Since LG doesn’t have any kitties around just now, I’m posting a Friday cat blogging photo (just under the wire): Here’s Molly telling me it might be time to call it a night.

- the wife.

Check out Floorplanner.com — free.

I just discovered that the SONY PRS-505 reader (which I saw the other day in Borders) is no longer $500: it’s $300, or $280 from Amazon. Very slick looking (not so clunky in appearance as Amazon’s Kindle ($400). They’ve also removed the DRM restrictions: you can now download files in a variety of open formats, though only by connecting to the computer; Kindle has (free) wireless downloads. But Kindle uses a proprietary format. Here’s a comparative review of the two.

Hard to decide, eh? It sounds as if one should wait for one more generation. In any event, I don’t travel and I get books from the library, so my fascination is pure techno-geekery.

This is what is happening:

No problems so far, the immigration agent told the American citizen and his 22-year-old Colombian wife at her green card interview in December. After he stapled one of their wedding photos to her application for legal permanent residency, he had just one more question: What was her cellphone number?

The calls from the agent started three days later. He hinted, she said, at his power to derail her life and deport her relatives, alluding to a brush she had with the law before her marriage. He summoned her to a private meeting. And at noon on Dec. 21, in a parked car on Queens Boulevard, he named his price — not realizing that she was recording everything on the cellphone in her purse.

“I want sex,” he said on the recording. “One or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.”

She reluctantly agreed to a future meeting. But when she tried to leave his car, he demanded oral sex “now,” to “know that you’re serious.” And despite her protests, she said, he got his way.

The 16-minute recording, which the woman first took to The New York Times and then to the Queens district attorney, suggests the vast power of low-level immigration law enforcers, and a growing desperation on the part of immigrants seeking legal status. The aftermath, which included the arrest of an immigration agent last week, underscores the difficulty and danger of making a complaint, even in the rare case when abuse of power may have been caught on tape.

No one knows how widespread sexual blackmail is, but the case echoes other instances of sexual coercion that have surfaced in recent years, including agents criminally charged in Atlanta, Miami and Santa Ana, Calif. And it raises broader questions about the system’s vulnerability to corruption at a time when millions of noncitizens live in a kind of legal no-man’s land, increasingly fearful of seeking the law’s protection.

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Five years ago, just before we invaded Iraq, Paul Kruman wrote:

Of course we’ll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I’m not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.

What frightens me is the aftermath — and I’m not just talking about the problems of postwar occupation. I’m worried about what will happen beyond Iraq — in the world at large, and here at home.

The members of the Bush team don’t seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn’t matter. They’re wrong on all counts.

Victory in Iraq won’t end the world’s distrust of the United States because the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it doesn’t play by the rules. Remember: this administration told Europe to take a hike on global warming, told Russia to take a hike on missile defense, told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving pharmaceuticals, told Mexico to take a hike on immigration, mortally insulted the Turks and pulled out of the International Criminal Court — all in just two years.

Nor, as we’ve just seen, is military power a substitute for trust. Apparently the Bush administration thought it could bully the U.N. Security Council into going along with its plans; it learned otherwise. ”What can the Americans do to us?” one African official asked. ”Are they going to bomb us? Invade us?”

Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget deficit will become much harder to finance — and there are already signs that the flow of foreign investment is drying up, just when it seems that America may be about to fight a whole series of wars.

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No, not a terrible coughing fit: surgery.

Last week Jeff Scholz of San Diego became the first person in the U.S. to have his appendix removed through his mouth.

Other than what he describes as a very mild sore throat, the 40-year-old former Marine says he felt very little pain after the surgery and was back to normal within a few days.

“They told me to take it easy, but I feel great,” he told WebMD Tuesday afternoon — six days after having his diseased appendix removed in a procedure known as Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES).

“Two days ago I started to do sit-ups again, and I ended up working a 10-hour day yesterday.”

Surgeons at the University of California San Diego’s Center for the Future of Surgery performed the highly experimental operation, which involved guiding surgical instruments through the mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach with a tube-like device known as a flexible endoscope.

Once inside the stomach, a small incision was made into the stomach wall to allow access to the appendix.

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Interesting. I carefully take only ibuprofen or aspirin, never acetaminophen:

Some kids whose moms take acetaminophen during pregnancy may be more likely to have asthama symptoms, a new study suggests. Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in painkillers such as Tylenol.

Researchers found that 5-year-old children of high-risk mothers who took acetaminophen in pregnancy were 70% more likely to suffer wheezing than kids whose moms didn’t take the medicine-cabinet staple.

Taking acetaminophen in the [last trimester? - words missing - LG] was most risky, increasing the odds that kids would have asthma symptoms by 90%.

But kids who took acetaminophen when they were age 1, 2, or 3 were no more likely to have breathing difficulties at age 5 than their counterparts who didn’t take the drug.

The findings were presented here at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI).

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Spending money does increase happiness, but only if you’re spending money on others:

Want to feel happier? Spending money on other people or charities may make you feel better than splurging on something for yourself. Researchers report that news in tomorrow’s edition of Science.

First, they asked 632 Americans to rate their general happiness and report their income and spending, including bills, gifts for others, gifts for themselves, and charitable donations.

The happiest people were the biggest givers, no matter what they earned, note the researchers, who included Elizabeth Dunn, PhD, of the psychology department at Canada’s University of British Columbia.

“Regardless of how much income each person made, those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not,” Dunn says in a news release.

Next, …

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Mantic is redoing his videos—polishing and extending—and will be housing them on his new site, ShaveTutor.com. Well worth a visit for those of you who are still hesitating about making the transition to a fully satisfactory shaving technique.

I found a new way to give away books: Bookmooch.com. You enter the names of the books you want to give away, people let you know, and you earn points by shipping the book. You can use those points to pick up books others are giving away. Drawback (compared to giving to library): finding packaging materials and paying Media Mail postage. Site and membership are free.

This is from Reality Based Community, where it appeared in a different context. I believe it’s of general interest, though especially as we begin trying the Guantanamo detainees.

A reasonable list of 22 criteria for a fair trial was published in 2000 by an American legal NGO, Human Rights First.

… The list is a professional modern attempt, dating from just before 9/11, to capture what we mean today by a fair trial. I’ve renumbered for my own convenience.

Table 1: Human Rights First’s criteria for a Fair TrialA. Pre-trial rights
1 Prohibition of arbitrary arrest and detention
2 Right to know the reasons for arrest
3 Right to legal counsel
4 Right to a prompt appearance before a judge to challenge the lawfulness of arrest and detention
5 Prohibition of torture and the right to humane conditions during pre-trial detention
6 Prohibition of incommunicado detention
B. The hearing
7 Equal access to, and equality before, the courts
8 Fair hearing (equality of arms)
9 Right to a public hearing
10 A competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law
11 Presumption of innocence
12 Prompt notice of the nature and cause of criminal charges
13 Adequate time and facilities for the preparation of a defense
14 Trial without undue delay
15 Right to defend oneself in person or through legal counsel
16 Right to examine witnesses
17 Right to an interpreter
18 Prohibition of self- incrimination
19 Prohibition of retroactive application of criminal laws
20 Prohibition of double jeopardy
C. Post-trial rights
21 Right to appeal
22 Right to compensation for miscarriage of justice.

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The Eldest is a big fan of the various Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, so I spent some time yesterday looking through a few that she has. She’s right: few ingredients in each recipe, straightforward instructions and generally easy, and they look as though the result is delicious (and The Eldest assures me that’s true). So you may want to go to your library and check out a few and see what you think.

Before buying a cookbook, I think it’s a very good idea to check it out and see if you actually use it and like the recipes in it.

Continuing to raid the Son-in-Law’s stash, I used his Honeybee Spa Coffee Mocha shaving stick this morning. A really great lather with a wonderful fragrance (YMMV). The Gillette blade continues to deliver a smooth shave easily, and I still love this travel brush. Royal Copenhagen for the aftershave.