The Daily Drift

So, was it worth it?

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Today in History

1500		The Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral searches the coast of Brazil and claims the region for Portugal.
1586		Sir Francis Drake launches a surprise attack on the heavily fortified city of Santo Domingo in Hipanola.
1698		The Abenaki Indians and Massachusetts colonists sign a treaty halting hostilities between the two.
1766		The Old Pretender, son of James III, dies.
1788		The Times, London's oldest running newspaper, publishes its first edition.
1808		A U.S. law banning the import of slaves comes into effect, but is widely ignored.
1824		The Camp Street Theatre opens as the first English-language playhouse in New Orleans.
1830		William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first edition of a journal entitled The Liberator, calling for the complete and immediate emancipation of all slaves in the United States.
1863		Confederate General Braxton Bragg and Union General William Rosecrans readjust their troops as the Battle of Murfreesboro continues.
1863		President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the Confederacy.
1891		Facilities opened on Ellis Island, New York, to cope with the vast flood of immigrants coming into the United States.
1907		The Pure Food and Drug Act becomes law in the United States.
1915		The German submarine U-24 sinks the British battleship Formidable in the English Channel.
1918		The first gasoline pipeline begins operation. Along the 40 miles and three inches of pipe from Salt Creek to Casper, Wyoming.
1923		Sadi Lecointe sets a new aviation speed record flying an average of 208 mph at Istres.
1937		At a party at the Hormel Mansion in Minnesota, a guest wins $100 for naming a new canned meat–Spam.
1945		In Operation Bodenplatte, German planes attack American forward air bases in Europe. This is the last major offensive of the Luftwaffe.
1959		Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba as General Fulgencio Batista flees.
1986		As the United States builds its strength in the Mediterranean, Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi threatens to retaliate if attacked.

Non Sequitur

Sour end to 2012 masks positive trends in America

 

Many Americans seem to be in a sour mood as 2013 begins, after Hurricane Sandy ravaged parts of the East Coast, a gunman massacred 20 school children in Connecticut and a long, contentious election campaign was followed by failure to resolve the "fiscal cliff" issue by year-end.

Americans have not been very optimistic since the Great Recession of 2008-2009, but the gloom had begun to lift this year until the blast of bad news as 2012 ended, IPSOS pollster Cliff Young said on Monday. IPSOS polling showed that some angst set in as the year ended.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents said the economy was on the wrong track at the end of 2012, IPSOS said, and 64 percent had a negative opinion of national politics.
"I do think these events had some sort of effect on people's short-term prospects," Young said.
But the headlines of 2012 belie a number of positive underlying trends in America, and Young said he expects public opinion to turn more positive in the new year.
Here is a summary of some of the positive trends in health, health, security, the environment, personal finance and education:

COLLEGE EDUCATION: More than 30 percent of Americans 25 years of age or older have finished four years of college, the highest level since 1940. Another 26 percent of adults have completed one to three years of college such as a community college, according to Census Bureau data.

This is important because the lifetime earnings of a person with a college associate's degree working from age 25 to 64 will be $442,000 more than that of a high school graduate. A bachelor's degree could yield $1 million more in lifetime earnings, a Census Bureau study found.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/index.html

CONSUMER DEBT: While Americans are known as big spenders on credit, some surveys show that since the Great Recession of 2008-09, consumers are becoming more frugal. The average consumer with an account had credit card debt of $5,371 in November, 2012, down from $6,503 the same month a year ago, according to consumer organization Credit Karma. Average mortgage and auto debt also was down and even student loan debt, which has been rising, inched lower in November.

The end of the year usually brings increases in credit card debt due to holiday shopping, but consumers seem to be spending more responsibly and paying more with cash. Spending has been more conservative in general over the last four years since the recession, and credit card companies are lowering debt limits, Credit Karma said.

CHARITABLE GIVING: Despite the uncertain economy, Americans continue to be generous to charities. Donations rose to $298.42 billion in 2011, the highest since the Great Recession, although giving has not yet reached pre-recession levels.
Giving by Americans increased 4 percent in 2011 compared with 2010, with individual donations accounting for nearly three-quarters of the total, according to the 57th annual report by the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
Corporate donations remained flat at $14.5 billion last year, foundations made almost $42 billion in grants - an increase of 1.8 percent - while gifts from estates jumped more than 12 percent to $24.4 billion.
The money went to around 1.1 million registered charities and some 222,000 American religious groups.

Religious groups received the most donations - about one- third of the total - but dropped 1.7 percent in 2011 to $95.8 billion. The only other sector to record a drop in donations was giving to foundations, which fell 6.1 percent to $25.8 billion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/19/us-usa-charity-idUSBRE85I05T20120619
CANCER: Cancer claims the lives of more than half a million Americans every year and is the second leading cause of death after heart disease. But the numbers of deaths and people afflicted with the disease continue to decline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the latest data is for 2008, officials said the trend continued in more recent years.

The federally funded CDC attributes the decline to identifying populations with unhealthy sedentary lifestyles and obesity, and intervening in a targeted way to improve their health and prevent cancer.

The highest rate of cancer deaths in the United States is for lung cancer, followed by prostate, breast cancer among women, colon, pancreatic, ovarian cancer and leukemia.

While lung cancer causes a greater rate of deaths, it is not the most frequent cancer. More Americans contract prostate cancer than any other type of the disease, followed by women with breast cancer. Lung cancer is third, followed by colon cancer, women with cancer of the uterus, and urinary bladder cancer.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2012/p0328_Cancer_deathrates.html
SMOKING: The number of Americans who smoke continues to gradually decline, to 19 percent of adults over 18 in 2011, the latest year for which statistics are available, from 19.3 percent in 2010. The news is even better for young adults: the rate of smoking among 18- to 24-year-olds dropped to 18.9 percent in 2011 from 24.4 percent in 2005.
The best trend of all is that four out of five teenagers do not smoke, and teen smoking has been on the decline since 2000, although the rate of decline has slowed.

Fewer people addicted to tobacco means lower health costs and fewer deaths, such as from lung cancer, down the road, according to the CDC.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6144a2.htm?s_cid

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2012/p0809_youth_tobacco.html

TEEN PREGNANCY: The number of births to girls aged 15 to 19 fell 8 percent in 20ll to a record low level. Teens seems to be less sexually active and more of those who are active seem to be using birth control, the CDC said.

http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/
CHILD OBESITY: After years of grim news about Americans getting fatter and sedentary, overweight children fixated on video games, the first signs of hope emerged this year. The CDC said new data showed a "modest" decline in child obesity in recent years. Two possible reasons - higher rates of breastfeeding and rising awareness of the importance of physical activity among young kids. A CDC study found 13 percent of preschoolers surveyed were obese in 1998, growing to 15 percent in 2003, but again falling below 15 percent by 2010, the most recent study year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/25/us-obesity-kids-idUSBRE8BO07J20121225
DRINKING AND DRIVING: The incidence of Americans driving after drinking too much has declined by 30 percent over the past 5 years although it remains a serious problem. Four-in-five drunk drivers are men and especially men from ages 21 to 34.
The best news is that drinking and driving among teenagers has fallen 54 percent since 1991. Only about 10 percent of teens ages 16 years or older had driven after drinking in 2011 compared with more than 20 percent two decades ago.
The reasons for this success include a minimum drinking age of 21 in all states, zero tolerance laws, graduated drivers' license systems and better parental monitoring, according to the CDC.

http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/DrinkingAndDriving/

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2012/p10_02_teen_drinking.html

LAW ENFORCEMENT DEATHS: Deaths of law enforcement officials in the line of duty fell by 23 percent in 2012 after two years of sharp increases. Some 127 federal, state and local officers were killed, with traffic accidents the top cause of death, followed by shootings.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund attributed the reduction to better safety for police such as use of bullet-proof vests.

While national headlines have regularly featured terrible shootings such as those at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the number of police officers killed in shootings fell 32 percent in 2012.

http://www.nleomf.org/facts/research-bulletins/

AIR QUALITY: In 2010, about 90 million tons of pollution were emitted into the atmosphere in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. These emissions form ozone and particles, reduce visibility and deposition of acids, and visibility impairment.

But the good news is that pollution in the air we breathe is down substantially in all categories. In the three decades since 1980, emissions of carbon monoxide from cars, ozone, lead, nitrogen, sulfur and particulate matter such as soot all have declined. Carbon monoxide is down 82 percent, lead down 90 percent, nitrogen down 52 percent and sulfur declined 76 percent.

http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html

TRASH: Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash in 2010, most of which fouls the environment or goes into landfills. We may be starting to reform our wasteful ways, according to data from the EPA. The amount of waste generated per person per day had declined to 4.43 pounds by 2010 from 4.67 pounds five years earlier, according to the EPA.

Another positive trend is that recycling is increasing. Of the 250 million tons of trash produced in 2010, more than 85 million tons or 34.1 percent was recycled or composted.

http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/msw99.htm

The truth hurts

The shrub tax cuts have expired and no law has replaced it

Now that the shrub tax cuts have expired, the negotiating ground has radically shifted. Or should have.

Snarky headline, but I thought you needed to hear that, since apparently no one else on the planet has noticed. No, a handshake between Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell is not a new law, despite what you’re reading in the papers. And yes, the negotiating ground has changed, despite what you’re reading in the papers.
So with the shrub tax cuts already expired and out of the way (I’m going to bold that expression every time it appears, just so you know it actually happened), U.S. citizens are now subject to a tax increase. So starting from here — now that the Bush tax cuts have already expired —  let’s see how we can get a real middle class tax cut passed … you know, like we discussed a thousand times before, almost a thousand years ago. Here’s our pretend-Obama’s letter to the repugicans:

Dear John & Mitch:
You screwed up. I don’t have a bill on my desk, and it’s past midnight. You know what that means … new rules.
So I’m offering you the following bill in the House and Senate, good as of today, January 1. You remember January 1 — that’s the day the shrub tax cuts expired. My bill:

1. We’re going to reinstate the Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income for all Americans. You lost your shot at $450,000, which I never should have offered you.

2. We’re going to tax capital gains and “carried interest” at 25%. You lost your shot at 20% by not sending me a bill in time.

3. We’re going to extend the child tax credit and the college tuition credit for five years, individual and business tax for two years, and the Medicare “doc fix” for one year. The Alternative Minimum Tax will be permanently fixed. Just like you agreed to before you blew it by not sending me a bill in time.

4. We’re going to extend unemployment benefits for a year. Just like you agreed to before you blew it by not sending me a bill in time.

5. We’re going to raise the top tax rate on baronial estates to 55 percent, with a $2 million exemption. You lost your shot at 40% when you blew it.

6. We’re going to renew tax breaks for businesses and for renewable energy purposes, just like you agreed to before you blew it.

7. We’re going to delay the sequester for one year, not two months when you can play Debt Ceiling games with it. Do you think I’m crazy?

8. AND I’m going to tell the American people every single day, starting this very afternoon, that their tax breaks are in your hands.

Now for the rules. Here’s how we play the game in 2013, now that the shrub tax cuts have expired and no new law has been passed:

■ If you pass that bill in both houses without amendment and send it to me for signature, I’ll be happy to sign. Props to you.

■ If you don’t pass the bill, I send it back to you with one change — that $250,000 becomes 245,000. And I make sure people know who’s blocking their tax increase.

■ If you don’t pass that bill, I send it back to you with one change — that $245,000 becomes $240,000.

And so on.

Have you figured this out yet? I suggest you pass that first bill. Remember, I’m talking to the American people every day. And the shrub tax cuts have already expired.
Your friend, Barack
P.S. You really did blow it, you know. Try playing these games at Debt Ceiling time and I’ll hang the consequences around your neck like an engine block — totally your fault.

This is how pretend-Barack plays the game after January 1, after the shrub tax cuts have already expired with no new bill. Unless they’ve changed the constitution, or we don’t have rule of law, or something. Or unless Barack had something totally different in mind — and totally different masters to obey (dare you to click).

Did you know ...

72% of repugicans fear the new year

Here's the geography of gun deaths

The truth be told

How creepy is it that Walmart has military-style rifles on its Web site

We’d heard for years about Wal-Mart selling guns, but it was only today that we decided to go to Wal-Mart’s Web site and see for ourselves.There they are.  Big as life.  Guns manufactured for police and the military, that Wal-Mart is selling for “home defense” and “recreation.”

Other than handcuffs for sex, how many things are manufactured for military and police, and also “recreation”? 

None of them look like anything anyone needs to defend their home, or to hunt.  They’re all fetish toys for men and women who revere violence – and Walmart, among others, is happy to pander to America’s fetish for violence.  Look at these things:

Here’s one in particular, the Sig Sauer M400.  I love this description:

Designed for use in law enforcement, military operations, the sporting field and competitive shooting.

Other than handcuffs for sex, you have to ask yourself how many things are manufactured for military and police, but also “the sporting field”?

Here’s the M400.  Sporty, isn’t it?

And here’s a helpful review on WalMart’s site:

I particularly got a kick out of this review, “great home defense weapon.”  Yeah, if you’re expecting imperial storm troopers.
You have to ask, home defense against what?  When you’re buying that kind of hardware, you’re not preparing for a burglar.  You’re stockpiling “the government.”  And that’s really what a lot of this gun fetish comes down to, crazy wingnuts who are preparing for either the judgment day, or the overthrow of the US government.  Either way, it’s not much of an argument for selling this kind of garbage at Walmart.

India rape victim's ashes scattered, more attacks stoke debate

The ashes of an Indian student who died after being gang-raped were scattered in the Ganges river on Tuesday as reports of more attacks stoked a growing national debate on violence against women.

The death of the 23-year-old woman, who has not been named, prompted street protests across India, international outrage and promises from the government of tougher punishments for offenders.

Police on Tuesday confirmed they would push for the death penalty for her attackers - the force can recommend prosecutors pursue particular punishments in Indian trials.

The physiotherapy student was raped and tortured on December 16 by a group of men armed with a metal bar on a private bus in New Delhi, nicknamed India's 'rape capital'. She died from her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital.

Relatives scattered the woman's remains in India's largest river, which is sacred to the Hindu religion, during a small ceremony in the district of Ballia where she was born, a senior local official told Reuters.

"The immersion of the ashes was a private affair, a family affair," said R.M. Srivastava, home secretary of Uttar Pradesh, the state where the ceremony took place.

"NEW YEAR, NEW ATTACKS"
Indian media reported a string of new attacks on Tuesday, including a woman set on fire, allegedly by a stalker, in Uttar Pradesh and another woman stabbed to death in a busy market district of eastern Delhi.

In a debate titled "New Year, New Attacks, New Rapes" on television network NDTV, lawyers and politicians from several parties promised fast action to tighten laws.

"Keep up the social pressure, socially ostracize these people," said Renuka Chowdhury, a senior member of the ruling Congress party.
Protesters braved chilly weather in New Delhi to hold candlelight vigils and small rallies on New Year's Day.
"I'm going to stand here until the government actually decides to give women some safety," one young woman told journalists. Other protesters brandished placards that read "First of January is a black day."

The attack revealed deep fissures in Indian society, where staunchly chauvinist views clash with a fast-modernizing urban culture in which women play a growing role in public life.

The case also cast a spotlight on an epidemic of violence against women in India, where a rape is reported on average every 20 minutes. Media coverage of such crimes has intensified in the wake of the outcry over the Delhi attack.

CHARGES EXPECTED

Five men and a teenager have been detained over the attack and police sources on Tuesday said charges would likely be filed on Wednesday or Thursday.

Police are seeking the death penalty against four of the accused, one senior police source told Reuters.

They will also likely be charged with gang rape, abduction and destruction of evidence, the source said. The juvenile cannot be executed under Indian law, although the victim's brother has called for all the accused to be hanged.

Anger at the brutality of the assault and the slow footed response from authorities spilled into the streets before Christmas, with police and protesters fighting running battles near the heart of government in Delhi.

The Indian Medical Association has questioned the decision to move the victim, who was suffering a massive blood infection and organ injuries, to Singapore, where she died.

On Tuesday police said they arrested a man who attempted to plant a low intensity explosive device near the house of one of the accused. The device was safely detonated, the force said.

Syrian government forces go on attack on first day of year

 Government war planes bombed opposition-held areas of Syria and President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels fought on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on New Year's Day on Tuesday.

A year ago, many diplomats and analysts predicted Assad would leave power in 2012. But despite international pressure and rebel gains, he has proved resilient.
His inner circle remains largely intact and retains control of the armed forces, even if it relies on air strikes and artillery power to hold back the rebels fighting to overthrow him.
The air force pounded Damascus's eastern suburbs on Tuesday and rebel-held areas of Aleppo, the second city and commercial capital, as well as several rural towns and villages, opposition activists said.
Opposition video posted on the Internet showed plumes of grey smoke rising in Irbin, in the east of Damascus.
Residents of the capital began the new year to the boom of artillery hitting southern and eastern outskirts, which form a rebel-held arc around the capital. The heart of the city is still firmly under government control.
In the city center, soldiers manning checkpoints fired celebratory gunfire at midnight although the streets were largely deserted.
"How can they celebrate? There is no 'Happy New Year'," Moaz al-Shami, an opposition activist who lives in central Mezzeh district, said over Skype.
He said rebel fighters attacked one checkpoint in Berzeh district on Tuesday morning. Opposition groups said mortar bombs hit the southwest suburb of Daraya, which the army attacked on Monday to retake it from rebels.
An estimated 45,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started in early 2011 with peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms but turned into an armed uprising after months of attacks on protesters by security forces.
A resident of the central city of Homs said artillery shelling had smacked into its Old City on Tuesday.
Homs lies on the north-south highway and parts of the ancient city have been leveled during months of clashes. Government forces ousted rebels from Homs early last year but militants have slowly crept back in.
"The Old City is under siege. There is shelling from all sides," said the resident, who asked to remain anonymous.
A video posted on YouTube showed the bodies of three boys who activists said were arrested at a government checkpoint on their way home from school in Damascus' Jobar suburb on Sunday.
One of the boys, who appear to have barely reached adolescence, has his hands tied behind his back. Another had a large open wound on his throat.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports and the footage.
The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, reported 160 people killed on the final day of 2012, including at least 37 government troops.
BOMBARDMENT
The civil war in Syria is the longest and deadliest of the conflicts that rose out of the uprisings that have swept through the Arab world over the past two years.
Many Sunni Muslims, the majority in Syria, back the rebellion, while Assad, a member of the Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect, is backed by some minorities who fear revenge if he falls. His family has ruled Syria since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.
Assad's forces now rely more on air strikes and artillery bombardment rather than infantry. Residential areas where rebels are based have been targeted, killing many civilians.
Rebels have taken swathes of the northern mountains and eastern desert but have struggled to hold cities, saying they are defenseless against Assad's Soviet-equipped air force.
Diplomatic efforts to end the war have failed, with the rebels refusing to negotiate unless Assad leaves power and the president pledging to fight until death. Western and Arab states have called for him to go. He is backed by Russia and Iran.
In the last days of 2012, international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi called on countries to push the sides to talk, saying Syria faced a choice of "hell or the political process".
One Damascus resident, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said the usual New Year's Eve crowds were absent from the increasingly isolated capital.
"There was hardly anyone on the streets, no cars, no pedestrians. Most restaurants, cafes and bars were empty," she said.
Some young people gathered at three bars in the old city.
"There was music but nobody was dancing. They just sat there with a drink in their hands and smoking. I don't think I saw one person smile," she said.
The midnight gunfire caused alarm.
"It was very scary. No one knew what was going on. People got very nervous and started making phone calls. But then I discovered that at least on my street, the gunfire was celebratory."

North Korea cracks down on knowledge smugglers

 

By Tim Sullivan 

The warning came from Kim Jong Un, the North Korean ruler who sees his isolated nation, just across the border from this busy Chinese trading town, as under siege. The attack, he said, must be stopped.
"We must extend the fight against the enemy's ideological and cultural infiltration," Kim said in an October speech at the headquarters of his immensely powerful internal security service. Kim, who became North Korea's supreme leader after the death of his father a year ago, called upon his vast security network to "ruthlessly crush those hostile elements."
Over the past year, Kim has intensified a border crackdown that has attempted to seal the once-porous 1,420-kilometer (880-mile) frontier with China, smugglers and analysts say, trying to hold back the onslaught.
The assault that he fears? It's being waged with cheap televisions rigged to receive foreign broadcasts, and with smuggled mobile phones that - if you can get a Chinese signal along the border - can call the outside world. Very often, it arrives in the form of wildly popular South Korean soap operas smuggled in on DVDs or computer thumb drives.
In North Korea, a country where international phone calls and Internet connections exist only for a tiny fraction of a tiny elite, and televisions and radios must be permanently preset to receive only state broadcasts, it's Korean-language TV heartache they crave.
"South Korean dramas, that's what everyone wants," grumbled a Seoul-based Christian missionary who runs a string of safe houses in this part of China, where his network helps people living underground after fleeing North Korea. One safe house is reserved for traders who sell everything from electronics to shoes inside North Korea - and who smuggle everything from Bibles to soap operas on the side. He spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the safety of his network.
There's "Autumn in My Heart," a 12-year-old tear-jerker replete with switched babies, forbidden love, and a comatose heroine. And "Stairway to Heaven," an epic of more forbidden love, more switched identities, blindness, insanity, a brain tumor and an evil stepmother. Everywhere in the soaps, there are tales of unrequited love, conniving rivals and handsome young men who just don't realize they'd find true love with the girl next door.
But if it looks absurd - a Stalinist nation vowing to crush an assault of bad lighting and overacting - the dilemma is deadly serious for Kim, who needs to find a way to modernize his country and its economy while holding onto absolute power.
Today, changing technologies, ambitious smugglers and well-funded critics of Pyongyang mean that everything from DVD melodramas to illegal Chinese cellphones to Korean-language radio news broadcasts funded by the U.S. government make their way into North Korea. Their presence exposes an ever-growing number of North Koreans to the outside world and threatens the underpinnings of the Kim regime.
Kim's crackdown has been largely aimed at the border with China, long the route for much of the outside information making its way into North Korea, as well as for refugees trying to get out.
Entire border security units have been replaced inside North Korea, fences have been strengthened and punishments ramped up for anyone caught trying to get through, according to smugglers, analysts and Chinese with family ties across the border. Meanwhile, special security units have been formed to seek out any contraband information or technology that Pyongyang sees as a threat.
"There has definitely been a push to roll back the tide of the flow of information," said Nat Kretchun, associate director of an international consulting group InterMedia, which released a report earlier this year about information flow into North Korea, based on surveys of hundreds of recent North Korean defectors. The study was commissioned by the U.S. State Department.
His conclusion: North Korea is increasingly anxious to keep information at bay, but has less ability to control it.
People are more willing to watch foreign movies and television programs, talk on illegal mobile phones and tell family and friends about what they are doing, he said.
"There is substantial demand" for things like South Korean movies and television programs, said Kretchun. "And there are intensely entrepreneurial smugglers who are more than willing to fulfill that demand."
For now, though, times are tough along the border, with smugglers saying North Korean guards have become far stricter about searching for contraband.
In a country where one family has held absolute control for more than 60 years, a communist enclave that survived the downfall of the Soviet Union and a devastating 1990s famine, the notion of allowing knowledge of the larger world is deeply feared.
"Even a hint of illusion or submission to the enemy is the shortest road to death and self-destruction," Kim said in his October speech, according to the state news agency KCNA.
The enemy works out of places like Hunchun, a brutally cold, money-hungry border town of car parts shops, cavernous indoor markets piled with shiny polyester clothing and off-brand electronics so cheap it seems almost impossible. Just a few miles from both North Korea and Russia, it's a town where nearly all signs are in three languages - Chinese, Korean and Russian - and where you can find a smuggler in just a few phone calls. Even if they rarely give a name, and are often identified only by their mobile phone numbers.
"Let me worry about how to do it," laughed one smuggler, asked how he gets his goods into North Korea. He is a friendly man, dressed business-casual in black corduroys and a black sweater.
Asked what he could get across the border, he made clear that business was thriving. Televisions, including ones able to pick up foreign stations? No problem. DVD players? Sure. Chinese movies? Yes.
But when asked about South Korean DVDs, the man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His partner spoke up. No South Korean items - not DVDs, thumb drives, cosmetics or food.
"Nothing," the partner said firmly.
Soap operas, at first, might not seem like conduits of underground information. But they are threats nonetheless, offering windows into worlds that North Koreans both lack and desire.
North Korean viewers living in tiny two-room homes and struggling to feed their families can see houses with bedrooms just for children, and dinners with endless food. They see everyday people casually complaining about policemen and politicians. Scenes like that are provocative in a country where defectors say criticizing the ruling family can send entire families to sprawling prison camps, and where bicycles are considered luxury items for many.
Plenty of other smugglers are willing to carry what the man in Hunchun is not.
Millions of foreign TV and movie recordings are thought to be floating around North Korea, though they are most easily available in cities near the Chinese border. With the crackdown, analysts say smugglers appear to have shifted to new techniques, at least for videos: carrying recordings on tiny thumb drives, and then transferring the programs to DVDs inside North Korea.
Because once information starts to flow, information cannot be turned off like a spigot. At most it can be slowed.
In many ways, Kim is facing an authoritarian contradiction.
North Korea has been trying - albeit haltingly and slowly - to revitalize its barely functioning economy and crack open a door to the outside. Foreign tourists are now commonplace in Pyongyang, though on tightly controlled trips, and Kim has told his people that they should never go hungry again. Western movies occasionally are shown on state television. North Korean officials now actively court foreign investors.
As a result, North Korea has found itself flirting with modernity - more than a million of the 24 million North Koreans now have mobile phones, for instance, though they can only place and receive calls domestically - while trying desperately to keep a tight grip on the public.
"They want to modernize but the cost of this effort is information, which could easily destabilize the regime," said Victor Cha, former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration, and now a professor at Georgetown University. "Without control of information, there is no regime."
Exactly when the latest crackdown began isn't clear. Many analysts date it to early 2011, as Pyongyang watched the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world. But it also appears to have intensified since the December 2011 death of North Korea's longtime leader, Kim Jong Il, and the rise of his son, Kim Jong Un. The younger Kim, almost completely unknown until late 2010, is believed to be about 29 years old.
In the clearest sign of the crackdown, the number of North Korean refugees reaching South Korea in 2012 has dropped by almost half, to about 1,400, compared to last year. While that statistic doesn't include every North Korean who fled across the border, many of whom spend years living underground in China, it is widely seen as a general indication of the increased frontier security.
But the North Korean market for outside knowledge, nearly all observers say, has become insatiable. It's been more than a decade since everyday North Koreans caught their first real glimpses of the outside world, when a breakdown in government control during the 1990s famine combined with the arrival of cheap Chinese electronics. The hunger for the larger world resembles, in many ways, the appetites in China in the years after Mao Zedong's 1976 death, when Beijing began opening the door for the world's mass media.
Today in North Korea, the idea of winning a fight against information seems an impossible goal.
If nothing else, said a onetime smuggler who eventually fled to South Korea, too many powerful North Koreans are making money in the business. He clearly remembers his early televised revelations, when DVDs showed him so much that his own country didn't have.
"I felt sad about the state of my country when I watched the DVDs," said the defector, who now lives in Seoul and spoke on condition he not be named, fearing retribution against family still living in North Korea. "I could see Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States ... these other places were so much better off."

Pakistan lifts YouTube ban for three minutes

A ban on YouTube, which Pakistan imposed after an anti-Islam video caused riots in much of the Muslim world, was lifted on Saturday, only to be reinstated - after three minutes - when it was discovered that blasphemous material was still available on the site. After months of criticism of the ban, the government decided to allow Pakistanis to have access to YouTube again, saying steps had been taken to ensure that offensive content would not be visible. But those efforts apparently failed, and the authorities quickly backtracked.
The ban was imposed on Sept. 17 following violent protests in response to the video, which was made in the United States and ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad. The government then ordered all telecommunications companies to block Internet material deemed offensive to Muslims and urged people to report such material. But the ban on YouTube came to be seen as censorship, and a growing number of the estimated 25 million Internet users in the country complained.

"This is purely a naked power play by the government and one that we should resist," an editorial in The Express Tribune, an English-language daily newspaper in Karachi, Pakistan, said on Friday. "This is about controlling our behaviour and denying us access to the Internet." "We need to make it clear that we do not wish to regress to a dark age when a centralized authority controlled all access to information," the editorial, observing the 100th day of the ban, went on to say. "Retreating to such an era would essentially mean that we were no longer living in a democracy."

By Friday evening, Rehman Malik, the country's interior minister, indicated that the ban would be lifted over the weekend. Malik said firewalls were being installed by government technicians to block pornographic and blasphemous material. On Saturday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority directed local Internet service providers to make YouTube accessible. But by the afternoon, Geo, a private television news network that wields immense influence, reported that anti-Islam and blasphemous material was still available on YouTube. The criticism was led by Ansar Abbasi, a right-leaning journalist who often speaks out on morality and religion. Yielding to the criticism, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf then ordered providers to again block access to the video-sharing site.

Artifacts help pinpoint key Hatfield-McCoy battle

The Hatfield clan New Year's attack on Randolph McCoy's cabin marked a turning point in America's most famous feud — the homestead was set ablaze, and two McCoys were gunned down. Hatfield family members and supporters were soon thrown in jail.

Artifacts recently unearthed appear to pinpoint the location of the 1888 ambush in the woods of Pike County in eastern Kentucky. Excavators found bullets believed to have been fired by the McCoys in self-defense, along with fragments of windows and ceramic from the family's cabin.
"This is one of the most famous conflicts in American history, and we've got bullets fired from one of the key battles. It doesn't get any better than that," said Bill Richardson, a West Virginia University extension professor who was part of the recent discovery.
The property is owned by Bob Scott, a Hatfield descendant who has suspected for years that the hilly land was the site of the brutal attack. He grew up listening to stories from his parents and grandparents about the 19th-century feud.
"My father told me years ago that someday this well would talk," Scott said, referring to the well on the site where Randolph McCoy's daughter Alafair died while trying to flee the attackers.
Now backed by the discovery, Scott plans to capitalize on the historic 70-acre site near the West Virginia line. The options include a housing development featuring horseback and ATV trails, he said.
Scott's home is about 75 yards from where the cabin stood. The McCoys moved to nearby Pikeville after the homestead was burned.
The artifacts were found last year during filming of a National Geographic Channel show.
The bullets were discovered burrowed several inches into a hillside overlooking where the McCoy cabin stood, Richardson said. Three different calibers of bullets, including shotgun pellets, were uncovered.
The ammunition, found in an area about 30 feet wide, was traced to the same time period as the 1888 battle, Richardson said.
"The front of the cabin faces almost directly at the spot where these bullets were," Richardson said. "We know from the oral histories that they were shooting out the front of the cabin and from the upper windows. So they're exactly in the spot where they should be."
Also found during the initial search was a piece of charred wood with a nail traced to the McCoy cabin's time period, he said.
Later, an archaeological team led by Kim McBride, co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, confirmed the location of the McCoy cabin. They found tiny pieces of window glass and ceramics traced to the same period, along with more nails and charred wood.
She would like to return to the site for more excavation work, which could take three to five weeks.
There were other clues connecting the property to the McCoys. The deed to the property was traced back to Randolph McCoy, she said.
"It was kind of a coming together of all the pieces of evidence," McBride said.
The discoveries come amid a surge of interest in the feud that spanned much of the last half of the 19th century. The fighting claimed at least a dozen lives by 1888 and catapulted both families into the American vernacular, becoming shorthand to describe bitter rivalries.
The History Channel aired a three-night miniseries about the feud that set basic cable viewing records. The drama starred Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton as the patriarchs — William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield in West Virginia and Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy in Kentucky.
The New Year's attack was one of the bloodiest episodes in the feud.
"It was a turning point," Richardson said. "The feud had lasted 23 years up until this battle. And then 20 days later it's virtually over."
Now, descendants of both families live peacefully among each other in the Appalachian region. And officials in both states see the potential to reap a financial windfall because of the public's fascination.
Attendance was up last June at a three-day Hatfield and McCoy festival held in Matewan and Williamson in West Virginia and in Pike County in Kentucky. The event featured tours, re-enactments, book signings, arts and crafts, and a marathon run. Descendants showed their allegiance by wearing ribbons — red for Hatfields, blue for McCoys.
Many believe the feud was rooted in the Civil War, but the bitterness was perpetuated by disputes over timber rights and even a pig.
Historical markers describe other pivotal events in the feud, including the spot where three McCoys — all sons of Randolph McCoy — were tied to pawpaw trees and shot to death by an unofficial posse organized by Devil Anse Hatfield. He was avenging the death of his brother Elliston at the hands of the McCoys.
Scott counts descendants from both families as friends.
"It's very unique to stand here on New Year's Eve and realize what happened," he said. "It's sad that that occurred, but that was a way of life."
Although the artifacts were uncovered a few months ago, the discoveries weren't announced until Monday. The new National Geographic Channel series, called "Diggers," premieres Tuesday. The episode detailing the McCoy homestead discovery airs on Jan. 29.

Confederate Navy gunboat gets new home in Kinston

By Kelly Poe

• 
  The CSS Neuse is on display at its new location in downtown Kinston. The climate-controlled museum will protect the ship from hurricanes, which have threatened it in the past.

More Information

• More information
  The CSS Neuse museum will open its temporary exhibits in February at 100 N. Queen St. in downtown Kinston. For information, call 252-526-9600.
  
  
  

The CSS Neuse, a Confederate Navy gunboat that was pulled out of the Neuse River 51 years ago, is getting a new home downtown.
The boat’s wooden remains were moved earlier last year from a shed in a flood-prone park near the river, just off U.S. 70, and are now housed in a climate-controlled museum on Queen Street. Museum officials and city residents hope it will help restore Kinston to its former glory days, when Queen Street was known as the “Magic Mile,” downtown was filled with people and the city was more than a stop on the way to the beach..
“We’ll be nestled in a much more desirable area, and we’ll be offering so much more,” said site manager Sarah Ristey-Davis.
The state-run museum is scheduled to be finished by fall, but temporary exhibits should open as early as February, Ristey-Davis said. The CSS Neuse Foundation donated the property, including a former bank building, in the heart of downtown.
But the advantage of being downtown comes with one drawback – the new site is about three quarters of a mile further from U.S. 70. While this could keep some beach-goers from stopping in, Ristey-Davis said she’s confident the new location will result in more visitors as downtown Kinston becomes less of a stop and more of a destination.
“There’s been a real resurgence in downtown Kinston,” she said. “I came up in New Bern, and this is not the Kinston I remember.”
The museum will open amidst a changing downtown. The Chef & The Farmer restaurant has attracted diners from the Triangle. Mother Earth Brewing gave the city its own brew pub. A new jazz venue recently began hosting area talent. A local resident purchased several homes in a nearby historic neighborhood that he is restoring in hopes of converting the area to an artist community.
Laura Lee Sylvester, president of the Kinston-Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce, said visitors seeking Civil War history won’t be daunted by the added distance.
“The fact that we have the remnant of a boat and it’s going to be in a museum with hundreds of other artifacts to support the historical data is really big for Kinston and eastern North Carolina,” Sylvester said. “People that look for this kind of experience and trip will seek it out no matter where it’s located, and where it used to be located versus where it is now is such a short distance.”
The Confederate Navy Department hired a firm to build the ironclad CSS Neuse in 1862, and construction began on the banks of the Neuse River, in what is now Seven Springs, just upriver from Kinston. The boat measured 158 feet long and 34 feet wide and was armed with two swiveling Brooke Rifle guns.
Delays in construction kept it from entering combat below Kinston, and the boat’s crew burned the Neuse in March of 1865 when Union soldiers occupied the city. There was an explosion in the port bow, and the boat sank, where it remained until the hull was raised in 1963.
The ship had shared a site with a memorial to Richard Caswell, the state’s first governor, on West Vernon Avenue. The shed had a roof but no walls, leaving the ship susceptible to weather damage; it was twice flooded by hurricanes – Fran in 1996 and Floyd in 1999.
“This museum was originally planned to go on to West Vernon Avenue,” said Morris Bass, the museum’s operations manager. “Those two hurricanes came in and threw a monkey wrench into it.”
The ship took on 3 1/2 feet of water during Floyd.
The new location is not only indoors, but also on higher ground, he said.
The state spent about $2.8 million on the new museum, about $400,000 under budget. The project was also partially financed by a $100,000 donation from the local chamber of commerce and $750,000 from the gunboat foundation.
“All of this has been an effort to save the largest artifact that the state owns,” Bass said.

Daily Comic Relief

Colorado gets members-only clubs for legal pot use

With reggae music pumping in the background and flashing disco-style lights, members of the recreational pot club lit up in celebration of the new year — and a new place to smoke legally among friends.

Club 64, in an industrial area just north of downtown Denver, opened at 4:20 p.m. on Monday, with some 200 people signed up. The opening came less than 24 hours after organizers announced they would charge a $29.99 admission price for the bring-your-own pot club.

"Look at this!" Chloe Villano exclaimed as the club she created over the weekend opened. "We were so scared because we didn't want it to be crazy. But this is crazy! People want this."

The private pot dens popped up less than a month after Colorado's governor signed into law a constitutional amendment allowing recreational pot use. Club 64 gets its name from the number of the amendment.

Two Colorado clubs were believed to be the first legal pot dens in the nation. The Denver Post reported that a similar pot club opened earlier Monday in the small southern Colorado town of Del Norte.

Colorado's marijuana amendment prohibits public consumption, and smoke-free laws also appear to ban indoor smokeouts. But Club 64 attorney Robert Corry said private pot dens are permissible because marijuana isn't sold, nor is it food or drink.

Villano, the club owner, said the pot club would meet monthly at different locations, with the $29.99 membership fee good for only one event. On Monday, the pot club was meeting in a hemp-based clothing store near downtown. Hooded sweatshirts and backpacks were shoved to a corner. In the main area, a few small tables sat next to a screen showing "The Big Lebowski."

A bar decorated with blue Christmas lights handed out sodas and Club 64's official snacks — Goldfish and Cheetos. The snacks were inspired by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who warned marijuana users the night of the marijuana vote, "don't break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly."

Corry said the pot clubs are intended for people who can't use marijuana at home because of local ordinance or because their landlords threaten eviction.

"It's just a place for adults to exercise their constitutional rights together," Corry said. "We're not selling pot here."

Among the new Club 64 members planning to ring in the New Year was Joe Valenciano of Denver. He heard about Club 64 a day ago and signed up immediately.

"We need more clubs like this," Valenciano said.

Which professions have the most psychopaths?

The fewest?

The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, by Kevin Dutton, has this side-by-side list of professions with the highest percentage of psychopaths (CEO tops the list) and lowest percentage (Care Aide has the fewest psychopaths).
Here's Eric Barker's take on why this is so:

Most of the professions on the right require human connection, dealing with feelings and most of them don’t offer much power. Psychopaths, by their very nature, would not be drawn to or very good at these things.
On the other hand, most of the roles on the left do offer power and many require an ability to make objective, clinical decisions divorced from feelings. Psychopaths would be drawn to these roles and thrive there.

Which professions have the most psychopaths? The fewest?

Correlation between autism diagnosis and organic food sales

Redditor Jasonp55 has a neat demonstration of the perils of confusing correlation with causation, and his well-chosen example makes this a potentially useful chart for discussing this issue with friends who won't vaccinate themselves and their kids.

I was practicing GraphPad and I think I may have discovered the 'real' cause of autism ...

Random Photo

Pandacillin?

Giant Panda May be New Source for Antibiotics

 Giant pandas may look cute and all, frolickin' in the wild and chewin' bamboo leaves and such, but they may just be the latest warrior in our fight against drug-resistant superbugs.
Turns out, researchers in China have discovered that giant pandas have powerful antibiotic ("pandacillin"? Hah!) in their blood that can destoy fungi and bacteria faster than conventional antibiotics:

The antibiotic is thought to be released by the bear’s immune system to protect them infections when they are living in the wild. Researchers discovered the compound, known as cathelicidin-AM, after analysing the panda’s DNA. [...]
Dr Xiuwen Yan, who led the research at the Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University in China, said: “It showed potential antimicrobial activities against wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, both standard and drug-resistant strains.

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Getting Childrens Health Stronger, Siberian Style

What do you think about quenching? These kids from Barnaul, Russia, do it with pleasure and nobody makes them do this. Their teacher has a rich experience in raising children. She thinks that quenching is necessary even for little babies. So children from the Siberian kindergarten start their day from a bucket of cold water, no matter how cold it is outside. As their teacher and parents say, the daily cold street shower keep children strong and very healthy throughout the year More

Where Are The Coldest Places On Earth?

Winter is now in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere, and while it might be cold where you live, the record for the coldest places on Earth goes to Antarctica, Greenland and Siberia.

Top 10 Reasons Why We Know The Earth Is Round

The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to ancient Greek philosophy from around the 6th century BC, but remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BC when Hellenistic astronomy established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given. The Hellenistic paradigm was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

YouTube link

Awesome Pictures

The Penguin and the Piper

In 1904, William Speirs Bruce led the second voyage of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition to the frozen continent. The ship, the Scotia, was trapped in ice for four days along the route. While the expedition was stuck, they continued to take geographical and meteorological observations and measurements. But the ship's bagpiper, Gilbert Kerr, took the time to pose for a photograph on the ice as he serenaded an Emperor penguin. According to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the penguin was tied to a cooking pot to hold him in place. The photograph was sent as a postcard from Antarctica. Piper Kerr was no doubt as full of Scottish pride as Bruce himself, but deserves extra points for wearing a kilt on an Antarctic icepack. More

What is more rare than a Siberian tiger?

The Northumberland cows rarer than Siberian tigers

Bird Removed From Chinese Zoo For Screaming Obscenities

The next time you, or someone you know, is having trouble with a temperamental bird just be glad the little feathered bugger isn't screaming out a bunch of obscenities!
A zoo in Hubei, China got a big surprise when their Myna bird started screaming obscenities, which it had picked up from one of the zoo's guests according to zookeeper Li Yun, and had to be removed from display until his vocabulary could be deemed appropriate for all ages.
The bird may not be zoo friendly, but he has a great career ahead of him as an insult comic.

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The Blind Dog and His Seeing-Eye Cat

Here's a story sure to melt your heart. When Judy Godfrey-Brown's 8-year-old dog Terfel got cataracts and became blind, an unexpected animal came to its rescue. He got a seeing-eye cat!

Eight-year-old Terfel kept bumping into things and spent most of his time stuck in his basket after being diagnosed with cataracts.
Then owner Judy Godfrey-Brown let a stray cat into her home — and was amazed by what happened next.
The puss, named Pwditat, walked up to Terfel and led him out of his basket and into the garden. She has been helping him find his way around ever since.

Guy Patrick of The Sun has the story: here.

Animal Pictures