Occasionally The Wife or I will have a Reading Accident, which results in staying up very late. I had one this evening, finishing Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn, a wonderful, deeply human, deeply compelling, deeply comic novel that you should read, and that you can probably find in your local library. I just went to my library’s on-line catalog and found all her other novels there and put a request in for all them plus her volume of short stories.

It’s best if you just start reading the book, ignoring the dust-jacket synopsis, reviews, and the like—just wade in and find your direction as best you can. It’s really exceptional. One thing I can share without spoiling anything is my enjoyment of her use of associative memory in following her characters’ chain of thought: wonderful. One example:

He didn’t have any books with him, nor his laptop, of course, so he could neither read nor write. Martin hadn’t realized how much of his life was taken up by these two activities. How would he manage if he became blind or deaf? Or both? At least if he was blind he could get a guide dog—there was an upside to everything, a sliver lining of helpful Labs and noble German shepherds eager to be his eyes. They had dogs for the deaf too, but Martin was sure what they did. Tugged at your sleeve a lot, probably, while looking meaningfully at things.

Her writing has such a smooth and original voice that the one time she does use a cliché it is almost depressing.

I’m going to try to remember this when I’m elderly:

Habitual intake of caffeinated beverages provides protection against heart disease mortality in the elderly, say researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Brooklyn College.

Using data from the first federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-up Study, the researchers found that survey participants 65 or more years old with higher caffeinated beverage intake exhibited lower relative risk of coronary vascular disease and heart mortality than did participants with lower caffeinated beverage intake.

John Kassotis, MD, associate professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate, said, “The protection against death from heart disease in the elderly afforded by caffeine is likely due to caffeine’s enhancement of blood pressure.”

The protective effect also was found to be dose-responsive: the higher the caffeine intake the stronger the protection. The protective effect was found only in participants who were not severely hypertensive. No significant protective effect was in patients below the age of 65.

No protective effect was found against cerebrovascular disease mortality — death from stroke — regardless of age.

This research was published by The American Journal of Nutrition in its February 2007 issue.

Stupid people denied global warming in spite of all evidence that it existed, and now that it’s as plain as the noses on their faces, they remain stupid in insisting we can do nothing about it. Krugman:

The factual debate about whether global warming is real is, or at least should be, over. The question now is what to do about it.

Aside from a few dead-enders on the political right, climate change skeptics seem to be making a seamless transition from denial to fatalism. In the past, they rejected the science. Now, with the scientific evidence pretty much irrefutable, they insist that it doesn’t matter because any serious attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions is politically and economically impossible.

Behind this claim lies the assumption, explicit or implicit, that any substantial cut in energy use would require a drastic change in the way we live. To be fair, some people in the conservation movement seem to share that assumption.

But the assumption is false. Let me tell you about a real-world counterexample: an advanced economy that has managed to combine rising living standards with a substantial decline in per capita energy consumption, and managed to keep total carbon dioxide emissions more or less flat for two decades, even as both its economy and its population grew rapidly. And it achieved all this without fundamentally changing a lifestyle centered on automobiles and single-family houses.

The name of the economy? California.

Read the rest of this entry »

The environmental cost of eating meat is too great. One way to start, I think, is to eat vegetarian 4 days a week. Then 5. Etc.

The harmful environmental effects of livestock production are becoming increasingly serious at all levels–local, regional, national and global–and urgently need to be addressed, according to researchers from Stanford University, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other organizations. The researchers, representing five countries, presented their findings on Feb. 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco during a symposium entitled, “Livestock in a Changing Landscape: Drivers, Consequences and Responses.”

Large-scale livestock operations provide most of the meat and meat products consumed around the world–consumption that is growing at a record pace and is projected to double by 2050, said symposium organizer Harold A. Mooney, professor of biological sciences at Stanford. “We are seeing tremendous environmental problems with these operations, from land degradation and air and water pollution to loss of biodiversity,” he said, noting that the developing world is especially vulnerable to the effects of these operations.

Symposium co-organizer Henning Steinfeld of the FAO Livestock Environment and Development initiative emphasized that intensive and extensive forms of production are beset with a range of different problems. In “intensive systems,” animals are contained and feed is brought to them. “Extensive systems” generally refer to grazing animals that live off the land.

“Extensive livestock production plays a critical role in land degradation, climate change, water and biodiversity loss,” Steinfeld said. For example, grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, and feed-crop production requires about a third of all arable land, he said. Expansion of livestock grazing land is also a leading cause of deforestation, especially in Latin America, he added. In the Amazon basin alone, about 70 percent of previously forested land is used as pasture, while feed crops cover a large part of the remainder.

“We are seeing land once farmed locally being transformed to cropland for industrialized feed production, with grasslands and tropical forests being destroyed in these land use changes, with resources feeding livestock rather than the humans who previously depended on those lands,” added Mooney, who co-chaired the scientific advisory panel for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

According to the FAO, when emissions from land use are factored in, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions derived from human-related activities, as well as 37 percent of methane emissions–primarily gas from the digestive system of cattle and other domesticated ruminants–and 65 percent of nitrous oxide gases, mostly from manure.

The problems surrounding livestock production cannot be considered in isolation, nor are they limited to the environmental impact, Mooney said, noting that economic, social, health and environmental perspectives “will be critical to solving some of these problems. We hope to develop a greater understanding of these complex issues so that we may encourage policies and practices to reduce the adverse effects of livestock production, while ensuring that humans are fed and natural resources are preserved, today and in the future.”

It does seem strange that this isn’t getting more attention:

I have to admit, I’m a little surprised the Alishtari story isn’t a bigger deal. If the DCCC had accepted money from an accused terrorist financier, and kept the money, it seems safe to assume it’d get quite a bit of attention.

For those of you just joining us, here’s a quick review. Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari (aka Michael Mixon) is currently facing federal charges for allegedly providing material support to terrorists. Alishtari is also a generous Republican donor contributing more than $15,000 in the ‘02 and ‘04 cycles to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and having been named to the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s “Inner Circle Leadership Committee.” GOP officials acknowledged Tuesday that they took money from an accused terrorist financier, but decided that they won’t return the money.

The AP picked up on the story yesterday, which I thought might help propel the controversy to the front page. No such luck. Of the nation’s major daily newspapers, only the New York Daily News has written a stand-alone article on the controversy (a handful of others have mentioned it briefly, but didn’t publish articles). Literally, that gives us a grand total of two articles in the leading papers since Alishtari’s arrest, both from the same paper.

What about broadcast media? MSNBC mentioned this story just once (Olbermann devoted about a half-minute to the story on Monday) and CNN mentioned it just once on Tuesday (Jacki Schechner gave it about a minute on the Situation Room — because the blogs were talking about it). Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC haven’t mentioned it at all.

What’s up?

R.J. Eskow makes a compelling case that this would be huge if the shoe were on the other foot.

I’ve waited a couple of days for this story to move from the back pages to the headlines. Nothing. Apparently the story that a Republican Party fundraiser has now been accused of financing terrorism is no big deal. The media’s more interested in Obama’s smoking, the Clintons’ sex life, and the state of decay on the face of Anna Nicole’s corpse (which Larry King covered the other night, thanks to a talkative county coroner.)

In fairness to Larry, he’s not supposed to cover hard news. And to that joker who just said it’s a redundancy to say “Republican Party fundraiser accused of financing terrorism” - very funny, wise guy. Still, to read this story and realize that it’s been essentially overlooked is to experience the impending explosion of one’s own head.

Can you imagine how they’d cover it if a Democratic Party fundraiser had been accused of financing terror training camps, transferring funds to pay for “night vision goggles and other equipment” needed to train terrorists manque? It would be an even bigger story than the plane Nancy Pelosi (didn’t) request - by, oh, a factor of a million or so. Doncha think?

Oh, and the camp in question is in Afghanistan. You remember. The country that was connected to 9/11. The one that is part of the “war on terror.”

For what it’s worth, the DCCC still hopes to push the controversy, in part by focusing on those Republicans who received support from the NRCC.

22 Republican representatives have taken money from the NRCC since the accused terrorist began contributing to the Republicans

The question now is whether these Republicans will give back the tainted cash or use it to stuff their campaign coffers.

So far, NONE of the Republican Members have come out to condemn their party’s national campaign committee for raising money from contributors indicted for terrorism.

“Are these representatives going to keep NRCC money received from someone who may have supported terrorists?” asked Jennifer Crider, the DCCC’s Communications Director. “These representatives talk tough on terrorism so why aren’t they calling on Republican leadership and the NRCC to immediately return its contributions from an accused terrorist?”

Am I missing some obvious reason this isn’t gaining traction?

Interesting article:

Women with hirsutism grow hair on their faces, breasts and stomachs. This can cause great distress. The hair grows because they have abnormally high levels of the ‘masculinising’ androgen hormones. Androgens travel around the body in the blood stream, and a key way of treating hirsutism is to reduce the level of these androgens.

Data just published in Phytotherapy Research show that drinking two cups of spearmint tea a day for five days could reduce the level of androgens in women with hirsutism.

“Current therapies use either oral contraceptives to suppress androgen production, or medications such as spironolactone that prevent the body responding to androgen — but this study shows that spearmint could be a good natural alternative for women who have mild symptoms,” says researcher Mehmet Numan Tamer who acts as spokesperson for the research team. The research was carried out at the Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey.

In the trials the herbal tea was made by pouring a cup (250ml) of boiling water over 1 heaped teaspoon (5g) of dried leaves, and leaving it for 5 to 10 mins.

The team decided to study the effects of spearmint on hirsutism because of previous reports that extracts of the spearmint plant (Mentha spicata Labiatae) could reduce libido in men. A possible reason for this reduced libido could have been that spearmint was reducing their androgen level. Other research had shown that these extracts reduced androgen levels in rats.

“We now need to do further studies to test the reliability of this finding, and to see the extent to which the reduced androgens do help women with mild hirsutism,” says Professor Tamer.

Shop, probably. The Bush credo is that sacrifice is for others. Cf. Prince Harry:

The British government made headlines on Wednesday by saying it would withdraw some troops from Iraq. Today, it made even more waves here by saying it would send one soldier in the opposite direction.

His name: Prince Harry, second son of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and third in line to the throne after his father, Prince Charles, and his older brother William.

Apart from being known as something of a playboy, Harry, 22, is a junior officer in the upper-crust Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry, after graduating from the Sandhust Military Academy last year.

Despite his official handlers’ fears that he would be a “bullet magnet” in Iraq, he has long insisted that he would not countenance the idea of the troops under his command in an armored reconnaissance unit going in harm’s way without him.

It turns out that he won’t have to.

“His Royal Highness Prince Harry will deploy to Iraq later this year,” the Defense Ministry and the prince’s own office announced today, in a joint statement that clearly reflected his superiors’ worries that his presence could draw fire on himself and those serving with him. Military planners have also expressed concern that attempts would be made to kidnap him.

In the military, Prince Harry is known by the surname Wales and by his rank in the Blues and Royals — that of cornet, equivalent to a second lieutenant. “Speculation about precisely where Cornet Wales will serve, or the exact details of his role, is potentially dangerous,” the joint statement said.

It went on to ask all news organizations to “respect this matter of operational security so that Cornet Wales can undertake a normal tour of duty, which is his express wish and that of the army.” Read the rest of this entry »

Two interesting posts from Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com:

Sometimes a really big story is sitting there, right in plain sight. That’s the case with the firing of San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam and the on-going Duke Cunningham investigation.

As per Washington conventional wisdom we’re now supposed to accept that the firing of seven US attorneys around the country was, yes, perhaps unprecedented, but more an example of Bush cronyism than an effort to short-circuit one or more investigations. But the firing of Lam just doesn’t bear out that reading.

Earlier this month, Lam indicted Brent Wilkes, Dusty Foggo and John T. Michael.

By almost any measure this is a public corruption indictment of historic proportions. Wilkes corrupted the sitting US congressman who got the longest sentence ever given to a member of Congress. Foggo was the executive director of the CIA, the number three guy, the one who actually ran the agency on a daily basis. Michael helped bribing Duke and he also appears to have lied to investigators. He’s also the nephew of Tommy Kontogiannis, a key player in the scandal who is listed as an indicted briber-and-coconspirator in Duke Cunningham’s plea agreement. One of the big mysteries in this case is why Kontogiannis still hasn’t been indicted, especially now that his nephew — whose role in the case was secondary to that of his uncle — has. On Kontogiannis, it’s probably worth considering the widespread reports of his role on the fringe of the intelligence and criminal underworlds to see why he might, as yet, have drawn a pass.

In any case, a pretty weighty indictment. And the prosecutor gets forced out so that she only barely has time to bring the main indictments? That sounds very fishy.

And what’s the reason for her firing?

We were originally told that she was let go on the basis of poor performance and management. But McClatchy later reported that, like other fired US attorneys, Lam’s performance reviews were strong.

So why was she fired?

We’re now asked to believe that she was canned because a few conservative congressmen were complaining that she wasn’t doing enough on the illegal immigration front.

Please.

A look at the cases against the men in question leave little doubt that this investigation wasn’t over. But the job of the person who’s led the prosecution from beginning is.

Who’s foolish enough to believe this is all a coincidence?

– Josh Marshall

---

A number of TPM Readers have written in suggesting that former US Attorney Carol Lam’s firing was at the heart of the US Attorney purge. The others were meant as cover, to deflect attention from what looked like an attempt to shutdown her investigation and make her appear to be just one of several firees. I think that’s quite possible actually. And there are people involved in the case who think the same thing.

– Josh Marshall

Very much so, yet still considered a bastion of right-wing respectability. Glenn Greenwald today:

Last Tuesday, right-wing Law Professor Glenn Reynolds wrote a post calling for the murder of Iranian atomic scientists and “radical mullahs,” and I wrote about Reynolds’ “idea” here. On Monday of this week, University of Colorado Law School Professor Paul Campos wrote a column about Reynolds’ plan in The Rocky Mountain News. The column branded Reynolds “The Right’s Ward Churchill,” and documented the extremism and dishonesty which pervaded his “argument.”

Reynolds replied to Campos’ column three separate times, each time with increasing shrillness, dishonesty, and name-calling — first on his blog, then in a guest column in The Rocky Mountain News, and then again yesterday on his blog. He also repeatedly linked to multiple right-wing bloggers engaged in all sorts of name-calling attacks on Professor Campos. This morning, Professor Campos e-mailed me and asked if he could post his response to Reynolds on this blog, and I happily agreed. Following is Professor Campos’ reply:

__________________________________

Glenn Reynolds’ response to my column suggesting that it might strike some people as odd that a law professor is using lies to advocate murder is a classic genre: the genre in question being the unhinged polemic disguised as pseudo-academic discourse (It was Reynolds’ proclivity for this sort of thing that led me to point out the extent to which Reynolds and his ilk are right-wing versions of the infamous Ward Churchill — the difference being that you’ll never find Churchill within a thousand miles of any mainstream liberal or Democratic party figure, while Reynolds somehow remains the soul of Republican respectability).

One could linger over such symptomatic features as the pompous neologism (”beclowned”) deployed as a substitute for argument; the assumption that scholarly expertise can be acquired by a ten-minute Google search; the subsequent citation of “authorities” of whose existence the author was unaware ten minutes earlier; or the inevitable if rather surreal violation of Godwin’s Law (we bombed the Nazis so what’s wrong with assassinating Iranian civilians?). But let’s stick to Reynolds’ substantive claims, such as they are.

First, Reynolds argues there are circumstances under which government-sponsored assassination is both legal and morally defensible. Yet whatever merits that general claim might have, it has nothing to do with the legality and mortality of Reynolds’ specific recommendation that the United States government should be “quietly” assassinating Iranian mullahs and atomic scientists, today if not sooner. Obviously there is a world of difference between speculating on whether it would have made sense to assassinate, say, Saddam Hussein, or the Iranian head of state (presumably at some time when we weren’t funneling arms to them), and advocating the assassination of civilian research scientists.

As for Reynolds’ claim that killing scientists wouldn’t be murder because it’s only against the law until the law is changed, what can one say? Lawyers’ claims to find a statement shocking often sound a lot like Capt. Renault claiming to be shocked to discover there’s gambling in Casablanca, but I’m not saying this rhetorically: It’s shocking that a professor of law would dare make such a despicable argument in print. In fact assassinations are currently prohibited by law — something Reynolds cannot of course dispute — and the law would have to be changed before what Reynolds says our government should be doing at the present moment could even arguably begin to be considered legal.

Read the rest of this entry »

$1,000,000,000 every year. Is it worth it? More important, is it working? (Both answers: No.)

That’s what American taxpayers spent last year according to Paul Armentano’s article on Alternet.org.

American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That’s according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

According to the new BJS report, “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.

Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.
Continue reading original

For most people, it’s hard to look at national budget numbers and know whether or not to be upset. One billion seems like a lot, but sometimes people don’t have anything to compare it to. It would be a good bet that most folks couldn’t tell you if the entire GDP was closer to $13 billion, $13 trillion, or $130 trillion.

To get an idea of what kind of priority $1 billion amounts to for American taxpayers, let’s do what the politicos do – let’s talk about terrorism.

On October 12, 2001, the FBI requested $1.5 billion to respond to the attacks of September 11. The White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million.

Whatever one thinks about the strength of the US economy, the fact is that right now we spend more than we earn as a nation (US consumer savings is still negative) and as a government. Our resources are extremely limited.

That’s why the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. It would be the height of cynicism to believe that the President would not have spent everything the US could have to respond to that day. We did. And we spent half what we spend jailing potheads.

One billion dollars is significant because it illustrates a priority that is mandated by the US government but totally out of step with the average American. This government is supposed to be representative, but on the issue of marijuana it has gone out of control.

A Declaration was once drafted - on paper made from the finest marijuana - as a response to just such a detachment. If we’re going to teach the Middle East how to govern, we can begin by respecting the values of our own Great Experiment.

This post from Firedoglake’s Marcy Wheeler deserves broad readership, just for its interest:

One of my favorite posts from FDL’s trial commentary was Pachacutec’s Who’s Your Daddy. He wrote:

A trial is a complex thing.  There’s all the evidence, rules of evidence, legal stuff and rules for jury deliberations, but anyone who has interviewed jurors after a trial (and I have) knows that it’s often the unpredictable elements, the very human elements, jurors hang on to and remember.  As I watched opening statements this week from inside the courtroom, as preoccupied as I was with taking notes of the competing arguments, I was also most attentive to the ebb and flow of human energy, the little looks and asides, the personalities and the dynamics of people and perceptions, as best I could read them, drawing on my experience and my doctorate in psych.  I want to share a little of what it was like to be in the courtroom, through my perceptions of how the players came across.

Here’s the thing:  in my view, the three dominant personalities in the room — Pat Fitzgerald, Reggie Walton and Ted Wells — are all engaged in a complex game of “who’s your daddy?,” both among themselves and, perhaps most especially, for the jury and the media.  Think of it as an alpha male American Idol for the jury and the public, where the ultimate prize is the jurors’ trust and confidence, with public perception a very close second.

I love the post partly because I always find Pach’s insights into human dynamics so fascinating. But also because it really did describe what was going on in the courtroom in early days—a battle to see whether Wells could take over the courtroom, Fitzgerald could stop him, or Reggie Walton could find enough Solomonic decisions to keep the trial moving forward, however ploddingly.

Yesterday’s close was about many things. But most of all, it seemed to be the resolution of all these tensions in an unexpected way.

Only it all got started by someone who never figured in these calculations of alpha male dominance. You see, one of the most important moves of the day came when Peter Zeidenberg stood up and said to the jury:

Defense didn’t have to give opening statement. On behalf of defense, Wells elected to give opening. He painted different picture, told you about WH conspiracy to scapegoat Libby. Effort to make LIbby into sacrificial lamb so that Karl Rove would go free. You’ve heard witnesses testify, you’ve heard witness after witness, you’ve heard them testify about one or another conversation with Libby about Valerie Wilson during the time period that Libby claimed he had no memory of Wilson’s wife. You heard Russert testify, take an oath and say he never spoke to Libby about Wilson’s wife. In direct contrast to what Libby claimed. Now did you hear any evidence about a conspiracy to scapegoat Libby? If you draw a blank, it’s not because of a problem with your evidence. [It's because the defense never proved their argument that there was a WH conspiracy against Libby.]

It was an important point because the Defense never proved this point–it never brought witnesses like Andy Card and Scottie McClellan and Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove himself they would have needed to prove their point. More importantly, it got under Wells’ skin.

You see, this kind of accusation is precisely the kind of thing that would get under an alpha male like Ted Wells’ skin—particularly if the accusation rings true. He couldn’t let the accusation lie there because it would suggest to the jury that he hadn’t proven his larger case. But he couldn’t let it lie because it would damage his own ego. So rather than launching right into the prepared closing statements, rather than summoning rage for Scooter Libby, his purportedly aggrieved client, Wells started by summoning his own rage. The most remarkable thing about it was his voice. It was higher pitched than the voice of his rage persona. And he stopped breathing—his voice became pinched and forced. This was real rage, but it was rage in the service of Ted Wells, not rage in the service of Scooter Libby.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been reading about the terrible—even unforgivable–conditions at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center. And yet no one is held accountable. This story gives a good summary, and from it I take this excerpt:

The Post stories focused in part on “Building 18,” a 54-room Army-owned facility across the street from the main Walter Reed campus where nearly 70 recovering service members are being housed. The stories described some rooms in various states of disrepair, along with a rodent and cockroach infestation — a situation Cody [Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army's No. 2 leader] said he should have been briefed on much earlier.

“I am disappointed that I had to learn about the conditions of that building through media reports, despite frequent visits to Walter Reed facilities, informal and formal discussions with patients and their families and the medical staff,” Cody said. “Clearly, we’ve had a breakdown in leadership, and the bureaucratic, medical and professional processes bogged down a speedy solution to these problems.”

Cody wouldn’t identify where the breakdown in leadership took place. “I’ll take responsibility and I’ll make sure that it’s fixed,” he said. “I can assure you that the appropriate vigor and leadership is being applied to this issue. And we will correct any problems immediately.”

Cody said no one has been relieved of command or fired over the problems. “We will do the right thing across the board as we continue to assess where the leadership failure and breakdowns were,” he said, adding that the problems were not due to a lack of resources.

He said he would personally oversee the upgrading of Building 18.

Screw it to a parade rest? No problem. Someone will “take responsibility” (which consists of saying the words “I take responsibility,” nothing more) and it will get fixed, and everyone skates. Except the victims of the incompetence and neglect.

This is odd:

A fruit that affects dopamine neurons

The fruit pictured on the right is called a soursop - a reportedly delicious fruit from the French West Indies that contains very small amounts of a substance that kills dopamine neurons.

Two research studies have looked at the substance - annonacin - and found it to kill off dopamine neurons in test tube trials.

Annonacin is only present in small quantities so occasionally eating soursop should be safe.

However, it is thought that the high rates of treatment resistant Parkinson’s disease in the French West Indies may be linked to high levels of soursop consumption.

Parkinson’s disease is caused by the death of dopamine neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway of the brain.

Link to neurotoxicity study on soursop.
Link to study on link with Parkinson’s disease.

I install a fair amount of (free, mostly) software on my computer, and over time most of it gathers dust. But there are those that get more and more requent use: BlogDesk, for example, and (the subject of this post) Phrase Express.

Phrase Express is, essentially, AutoText for Windows: you assign a hot key (I use Ctrl-’) to bring up the list of phrases you’ve saved, and Phrase Express plops the phrase where the cursor is. It will learn new phrases from the clipboard, so the second time you copy something (a URL, for example) to paste someplace, you quickly find it saves time to bring up Phrase Express, save the clipboard, and give that a name. From then on, Bob’s your uncle. Quite useful.

And Microsoft (remember them) is the party arguing that software (both source code and object code) cannot be patented:

It seems Microsoft might be arguing itself into a corner in front of the Supreme Court regarding software patents. How? Well, Microsoft uses a little bit of code from AT&T to make some speech recognition magic happen in Vista. The catch? they might not have licensed this code for use overseas. So AT&T sues, claiming MS violated the patent on the code itself– saying they illegally copied it overseas, essentially. The arguments in front of the nation’s highest court might finally settle the debate of software patentability. At issue is when source code becomes patentable or, if it ever is.

AT&T’s position is that Microsoft is stealing the code, just as a copycat manufacturer might steal Ron Popeil’s magic Hair-in-a-Can.But the arguments get pretty tangled when the court presses the issue of what, exactly, is patented. The resulting case has Microsoft arguing a point you may not have expected them to argue; You cannot patent source code or object code. Justice Souter keeps it real by comparing code to a blueprint, and ultimately saying that the copying of code onto hard drives using this blueprint, or the mere exportation of this code for such purpose, could constitute infringement. To defend itself, MS initially tried to claim that since the physical devices used to manufacture the PC’s running said code are all made overseas and therefore are out of US jurisdiction (nice try). Failing that, they are taking this position: you cannot patent the series of instructions themselves, only the mechanism that delivers the functionality can be patented. Therefore, since they only shipped a master disc with code, they ain’t violatin’ nuttin’ yer honor. The crux they claim, is that software doesn’t become software until it’s installed by the end user.

It’s an interesting argument. AT&T has to now prove that the methods, the procedures, the instructions in the code, and not just the manifestation of said code, is indeed patentable. Thus, code is patentable (when created in a form that is executable), and just because you’re only sending the blueprint via disc overseas but don’t make the computer that executes the code it doesn’t exclude you from the infringement. Clear as mud, isn’t it?

Bear in mind, splitting hairs is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do. This time, they have a whopper of a case on their hands and there is no telling what will happen. The Justices are doing a great job so far trying to pin down exactly when the code become patentable, if at all. I have little doubt this will finally bring some closure to a hotly-debated topic, and will have ramifications throughout the tech world.

What does this mean for open source developers? Indeed, what does this mean for any developer who creates a novel methodology in their software, no matter how it is delivered? Stay tuned, right now there are more serious questions than there are solid answers.

This sounds good. I found the recipe via a link at The Wednesday Chef:

But this time, instead of using canned beans, I decided to cook up some dried navy beans. Although it seems more ambitious, it was actually lazier. I was already at home with the dried beans in the cupboard; the cans were three windy, ice-slicked blocks away at the store.

As good as my earlier batch was, these faked beans were phony perfection. They retained their shape and stayed slightly firmer and more toothsome than their canned counterparts. Also, as they boiled I could add onion and garlic to the cooking water, which gave them a subtly richer taste. All told, it took a little more than two hours (after soaking), which, while not exactly instant, is still a good bit quicker than 10.

FAKE BAKED BEANS WITH CRISP BACON
Time: About 21/2 hours, plus overnight soaking

1 pound dry white beans, like navy, pea or cannellini (see note)
2 whole cloves
1 small onion, halved lengthwise and peeled
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt, more to taste
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup molasses
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 slices thick-cut bacon
Chopped red onion, for garnish.

1. Cover beans with water to top them by 2 inches and refrigerate [? I never have refrigerated the soaking beans---what's the point? - LG] overnight, or bring to boil in water to cover, cool 1 hour.

2. Drain and rinse beans. Put them in a pot. Stick whole cloves into onion halves and add to pot along with garlic and bay leaf. Cover with enough water to top them by 1 inch. Simmer beans, partly covered, until just tender, about 1 to 2 hours depending upon age and size of beans; do not overcook. Add boiling water if beans look dry during cooking; they should be surrounded by just a little liquid.

3. Remove onion, cloves, garlic (if desired) and bay leaf from pot. Stir in the salt.

4. In a small bowl, mix together ketchup, molasses, vinegar, mustard powder, Tabasco and pepper. Pour mixture into beans and stir well. Add a slice of bacon to pot and bring everything to a simmer. Let simmer over low heat until beans are thickened, about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove bacon slice, if desired. Season with more salt if needed.

5. Just before serving, reheat beans, if necessary. Fry remaining bacon in large skillet and drain on paper-towel-lined plate. Transfer beans to heated gratin dish or baking pan and top with bacon and red onion. Serve hot.

Yield: 4 servings.

Note: You can substitute three 15-ounce cans of white beans [if you don't like good food - LG]. Put them, with their liquid, in a pot and simmer with the ketchup, molasses, vinegar, mustard, Tabasco, pepper and bacon as directed in Step 4. Serve as above.

The Bush Administration’s ineptitude, misfeasance, and malfeasance seems to grow daily, putting US citizens at risk in various ways—not that they care. From the Accidental Hedonist:

There has been plenty of activity in the past three weeks in regard the cattle and Mad Cow disease. Here are some headlines that write a larger story about Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (aka Mad cow). Ten bucks and a pound of grond beef from Safeway to the person first able to give the subtext to all of this.

Ninth case of mad cow confirmed in Canada

On Wednesday, Canada confirmed its ninth case of mad cow disease since 2003, in an Alberta bull that died on a farm last week. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said that a mature bull tested positive for mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Dr. George Luterbach, the agency’s senior veterinarian for Western Canada, said the animal’s death caused the farm to identify it as an “animal of interest” as part of a national surveillance program.

Latest Canada Mad Cow Case Shows Epidemic

Two major U.S. cattle groups reacted to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s overnight announcement of a new case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, by decrying the latest case as proof of an epidemic and calling for more information.

Canadian cattle slip past USDA safeguards

Hundreds of cattle from Canada, which this month confirmed its ninth case of mad cow disease, have entered the United States without government-required health papers or identification tags, according to documents obtained by cattlemen in Washington state.

Mad-cow scrutiny is scaled way back

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently scaled back mad-cow testing by more than 90 percent, leading to closure of the WSU lab and several others around the country.

USDA Refutes Washington Cattlemen’s Take On Canada Cattle Imports

USDA officials are disputing a claim by Washington producers that hundreds of Canadian cattle have crossed the border without the proper paperwork.

Bruce Knight, the USDA official charged with investigating whether any federal trade infractions occurred, told Dow Jones Newswires that initial review indicates there have only been a handful of errors in state-level documentation in Washington.

Uhhh…just how many is “a handful”?

Megs is 5 years old today. Just 5 years ago, she was a warm, gray-and-pink little caterpillar-shaped kitten, snuggled in with her siblings, nursing at her mum Ariel, while dad Raleigh no doubt looked proudly on. Or slept.

British Shorthairs, of which the British Blue is simply a color variant, reach full stature and coat at 5 years of age, and indeed Megs does look more solid and matronly, with her apron well grown in (visible in the photos above).

To celebrate, Megs will probably take a nice long nap, especially since it’s raining and darkish.

The New Yorker librarians are impressive. I emailed my query, and already have an answer. Click the photo, then click the resulting image to get it full size and readable.

The librarian reports:

It took me a while, the relevant hit was “relish.” I actually stumbled upon something else quite interesting along the way, which I suppose will appear in a Squib post soonish. More anon.

The reader’s memory is very good, only the time is a little off. The article, by M.F.K. Fisher, had the, if one can term it so, McCall-ian title of “The Golden Age of Pickling,” and appeared in the October 5, 1968 issue.

The dish is indeed called “Harvy-Scarvy.” I enclose a modified screen grab of page 110. Considering that the article has recipes for several different pickled dishes but only this one is mentioned by name in the archival writeup, we were pretty lucky. I guess the archivists of the day liked the name too!

The reproduction carries the recipe. UPDATE: Recipe also below for copy-and-paste.

UPDATE: A comment from a forum:

It appears in M.F.K. Fisher’s With Bold Knife & Fork (1968), which I have discovered is available at my library. Should make for fun reading!

It is in Chapter 17, THE SECRET INGREDIENT (PICKLES, ETC.): Edith’s Mustard Pickles, Pickled Zucchini, Anne Lodge’s Strawberry Preserves (Delaware), Edith’s Plum Conserve (Iowa via Pennsylvania), Lera’s Baked Fig Pickles, Lera’s Sweet Pickles, Addie’s Sisters Pickels, Baltimore Relish (Michigan?), Harvy-Scarvy (Norfolk, England), Indian Puchidee

UPDATE 2: To simplify your saving this recipe, here it is in a format you can copy and paste:

Harvy-Scarvy (Norfolk, England)

2 cups crisp celery
2 cups apples, cored but not peeled [red is prettiest: e.g., Brae Burn - LG]
2 cups onion
Salt, freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup vinegar  [next time: 1/4 cup vinegar - LG]
1/2 cup salad oil [extra-virgin olive oil; next time: 1/3 cup - LG]

Chop apples and vegetables very fine, season, add vinegar and oil, and stir well. Chill for 1 or 2 hours, and stir again just before serving. Good with any cold meats, but preferably pork chops.

Today I used the fourth soap: HS 4 Sandalwood

1. Effect on skin (dryness, etc.): no problem
2. Quantity of lather (how easily it lathers up): Lathered much better than HS 3: ample lather, good for 3 passes
3. Quality of lather (slickness): slickness was okay
4. How well lather lasts: lasted through the shave, and lather on face persisted

Good shave, no complaints there. The Futur + a new Swedish Gillette. Finished with alum bar and Thayers Lemon Witch Hazel Astringent.

Tomorrow I start with the shaving cream portion of the experiment. Next week, I’ve decided, will be all shaving creams: 2 each of Cyril R. Salter, Saint Charles Shave, and Castle Forbes.