Later On

I do recall Elisabeth Bumiller of the NY Times saying that she was afraid to ask the President (George W. Bush, at the time) a question. But Greenwald is pointing out something more:

Politico‘s Josh Gerstein and Patrick Gavin have a long article describing the growing anger of the White House press corps towards the Obama White House.  Many of the grievances are petty, though some are serious and substantive (involving lack of transparency and media manipulation), but the passage that I found most revealing is this one:

Much of the criticism is off the record, both out of fear of retaliation and from worry about appearing whiny. But those views were voiced by a cross section of the television, newspaper and magazine journalists who cover the White House.

Just think about that for a minute.  National political reporters are furious over various White House practices involving transparency and information control, but are unwilling  to say so for attribution due to fear of "retaliation," instead insisting on hiding behind a wall of anonymity (which Politico, needless to say, happily provides).  Isn’t that a rather serious problem:  that the White House press corps is afraid to criticize the President and the White House for fear of losing access and suffering other forms of retribution?  What does that say about their "journalism"?  It’s the flip side of those White House reporters who need the good graces of Obama aides for their behind-the-scenes books and thus desperately do their bidding:  what kind of reporter covering the White House would possibly admit that they’re afraid to say anything with their names attached that might anger the President and his aides?  How could you possibly be a minimally credible White House reporter if you have that fear?  Doesn’t that unwillingness rather obviously render their reporting worthless?

The article notes that aside from punishing reporters who say things it dislikes, the White House rewards those reporters (with special "scoops" and other privileges) who subserviently promote its agenda, and specifically identifies White House "favorites" David Sanger of The New York Times (the Judy Miller of The Iran Threat) and Richard Wolffe (the single most sycophantic White House stenographer after Jonathan Alter).  It’s nice that the White House’s most loyal journalist-servants are petted on their head for their Good Behavior (it’d be sad to see that level of devotion go completely unrewarded).  I’m sure Alter and Ryan Lizza’s Obama books will be accordingly suffuse with White House favors.  I can’t recall reading any sentence quite as illustrative as this one from Politico stating (without any irony) that White House reporters insisted upon anonymity because they’re afraid of angering the White House with their public statements.

* * * * *

For those in New York City, several groups, including the ACLU, are hosting a very interesting event this Thursday night entitled "Face to Face:  Confronting the Torturers."  Event information is here.

UPDATE:  Michael Calderone, who recently left Politico to join Yahoo News, had a very similar story a week or so ago detailing the growing animosity between the White House press corps and the Obama White House over issues of transparency and the like (animosity strangely absent during the full-scale information blackout of the Bush years).  Calderone’s article also detailed how reporters who anger the White House are punished and the ones who please them are rewarded, and included this quote from Richard Wolffe:  "the White House has been very good to me."  They certainly have, Richard.  And you’ve been very good to them, too.  It’s a very warm, loving, favor-providing, mutually beneficial relationship — just like "reporters" are supposed to have with the political officials they cover.

Very interesting post at Transform reporting on the International Harm Reduction Conference in Liverpool. Well worth the click.

With Barney Frank chairing a deficit reduction commission, I certainly hope that they look at the incredible costs (and lost tax revenue) of keeping drugs—particularly marijuana—illegal. They might also think about cutting the military budget in half.

First, let me point out that undocumented immigrants are not criminals. They are indeed here illegally, but the law in question is civil law, not criminal law. And I don’t think the following is a rational response. Steve Benen:

Just a few weeks ago, the political fight over immigration policy was barely a blip on the national radar. Now we have a House Republican lawmaker, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), calling for the government to deport U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.

"Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens," Hunter was asked. "I would have to, yes," Hunter said. "… We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now," he said. "… It takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s what’s in our souls. …"

Hunter made his comments at a "tea party" rally in the San Diego County city of Ramona over the weekend.

Let’s be real clear about this. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that those "born … in the United States" are "citizens of the United States." It also says that no state can "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

For that matter, the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that a baby born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants was legally a U.S. citizen, even though federal law at the time denied citizenship to people from China. The court said birth in the United States constituted "a sufficient and complete right to citizenship."

What this Republican congressman is saying, then, is that he supports a policy wherein the U.S. government deports U.S. citizens based on their parents’ immigration status.

Even for the GOP, this is pretty nutty. Indeed, if American officials were planning to deport American citizens, where would the children be expected to go?

The GOP goes into meltdown over ACORN, but then the GOP turns to flat-out dishonesty. Example 1: Justin Elliott at TPMMuckraker:

Orange County authorities are launching an investigation into possible voter registration fraud after a local newspaper reported over a hundred cases of voters being tricked into registering as Republicans by petitioners who asked them to sign petitions for, among other causes, legalizing pot.

The Orange County Register reported last week that the Orange County District Attorney’s office announced it would team up with the Secretary of State on the case, following a Register report that 99 written complaints were filed since March by voters who said they were registered as Republicans without their consent.

Another 74 voters reached by the Register said they, too, were unwillingly made members of the GOP.

In a lengthy investigation published earlier this month, the paper pointed to an $8 "bounty" offered by the California Republican Party for each new registration as a cause for the problems. It identified multiple petitioners who work for vendors "with ties to the California Republican Party." Back in 2006, a similar scandal led to the convictions of several petitioners.

The Register explains how it went down this time around:

Some voters told the Register they specifically remember marking themselves as something other than a Republican. Others say the petitioner told them they had to check Republican in order for their signature to count, or because Republicans were sponsoring their signature gathering or for some other vaguely official-sounding reason.

In some cases, voters were told marking Republican didn’t change their actual voter registration. Others were told they could always change back. A few even said they didn’t know they were signing official documents of any kind – they said the signature gatherers made off like they were students, collecting signatures for a class project.

Democrats have called on the U.S. Attorney to investigate.

Read the Register‘s original story in full here.

Example 2: Zachary Roth at TPMMuckraker:

The Republican National Committee is continuing to send out a misleading fundraising mailer labeled "Census Document," just weeks after Congress passed a law aimed at banning such mailers.

In response, the Democratic member of Congress behind the new law slammed the RNC for "trying to make a buck on the Census." But Michael Steele and co. are claiming the law doesn’t cover their mailer.

An RNC mailer obtained by TPMmuckraker bears the words "Census Document" and, in all caps, "DO NOT DESTROY/OFFICIAL DOCUMENT," on the outside of the envelope. In smaller letters, it says: "This is not a U.S. government document." The new law requires, among other things, that such mailers state the name and address of the sender on the outside of the envelope — something the RNC’s missive doesn’t appear to do. Inside, a letter from RNC chair Michael Steele, dated April 12, asks recipients to fill out a questionnaire about their political views, and solicits donations of as much as $500 or more. (See the mailer here.)

Last month, in response to virtually identical RNC mailers, members of both parties cried foul, raising the concern that the mailers could reduce the response rate for the actual Census — which was mailed to Americans last month — by confusing some voters. "Nothing could be more wrong," declared Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) — not a lawmaker known for a commitment to bipartisanship. Congress quickly passed a law — the House vote was 416-0 — requiring that mailers marked "census" state the name and address of the sender on the outside of the envelope, and contain an unambiguous disclaimer making clear that the mailer is not affiliated with the government.

Based on a PDF image, the mailer obtained by TPMmuckraker does not appear to state the sender’s name and address on the outside. And the words "DO NOT DESTROY/OFFICIAL DOCUMENT" would appear to make the disclaimer that it’s not a government document less than unambiguous.

After her office was forwarded a copy of the mailer, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the bill passed last month, noted that the mailer "does not appear to meet" the requirements of the new law — and slammed the RNC.

"What is with these guys?," she said. "We pass a law in record time, with unanimous bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, to reduce confusion about the real Census– knowing that every census form that isn’t returned costs taxpayers money and hurts accuracy. But there goes the RNC again, right back to trying to make a buck on the Census!"

She added: "I don’t understand why the RNC has so much trouble following the law given the level of bi-partisan support to protect the Census."

But RNC spokesman Doug Heye told TPMmuckraker: "We simply looked at the new law, saw that it did not apply to our mailer and continued with the mail pieces." Heye did not elaborate on the RNC’s view that the new law did not apply to its mailers.

Ultimately, that judgment will likely be one for the U.S. Postal Service to make. But whatever happens, there’s no question that the mailer violates the spirit of the law. It’s no secret that the RNC, perhaps thanks to its chairman’s erratic performance, is facing competition in attracting money from GOP donors. But it’s noteworthy, nonetheless, that it’s so wedded to one deceptive fundraising tactic that it’s willing to double down even after Congress has attempted to ban it.

Late Update: The chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party has filed a complaint with the U.S. Postal Service against what appears to be the same mailer, charging that it violates the new law.

Late Late Update: The DNC is slamming the "disturbing" mailer.

The GOP: dishonesty in politics.

Tomorrow I begin to taper off Effexor XR—half a 37.5 mg capsule QD for 10 days, then one-quarter a capsule for another 10 days. This was prompted by several things, and I just recently saw this interview of Robert Whitaker by Jed Lipinski of Salon:

In the past few months, the perennial controversy over psychiatric drug use has been growing considerably more heated. A January study showed a negligible difference between antidepressants and placebos in treating all but the severest cases of depression. The study became the subject of a Newsweek cover story, and the value of psychiatric drugs has recently been debated in the pages of the New Yorker, the New York Times and Salon. Many doctors and patients fiercely defend psychiatric drugs and their ability to improve lives. But others claim their popularity is a warning sign of a dangerously over-medicated culture.

The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better. An acclaimed mental health journalist and winner of a George Polk Award for his reporting on the psychiatric field, Whitaker draws on 50 years of literature and in-person interviews with patients to answer a simple question: If "wonder drugs" like Prozac are really helping people, why has the number of Americans on government disability due to mental illness skyrocketed from 1.25 million in 1987 to over 4 million today?

"Anatomy of an Epidemic" is the first book to investigate the long-term outcomes of patients treated with psychiatric drugs, and Whitaker finds that, overall, the drugs may be doing more harm than good. Adhering to studies published in prominent medical journals, he argues that, over time, patients with schizophrenia do better off medication than on it. Children who take stimulants for ADHD, he writes, are more likely to suffer from mania and bipolar disorder than those who go unmedicated. Intended to challenge the conventional wisdom about psychiatric drugs, "Anatomy" is sure to provoke a hot-tempered response, especially from those inside the psychiatric community.

Salon spoke with Robert Whitaker over the phone about the reasons behind the pharmaceutical revolution, how "anxiety" became rebranded as "depression," and what he thinks psychiatrists are hiding from the American public.

Psychiatric drug use is a notoriously tough subject for writers, because of all the contradictory research. Why wade into it?

In 1998, I was writing a series for the Boston Globe on abuse of psychiatric patients in research settings. I came across the World Health Organization’s outcomes study for schizophrenia patients, and found that outcomes were better for poor countries of the world — like India, Colombia, Nigeria — than for the rich countries. And I was startled to find that only a small percentage of patients in those countries were medicated. I also discovered that the number of people on disability for mental illness in this country has tripled over the last 20 years.

If our psychiatric drugs are effective at preventing mental illness, I thought, why are we getting so many people unable to work? I felt we needed to look at long-term outcomes and ask: What does the evidence show? Are we improving long-term outcomes or not?

But you claim in the book that psychiatrists have long known that these drugs can cause harm…

Continue reading.

They pitch a total hissy fit about health reform — get the government out of healthcare, etc. — and ‘>then they are eager to pass this.

I don’t get it.

Charles Johnson at True/Slant:

Rachel Maddow uncovers the people behind Arizona’s new immigration law: neo-Nazis, white supremacists, nativists, and eugenicists. Lovely.

The main guy taking credit for the new law is Kris Kobach — a Birther who’s running for Kansas secretary of state. But his Birtherism is the least offensive thing about Kobach.

His campaign Website brags, “Kobach wins one in Arizona.” He’s also an attorney for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal arm of an immigration group called FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

FAIR was founded in 1979 by John Tanton, who’s still listed as a member of FAIR’s board of directors. Seven years after he started FAIR, Tanton wrote this, “To govern is to populate. Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion?”

For nine of the first years of FAIR’s existence, the group reportedly received more than $1 million in funding from something called the Pioneer Fund. The Pioneer Fund describes itself as based “in the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition and eugenics movement.” For the last 70 years, the Pioneer Fund has funded controversial research about race and intelligence, essentially aimed at proving the racial superiority of white people. The group’s original mandate was to promote the genes of those “deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution.”

Continue reading.

Steve Benen:

To a very real extent, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) won a key concession yesterday. He just didn’t take the good news well.

A few days ago, the conservative senator threatened to kill the climate/energy bill he’s been working on for months, because the Senate leadership was weighing whether to do immigration reform first. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he’s willing take up climate first, backing down from some of his recent pronouncements.

So, Graham won this round, right? He gave the Democratic leadership an ultimatum: climate before immigration, or else. Yesterday, Reid seemed to give in. This should mean Graham and his tri-partisan climate bill can get back on track, shouldn’t it? Alas, no. Brian Beutler has this report:

Tonight, Graham told me that he will filibuster his own climate change bill, unless Reid drops all plans to turn to immigration this Congress.

"Immigration was interjected before we rolled out the [climate and energy] bill not because anybody’s serious about passing it, but because Harry has got a political problem with the Hispanic community," Graham told me tonight. "It makes the heavy lift of energy and climate impossible and everybody knows that."

Graham has said for days that he’s dropped out of climate/energy talks, but pressed tonight, he said that he will filibuster his own bill if Reid tries to bring it up without tabling immigration altogether.

"If they can do this without me, go ahead…. I am not going to be part of an energy-climate process that has no hope of success," Graham said. "I am not going to let that happen with my vote."

I realize that Graham’s recent apoplexy has some credible defenders, and I’ll concede that some of his concerns had merit. But I find it very difficult to consider Graham’s latest moves evidence of someone who’s acting in good faith. Indeed, his latest position hardly makes any sense at all.

Graham worked for month on the climate/energy compromise, and now he doesn’t even want to allow the Senate to vote on his own bill. Why? Because later this year, Democrats might take up an immigration reform package.

That would be the same immigration reform package that Graham claims to support, which he said he wanted to see pass this year, and which he encouraged Democratic leaders to step up their efforts on.

And yet, now Graham is prepared to kill both of his own compromise measures, even if they’re considered in the order he requested.

The South Carolinian said he won’t be part of "an energy-climate process that has no hope of success." But the only person who’s guaranteeing that Lindsey Graham’s bill has no hope of success is Lindsey Graham.

The oil spill is now bigger than Rhode Island and oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. Marcus Baram at Huffington Post:

As families mourn the 11 workers thrown overboard in the worst oil rig disaster in decades and as the resulting spill continues to spread through the Gulf of Mexico, new questions are being raised about the training of the drill operators and about the oil company’s commitment to safety.

Deepwater Horizon, the giant technically-advanced rig which exploded on April 20 and sank two days later, is leaking an estimated 42,000 gallons per day through a pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. The spill has spread across 1,800 square miles — an area larger than Rhode Island — according to satellite images, oozing its way toward the Louisiana coast and posing a threat to wildlife, including a sperm whale spotted in the oil sheen.

The massive $600 million rig, which holds the record for boring the deepest oil and gas well in the world — at 35,050 feet – had passed three recent federal inspections, the most recent on April 1, since it moved to its current location in January. The cause of the explosion has not been determined.

Yet relatives of workers who are presumed dead claim that the oil behemoth BP and rig owner TransOcean violated "numerous statutes and regulations" issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located.

Both companies failed to provide a competent crew, failed to properly supervise its employees and failed to provide Rushto with a safe place to work, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit also names oil-services giant Halliburton as a defendant, claiming that the company "prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion."

BP and TransOcean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling — which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.

There were 41 deaths and 302 injuries out of 1,443 incidents from 2001 to 2007, according to the study conducted by the Minerals and Management Service of the Interior Department. In addition, the agency issued 150 reports over incidents of non-compliant production and drilling operations and determined there was "no discernible improvement by industry over the past 7 years."

As a result, the agency proposed taking a more proactive stance by requiring operators to have their safety program audited at least once every three years — previously, the industry’s self-managed safety program was voluntary for operators. The agency estimated that the proposed rule, which has yet to take effect, would cost operators about $4.59 million in startup costs and $8 million in annual recurring costs.

The industry has launched a coordinated campaign to attack those regulations, with over 100 letters objecting to the regulations — in a September 14, 2009 letter to MMS, BP vice president for Gulf of Mexico production, Richard Morrison, wrote that "we are not supportive of the extensive, prescriptive regulations as proposed in this rule," arguing that the voluntary programs "have been and continue to be very successful," along with a list of very specific objections to the wording of the proposed regulations.

The next day, the American Petroleum Institute and the Offshore Operators Committee, in a joint letter to MMS, emphasized their preference for voluntary programs with "enough flexibility to suit the corporate culture of each company." Both trade groups also claimed that the industry’s safety and environmental record has improved, citing MMS data to show that the number of lost workdays fell "from a 3.39 rate in 1996 to 0.64 in 2008, a reduction of over 80%."

The Offshore Operators Committee also submitted to MMS a September 2, 2009 PowerPoint presentation asking in bold letters, "What Do HURRICANES and New Rules Have in Common?" against a backdrop of hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico. On the next page, the answer appears: "Both are disruptive to Operations And are costly to Recover From".

The presentation also included the following statements:

"We are disappointed…

• MMS fails to understand that as operators, we can place expectations on contractors, but we cannot do the planning for them
• MMS adds a lot of prescriptive record keeping and documentation that does
nothing to keep people safe"

In addition, TransOcean accountant George Frazer, without identifying his affiliation with the company, submitted a public comment on the proposed regulations stating, "I strongly disagree that a mandated program as proposed is needed," arguing that the proposed action "is a major paperwork-intensive, rulemaking that will significantly impact our business, both operationally and financially," calling it an "unnecessary burden."

"It does appear to be have been an orchestrated effort among most of major oil companies and drilling operators," says Defenders of Wildlife senior policy adviser Richard Charter.

"This event has called attention to fact that there is a long-standing safety problem in offshore industry," he says, noting that he gets phone calls from whistleblowers working on rigs who complain about the work conditions and the environmental damage caused by such operations."

Brian Beckom, a personal-injury attorney who has sued TransOcean several times on behalf of workers, says that "the industry preaches safety, that’s what comes out of their corporate mouths, but I know for a fact that is not always the way things go," though he concedes that the company is better than most in the industry, especially some of the smaller "fly-by-night operators". With newer expensive rigs — BP was paying $500,000 a day to use Deepwater Horizon — Beckom says "there is tremendous pressure to put production first" and safety issues fall by the wayside.

Industry officials seem to be aware of safety concerns – in …

Continue reading. So Big Oil said "Trust us" and the fools did trust them.

Take a look at this, from the Center for American Progress in an email:

The Oklahoma Senate voted yesterday to override Gov. Brad Henry’s (D) veto of two harsh anti-choice measures, including one that "requires women to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before getting an abortion."

The House voted "overwhelmingly" to override the veto on Monday, so the measures are now law.

Doctors who fail to comply with the ultrasound law "would face fines and could be sued by the woman’s spouse or family members."

The other new law "prohibits pregnant women from seeking damages if physicians withhold information or provide inaccurate information about their pregnancy," a measure supporters say will keep women from "discriminating against fetuses with disabilities."

Henry vetoed both measures Friday, calling the ultrasound law an "unconstitutional" attempt to force a woman to undergo medical treatment "against her will" adding that it "could cause physical or mental trauma."

On the other measure, Henry said women should expect to receive all relevant information in order to make a decision about their pregnancy.

He noted that the legislation "allow[s] unscrupulous, reckless or negligent physicians to knowingly withhold information or negligently provide inaccurate information to pregnant women without facing the potential of legal consequences."

Oklahoma courts have overturned a number of other harsh anti-choice laws, including one very similar to the new ultrasound law just last month.

Predicting a similar outcome with the new laws, Henry said, "I fear this entire exercise will ultimately be a waste of taxpayers’ time and money."

Indeed, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) — which has successfully sued against other abortion laws in the state — filed suit "just hours after" the Senate override vote "on the grounds that it violates a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy and constitutional rights to equal protection."

CRR attorney Stephanie Toti said the ultrasound law is "the most restrictive [anti-choice law] in the country."

Pro-choice state Rep. Jeannie McDaniel (D) told The Progress Report last year that in Oklahoma, male legislators "have a very strong feeling that women aren’t capable of making reproductive decisions."

So the GOP’s "get the government off our backs" applies only to old white males, apparently, with all other classes deserving of lots of government control. A weird political party.

I have Acrobat 9.0 Pro, and I’ve been having a problem in that it will not embed the fonts I use. I’ve been trying to get help from Adobe. Hah. They don’t WANT to provide help. Generally they don’t even read the report I provide regarding their latest advice, so they’ll sometimes repeat the advice. (It’s very much copy-and-paste in their responses.)

I mentioned in passing that I had not had the problem with Acrobat 8.0 Pro, and they wrote (after 4 days—each report is followed by a wait of several days before Adobe will reply—so if you’re on a deadline, you get no help at all from them, which I presume is what they like) that Acrobat 8.0 doesn’t run on Windows 7, which I have on my computer, so they closed the case.

I knew that, of course. I had to buy Acrobat 9.0 when I got my new computer. But Adobe just wants the case closed.

If you can possibly avoid buying an Adobe product, go for it. Their support is abysmal.

Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress:

While many Democrats and Republicans alike have criticized Arizona’s anti-immigration law for going too far, on Monday, Iowa Republican congressional candidate Pat Bertroche had an even more draconian idea — implant microchips in undocumented immigrants to keep track of them:

“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?

“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said.

Bertroche has since backtracked from his remarks, saying he doesn’t “support microchipping anybody” and it never occurred to him that he “was comparing dogs to illegal immigrants.” His intention was to “illustrate a social commentary on how radical” the immigration debate has become. (HT: Jason Linkins, Iowa Independent)

Very nice shave today, though it took all my willpower not to use the Pils again. Still, the Vision did a very nice job, and certainly Floris London makes great stuff. The Emperor 3 Super generated a very fine lather, and the splash of JF at the end was great.

Now, the Pils:

I swear that there must be some subtleties to the head design that are not evident but account for its extremely smooth shaving action. My take (uninformed, I admit) is that Pils is a company run by engineers and with little marketing. For example, when I got the razor, it came in a plain brown box with no literature enclosed. The box was totally plain: no printing at all. A brown box, with the razor inside: $245, plus tax and shipping. Sounds like engineers, doesn’t it? Build the best possible, regardless of cost, charge enough for a good profit beyond that, and provide no information. And no markings at all on the razor (or on the travel brush I previously had). Exquisite engineering, that’s what you get.

But I would love to read an explanation of the head design and how it works so well on the beard. As you can see, the Pils head is not like that of other razors.

Evgeny Morozov in Foreign Policy:

In the days when the Internet was young, our hopes were high. As with any budding love affair, we wanted to believe our newfound object of fascination could change the world. The Internet was lauded as the ultimate tool to foster tolerance, destroy nationalism, and transform the planet into one great wired global village. Writing in 1994, a group of digital aficionados led by Esther Dyson and Alvin Toffler published a manifesto modestly subtitled "A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age" that promised the rise of  "’electronic neighborhoods’ bound together not by geography but by shared interests." Nicholas Negroponte, then the famed head of the MIT MediaLab, dramatically predicted in 1997 that the Internet would shatter borders between nations and usher in a new era of world peace.

Well, the Internet as we know it has now been around for two decades, and it has certainly been transformative. The amount of goods and services available online is staggering. Communicating across borders is simpler than ever: Hefty international phone bills have been replaced by inexpensive subscriptions to Skype, while Google Translate helps readers navigate Web pages in Spanish, Mandarin, Maltese, and more than 40 other languages. But just as earlier generations were disappointed to see that neither the telegraph nor the radio delivered on the world-changing promises made by their most ardent cheerleaders, we haven’t seen an Internet-powered rise in global peace, love, and liberty.

And we’re not likely to. Many of the transnational networks fostered by the Internet arguably worsen — rather than improve — the world as we know it. At a recent gathering devoted to stamping out the illicit trade in endangered animals, for instance, the Internet was singled out as the main driver behind the increased global commerce in protected species. Today’s Internet is a world where homophobic activists in Serbia are turning to Facebook to organize against gay rights, and where social conservatives in Saudi Arabia are setting up online equivalents of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. So much for the "freedom to connect" lauded by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her much-ballyhooed speech on the Internet and human rights.

Sadly enough, a networked world is not inherently a more just world…

Continue reading.

Faiz Shakir at ThinkProgress:

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed legislation allowing “concealed carry permit holders to bring loaded handguns” into establishments that serve alcohol. The law allows permit holders to carry guns in restaurants, “as long as the holders do not consume alcohol.” A leading Virginia gun lobby is now arguing that the law unfairly stigmatizes gun carriers as second-class citizens because there is an exception that “allows law-enforcement officers and commonwealth’s attorneys to carry concealed weapons and consume alcohol.” Philip Van Cleave, leader of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, complained, “We’re not allowed to drink, but they (law enforcement officials) can. … That’s two classes of citizens.” But Van Cleave has a solution:

Van Cleave said one proposed bill would allow no one but an on-duty officer doing undercover work to drink alcohol while carrying a concealed weapon. The other bill will say that anyone can carry a concealed gun and drink if they wish, “as long as they are not drunk.”

“Whatever the General Assembly assumes will apply to everyone,” he said. “Police officers and permit holders are all in the same tent; so I say: General Assembly, you choose. But whatever it is, we’re equal.”

In a letter to McDonnell on behalf of the state’s police chiefs, Virginia Beach Police Chief Jake Jacocks, Jr. opposed the new law, arguing: “We can fully expect that at some point in the future a disagreement that today would likely end up in a verbal confrontation, or a bar fight, will inevitably end up with gunfire if you sign this legislation into law.” The chances of that happening would only increase if the Virginia gun lobby has its way.

A bunch of armed guys knocking back drinks in a bar and arguing about sports—what could possibly go wrong?

Michael Wolff at Newser:

Speaking of Apple’s weird and scary overreactions—yes, good idea, have the police storm the Gizmodo editor’s house in the lost iPhone prototype caper—here’s my story:

Apple has rejected an app version of this column—which, on a relatively frequent basis goes out of its way to analyze the odd behavior of Steve Jobs.

My last effort at putting Steve on the couch was on Friday, in a column that dealt with Jobs’ recently announced intention to police apps for violations of Apple’s new (and undisclosed) rules against porn. I suggested that Jobs was overreaching—and, maybe too, a little messianic and off his nut. (I did not know then that his cop mentality would soon enough involve actual police action.)

The stated reason for the rejection of my free app is that Apple requires "sufficient amounts of content to appeal to a broad audience." Putting aside the fact that this pretty much makes specialty content ineligible for iPhone or iPad apps, it’s also a pretty fudgy standard. For instance, I get a bigger readership for my online columns than I do for my Vanity Fair columns—so Vanity Fair shouldn’t make the cut?

Where we are is that Apple is now creating a distribution system for books and periodicals—in a sense, no different from a newsstand or bookstore—which it proposes to regulate as it sees fit, without explanation, recourse, or standards.

Apple demands a high degree of technological conformity to its “Human Interface Guidelines.” And it has many other arbitrary eccentricities that might get your app dinged, including if your app somehow gives the iPhone a look that Apple (or Steve) doesn’t want it to have. And you’ll have to conform to icon standards and rules about button look and feel. All these rules are relatively clear (well, relatively). But then there is the unstated rule, as articulated in a post about iPhone app rejection by Brian Stormont of Stormy Productions, with more than 45 apps to its credit: “Don’t make any jokes about political figures, past or present, in either your app or the description in iTunes.”

By likely inference: Don’t diss Steve Jobs, either.

Stormont takes a pained but still relatively sanguine view of this, a programmer’s view perhaps: “It’s Apple’s store. They can do whatever they want in the end and don’t have to be fair.”

Programmers are dealing with functionality, which has no special status in American culture and law. Writers, on the other hand, aren’t used to having books and articles thrown off the store shelf because we’ve annoyed the store owner…or, either, of having our doors broken down.

Obviously, the convergence of technology and content, which is willy-nilly being encouraged by Mr. Jobs, into applications that he will control and market, if he so chooses, changes the nature of Steve’s role.

What we have now, suddenly, is one of the most mercurial and paranoid and unusual men in American business—willing to swear out a warrant if you cross him—telling you what you can and cannot read.

In other words, the device you may be holding in your hand (my column, perhaps unbeknownst to Apple, is available on the Newser iPhone app) is not necessarily a benign one; the company that makes it not necessarily your friend.

My app, by the way, is available for the Android.

Daniel Seidemann is a Jerusalem-based lawyer and expert on Jerusalem, and the founder of the Israeli NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem. He writes in Foreign Policy:

In recent full page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, renowned author and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel argued that Jerusalem is "above politics." But the portrait of the city Wiesel painted is so factually inaccurate and so morally specious as to leave no room for doubt: Wiesel’s false innocence and moral posturing over Jerusalem is an example of politics par excellence, with Wiesel willingly becoming a tool of Israel’s extreme right in its desperate efforts to block Obama’s peace efforts.

A review of the facts is in order.

93 percent of Israel – including most of West Jerusalem and the 35 percent of privately-owned land in East Jerusalem expropriated by Israel since 1967 – is categorized by Israel as "State Land." Only Israeli citizens and those entitled to immigrate under the Law of Return may acquire properties on this land. Palestinians of East Jerusalem, with rare exception, are in neither of these categories. So while Wiesel may purchase a home in anywhere in East or West Jerusalem, a Palestinian cannot.

Since 1967, Israel has built more than 50,000 dwellings for Israelis in East Jerusalem, but has built fewer than 600 for Palestinians (the last was built 35 years ago). And from 1967 until today, as East Jerusalem’s Palestinian population increased from 70,000 to 280,000, Israel has issued only 4,000 permits for private Palestinian construction in East Jerusalem. Barred from building legally, the Palestinians built without permits – leaving them subject to Israeli demolition of their "illegal" homes.

Today extreme settler groups have launched a campaign to evict Palestinian families – refugees of Israel’s War of Independence – from densely-populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the heart of East Jerusalem. They are doing so based on the "right" of Jews to recover properties lost in the 1948 war. But under Israeli law Palestinians have no such right. So while Israel insists that Palestinians renounce any "right of return" – something understood as necessary for the two-state solution – it is implementing a Jewish right of return to Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and turning 1948 refugees into 2010 refugees.

And then there is the question of Israel’s respect for other religions.

In recent years the Israeli Government has transferred virtually all of the most sensitive religious, archeological and cultural sites in East Jerusalem to the de facto control of extreme settler groups. These groups are abusing archeology and public planning to highlight the Jewish past, while marginalizing the Christian, Muslim and Palestinian dimensions of the city, past and present.

Due to Israeli restrictions, today it is easier for a Palestinian Christian living just south of Jerusalem in Bethlehem to worship in Washington’s National Cathedral than to pray in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Today a Muslim living in Turkey has a better chance of getting to Jerusalem to pray at the Old City’s al-Aqsa mosque than a Muslim living a few miles away in Ramallah.

Before our eyes, Jerusalem is becoming the arena where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is morphing from a resolvable national conflict into a religious war – a transformation that, if it continues, poses an existential threat to Israel. And what starts in Jerusalem does not stay in Jerusalem: conflict in Jerusalem resonates throughout the region and beyond, wind in the sails of every jihadist.

By asserting the Jewish people’s exclusive "ownership" of Jerusalem, Wiesel embraces the policies that are accelerating this metamorphosis.

Wiesel ignores these facts. He ignores the fact that the policies he is defending will soon turn Jerusalem into a city so balkanized, geographically and demographically, that the two-state solution will no longer be possible. And the demise of the two-state solution portends the end of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, to be replaced by either an apartheid-like reality with a Jewish minority ruling over an Arab majority, or by a bi-national Arab-Jewish state.

Israel is at an existential crossroads with Jerusalem. Current policies cannot be justified – even by Elie Wiesel, even to Israel’s staunchest allies. These policies consistently derail the resumption of negotiations towards a conflict-ending agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The cumulative impact of these policies will be the destruction of the two-state solution, the radicalization of the conflict and the de-legitimization of Israel. With these policies, Jerusalem is becoming the place where Israel slides down the slippery slope into pariah status.

By agreeing to carry the water for Israel’s extreme right, Wiesel has not only undermined his own moral authority, but has done so in the service of a political agenda that is a grave threat to Israel’s most vital interests. If Wiesel loves Jerusalem as much as he claims, he should indeed put Jerusalem above politics and join President Obama in his insistence that these dangerous policies cease, and support Obama’s efforts to achieve a final status agreement that resolves all the issues, not the least of which being Jerusalem.

Here it is:

And here’s the explanation:

Though scientists argue that the emerging technology of spintronics may trump conventional electronics for building the next generation of faster, smaller, more efficient computers and high-tech devices, no one has actually seen the spin—a quantum mechanical property of electrons—in individual atoms until now. In a study published as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, physicists at Ohio University and the University of Hamburg in Germany present the first images of spin in action. The researchers used a custom-built microscope with an iron-coated tip to manipulate cobalt atoms on a plate of manganese. Through scanning tunneling microscopy, the team repositioned individual cobalt atoms on a surface that changed the direction of the electrons’ spin. Images captured by the scientists showed that the atoms appeared as a single protrusion if the spin direction was upward, and as double protrusions with equal heights when the spin direction was downward.

The study suggests that scientists can observe and manipulate spin, a finding that may impact future development of nanoscale magnetic storage, quantum computers and spintronic devices.

"Different directions in spin can mean different states for data storage," said Saw-Wai Hla, an associate professor of physics and astronomy in Ohio University’s Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute and one of the primary investigators on the study. "The memory devices of current computers involve tens of thousands of atoms. In the future, we may be able to use one atom and change the power of the computer by the thousands."

Unlike electronic devices, which give off heat, spintronic-based devices are expected to experience less power dissipation.

The experiments were conducted in an ultra-high vacuum at the low temperature of 10 Kelvin, with the use of liquid helium. Researchers will need to observe the phenomenon at room temperature before it can be used in computer hard drives.

But the new study suggests a path to that application, said study lead author Andre Kubetzka of the University of Hamburg. To image spin direction, the team not only used a new technique but also a manganese surface with a spin that, in turn, allowed the scientists to manipulate the spin of the cobalt atoms under study.

"The combination of atom manipulation and spin sensitivity gives a new perspective of constructing atomic-scale structures and investigating their magnetic properties," Kubetzka said.

Source: Ohio University

Pretty cool: