budget entirely from cuts. The governor proposed more than $2 billion in cuts but refused to slash billions more from education, health care, and public safety programs. The Legislature also wanted new abortion restrictions and a voter ID law that Mr. Dayton had already vetoed. When he said no, lawmakers allowed the fiscal year to end without a budget, and state government officially shut on July 1. More than 40 state agencies have closed, including the state parks over the July Fourth holiday. Courts and public safety agencies are operating, but essential services for the poor, like food pantries and child care subsidies, have evaporated. Many parents say they may have to quit their jobs if state-subsidized child care does not resume quickly. The shutdown will actually cost the state money, since many of the 22,000 laid-off workers will receive unemployment benefits and health insurance, while the treasury is unable to collect on tax audits, lottery tickets, and park fees. As painful as the closure may become, Dayton is right not to yield to the extremist ideology the Republicans are pursuing in St. Paul, Washington, and across the country. President Obama has done so twice and faces an emboldened opposition willing to create chaos in the credit markets rather than agree to modest revenue increases from the richest people. Republican anti-tax radicalism, maintained at any cost, is doing enormous damage at all levels and may soon engulf the economy if the standoff in Washington does not end. In Minnesota, there is now a chance to draw a line and say, no further. Time to stop giving in to the threats and vote these guys out.

June 30, 2011

The ethical judgments of the Supreme Court justices became an important issue in the just completed term. The court cannot maintain its legitimacy as guardian of the rule of law when justices behave like politicians. Yet, in several instances, justices acted in ways that weakened the court’s reputation for being independent and impartial. Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito Jr., for example, appeared at political events. That kind of activity makes it less likely that the court’s decisions will be accepted as nonpartisan judgments. Part of the problem is that the justices are not bound by an ethics code. At the very least, the court should make itself subject to the code of conduct that applies to the rest of the federal judiciary. Among the court’s 82 rulings this term, 16 were 5-to-4 decisions. Of those, 10 were split along ideological lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy supplying the fifth conservative vote. These rulings reveal the court’s fundamental inclination to the right, with the conservative majority further expanding the ability of the wealthy to prevail in electoral politics and the prerogatives of businesses against the interests of consumers and workers:

· It struck down public matching funds in Arizona’s campaign finance system, showing again a contempt for laws that provide some balance to the unlimited amounts of money flooding the political system.

· It made it much harder for private lawsuits to succeed against mutual fund malefactors, even when they have admitted to lying and cheating.

· It tore down the ability of citizens to hold prosecutors’ offices accountable for failing to train their lawyers, even when prosecutors hide exculpatory evidence and send innocent people to prison.

· It issued a devastating blow to consumer rights by upholding the arbitration clause in AT&T’s customer agreement, which required the signer to waive the right to take part in a class action.

· In the complex Wal-Mart case, the conservative majority, going beyond the particular issues in that case, made it substantially more difficult for class-action suits in all manner of cases to move forward.

These and other decisions raise the question of whether there is still a line between the court and politics, an issue since the Republican-led Rehnquist court decided Bush v. Gore in 2000, though the federal judiciary’s shift to the right has been happening since the administration of Ronald Reagan. The framers of the Constitution envisioned law as having authority apart from politics. They gave justices life tenure so they would be free to upset the powerful and have no need to cultivate political support. Our legal system was designed to set law apart from politics. But this court has become illegitimate by crossing the line into politics and refusing to be accountable to any code of conduct. The conservatives on the court are the ultimate activist judges, and their recent rulings are unconvincing as law.