The Daily Drift

 

Chill ....

Some of our readers today have been in: 

Sofia, Bulgaria

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Yerevan, Armenia

Waterloo, Canada

Johannesburg, South Africa

San Jose, Costa Rica

Paris, France

Quito, Ecuador

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Ankara, Turkey

Chisinau, Molodva

As, Norway

Beirut, Lebanon

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Cape Town, South Africa

Sampaloc, Philippines

Roubaix, France

Krakow, Poland

Bangkok, Thailand

Papeete, French Polynesia

Karachi, Pakistan

Jakarta, Indonesia

Leeds, England

Islamabad, Pakistan

and the village of "T" (yes the letter 'T') in the South Cotabato region of The Philippines 

Speaking of oddly named communities we have readers in some oddly named places here in the USA such as: Depew, Livonia, Nutely and Tukwila

Today is International Mountain Day 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Today in History

1688		James II abdicates the throne because of William of Orange landing in England.
1816		Indiana is admitted to the Union as the 19th state.
1861		A raging fire sweeps the business district of Charleston, South Carolina, adding to an already depressed economic state. A walking tour of Charleston.
1862		Union General Ambrose Burnside occupies Fredericksburg and prepares to attack the Confederates under Robert E. Lee.
1863		Union gunboats Restless, Bloomer and Caroline enter St. Andrew's Bay, Fla., and begin bombardment of both Confederate quarters and saltworks.
1882		A production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe at Boston's Bijou Theatre becomes the first performance in a theatre lit by incandescent electric lights.
1927		Nearly 400 world leaders sign a letter to President Calvin Coolidge asking the United States to join the World Court.
1930		As the economic crisis grows, the Bank of the United States closes its doors.
1933		Reports say Paraguay has captured 11,000 Bolivians in the war over Chaco.
1936		Britain's King Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1941		The United States declares war on Italy and Germany.
1943		U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull demands that Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria withdraw from the war.
1945		A Boeing B-29 Superfortress shatters all records by crossing the United States in five hours and 27 minutes.
1951		Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement from baseball.
1955		Israel raids Syrian positions on the Sea of Galilee.
1964		Frank Sinatra, Jr., is returned home to his parents after being kidnapped for the ransom amount of $240,000.
1967		The Concorde, a joint British-French venture and the world's first supersonic airliner, is unveiled in Toulouse, France.
1972		Challenger, the lunar lander for Apollo 17, touches down on the moon's surface, the last time that men visit the moon.
1978		Massive demonstrations take place in Tehran against the shah.

Non Sequitur

Do we live in a computer simulation?

Researchers say idea can be tested

A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be ...

Continue Reading 

Did you know ...

That Obamacare has saved seniors 5 billion dollars

Why powerball is a terrible way for states to raise money

About the latest victims in mortgage modification difficulties: widows

That today's repugican cabal is incapable of beating Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, according to Newt Gingrich

The Koch brothers say: it's only a flesh wound

That corporate profits hit record high while worker wages hit record low

About the slimy world of James O'Keefe

About the workers unpacking frozen meat discovering a gun and ammo inside the box of ribs

Stephen Colbert is South Carolina’s favorite for new US Senator

If South Carolina had its way, Stephen Colbert would be repugican Senator Jim Demint’s successor in the U.S. Senate.From Public Policy Polling:

Colbert tops the wish list of who South Carolina voters would like to see join that body at 20%, followed by Tim Scott at 15%, Trey Gowdy at 14%, Jenny Sanford at 11%, Henry McMaster and Mark Sanford at 8%, Jeff Duncan and Joe Wilson at 5%, and Mick Mulvaney at 4%.

Sadly, Nikki Haley has already ruled out appointing Colbert, saying that his inability to correctly identify milk as South Carolina’s state drink disqualifies him from office.
Supporters of Colbert should be quick to retort that, in the same interview, Haley herself was unable to identify the spotted salamander as South Carolina’s state amphibian.
It should also be noted that the disgraced former governor, Mark Sanford, polled at a respectable eight percent in PPP’s survey and Joe “You Lie” Wilson, South Carolina’s second most-liberal congressman, edged Mick Mulvaney, the state’s most conservative congressman, with five percent.

The truth hurts

Voter disdain spreads as 'fiscal cliff' looms

Fear and frustration course through the lunch crowd at Robie's Country Store and Deli, a popular outpost 500 miles from where Washington is again locked in tense negotiations over taxes and spending as a critical deadline looms.

"I'm worried," Lorraine Cadren of nearby Manchester says between bites of her chicken sandwich. Her doubt in the nation's elected leaders is palpable: "I'm not sure what's going to come out of Washington next." Not that she has the time to pay much attention; the 64-year-old is unemployed and preoccupied with finding a new job as Christmas approaches.

A few tables away, John Pfeifle shares Cadren's angst while trying to enjoy his $6.99 chicken parmesan special.

"Somebody's gotta have some smarts," says the 63-year-old business owner, complaining that both President Barack Obama and House repugicans seem willing to allow the nation to go over the "fiscal cliff," triggering broad tax increases and massive spending cuts that economists warn could lead to another recession.

"I have no faith at all they'll do the right thing," Pfeifle said of Congress.

And why would these voters have confidence in Washington?

The scene playing out on Capitol Hill is a familiar one as lawmakers with competing ideologies wage an 11th-hour battle to avert a predictable crisis. This one comes just a year after an equally divided Washington nearly let the country default on its loan obligations — a debt-ceiling debate that contributed to the electorate's deep lack of faith in their elected leaders and a drop in the nation's credit rating.

Evidence of Congress' plummeting popularity is everywhere.

From New Hampshire diners to Colorado coffee shops, weary residents report widespread concern. They relate the debate in Washington over their tax dollars with their own lives: average Americans who are struggling every day to make ends meet. And already distracted by the holidays and tired of politics after a bitter presidential campaign, they are calling on Washington to get its act together.

"It's pathetic. Nobody's doing their job," said Laura Hager, a retiree from Lancaster, Pa. "The rest of the country is being held hostage to this entire situation."
She said the uncertainty makes it difficult to shape a personal financial plan; she can't imagine what business leaders must be going through. "Nobody can plan. Nobody knows what they'll do," she said.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., warned that the public's disgust with Congress would reach new heights if lawmakers and the White House fail to reach an accord before the year-end deadline.
"Ninety percent disapproval rating is going to go up to 99 percent disapproval," the senator said at a panel discussion last week in Washington on the fiscal cliff's impact on businesses.
Warner overstated Congress' unpopularity, although not by much.
A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that 74 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job; just 23 percent approve. The figures are virtually unchanged from June and slightly above Congress' recent low point of 12 percent approval during the debt ceiling debate in August 2011.

Some voters are trying to ignore the debate altogether, although near-constant news coverage is making that difficult, especially as Obama and his repugican opponents work to rally their supporters.

In a campaign-style event Monday in Michigan, the heart of industrial America, Obama warned that he "won't compromise" on his demand that the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes. Polls find that most voters agree with the president's deficit-cutting plan to raise tax rates on income over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples, although House repugicans are reluctant to agree.
The wingnut group Crossroads GPS is running television ads across the country describing Obama's solution as "a huge tax increase" with "no real spending reforms." ''Call President Obama and tell him it's time to show us a balanced plan," the ad says.
Most voters interviewed in recent days are calling for an immediate compromise and seem willing to raise taxes on the wealthy so long as the middle class is protected.
There is a vague sense that the "fiscal cliff" is more serious than other recent Capitol Hill clashes. But barely a month after the presidential contest ended, most people say they're not following the daily developments that consume Washington.
In a Denver coffee shop, interior designer Roxann Lloyd, 42, is mystified by the sound and fury out of Washington over the cliff.

"I don't think they have any idea what a big deal is to an average person," she said. "I'm just ignoring it."

Lloyd said she isn't surprised by the partisan bickering over the issue. "I don't feel like they are really looking out for us," she said of Congress.
John Baker, 65, a Denver psychologist, said he had little faith in Congress' ability to fix the problem: "I don't think Congress can fix a flat tire."

"It's a typical Washington, 'Let's hit the panic button and keep people scared so they will let us do what we want to do,'" Baker said in a downtown Denver Starbucks. "Ultimately, it will be fixed but not until a lot of pockets are lined."

It's unclear whether members of Congress are hearing the message.

Rep. Charlie Bass, a New Hampshire repugican who lost his re-election bid last month, says it's unclear whether his repugican cabal colleagues will "face the reality that the president, at least at this point, is not going to accept anything other than a tax rate increase."

A stalemate would result in "painful uncertainty," Bass said, offering his caucus a bit of advice: "We best get on with it — get it done."

Back at Robie's, store owner Debbie Chouinard says she's burned out from election season and "tired of all the bull."

"I honestly haven't been paying attention," she said while feeding her 2-year-old granddaughter lunch during a brief lull. "People should be working together to get this country going."

The truth be told

Let’s push the climate change deniers off a fiscal cliff

Climate-change-induced drought is wreaking serious havoc across portions of America that don’t believe in climate change.  But they sure do believe in the federal government spending billions of dollars to bail them out of climate change’s ill-effects.

One out of Three US Counties is a Drought Disaster Area

First, from Salon:

Dust bowl, here we come? The worst drought in the United States in 50 years is still looking for more records to break. On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared another 39 counties in eight states disaster areas, bringing the current total to 1,297 counties in 29 states — or one out of every three counties in the country. According to the Drought Monitor, 61 percent of the continental United States is currently experiencing“moderate to exceptional drought.” The situation is most extreme in Iowa and Illinois — two states responsible for a third of the U.S. corn production.

The Mississippi is Drying Up

Next, there’s the disaster that’s become the Mississippi River, which we’ve written about before:

Mississippi River barge traffic is slowing as the worst drought in five decades combines with a seasonal dry period to push water levels to a near-record low, prompting shippers including Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM) to seek alternatives. Computer models suggest that without more rain, navigating the Mississippi will start to be affected Dec. 11 and the river will reach a record low Dec. 22, Corps spokesman Bob Anderson, based in Vicksburg, Mississippi, said.

More on the Mississippi from the Christian Science Monitor:

As drought conditions persist across the South, hitting farmers and ranchers, parts of the Mississippi River are on the verge of becoming unnavigable. The potential costs are large.
Less than 18 months after the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted gaps in a levee on the Mississippi River to cope with a record flood, it’s getting ready to detonate explosives for the opposite reason – to clear rock outcroppings on the bottom of the drought-depleted waterway so cargo can keep moving.
“From one extreme to another in just the space of 12, 15, 16 months? It’s just incredible,” says Richard Heim, a drought specialist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Kansas is Drying Up

Then there’s the Colorado River:

It calls for building a pipeline from the Missouri River to Denver, nearly 600 miles to the west. Water would be doled out as needed along the route in Kansas, with the rest ultimately stored in reservoirs in the Denver area.
Experts say the plan is reminiscent of those proposed in the middle of the last century, when grand and exorbitant federal water projects were commonplace — and not, with the benefit of hindsight, always advisable.
The fact that the Missouri River pipeline idea made the final draft, water experts say, shows how serious the problem has become for the states of the Colorado River basin.

Texas is Drying Up

And how about the 2011 Texas drought?  Yep, climate change:

They tested it on several extreme events in 2011 — a strong La Nina year — and, in the case of the record Texas drought, concluded that such severe dry spells are 20 more times likely during a La Nina year today than a La Nina in the 1960s, before greenhouse gas emissions jumped.
“Conditions leading to droughts such as the one that occurred in Texas in 2011 are, at least in the case of temperature, distinctly more probable than they were 40-50 years ago,” researchers concluded in a new study.

That would be Texas, the state that keeps talking about seceding (and don’t let us stop you, but first we’d like our billions back), while it keeps sucking at the federal teat for disaster aid over and over again.

Enough is Enough

How often is the federal government going to keep coming to the rescue of groups, states, and regions (read: the South, but not exclusively – other red states are involved here too), that year after year, along with their lapdogs at Faux News and the rest of the repugican cabal, all sing the chorus of how worthless the federal government is. Enough is enough.

 

Water Pipeline via NY Times 

Following a year of two extreme weather events that are directly linked to climate change, we can’t afford to keep giving a free pass to the climate change deniers, their political party, or their propaganda organ.
They need to be held accountable for their actions and beliefs that are costing us all. Organizations such as the US Chamber of Commerce have actively campaigned against addressing climate change, forcing companies like Apple to pull out of the Chamber entirely.  Nike pulled out as well.
Yet the Chamber of Commerce is at the front of the line demanding federal dollars to fix the problems caused by – wait for it – climate change and its deniers at – wait for it – the Chamber of Commerce.
As expensive as Hurricane Sandy relief will be – current estimates are at least $75 billion – the severe drought in the US is expected to be even greater.
How long are we going to continue ignoring the root cause of these problems, while throwing billions of dollars at the symptoms?
Until these organizations, states, and regions are openly called out on their ignorance, and forced to admit their responsibility in helping to create this disaster, they will only be too happy to keep playing the same game – ignoring the root cause of the drought, while wanting lots of our money keep patching it up.
Of course, with climate change, extreme weather conditions will keep becoming more common, as Al Gore had predicted. What happened in New York City during Hurricane Sandy was only the beginning. Unless action is taken quickly, things will only get worse.  The big question is whether it’s already too late.

Boehner Appoints Enemies of the Environment to Key Committees

And don’t look to repugicans in Congress for help.  The repugican House Speaker Boehner just appointed a whole slew of House repugicans to key committees on the environment who are enemies of the environment:

On November 27th, House Speaker John Boehner (r-OH) announced the new and returning House committee chairmen (and yes, they are all men). Some of these congressmen will run committees with jurisdiction over federal climate, energy, and environmental programs.  This includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Clean Air Act, balancing the use of our public lands between energy production and recreation, and determining the infrastructure needs of a nation that now faces unpredictable extreme weather threats linked to climate change.
The vast majority of these chairmen voted for legislation that would dismantle EPA’s ability to limit industrial carbon pollution, and for retention of special tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Oil and gas, coal, and electric utility companies have cozied up to many of these chairmen, giving them roughly $3.8 million in campaign contributions over the course of their careers.
Meanwhile, many climate-related extreme weather events have severely afflicted Americans over the past two years, including in their home states.  Record-breaking drought and heat waves, severe floods, and heavy storms wreaked havoc for the families living in the chairmens’ backyards.  Scientists predict that these weather events will become more frequent and/or severe if the industrial carbon pollution responsible for climate change remains unchecked.

Time to Push the Climate Change Deniers Over a Fiscal Cliff

With all the talk of all the programs we have to cut in order to stop the dreaded “fiscal cliff,” maybe it’s time we took Mitt Romney’s advice and start by cutting federal disaster aid.
We can begin with all the disasters caused by climate change in states that deny the existence of climate change.  After all, they wouldn’t want us spending Amurika’s hard-earned tax dollars on something that wasn’t real.
If we can’t let Texas secede, we can at least push them off a fiscal cliff and bid good riddance once and for all.

The Classics

Buick super riviera hardtop coupe 1955

NTSB: Require ignition locks for all drunk drivers

A federal safety board is recommending that all states require ignition interlock devices for convicted drunk drivers, including first-time offenders.

The five-member National Transportation Safety Board said the devices are currently the best available solution to reducing drunk driving deaths, which account for about a third of the nation's 32,000 traffic deaths each year.

In particular, the board cited a new study by its staff that found some 360 people a year are killed in wrong-way driving crashes on high-speed highways. The study concluded that 69 percent of wrong-way drivers had blood alcohol levels above the legal limit of .08.
Seventeen states already have laws requiring use of the device by all convicted drunk drivers.

New tests could hamper food outbreak detection

 

It's about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation's ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.

Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient's illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.

The problem: These new tests can't detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.

"It's like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don't know where it came from," explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ's fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.

"These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick," said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.

That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.
It all comes down to what's called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient's bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don't require it.
Here's the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what's there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.
Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.
There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it's time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.
But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you're a sick patient.

What's in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.

This isn't just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

If you were the patient, "you'd want to know how you got sick," she said.
PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter.

Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.

The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren't very many illnesses in any individual state.

To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn't lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.

But it's not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country's largest testing labs.

A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.

Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.

"As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques," Lieberman said.

I am itchy. You are itchy. We're all itchy together.

Some itches are caused by obvious physical triggers (OMG, there's a spider on your arm!). Others, though, have a more complicated source. Watching other people itch can make you feel itchy. In this piece at Scientific American blogs, Scicurious explains the neurobiology behind sympathetic itching. I got four paragraphs in before I had to scratch my neck. How about you?

Global study of student scores a mixed bag for US

Students in the U.S. perform better than the global average, but still lag behind many of their peers in Asia and Europe, an international study found.

Fourth-graders have improved their scores in reading and math over the past four years, according to a study released Tuesday. But progress seems to fall off by eighth grade, where math and science scores are stagnant.

Meanwhile, kids in countries like Finland and Singapore are outperforming American fourth-graders in science and reading. By eighth grade, American students have fallen behind their Russian, Japanese and Taiwanese counterparts in math, and trail students from Hong Kong, Slovenia and South Korea in science.

"These 2011 international assessments provide both encouraging news about our students' progress and some sobering cautionary notes," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who applauded gains among fourth-graders but warned those gains aren't being sustained in later grades. "That is unacceptable if our schools are to live up to the American promise of giving all children a world-class education."

The results of the study, conducted every four years in nations around the world, show mixed prospects for delivering on that promise. A nation that once took pride in being at the top of its game can no longer credibly call itself the global leader in student performance. Wringing their hands about what that reality portends for broader U.S. influence, policymakers worry it could have ripple effects on the economy down the line, with Americans increasingly at a competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace.

Elevating the skills needed to compete with emerging countries has been a priority for President Barack Obama, who has pledged to train 100,000 new math and science teachers over the next decade. "Think about the America within our reach: a country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs," he said this year in his State of the Union address.

The U.S. has a long way to go to reach those goals. In the meantime, other countries are making significant strides. Russian eighth-graders were about tied in math with their American peers in 2007, the last time the study was conducted. Four years later, Russia's scores have surged and now surpass the U.S. by a significant margin.

Reading skills are a major strength for American students. Only a few points separate American students from the top-scoring students in the world. In Florida, which took part in the study separately, reading scores are second only to Hong Kong.

Asia continues to dominate the top echelon of scores across subject fields. The tiny city-state of Singapore takes first place in eighth-grade science and fourth-grade math, with South Korea scoring nearly as high. Singapore takes second place to South Korea in eighth-grade math, with Taiwan in third.

The results also lean toward Asian nations when it comes to advanced levels of learning. In Singapore, 4 in 10 eighth-graders achieved the "advanced benchmark" in science, which requires an understanding of complex and abstract concepts in physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences. About 2 in 10 make the grade in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In the U.S., it's about 1 in 10.

"There are a small handful of countries or systems that are managing to get a much larger percentage of their students over the advanced benchmark," said Jack Buckley, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. "There's clearly some room for improvement."

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and its sister test, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, are used to measure knowledge, skills and mastery of curricula by elementary and middle school students around the world. Students in rich, industrialized nations and poor, developing countries alike are tested. In 2011, 56 educational systems — mostly countries, but some states and subnational entities like Hong Kong — took part in math and science exams. Fifty-three systems participated in the reading exam, which included almost 13,000 American fourth-graders.

"These kinds of tests are very good at telling us who's ahead in the race. They don't have a lot to say about causes or why countries are where they are," said Brookings Institution senior fellow Tom Loveless, who in previous years represented the U.S. in the international group that administers the test.

Other findings released Tuesday:

— Some U.S. states that were measured separately were clear standouts, performing on par with or better than some top-performing Asian countries. Eighth-graders in Massachusetts and Minnesota score far better in math and science than the U.S. average. But in California and Alabama, eighth-graders fell short of the national average.

— Racial and class disparities are all too real. In eighth grade, Americans in the schools with the highest poverty — those with 75 percent or more of students on free or reduced-price lunch — performed below both the U.S. average and the lower international average. Students at schools with fewer poor kids performed better. In fourth-grade reading, all ethnic groups outperformed the international average, but white and Asian students did better than their black and Hispanic classmates.

— Boys in the U.S. do better than girls in fourth-grade science and eighth-grade math. But girls rule when it comes to reading.

— On a global level, the gender gap appears to be closing. About half of the countries showed no statistically meaningful gap between boys and girls in math and science.

The tests are carried out by the International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement, a coalition of research institutions. The U.S. portion of the exams is coordinated by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics.

Lava And Snow Of Kamchatka Peninsula

Winter Kamchatka is very beautiful. And its beauty is better to be observed from height. These pictures were taken in different years from helicopters flying over Kamchatka. The bonus is fantastic photographs of the erupting Kamchatka volcano Plosky Tolbachik. More

Awesome moments in history

Awesome moments in history -- In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon.The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.

Hurling

Hurling is one of the oldest of all games. Ancient Irish tales such as the TáinBóCuailnge testify to its long history.
The story of the Craobh Rua, the Red Branch Knights, is Ireland's oldest and greatest saga, and contains a number of separate tales, one of which, the famous TáinBóCuailnge is concerned with cattle rustling in a period before the arrival of Christianity in this country.
Its princi

pal hero is Cúchulainn, a warrior who began life as Setanta whose wonderful exploits have fired the imagination of Irish people for untold generations.
One such person was The Man from Carron, Michael Cusack, the founder of the GAA. Writing in the United Irishman of March 25, 1889, he states: "When I was a little boy long, long ago, I listened to stories about feats of hurling hundreds of years old and I enjoy them to-day as much as I did in the 1850s."
The stories were undoubtedly those of Setanta, stories which inspired Cusack to ' bring back the hurling' and from that little acorn of ambition, grew the great oak-tree that is the GAA to-day.
The story of Setanta is now due a new airing and he rightly takes his place in the pantheon of Carlow's GAA legends as the new Juvenile Hurling Club in Carlow Town bears the name of hurling's first ever boy wonder.
SUPER-HUMAN BUT RESTLESS ….
From a very early age the boy called Setanta, living with his parents Sualdam and Dechtine on Muirtheimne Plain near Dun Dealgan (Dundalk), showed superhuman qualities of wisdom, warfare, magic and poetry.
When he was five years he was fed up with living at Muirtheimne and, having heard about the boytroops at Eamain Macha, asked his mother Deichtine for her permission to leave.
'You are too young to go,' she told him, 'and there are no Ulster warriors to accompany you.'
'I cannot wait and I do not need nor want the accompaniment of warriors,' said Setanta. 'Show me where Eamain lies and I will leave now'. Dechtine resigned herself to the inevitable. 'To the North then, but the hard crossing of the mountains at Sliab Fuait lies in your way.'
'Those I do not care about, ' said Setanta, and off he went to prepare for the journey from the plains the plain of Muirtheimne to Eamhain Mhaca ...
HURLING SORCERY
"The boy went forth and took his playthings. He took his hurley-stick of bronze ( a chámán créumha) and his silver ball; he took his little javelin for casting and his toy spear with its end sharpened by fire, and he began to shorten the journey (by playing) with them. He would strike his ball with the stick ( camán) and drive it a long way from him. Then with a second stroke he would throw his stick so that he might drive it a distance no less than the first. He would throw his javelin and he would cast his spear and would make a playful rush after them. Then he would catch his hurley-stick and his ball and his javelin, and before the end of his spear had reached the ground he would catch its tip aloft in the air." Leabhair Laighean.
Now that's what you call hurling sorcery! Not to mention the first ever Puck Fada champion!
DRAMATIC DEBUT
Many hurlers down the years have made dream debuts but none as dramatic as Setanta's first competitive outing:
"He went his way to the place of assembly in Eamhain where the youths were. There were thrice fifty youths led by Follomain mac Conchubhair at their games on the green of Eamhain. "The little boy went on to the playing-field into the midst and caught the ball between his two legs when they cast it, nor did he let it go higher than the top of his knee, nor lower than his ankle, and he pressed it and held it close between his two legs and not one of the youths managed to get a grasp or a stroke a prod nor a stroke or a blow or a shot at it. And he carried the ball away from them over the goal.
Then they all gazed at him. They wondered and they marvelled." LL
So not only was Setanta a dab hand at the long puck, he was fairly useful in a match situation too, his flicks and tricks living up to his title of hurling's first legendary figure!
ROWS AND RUCTIONS
Of course, same as it ever was, rows and ructions soon erupted on the playing field:
"Well, boys," said Follamhain mac Conchubhiar, "attack yon fellow, all of you, and let him meet death at my hands, for it is tabu for you that a youth should join in your game without ensuring his protection from you. Attack him all together, for we know that he is the son of a Ulster chieftain, and let them not make it a habit to join your games without putting themselves under your protection and safeguard."
Then they all attacked him together. They cast their thrice fifty camáin at the boys head. He lifted his single play-stick ( a aonlorg áineasa) and warded off the thrice fifty sticks. Then they cast the thrice fifty balls at the little boy. He raised his arms and his wrists and his palms and warded off the thrice fifty balls. They threw at him the thrice fifty toy spears with sharpened butt. The boy lifted up his toy wooden shield and warded off the thrice fifty spears."
TEMPER, TEMPER!
But the bold Setanta could mix it too, though it would appear he had a bit of a temper as the following extract would suggest:
"Then a transformation came over him. You would have thought each rib of his hair had been driven into his head so upright did it stand. You would have thought that a spark of fire was on the top of each bristle. One eye closed until it was no wider than the eye of a needle. The other eye opened until it was as wide as the mouth of a meadgoblet. He bared his jaw-bones to his ear. He opened his lips until his gullet became visible. The hero's flame rose from the crown of his head. Then he set on the youths.
CLUICHE POILL (THE HOLE-GAME)
When things calmed down, Setanta took to playing a different type of hurling game:
"The king put on his light travelling garb and went to bid farewell to the youths. Conchubhar went to the playing field and saw something which astonished him; thrice fifty boys at one end of the field and a single boy at the other end, and the single boy winning victory from the thrice fifty youths.
When they played the hole-game ( cluiche poill) - a game which was played on the green in Eamhain - and when it was their turn to cast the ball and his to defend, he would catch the thrice fifty balls outside the hole and none would go past him into the hole. When it was their turn to keep goal and his to hurl, he would put the thrice fifty balls unerringly into the hole.
SHARPSHOOTER SUPREME
And, of course, Setanta was the original sharpshooter, sure didn't his accuracy prompt his change of name?!
The evening of his big hurling match he was summoned to the court of King Conchobar so that he might attend a feast at the house of the sidhe blacksmith Culann. Setanta promised to come along as soon as he was finished playing cluiche na poll ( the 'hole game')
When the Ulster champions entered the smith's hall, the king gave permission for Culann to let loose his fierce guard hound, forgetting that Setanta had not yet arrived. When Setanta came into Culann's front yard the hound attacked him fiercely, Setanta reacted quickly and the young hurler struck the ball with such power and accuracy that it choked Chulainn's hound.
Culann the chief smith was devastated to find that his guard dog had been killed. "Who is going to guard my house now?" asked the host to which Setanta replied "I'll be your guard dog until you can replace the one I killed. I'll be the "Hound of Chulainn", henceforth the great hurler became known as Cuchulainn.
IT SAID IN THE 'PAPERS'
Virtually all the stories above have been sourced from folk-tales and mythology of ancient Ireland. However, just as in modern times Henry Shefflin and Eoin Kelly have their performances analysed, Setanta's hurling exploits too came under the microscope of two of hurling's greatest students whose deliberations we carry so as to shed light on the fanciful stories above.
LU v LL
No, not a Fitzgibbon Cup hurling match but the books from which we learn of Setanta's hurling skills. Let Art Ó Maolfabhail who in 1973 published Camán, 2000 years of Hurling in Ireland explain:
"Cúchulainn is the hurler par excellence of literature and most Irish people have heard in some form or other of his exploits on the playing field at Eamhain Mhaca, near Armagh, in the days of King Conchubar mac Neasa. Actually these exploits form only an incidental part of the great tale known as the Táin Bo Cuaille ( TheCattle-drivingofCooley).

This Woman's Father Fought in the War Between the States

Hugh Tudor, born in 1847, served in the US Army from 1864 through the end of the war. In his seventies, he married and had two daughters. The younger of them, Juanita Tudor Lowrey, was born in 1926. She's still alive:

On a recent afternoon she spread out paperwork, photographs and two small diaries with black covers on her kitchen table. Lowrey pointed out a diary entry dated March 23, 1865:
"This morning Genl. Sherman and his the 14th Corps came in. ... We fell in and saluted him respectfully. It is very windy. We drawed rations. The[y] fired 15 guns to salute Sherman."
The words are those of Lowrey's father, Hugh Tudor, an infantry private in the Union Army from early 1864 through the summer of 1865.
Tudor moved with his unit through Kentucky and Tennessee to the East Coast. He probably would have participated in Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's march to the sea except that an apparent case of the measles kept him back.

Ms. Lowrey is a member of United Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War and one of ten surviving daughters of the American Civil War.

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Crockford's Club

How a Fishmonger Bankrupted the British Aristocracy

Crockford's Club in 1828.

How about a bit of history today? Everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story, and and the tale of Crockford's Club is a great one: a man who sold fish for a living smelled an opportunity to garner a little bit of the British aristocracy's surplus wealth. And he knew just how to do it.

Take William Crockford, who began his career as a London fishmonger and ended it, half a century later, as perhaps the wealthiest self-made man in England. Crockford managed this feat thanks to one extraordinary talent—an unmatched skill for gambling—and one simple piece of good fortune: to be alive early in the 19th century, when peace had returned to Europe after four decades of war and a generation of bored young aristocrats, who a few years earlier would have been gainfully employed in fighting Napoleon, found themselves with far too much time on their hands.

That's right. Crockford managed to woo money right from their hands simply because they were bored and rich. Check out the full history at  Past Imperfect.

Nine Important Archaeological Discoveries of 2012

In December, we are inundated with lists that look back at the past year. My favorites are those that celebrate scientific discoveries, like the biggest breakthroughs in different disciplines. Geeks Are Sexy rounded up the top discoveries in archaeology, stories that will all add to the body of knowledge about our history. The latest one, announced just last week, is pretty fascinating.

Entombed together like Russian nesting boxes, a series of four sarcophagi from the Valley of the Kings have been under reconstruction for a number of years. But as the team moved outward to the largest Egyptian sarcophagus ever discovered — a full 13 feet long and more than 8 feet tall — archaeologists have uncovered the identity of its resident mummy. Merneptah was a warrior king in Egypt around 3200 years ago, known for his numerous military assaults on neighboring areas, including Libya, a group called “Sea People,” and the first recorded mention of Israelis. His nested sarcophagi are highly unusual, and the reason for Merneptah’s (seemingly overzealous) entombment has yet to be determined.

Read all nine stories at Geeks Ar Sexy.

Random Photo

The Temple: a Bar that was Once a Toilet

A below-ground public toilet built in the Victorian era in Manchester, England, could have been abandoned or filled in, as so many others have been. But this one found new life in modern times as a bar! It first opened as "The Temple of Convenience," harking back to its original purpose. Now called simply The Temple, it is one of the city's most popular night spots. See more pictures at Urban Ghosts.

Elephant-Poop Coffee Goes for $50 a Cup

If the infamous civet-poop coffee is too mainstream for your caffeine-intake needs, good news is here from the hills of Thailand, where a small herd of elephants are in full-time production of Black Ivory Coffee, the latest in weird gourmet food and drink.

From Newser:

Trumpeted as earthy in flavor and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee's unique taste. Stomach turning or oddly alluring, Black Ivory Coffee is not just one of the world's most unusual specialty coffees: At $500 per pound, it's also among the world's priciest.

The intrepid souls who've tried Black Ivory say the coffee lacks the bitterness found in a cup of regular joe. Whether or not that's worth a trip to Thailand, the Maldives or Abu Dhabi — where the coffee is available, but only in luxury and resort hotels — is entirely up to you. For my part, I'm willing to put up with a little bitterness. More

Retro Photo

Political taxonomy

Obama gets a lichen, a worm, and a carnivorous lizard

There is already a lichen — Caloplaca obamae — and a worm — Paragordius obamai — named after Barack Obama. Now he also has Obamadon gracilis, an ancient, extinct, carnivorous lizard.
You can read a full write-up on Obamadon at Carolyn Johnson's Science in Mind blog. It includes some behind-the-scenes detail on the amusing considerations one has to take into account when one decides to name a specimen after a sitting president just before an election.
But I also wanted to take this opportunity to point you towards Curious Taxonomy, a fantastic list of creatures great and small and the sometimes surprising celebrities they have been named after. In the list you'll find a dinosaur named for Ross Perot, a ridiculous number of animals and plants named after Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and no fewer than three creatures named for Stephen Colbert.
And if you're noting that the selection of animals named in honor of Obama are not exactly the world's most flattering, never fear. Taxonomy is kind of bipartisan in its possibly-maybe-accidental insults. George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney have a trio of slime mold beetles.

Amazing Pink Insects

The color pink is very rare in nature, except of course for flowers. There are however some pink colored animals, especially in the insect world.
Here's a list of some of these pink colored insects.

Giant squid finally caught on video

It was only a matter of time but it sure took a lot of it, Discovery Channel and NHK captured footage of a giant squid! "Mankind finally confronts the greatest mystery of the deep as the first-ever footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat is revealed in Discovery Channel’s Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real, which premieres on Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 10/9c as the season finale of Curiosity. NHK will air their special on the first-ever footage of the giant squid in early January 2013"

‘Famous’ Wolf Is Killed Outside Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park’s best-known wolf, beloved by many tourists and valued by scientists who tracked its movements, was shot and killed on Thursday outside the park’s boundaries, Wyoming wildlife officials reported.

The wolf that researchers called 832F, left, was shot on Thursday. The alpha female of the Lamar Canyon pack, she wore a tracking collar. The wolf with her, known as 754, was killed last month.

The wolf, known as 832F to researchers, was the alpha female of the park’s highly visible Lamar Canyon pack and had become so well known that some wildlife watchers referred to her as a “rock star.” The animal had been a tourist favorite for most of the past six years.

The wolf was fitted with a $4,000 collar with GPS tracking technology, which is being returned, said Daniel Stahler, a project director for Yellowstone’s wolf program. Based on data from the wolf’s collar, researchers knew that her pack rarely ventured outside the park, and then only for brief periods, Dr. Stahler said.

This year’s hunting season in the northern Rockies has been especially controversial because of the high numbers of popular wolves and wolves fitted with research collars that have been killed just outside Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Wolf hunts, sanctioned by recent federal and state rules applying to the northern Rockies, have been fiercely debated in the region. The wolf population has rebounded since they were reintroduced in the mid-1990s to counter their extirpation a few years earlier.

Many ranchers and hunters say the wolf hunts are a reasonable way to reduce attacks on livestock and protect big game populations.

This fall, the first wolf hunts in decades were authorized in Wyoming. The wolf killed last week was the eighth collared by researchers that was shot this year after leaving the park’s boundary.

The deaths have dismayed scientists who track wolves to study their habits, population spread and threats to their survival. Still, some found 832F’s death to be particularly disheartening.

“She is the most famous wolf in the world,” said Jimmy Jones, a wildlife photographer who lives in Los Angeles and whose portrait of 832F appears in the current issue of the magazine American Scientist.

Wildlife advocates say that the wolf populations are not large enough to withstand state-sanctioned harvests and that the animals attract tourist money. Yellowstone’s scenic Lamar Valley has been one of the most reliable places to view wolves in the northern Rockies, and it attracts scores of visitors every year.

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