Later On

Via TYD, this article by Brian Vastag in the Washington Post:

A second experiment at the European facility that reported subatomic particles zooming faster than the speed of light — stunning the world of physics — has reached the same result, scientists said late Thursday.

The “positive outcome of the [second] test makes us more confident in the result,” said Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, in a statement released late Thursday. Ferroni is one of 160 physicists involved in the international collaboration known as OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus) that performed the experiment.

While the second experiment “has made an important test of consistency of its result,” Ferroni added, “a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world.”

That is, more tests are needed, and on other experimental setups. There is still a large crowd of skeptical physicists who suspect that the original measurement done in September was an error.

Should the results stand, they would upend more than a century of modern physics.

In the first round of experiments, a massive . .  .

Continue reading. They got some ‘splaining to do.

All that money poured into poliice departments to create para-military strike units is starting to be put to use. Michael Tracey reports in Salon.com:

In early stages of Occupy Wall Street, I sometimes encountered people who harbored a legitimate concern: Wouldn’t prolonged media attention to altercations between police and demonstrators distract from the movement’s message?

This apprehension always struck me as misguided. What could be more central to Occupy’s guiding philosophy than the idea that the rule of law has been subverted by corporate interests? In collusion with government functionaries and beyond meaningful accountability from the public, these interests have created a separate realm of law for themselves — one that orients the financial and political systems in their favor, to the detriment of everyone else. If this is indeed true, and the law itself is marred by a systemic corruption, then law enforcement —  manifested physically in the form of police officers — is an  appropriate focus for a social movement seeking redress of grievances.

As Occupy Wall Street grew, the New York Police Department’s “crowd control” tactics became increasingly bizarre and aggressive: historic mass arrests, motor scooter attacks, destruction of books, ramming horses into demonstrators, putting New York Post reporters in choke holds – to name only a few.  And following Tuesday’s brazen raid of Zuccotti Park, carried out in the dead of night, the NYPD indicated that de-escalation is not on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. Police officials at the highest ranks, under the direction of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, have taken to simply making up the rules as they go along.

In the same way that financial elites rig the political system, law enforcement elites like Bloomberg and Kelly have rigged the criminal justice system. Occupy Wall Street is hardly the only victim. The NYPD is on pace to make 700,000 extralegal “stop-and-frisks” this year alone, while its own officers skirt accountability for their misconduct. Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, who was sanctioned by NYPD Internal Affairs for pepper-spraying at least four demonstrators without provocation, received a maximum punishment of 10 lost vacation days on account of his actions.

If you’re an ordinary citizen, and you get caught on video dousing people with noxious gas like Bologna did, you get summarily locked up. And if you’re young and black, expect to receive the law’s full wrath. But when you’re an NYPD commanding officer responsible for all of Manhattan below 59th street, like Bologna was at the time of his attack, you get essentially a free pass.

Additionally, throughout my coverage of OWS, various police officials in plainclothes have refused to identify themselves upon request — a violation of NYPD patrol guide procedure 203-09, effective June 27, 2003, which states that all “members of the service” are required to “courteously and clearly state [their] rank, name, shield number and command, or otherwise provide them, to anyone who requests [they] do so. [They also must] allow the person ample time to note this information.”

Among the men who violated this directive are . . .

Continue reading.

UPDATE: A retired cop at OWS:

Take a look at the trend for corporate tax rates:

Graph is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, via a note by Andrew Leonard at Salon.com:

We already know that compared to most rich countries in the world, corporations in the United States get off easy when it comes to taxes. We also know that many of the biggest American corporations don’t pay any taxes at all.

But if you are looking for one graphic illustration that speaks the most volumes about how great it’s been to be an American corporation over the past half-century, than you really must contemplate this chart put together by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank (Hat tip to Felix Salmon.)

The percentage of corporate profit (after taxes) paid as income tax has been on a steady downward trend since the 1950s. In the last year or so, it has rebounded a trifle since hitting its all-time low during the Great Recession, but still sits comfortably below any other point in the last six decades.

It might be worth remembering that the 1950s were a decade in which “more people joined the middle class than at any time in history.” And yet, one of the great stumbling blocks preventing the “supercommittee” from hammering a long-term deficit reduction deal is the GOP fixation on the premise that taxes on American corporations are too high.

That Fitjar Såpekokeri is one amazing soap. I did the usual prep with MR GLO, then wet the Vie-Long horsehair brush and brushed the soap vigorously, as usual.

Weird: no signs of lather or loading. I inspected the brush closely: it was wet, all right, but no sign of soap. Quite strange. I re-wet it, gave it a tiny shake, and really went to town on the soap. I might as well have been brushing a puck of white plastic. No sign whatsoever of the tiniest trace of soap or lather. But wait: the puck is in this container (that formerly held the Coates soap), and I put it in upside down, thinking that would make no difference.

But perhaps the soap is in a thin, transparent plastic cup—a kind of shell over sides and bottom. That would account for it. I tried scratching the soap with my fingernail. It scratched: no transparent plastic shell.

I’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe because the soap is upside down?? (I was grasping at straws, but still… it is a shaving soap.) I turned it over, got the firmer horsehair brush (the 50/50 mane/tail) and had at it again. Aha! traces of lather!

I rinsed out that brush and went back to the brush in the photo—the soap may be stubborn, but it’s met its match in me. I brushed vigorously once more, now on the top of the soap, and I did get lather. I continued brushing for a while—I wanted a Creamy Lather—and brought it to my face.

Oh, my! This is Martin-de-Candre-quality shaving soap: really thick, dense, slick, luxuriant lather. Amazing—wonderful, even.

Three passes with the Feather, then I read the instructions that came with the soap. (I don’t like to cheat by reading instructions before I try things.) This maker does indeed advise some soaking of the soap, but for some reason I don’t like to do that. And now that I’ve broken the ice, as it were, and found the top side of the puck is vulnerable, I doubt that I will do much soaking. But I am amazed by the soap in many ways, mostly good.

Well worth a try. You guys that like to soak soaps will probably enjoy this one, but for anyone who enjoys really superb lather from a shaving soap, give it a go. (And if you know a traditional wetshaver: good idea for a present.)

Glad I found this soap. Top-drawer stuff.

The last few days I’ve had more energy, and I’ve even begun cleaning up and organizing the apartment, which was, I admit, in a terrible state. But a few days ago, I squared away the bathroom and today I sorted out the pantry, and I have good plans for tomorrow.

Tonight I got to wondering where all this energy is coming from, and I realized that I’m no longer eating for a calorie deficit (i.e., to lose weight), but rather eating more—enough to power me with no drain at all on body weight. So I’m eating more, and thus more energy.

In fact, in looking back over the past 80 weeks, I have to admit that I’ve not been a bundle of fire. I was by no means an invalid, but I did not have the energy I’m finding since the diet increase. I didn’t feel weakened so much as more inclined to let things drift: living a kind of minimal-effort existence, which makes (physical) sense given that I was not getting enough food to maintain my weight.

Wonder whether I can trace a similar profile in my psychology over the period.

UPDATE: This is another example of learning about internal states by looking at my behavior rather than through introspection. I don’t (introspectively) feel any more energetic—quite the contrary, I feel as though I’m at pretty much my “normal” level of energy—but of course, I suppose that, norms being average, the body adjusts its interpretation of how it feels based on a rolling average—i.e., varying norm: what is “normal” on a weight-loss diet is not the same as “normal” on a weight-maintenance diet.

But when I look at behavior, I see myself not only diving into and organizing shelves and cabinets and getting rid of apartment detritus, but in fact looking forward with some eagerness to the effort, rather than the previous stance, which was pretty much, “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

UPDATE 2: It occurs to me that the low-energy situation may be why so many dieters lose their resolve and prove unable to resist temptation: with lower energy, one’s ability to resist temptation and to summon willpower are also lower, thus the dieter becomes more readily the ex-dieter than if energy could be maintained. That is, one lacks the inner strength that one “normally” (under weight maintenance diet conditions) has.

I admit I was wrong, in the end, about The Diplomat. I liked it until I tumbled to the theme and watch it work out the repercussions, but ultimately it seemed too slow. I forgive the cityscapes: an unfamiliar city to me, and clearly spelling out the loss if bombed. But the end grew strained and the final scene is a complete fantasy. So: 3-star at best.

But Support Your Local Sheriff is indeed a true jewel. The script is unusually excellent and witty, and the reason is swiftly discerned: this is a (to me) rare example of a “written and produced by” rather than the more common “written and directed by.” A guy with money literate enough to write a script: apparently rare.

At any rate, the good things stayed in because the producer, oddly, liked them. And they are truly enjoyable. A romantic comedy definitely worth renting at the least. Check your library, too.

I did learn my lesson from The Diplomat: this time I waited until I had seen the entire movie before commenting.

The article in an email from LA Times:

A registered sex offender, who was convicted of kidnapping and molesting an 8-year-old boy in Washington state 15 years ago, has been working in Hollywood, helping to cast children for roles in major motion pictures.

Some major companies are going to get their socks sued off because they failed to exercise due diligence in such an obviously sensitive position: hiring someone to work a lot with children and with some power over them (to cast or not—the “casting couch” is a byword) without (apparently) running routine periodic checks on the sex-offender registry.

I bet HRD departments all over the US are adding a new protocol to positions that involve working with children. But then I bet those protocols are there now. Perhaps they should be given the force of law?

Just got a “breaking news” email from the LA Times. Now as I see it, this can mean only one thing—one story that fits the facts like a glove.

Robert Wagner (NW’s husband) and a very young Christopher Walken were the people on the boat that night in 1981. Their story is that Natalie Wood fell into the sea and drowned. (A particularly bad end, given that NW was terrified of the idea of drowning in the dark and would not venture into a swimming pool—her own, most usually—unless it was completely illuminated.)

So why is the investigation now reopened? Rumor has it that Christopher Walken has a degenerative nerve disease (“degenerative” = terminal), though it should be noted that he steadfastly denies this. He strikes me as a basically decent man, and it may be that as he faces his end, he wants to clean the slate.

So what would he say now that would reopen the investigation? Let’s assume that Walken is in fact a decent man—indeed, the amount of work he gets is evidence of that: difficult people tend to find new projects harder to get. Let’s assume he is, which accounts for wiping the slate clean.

But, given that he’s a decent man, what secret would he hold all these years? That Robert Wagner murdered Natalie Wood (one of the myriads of rumors and speculation about her death)? No: he would not have kept that secret so long, I think.

I would bet that NW’s death was indeed an accident: a drunken fall into the sea and drowning quickly. But I speculate that perhaps in drunken quarrel or horseplay, RW pushed or tripped or even fell against NW, with the effect of sending her over the side?

It would clearly be an accident, and RW could easily persuade the young CW that he (RW) should not be imprisoned for a drunken accident—convicted if not for murder, then for manslaughter. So CW agrees to go along.

But now, facing the Great Leveler…

Thus far my outright speculation. And I’m doing this from memory, so errors may lie therein.

The British Army of the Great War were said (by the German General Staff) to be “lions led by donkeys” (perhaps apocryphal). Certainly the US seems to be led by donkeys, and unintelligent ones at that. TYD points out this report in Science by Jeffrey Marvis:

First words, then deeds. Frustrated that White House officials have ignored congressional language curtailing scientific collaborations with China, legislators have decided to get their attention through a 32% cut in the tiny budget of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Science lobbyists say that’s a bad idea.

A 2012 spending bill expected to be approved later this week slashes OSTP’s current $6.6 million budget to $4.5 million. The cuts won’t mean layoffs or furloughs for the office’s 90-person staff, many on loan from other agencies or outside institutions. But it “will have real consequences on OSTP’s operations,” says OSTP spokesperson Rick Weiss, forcing OSTP “to prioritize existing activities” in fields ranging from science education to sustainable energy.

The implicit reason for the budget cut is an ongoing battle between House of Representatives Republicans and the White House over the threat to U.S. interests posed by collaborations with China in high-tech sectors such as space, energy, computing, and advanced manufacturing. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the House spending panel that oversees NASA as well as OSTP, inserted language into the final 2011 spending bill blocking both agencies from using money to pursue such activities.

After science adviser and OSTP Director John Holdren acknowledged holding joint meetings with Chinese officials shortly after the ban went into effect this spring, Wolf took the next step and won House support this summer for a 55% cut in OSTP’s budget. His Senate counterparts later approved a 9% reduction, and yesterday a conference committee of legislators from both bodies announced that they had split the difference.

The final version in the 2012 spending bill retains the prohibitory language, although it gives the White House an opportunity to engage in some collaborations if it can “certify” that they “pose no risk … of transferring technology, data, or information with national security or economic security implications to China or a Chinese-owned company.” It also requires that OSTP give Congress 14 days’ notice and a full description of the proposed joint activity.

In a letter sent last week to congressional appropriators, Alan Leshner, CEO of AAAS (which publishesScienceInsider) outlined the negative impact of a shrunken OSTP. “We believe such a drastic reduction to OSTP’s budget will dramatically inhibit the ability of the federal government to coordinate, prioritize and manage the federal research and development (R&D) effort,” Leshner wrote. “This kind of reduction would also seriously limit the ability to take appropriate account of science and technology considerations in the formulation of diverse policies.”

In fairness, the steps Congress are taking may make sense—perhaps science will not be important in America’s future. At least, that’s what they seem to be betting on.

In honesty, I think Congress well knows that science is vital to America’s future. This action is called “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

The sudden blockage of vision in my right eye (only twice, and quickly cleared by blinking) is not something the doctor expected. He took a good close look inside my eye. The implant seems perfectly fine, also my cornea and retina. But, he said, I do have one very large floater (myopics like myself are especially prone to floaters, I’ve heard) and it’s possible that this guy blocked my vision briefly. The doctor thinks that is a possibility because it would be consistent with clearly by blinking, which would dislodge a floater.

It’s happened only twice, and the blinking worked, so I’ll just keep an eye on it. (sorry—those who have had the good fortune to see Movie Movie will recall the opening scene in the first of the double feature, a black-and-white 1930s boxing drama, in which an oculist, played by Art Carney is examining the eyes of a frightened and beautiful young woman as her mother watches. Carney steps away from looking into the young lady’s eyes, telling her she can put her blouse back on, and says, “The eyes are the second most sensitive organ in the human body, and if any organ has a tendency to break down under stress, the eyes have it.” So the vein of ophthalmic humor runs wide and deep. The young lady’s brother becomes a boxer as the only way to get enough money for the eye operation his sister requires. Etc.)

The young assistant had previously offered that the problem was caused by dry eyes, because blinking fixed it. I didn’t think much of that diagnosis, nor (I think) did the doctor. I’m going with the floater for now.

I’ll get a refraction and new prescription for glasses in a month, after my eyes have settled down a bit. Intraocular pressure was 14 and 24 (the 24 in the right eye, and a side-effect of surgery—it will drop quickly).

BTW, I blog all these medical details because I figure among my readers are some who will face similar procedures and/or have friends and family going through such things, and thus interested in knowing concrete and specific information from a patient’s direct experience.

I doubt that my weight will get any lower than yesterday, but I wanted to share my victory from my Withings site:

I’m taking steps to stop the weight loss: yesterday’s breakfast at Toasties, for example, and today I’m heading to the Red House Café, just a block up the street from Toasties, for a cheeseburger lunch. Obviously that sort of treat will be infrequent, but I haven’t had one for a while. I’m rather proudn of the percentage of body fat I reached.

I didn’t notice the Twitter button before. That strikes me as funny. But, of course, here I am, in effect tweeting it. For contrast, here’s a reading from early in the effort:

Unfortunately, the Withings WiFi connection was broken for a while and I missed a bunch of readings, including my 250-lb starting point. But this one is probably enough of a contrast. This is two weeks after I started at Healthy Way, and I already had dropped some weight.

I feel comfortable eating a cheeseburger and perhaps putting on a pound or two because (a) I know exactly what to do to return to 170, and (b) I have the 175-lb panic point that serves as a red-alert warning.

I was up last night, as you can tell from the pre-shave posts. I’m going to make that black-bean hummus, BTW.

My right eye stopped seeing briefly last night—completely occluded, as though a shutter had closed: all I could see from that eye was a featureless light gray. I blinked, and vision was restored. It happened again this morning, requiring several blinks. I of course will ask my ophthalmologist this afternoon when I see him for first post-surgery visit. Only a minor annoyance, but if I also have my left eye done, and both eyes happen to stop seeing while (e.g.) I’m driving—well, that could be unpleasant. But it may just be a start-up problem.

Since I can’t blog, I’m reorganizing stuff—which involves getting rid of much. One thing is an Emil Henry pottery casserole—not the clayware one, another one. To find whether The Wife wanted it, given that my verbal descriptive powers were inadequate, I took a photo to email her. The Nikon’s battery was totally flat (rather abruptly, I though), and I’m recharging it, so I decided to use my multiply repaired Canon S2 IS, my backup camera. The zoom worked fine, but the autofocus was not working at all. Not worth repairing again, I think. I was trying to get it to focus using manual focus, but that also didn’t work. Then I realized I was using my right eye (dominant eye), the one that received the new lens. So my spectacles give the completely wrong correction for now. I switched to left eye (very weird feeling) and it was focusing fine.

Live and learn: my frequent motto.

A couple of experiments with the morning shave. First, using the Alt-Innsbruch pre-/post-shave balm in its pre-shave role. Both bad and good news here: The bad news is that it takes considerably more (2-3 times as much) balm to do the pre-shave job: the subble interrupts the spreading and perhaps absorbs some balm. But the good news is that it didn’t seem to help in the least—not for me, anyway—so no need to use it that way. And as a post-shave it’s pretty good and a very little goes a long way.

Bees for Blokes shaving soap worked up a fine lather, which died more or less in the cradle. The tin of soap is now in the trash. I have plenty of soap on hand and I don’t care to struggle to make a product work when others work splendidly with no effort. Not recommended.

The shave went pretty well, considering the weakness of the shaving soap. The iKon S3S with a still-newish Personna 74 blade smoothed away the stubble well, and a splash of Captain’s Choice Flying Bird Botanicals Bay Rum made me feel ever so much better.

Rainy and foggy, but rain has let up and the sun is already struggling through.

I got an email from SparkPeople (a health/exercise site) on the topic of sodium that listed some high-sodium foods:

Mini pretzels (1,029 mg in 10 mini rounds)
Frozen pepperoni pizza (902 mg in one slice)
Dill pickles (881 mg in one medium pickle)
Canned peas (428 mg in 1/2 cup)
Bacon (303 mg per slice)

I have to admit I didn’t realize how much sodium was in those. (To give you an idea, 2000 mg of sodium per day is plenty—more than 2400 mg is bad.)

Fortunately, I cook most of my food from scratch, and I add little or no salt—I use other seasonings to add zest: pepper, lemon, garlic, curry, whatever. Within a short time, your taste adjusts and you don’t miss the sodium. When I do add salt, I don’t use a shaker because it’s hard to tell how much I’m shaking in. I keep my salt in a little open container and add only a small pinch at most.

In the course of reading the site, I found this very tasty-sounding recipe:

3 1/2 cups black beans
1 small onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T ground cumin
1 1/2 t olive oil
2 T chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 c vegetable broth

Drain and rinse black beans if using canned. [But much better to cook your own black beans without added salt: let the beans soak while you're at work, simmer in the evening until soft, drain and store in fridge, using as needed in various dishes. Cooked black beans are handy to have on hand. - LG]

Place olive oil in skillet set over medium-high heat. Add onions, peppers, and garlic and sauté about three minutes, until vegetables are fragrant and starting to brown slightly. Add cumin, stir well, reduce heat to medium and cook another two minutes.

Place beans in food processor and pulse seveal times. Add vegetable mixture and pulse a few more times. Add vegetable broth in small batches to thin the dip to the desired consistency. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Serve immediately or store in refrigerator for up to 10 days.

Makes eight 1/2-cup servings.

I encourage you to click the link because the comments to the recipes have excellent suggestions for variations (e.g., using curry powder instead of cumin; use spicy salsa in place of green pepper, cilantro, and broth).

It looks very much as if dysfunction in the US government—and its increasing lack of interest in promoting the country’s common welfare—is accelerating. Timothy Egan has an excellent op-ed in the NY Times today that examines an illuminating example:

As a young graduate student pursuing an advanced degree in modern European history, Newt Gingrich wrote a dissertation titled “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945-1960.” Thereafter, in the course of writing 23 books, the scholar-politician pontificated on many subjects, from the pope to a “pouting sex kitten,” who appears for a quick romp in a novel about the Civil War.

None of his work had anything to do with the home lending practices that would help to destroy the American economy. So why would Freddie Mac pay $300,000 to Professor Gingrich in 2006 – just as the troubled mortgage lender was facing calls on Capitol Hill for increased regulation?

Turns out, that was just small change in the overall sweetheart deal that no historian but Gingrich could ever get. Bloomberg News reported this week that Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million for giving additional “advice” to Freddie Mac. When I asked about the amount, a Freddie Mac spokesman refused to comment, but officials at the agency who are familiar with the contracts confirmed the numbers reported by Bloomberg.

This is not just another Gingrich laugher, up there with his revolving Tiffany’s account or his multiple personal hypocrisies. This story encapsulates why Washington is broken and how the powerful protect and enrich themselves, unanchored to basic principles.

At the same time, it’s a case study in the Gingrich method: denounce something as outrageous, while doing that very outrageous thing himself. (Politicians with ties to Freddie Mac came in for scathing Gingrich criticism in 2010.) There is no evidence, as Gingrich claimed last week in a debate, that he offered Freddie Mac a dime’s worth of advice in his capacity as a “historian,” or warned against a surge in subprime lending. To the contrary, former Freddie Mac executives told Bloomberg that Gingrich was brought in to help the agency continue down the very path of its ruination – backing subprime mortgages.

Plain and simple, Gingrich was paid for his influence. A former speaker of the House, even a disgraced one, is still worth something. And so, what Gingrich actually did was praise Freddie Mac’s business model, according to an Associated Press article in 2008. On top of that, he was asked by executives at Freddie to help frame the debate to win over fellow conservatives.

Freddie Mac and its sister firm in government-sanctioned lending assistance, Fannie Mae, were forced into government receivership in 2008. Since then, they have cost taxpayers $181 billion. These two agencies are often cited by Republicans as the main reason for the financial collapse.

With Gingrich, there ought to be a special category for gall. Here’s what he said when asked in last week’s debate about his $300,000 deal with Freddie: . . .

Continue reading, please. The details that follow will turn your stomach.

Gingrich is unaccountable and he knows it. He seems mostly amused by the outrage he stirs, when he deigns to notice it. Untouchable, he floats above the common much, relishing and augmenting his wealth. And he is the front-runner GOP candidate for President.

British/Australian move The Diplomat, original (and better) title was False Witness. I’m watching it now.

Congress also has “strong beliefs”, made even stronger by campaign contributions from lobbyists, and among those is the strong belief, which now has the force of law, that pizza is a vegetable. Unfortunately, “strong belief” is not really sufficient if one is interested in reality, but Congress is less interested in reality than it is in ideology and money. David Taintor reports for TPM DC:

The final version of the House and Senate’s agriculture spending bill bucksrecommendations by the Department of Agriculture to try to make school lunches healthier. The bill counts pizza sauce as a vegetable — as it is now — and resists efforts by the Agriculture Department to limit servings of starchy vegetables and sodium restrictions.

Tomato sauce is currently counted as a vegetable, but the USDA back in January tried to change the rules — the first change in 15 years to the $11 billion school-lunch program, the New York Times reports. The USDA wanted to require tomato paste and puree be credited as a vegetable based on the actual volume that is served. So – in a change from current standards – the scant layer of sauce served on a slice of pizza wouldn’t be classified as a vegetable. The USDA wanted a half-cup of tomato paste or more to be counted as a vegetable, the Associated Press reports.

But that’s a lot of sauce to slather on a pizza slice, and thanks to food companies’ lobbying efforts — to the tune of $5.6 million — a couple tablespoons of tomato sauce are still safe and sound as vegetables.

As The Hill reports, the bill is not too popular among health advocates: . . .

Continue reading. Unfortunately, Congress is less interested in the health of children than it is in campaign contributions.

Full disclosure: The Older Grandson is considering this college—and it sounds fantastic. Watch the video and think about how the college is set up to encourage students to work together in serious study. And, clearly, it’s working. It’s a far cry from the Big-Ten-style of football-oriented universities, most of which focus on fostering competition rather than cooperation, but in the real world knowing how to work productively as a member of a team is a critical skill.

The problem is, an independent review might find the machines are unsafe (ionizing radiation, at low levels, does increase the risk of cancer, which means that of 100,000 passengers, some few will develop cancer as a result. Since the US has 50,000,000 airline passengers per year, that is a reasonable number—more, in any event, than currently are killed by terrorism in the US. Of course, some of those 50,000,000 are repeat passengers, but that just means that they get more X-rays, which raises the cancer risk higher.

So the TSA is currently killing (statistically) more Americans per year in the US than are terrorists, the vicious unfeeling thugs from whom they are protecting us. OTOH, those deaths are immensely profitable for the companies making the X-ray scanners, and you can be sure that a good portion of that money is channeled to lobbyists to ensure that our elected officials continue to support the machines.

There’s something wrong with this picture. Michael Grabell has this report in ProPublica:

The head of the Transportation Security Administration has backed off a public commitment to conduct a new independent study of X-ray body scanners used at airport security lanes around the country.

Earlier this month, a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation found that the TSA had glossed over research that the X-ray scanners could lead to a small number of cancer cases. The scanners emit low levels of ionizing radiation, which has been shown to damage DNA. In addition, several safety reviewers who initially advised the government on the scanners said they had concerns about the machines being used, as they are today, on millions of airline passengers.

At a Senate hearing after the story ran, TSA Administrator John Pistole agreed to a request by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to conduct a new independent study of the health effects of the X-ray scanners, also known as backscatters.

But at a Senate hearing of a different committee last week, Pistole said he had since received a draft report on the machines by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, or IG, that might render the independent study unnecessary.

“My strong belief is those types of machines are still completely safe,” Pistole said. “If the determination is that this IG study is not sufficient, then I will look at still yet another additional study.” . . .

Continue reading. I imagine the studies will continue until they support Pistole’s “strong belief.” But I personally am reluctant to trust Mr. Pistole’s strong beliefs, given his reluctance to authorize independent tests.

Arggh! (Pirate sounds) The surgery went well and I got this debonair souvenir eye-patch to keep. Pre surgery, I spent my time realizing how hungry/thirsty I was and working out the breakfast I was going to have: at Toasties, the little cafe in Pacific Grove: corned beef hash with two eggs over easy, sliced tomatoes, wheat toast, side of bacon, and coffee, coffee, coffee.

But before that was the surgery: I kept my trousers on but removed shoes and socks (to keep OR sterile, I imagine) and my shirt and undershirt. They hooked me up to monitor, and I was interested to see that my resting heart rate was 55 and how quickly that changed if (for example) I lifted my head or arm. I tried using it as a biofeedback device: relaxing, breathing slowly and deeply, and visualizing peaceful waters moving slowly, but could not get it below 53. Then I played with raising arm, raising head, etc. (I was a little bit bored.)

The nurse put drops in my eyes—or more accurately, the nurse PUT DROPS IN MY EYES and I thought she’d never stop: 4 different kinds of drops, wait a few minutes, 4 different kinds of drops (probably the same 4), wait a minute, 4 different kinds of drops, wait a few minutes, 4 different kinds of drops. I don’t like drops at the best of times… Finally the ophthalmologist came in and squirted some kind of gel in my eye.

Wheeled into the room, a procedure of 5-10 minutes, wheeled back, get unhooked from the monitoring devices and the IV (for hydration and also possibly in place just in case—don’t really know). Wheeled out and at Toasties by 10:00 a.m.

Man, the breakfast was even better than I expected. I was hungry.

I was given those bulky sunglasses that fit over the eyepatch, which was nice, but I could see well (though I note I’m seeing mainly through my left eye: right focus is a little wonky, with or without my current glasses—but the mind quickly works out to pay attention to images from the left eye).

I’m taking it easy today. Main things to avoid are getting water into the right eye: no swimming, no raising one’s face to the shower spray, that sort of thing. I resume my at-home drops, and some of those will continue for 6 weeks. I’ll see the doctor tomorrow.

While I cannot view the procedure as recreational, I have to admit that it was no so bad as I feared. And things do seem a little more vivid. I imagine it will settle down quickly and within a week or two I’ll be adjusted. Not sure when I’ll get new spectacles, but soon, I imagine.

Just wanted to let you know, and to offer encouragement to readers who might also face this procedure at some point: cataracts are not an unusual complaint, doubtless why the routine is so polished. I did like the way they whip patients in and out at the out-patient surgery center: that means they do lots of procedures so everyone is well practiced in the relevant skills.

More anon.

(Photo credit: The Wife, taken on iPhone at Toasties)