Brain
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Here are some stories I think are interesting. I didn't want to start too many threads.
'Miss Me Yet?' Billboard With Photo Of Bush Is Real; Not An Internet Trick
Internet chatter had led to speculation that it might be an urban myth -- nothing more than clever digital trickery spreading via the Web.
But our friend Bob Collins at Minnesota Public Radio assures us he's seen it with his own eyes:
There is a billboard along I-35 near Wyoming, Minn., with a huge photo of former president George W. Bush and this question: "Miss Me Yet?"
Now, the push is on to find out who paid to have it put up.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/02/bush_miss_me_yet_billboard_is.html
The World Capital of Killing
It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better.
But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.
What those numbers don’t capture is the way Congo has become the world capital of rape, torture and mutilation, in ways that sear survivors like Jeanne Mukuninwa, a beautiful, cheerful young woman of 19 who somehow musters the courage to giggle. Her parents disappeared in the fighting when she had just turned 14 — perhaps they were massacred, but their bodies never turned up — so she moved in with her uncle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07kristof.html
Soviet Secret City Sold for $3.1M
During the Cold War, Stalin and his successors built dozens of secret cities in the Soviet Union where thousands of people lived and worked, but did not exist on any map or gazetteer. One such town was Skrunda-1 in Latvia, which had originally been built to support radar installations. After Latvia became independent, the Russian government insisted on maintaining control of the town until 1998, when its last residents left, leaving it vacant. Now it’s been sold to a Russian investor for $3.1 million:
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/02/06/soviet-secret-city-sold-for-3-1m/
Google analyst: U.S. Internet needs to get faster
Google long has been an advocate of a single Web, one that's free of government censorship and barriers to information access.
That's not the reality in today's world however.
Governments from China to France put various roadblocks in the information superhighway to serve their interests, filter speech or protect copyrights.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/08/google.policy/index.html?hpt=C2
Dover, symbol of British sovereignty, could be sold to French to help reduce debt | Mail Online
White Cliffs of Dover to be sold to the French to help reduce Government's debt
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249194/Dover-symbol-British-sovereignty-sold-French-help-reduce-debt.html
Nurse to Stand Trial for Reporting Doctor
KERMIT, Tex. — It occurred to Anne Mitchell as she was writing the letter that she might lose her job, which is why she chose not to sign it. But it was beyond her conception that she would be indicted and threatened with 10 years in prison for doing what she knew a nurse must: inform state regulators that a doctor at her rural hospital was practicing bad medicine.
When she was fingerprinted and photographed at the jail here last June, it felt as if she had entered a parallel universe, albeit one situated in this barren scrap of West Texas oil patch.
“It was surreal,” said Mrs. Mitchell, 52, the wife of an oil field mechanic and mother of a teenage son. “I said how can this be? You can’t go to prison for doing the right thing.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/07nurses.html
7 Political Ads That Might Be Weirder Than Carly Fiorina's "Demon Sheep"
The internet gazed in wonder yesterday at the "Demon Sheep" campaign ad put out by Carly Fiorina, Republican candidate for the Senate in California. It has many brain-searing qualities: a tortured sheep metaphor (teased out with pigs, an alpha sheep that tumbles from a pedestal through a storm-ripped sky, and a guy in a sheep suit and a canvas mask with glowing red eyes), sententious chanting, and a voice-over by, it sounds like, someone from Massachusetts.
It's a humdinger. But is it the worst political ad of our time? Thanks in part to the dream-enabling power of the stupid internet, there are at least seven other candidates among current and recent political ads for that dubious title. Take a look at them and judge for yourself.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/02/7_political_ads.php
Obama courts Republican support on jobs, deficit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought common ground with Republicans on Tuesday on his top policy priorities of job creation and deficit reduction, winning hints of support in both areas but a rebuke on healthcare reform.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61835M20100209
Haiti Petitions NFL for Football Franchise After Saints' Win Resuscitates New Orleans
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - Minutes after watching the miraculous revitalization of the city of New Orleans thanks to the Saints' 31-17 upset victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV, Haitian President Rene Preval contacted the National Football League about securing a football team for his earthquake-ravaged island nation.
"If simply winning an important football contest can alleviate the socioeconomic suffering of a tragically beleaguered people, then that seems the way to go," declared Preval, referring to the abrupt turnaround experienced by the Big Easy Sunday night following the devastation of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. "It makes a whole lot more sense than enjoining Justin Timberlake to perform Leonard Cohen songs."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kronke/haiti-petitions-nfl-for-f_b_453069.html
Murtha's Death Caused By Surgical Mistake
Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) death on Monday has been reported by various news outlets as resulting from "complications following gallbladder surgery." Via Taegan Goddard, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the "complications" involved a mistake by Murtha's surgeons.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/09/murthas-death-caused-by-s_n_454861.html
Congressional Dems Blame Rahm Emanuel for Demise of Healthcare
The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
The share of the blame comes as cracks are beginning to show in Emanuel’s once-impregnable political armor. Last week he had to apologize after a report surfaced that he called liberal groups “retarded” in a private meeting.
While Emanuel has quelled that controversy by meeting with advocates for people with disabilities, on Capitol Hill he’s under fire for poor execution of the president’s healthcare agenda in the Senate.
"I think Rahm ran the play his boss called; once Obama called the play, Rahm did everything he could to pass it, scorched-earth and all that,” said a senior lawmaker, who added that Emanuel didn’t seek a broader base of Senate Republicans. “I think he did miscalculate the Senate. He did what he thought he had to do to win."
Senate Democrats grilled White House advisers last week during a special Senate Democratic retreat, expressing frustration over the lack of a clear plan.
While Sen. Al Franken (P-MN) ripped chief political strategist David Axelrod, Senate Democrats say Emanuel, who was more closely involved in managing negotiations in Congress, also deserves scrutiny.
http://www.newmediajournal.us/politics/02092010a.htm
How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt
Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit.
Greeks aren't very welcome in the Rue Alphones Weicker in Luxembourg. It's home to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. The number crunchers there are deeply annoyed with Athens. Investigative reports state that important data "cannot be confirmed" or has been requested but "not received."
Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting up government debt.Since 1999, the Maastricht rules threaten to slap hefty fines on euro member countries that exceed the budget deficit limit of three percent of gross domestic product. Total government debt mustn't exceed 60 percent.
Fictional Exchange Rates
Such transactions are part of normal government refinancing. Europe's governments obtain funds from investors around the world by issuing bonds in yen, dollar or Swiss francs. But they need euros to pay their daily bills. Years later the bonds are repaid in the original foreign denominations.
But in the Greek case the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fictional exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value of 10 billion dollars or yen. In that way Goldman Sachs secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion for the Greeks.
This credit disguised as a swap didn't show up in the Greek debt statistics. Eurostat's reporting rules don't comprehensively record transactions involving financial derivatives. "The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally through swaps," says a German derivatives dealer.
The bank declined to comment on the controversial deal. The Greek Finance Ministry did not respond to a written request for comment.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html#ref=rss
Tell 'The Nation': Voices of the Uninsured
Many stories expressed great, unshakeable fear that one medical emergency would ruin them. "I would say my wife and I are one medical emergency away from losing everything, but actually I've pretty much resigned myself in my head to the reality that if I have a medical emergency I am going to die," says a used-book seller in California.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100222/hc_forum
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