Please Help American Buddhist Teachers Stephen and Ondrea Levine

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Stephen with the Wish Flag. Click on the image to get a fair-use copy – and spread the message.  

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Support for Stephen & Ondrea Levine

An Open Letter from Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, and Sharon Salzberg

Dear Friends,

We are writing to ask your support for two beloved friends of ours, Stephen and Ondrea Levine. They are currently facing significant difficulty. After a life-time of giving, they are now at a time to receive from those of us whose lives have been touched by their presence and teaching.

Their greatest needs are financial. Ondrea has Leukemia and the costs of her insurance and treatment have used up their savings. Stephen’s health is not good either, and he is too frail to travel or teach. When we heard about this, we felt moved to contribute to a fund set up for them, and to encourage others to do the same.

Stephen and Ondrea have been among our generation’s most important teachers, demonstrating and encouraging others to embrace the power of love and generosity. For three years, they ran a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week free phone line for those dying or in need of support. When the phone bills got too high, they sold their house to keep the project going. For decades they regularly corresponded with thousands people who were seeking spiritual guidance, giving freely to those in need, many of whom were sick or in the final years of their life.

The circle has now come around, allowing us the opportunity to give to these two life-long givers. We hope to raise several hundred thousand dollars in small and large donations to help them through this time.

Caring for friends and teachers is an essential part of any spiritual life. As we age, spiritual friends are more important than ever. Stephen and Ondrea have been dear spiritual friends to us and to thousands of others through their books, workshops, and correspondence.

If you are one of these people and are moved to give, below are three ways to donate to the Levine Fund at Bread for the Journey. Bread for the Journey informs us that donations are tax deductible.

With gratitude and love, Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, and Sharon Salzberg

Mail: Send to: Bread for the Journey, 267 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, California 94941. In the letter, please enclose a note indicating that your gift is for the Stephen and Ondrea Levine Fund and in the note section of your check write “Levine Fund.” In honor of the immeasurable gifts Stephen and Ondrea have given to the family of the earth, Bread for the Journey has generously offered to manage the fund with 100% of your donation going to the Levine Fund.

Online: click here and designate the donation to the Levine Fund: http://www.justgive.org/giving…

Phone: call 415-383-4600 with a credit card number.

For questions and other means of giving, contact [email protected].

* Please feel free to post this letter on blogs or forward it to individuals or groups you know who may wish to hear news of Stephen and Ondrea.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Turkish aircraft in fresh raid in Iraq, says Kurdish official

AFP

27 minutes ago

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) – Turkish jets bombed northern Iraq on Sunday in the latest of a string of attacks on Kurdish rebels there, but caused no damage or casualties, an Iraqi Kurdish security spokesman said.

“Turkish warplanes bombed Karukh mountain north of Arbil,” said Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Kurdish militia which is responsible for security in northern Iraq.

He said the raid was carried out by three jets but “there was no damage or loss of life.”

If confirmed, it would be the fourth Turkish military operation against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the past week in northern Iraq, which Ankara says the rebels use as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

2 FBI chief Hoover proposed mass arrests in 1950: report

AFP

Sun Dec 23, 2:14 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover proposed imprisoning 12,000 Americans in 1950 and suspending their right to habeas corpus because they were “potentially dangerous,” the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Hoover, who ran the top law enforcement agency for decades, presented his plan to president Harry Truman 12 days after the start of the Korean War in a letter to a top White House national security aide, according to newly declassified documents cited by the Times.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation chief wrote that his agency would use a “master warrant” to “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security based on an index of names compiled for years.

Hoover suggested Truman justify the mass jailings “to protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage,” said the declassified letter, which was posted on the newspaper’s website.

3 Success in saving India’s Asiatic lion poses new problems

by Elizabeth Roche, AFP

Sun Dec 23, 2:18 AM ET

GIR, India (AFP) – Success in saving the rare Asiatic lion in India has in turn created new challenges to the king of the jungle in its last natural habitat, as problems with human encroachment and poaching mount.

The population of lions in the Gir forests of western Gujarat state has climbed from 20 in 1913 to more than 350 today, experts say.

“The increase in the population of lions in Gir is posing a problem,” said Daval Mehta of the Wildlife Protection Society of India in Gujarat. “The lions are dispersing to reclaim their earlier habitats which is bringing them into increasing conflict with humans.”

4 Pro-Thaksin victory puts Thai army on back foot

By Nopporn Wong-Anan, AFP

Sun Dec 23, 10:48 AM ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) – The party backing ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra easily won the most seats in Sunday’s election, a stunning rejection of the coup which booted out the telecoms billionaire in 2006.

With 93 percent of the vote counted, the People Power Party (PPP) was heading for 228 seats in the 480-member parliament and said it would form a coalition government, although analysts do not see a smooth transition in a still deeply divided country.

Abrasive PPP leader Samak Sundaravej said Thaksin had phoned from exile to congratulate him on the result, a major problem for the generals whose campaign to consign Thaksin to political oblivion via the coup and corruption charges now lies in tatters.

5 Saudi says arrests 28 al Qaeda militants

Reuters

Sun Dec 23, 6:01 AM ET

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi security forces have arrested 28 al Qaeda militants suspected of planning “criminal acts” in the kingdom, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Sunday.

The suspects were arrested in Mecca, Madina, Riyadh and in an area near the country’s northern borders, said SPA quoting an official source at the Ministry of Interior.

One of those arrested is a foreign resident while the rest are Saudi nationals, it said without giving further details. “The (public) interest requires that further details be withheld for the time being,” it said.

6 Giuliani tries to ease fears about his health

By Jeremy Pelofsky, Reuters

Sun Dec 23, 11:02 AM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, a survivor of prostate cancer, tried to allay concerns about his health on Sunday after a hospital stay he attributed to a painful headache.

His staff originally said the former New York mayor had flu-like symptoms when he ordered his plane back to St. Louis last week but he cited a “headache worse than I’ve ever had.”

Giuliani, 63, left the hospital on Thursday after an overnight stay just weeks before January 3, when Iowa begins the state-by-state nominating process to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates in the November 2008 election.

7 Huckabee angers some Catholics

By Jim Forsyth, Reuters

24 minutes ago

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Rising Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee risked his standing with Catholic voters on Sunday by courting his evangelical base at the church of a controversial preacher accused of disparaging Catholics.

There are a few remnants of anti-Catholicism among evangelical Christians in the South but the two sides have found much common political ground over the past three decades in their strident opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

But the visit to Cornerstone, pastor John Hagee’s imposing “mega-church” in the Texas city of San Antonio, was fraught with political perils for Huckabee given his efforts to woo conservative Catholics.

8 Unpaid credit cards bedevil Americans

By RACHEL KONRAD and BOB PORTERFIELD, Associated Press Writers

22 minutes ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come.

An Associated Press analysis of financial data from the country’s largest card issuers also found that the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.

Experts say these signs of the deterioration of finances of many households are partly a byproduct of the subprime mortgage crisis and could spell more trouble ahead for an already sputtering economy.

9 US: Turkey has right to defend itself

By SINAN SALHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 19 minutes ago

BAGHDAD – Turkey has the right to defend itself against Kurdish rebels based in Iraq but must make sure it does not destabilize its neighbor, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said Sunday.

Ryan Crocker made the remarks before news emerged that Turkey had bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq on Sunday – for the third time in the past week. Turkish warplanes also bombed positions held by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, on Saturday and on Dec. 16.

“We’ve been clear on this. The PKK is a terrorist organization, it has carried out a number of lethal actions in Turkey from bases in Iraq, and the Turks clearly have a right to defend their country and their people,” Crocker told reporters in Baghdad.

He made the comments as Turkish jets were bombing an area about 50 miles north of the city of Irbil near the border with Turkey for about an hour and a half.

10 Gov’t tries to contain mortgage crisis

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

51 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – After a slow and stumbling start, official Washington is scrambling to try to prevent the unfolding mortgage crisis from pushing the country into recession during an election year. There is a strong feeling, though, that the government will need to do more to avert a financial disaster.

One former Treasury secretary advocates temporary tax cuts and emergency spending on the order of $50 billion to $75 billion. Such action could help the U.S. from slipping into what Lawrence Summers, who served under President Clinton, fears could become the worst downturn since the steep 1981-82 recession.

Before it is all over, the government may have to resort to measures last used in the savings and loan crisis of the 1990s. Back then, it was a new agency to take over failing thrifts sunk by bad loans. Today, it could mean a government agency to buy up billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities that investors are shunning.

11 Paul defends asking for special projects

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul on Sunday defended his efforts in Congress to bring home money to his Texas district, despite his long-held aversion to big government and congressional votes to reign in federal spending.

“I’ve never voted for an earmark in my life,” the Texas congressman said under questioning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about reports that he has requested hundreds of millions of dollars for special projects in his home district.

“I put them in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back,” said Paul, who likened it to taking a tax credit. “I’m against the tax system, but I take all my tax credits. I want to get their money back for the people.”

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended

12 African giraffes highly endangered: study

by Bogonko Bosire, AFP

Sat Dec 22, 9:23 PM ET

NAIROBI (AFP) – Man and mother nature are threatening at least six distinct species of African giraffe, which are highly endangered and could face extinction if not protected, a study warned Saturday.

Africa’s 110,000-strong giraffe population, initially thought to be comprised of a single species found in all its savannas, has been severely fragmented by increasing aridity and a wide range of human pressures, Kenyan and US biologists said in a study.

“Severe poaching and armed conflict in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya reduced the number of reticulated giraffes from about 27,000 individuals in the 1990s to currently fewer than 3,000 individuals,” over the past decade, said the study supported by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Emailed

13 GI saves Iraqi boy in long-shot adoption

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 58 minutes ago

MAUSTON, Wis. – Capt. Scott Southworth knew he’d face violence, political strife and blistering heat when he was deployed to one of Baghdad’s most dangerous areas. But he didn’t expect Ala’a Eddeen.

Ala’a was 9 years old, strong of will but weak of body – he suffered from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds. He lived among about 20 kids with physical or mental disabilities at the Mother Teresa orphanage, under the care of nuns who preserved this small oasis in a dangerous place.

On Sept. 6, 2003, halfway through his 13-month deployment, Southworth and his military police unit paid a visit to the orphanage. They played and chatted with the children; Southworth was talking with one little girl when Ala’a dragged his body to the soldier’s side.

14 Christmas tree survives war, A-bomb

By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer

Fri Dec 21, 1:03 PM ET

TOKYO – Warren Nobuaki Iwatake’s family has seen more than its share of calamity.

When he was still a child his father was lost at sea off Hawaii. With no breadwinner, his family was forced to move to Japan, where Iwatake was drafted during the war. He lost a brother when the bomb fell on Hiroshima.

But through it all one thing has remained constant.

The tree.

His parents bought it in 1937, and his family has brought it out every Christmas since, without fail, even when that meant risking arrest.

“This tree was a shining light, because it was a symbol of unity in my family,” Iwatake said as he and his wife put the final touches on the frail, 3-foot-tall heirloom that is, once again this year, the centerpiece of their small, neatly kept apartment in Tokyo.

15 France prepares to stub out smoking in cafes

by Carole Landry, AFP

Sat Dec 22, 8:58 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) – Smokers in France are enjoying their last leisurely puffs on a cigarette over coffee or a glass of rouge before cafes, restaurants and nightclubs join a nationwide ban on smoking on January 1.

Eleven months after smoking was outlawed in workplaces, schools, hospitals and shops, the ban is extending to bars and bistrots, with some owners predicting the demise of France’s lively cafe culture.

When some of the 13.5 million French smokers return home from their New Year’s revelry, they will not be able to pop into their local cafe and light up over a cup of espresso, Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot warned last week.

From Yahoo News World

16 Autocratic Uzbek leader seeks third term

By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA, Associated Press Writer

42 minutes ago

OSH, Kyrgyzstan – Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, one of the most repressive leaders of former Soviet Union countries, sought a new term in office Sunday in an election dismissed by critics as a sham, as state television broadcasts extolled his rule.

Karimov, a former Communist Party boss who has led Uzbekistan since the 1991 Soviet collapse, faced three other candidates – but they all publicly supported his policies and were seen by critics as token opponents whose candidacies were aimed at providing a superficial veneer of competition.

“I believe people know by themselves what to vote for,” Karimov said in televised remarks after voting. “That is for the future, peace in our country, its development and prosperity.”

17 Colombia hears from a famous captive

By VIVIAN SEQUERA, Associated Press Writer

56 minutes ago

BOGOTA, Colombia – Ingrid Betancourt was smiling ear to ear. It was 1998, and she had just emerged as the biggest vote-getter in Colombia’s congressional elections.

In jeans and a T-shirt and swathed in perfume, the newly elected senator bounded into the living room of her Bogota apartment, threw her legs over the side of an armchair and faced reporters.

Betancourt cut an elegant, forceful figure. Her clean-government crusade had badly rattled bought-and-paid-for careerists in Congress. Now she was reeling off ideas for countering drug trafficking, corruption and the leftist rebel FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Nine years later, an ashen-faced, spindly-armed Betancourt barely moves her bowed head.

18 Bhutto blames gov’t for militant threat

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer

Sun Dec 23, 10:35 AM ET

LARKANA, Pakistan – Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto accused the government Sunday of failing to crush Islamic militants, days after a suicide bombing killed 56 people during prayers in a mosque.

The sharp criticism from the former prime minister came as the campaign heated up for next month’s parliamentary elections, with politicians addressing rallies around the country.

Meanwhile, a suicide bombing attack on a military convoy killed at least five civilians and one soldier in troubled northwest Pakistan, the army spokesman and police said.

Thirteen soldiers and four civilians were also wounded in the attack in the town of Mangora in Swat district, where security forces have carried out several operations against followers of a pro-Taliban radical Islamic cleric, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad told The Associated Press.

19 Opposition tipped to win close Kenya election

By Andrew Cawthorne

Sun Dec 23, 6:30 AM ET

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Two heavyweights of Kenya’s post-independence politics square off in a presidential vote on Thursday whose run-up has seen the opposition hold a small lead in opinion polls over President Mwai Kibaki.

But the closeness of the vote has raised fears fraud and intimidation may be used to try to swing the result in a nation that has enjoyed relative stability since the end of British rule in 1963 and become east Africa’s economic power-house.

It will also be a test of democratic advances in Kenya which experienced a rarity in African politics five years ago — the largely peaceful transition of power from a “Big Man” ruler to the opposition.

20 Italy PM praises troops on Afghan holiday visit

Reuters

Sun Dec 23, 10:23 AM ET

KABUL (Reuters) – Italy’s Prime Minister Romano Prodi flew to Afghanistan on Sunday for a Christmas visit with Italian troops, whom he praised for their efforts to bring peace to a country gripped by a growing insurgency.

The holiday trip came a day after the leaders of France and Australia also visited and pledged military and financial support for the fight against an insurgency led by Taliban militants.

Prodi, who held a Christmas lunch with some of the more than 2,200 Italian troops in Afghanistan, said he was moved by their sacrifice. He added that the international community was duty-bound to help Afghanistan.

21 Belgium Finally Gets a Government

By LEO CENDROWICZ/BRUSSELS, Time Magazine

Sat Dec 22, 1:10 PM ET

Perhaps it was the advent of Christmas that focused the minds of Belgium’s squabbling factions, who finally joined together Friday to form an emergency coalition government. Because there have been precious few gestures of goodwill between Belgium’s Flemish and French speakers during six months of political deadlock that seemed to tear the country apart.

Tensions have always existed between the Flemish, who account for around 60% of Belgium’s 10.5 million citizens, and the French speakers. But the stalemate since the June 10 elections appear to have frayed ties even more, with the Flemish in particular questioning why they should be subsidizing the French speakers, based mainly in the poorer, southern region of Wallonia. The bad blood even extended to the Miss Belgium contest in Antwerp last weekend: the eventual winner, AlizÉe Poulicek, is of Czech origin, but despite speaking French and English, her failure to master Dutch earned her boos from the local crowd.

22 A South American Arms Race?

By ANDREW DOWNIE/SAO PAULO, Time Magazine

Sat Dec 22, 1:10 PM ET

First it was Venezuela, spending $4 billion on Russian fighter planes, Kalashnikovs and perhaps even submarines. Then it was Brazil, in August announcing a 53% increase in its military budget for 2008, the biggest such increase in more than a decade. The competition is still in the early stages but when two of Latin America’s nouveau riche oil powers start splashing out on weapons, alarm bells ring over an arms race.

What the military build-up does, however, is give Chavez’s Venezuela added prestige in the continental battle for political supremacy. Chavez has brought together South America’s radical leftists under his socialist banner; while Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva leads a more measured coalition of social democrats. The two men are friends but both countries are getting used to being at the political and economic vanguard of South America. Military strength helps with that.

From Yahoo News U.S. News

23 Tancredo’s Single-Issue Victory

By JAY NEWTON-SMALL/CLIVE, Time Magazine

Sun Dec 23, 8:45 AM ET

Tancredo was always a self-professed one-issue candidate. And far from being disappointed at his meager poll showings, Tancredo says he achieved more in this election cycle than he dreamt possible. In part due to his cage-rattling, immigration is one of the biggest issues in the race, on both sides of the aisle.

Tancredo said he surpassed his own goals of raising awareness on the issue, “frankly to an extent that was beyond my greatest expectations… Every Republican candidate – even John McCain is now saying he was on the wrong side of the issue – has got the basics. You’ve got Rudy Giuliani running ads talking about securing the border. On the basics we’ve got ’em.”

By basics Tancredo means forcing all illegal immigrants to go home and reapply to enter the country legally if they want to return, making English the national language and denying municipal services for illegal aliens such as driver’s licenses, Social Security benefits and state-subsidized education. Huckabee has come under particular fire for backing college-level grants for the children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas. “We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did,” said Huckabee, defending his stance, in a Florida debate last month.

From Yahoo News Politics

24 Mike Huckabee another Bill Clinton?

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

Sun Dec 23, 10:53 AM ET

DAVENPORT, Iowa – To hear Mitt Romney tell it, Republican Mike Huckabee shares more with Democrat Bill Clinton than a hometown in Hope, Ark., and a stint as Arkansas governor.

Both men, Romney suggests, have left-leaning governing philosophies, particularly on taxes and spending.

“Governor Huckabee’s record is more liberal than our nation needs right now,” the former Massachusetts governor said in Iowa last week, seeking to link his GOP presidential rival to the former Democratic president who is loathed by many Republican loyalists.

25 Paper gives ‘anti-endorsement’ to Romney

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

Sun Dec 23, 11:56 AM ET

MILFORD, N.H. – The Concord Monitor broke with political tradition Sunday, telling readers in the state with the first presidential primary why they should not vote for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney instead of whom they should support.

In a scathing anti-endorsement that called Romney a “disquieting figure,” the New Hampshire newspaper’s editorial board said he looks and acts like a presidential contender but “surely must be stopped” because he lacks the core philosophical beliefs to be a trustworthy president.

In particular, the newspaper noted the former Massachusetts governor’s change of heart on such issues as abortion rights, stem-cell research and access to emergency contraception, as well as on signing an anti-tax pledge.

26 Huckabee stands by Christmas campaign ad

By ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press Writer

57 minutes ago

SAN ANTONIO – Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee made no apologies Sunday for the religious tone of a recent holiday campaign commercial and said it is important to look for Jesus at this time of year.

“You can find Santa at every mall. You can find discounts in every store,” Huckabee said from the pulpit of Cornerstone Church. “But if you mention the name of Jesus, as I found out recently, it upsets the whole world. Forgive me, but I thought that was the point of the whole day.”

Huckabee was referring the ad airing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that shows him in a red sweater in front of a Christmas tree as he asks, “Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you’ve been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don’t blame you. At this time of year sometimes it’s nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends.”

From Yahoo News Business

27 Post, Cincinnati prepare for end of era

By DAN SEWELL, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 20 minutes ago

CINCINNATI – A lively and influential voice in the Cincinnati region for more than a century already is a ghost of its former self, as the final deadline looms for The Post.

Daily circulation less than a tenth of its peak numbers, newsroom staff less than a third of its former size, the afternoon newspaper that once dispatched reporters to cover Hurricane Andrew’s devastation in Florida, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the collapse of the Soviet Union now struggles to cover the city and northern Kentucky communities it helped change.

With The Cincinnati Post and its sister Kentucky Post set to close Dec. 31, the some 50 remaining employees carry out their usual work while also deciding what to toss and what to take. Stacks of packing boxes grow.

28 Northern Rock board eyes internal rescue: report

Reuters

Sun Dec 23, 10:14 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) – The board of Northern Rock is considering mounting a rescue plan to save the ailing British bank from nationalisation or takeover, the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper said Northern Rock was seeking to hire new top talent to strengthen its management team and hoped this would help it secure a financing deal that would allow it continue as a stand alone entity.

The bank is seeking a rescuer after it became Britain’s most high profile casualty of this year’s global credit crisis.

29 Iran, Italy’s Edison close to gas deal: minister

AFP

24 minutes ago

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran and Italian power company Edison are nearing agreement on a deal to pump more than a billion cubic feet of Iranian gas to Europe per day, the Iranian oil minister said on Sunday.

“We have almost finalised our negotiations with the Italian company Edison,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told state television.

The United States and its allies have been pressing European firms to cut down their business with Iran in order to step up pressure against the Islamic republic over its controversial nuclear programme.

30 German government party seizes on minimum wage issue

by Deborah Cole, AFP

Sun Dec 23, 12:01 PM ET

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany’s ailing Social Democrats, partners in the ruling coalition, said Sunday they would put their call for a national minimum wage at the heart of their campaign in key state polls early next year.

The head of the SPD’s parliamentary group, Peter Struck, told the weekend press that the party would harness the strong public backing for a minimum hourly wage of 7.50 euros (10.77 dollars) in the three regional races.

“We will start petition drives during the state elections next year. Then the voters will have their say,” Struck told Berlin’s mass-market BZ am Sonntag.

From Yahoo News Science

31 Months after mummy claim, DNA still lags

By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

Sat Dec 22, 12:55 PM ET

CAIRO, Egypt – Months after Egypt boldly announced that archaeologists had identified a mummy as the most powerful queen of her time, scientists in a museum basement are still analyzing DNA from the bald, 3,500-year-old corpse to try to back up the claim aired on TV.

Progress is slow. So far, results indicate the linen-wrapped mummy is most likely, but not conclusively, the female pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled for 20 years in the 15th century B.C.

Running its own ancient-DNA lab is a major step forward for Egypt, which for decades has seen foreigners take most of the credit for major discoveries here.

32 China raises 800-year-old sunken ship

Associated Press

Fri Dec 21, 11:12 PM ET

BEIJING – After 800 years at the bottom of the sea, a merchant ship loaded with porcelain and other rare antiques was raised to the surface Friday in a specially built basket, a state news agency reported.

The Nanhai No. 1, which means “South China Sea No. 1,” sank off the south China coast with some 60,000 to 80,000 items on board, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Wu Jiancheng, head of the excavation project.

Archaeologists built a steel basket around the 100-foot vessel, and it took about two hours for a crane to lift the ship and surrounding silt to the surface, Xinhua said. The basket was as large as a basketball court and as tall as a three-story building.

33 Japan halts humpback hunt

By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer

Sat Dec 22, 1:02 AM ET

TOKYO – Humpback whales are safe – at least for now.

Giving in to U.S. pressure and worldwide criticism, Japan’s government on Friday announced a whaling fleet now in the Southern Ocean for its annual hunt will not kill the threatened species as originally planned. The fleet will, however, kill some 935 minke whales, a smaller, more plentiful species, and 50 fin whales.

Japan dispatched its whaling fleet last month to the southern Pacific off Antarctica in the first major hunt of humpback whales since the 1960s. Commercial hunts of humpbacks have been banned worldwide since 1966, and commercial whaling overall since 1986.

34 NASA conflict delays Mars probe

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

Fri Dec 21, 6:19 PM ET

WASHINGTON – NASA will wait two years longer than planned and spend another $40 million to launch a half-billion-dollar probe to Mars because of an unspecified conflict of interest in the purchasing process, officials said Friday.

The Mars Scout program had scheduled a 2011 launch of the $475 million Mars atmospheric probe and was going to choose proposals for the mission from two research firms – one in Colorado and the other in Texas.

But a “serious” conflict of interest in one of the proposals forced NASA to disband the board formed to pick the proposal, officials said, declining to elaborate. The agency created an entirely new panel, and that caused a delay in awarding the contract, Mars Exploration Program Director Doug McCuistion said.

35 Asteroid may hit Mars in next month

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer

Fri Dec 21, 5:34 PM ET

LOS ANGELES – Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.

“These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track … threatening asteroids,” said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.

36 Chinese police dog may teach pandas to fight

Reuters

Sat Dec 22, 3:28 AM ET

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Scientists in China may use a police dog to teach pandas to fight after the first artificially bred panda released into the wild was apparently killed after a battle with other animals, local media reported on Saturday.

The Wolong giant panda breeding centre plans to have four pandas raised in captivity live with a specially trained police dog or other animals, the Chengdu Daily quoted reserve officials as saying. The officials could not be reached for comment.

The pandas would learn how to protect themselves by observing the dog, increasing their chances of survival when they were eventually released into the mountainous wilds of the far western province of Sichuan.

37 FBI aims for world’s largest biometrics database

Reuters

Sat Dec 22, 5:20 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion project to build the world’s largest computer database of biometrics to give the government more ways to identify people at home and abroad, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The FBI has already started compiling digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns in its systems, the paper said.

In January, the agency — which focuses on violations of federal law, espionage by foreigners and terrorist activities — expects to award a 10-year contract to expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives, it said.

At an employer’s request, the FBI will also retain the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks, the paper said.

38 Russian rocket delivers Christmas presents to space station

AFP

Sun Dec 23, 3:29 AM ET

MOSCOW (AFP) – A Russian Progress spacecraft blasted off Sunday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan delivering vital supplies, as well as presents and goodies for Christmas and New Year’s, to the International Space Station.

The Progress M-62 carried by a Soyuz rocket took off at 0712 GMT, a spokesman for ground control outside Moscow told AFP.

Packed with fuel, food, oxygen and technical gear, the craft successfully entered orbit and began the three-day journey to the permanently manned ISS, with an estimated docking time of 0826 GMT on Wednesday, ground control said in a statement.

39 Chinese police probe slaughter of rare Siberian tiger

AFP

Sun Dec 23, 1:11 AM ET

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese police have launched an investigation into the illegal slaughter of a rare Siberian tiger at a reserve in central China, state press reported Sunday.

The six year old female tiger was found skinned with its head and the lower part of its legs cut off at the knee in a wildlife zoo in China’s Hubei province, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the report, the locks to the tiger cage were smashed and four home-made anaesthetic rifles were found nearby.

40 Russian Trash Ship Casts Off from Space Station

Tariq Malik, Staff Writer SPACE.com

Sat Dec 22, 11:46 AM ET

An unmanned Russian cargo ship packed with trash cast off from the International Space Station (ISS) late Friday to make room for fresh delivery due at the orbital lab next week.

The automated space freighter Progress 26 departed its berth at the station’s Russian-built Pirs docking port at about 10:59 p.m. EST (0359 GMT), freeing up a parking spot for a new ship to dock early Wednesday.

Russian flight controllers are slated to use the disposable Progress 26 supply ship for a series of orbital experiments before sending it plummeting toward Earth to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

41 What Was Ailing Tiny Tim?

Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

41 minutes ago

Ebenezer Scrooge may be the most memorable character from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” with his “Bah, humbug!” and stingy ways. But medical sleuths are more interested in the book’s biggest unanswered question: What exactly was wrong with Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit’s sickly son?

Online detectives have been debating this question for years, using clues taken from the book to form possible diagnoses.

Internist Dr. Daniel J. Glunk, president-elect of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, has examined all of these theories and determined that many seem to have merit in identifying Tiny Tim’s ailment.

Ramón, Our Nigerian Dwarf Buck Extraordinaire

(10 pm – promoted by ek hornbeck)

One aspect of life that gives me hope is the strong effect places, events, animals and people can have on us human beings. I became particularly aware of this phenomenon 13 years ago when I started practicing a Raja Yogic meditation system simultaneously with beginning work as a counselor at a treatment center for children who had committed sexual offenses.

Crossposted at Pockets of the Future  

crossposted at dkos

For almost two years my weeks consisted of pretty much the same experience. I went to the physically, emotionally and spiritually draining prison-like atmosphere of the treatment center four days a week where I was surrounded by people filled with despair, anger, hatred and bitterness. By the end of the four days, my tank was on empty and my attitude and my view of the world were both negative. Then for the next three days I dove into my spiritual practice and spent time surrounded by people who radiated the higher qualities of spirituality. Through this and through having the time to focus on my own inner connection to the divine within, I became recharged. This accidental see-saw experiment vividly revealed to me how much we can pull each other up and down. With the world being in an increasingly negative phase these days, we can remain hopeful with the knowledge that eventually there will be people who can pull it back up.

Our current leadership, media, internet, radio and television programming as well as corporate advertising and attitudes have us hemorrhaging character and goodwill. It is easy to find fights to get into and insults to hurl in such an atmosphere. It is not so easy, however, to find people who draw our higher qualities out of us and inspire us and pull us up. It is imperative, therefore, that we draw to us as best we can people, places, ideas and events that actually raise our spirits and contribute to our collective upward movement on a spiritual path.

On our homestead this principle even extends to the animals that come to us and to the plant life that we develop. When we consider bringing in a new animal, we of course look at qualities like conformation, breeding, milk production and the various other qualities the animal possesses. But the deciding factor for us is always comes from our sense of what kind of vibratory field the animal gives off. We look for an evolving animal that wants human contact. We want curious animals that are eager to learn and grow. We want animals that can live in symbiosis with the existing atmosphere and personalities already here on the homestead.

The first livestock we purchased years ago was our Nigerian Dwarf goats, a mother and her two does. They ended up being delivered to us in the middle of the night by folks who couldn’t quite find their way around. The people who sold them to us were nice but we eventually figured out that they were culling from a larger herd of somewhat ordinary goats that were somewhat neglected and under socialized. We did not know much about purchasing livestock at the time, nor did we know about any developments that would be particular to our new goats. With time we began to perceive stubbornness in the mother goat, for instance, and a sort of coarseness. Later we encountered other Nigerian Dwarf goats that just seemed more conscious and evolved than the goats in our little herd. Plus as our homestead began to fill up with other animals, we found our goats to be lacking a little bit comparatively. They didn’t quite fit in. This coupled with the fact that our new homestead has pasture and not much to browse on meant that our goats really didn’t fit in. We started talking about selling them and starting over with higher quality goats sometime in the future.

However, about a month and half ago we visited an alpaca farm that also turned out to have some Nigerian Dwarf goats on it. These goats were not only registered and but actual descendants from the original herd brought to the States some years ago. Every goat had such a nice energy and personality. We really liked them. Leslie and I began talking again about the possibility of selling off our herd and purchasing a couple of bred does from this farm.

Then we met their Ramón. Ramón was a six month old buck with a golden color and a sweet disposition. We all immediately felt a connection to him. As soon as he walked up to us from within his pen of other eligible males, we all burst into smiles. He had been bottle fed and so thoroughly socialized that he was very affectionate and sought out human companionship. We bought him a couple of weeks later and brought him home to mate with our does. Since that time he has completely transformed our goat herd as our does are now friendly and just plain out better.

Ramón has made his corner of our homestead a happy place. For me he is one of the many beings in my life that brings a smile to my face and a warm feeling to my heart when I see him. He still makes us all laugh.

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Christmas Songs II



Eartha Kitt:  Santa Baby



The Waitresses:  Christmas Wrapping



Harry Simeone Chorale:  Little Drummer Boy



Mel Torme:  The Christmas Song

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

I Should Not Have Told The Secret Police My Father Was A Cao Boi

Cao boi (pronounced “cowboy”) had a different meaning to Vietnamese than Americans though both got their “knowledge” from a flim (movie). Since my father lived in the land of Hoa Thinh Don (Washington) and Hollywood [a Vietnamese map I had from the time gave both equal prominence] it didn’t affect him but it did me.  I was never invited back.

A major I worked for at the time seemed to really love those guys.  After all they were on the same side as us unlike the CIA, which seemed to be on its own side and, in any case, we recognized the CIA as a clumsy, ignorant and impotent enemy.  Another major wasn’t quite so fond of the Vietnamese secret police.  He had been discomfited by the screams of a man being “beaten with electricity,” skills learned from the French with tools left by the French Foreign Legion.  The secret police accommodated that sissy American by moving the interrogations to the other side of the compound.  Later that great American hero, JFK, got us to adopt the methods of the French with a vengeance.

I really never thought at the time of my own innocence that Americans would ever be choosing up sides on the issue of torture.  JFK didn’t brag about it so much when his Special Forces entered the arena and there were no pictures.

Live and learn I guess.

Some learning is not so good.

Best,  Terry

Quick Bites




Y’amal (flickr Creative Commons)

A roundup of tasty items that caught my eye the past few days.  


  • Global Orgasm Day h/t Unqualified Offerings

    The Second Annual Global Orgasm for Peace was yesterday, December 22, at 06:08 Universal Time (GMT).   Did you feel the earth move?  

    The world is full of men with axes to grind and weapons to fire in displays of their superiority over others. It is time to spare the planet from Alpha Male concepts of ‘progress’, ‘growth’ and Manifest Destiny, which are endangering all of us. True partnership between the Masculine and Feminine that is within all women and men may enable our species to survive in relative harmony. The Global Orgasm for Peace is one attempt to begin that process.





  • from Daily Kos, updated Gilbert & Sullivan – I am the Very Model of a Bush Attorney General by Briseadh na Faire.  Bloody brilliant.  First verse below, go sing the rest.  

    I am the very model of a Bush attorney general

    I prosecute all Democrats with charges quite ephemeral

    I know the things I say are legal metaphorical

    With logic that defies Supreme Court rulings quite historical.





  • Tbogg, now at Firedoglake, has fun with Romney’s idiotic statements in I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…but only in a figurative sense

    Mitt explains the MLK march hallucination. Dude, we told you to stay away from the brown LSD…not LDS.

    “The reference of seeing my father lead in civil rights,” he said, “and seeing my father march with Martin Luther King is in the sense of this figurative awareness of and recognition of his leadership.”

    “I’ve tried to be as accurate as I can be,” he continued, smiling firmly. “If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term ‘saw’ includes being aware of — in the sense I’ve described.”

    The questioning did not relent. “I’m an English literature major,” he insisted at one point. “When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn’t necessarily mean you were there.” (He meant the Super Bowl, of course.)

    (via msnbc)



    btw, Firedoglake got a radical makeover a couple weeks ago. I hadn’t been there in a while so I was kind of surprised.   Not sure I like it yet but the banner is nice.   emptywheel is part of the blog too.  





  • via Neatorama, The Galactically Hot Women of Star Trek.  Click the pic for more space chicks.  Some of the comments on flickr are pretty funny.  






    Poletti flickr photo set



The Next Economic Revolution: Economic Growth and the Steady State

Crossposted from The European Tribune to Docudharma …

… because the world can’t end today, its already tomorrow on Docudharma.

 

 Early this month I finished Justinian’s Flea, which looks at the reign of Justinian the Great as the pivot between “late antiquity” and the rise of medieval Europe … and the central role in the drama played by the Plague of Justinian, the first clearly documented outbreak of the Bubonic Plague.

Which was one more addition to the mix of things involved in my reaction (s) to the diary [NB. at the European Tribune] by Jerome a Paris, Hostility to the notion of limits to growth … and the question of what was so special about the Industrial Revolution.

I’ll start with what is normal, then with what has been peculiar in the past couple of hundred years, and then how that peculiarity must have warped our economic institutions … and to get back to normality, we will have to unwarp them.

OK, “tell them what you are going to tell them”. Check. Make it clear as mud. Check. “then tell them”. That’s after the fold.

Normal Economic Growth

Economic growth is normal. We have been experiencing economic growth since before we started writing about it … given that the first writing seems to have been accounting for things in the Big Man’s storehouse, and a recipe for beer, both of them early fruits of economic growth.

Indeed, at the time of Justinian, according to William Rosen in Justinian’s Flea, about half the global human population were located within the conventional boundaries of the Chinese and Roman empires. It did not start out that way … it got to be that way via economic growth.

The revolution in trade from luxuries to staples that saw Egypt emerge as the granary for Roman cities was positive sum economic growth … it was, indeed, positive sum in precisely the Ricardian comparative advantage sense. So, too, the trade in staples in China, especially along the Grand Canal that connected the North with the South, begun in 486BCE and completed in 610CE, finally connecting with … and therefore interconnecting … the five major rivers of the Haihe, Huanghe (the Yellow River), Huaihe, Changjiang (the Yangtze) and Qiantangjiang.

After the cold spell that allowed the Bubonic plague to climb down from the upper Nile River Valley to the Mediterranean world, that reliance on rapid transport across the Med turned from a blessing into a curse … and undermining Justinian the Great’s reconquests of North Africa, Iberia and Italy (as recounted in Justinian’s Flea) …

… but then after the collapse of that system emerged the North Atlantic economy built on the heavy horse-drawn moldboard plough and the three-field system, and the growth that followed from that was positive sum growth as well.

Indeed, the most extensive Empire in the Americas prior to our Age of Plagues, the Inca Empire, was founded on Ricardian comparative advantage trade in staples … but because of the extreme range of altitudes as you pass from the western coast of South America into the Andes, this trade between the coastal lowlands and the Andean highlands could ride on the back of pack animals, with the Imperial North-South road acting primarily as the Empire’s information super-highway.


Waves of Normal Economic Growth

Economic growth normally proceeds in waves, as we learn how to do things better, and then put that into practice.

The learning how to do things better … that is the continuous, ongoing process of invention, and its not what goes in waves. Its the putting inventions into practice … that is, innovation … that’s what goes in waves.

And “Economic Revolutions”? Well, innovations come in waves, and those waves of innovations themselves come in waves of bigger innovation waves separated by less dramatic innovation waves. If you want to label the biggest wave of innovations in a particular period a Revolution, then if you look around, you will find others just as dramatic.

This much is historical observation. So, taking the Industrial Revolution, for example, it was preceded in the modern period … that is, since the Europeans stumbled on mountains of silver in the New World and were able to buy their way into the lucrative carrying trade of richer East Asia … by Mercantile and Agricultural revolutions that share a role in laying the foundation for modern technology.

Now, certainly it is likely to have felt “especially Revolutionary” inside England, since that was the wave of innovations that led to the reversal of the balance of trade between the Indian subcontinent and the European subcontinent, which was, in turn, the foundation for the establishment of the Raj. After all, the armies and munitions that England used to conquer India primarily originated inside India … the power that came from England was its superior financial clout.

However, with respect to our current limits of growth, what is critical about the changes in institutional structures associated with the Industrial Revolution and later fossil fuel waves of innovation is the way that we have become dependent upon regular, annual economic growth.


Steady State Growth Versus Extensive Growth

That is, what was so distinctive about the Industrial Revolution, as opposed to the Mercantile and Agricultural revolutions (and etc.) that came most immediately before it, was not the economic growth, but the increased reliance on fossil fuels.

Technological growth, resulting from more efficient use of given material inputs by a given population, necessarily involves innovation, and so inherits the wavelike character of innovation.

Extensive growth, by contrast, requires either expansion into “virgin” territory … to get more economic activity from more people in the economy … or finding a way to acquire more material input per person.

Having lived for a decade in Australia, where the legal fiction of Terra Nullis had recently been overturned by the high court as a patent absurdity, I hasten to add that “virgin” territory here means a territory where a more productive technology is not yet in use … we basically filled up the world with bands of hunter-gatherers before being forced into the more arduous work of farming, and the last human entry into a big chunk of truly uninhabited territory seems to have been the Polynesian colonization of New Zealand, during the late medieval period of Peninsular Far West Asia (or “Europe” for short).

The material “Revolution” of the Industrial Revolution and succeeding big waves of innovation has been to shift the focus of extensive growth away from expansion into new terrain and toward the plundering of the stored up energy of fossil fuels.


This permits economic growth without improved material efficiency. It also permits economic growth without the continuous necessity of conquest. Therefore, it allows economic growth to proceed on a regular annual basis, except for the occasional recessions … provided that it is possible to acquire an every increasing material input per person, and possible to generate the effective demand for the newly produced products.


The Two Requisites for Extensive Material Growth

At one time, conventional wisdom took both requisites for ongoing extensive growth for granted … but as a result of the Great Depression, our societies learned that effective demand could not be taken for granted (of course, some individuals understood that previously, but there is a big difference between a conclusion of individual analysis and having that knowledge sink into the structure of social institutions).

Now, we are entering a period when as societies we will discover that the material input requisite can’t be taken for granted either.

However, while the macro level models of economic growth used by traditional marginalist economists focus primarily on material extensive growth, and the micro level models of economic growth used by traditional marginalist economists focus on the static gains available from exploiting un-tapped comparative advantages … that tells us more about the limitations of traditional marginalist economics than it tells us about economic growth in the steady state.

In an ecologically sustainable steady state, we can still gain economic growth without additions in material inputs via technological progress. An ecologically sustainable steady state therefore does not imply an absence of economic growth.

However, we cannot depend upon ongoing, annual growth … since pure technological progress requires innovation, and innovation proceeds in waves. We will have to work out way to a set of economic institutions that is compatible with zero-growth, and at the same time is able to accommodate economic growth.

Which is where we arrive at the central issue of economic justice. A central myth used by the wealthy to attempt to legitimize concentration of wealth in democratic industrial societies is that it leads to every more stuff, so that ever more crumbs will fall from the tables of the wealthy to be gobbled up by the rest of us.

This is not a politically stable legitimization in an ecologically sustainable steady state economy. What will be required for political stability during the periods of economic stability between waves of substantial economic growth? What will be required is a common folkview that the current division of what we have is fair, and that the division of the gains of economic growth, when they do show up, will also be fair.

UPDATE: This can be seen as an extension of the Long Emergency series:

Is It As Hopeless As ‘The Long Emergency’ Says It Is?

Peak Oil and the Fall of Suburbia

 

Blog Voices go MTV – 12/23/07

Will young people in this country engage in the political change process? They will if Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican and Kyle at Citizen Orange have anything to say about it.

These two powerhouse voices of the diversosphere have been chosen by MTV to be part of the Street Team ’08 that inlcudes 51 young vloggers who will cover the presidential election through next November.

The presidential candidates can run, but it will be hard for them to hide from the horde of citizen journalists tapped by MTV’s Choose or Lose ’08 to cover the race for the White House. A group of 51 youth reporters – one from each state and Washington, D.C. – will follow the 2008 elections and deliver weekly multimedia reports tailored for mobile devices.

Using short-form videos, blogs, animation, photos and podcasts, the reports will be distributed through MTV Mobile, Think.MTV.com, more than 1,800 sites in The Associated Press’ Online Video Network and a soon-to-launch Wireless Application Protocol site. The Street Team ’08 reporters were carefully selected after an extensive nationwide search, and they represent every aspect of today’s youth audience – from seasoned student-newspaper journalists to documentary filmmakers, the children of once-illegal immigrants and community organizers.

They are conservative and liberal, from big cities and small towns, but all are tied together through a passion for politics and a yearning to make the youth voice heard during this pivotal election. The correspondents will begin reporting early next month after an intensive MTV News orientation in New York, during which they’ll be armed with laptops, video cameras and cell phones and challenged to uncover the untold political stories that matter most to young people in their respective states.

As Kyle points out in his post, this story has already been picked up by The Guardian, The Associated Press, and Fox.

Here are the videos from these guys that got them this gig. First of all, Nezua’s introduction – I just LOVE this one!!!

The more serious part of Nezua comes through in this issue video he submitted as a finalist:

Here’s Kyle’s submission – he who is “Mr. Punk Jingle With a Message.”

As exciting as all this is, these two are being their own transparent and honest selves in putting their concerns about this out there for all of us to see. Nezua worries that Viacom, owner of MTV, may try to influence his content.

At this point, it is only fair to add that while it is very thrilling that I am getting paid to do my art/filmmaking/documenting/reporting, I am getting paid to do this by Viacom. So let that stand for the record, and tho I will not recuse myself from blogging/vlogging on any issue whatsoever, it must be remembered that on certain issues there is bound to be some conflict as I would rather not lose my platform and weekly check. But again, you can count on me to have the same bias toward telling the truth that I do my best to engage, and have, since this blog’s conception. We’ll talk more after the onslaught of legal orientation that (I am guessing) awaits me in Manhattan. If anyone tries to curtail too much what I feel is important to talk about, it may be a shorter gig than expected. Watch this page.

And Kyle is worried about being a “scab” because MTV freelance reporters are striking due to reductions in benefits.

But I think Kyle sums up the importance of this task beautifully with this:

More importantly, though, this is about putting power in the hands of youth and giving them a voice. I know of so many inspiring young people that are wasting away their lives by putting off change until tomorrow. A common perception that I often butted heads against at Harvard was the idea that you had to build power before you could make significant change. In other words, a lot of young people postpone using the best years of their lives for change to become prominent academics, lawyers, doctors, politicians, or business leaders. Before long, the reality of a family, bills to pay, and favors owed stifles any chance that they have at real change. Some of them will bankroll the revolution, but the world is short on revolutionaries.

This tone might be too extreme for some, but the type of revolution I’m talking about certainly isn’t extreme. I’m talking about the revolution that each new generation brings. A generational revolution is not about dogmatic choices like the choices between being radical or reactionary, Republican or Democrat, a meat-eater or a vegetarian. A generational revolution is simply about each young person striving to be themselves. If every young person is able to follow their hearts and develop to their fullest potential, I can’t imagine that utopia is too far off.

Go out there and start the revolution guys!! Just like a young man named John did about 30 years ago.

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Christmas Songs I



Bobby Helms:  Jingle Bell Rock

Some of us were tortured with the following in our youth.  It is wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is the waste of electricity.



Yogi Yorgeson:  Yingle Bells

The next one was recorded when the artist was 14…and I was 10.



Brenda Lee:  Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree

You may need to boost the sound for this one.



John Denver and the Muppets:  The Twelve Days of Christmas

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

Docudharma Times Sunday Dec.23

This is an Open Thread: Read Then Go Shopping

Republicans opt for new worldview: McCain,Obama gain in N.H. poll: Democrats Make Bush School Act an Election Issue: In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict: 10 Years Later, Chiapas Massacre Still Haunts Mexico: Stakes High For U.S. and Argentina in Cash Scandal

USA

Republicans opt for new worldview

The candidates try to distance themselves from the president’s foreign policies but try to not alienate Bush loyalists.

WASHINGTON — Last week, after Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee criticized the Bush administration for an “arrogant bunker mentality” toward the world, rival Mitt Romney rose to George W. Bush’s defense. “Mike Huckabee owes the president an apology,” Romney said.

But Romney too has criticized the Bush administration, saying the occupation of Iraq was “underplanned, understaffed [and] under-managed,” resulting in “a mess.”

Other GOP candidates have also found things to dislike in Bush’s foreign policy: Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has dismissed the president’s campaign for democracy in the Muslim world as naive and opposed his drive to establish a Palestinian state. Sen. John McCain of Arizona thinks Bush hasn’t sent enough troops to Iraq and has been too easy on Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

McCain closing gap with Romney

In N.H. poll, Obama inches ahead of Clinton

Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was all but dead this summer, has made a dramatic recovery in the Granite State 2 1/2 weeks before the 2008 vote, pulling within 3 percentage points of front-runner Mitt Romney, a new Boston Globe poll indicates.

McCain, the darling of New Hampshire voters in the 2000 primary, has the support of 25 percent of likely Republican voters, compared with 28 percent for Romney. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has slid into third place, with 14 percent. A Globe poll of New Hampshire voters last month had Romney at 32 percent, Giuliani at 20 percent, and McCain at 17 percent.

Among Democratic voters, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has opened up a narrow lead over Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, 30 percent to 28 percent. That, too, represents a major shift from last month’s Globe poll, which had Clinton with a 14-point advantage. Former senator John Edwards of North Carolina remained a steady third at 14 percent.

Democrats Make Bush School Act an Election Issue

WASHINGTON – Teachers cheered Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton when she stepped before them last month at an elementary school in Waterloo, Iowa, and said she would “end” the No Child Left Behind Act because it was “just not working.”

Mrs. Clinton is not the only presidential candidate who has found attacking the act, President Bush’s signature education law, to be a crowd pleaser – all the Democrats have taken pokes. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has said he wants to “scrap” the law. Senator Barack Obama has called for a “fundamental” overhaul. And John Edwards criticizes the law as emphasizing testing over teaching. “You don’t make a hog fatter by weighing it,” he said recently while campaigning in Iowa.

Middle East

In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict

BAGHDAD – The thin teenage boy rushed up to the patrol of American soldiers walking through Dora, a shrapnel-scarred neighborhood of the capital, and lifted his shirt to show them a mass of red welts across his back.

He said he was a member of a local Sunni “Awakening” group, paid by the American military to patrol the district, but he said it was another Awakening group that beat him. “They took me while I was working,” he said, “and broke my badge and said, ‘You are from Al Qaeda.'”

The soldiers were unsure of what to do. The Awakening groups in just their area of southern Baghdad could not seem to get along: they fought over turf and, it turned out in this case, one group had warned the other that its members should not pay rent to Shiite “dogs.”

Israel confirms settlement plans

Israel plans to build 740 new homes in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, a minister said, despite its commitment to freeze all settlement activity.

Rafi Eitan, minister for Jerusalem affairs, said Israel had never promised to stop building within Jerusalem and had a duty to house its citizens.

It is budgeting to build 500 new homes in Har Homa and 240 in Maaleh Adumim.

A Palestinian spokesman condemned the plans, accusing Israel of seeking to destroy the Annapolis peace process.

Latin America

10 Years Later, Chiapas Massacre Still Haunts Mexico

ACTEAL, Mexico – It was 10 years ago that gunmen crept down the hillside into the center of this impoverished Indian village in Chiapas State. By the time they fled hours later, the attackers had littered the ground with bullet casings and killed 45 innocent people, including 21 women and 15 children.

Since the Acteal massacre, on Dec. 22, 1997, dozens of people have been arrested and convicted. But the case remains as foggy as the community, which is so high in the hills that clouds sometimes linger at ground level and the lush vegetation can disappear into the haze.

Then-President Ernesto Zedillo, reacting to international outrage over the killings, ordered an aggressive investigation. What prosecutors found was ugly: While local government officials and police officers had not wielded the weapons that day, they had allowed the slaughter to occur and tampered with the crime scene afterward.

Stakes High For U.S. and Argentina in Cash Scandal

BUENOS AIRES — The twisted mystery of an $800,000 suitcase confiscated in Argentina has kicked up so much dirt that almost everyone who gets near it — even if clean — is accused of being filthy.

Businessman Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, who holds U.S. and Venezuelan passports, was stopped at an airport here in August with a suitcase full of undeclared cash. His visit raised immediate suspicions.

Is Antonini a bagman used by the government of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez to deliver illegal political money to the candidate who would become Argentina’s president, as a federal grand jury in Florida charged last week? Or is the United States using the Florida resident to meddle in the affairs of the region, as many here have argued?

Africa

South Africa’s Zuma to look into inflation targeting

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Jacob Zuma, the newly elected leader of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) said on Sunday that he would look at inflation targeting, a key monetary policy tool used by the Central Bank to reign in inflation.

South Africa adopted the policy in 2000 as a framework through which the central bank estimates, and makes public, a “target” inflation rate then aims to steer actual inflation towards the target by increasing or decreasing rates.

“Clearly, our main method of inflation targeting, which is hiking the interest rate, has resulted in complaints from both the top end of the financial spectrum as well as the bottom end,” The Sunday Independent newspaper reported Zuma saying.

Ghana uses flame-throwers to clear slum for football

THE sound of bulldozers tearing down his neighbours’ homes abruptly woke Ibrahim Addalah, a schoolteacher, just after dawn broke. Behind the earth-movers marched a platoon of 200 policemen and soldiers, brandishing flame-throwers and machine-guns, ordering residents to leave their homes immediately.

They had come to clear his house, a corrugated iron shack in a shanty town he shared with 15,000 migrant workers, just outside a new football stadium that will host matches in the African Cup of Nations next month.

The teeming slum was being swept away to spare fans and visiting stars, including Premier League players such as Didier Drogba of Chelsea and Kolo Touré of Arsenal, the sight of grinding poverty on their way to the giant Baba Yara stadium.

“The bulldozers got bogged down in the mud and there were so many houses they couldn’t reach them all, so the military set fire to the whole slum,” Addalah said last week

Asia

India’s Hindu nationalists ‘win’ Gujarat poll: reports

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Controversial Hindu nationalist party leader Narendra Modi swept back to power in India’s religiously divided Gujarat state Sunday in what was called a national victory over the rival Congress party.

The Congress loss in the Hindu nationalist bastion, though widely expected, was its fourth setback in regional polls this year for the party which governs nationally and raised questions about its federal poll prospects in 2009.

Vote counting following a two-phase election earlier this month showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead in about 117 districts, giving it a clear majority in the 182-seat legislature, according to partial information on the website of India’s Election Commission and television forecasts.

The Congress Party is expected to take about 60 seats, and conceded three hours into the counting.

A senior BJP leader said the win was a turning point for his party, which lost federal power in 2004.

Tsunami? We call it the Golden Wave

Three Christmases ago, a tidal wave devastated the Sri Lankan coast and the people who lived by it. Today, villages, hospitals and schools have been rebuilt better than before, and the tsunami is even hailed as a blessing

By Stephen Brenkley in Galle, Sri Lanka,and Nina Lakhani

On Boxing Day 2004, Keerthi Karunanawyake had gone to his work as a motorised rickshaw driver, leaving his family at home. “Vajira [his wife] and her sister saw the sea was behaving strangely,” he says. “When it came closer, they all decided to run. They were able to climb on to rooftops, but my mother was too old to do that. We found her body many hours later.”

Three years on, Vajira has recovered from the serious injuries she suffered when a wall fell on her, but she, Keerthi and their three children are still living in two rooms, three miles inland from Galle. They have to pay 4,500 rupees (£21) a month in rent, and cannot afford to replace many of their belongings. Even though they own a house, in an idyllic setting between the beach and Galle’s town centre, it will remain uninhabitable until Keerthi can find enough money to finish rebuilding it.

The cricket Test between England and Sri Lanka which ended in a draw yesterday was the first to be played in Galle since the tsunami, and has been taken as a symbol of the town’s revival. According to government figures, 98 per cent of the 15,000 homes either destroyed or damaged around Galle have been replaced. But Keerthi and his family fell foul of a new regulation that banned building within 100 metres of the sea. It was rescinded too late to help the rickshaw driver.”There were people around after the disaster who could have helped me rebuild my house, but they went,” he says. “I have to do it myself.”

Europe

Divided Belgians draw line at divorce

Despite the cultural gap and a government crisis, most of the country is desperate to stay together

Something changes when you catch the train north out of Brussels towards the port city of Antwerp and the Dutch-speaking Flemish heartland.

Once out of the station with its bilingual signs and announcements – in both Dutch and French – and into the Flanders countryside, the ticket collectors in their slate-grey uniforms discreetly but firmly give up on the proposition that Belgium is a country with, officially, two languages and two cultures. ‘Goedemorgen,’ they say as they travel down the train: ‘Dank u.’

The linguistic obliteration of the French language is mirrored in the signs outside. Travelling through the foggy and frosted countryside, the factory hoardings advertise their wares in Dutch only. If a second language is visible and audible, it is English, not French.

Madeleine McCann: The face that’s haunted us all for eight months

With the really big crimes, it’s always the pictures that linger in the mind long after the details have become muddled, or lost in the attics of our minds. This year, as midwinter makes us cast backward glances, three images persist. There are the Darwins – he supposedly dead, she the insurance beneficiary – posing in Panama like nincompoops for a property man’s publicity shot that will be Exhibit A in their future trial. And, via one night of sickening but unsolved violence in a student house in Perugia, comes the bright-eyed look of Meredith Kercher on her Facebook site, wearing the party-girl smile that will now never grow old.

And then there is Madeleine. No other word or detail is needed. Before even the third syllable is spoken, there she is in your mind: the blonde hair, almost unbearably cute face, and impish grin; a haunting, indelible part of that arcade of awfulness which includes the faces of Sarah Payne, Holly and Jessica, and so on right back to the gaunt and startled faces of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’s victims buried on Saddleworth Moor more than 40 years ago.

Music Liked By Me

Understanding the Subprime Crisis: A Narrative, Part Three

(Part One.  Part Two.  9 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Part Three: The Rise of Long-Term Capital Management and the Superportfolio

This is an extremely compressed version of the story of Long-Term Capital Management, perhaps the most written about corporate failure besides Enron of the last two decades.  If you wish to learn more, I highly recommend Lowenstein’s book When Genius Failed, linked below.

John Meriwether launched the limited partnership of Long-Term Capital Management in 1994.  Limited partnerships are the actual name of the entities commonly known as “hedge funds”.  The name hedge fund is in fact a misnomer; they originally developed that name because the funds were designed to “hedge” against losses by being more conservative than mutual funds, but have developed into the opposite.  The appeal of such funds is that limitations on the number of partners and the overall wealth of those allowed to join (no more than 99 people or entities of a total value of over $1 million, or 500 people or entities worth over $5 million – with those worth less entirely excluded) are coupled with a nearly total lack of government regulation.  Mutual funds are forced to disclose their portfolios and to maintain certain levels of diversification and leverage; limited partnerships are not.

Joining Meriwether as the partners of LTCM were former Salomon arbitrage group members Larry Hilibrand, Eric Rosenfeld, Victor Haghani, Greg Hawkins, and three very notable additions: economists Robert Merton and Myron Scholes, and David Mullins, who was the number-two at the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan and had previously been considered his heir apparent.  With such a roster, LTCM launched with capital of $1.4 billion, the largest such launch in financial history.  It had such disparate investors as the national bank of Italy and the President of Merril Lynch, and had an elegant and innovative structure, with the company that employed the partners and traders being a Delaware-registered management services company employed by a Cayman Islands partnership (the fund itself) financed by six international dummy corporations from whom investors in different nations would buy their shares.

The first hugely successful trade conducted by LTCM had its roots both in the past of Salomon and the future crisis that affects markets today.  Of the myriad of forms of collectivized mortgage obligations invented by Lewis Ranieri at Salomon, the most popular by far was the division of CMOs into interest-only bonds, representing only the interest payments of mortgage-holders, and principal-only bonds, representing only payments of the principal of mortgage loans.  The interest-only bonds, called IOs, had higher rates of return but more volatility, as early repayments would reduce the interest return, while principal-only bonds were the opposite.  In the early 1990s, the Fed had lowered interest rates, leading to many homeowners refinancing their mortgages, driving down the value of IOs relative to POs.  Then, interest rates were increased, shifting the balance again.  In 1994, as LTCM began trading, the Federal Reserve, in one of its last actions as Mullins was leaving the Fed for LTCM, lowered interest rates again.  Strangely, however, this did not lead homeowners to rush to refinance right away again, leading LTCMs partners believing that IOs were considerably undervalued relative to POs.  

LTCM therefore decided to buy IOs while shorting IOs.  To “balance” the trade, limiting the risk, they also purchased a number of Treasury bonds equal to the amount of IOs they purchased, reasoning that since Treasurys increase in value in proportion to the rise in interest rates, while the opposite is true of mortgages, this would insulate them in case of the rise or fall of all CMOs.  The purpose of this is important: what LTCM wanted to do was to make the absolute value of their PO and IO holdings irrelevant and make the only factor whether the difference, or spread, between their values increased or decreased.

LTCM did something else to maximize their advantage in this trade.  They didn’t actually buy the POs or the Treasurys at all.  They simply signed contracts with banks saying they would pay for the banks to purchase the bonds for them, a practice known as “repo financing” in investment banking.  Through the use of repo financing, LTCM leveraged its trades by astronomical proportions; in fact, this was the key to their success.

LTCM shortly began posting remarkable profits.  In 1995, fueled in particular by the IO trade, showed returns of 59% before fees, and 43% after.  During its first two years, LTCM earned $1.6 billion.  But hidden in those numbers were some facts which ought to have caused concern, and impact directly on the problems of today.  At the end of 1995, LTCM’s equity capital (its cash on hand) was $3.6 billion.  But LTCM’s assets (the various bonds, stocks, etc. that they owned) totalled $102 billion.  It had leveraged its capital 28 to 1.  Doing the math, we can find that its actual return on total capital was merely 2.45% – the gaudy number of 59% was due entirely from the willingness of LTCM to magnify its exposure on each trade through massive leverage.

Few things demonstrate better both the appeal and the risk of arbitrage.  Any intelligent person will recognize that people will generally find themselves believing something incorrect in groups.  These people acting as a group will create market inefficiencies, or situations where the value of something is either too high or too low.  However, these inefficiencies will be very small and hard to find.  But what if a group of really smart experts with supercomputers spent their time finding these small inefficiencies, and then found a way of turning the nickels of over and undervalued assets into millions?  Why, it would be a sure way of creating money.  Of course, the problem is that the very existence of the inefficiencies is the risk; by leveraging yourself so highly to turn the nickel an asset is mispriced by into millions, if the inefficiency worsens, say by another nickel, you will lose the same massive amount.  And the underlying irrationality which made the nickel profit possible in the first place is the same irrationality which could worsen, meaning the lever for your destruction is already in place.

Why didn’t LTCM worry about this?  Because of an economic theory advanced by Merton: continuous-time finance.  In simple terms, continous-time finance suggests that the price of an asset, say a share of Google, does not go from $100 to $700 in a leap, but rather from $100 to $100.01 to $100.02 and so on until it reaches $700.  The amount of time in each transition may be a fraction of a second, but this is how the theory claims it works.  Merton was an evangelical proponent of this, and he had many admirers, inside the academic world and outside of it.  However, the teachers of Merton and Scholes were not so convinced.  Paul Samuelson, Merton’s professor at MIT, thought it made for wonderful theory, but felt that the market failure of information inequality swamped such movements in real life, forcing prices to move in fits and spurts.  Eugene Fama, who had been Scholes’ thesis advisor, did a series of studies showing that the bell curve of option prices showed a far higher instance of events more than five standard deviations from the mean than in normal projection (a phenomenon known as “long tails”), which assailed the heart of the Black-Scholes model’s applicability to real-world finance.

But with 59% returns, these contrary views found few listeners within LTCM, or on Wall Street.  LTCM had no trouble raising another billion in capital, and other similar funds along with in-house projects at every major investment bank quickly tried to follow in LTCM’s footsteps.  LTCM was notoriously secretive, to the extent that its partners once bought back the rights of photos of themselves from Buisnessweek to ensure they could not be reprinted, but it was hard to keep the nature of their trades entirely secret.  The academic work which was its basis was, of course, widely available.  And despite a fanatical effort to use different banks for each leg of their trades, some aspects of their trades invariably became known.

The result was that competitors flooded LTCM’s market.  This meant several things: first and most visibly, arbitrage opportunities became harder to come by.  LTCM found that its opportunities became rarer, and that spreads closed far more rapidly.  They ended up taking two major actions in response; in 1997, they returned the capital and profits of many of their investors, saving the bulk of the fund’s equity for their own stakes (which all of them relentlessly pumped into the fund, keeping almost nothing for themselves), and they began to make much riskier trades in arenas where they had much less expertise, such as stocks.

But the deeper problem was that in effect, all of Wall Street was holding a portfolio similar or identical to LTCM’s.  If LTCM made money, Wall Street would make money.  But if other firms lost money, those losses would spill over to LTCM, and vice versa.  This phenomenon, of the entire industry having a portfolio of idenctical or similar assets, has been named the “superportfolio”.  And in the summer of 1998, two things happened which were outside of LTCM’s control which had disasterous consequences.

In 1997, Salomon Brothers, still limping from the massive fines imposed by the SEC and lacking the wealth created by Ranieri’s mortgage group and Meriwether’s arbitrage group, was bought by the notoriously risk-adverse Travelers Corporation.  With the arbitrage desk showing a loss, and having been middling since the departure of Meriwether, chairman Sandy Weill chose to shut down the arbitrage group, and ordered Salomon to liquidate its holdings in early summer 1998.  Because Salomon liquidated its holdings with speed rather than losses being its concern, they sold nearly all their holdings at a loss.  But because nearly every other bank and hedge fund held similar assets, the value of their holdings was also driven down by the liquidation.  As the liquidation caused those firms to lose money, more of them were forced to liquidate their holdings to meet margin calls (done at the end of business each day), which drove the prices down further, and so on.

Meanwhile, in August of 1998, Russia defaulted on its ruble-denominated debt and ordered a three month ban on Russian banks complying with forward contracts in foreign exchange (which many funds had used to hedge against the risk of Russian default).  This had little direct effect on LTCM, which was not heavily invested in Russia.  But other members of the superportfolio were badly exposed.  Credit Suisse lost $1.3 billion.  A fund called High-Risk Opportunities was forced into bankruptcy, while owing huge sums to Bankers Trust, Credit Suisse, and particularly Lehman Brothers, whose exposure was so great that rumors began that they too were headed to bankruptcy.  As with the sell-off of Salomon’s arbitrage holdings, these losses forced more and more members of the superportfolio to sell their assets at current prices.

On this stage, LTCM was poised to lose money in numbers larger and faster than any such loss had ever happened before, requiring the largest bailout in American history.

This post includes information from several sources not available online.  The major sources are:

Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein

The Sociology of Financial Markets, edited by Karin Knorr Cetina and Alex Preda

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