Later On

One faces a variety of problems living in a technological backwater like the US, and healthcare is only one. Now the advanced countries (those that have true broadband networks, unlike the US) are moving to a better form of credit and ATM card, while the US lags behind. Michelle Higgins in the NY Times:

BETTER pack some cash on your next trip abroad. Americans are finding that their credit and bank cards aren’t as convenient as they once were while traveling overseas.

The problem: American cards lack a special chip, now commonly used in many foreign countries, causing the cards to be rejected by some merchants and kiosks.

That’s what Nancy Elkind, a lawyer from Denver, discovered in Paris when she wanted to use the popular Vélib’ bicycle rental system on a weeklong vacation with her husband last spring. They tried to swipe various cards at the rental kiosk, which doesn’t take cash, and all the cards were rejected.

Then, thinking the problem might be with the kiosk and not their cards, they tried other Vélib’ locations around the city. But each time, their cards were not accepted.

“We gave up, and kept walking around Paris, commenting occasionally on how much fun it would be to do some exploring by bike,” Ms. Elkind said.

The couple’s cards, which rely on magnetic-stripe technology for transactions, lacked an embedded microprocessor chip, which stores and processes data and is now commonly used in Europe. Such chip-based cards — commonly referred to as chip-and-PIN cards because users punch in a personal identification number instead of signing for the purchase — offer an extra layer of protection against the theft of cardholder data and counterfeiting, and they are designed to replace magnetic stripe technology and signature payments.

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Tools here to see what the world will be like in about 50 years. Not good. For example:

In a 4 °C world, climate change, deforestation and fires spreading from degraded land into pristine forest will conspire to destroy over 83 per cent of the Amazon rainforest by 2100, according to climatologist Wolfgang Cramer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. His climate models show global warming alone converting 30 per cent of the Amazon into degraded shrub land and mixed woodland by 2100. Even this grim estimate is based on the hopeful assumption that extra CO₂ in the atmosphere will "fertilise" the forest, buffering it from drought. But we can’t be sure this will happen, says Cramer. "If we’ve overestimated the magnitude of CO₂ fertilisation, we risk losing the entire Amazon."

There’s more (and worse) at the link.

They’re using about 54 cubic kilometers of water a year—enough so that the runoff contributes 5% of the sea-level rise. How much longer can they use water at this rate? Probably only a few more years. Read the complete note.

Fascinating post (with charts) by Matthew Yglesias, comparing educational achievement (and poverty rates) among nations, including the US.

Good post by Paul Rosenberg at OpenLeft:

In a very pithy comment last weekend, in my diary, "Why Obama Lies About Race", Sadie Baker wrote:

Obama’s central dilemma is that he ran, if not as an outright progressive, at least by making enough progressive noises now and then to win the support of progressives. He would not be in office without them.

But his intent is to govern as an anti-progressive. For reasons I cannot fathom, his team has decided to try to use the frame of "fragility" to thread this needle.

To wit: he can’t end the wars because the Republicans will call him names if he does. He had to cut a backroom deal with Big Pharma on healthcare reform because otherwise they would run mean commercials. He had to give Wall Street a blank check, with no strings attached, because otherwise they might hurt him.

You see the problem? When your stated agenda conflicts with your real agenda, you need to come up with a plausible reason for why you keep things that are the opposite of what you said you wanted. That’s understandable, you want to keep the rubes on the reservation.

But why weakness? Why do they think it’s a good idea to tell everyone the reason he doesn’t do what needs to be done is because he’s weak? That’s a huge mistake that is going to catch up with them.

In response, I wrote, "That’s no comment.  It’s a front-page diary!"  And so it is.

I went on to say: "I’ve had the same thought rattling around my head for some time now, but you’ve crystallized it perfectly."

Now that’s it’s been crystallized for me, the next thought is clear: weakness is used argue that (1) progressives should not attack him, because that will only weaken him further, but (2) instead they must rally to support him (regardless of whether they actually support what he’s doing).  And while this has worked for Obama, Inc. in the short run, time is running out.  This is the model logic of a dysfunctional family, rather than Lakoff’s "Nurturant Parent" model. And Sadie’s 100% correct—it’s going to catch up with them.  

"Big time!" As America’s #2 war criminal would say.

I had to go to Whole Foods to get a can of pumpkin for Megs, and I discovered a farmer’s market in the parking lot that is there from 8 until noon. They will stop at the end of October, but I picked up several foods new to me, always a delight:

Fresh jujube, very tasty little guys with a single seed in the center.

Fresh sweet=potato leaves (eaten as greens in a stir fry, for example)

Chinese scallions: more bulbous than regular scallions, with the green part finer (closer to chives than regular scallion leaves)

And, though not new: very good-looking fresh bitter melon and Chinese beans (the long kind).

In recent years, US military spending exceeded the total military spending of all other countries in the world combined. We’re down a little from that, but the total US military spending is far greater than the military spending any other country: the country in second place, China, spent about $85 billion in 2008, whereas the US spent, more than 17 times as much.

The Economist has a nifty chart that compares military spending per capita, and in that the US is topped by one nation: Israel. Take a look:

Global military expenditure rose by 4% in 2008 to a record $1.46 trillion, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Israel spends most on defence relative to its population, shelling out over $2,300 a person, over $300 more than America. Small and rich countries, and notably Gulf states, feature prominently by this measure. Saudi Arabia ranks ninth in absolute spending, but sixth by population. China has increased spending by 10% to $85 billion to become the world’s second largest spender. But it is still dwarfed by America, whose outlay of $607 billion is higher than that of the next 14 biggest spenders combined.

Click to enlarge.

To enable computer analysis, since computers can detect abuse better than doctors. From New Scientist:

Victims of domestic abuse can hide the truth from doctors, but they leave clues in their medical records that a computer program has now learned to follow.

Ben Reis of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues worked with six years’ worth of medical histories for 561,000 people, 19,000 of whom were known to have been abused. Their program searched two-thirds of these records for differences between the histories of abused people and the rest, and then produced rules for distinguishing the groups.

The rules mainly looked at patterns of injuries and bouts of mental illness – signs of abuse that doctors often look for. But the program also found new clues, such as alcohol problems, that pick out women victims but not men.

When fed the unused medical histories, the program detected abuse earlier on in people’s records than their doctors had (BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.b3677).

New Scientist is a great magazine. Why not subscribe?

Here’s a page just full of links and explanations. Read and learn.

It’s OK if you’re a Republican, I guess. Steve Benen at Political Animal:

There was a point — I believe it was a time known as "2001 through 2008" — at which Republicans believed it was the responsibility of the president to oversee U.S. foreign policy.

Now, it stands to reason that these same Republicans, forced to endure life under a Democratic administration, would be critical of the president on international relations. Likewise, it makes sense that the GOP minority might even present an alternative, telling the public how they’d do things if they were in power.

But Eric Kleefeld noted yesterday the way some congressional Republicans have taken it upon themselves to simply start pursuing their own foreign policies, whether their efforts undermine the positions of the United States government or not. Kleefeld pointed to examples that will no doubt be familiar to regular readers:

* Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region.

* Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a "Truth Squad" to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action: "Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate."

* House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama’s opposition to expanded settlements. He also defended Israel on the eviction of two Arab families from a house in east Jerusalem, which had been criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

* Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America’s budget numbers. "One of the messages I had — because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed." Since then, he has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.

This just isn’t normal, and it’s certainly not constructive. The notion that politics is supposed to stop "at water’s edge" has been a principle long embraced by American officials in both parties. We simply can’t have right-wing lawmakers signaling to the world that the United States has two competing approaches to dealing with the world at the same time.

Now, whenever I bring this up, I get emails from readers reminding me that Speaker Pelosi met with Syrian officials in early 2007. Why, I’m asked, was that perfectly acceptable, while DeMint, Inhofe, Cantor, and Kirk draw criticism?

It’s really not that complicated. In DeMint’s case, he’s chatting with coup leaders heading a government that isn’t recognized by any country on the planet. Syria at least has a recognized leadership.

But more important, Pelosi was part of a bipartisan delegation that, according to a Republican House member who accompanied the Speaker, "reinforced the administration’s positions."

In other words, Pelosi and the CODEL weren’t acting against the positions of the U.S. government, and didn’t criticize U.S. policy from foreign soil. (I’d add, by the way, that a month after the Speaker’s trip, Bush’s Secretary of State engaged Syria in bilateral talks.)

Congressional Democrats during the Bush era never took steps that were remotely similar to what we’re seeing from congressional Republicans now.

If you must have ground beef, pick out a nice chuck roast and have the butcher grind it for you. The reason: ground beef in the US is generally unsafe. I was pleased to see that Costco tests its ingredients before grinding, but that’s an exception. Read this NY Times article by Michael Moss, which begins:

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007.

“I ask myself every day, ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why from a hamburger?’ ”Ms. Smith said. In the simplest terms, she ran out of luck in a food-safety game of chance whose rules and risks are not widely known.

Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states.

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Chris McGreal for the Guardian:

America’s healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.

Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.

The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.

A former member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet says fears that the industry could throw its money behind the populist rightwing backlash against public insurance have scared the Obama White House into pulling back from the most significant reforms in return for healthcare companies not trying to scupper the entire legislation.

Drug and insurance companies say they are merely seeking to educate politicians and the public. But with industry lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill ‑ there are six registered healthcare lobbyists for every member of Congress ‑ a partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in Washington acknowledged that healthcare firms’ money "has had a lot of influence" and that it is "morally suspect".

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Extremely interesting post by Marcy Wheeler:

There’s a cynical passage in the new PATRIOT language that DiFi put forward the other night. It basically creates an exception in the worsened Section 215 language just for libraries.

‘‘(B) if the records sought pertain to libraries (as defined in section 213(1) of the Library Services and Technology Act (20 U.S.C. 9122(1)), including library records or patron lists, a statement of facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the records sought—‘‘(i) are relevant to an authorized investigation (other than a threat assessment) conducted in accordance with subsection (a)(2) to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against inter-national terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities; and ‘‘(ii)(I) pertain to a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; ‘‘(II) are relevant to the activities of a suspected agent of a foreign power who is the subject of such authorized investigation; or ‘‘(III) pertain to an individual in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power;

This language requires that before investigators demand libraries turn over records, they must first prove that the person to whom the records pertain is either an intelligence investigation suspect, or is in contact with one. So for library records, and library records only, the new language requires some showing of reasonable cause first before the investigators can request the information.

During the hearing, Ben Cardin asked why there was a special standard for libraries (at about 108:30 in the hearing). Kyl offered this explanation for the exception (one he disagrees with):

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I find all forms of groupware—software to facilitate teamwork—to be of interest, so this post naturally caught my eye. If you work as part of a team, take a look: maybe something there will help.

Currently I’m drinking only tea—and only white tea at that, with a little squirt of lemon juice—and I’m using this teacup/infuser combination. The lid, inverted, serves as a holder for the infuser when you remove it. I heat the water to 170º F (the right temperature for white tea) using the UtiliTEA electric kettle, which lets you set the temperature at which to turn itself off. (The temperature knob lacks a scale, but with a digital thermometer you can quickly find the right setting for any given temperature.) I find I drink several cups of white tea (with lemon) every morning, and I enjoy this little rig. My favorite among the white teas I’ve tried is still White Peony.

When I checked the link for the kettle, I found this cup and infuser combination, which is larger and cheaper, although the infuser is metal.