Later On

She was astonishingly good: Not a peep from her either to or from the vet. At the vet, after the initial indignities (having herself weighed, having her temperature taken rectally), she got back in her carrier and remained there, without a peep, except when she was taken for her blood draw. The woman who took her for that said that Megs was a purrfect angel (The Wife will be interested that Megs seems to have learned her lesson).

The blood draw is to recheck calcium levels, which were elevated last time. If they’re still elevated, it could be a sign of a tumor. Hope not.

Man, I love these knives. I have one petty knife and one gyuto, and I’ve found that if I sharpen them on my Japanese waterstone weekly, they remain incredibly sharp and pleasant to use. Here’s an excellent sharpening stone (6000x).

And while we’re talking about knives:

When I first saw that title, I assumed it would be an article about a common language—Esperanto, for example—but it’s about an effective form of bilingual education. The article, by Nate Blakeslee in the Texas Montly, is well worth reading. It begins:

Dream of a Common Language.
Sueño de un Idioma Común.

On (En) a warm spring morning in east El Paso, I watched a science teacher named Yvette Garcia wrap duct tape around the wrists of one of her best students. We were in a tidy lab room on the first floor of Del Valle High School, in the Ysleta Independent School District, about two miles from the border in a valley once covered with cotton and onion fields but long since swallowed up by the sprawl of El Paso. Garcia taped a second student around the ankles, bound a third around the elbows, and so on, until she had temporarily handicapped a half-dozen giggling teenagers, whom she then cheerfully goaded into a footrace followed by a peanut-eating contest. It was a demonstration of the scientific concept of genetic mutation—or at least I think it was. The lab was taught entirely in Spanish, and my limited skills didn’t allow me to follow a discussion of an advanced academic concept. But these kids could grasp the lesson equally well in Spanish or in English, because they had been taught—most of them since elementary school—using a cutting-edge bilingual education program known as dual language.

In traditional bilingual classes, learning English is the top priority. The ultimate aim is to move kids out of non-English-speaking classrooms as quickly as possible. Students in dual language classes, on the other hand, are encouraged to keep their first language as they learn a second. And Ysleta’s program, called two-way dual language, is even more radical, because kids who speak only English are also encouraged to enroll. Everyone sits in the same classroom. Spanish-speaking kids are expected to help the English speakers in the early grades, which are taught mostly in Spanish. As more and more English is introduced into the classes, the roles are reversed. Even the teachers admit it can look like chaos to an outsider. “Dual language classes are very loud,” said Steven Vizcaino, who was an early student in the program and who graduated from Del Valle High in June. “Everyone is talking to everyone.”

Teaching advanced Spanish literacy alongside English is a goal that no other form of bilingual education even aspires to, but it is the secret to the success of the dual language model. “In most districts, kids are moved out of bilingual education just as soon as they learn rudimentary English,” said Elena Izquierdo, a professor of bilingual education at the University of Texas at El Paso. Dual language takes longer, in part because so much time is devoted to Spanish grammar and literacy. But it pays off down the road. “Learning how Spanish works helps them develop the cognitive skills they need to learn English well,” she said. When it all clicks into place, she said, it’s an amazing thing to see. “Switching between English and Spanish is like breathing for us now,” said Vizcaino, who is going to college in the fall at the University of the Southwest.

Ysleta’s success shows what is possible. It does not, unfortunately, show what is typical…

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Bad news for the obese (e.g., me): Nora Schultz writes in New Scientist:

Brain regions key to cognition are smaller in older people who are obese compared with their leaner peers, making their brains look up to 16 years older than their true age. As brain shrinkage is linked to dementia, this adds weight to the suspicion that piling on the pounds may up a person’s risk of the brain condition.

Previous studies suggested that obesity in middle age increases the risk of dementia decades later, which is accompanied by increased brain shrinkage compared with leaner people. Now brain scans of older people have revealed the areas that are hardest hit, as well as the full extent of brain size differences between obese people and those of average weight…

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Governments worldwide are worried about the Internet. Governments in general don’t much like free speech because people might say anything—might even criticize the government, God forbid. Take a look (and click image a couple of times to see full size):

The graphic is from an article in New Scientist by Jim Giles, titled “Worldwide battle rages for control of the Internet.”

Take a look.

Interesting post at the Ethicurean:

NPR’s John Burnett shines a spotlight on agribusiness consolidation, the control of the food system by an ever-smaller group of mega-companies. Independent farmers and ranchers are pushing the Obama Administration to take a good, long look at the factors that brought us to where we are today–with 2 percent of farms accounting for half of all farm sales.

Says Burnett, “Frustrated farmers claim the operative philosophy of President Bush’s antitrust division was, ‘Let’s make a deal.’” That led to mergers that created the new Dean Foods, now the nation’s largest milk company; that allowed already giant Smithfield Foods to snap up its #2 competitor, Premium Standard Farms; and that gave the green light to Brazilian beef giant JBS to purchase Smithfield Beef.

But the Obama Administration has signaled a willingness to examine consolidation with a critical eye. The Justice Department will hold hearings around the country next year on anti-competitive practices in agricultural markets. Burnett will be following up on this story with one on the dairy crisis tonight on All Things Considered. (NPR) (The Ethicurean covered the Justice Department’s announcement here.)

More grist for the mill: This is the newest positive sign that the administration is at least skeptical of, if not opposed to, Big Ag monopolies. The first good sign was the appointment of J. Dudley Butler to head the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, the agency in USDA charged with ensuring fairness and fighting anti-competitive practices in grain and meat markets. We reported on his appointment here; columnist Alan Guebert covers him this week on Farm and Food File and hopes that pressure from meat packers won’t send Dudley, um, packing. (Farm and Dairy)

Dean Baker writes:

Robert Samuelson Doesn’t Like Trains

That seems the unifying theme from his column today, since his arguments against high speed rail do not make a lot of sense. Samuelson tries to tell us that trains might be useful in Japan and Europe, but they won’t work in the United States.

He tells readers that:

Densities are much higher, and high densities favor rail with direct connections between heavily populated city centers and business districts. In Japan, density is 880 people per square mile; it’s 653 in Britain, 611 in Germany and 259 in France. By contrast, plentiful land in the United States has led to suburbanized homes, offices and factories. Density is 86 people per square mile.

The density for the United States as a whole would be relevant if the plans were to build a train network going from Florida to Alaska, but that is not what is on the agenda. Instead, the issue is about deepening and improving the network in relatively densely populated parts of the country, like Ohio (277 people per square mile), New York (402), and New Jersey (1134). The population densities of much of the United States are very comparable to the regions in Europe through which high speed rails travel.

The distances for many trips is also comparable. The distance from Midwest cities to East Coast cities will typically be around 500-700 miles. Trips of this distance can be managed in 4 hours or less using technology that is 40 years old. Traveling downtown to downtown in this time is very competitive with air travel from suburban airports.

Samuelson also bizarrely compares long-distance train with the 140 million daily trips to work each day. He then compares President Obama’s goal of replacing 1 million cars by train travel with the 240 million on the road. Of course most people do not travel between cities every day, so it’s not clear what the point of the comparison is. And, most of the 240 million registered cars in the country are not driven to work every day.

Robert Samuelson doesn’t like trains. He told us that this morning in his column. He didn’t tell us anything else.

Take a look at these:

Grated Carrot Salad with Lemon Dressing

Quick, Cool Cucumber Sauce for Sandwiches and Vegetables

Pork chops with Mushroom Bourbon Cream Sauce

Tarator (Bulgarian Cold Soup)

Five-ingredient Avocado Ice Cream

In that last one: no cream, no eggs. Avocado, naturally, and of course tequila.

Just the name awakens my craving and makes my mouth water. Photos and recipe to be found here.

That looks good to me, and the recipe sounds even better. Take a look at the ingredients:

Asian Shrimp Cocktail

for shrimp
1 lbs extra large shrimp with shells
4 C water
1 Tbs sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
1 whole cilantro plant (leaves, stems and root)
1″ knob of ginger sliced thin
1 Serrano chili
lime peel
1/2 C sake

for cocktail sauce
1 small tomato cut into 1/4″ cubes
1/2 C stewed tomato puree (tomato sauce in the US)
2 Tbs Thai sweet chili sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
1 Tbs freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tsp wasabi

For the full recipe, go here.

From the Center for American Progress:

Just as “death panels” and “swastikas” poison the debate over President Obama’s health care reform agenda in town hall meetings across America, oil and coal interests are polluting Obama’s effort to pass clean energy reform. Through a variety of front groups, companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Peabody Coal, and Koch Industries are fueling misinformation about global warming and fear about clean energy solutions. Lobbyists and public relations firms have established websites and Twitter feeds while crisscrossing the nation on “clean coal” and “energy citizens” tours. The oil industry’s “American Energy Express” bus tour has now joined the coal industry’s “Factuality” bus tour, going to state fairs and political events. A “Hot Air” balloon tour attacking “global warming alarmism” is being run by Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, the polluter-funded group behind “tea party” protests and “hands off my health care” rallies. When the groups can’t find enough radical right-wing activists to support their message, they resort to deception and intimidation. The coal industry forged letters to Congress opposing the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and oil company employees are being bused to rallies that attack the legislation as a job-killing menace. Conservative oil- and coal-powered millionaires are willing to go to any lengths to convince Americans that pollution standards are instead energy taxes, using methods as dirty as their fossil fuels.

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From the Center for American Progress:

The health insurance industry has so successfully lobbied Congress [i.e., given lots and lots of money to key Representatives and Senators – LG] "in the early stages of the healthcare overhaul deliberations that it is poised to reap a financial windfall." "It’s a bonanza," one health insurance executive said of plans to require all Americans to have insurance, adding that the industry’s reaction to negotiations can be "boiled down to one word: ‘Hallelujah!‘"

G.A. Russell is closely tracking news about eBook readers in the ShaveMyFace general forum, and he provides a link to this interesting article:

The news about trade ebook sales growth continues apace. The IDPF has just said that sales in June 2009 were up 136% over June a year ago. Calendar year sales to date are up about 150% over 2008.

Anecdotal information from big trade houses suggests that ebook sales are approaching 3% of total sales. But not all the books big houses sell are “ebookable” with current technology: much of the juvie list, most illustrated books, and books where tabular or graphic material is important might well not have been made into ebooks. So the number is larger, maybe 5% or 6%, of the straight narrative books. And because not all of everybody’s backlist is yet available in ebooks, sometimes because of rights issues and sometimes because it just hasn’t been digitized yet, the number is higher for straight narrative new titles. So maybe that’s at 8%. Now!

And the chart of the sales trend that IDPF shows would certainly suggest we’re still seeing accelerating growth. There’s no reason to think that will stop; in fact, there is every reason to think the growth will gain additional impetus. New reading devices are coming and new features are coming for existing devices. Growth in ebook uptake to now was achieved with no help from the biggest purveyor of consumer books: Barnes & Noble. Now they’re jumping in to the pool with both feet. They have announced a partnership with Plastic Logic on one new reader and there is a rumor they will have another one of their own.

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The fact that Reagan’s policies failed has not stopped conservatives from continuing to support the policies. Paul Krugman looks at the phenomenon:

The debate over the “public option” in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction — in Congress, if not with the broader public — simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.

Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.

Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.

Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.

And then there’s the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s…

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Dan Popkey at The Idaho Statesman:

On April 3, 2003, Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach flew his F-15E toward an Iraqi ambush site about a mile from U.S. Army troops advancing on Baghdad airport.

Fehrenbach faced anti-aircraft fire, surface-to-air missiles and a mechanical problem on his wingman’s plane. Still, he destroyed the enemy position and helped clear the way for the Army to take the airport that night. For his heroism, the Notre Dame grad won an Air Medal with a valor device, one of his nine Air Medals.

Five years later, Fehrenbach confronted a crisis in a very different setting. A Boise police detective sat across a conference table questioning him about an alleged crime.

Fehrenbach, stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base, was in a Catch-22. To clear himself of the claim he’d raped a man, Fehrenbach could tell police his side of the story. But admitting he’d had consensual sex could get him kicked out of the Air Force he loved after 18 years.

Fehrenbach asked Detective Mark Vucinich whether his employer had a right to see his statement. Yes, replied Vucinich.

Fehrenbach then told the detective he had sex with Cameron Shaner on May 12, 2008. He’d met Shaner, 30, on a gay Web site and invited him to his southeast Boise home.

Fehrenbach was soon cleared by police and the Ada County prosecutor’s office. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations subsequently found no violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. AFOSI concluded that Fehrenbach and Shaner had consensual sex, and that Shaner was an "unreliable source of information."

But the Air Force wasn’t done: Fehrenbach’s admission he’d had gay sex was a violation of the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" law…

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The Simple Dollar has an excellent review of Escape from the Cubicle Nation, which begins:

Several months ago, I wandered upon Pamela Slim’s excellent blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation. In a nutshell, the blog covers the transition from working in a cubicle (i.e., a traditional job) to self-employment – and all of the issues in between.

Slim packaged up many of the best ideas into a guide to this transition, also titled Escape from Cubicle Nation. And, since I enjoyed the blog so much, I picked up the book, looking forward to reading what Slim had to say, especially since this is a journey I’ve gone through over the last couple of years.

Here’s the entire thing in a nutshell: if you’re thinking of quitting your office job and doing something on your own, this is your handbook. It’s thorough, detailed, and heavy on the applicable ideas. Let’s dig in…

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It looks like facts may force the hand of the Obama Administration. David Johnson in the NY Times:

The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.

The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.

When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.

With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.

The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder’s hand.

The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it…

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Evolution is so clearly a fact—even a logical necessity (assuming inheritance, variability, and finite resources)—that religions eventually must come to terms with it, as religions had to come to terms with the findings of astronomy (the earth orbiting the sun and not vice versa, plus the overwhelming numbers of stars and galaxies). It took a few hundred years, but even the Catholic church admitted finally that Galileo was correct and the earth does orbit the sun. (The Catholic church still cannot grasp—or, perhaps, tolerate—the fact that condoms help prevent AIDS.)

I’ve been reading the excellent and fascinating book by Robert Wright titled The Evolution of God—I’m just at the point where monotheism is emerging for the original Israeli polytheism—and now I find this excellent op-ed he’s written in the NY Times:

The “war” between science and religion is notable for the amount of civil disobedience on both sides. Most scientists and most religious believers refuse to be drafted into the fight. Whether out of a live-and-let-live philosophy, or a belief that religion and science are actually compatible, or a heartfelt indifference to the question, they’re choosing to sit this one out.

Still, the war continues, and it’s not just a sideshow. There are intensely motivated and vocal people on both sides making serious and conflicting claims.

There are atheists who go beyond declaring personal disbelief in God and insist that any form of god-talk, any notion of higher purpose, is incompatible with a scientific worldview. And there are religious believers who insist that evolution can’t fully account for the creation of human beings.

I bring good news! These two warring groups have more in common than they realize. And, no, it isn’t just that they’re both wrong. It’s that they’re wrong for the same reason. Oddly, an underestimation of natural selection’s creative power clouds the vision not just of the intensely religious but also of the militantly atheistic.

If both groups were to truly accept that power, the landscape might look different. Believers could scale back their conception of God’s role in creation, and atheists could accept that some notions of “higher purpose” are compatible with scientific materialism. And the two might learn to get along.

The believers who need to hear this sermon aren’t just adherents of “intelligent design,” who deny that natural selection can explain biological complexity in general. There are also believers with smaller reservations about the Darwinian story. They accept that God used evolution to do his creative work (“theistic evolution”), but think that, even so, he had to step in and provide special ingredients at some point.

Perhaps the most commonly cited ingredient is …

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